Adrian nodded against Logan, his head resting against the warmth of Logan’s torso, loving how tall Logan was, but doubt lingered. He wasn’t sure if he could believe it. But his traitorous body didn’t care—it reveled in the closeness, the feel of Logan’s arms around him, and the way his own heartbeat seemed to be trying to leap out of his chest and settle next to Logan’s.
And just like that, Logan Vaughn had blustered back into Adrian’s life, as chaotic and unstoppable as a summer storm. He’d swept through, leaving nothing untouched, nothing unaffected. The wounds Adrian had spent so long nursing, the scars he thought he’d accepted, were eclipsed in Logan’s presence. All that remained was the undeniable sense of wholeness, as the part of Adrian that had been missing was finally returned.
Logan had grown leaner, almost too thin, as though the weight of his own struggles had carved him down to the essentials. His face carried the wear of sleepless nights, and there was a fragility in his features that made something seize inside of Adrian.
But he was stillLogan.The same beautiful, determined, kindhearted man who had swept Adrian off his feet two years ago. And now, against all odds, Logan had come crashing back into his life, just as unrelenting and irrepressible as ever.
Adrian placed a trembling hand over his chest, the uneven rhythm of his heart pounding against his palm, wild and erratic, as if it were alive with memory, as if it were trying to remind him of something vital. It pulsed beneath his fingertips with a desperate kind of loyalty, a quiet plea that whispered: Remember. Remember what it feels like to truly live. Remember what it feels like to be whole.
Logan had taken his heart once before, silently, painfully, and left him bleeding in his absence. And now, just like that, it seemed Logan had done it again—slipped past Adrian’s carefully constructed defenses, stolen the fragile remains, and claimed them as though they had always belonged to him.
And they had.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly, his hand still pressed to his chest, as though he could hold the ache inside, contain the rush of feeling that Logan’s presence had stirred. But it was futile. His heart, loyal to its thief, refused to obey, thrumming wildly with the thrill of living, the fullness of hope that he hadn’t dared to let himself feel in so long.
Just like that, Logan had undone him.
Again.
Chapter 14
Linking the Loose Ends
There is nothing crueler than my own mind.
It plays the same scenes on repeat, again and again, until I can’t breathe.
I sit here, alone, and I think of you with her.
I think of your mouth,
The same mouth that once whispered my name like a prayer,
now pressing against hers.
Do you kiss her the way you kissed me?
Do your hands know her like they knew me?
Do you say the same things you said to me?
Or did you save new words for her,
now that I’ve been erased?
I wonder if you laugh with her the way you laughed with me,
If you smile in that soft, silly way when she walks into a room.
I wonder if she knows the things I knew.
If she sees the parts of you I carried.
If she touched you while my fingerprints were still fading from your skin.
Because you still had my marks on you.
And you went to her anyway.
