“No fucking way,princess,” Dean muttered, collapsing onto the couch as Logan dangled the keys in his hand.
“Yes way,” Logan called back with a grin. “And you, you son of a bitch, you gave me a phone of a cleaning service twice when I called you for a recommendation about a restaurant!”
Dean’s laughter echoed through the room, unabashed. “That was a good one,” he said, clearly proud of his petty triumph.
Logan turned to Adrian, his grin softening into something more sincere. “It’s rented,” he admitted with a shrug. “I couldn’t help myself.” Then, with a flick of his wrist, he tossed the keys toward Adrian. “You’re driving.”
Adrian caught the keys, his expression a mix of surprise and amusement. Dean, on the other hand, groaned dramatically. “Damn it. I want a rich boyfriend.”
Adrian snorted, his smirk taking on a mischievous edge. “I think you could definitely find yourself a sugar daddy,” he teased, nudging Dean’s foot with his own.
Logan, ever the troublemaker, chimed in without missing a beat. “I don’t know… I don’t think he’s hot enough for that. And honestly, he’s way too gruff—and let’s face it, a bit too old—for the sugar baby role.”
Dean’s face twisted into a mix of offense and awkward indignation, and Logan nearly doubled over laughing at the expression. Adrian rolled his eyes, grabbing Logan’s arm and tugging him toward the door.
“You’re going to start a war,” Adrian muttered, but he was smiling as they left, the keys jangling in his hand.
Logan looked over at him as they reached the car, his heart full as he watched Adrian slip into the driver’s seat.
“Ugh, I forgot my jacket,” Adrian grumbled, feeling unsure as he had been getting cold more easily lately. “I’ll run back to grab it,” he added, already half out of his seat.
“No,” Logan said gently, resting his hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “Tell me where it is, and I’ll grab it. You can start the car.”
“It’s on the left side of my closet, on the hanging rack. It’s the black one.”
Logan leaned in and brushed a quick kiss across Adrian’s lips, a gentle, almost shy press of warmth. “I’ll be back in a sec,” he murmured, slipping out of the car and heading back to the house.
Dean’s door was closed, and through the wood, Logan could hear faint murmurs in Hebrew, a soft, awkward laugh following. He shook his head, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips as he imagined Dean talking on the phone with the girl from last night. “Couldn’t even wait a second…”
In Adrian’s room, the air felt cool, and Logan could faintly hear the waves crashing on the shore. He opened the closet, instantly spotting the black jacket next to a heavy gray wool coat and a denim jacket. Adrian’s wardrobe was a study in simplicity, comprising a handful of items. It madeLogan smile—Adrian had always been like that, valuing meaning over excess.
He reached for the jacket, and as he pulled it out, an unexpected motion jostled something free. A well-worn duffel bag tumbled from the dark recesses of the closet, its zipper gaping half-open, and its contents cascaded out in a sudden rush. Papers fluttered like startled birds, scattered across the floor, while cherished photographs slid and skittered in chaotic disarray. A thick book and a well-used notebook tumbled from the bag, landing half-open, revealing dog-eared pages, accompanied by a few mismatched items strewn across the floor.
“Shit,” he breathed, the word barely breaking the stillness. He set the jacket on the bed and knelt down, his hands moving carefully as he began to collect the fallen items.
The papers were mostly in Hebrew, the text a river of dark ink that he couldn’t navigate. He stacked them neatly, his fingers brushing over a folded envelope with his name on it, written in English in Adrian’s handwriting. The ink was faded, the edges of the paper worn and soft, as if it had been opened and closed too many times, or perhaps never opened at all.
A quiet unease settled over him, a tightness coiling beneath his ribs. He didn’t open the letter, couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he set it gently on top of the pile, his touch lingering as if the paper might speak if he waited long enough.
A notebook lay open, half in Hebrew, half in English, in Adrian’s messy handwriting. His gaze caught a fragment of a sentence, a word hanging like a question in the space between languages before he snapped it shut, the sharp sound startling against the quiet. Adrian’s privacy was a line hewould not cross, not even now, not even with the ache of curiosity gnawing at him.
He continued gathering the scattered items, his hands brushing over a worn copy of Adrian’s favorite book. The same one he had carried with him two years ago when they traveled together. The pages were bent, the spine cracked, a story that had been lived in, loved in. Logan swallowed hard, the weight of memory thick on his tongue. Logan remembered the way Adrian’s lips would move as he read, the way he’d underline passages with a quiet, thoughtful smile.
He reached for the duffel bag, his intention to put everything back in order. But as he unzipped it fully, a piece of black fabric caught his eye. His breath stilled in his chest. He pulled out the hoodie—the one that had been his but had long since become Adrian’s. The fabric was soft, worn down from years of being held onto too tightly. Logan’s fingers curled into the material, the scent of Adrian wrapped around it, a ghost of warmth and comfort.
More items slipped from the bag, a pair of dog tags, the metal cool in his palm. One bore Adrian’s name in Hebrew, a familiar shape of letters that Logan had learned to recognize.
His hand trembled as he picked up a framed photograph. Adrian as a small child, no older than four, his eyes a warm whiskey brown, his hair tousled by the sun. Beside him stood a woman with the same eyes, her smile wide and soft.
Another photograph lay beneath it, and this one pulled at Logan’s breath. It was them, tangled together on the beach, their skin golden with sunlight, their mouths pressed together in a kiss that seemed to hold the whole world still, a love captured in the pixels, frozen in time along withthe elements surrounding them. He remembered that day—the heat of the sand, the taste of salt, the feeling of Adrian’s arms wrapped around him like an anchor.
Tears blurred his vision, the room slipping into soft focus. Each item he touched felt like a thread, pulling him deeper into the life Adrian had been building quietly, the plans he had been making for a future already foreclosed.
Logan wanted to collect everything and place it into the bag, but he found himself frozen, uncertain of what he had discovered, yet overwhelmed by a dreadful instinct. He sensed it could only be bad news, so he remained seated, clutching the hoodie with one hand while holding their photo along with a tidy stack of papers he had gathered beside him, with the bag still ajar.
“Hey, what’s taking you so—”
Adrian’s voice threaded through the quiet, soft but clear. Logan turned slowly, his vision blurred, the duffel bag still open at his feet. Adrian stood framed by the doorway, his expression shifting from curiosity to something raw and unguarded, a perfect echo of the ache in Logan’s chest.
