Part of me wishes I could grab my phone and snap a picture, wanting some evidence that seeing him like this, feeling his body molded against mine, isn’t just a figment of my imagination or a dream I’ll wake from.
The muscle in my jaw jumps as my fingers move in tiny circles on his back again.
God, I’m so screwed.
For the life of me, I can’t comprehend how this happened; how the hell I let myself develop a crush this massive on my fake boyfriend. I mean, I don’t get crushes—haven’t in years. Emotions never enter the picture, which is sort of par for the course when it comes to the “fuckboy lifestyle,”as Logan so aptly put it.
The how isn’t really important, though. I just need to find a way to stop it, push it down, bury it in the sand. Fucking dosomethingbefore I wind up screwing this whole goddamn plan to hell.
But for just this moment, I try not to worry about any of that.
Instead, I still my movements and stay just like this, cataloging every inch of skin and out-of-place hair to memory. For who knows how many minutes, possibly even hours. But regardless of how much time truly passes, it’s not nearly long enough before he finally stirs to consciousness.
I can tell the moment it happens too. There’s a sharp but soft intake of breath against the side of my neck, and his arm becomes slightly stiffer where it rests on my chest.
My eyes slide closed, and I pray like hell he thinks I’m still asleep. That my pulse against his forehead remains calm, and my breathing stays steady beneath his palm rather than giving me away.
And silently, I wait.
For him to pull away. To bolt upright and jump from the bed. For the way he’s surely freaking out internally to manifest outwardly.
But none of that happens.
He doesn’t flee, doesn’t push me away.
He whispers a soft “fuck”under his breath, barely loud enough that I wouldn’t have caught it if his lips weren’t mere inches from my ear. And then his body relaxes and sinks into mine, becoming imperceptibly closer, before his thumb begins tracing a slow path over my skin.
I count the seconds we stay like that, each of them ticking by in time with my thundering heartbeat.
Ten pass, then twenty. Thirty.
I’m certain there’s no possible way he thinks I’m still asleep, but he remains in my arms, the pad of his thumb drawing thesmallest line back and forth beneath my collarbone.
Forty. Fifty. Sixty.
It’s not until I hit ninety that his movements cease, and he gingerly extracts his limbs from where they’d tangled with mine. I keep my eyes closed and body still, allowing him the illusion of unconsciousness while he creeps from the bed and crosses the room.
It’s only after I hear the soft snick of the door closing behind him that my lids lift to an empty room.
And I could almost pretend it was all a dream if the bed weren’t still warm beside me.
Much to Logan’s dismay, our first full day in New York starts off with a trip to the arena for Quinton and Oakley’s afternoon game. He’s on edge the entire time we’re there, his body language the most closed off and reserved I’ve ever seen, even toward me. I don’t know if it has to do with how he woke up this morning or if it’s more to do with filling our schedule with hockey right off the bat, but regardless, I don’t comment on it. And Logan doesn’t either.
In fact, I don’t think he speaks more than three sentences while we’re on the premises, instead seating himself on the end of our aisle and discreetly popping in an AirPod to watch anime on his phone.
Part of me wants to offer commentary for him, maybe help him understand the game better or, at the very least, make him feel included. Except, every time I work up the nerve to lean over and ask him if he wants me to explain what’s happening on the ice, his dad ends up snagging my attention instead, usually with hockey talk—be it the game at hand or about my own season.
I indulge him, not wanting to seem rude toward the father of my supposed boyfriend, but every time I do, Logan appearsto shrink away and close up even more. He barely gives me a second glance when I ask if he wants something from the concessions or try to talk to him about what he’s watching, and by the time the game is over, he may as well be locked in his own little bubble.
Every attempt I make to get in there with him just leads to me bouncing off the sides.
When we go with his parents to wait for Quinton and Oakley, planning to ride home with them post-press interview, I’m itching to pull him aside and ask what I did wrong. Because, fuck, it feels like it has to be my fault. Be it my conversing with his dad or what happened this morning or…I don’t know.
I just know I hate it. I hate seeing him like this, all shut down and closed off.
It’s not the Logan I know—not anymore.
“You’re as subtle as a brick through a window, you know.”
