“I could say anything, make you do anything,” Logan’s voice is low, rough, and somehow, even through all the dizziness and nausea, I feel a spark of heat and life somewhere lower than my belly.
“I’ll do anything you want if you’ll just take me home.” My own voice is lower and rougher than I’ve ever heard.
He says nothing for so long that I start to panic he’s not going to get me out of here. But then he gives me a small smile and says, “Let’s go.”
5
Chloe
The snow is still tumblingout of the sky in big, chunky flakes so he keeps one hand around my waist and the other around my elbow. I have to lean into him because I’m still so dizzy, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He gets me into the passenger seat and as he leans across me to help me buckle my seatbelt, I can’t help but notice the faint smell of gin. My empty stomach clenches with the cold hand of fear. Has he been drinking? I can’t—won’t—get in a car with anyone who has had even one drink.
He closes my door and walks around the front of the Pathfinder. He hops into the driver’s seat, shuts his door, and turns to me. “So let’s talk about the conditions.”
“I told you I agree to them.”
He shakes his head. “I need to tell you what they are now so if you change your mind I can bring you back inside. If you don’t want me to wake you up every hour, someone else has to, and it should be the hospital.”
“You can wake me up every hour,” I say although I want to groan. I feel beyond exhausted and the idea of not getting a good night’s sleep is devastating.
“I’m going to stay on your couch so that I can hear you if you fall or call out or something,” he explains and starts the car.
“Are you okay to drive?” I ask flatly. “Because I’ll pay for a taxi or something if you’ve had a drink. And I mean even one drink. I don’t get in the car with people who drink.”
“I told you before I don’t drink,” Logan replies calmly but I can see the tension in his shoulders. “And I meant never. I’ve been stone cold sober for years.”
“Then why do you smell like gin?”
“Fuck,” he says under his breath and runs a hand through his hair before banging the back of his head gently into the head rest. “This is going to sound really bad, and it’s not what you think, but a woman threw a drink in my face.”
“Oh,” I blink. My vision clears for just a second and then blurs again. I close my eyes.
“She thought I was someone else,” he explains and I believe him even though it sounds like some ridiculously lame excuse.
“Okay.”
“Really?” he questions, shocked. “Because even I think it sounds like a lie. It’s not though, I promise.”
“You seem intelligent and clever enough to come up with a better story than that if you wanted to lie, so I believe you,” I say and take a slow, deep breath. “Can we go, please?”
“Yes,” I hear the gear shift slip into what I am hoping is drive. “If you feel sick again, try to let me know so I can pull over. My car is older than my shoes, but it’s harder to replace, so it needs to stay a vomit-free zone if at all possible.”
“I will.”
The drive from the hospital to Ocean Pines takes twenty minutes on a good night and tonight is not one of those. The snow has created white-out conditions with almost zero visibility and slick, mostly unplowed roads. Logan handles them like a champ though, but we’re going much slower than normal. In a way it’s good because the reduced pace seems to ease my nausea, but it’s also torture because I just want to get home.
I keep my eyes closed and try not to nod off, which Logan helps with by saying my name every few minutes to make sure I’m still awake. When he finally pulls into the driveway, I’m so relieved I could cry. I start to unclasp my seatbelt but he puts a hand over mine. “Wait here for a minute. I want to clear the stairs to make sure we can get you up them easily.”
“Okay. The shovel I was using is still out there somewhere.”
Logan hops out of the car and marches toward the steps. You can’t even tell I’d actually managed to shovel half of them before I slipped, they’re all covered in several inches of heavy, white snow. He looks around for the shovel, grabs it gloveless, and gets to work. Watching him, I realize he must be in incredible shape because he is shoveling the snow like a boss, hurling heavy shovelfuls over his shoulder with ease and lightning speed. He’s done all the stairs in a quarter of the time it took me to get through only half of them before I face-planted. He plants the shovel in the snowbank and strides back over to the car. He opens my door and helps me out. “How’s the vision?”
“Better. A little. You’re less blurry,” I explain.
“And the barfing?”
“I think that’s done.”
He smiles sympathetically. “Maybe. But probably not.”
