“Okay now I have to piddle,” Aspen slips off her stool. “This kid is doing a headstand on my bladder or something. Be right back.”
I watch her waddle away and notice Mitch walking back toward the table. When he drops down on his stool again, my heart jumps because he looks positively furious. “What’s wrong?”
“Fucking hell,” he mutters, pulling his phone out of his pocket and punching at the screen. “I have to admit, when you first told me about this hot tenant who was a paramedic, I google stalked the shit out of him.”
“Mitch!” I am stunned and a little annoyed.
“I worry about you, Chloe, and wanted to make sure this guy living under your roof was cool,” Mitch replies. “I’m not from Maine and definitely not in the loop of who is a psycho and who isn’t in that tiny claustrophobic little town you’re living in. So I felt compelled to dig a little. Anyway, this is him right?”
He turns his phone to me, and I see a picture of Logan in his paramedic uniform. The website is the Ocean Pines Fire Department. He looks so damn handsome. Stoic, kind of brooding, but breathtakingly hot. Mitch groans. “I can tell by the moony look on your face that is him. Fuck a duck.”
“Why fuck a duck” I blurt back.
He focuses on me, and his brown eyes soften. It’s a look I became far too familiar with after Jackson died—pity—but I have no idea why he’s directing it at me right now. “He told you he was working tonight?”
I nod.
“Well, he’s here. By the pool tables. And the blonde he’s with doesn’t seem to be in need of life-saving services.”
He turns in his seat and points toward the corner of the L-shaped Irish themed bar where the pool tables and dart boards are located.
“You must be mistaken,” I say instantly and without even thinking about it. What Mitch is saying is too absurd to be true. It can’t be true.
“I stood there for a full two minutes watching him. He was at a tiny table with this blonde and she was almost sitting in his lap. She kept touching his face, and he whispered in her ear,” Mitch’s details are making me sick. “I was trying to convince myself it wasn’t him, but then a dude, the hot one I went to check out, yelled ‘Hawkins. Table is yours.’ And he got up to claim the vacant pool table.”
“What?” I heard every word, but yet my brain refuses to understand.
Mitch stands up and grabs his phone off the table. “Let’s settle this like adults. By stalking.”
He storms off in the direction of the pool tables, dragging me with him.
My heart plummets through the overly varnished wood floor of the bar when the pool tables come into view, and it is in fact Logan Hawkins standing there, leaning over a beautiful blonde as she lines up a shot. His hand laying casually on the back pocket of her jeans as he gives her advice.
“What are you going to do?” Mitch asks. “Should we just go? If it were me I would grab that fresh daiquiri we just ordered and toss it in his face.”
“I am not throwing a drink on him,” I say because it seems too forceful, and I feel weak right now. So damn weak I could cry. “I think I should just go. You guys stay. I don’t want to ruin your night.”
“Heruined our night because we care about you,” Mitch says and crosses his arms. “You should confront him, even if you don’t throw a drink in his face. Let him know you saw him. I’m texting Aspy and telling her to settle the bill so we can bolt as soon as you’re done tearing him a well-deserved new asshole.”
I stand there staring at Logan, frozen. I want to be anywhere else right now but yet I’m unable to look away or walk away.
“I’ll confront him if you want,” Mitch suggests when he’s done texting Aspen. “I have zero issues throwing a drink in his face on your behalf.”
“No. He doesn’t deserve that,” I blurted out. I know they think I’m going to run and hide like a wounded animal, but I’m so not. “And if he does deserve it, I’ll be the one to do it.”
I start walking toward him. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’ve always been timid. The one who avoids confrontation at all costs. The person who does whatever it takes to keep waters calm and here I am marching toward the problem. Who am I right now? Not Chloe Hale.
I stop about a foot and a half behind the blonde’s back. He glances at me, reaches for his empty beer bottle on the edge of the pool table and holds it out toward me. “Another one, please. And another chardonnay for her too, please.”
Is he fucking serious?
When I don’t take the bottle in his hand, he shifts slightly and looks me right in the eye. There is not even the slightest flicker of recognition. “What the hell is even happening right now?”
“I’m sorry, what?” He blinks. The blonde turns around too. She’s super pretty. I wish I’d worn more than leggings and an oversized cardigan to come out tonight.
“Did you fall and hit your head or something?” I ask, outraged. “I can’t…I won’t believe you’re so much of an asshole you’d just pretend you don’t know me. Not after the last couple of nights.”
I stare and he just stands there blinking, so I say, “Go fuck yourself Logan.”
