I drop down onto the couch as if the sexual innuendo pouring out of that text had actually knocked me over. I look at Boss and Stevie. “I really hope you two are sleeping on the floor again tonight.”
Ten more minutes and I see the headlights in my driveway. My heart starts to gallop, and I stand and walk to the door. I hold my breath as I crack it open just enough to look outside. He’s already climbed the first step. Our eyes meet, and his smile matches mine.
He climbs the steps quickly, and by the time I have the door open wide enough for him to step through it, he’s on the porch. As he crosses the threshold, his smile softens. “Hey,” he says in a whisper.
“I can’t believe you forgot to mention you have an identical twin,” I say. “And I almost punched him because I had no idea there are two of you.”
“We get confused a lot. Don’t beat yourself up over it,” he pulls off his gloves as his hazel eyes wander across my face, and he frowns. “You took your stitches out?”
“Yeah…I…” I pause and get embarrassed. “The hospital said they should be removed in a week or so, and so I pulled them out.”
Logan frowns. “If you’d gone to the doctor, they’d probably have left them in another couple days because it’s not quite a hundred percent healed.”
“So, I’d have spent sixty bucks on a co-pay to find out they weren’t ready to come out?” I say and frown. I lift my fingers to the wound, but he gently moves them away.
“You could have asked me to check it out,” he says. “Luckily, I have some butterfly bandages downstairs that’ll make sure the cut doesn’t reopen and finishes healing.”
“I have some of those in the first aid box in my bathroom.” I point to the bathroom off the front hall. He nods.
“Sit down on the couch. I’ll grab them.”
A few seconds later as I’m sitting down, he walks over with my first aid kit and pulls out one of the bandages. He examines my forehead seriously and then gently applies the bandage. When he pulls back, he gives me a smirk. “Replace that one with a new one for the next few days….until I tell you it’s okay to go without.”
I nod. He leans in and kisses me, slow and sweet. “Thank you,” I say when he pulls back. “You can take off your jacket and stay a while, you know. If you want.”
“I want,” Logan say and kisses me again before he starts taking off his coat. He leans back in after he drapes it over the arm of the couch.
“I was hoping we could talk a minute,” I squeak. His smile instantly fades from his lips.
“Okay…”
“It’s not bad. I mean, I don’t think what I’m going to say is bad it’s just…” I struggle to figure out how to say this as cool and casual as possible. “Seeing your brother tonight with another woman and thinking it was you with another woman made me realize that I really don’t want to see you with another woman. And then I realized we haven’t defined this. Us.”
“I’ve never had this conversation before,” he says quietly and he looks bothered by that fact. He runs a hand through his hair and stares at Boss, who has decided to curl up at his feet. “I always just fell in and out of relationships. Drunkenly fell in and out. Not a lot of deep conversation went on.”
“Well, what about River’s mom? You had a deeper relationship with her, right?” I say it as a way to console him, figuring that despite the fact it didn’t work out, he must have had something deep and meaningful with her. They created a human being together after all. But when he stiffens and pulls away from me on the couch, I realize what a naïve idiot I am.
“Bethany was cute, and she liked to party,” he says, his voice heavy. “That’s about all I used to need in a partner. River was, like everything I did back in my drinking days, an accident. It’s not that I didn’t want him though. I just…didn’t plan him. I wasn’t great to Bethany. I tried to step up by proposing to her, but honestly, I never really made conscious, rational decisions in that relationship or any other because I was more concerned with getting drunk and avoiding my feelings and problems than facing them.”
I sit quietly and absorb his words as he stands up and starts to walk back and forth. He paints an ugly picture of himself. It’s hard to reconcile with the man standing in front of me now. “I promised myself I wouldn’t jump into anything with someone new until I was sure I could do it better.”
“So…are you sure? That you can do better?”
“Honestly, no,” he says, and it feels like my heart instantly turns to stone. It’s so heavy I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen from my chest. Be an adult about this Chloe, I lecture myself silently. Casual sex happens, and when you jumped into bed with him, you knew full well in your head that this might happen and you did it anyway. So buck up, girlfriend. I take a deep breath and nod. He blinks as he looks at me, and I realize my face must not be listening to my pep talk.
“That came out all wrong,” he says and walks right up to me. He sits next to me again. “I wanted to handle this thing with you with baby steps and by taking it slow…but then I didn’t.”
“Wedidn’t,” I correct because I won’t let him own this. It was mutual. “I mean…I don’t even know your middle name, but your parts have been inside my parts. More than once.”
I drop my eyes to my lap because I feel like I’m being ridiculous, but I’m also being honest.
“Is that, like, a requirement for you before the merging of parts?” he asks, and I can feel the teasing smile he must be wearing in his tone without even looking up. “Middle names. Color preferences. How about astrological sign? Credit checks?”
“I know you’re a Cancer because your date of birth was on the rental application. And I did a credit check, remember?” I mumble still feeling self-conscious. “It’s not a requirement either I just…I usually know a person better…longer.”
Logan smiles. “Well, here’s the truth, Chloe Hale. I may not be certain I can do better, but I know with you, I want to try, and that hasn’t happened since I got sober.”
“So…is this something you want to try at…exclusively?” I ask, and his smile deepens.
