“I don’t know.”
“You do know,” she said, dropping the statement and allowing the truth to hover just under the surface.
And I did know, I’d felt it in the way he’d held me. In the way his mouth moved, it had memorized the possibility.
It all sounded so simple, yet it felt so impossible.
Because letting it exist means admitting I want it. And I do. That’s the part I couldn’t keep pretending isn’t true.
“That wasn’t alcohol,” Cami said softly. “That was a man who’s tired of fighting himself.”
“I’m scared,” I say, more so to myself than to her.
Cami’s expression softens immediately.
“Of what?”
“Of fitting into his world…” My voice dropped. “And then not being able to leave it.” The words slip out before I can stop them—raw, unfiltered, impossible to call back.
But they were true.
I think about the way Harper wraps her arms around my waist when she sees me. The way Logan looks at her as if she were the very thing that grounded him like gravity.
I could fit there.
That’s what terrifies me.
Because if I fit
If I let myself settle—
Then I risk messing it up, doing something wrong, or falling short in a way that causes collateral damage. My parents’ pressure always played in the back of my mind. The idea that one day I could mess something up and everything that they sacrificed would be for nothing. And I’d have to carry that weight. Or the guilt if I let a client down by falling short. That fear sits inside me, reminding me that when I step into anything new, it’s not just my own heart I could damage. It could be someone else’s world I upend without meaning to.
“I’ve built a life that makes sense,” I continue. “ I know what I’m walking into every day.”
“And you like that.”
“I do,” I admitted. “I’m good at it. It makes sense.”
“And Logan doesn’t make sense.”
I shook my head slightly. “No,” I whisper. “He doesn’t.”
He makes my pulse race, makes me feel seen in a way that strips me bare. With Logan, I wanted things that didn’t come with guarantees.
“You’re just as guarded as he is,” Cami says gently.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
I shook my head again, but there wasn’t much conviction behind it.
“He hides in silence,” she said. “You hide in competence. Different armor. Same instinct.”
She was right. I build barricades of case files and deadlines, so I don’t have to sit still with my feelings. I over-prepare so I don’t have to risk being caught off guard.
I tell myself I’m being responsible when maybe I’m just afraid.
