“You have been crying,” he realized, his voice barely higher than a whisper.
“Oh, of course I’ve been crying,” I said, blinking as a few tears threatened to make an encore performance, blurring my vision. I ripped my cap off and tossed it on the picnic table. There really was no sense in trying to hide it; I looked like I had biscuits around my eyes.
“If something happened to me you wouldn’t be unprotected,” he said softly, rubbing my arm in an awkward attempt to be soothing. “You know that, right? Rego would make sure you had a protector. You’re too important.”
I rolled my biscuit eyeballs in reply. “Are you actually trying to be dense? I wasn’t crying because I was worried about myself. I was crying because I was afraid you were dead!” Merely saying the word prompted the tears in my eyes to overflow, and I brushed them away, frustrated and embarrassed with my emotional display. I turned away from him and stared at the ground instead, focusing on the frayed ends of my graying laces.
“I don’t understand.” He sounded confused, but I couldn’t face him at that moment.
“You said you’d come here. When I didn’t hear from you, I had a thousand scenarios running through my head, replaying over and over again like they were stuck on repeat.” I grimaced as I recalled my vivid fears, wrapping my arms around my torso.
“Maybe you were hurt, lying somewhere in pain and needing help. Maybe you were attacked on your way to see me, because Aiden got to you. Maybe you showed up at your house and surprised Cerus again, and—” I paused, taking a deep breath to steady my trembling voice “—maybe he shot you.”
I shut my eyes, trying to clear the gruesome visions that had plagued my mind for the past two days.
“Or maybe you took Ajax’s advice and you decided to leave.”
“Paige, I wouldn’t do that to you. I swear,” he said, stuffing his hands in his back pockets.
“Well, you did, for almost three days.” He paled, looking guilty. “I know things are...kind of awkward...between us right now,” I stammered, “but you’re still my friend. Even though it’s not the same for you, I wanted to know that you were okay.”
I buried my face in my hands, embarrassed and exhausted and deflated, all the fight gone out of me as I quietly cried over everything: Logan’s disappearance, my constant but necessary lies to my parents, the stress of the past few days—hell, the past few years. Logan quickly crossed the few feet of distance between us, folding his arms around my shoulders and pulling me close. This time, I didn’t fight back. I didn’t return his hug, but I let my head rest against his chest, my face still buried in my palms as everything I said echoed in my head.
“You think I wasn’t around the past few days because I don’t care?” Logan asked, and I shrugged in his embrace. “Paige, this has nothing to do with how I feel about you,” he said firmly.
“It’s fine, you don’t have to say that—”
“I’m serious.” Logan dropped his grip on me to cup my face in his hands. “It has to do with me.”
“Oh, please, don’t say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’” I scoffed, wriggling away from him, his hands dropping against his sides. “I’d rather you tell me that it is, in fact, me. Say, ‘Paige, you suck.’ But don’t give me some trite, overused pity line.”
“I swear it’s not that. I’m just not explaining myself well.” Logan’s eyes bored into mine. “I live with Rego, but he’s really more my boss. I haven’t—I’m not—this is really hard to admit,” he struggled, sighing heavily. “I barely remember what it’s like to be accountable to someone for the simple reason that they care.
“I’m not saying that so you feel bad for me. I’m saying it because it’s true. It’s been true for a long time,” Logan confessed. His face was open and honest, his words simply a statement of fact. “So, that’s why I didn’t think about reaching out. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”
“So...how do you feel?” I asked, daring to hope that his answer wouldn’t crush me.
Logan stared at the ground as he collected his thoughts. “You, Paige Dawn Kelly, are a wrecking ball to my routine, colorless life,” he said, finally meeting my eyes, “and I couldn’t be happier or more terrified about it.”
He took a step toward me, lightly resting his hand against my tearstained cheek.
“I’ve only been watching you since I got here and admiring the hell out of you for what—three months? I justified it because I thought you were the target, but I was just lying to myself. I admired you because no matter what people say about you, you keep your head high. And you make me laugh with the most random statements ever.” He paused, grinning at some memory, and the look on his face made me grin, too.
“I really like making you smile.” Logan stroked my cheek with his thumb, and I smiled even wider. “And I’m really, really freaking out about saying all this right now,” he added.
“Well, it’s about damn time you did,” I whispered, and he wound his other arm around me, pulling me closer.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. This is all new territory for me,” he admitted nervously, and I threaded my fingers through his as he cradled my cheek. “I’m not supposed to want this with you. I wasn’t even supposed to talk to you. But I can’t pretend I don’t feel this way anymore, can you? You feel it, too, right? Paige?” Logan prompted, almost desperately, when I didn’t reply immediately.
“I do. You know I do.” I nodded, and he exhaled in relief, resting his forehead against mine. We just stood there for a moment, letting the weight of what we were declaring sink in.
“Why do you think I never bitched about you borrowing all my pens?” I asked innocently.
“Really? So...for that long, huh?” Logan pulled back with a proud smile on his face.
“Shut up.” I poked him in the chest. “I denied it to Dottie and to myself, but...yeah. What can I say, the sight of you with a glittery pen is really hot.”
Logan pretended to brush some dirt off his shoulder, and I whacked him lightly on his arm. He grabbed my hand and held it between us, resting our interlocking fingers against his chest.
“I have to say one more thing,” Logan said, suddenly serious again. “I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know I should have said something first, be a gentleman and all that. At least, that’s what all the books and movies say, right?” he added with a self-conscious shrug.
“Well, the books and movies say you would have kissed me by now.”
Logan stilled, and I internally berated myself for my complete lack of a filter, until an impish smile flashed across his face. Logan bent his head down to mine, lightly brushing his lips over my cheekbone, and my skin tingled at his gentle touch.
“C’mon, I wanted to ask you first,” he whispered in my ear. “At least let me get something right.” He pulled back, gazing at me with serious eyes—and I felt my breathing speed up.
“Can I kiss you, Paige?” Logan asked, the corner of his mouth lifted into a boyish, almost shy smile.
My hands slid up his chest, my fingers locking around his neck to keep them from trembling. I shut my eyes and nodded, his body shifting under my hands as he pulled me flush against his chest. And then I felt him: his gentle, warm lips touching mine, timidly at first. I unclasped my hands and let my fingers slide into the dark locks of hair at the nape of his neck. He whispered my name softly and when he pressed his lips against mine again, his kiss was much less shy. Logan’s hands knotted in my hair, before gently sliding down my back, his mouth soft and urgent.
I used to worry if I’d remember how to kiss a boy. It had been a while, and I was afraid I’d be an uncoordinated mess of clashing teeth and dry lips and flappy tongue, who’d forget how to breathe and probably slobber, sending the boy running off in horror as he wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve.
The way he was clutching me clos
e, Logan clearly wasn’t running anywhere. After a slightly clumsy start, we found a perfect rhythm that ignited a slow burn, a sweet kiss that gradually built into a heart-pounding embrace that I felt in my chest and stomach and down to my toes, which curled in my shoes as he kissed me deeply.
He broke the kiss first, only to leave a trail of smaller kisses along my jaw, setting my skin on fire, until his mouth met my ear.
“Wow,” he exhaled, and I could only nod in agreement, my breathing far too unsteady to attempt talking.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I borrowed a pen from you,” Logan whispered shakily, clasping his hands at the small of my back. I felt my cheeks warm, and I ducked my head down, resting my forehead against his chest. Logan tucked his fingers underneath my chin again and forced me to look up.
“By the way, your pens suck,” he said, his grave tone betrayed by the teasing sparkle in his eye. “Girliest things I’ve ever seen.”
“Using my pink pens isn’t going to make you grow a vagina, you know,” I retorted, and Logan laughed.
“There she is.” He chuckled, planting a soft kiss on my forehead. “That’s what I’m talking about. You’re a little intimidating, by the way.”
“Me?” I stepped back as I let my hands slide down his chest, coming to rest at his hips. Yeah, you’ve got the torso of an action figure and I’m the intimidating one? I gripped fistfuls of cotton to keep myself from tracing the lines barely hinted at underneath his shirt.
“You.” He paused, giving me a sad smile. “I really hoped you weren’t the target. I’d heard that you talked to imaginary people, but you hide it really well. I didn’t know it was you until a few weeks ago.”
“Dottie and I hang out in the girls’ bathroom,” I explained, toying with a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. “That’s usually where I get busted talking to her.”
“So that’s the problem. I don’t spend my free time in the girls’ bathroom.” Logan grinned.
“I wouldn’t call that a problem,” I corrected him, raising an eyebrow. “I’d call that a valid life choice.”
“Well, you only slipped up once, in the library. And don’t worry, it was very subtle. You pretended to scratch your cheek, but you were really giving Dottie the finger because she was trying to make you flirt with me,” Logan recalled, his cheeks turning pink again. “That’s when I knew you really could hear her and talk to her.”
He smiled wryly at the memory.
“Of course, I took that as a sign that you were highly offended by her suggestion that you flirt with me.”
“It’s totally offensive,” I told him, my eyes wide with mock sincerity. “I mean, I really want you to kiss me again, but flirt with you? Offensive, obviously.”
Logan grinned, his eyes crinkling up at the corners as he gave me a soft kiss. But when he pulled back, he somberly asked me, “Am I forgiven?”
“Yes. Just don’t disappear like that again,” I ordered, narrowing my eyes and pursing my lips in what I hoped looked like a stern expression.
“I promise. Just stop making that weird face,” he teased.
“That’s my scary face,” I pouted. “It’s supposed to be terrifying.”
“No, your scary face is when you’re crying,” Logan said seriously, all hint of teasing gone. “Because it terrifies me that I made you cry.”
“I scare you?”
“Not in the way you think,” he said. “I just don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m terrified I’m going to screw this up. Hell, I already screwed up.”
Logan was a study in dichotomy: fierce and brutal, an efficient killer saddled with so much self-doubt. I wanted to help him. I wanted to know him. And I was desperately afraid of wounding him. I stepped back, but Logan stepped with me, keeping his arms around me.
“Is this thing between us too intense?” I asked, proud that I kept my voice even in spite of my fear that he’d answer “yes.” Logan cocked his head as he regarded me, looking confused.
“This is going fast. Maybe too fast.”
“I’ve known you for three months. I’ve liked you for three months,” Logan replied, sounding confused. “This could have gone a little faster for me, just saying.”
“Well, I’m just saying, maybe this is too much.” I began babbling, barely stopping to take a breath because if I paused, I wouldn’t say what I thought needed to be said. “And maybe I care too much and I don’t want to scare you and we’ve been all over the place with our emotions tonight and maybe this is what Rego meant about me being a distraction—”
Logan pressed his lips against mine, effectively silencing me. Unlike our first kiss, which built into a toe-curling, passionate embrace, Logan was tender, almost reverential in the way his lips moved softly against mine as he gripped fistfuls of my hoodie at the waist. He broke away only to gently brush his lips against my forehead, both eyelids, the tip of my nose and both cheeks before returning to place another soft kiss against my mouth.
I’d read about intense, emotional kisses in sweeping epic romance novels and seen enough movies where the music built to a crescendo as the star-crossed lovers found answers in each other’s kiss, usually with the moon as an audience, as it was tonight.
This kiss shamed those kisses, making them dry pecks on the cheek in comparison. And this time, I was the one who pulled away, my heart pounding and my body quivering.
“Does that answer your question?” he asked breathlessly.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak actual words at the moment.
“I want this, Paige. I want you in my life. I want this to work, whatever that means.” Logan clasped his hands at the small of my back and squeezed me for emphasis. “And maybe that’s selfish, because there’s so much about me, and this world, that you don’t know. And I want to tell you.”
“So, tell me,” I urged.
“I will. But this is all new to me, too. I’m trying to figure out how to make this work. It’s complicated on my end. Just...be patient with me, please?” he pleaded, his face open and trusting.
“I’ll try,” I promised. His answering smile was so endearing, I had to stand up on my toes to place a quick kiss against his lips.
“See you tomorrow? You promise you won’t disappear again?”
Regret flickered across his face briefly before giving me a warm, reassuring smile.
“I’ll be there,” he promised, and leaned in for one more kiss.
Chapter 10
DEMON FIGHTING WAS absolute hell on my manicure, I realized, filing down my rough nails as I sat on the couch with my father the next day, choosing cuticle care over rereading the next chapter in my history textbook. It was one of the few books that had been in my backpack on Monday, so I’d read it already. Besides, my father was distracting me, furiously flipping television channels, which were all covering the plummeting stock market. Finally, he landed on an infomercial.
“Hmm, if you order in the next thirty minutes, you get a tote bag that you can keep, even if you return everything,” he muttered, reaching for the cordless phone as it rested on the cushion between us. I grabbed the phone quickly and held it out of his reach.
“No, Dad. Please! No more stuff with logos on it.” I feigned sobbing, switching hands before my dad could get a solid grip on the phone. “Most girls dream of ponies. I dream of owning things you can’t read.”
“But it’s a nice bag,” he said. “Nice and roomy. You could use it for school.”
“Dad, I am so not using a bag with the words Deluxe Fat Burner 5000 on the side!”
“But—”
“Neither will Mom,” I insisted. “And she’ll think it’s a hint, and then you’ll be in every kind of trouble that ever existed.” I held the phone aloft, and Dad returned to his end of the couch with a resigned sigh.
&nbs
p; “I didn’t think of that,” he said. “Your mom might be really mad. Damn.”
I sighed in relief, letting the phone drop on the cushion between us again.
“Might? She’d make you sleep on the couch, Dad. This teeny, tiny couch, with nothing but your free tote bag to keep you warm.”
And I won’t be able to sneak out at night to see Logan.
I glanced at the front door guiltily, as if it were going to come to life and rat me out for sneaking up to the roof last night. But so far, my secret was safe, with only me, Logan and my cat aware that I’d left the apartment.
I’d managed to sneak back in quietly, my dad’s snores a victory cheer as I stealthily made my way through the rooms to my bedroom, where Mercer greeted me by sitting on my pillow and meowing at me knowingly.
Dad had resumed channel surfing when the building buzzer sounded, loudly reverberating throughout the apartment. I jumped off the couch and hurried to the intercom next to the front door.
“Did your mother order some— Oh.” Dad’s quizzical expression morphed into one of irritation when Logan’s voice boomed through the apartment on the static-filled speaker.
“Be nice,” I cautioned Dad. Normally I would complain about the earsplitting intercom system, but hearing Logan—unharmed and alive—calmed my lingering fears that he wouldn’t show up today.
Clearly my father didn’t share my opinion.
“He’s too loud,” Dad grumbled as I pressed the button on the ancient intercom, buzzing Logan upstairs.
“Dad, I’m pretty sure he didn’t invent the technology behind this intercom. Everyone sounds loud on it. You could probably hear a mosquito fart on this thing.”
He ignored my comment, switching subjects. “Aren’t you going to put on clothes?”
I looked down at my gray T-shirt and black yoga pants. It was appropriate clothing for someone staying home from school with sickness.
“I’m in clothes. Pretty boring clothes, actually.” I took a deep breath, trying to be grateful that my dad was acting stereotypically overprotective over something normal like clothing and not my mental state.