Page 21 of Always My Comfort
“That’s insulting. Some of us aren’t high maintenance.”
Grabbing another piece from the box, I offered her the last one remaining, but she shook her head.
“Tell me, sweetheart, would you expect Friday night dates?”
“I wouldn’t expect them, but I would like them.” She held my stare, her eyes sparkling in the bright, kitchen light.
“Alright, so you are theonlyexception.” I raised my hands defensively before grabbing both our plates. I stuck them in the dishwasher and turned to her. “So, how about you tell me the real reason you showed up on my doorstep tonight?”
She swallowed, looked at the counter, inspected the marble, and said nothing.
“Would you believe me if I said I was a crazy fan?” She cracked a weak smile, her hands shaking. She quickly hid them under the counter, so I slowly shook my head.
“I wish that was the case. If it were, I wouldn’t have just shared my pizza with you.”
“What if I wanted to repeat our night from a few months ago?” She was stalling, so I humored her.
“Then, we’d already be in my bed, sweetheart.” She blushed, something I’d noticed she did a lot of around me.I make her nervous.
“You’re telling me girls actually come by here for that?” Disgust flashed across her face but quickly disappeared.
“The girls don’t usually get past my security downstairs. So, I’m wonderin’ how you did. But that’s somethin’ we can talk about later.” Logan looked away, finding some artwork on my wall pretty damn interesting, her dark hair hiding her expression from me.
There was something different about her. The way her eyes nervously flitted around my place, the smile that seemed perfected, and her eyes that held too much pain for someone so young.
“Logan, is it your ex? Are you in trouble?” I planted both hands on the cold marble and noticed her visibly stiffen, so I relaxed my stance, choosing to lean back on the closed dishwasher and cross my arms over my chest.
“No, he’s gone. Hasn’t reached out to me in a long time, thank God. I wish I hadn’t wasted so much of my time with him.” She looked at me again, and I saw the pain clear as day in her green eyes as they shone with just barely-contained emotion.
Whatever the reason was that she found me, she wasn’t ready to tell me. And I didn’t care. Her presence in the big apartment was welcomed compared to the loneliness I had been struggling with.
Without Luke ten minutes away, I spent a lot of time alone, compared to Florida, where Luke and I spent countless nights in front of my TV playing video games.
My goal of being closer to home hadn’t made sense yet because I had been too goddamn scared to go home and face my father after officially quitting football. Whenever I did go home, I avoided Dad at all costs. But now that they knew, things would get better. They had to.
“So, you know what I do for a livin’. What about you?” I changed the subject, hoping to ease the tension from her body, but it only got worse when her nose scrunched and she burst into tears.
What did I say?
“I’m a—" she cried, tears streaking down her rosy cheeks faster than I could round the counter. I gently placed my hands on her arms, not sure if I should be hugging her or running for the hills.Maybe she’s crazy.
She pressed her face to my chest, her tears hot against my skin. And I knew right then, she wasn’t crazy. She was lost just like me.
“A teacher. I was a teacher,” she cried, and I couldn’t help but thread my fingers through her silky, soft hair.
“What happened, sweetheart?” When she pulled away and looked up at me, her eyes the color of the prettiest emerald I’d ever seen, the breath was sucked straight from my lungs.
“I quit.” She wiped her eyes and jumped from the barstool, taking a step away from me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let my emotions get the best of me. God, I must look like such a fool. It’s just been a couple of hard months, and I…” she paused, running her hands frantically through her hair, “I need to walk. I need air.”
I nodded, sensing the urgency in her movements. I quickly led her to the front door.
“Let’s go. I know a place.”
She followed me silently, and as we exited my building, we saw the first glimpse of the setting sun. I had chosen the building on the outskirts of the city, purely because I hated the city life. I was a country boy through and through. I loved land and animals—everything the city was not.
We walked around to the back of my building, where we crossed the road to a small park. It was the reason I picked this building. I loved walking.
There weren’t many people on the trail at this time of the day, and as the sky got darker, I wondered what was running through Logan’s mind.