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“Okay, Colby, thirty minutes only, but put your headphones on, I don’t want to hear that crazy music coming down the stairs.” Colby raised an eyebrow like he knew her words were a lame excuse, and even I knew she meant she didn’t want him to hear her when she tore his father a new one.
With Colby out of the way, Billie wandered behind the kitchen counter and began making a pot of coffee. “Talk,” she said to Logan. I’d never heard anyone sound so mad with one word.
“Can we have some privacy?” he snapped back, glaring at me.
“No, Sawyer stays,” she demanded, as she folded her arms like she meant business. I felt proud that she hadn’t allowed her ex-husband to dictate the terms of the conversation between them.
“Poppy was miserable from the moment we got on the plane. Nothing I did was right, and Colby got on her nerves.”
“Colby did what? How dare she—”
“Yeah, well she did dare. My father saw how selfish she was being and eventually went apeshit with a few choice words toward her, and here we are,” he said, holding his arms out to indicate his arrival at my house.
“Why here? Why didn’t you take Colby home … no wait, I know why, because you’d have argued, am I right?”
“Yeah, are you getting a kick out of this?” he probed. When Billie stared him down and didn’t reply, I could see she was trying not to lose her cool. “Anyway, I remembered about the spare key and figured I’d bring him home. If you had moved it, I’d have taken him to a local hotel. You said you were away until the third of the month, but I see your plans have changed as well. Trouble in paradise?”
Ignoring his comment, I watched my girl as she wandered out into the hallway, lifted Logan’s overcoat off the peg and brought it back. “Okay, as Colby is home and I’m back now, you may as well leave him here and go home,” she informed him, shoving the coat into his chest.
“But it’s my time,” Logan insisted, glancing quickly toward me. I knew he wanted me to say something, but I was determined not to become a vessel for her ex-husband to vent his anger.
“You should have thought about that before bringing him back here.”
“I brought him here because I knew if I took him home Poppy and I would have argued. Colby suggested coming home, so here we are,” he gloated. He’d gained the upper hand because of a previous threat Billie had to stop contact at his home if he and Poppy continued to argue.
“You brought him to my house without checking I’d be here?”
“I guessed you’d still have left the key where it was, it was your idea to put it there for emergencies in the first place.”
“Okay, thank you for considering Colby’s needs in relation to Poppy, but we’ve got this now so you can go home and straighten out whatever is going on with you guys.”
“You’re kicking me out? In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s no car outside.” He was right, neither of us had considered this.
“Then how did you get here?” Billie snapped.
“By cab from the airport. As Poppy had driven us to La Guardia, I didn’t have a choice.” Billie walked over to where I’d placed her car keys down on her counter. “Here take mine.” Slapping the keys near his hand on the counter, she looked directly at Logan and shook her head with a disappointed look on her face. “You can keep it there, and I’ll pick it up one evening on my way home from work.”
I could see by the look in Logan’s eyes her suggestion had hurt him, and if I wasn’t mistaken I felt an unspoken vibe of regret about his situation, and it dawned on me he still had feelings for Billie.
I eyed him suspiciously and he shifted nervously on his feet. “It’s fine, darlin’, I’ll arrange for someone to pick it up tomorrow and drive it back. You have a second key for it right?” I asked, quickly. Logan immediately glared contemptuously toward me for interfering in whatever plan he’d begun to cook up in his head, had he gotten Billie alone.
“Even better,” Billie agreed, backing me up. Without a valid reason to further delay his departure, Logan reluctantly took his coat from Billie and slowly put it on.
Not wishing to delay his leaving any longer than necessary, I walked over to the front door and opened it for him. I almost laughed aloud at the scowl on his face, and I knew in his mind he was probably mentally kicking my head in.
“Hold on, Sawyer, I’ll just let Colby say goodbye to his father.” Billie ran upstairs, leaving Logan and I alone.
“Aren’t you tired of being in the middle of Billie, Colby, and I?”
“Is that what I am … in the middle? Or in the way?”
“Now you mention it, I’d say both,” he replied, without a hint of shame.
“Then you better get used to it, because I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yet,” Logan added, and I immediately scoffed, amused by his misplaced confidence.
“I believe you made your choice, and from what I can see, it’s now a case of wanting what you can’t have. In case you have forgotten you are divorced … unchained, wasn’t that what you wanted? Perhaps you should have treated Billie with a lot more care, respect and courtesy in the first place. Life is full of regrets, Logan, but there are some things you just can’t come back from.” The look on his face was a mixture of dismay and anger that I’d called him out in such an honest way.
