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He took a slow breath, like he was coming back from a memory he didn’t visit often. When he glanced at her, the self-recrimination made her lungs hurt.
“Yeah,” he lied.
They held eye contact.
She could call him on his lie, but what good would it do? He obviously blamed himself. And she knew from experience that when someone had decided who was at fault for something, it was difficult to convince them otherwise. Especially if you weren’t there. You couldn’t know.
But a deep ache opened in her chest for the man across the bed from her.
She wanted to help in some way but no words came to mind.
So she gave him what she always wanted when she was breaking inside. The same thing he’d given her just that night.
Presence.
She gathered their garbage and dropped it in the bin before returning to the bed. Instead of resuming her seated position, she laid down on top of the covers and put a hand behind her head. The other she rested at her side, nearest to Asa.
Rain filled the silence between them.
After a while he spoke. His voice a whispered rumble that reached into her ribs. “You ever just stay somewhere, even when you know you shouldn’t?”
“Yeah,” she answered. Because did she ever? Not just Logan but friends, business partners. “Staying too long happens to be my favorite bad decision,” she said, voice soft. “Is that what happened?”
She didn’t think she needed to be specific with her question. He hadn’t come back from whatever memory he’d gotten stuck in.
The bed dipped and moved as Asa adjusted to lay down beside her. Not close, not far. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted.
“I wanted it so much. I tried to hold it together with good intentions and duct tape.” His voice was soft but dipped in layers of cynicism and anger. “I didn’t leave until people I cared about got hurt.”
Light danced along the ceiling, making shapes in the shadows. The rain soothed the quiet conversation, insulating them from everything and everyone that might interfere.
“I should have left Logan years ago,” she admitted. She’d never said it out loud. Never confessed it to anyone, not her friends or her sister, no one. It was her own secret shame that she carried on her own.
Asa didn’t say anything for a long time but she could practically hear him holding back his thoughts.
“You can say something,” she said with a soft laugh.
He let out a hiss of a sigh. “I don’t get it. He was wearingsweatpantstonight.”
Zara groaned with the reminder. “He said because he wasn’t nominated he didn’t have to be uncomfortable.”
“There’s a reason he wasn’t nominated,” Asa growled back. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“You’re not wrong,” she replied. She’d never admit that to anyone else. No matter how many times Logan had embarrassed her in public or in front of her people, she defended him, excused it. Reasoned it away. Because it felt like they weren’t just judging him, they were judgingher. But shouldn’t they? She was the one who never left.
But it was more than that. Logan had been there in the beginning. They’d grown up in the industry together. She cheered for him as much as anyone else. Even if he’d stopped cheering for her a long time ago.
It hurt to think about. But talking about it in the dark with this handsome pseudo stranger felt better. Like coming up for air after being underwater for too long.
“He was mad that I won so many times,” she said, anger and shame stirring in her belly. “He called it excessive.”
“He’s a jealous little bitch,” Asa muttered.
She snorted a surprised laugh. No one around her talked like that. Especially about Logan. They were all afraid it would damage them professionally.
“It’s the fucking job,” he said, disgusted.
“What do you mean?” she asked, swiveling her head his direction.
