Page 137 of The Fall Classic

“I’ll always run for you. I searched for you every day, Georgie. I must have gone to Meant to Bean a hundred times since spring looking for you. If I’d known you were on a truck in Sugar Maple, I’d have crawled there to get to you.”

He’s looking at me like I’m the star guiding him home, and as much as I’m trying to keep my emotions in some kind of check, I can’t. I grab his hands and pull him up, and then I let him fold me into his arms, too grateful to cry, too emotional to move.

I thought him coming back was coincidence.

I thought him finding me was luck.

Knowing it was a conscious choice—an effort he gladly made—changes everything.

How could I see myself as the boring barista with small-town dreams when someone like Logan noticed me?

He searched for me.

Moved heaven and earth⁠—

To find me.

I’m still marveling when Alma spots us and gives us a push. “What are you doing sitting here? It’s a party. Go. Dance.”

I let Alma push us again and follow Logan to the dance floor. I don’t know how we fit with everyone dancing so big and boldly, but we find space.

A cold, sharp wind whips around us, and Logan shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders, letting his fingers graze my collarbone in the process. This wind is coming from the food table, so it carries the savory scent of the beef birria and pozole from dinner, as well as hints of hot champurrado, tres leches cake, and caramel apples.

I lace my fingers around the back of Logan’s neck as he clasps his around my lower back, his thumbs rubbing light circles on my back over his jacket.

“I can’t believe you found that patch and kept it,” I say.

“I love you, Georgie,” he says simply like he’s commenting on the weather. “I’m okay if you’re not ready to say it, too, and I promised myself that I’d say it the next time I saw you, and here we are.”

I should comment on how he said he loves me, but something else occurs to me. We’re swaying slowly to a pretty song sung in Spanish. The singer is so overcome with emotion, his voice goes off tune, but instead of striking like a bad chord, it pulls on my heartstrings.

“My dad was always using that word—promise. He promised he’d be back constantly, but he was better at using it than honoring it.”

“How so?” he asks, not protesting that he’s different, and for that, I fall for him even harder. Logan doesn’t want the filtered, surface version that will let him say something soothing so he can feel better about himself. He wants the full ugly truth because …

Because he loves me.

I think back, my mind riffling through missed birthdays and anniversaries of my mom’s passing until it stops on something else.

“My mom was only sick for two years, and during that whole time, I don’t think I went to the dentist once. And then after she passed, no one was thinking about me needing a checkup. We were in survival mode. But about eight or nine months after she died, my dad was home from a trip and one of my molars hurt. He told me to take a Tylenol. The next day, it still hurt, and he told me to take another Tylenol. After a couple of weeks, the pain was giving me constant headaches, and I was taking pain meds every day. I mentioned it to him again twice, and the last time, he promised he’d make an appointment. But he never did. When he and Marlowe got married a few months later, I was sitting in school and suddenly there was a rush of pain in my tooth that made me start throwing up. The office called Marlowe, and she rushed me to an emergency dentist.

“I had a severe abscess. They did an emergency root canal and got me on some heavy-duty antibiotics. I couldn’t eat for days.”

He winces but doesn’t turn away. “I can’t believe he ignored your needs like that.”

“He felt awful. He always felt awful when he realized he missed some event or other. But it was never enough for him to do something about it. Never enough to change.”

I look into Logan’s eyes and see the way kindness and devotion radiate from him, feel the way his hand on my back steadies me, offering whatever support I want or need. I put my palms on his cheeks and will him to understand.

“You are nothing like him. You are the furthest thing from him, Logan. And I … I love you.”

His eyes jump between mine, and then he brings a hand up to my cheek and moves his thumb under my eye, wiping away a tear.

“I will do everything in my power to keep every promise I make you,” he says. “It will never be a casual word for me.”

“That’s the thing: I don’t mind if you use it casually. You’ve proven again and again that you keep your promises. The word means something to you. I want to take it for granted that you’ll do what you say because the alternative isn’t even an option.”

I think Logan will smile at this, but instead, his forehead wrinkles into a V. “Georgie, your dad was gone constantly. I’m going to be gone constantly. Will you be able to handle being in a relationship with someone who’s gone sometimes eight months of the year? You could come with me to Phoenix during Spring Training. You could travel with the team—lots of wives and girlfriends do. And if we’re in the same city, we could⁠—”