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“Where have you been for the past week, Logan?”
His grip loosens but he doesn’t release me. “I’ve been busy.”
“Bullshit.” My answer is immediate and resounding in the space between us. “Let me go.”
“No,” he says, locking eyes with me, and we’re in a battle of wills. He’s not willing to let me go, and I don’t want to stay.
“You remember when I told you that I didn’t want to play games?”
He nods.
“This is exactly what I was talking about. One minute, you’re here and the next, you’re gone without a word. Where were you all week?”
He grits his teeth, not taking his eyes off mine as he says, “Busy.”
“And that prevented you from texting me?”
He doesn’t say a word, only dropping his gaze from my eyes to my lips.
“You couldn’t find five minutes in your day to just run next door and say hi to me so I would know that you meant all the shit that’s coming out of your mouth?”
He looks up, his turbulent gray eyes meeting mine, and just like that, everything inside me wants to lose myself in him. “If I talked to you or spent five minutes with you, it would just make it harder to stay away, and there was shit I had to do.”
“Bullshit,” I say again, and his grip tightens, pulling me in, but he doesn’t say anything because we both know I’m right.
“Tell you what, Storm,” I sneer, tears threatening to fall. I fucking hate that he keeps making me cry. “Why don’t you come find me when you’re ready to get real. Until then, I’m fucking done.”
He releases his grip on me, and I despise the fact that it hurts when he lets me go. Without a word, I turn and march back into the office where Carly envelops me in a hug.
“So, totally a bad time, I know, but who is that yummy man out there?” Mercedes asks, and I laugh through my anger.
“Uh, that would be Logan. You’ve met him before, right? The day he came looking for me?”
She shakes her head. “No, Honey. I definitely would have remembered him.”
I scowl and look behind me where Logan is still staring at me through the glass. Carly nudges me, and I turn back to look at her.
“Let’s just order the really yummy soup from the place next door,” she offers, and I force a smile to my face as I nod.
“Is he still out there?”
She looks behind us and nods. “Yeah, he is. By the way, I’m totally on your side now.”
It’s so ridiculous that I just start laughing, and she grins at me as she hooks her arm over my shoulder and leads me away from the door to my office. She closes the door behind her when we get inside, and I sit down on the couch Mercedes insisted I needed.
“I’m so stupid, Car,” I sigh, and she spins to me, her phone in her hand, and a shocked expression on her face.
“What? No, you’re not.”
“I met him three weeks ago. Only three weeks and I was thinking there was something serious between us. I’m an idiot.”
Her gaze softens, and she sinks down into one of the chairs in front of my desk. “You can’t control your heart, Ali. Three weeks or three years – no one can tell you how quickly you’ll fall for someone. And for the record, I think there is something real between the two of you but he’s an idiot.”
I sniff, wiping away a tear as I crack a tiny smile. “Thank you.”
“What are friends for?” She shrugs before turning her attention back to her phone to order our food. I stare out the window and wonder if he’s still out there. There was something different about him today. He seemed freer than before, like maybe the things that were holding him back have finally released him. I shake my head and sigh. I can’t think like that. It’s a guaranteed way to make sure my heart gets broken into a million little pieces.
“You okay, Hon?” Carly asks, looking up from her phone, and I lift my head and nod at her.
