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In what seems to be typical Parker fashion, I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth, skate and all. Bringing up my brother, aka Logan’s ex best friend, is a touchy subject at best. But I don’t bother to apologize. Maybe if I pretend I didn’t say anything, Logan won’t notice.
“Does your brother hate me?” Logan asks.
I think carefully about how to answer this. “If by hate, you mean he obsessively and secretly follows your career while talking about how you could improve, then sure.”
“He follows my career?” Logan’s gaze snaps to mine.
“We both have. Always.”
I hope this isn’t admitting too much. I’m doing my very best to keep my words measured.
What I really want to do is demand Logan tell me the exact reasons why he left. Why he never spoke to me or Brandon again. His apology was sincere, but I still have questions. A lot of them.
I get why he wouldn’t necessarily keep in touch with me. It would have been weird for a rookie NHL player to be texting a high school girl.
But Brandon? The two were inseparable since the first day they met at pee wee practice. It’s bugged me forever not to know what made Logan ghost us like this. And I hate that I’m thinking about such a sore subject now when I should just be focused on how it feels to have my hand in his. To laugh. To act like the past ten years of nothingness didn’t happen.
Logan picks up his speed. I match his pace again, though I’m starting to feel the burn. My legs are screaming,No! No! No!While the rest of me, the Logan-fueled part of me, is chanting,Yes! Yes! Yes!
I’ll be sore tomorrow, which is sad considering how many years I spent hours on the ice daily, working every muscle nearly to the point of collapse.
“And you?” Logan asks carefully, definitely not looking my way this time. “You don’t hate me?”
It was neverhate. Complete and total heartbreak? Sure. More like crushing bitterness as the guy I kept on a bedazzled pedestal showed off his crumbly clay feet.
I might have even said I hated him a time or two when talking to Mia and Brandon. I definitely screamed that I hated him into my pillow. But even then, I knew that wasn’t the emotion I felt. I’m pretty sure they knew it too.
Maybe I’m naive to think he’ll tell me more in his own time. But I’m not going to push him. Not more than I have already tonight.
“Oh, I definitely hate you,” I tease. “And I plan to exact my revenge through making you dance like a circus monkey in my videos.”
He groans. “I thought part of our agreement was no dancing if I go with you to your dad’s thing.”
“I saidlessdancing. Not no dancing. I’ve got special plans just for you, Wolverine. You just wait.”
Logan’s head whips my way, and before he can stop me, I yank my hand from his and take off, laughing as I go. I find my max speed and ignore the protests of my screaming muscles.
It doesn’t take Logan long to catch me. And, like a total show-off, he passes me, then whips around to continue skating backwards in front of me. When he grins, my stomach doesn’t just flip. It executes a complicated set of gymnastic maneuvers that leave me breathless.
“Is this how it’s gonna be, Pete?”
I grin. “Can you handle the heat?”
“I’m better with cold than heat. But I can hold my own. The question is—can you?”
And with that, he flips around and takes off, tossing me a look that reads pure challenge over his shoulder.
Challenge accepted.
And though I can only catch Logan when he lets me, we continue playing a game of tag until I practically collapse, leaning against the wall near the players’ bench, breathing heavily. Okay, fine—I might technically be panting.
Logan slices to a stop beside me, spraying my legs with ice. He hardly looks winded.
“Show off,” I say.
“Sore loser,” he says.
“Definitely sore. Or I will be tomorrow.”
