I watched Logan carefully as he took the first few bites of his lunch. I had ordered him a French dip sandwich and a berry salad with pecans and feta cheese. It'd been risky to order him a salad, since guys my age seemed to think salads were for girls. But he'd said he normally ordered the pub salad when he came here, so I'd figured it might be okay.

"So what's the verdict?" I asked.

He set his fork down on his plate. "Do you really want to know?"

I tried to gauge what he thought from the look on his face but couldn't get a good read. So I slipped my most confident smile onto my face. "I'm actually expecting to hear that this is the best meal you've ever had, ordered for you by the most intuitive person you've ever met."

He laughed. "You really do believe in that sixth sense of yours, don't you?"

I laughed, too. "I actually forgot all about that, but sure."

"How could you forget about the night you told me about your sixth sense? I mean, I keep reliving that mistletoe kiss in my head every time I look at you." He winked.

My cheeks flushed with heat. "You know, if you keep saying that, I might start to believe you."

"You say it as if I didn't enjoy it."

"Oh, I don't doubt you enjoyed it. But mostly because you were looking forward to torturing me with my mistake for the rest of my life."

He picked up his fork again and poked it into his salad. "So you think we're going to know each other for the rest of our lives, then?" He peeked up at me, and I didn't know if the twinkling Christmas lights in the restaurant were hitting him just right or what, but his eyes looked so blue that it made me lose my train of thought.

And when he kept staring at me, I realized he'd probably asked me a question that I could no longer remember.

I blinked my eyes. "What did you ask me again?"

He shook his head and looked down with a crooked smile on his lips. "Nothing important."

Then I remembered how he hadn't answered my question. "You still haven't told me what you think about your food," I said.

With a thoughtful expression, he chewed on the bite he'd just put in his mouth and followed it up with a sip of water. He said, "It's all right."

"Just all right?" I asked, my chest falling a little with disappointment.

"Okay, so it's kind of delicious and you might have just introduced me to my new favorite food."

"Really?" I raised my eyebrows. "It's even better than your precious Italian club sandwich?"

He grinned. "Even better than that. I think you just changed my life."

I laughed. "I don't know if I'd go that far." I poked my fork into my penne. "But I’ve always wanted to change someone's life."

We finished up our food a few minutes later and walked a few stores down to The Menswear Place.

"Ever been here before?" Logan asked as he held the door open for me.

"Nope,” I said as I walked past him. “My dad has never tried to buy me a suit before."

Logan chuckled and followed me in. "Your dad always was a smart man."

"Yes, he is."

He stepped in front of me. "It’s this way."

We came to a display table with ties of all sorts of colors laid out on it.

"So, you said your dress is pink and white?" He reached for a pink and white striped tie.

I shook my head and took it from his hand. "Did you not look at the photo I sent you? That is much too hot of a pink."

He held his hands up. "My mistake."

I rolled my eyes and smiled. "My dress is blush pink. It's a softer, more elegant pink."

"I never knew there was such a thing as blush pink," he mumbled.

"Well, looks like you just learned something new."

I studied the table and then smiled when I saw the perfect tie. It was pretty much the exact shade of pink as my dress. And the solid color would really pop against his tanned skin tone.

I lifted the tie and held it against Logan's chest to get an idea of how it would look on him. He seemed to go still as my hand touched the skin at the base of his neck.

I tried to keep my breathing even as I stood close to him. I didn't know why I kept being surprised at how attracted I was to Logan. It made perfect sense since I'd crushed on his brother for so long.

But I just kept surprising myself.

I cleared my throat, hoping he hadn't noticed how hard I was trying to keep my breathing even. "It goes well with your skin tone." I looked up at him. He had a nice neck. It was a masculine one but not too thick to be scary. I watched his Adam's apple bob.

Was he nervous?

I dared to meet his gaze, and when I did, he swallowed again. "D-do you think it will work?" he asked.

I looked away from his face and down to his chest, which probably was a mistake because his chest was also really nice. He could probably do a hundred pushups right here if I asked him to.

I shook those thoughts away. Why would I ask him to do something like that?

I made my mind come back to where it should be and realized I didn't need to hold the tie close to him anymore. So I pulled my hand away—forcing myself not to allow my fingers to graze along his chest as I did so.

"What color of suit were you planning to wear?" I folded the tie back up like the other ones on the table.

"I was thinking either my gray one or my blue one." He pushed his hands in his pockets. "Which do you think would be better?"

Oooh, I loved a good gray suit.

But I also loved a blue one, too. Plus, the blue would really bring out his eyes.

Not that I needed to have another reason to get caught staring into them. In fact, it would probably be better if he wore sunglasses that night. We'd be dancing, and I didn't need any romantic notions poking around in my head.

Unless he combed his hair like Jace does, and I could just pretend I was dancing with his brother.

Oooh, that could be nice.

But then I might accidentally call him Jace and that would probably ruin things. As much as I wanted to prove to Logan that him being nice for a whole night was an impossibility for him, I also didn't want to ruin the Christmas Ball. Last year, I'd had a stinky time at the ball. I didn't want it to be bad this year, too.

So I said, "You should just surprise me with whatever suit you choose. I'm sure either will be great with this tie."

He took the tie from my hands. "Great. I'll get this one then."

When we walked outside the store, it was softly snowing.

"How was it moving back to winter?" I asked Logan as I zipped up my coat. It had already been a super cold December in Ridgewater, and I was so ready to go somewhere sunny and warm again.

Logan zipped his coat as well. "I actually don't mind the winter here. It mostly just snowed in the mountains in North Carolina, so I kind of missed it."

"Weirdo."

And I don't know what was wrong with him, but he cracked the cutest smile when I called him that.

Wow, that dimple in his left cheek was kind of adorable.

I made myself focus on the sidewalk with that thought, so I wouldn't be tempted to poke his dimple with my finger.

We walked a few businesses down until Logan stopped to look at a store window with the words "Emrie’s Frozen Treats" on it.

"What's this place?" he asked.

"Oh, it's a cool ice cream shop that just opened last summer."

"Must be hard to keep customers coming in during the winter," Logan said as he peeked in through the window.

"I think it does okay. They have the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted."

He looked away from the window and back to me. "They do?"

"Yeah."

"Do you mind stopping in here? I have a weakness for hot chocolate."

I smiled. "You have a weakness for hot chocolate?"

He shrugged. "You say that like it's weird."

I laughed. "Let's see what you think of Emrie's."

We stepped inside the cute little shop that was like a throwback to the 50's with its fire-engine red booths and black-and-white checked tile flooring.

"Whoa," he said as he took in the place. "This is just like stepping back in time."

"I know. It's pretty cool."

Vintage Christmas music filled the air as we looked over the menu. They had gourmet hot chocolate in every flavor I could imagine. I'd gotten their cinnamon hot chocolate when I'd come here with Alyssa a couple of weeks ago after a basketball game. But when I saw the candy canes, I knew I had to get one of those in my hot chocolate today.

We were still waiting for the employee to come out of the back, when I heard a familiar laugh come from one of the booths.

And when I turned to see who it was, I froze. Sitting in a booth in the corner was Noah. And he was there with three other people. His best friend Easton, his girlfriend Lexi, and Juliette Cardini who I hadn't seen since last summer. She must have gotten back from Paris recently.

My gaze went back to Noah who had his arm around Lexi. I tried not to feel jealous that he had picked her over me. He said they'd been secretly dating for months, but I'd overheard someone in one of my classes this week whispering about how he'd heard Noah and Lexi had only started out faking a relationship because he didn't know how to tell me he wasn't interested.

My face burned just thinking about it.

Was I really so clueless that a person had to pretend to date someone else just to get me to move on?

And as if he'd been able to sense that I was thinking about him, Noah suddenly looked up from his conversation with his friends and caught me staring at him.

I scooted closer to Logan so we were side by side instead of me slightly behind him in line. And when I saw that Noah seemed to be watching us, like he was trying to figure out what Logan and I were to each other, I slipped my fingers into Logan's hand, which was just resting by his hip.

He turned to me, seeming surprised that I was holding his hand. And before he could say anything, I leaned close to his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "I promise I'll do anything you want if you just pretend that we're dating."

His lips spread into a wicked smile. "Anything?"

"Anything within reason." I shoved Logan in what I hoped Noah would interpret as a flirtatious move if he noticed.

Logan winked. "Okay. How about you go ice skating with me tomorrow."

"What?" I pulled my head back.

"You said you'd do anything if I pretended to be your boyfriend. And so I'm saying I want you to go ice skating with me."

I shook my head. "I heard that part. I'm just confused about why."

He shrugged. "I like ice skating and don't want to go by myself."

I frowned, so confused. "So to get you to pretend like you're my boyfriend for a few minutes, you want to take me ice skating?"

He nodded. "That sounds about right."

Okay. Well, that wasn't what I was expecting at all. But I actually really liked ice skating, so it kind of seemed like a win-win.

Even if I did have to go with Logan.

He squeezed my hand, and I couldn't help but notice how nice it felt in mine. "So will you go ice skating with me, Raven?”

Was this some sort of trick?

I really had no idea what to make of this new version of Logan.

I shrugged and said, "That sounds like fun."

His smile stretched wide across his cheeks and he put his arm around my shoulder. "You're the best girlfriend, did you know that?"

My heart did a little flip-flop when he said the word girlfriend. No one had ever called me that before. But I worked hard to keep my reaction to myself. "Anything for you, boyfriend."