Logan
It was a choice between friendship and nothing. There was no fucking way in hell I was choosing nothing. So again I was left feeling like my heart had been through a shredder because of this girl I couldn’t get over, no matter how hard I tried.
She was due here any second and I didn’t want things to be awkward. Shit, I shouldn’t be so nervous to see her.
“Stop tapping your foot, Logan,” Cass said. “Things are gonna be alright, you know. You both just need more time.”
“I don’t think she’s interested in anything with me, even if we waited fifty years.” Yep, felt like swallowing razor blades.
“Oh, please! You’re smart, Logan, so stop playing dumb. Some people that Chloe cares about, some of our family, have been less than supportive so it’s understandable that she’s pulled back. She cares what people think a hell of a lot more than what you do so you need to be understanding of that. Don’t give up on her, just give her the time she needs.”
Giving up on her wasn’t even an option. I’d wanted her for the last seven years so I could handle waiting. I was so good at waiting for that girl it was unreal.
“I’m not giving up. It just sucks, royally fucking sucks.”
“Language! I know it does but I have total faith in you both. You’re meant to be together, you two make more sense than her and Jace did.”
I smiled. “Yeah, that little gamer geek really was punching well above his weight.” Fuck, I missed him. “Not that I’m not.”
“She wants you, Logan. Don’t screw this up by doing what you do best in times of complete shit.”
“You put that so lovely. But you don’t have to worry, I’m not going to drink or screw this away.” I’d compare them all to her anyway. It wouldn’t be worth it.
“Good, because that’s not the best way to show her you’ve got everything together.”
“I don’t think me having my shit together is the issue.”
She raised her eyebrow. “No? I don’t think the main concern was necessarily that she was Jace’s girlfriend, it’s that you’re both replacing something you lost in each other – which wouldn’t be healthy and probably destroy each other. You need to show everyone that it’s not like that and you love Chloe not the idea of keeping hold of something so precious to Jace.”
“Our family is fucked up.”
She shrugged. “Not saying they’re not but that’s how it is. You can’t blame them, they’ve not seen much of her because she hid away for so long and you drank yourself stupid. They haven’t had a chance to see how far you’ve both come. They also don’t know how much you guys struggled with wanting to be together.”
Maybe she was right.
“You’ll get there and you know you have my support and Mum and Dad’s. We’re all team Cogan.”
She what? “Never say that again.”
Laughing, she got up. “I hear a car so I’ll get going.”
“You’re scared of cars now?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just remember what I said and don’t put any pressure on her.”
Barely ten seconds after Cass left, Chloe appeared at the door. I stopped breathing for a second. Why did she only get more beautiful? She couldn’t have stuck her face in a blender and made this easier on me?
“Hi,” she said, biting that full bottom lip nervously.
My jeans got tighter. I sighed. Here we go. “Hey, sweetheart. You okay?”
Releasing her lip, she walked into the room and sat down. “I’m alright. You?”
Nope, not at all.
“I’m fine. We missed you last night. Mexican isn’t the same without you getting your taco everywhere.”
“Hey, it’s messy food, you’re not supposed to be clean at the end of it.”
Okay, I could do this. We’d just gone back to the start where we were friends. We could pick up from here and work our way back to each other, now knowing what we needed to work on.
“I know,” I said. “What did you do last night? I called your house but…”
“I read and went to bed early. Mum told me you’d called but I figured I was coming over anyway…”
“It’s cool, I figured you’d probably be locked in your room.”
“I didn’t lock myself in.”
“As long as you’re not moving backwards, Chlo.”
She shook her head, playing with her fingers “I’m not. Well, we are. I don’t like it but I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Don’t stress about it. No pressure, no expectations. We can do the friends thing – we did it well before we got horizontal.” I paused to smile at her light blush. “I get why you want to cool things, I don’t like it, but I get it. We were moving too quickly when there are people, and I hate to admit this, that we have to be sensitive around. This isn’t a normal situation where girl and guy can sail off into the sunset right away.”
She smiled sadly. “No sunset for us, huh?”
“Oh, there’ll be a sunset, sweetheart, we just have a longer journey.”
Groaning, she slammed her head down on the table. I wasn’t too sure what to do with that.
“Err, you okay over there?” I lived with two women so I was used to crying, shouting, screaming, throwing things and all that other fun womanly hormonal crap but I was lost right now.
“When you say things like that, Logan, it makes it ten times harder.”
“Oh. Right… Sorry. Do you want me to make a joke about how it’ll never happen because you turned me gay?”
She peeked up over her hands. “You’re ridiculous, you know.”
“Wanna go for a run?”
“A run? Now?”
“Yeah. Well, I was gonna offer you a bedroom workout but I figured that’s a no no… right?”
Picking up a wooden coaster, she threw it at me. I caught it and laughed.
“Thought so.”
We’d work on that one later.
“Fine. A run it is.”
“You know where some spare clothes are.” Would she wear mine or go back to borrowing Jace’s? Mine, wear mine.
With one last bitey lip smile, she left to go get changed. Wear. My. Fucking. Clothes.