Chapter Twenty
LOGAN
I woke up the next morning to warm sunlight caressing my face, the sound of birds chirping in the distance, the pleasant scent of apples filling my nostrils, and the feeling of holding a girl in my arms.
Wait…what?
My eyes flew open to reveal a very confusing view above me—light blue sky, white fluffy clouds, muted golden sunlight—and I instantly began to panic.
Why was I waking up outdoors? And who was I holding in my arms?
It didn’t take long for the memory of last night to come flooding back. I was stargazing with Emma. We were talking. She fell asleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake her. And then apparently, I fell asleep.
And neither of us woke up until morning.
I lifted my head slightly to assess the situation. Her face was nuzzled against my neck, her arm draped across my abdomen, her hand resting on my waist, one of her legs tangled with mine. Meanwhile, my arm—numb from the flow of blood being cut off from her sleeping on it—was around the small of her back, my hand resting low on her hip.
Lifting my free arm carefully, I glanced at my watch. It was almost seven o’clock. We needed to get home. And fast.
“Emma,” I said, softly nudging her.
“Hmm?” She stirred slightly. Her hand moved to my chest as she snuggled even closer.
I gulped as I stared up at the sky. This was the first time I’d ever woken up next to a girl and the first time I’d ever slept with one in the literal sense. I hated to admit it, considering who the girl was, but it was nice. The feel of her in my arms…warm…soft…
I didn’t know what to do, especially considering that when she woke up, she was going to freak the hell out.
“Emma,” I said a little louder, shaking her this time.
“What?” she mumbled, sounding annoyed. Her eyes fluttered open and her gaze caught mine. For a moment, we stared at one another. A small smile graced her lips as she brought her hand up and placed it along the side of my face. “Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey,” I found myself whispering back as my pulse suddenly quickened. This wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting.
But it was short-lived. It only took maybe three seconds before she realized something wasn’t right. Maybe it was the fact we were outside. Or the fact she was lying on the ground next to me. Whatever it was, it hit her hard. Her smile instantly vanished as she gasped. She pushed herself away from me and stumbled backward.
“What the hell?” she squealed. She glanced at our surroundings with a look of pure confusion on her face as she struggled to stand.
“We must have fallen asleep,” I explained as I sat up.
With shaky hands, Emma reached into the back pocket of her shorts as if looking for something but came up empty-handed. “Where’s my phone?” she asked, patting her other pockets. “What time is it?”
“It’s a little after seven,” I replied. I stood as well, bunching up the blanket and grabbing the flashlight.
“Shit,” she hissed, raking a hand through her slightly mussed-up hair.
My jaw dropped. “Whoa. Did Emma Dawson just swear?”
Emma shot me a glare. “I swear all the time, just usually when I’m talking about you.”
Apparently, Emma was a grouch first thing in the morning.
“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” she moaned, now practically yanking her hair out of her head.
“Calm down,” I said, walking over to her. “It’s a Sunday morning. Our parents are probably still asleep and don’t even know we’re gone.”
That was a lie. There was a good chance at least Rachel was awake, since Abby was an early riser and liked to cry loudly if nobody came to get her by the time the sun was up. I wasn’t sure about Emma’s parents, but it didn’t really matter. Our cars were both in our respective driveways, so there’d be no reason for them to suspect we weren’t asleep in our bedrooms.
We would just have to find a way to sneak in without anyone catching us…
“You’re right. My parents usually sleep in on Sundays,” she said, her voice surprisingly calm. “Either way, we’d better get home. Now.”
She broke into a run and I followed. Luckily, we weren’t too far away, and it would only take us a minute or so to make it to our houses. I was feeling hopeful that everything was going to go smoothly, but as we approached my house, I saw Rachel step out the front door to retrieve the newspaper. And then she glanced over in our direction.
Thinking quickly, I chucked the blanket and flashlight into the bushes before she could notice them and grabbed Emma’s arm, leaned in and said, “Just follow my lead.”
As we approached my driveway, Rachel gave us a curious look. “Hey, you two. What are you guys doing out so early in the morning?” She sounded suspicious.
“We just went for a jog,” I said; my breathlessness from our run lending credibility to my lie.
“Yeah,” Emma said next to me between gasps of breath. “A jog. Just jogging.”
“Oh, really?” Rachel blinked over in my direction. “Logan, you’re never up at this hour of the morning—especially not to engage in physical activity. Are you feeling okay?”
“Never better.” I grinned, giving her a thumbs-up. “Emma’s trying to get me to start waking up earlier. She doesn’t think I should sleep my summer vacation away.”
Rachel smiled. “I agree.” She glanced between us. “I was just about to start cooking up some breakfast. Emma, would you like to join us?”
“Oh, no thank you,” Emma replied politely. “I’m going to go home and collapse on the couch. I’m not used to exercise.”
Rachel chuckled. “Okay, then. See you later.” She gave Emma a wave before disappearing back inside the house.
As soon as she was gone, Emma breathed a sigh of relief. “That was close.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I muttered. “Hopefully your parents aren’t up, but if they are, just feed them the same lie we gave Rachel.”
“I will,” she said with a nod. She started walking toward her house, but stopped two steps in and turned around. “Last night was nice, by the way.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. “Yeah, it was. Talk to you later?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling back. “Let me know what Matt thinks about your mini golf idea.”
“Huh?” At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then I remembered I had thrown out the idea of having a possible pseudo double date with Matt and Riley at some point. “Oh, right. Yeah, I’ll let you know.”
“Great.” She gave me a small wave before turning on her heel and walking briskly over to her driveway.
Rachel was waiting for me by the front door when I entered the house.
“So, how’s your project coming along?” she asked, unfolding the newspaper.
“My project?”
“Yeah, you know, helping Emma find love? Made any progress yet?”
Why was she asking me this right now? With a shrug, I walked past her toward the kitchen. “A little bit.”
“A little bit?” she echoed. “Logan, what are you waiting for? The clock is ticking. I would’ve thought you’d put a rush order on this, knowing you have such limited time before our New York trip.”
“I’m working on it, alright?” I snapped, opening the refrigerator and taking out a pitcher of orange juice. “In fact, Matt’s coming over this afternoon and I’m going to suggest that he and I take Emma and Riley mini golfing tonight.”
Rachel made a face. “You’re going to invite Riley along?”
I took a gulp of orange juice. “Yeah, why?”
“Oh, nothing,” she sighed, grabbing a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. “Actually, I take that back. You know, as soon as I saw that girl step out of the car across the street, I knew you’d be all over that.”
“All over that? Really, Rachel?”
She shrugged. “Look, I’m sure Riley’s a great girl and all, but she seems a little too much like Grace. And I liked Grace, you know that, but she wasn’t good for you, and I don’t think Riley will be, either.”
I downed the rest of my juice and walked over to the sink to rinse out the glass. “Okay, first of all, I’ve hardly spent any time with Riley since she arrived here. Second of all, even if she and I decide to hook up for the summer or whatever, she’ll be heading back home before school starts, so it’s not like we’re going to embark on a relationship like Grace and I did. So, your concerns are invalid.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Taking it out, I saw I’d received a text from Emma.
Emma: Parents still asleep! Crisis averted!
My phone buzzed again with another text, this time a photo of her standing in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom with her parents asleep in their bed in the background. She was giving the thumbs-up with wide eyes and a goofy, open-mouthed grin.
I laughed as I started typing out a response.
Me: glad 2 know ur reputation with ur parents remains untarnished!
“What’s so funny?” Rachel asked, cracking an egg into a bowl.
“Nothing. Just Emma,” I replied, sticking the phone back in my pocket.
“Oh, I see,” she said with raised eyebrows.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What?”
“What?” She blinked at me innocently.
“Your voice had a tone to it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said with a slight smirk. “Anyway, back to our discussion, don’t jump into things with Riley, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “Whatever. I’m going to go take a shower. Save me some eggs?”
Rachel nodded. “I’ll even save you some bacon, too.”
“You’re the greatest stepmother ever.” I gave her a quick peck on the top of her head before exiting the kitchen.
As I ascended the stairs, I took my phone back out to see if Emma had maybe texted me again and I’d just missed the notification.
She hadn’t.
And as I headed for the bathroom, I decided not to question why I was suddenly filled with an intense feeling of disappointment.
***
The doorbell rang at exactly one o’clock and I knew it was going to be Matt. That dude was the most punctual person I’d ever met. It was annoying.
Sure enough, when I opened the door, he was standing on the front porch…with Riley at his side.
“Uh, hi,” I said, my gaze flickering from Matt to Riley and then back to Matt.
“Hey,” he said. “I know we were supposed to bro out this afternoon, but Riley was bored to tears—”
“Literally,” she interjected, putting on a fake pout. “There’s nothing to do up here. When I found out Matt was coming over to hang out with you, I invited myself to join him. I hope you don’t mind.” She tilted her head and batted her eyelashes at me.
It was an old trick, used by many girls in my lifetime, but it worked. Stepping aside, I motioned for them to come in. “I don’t mind at all,” I said, although Rachel’s earlier advice suddenly popped into my head as Riley brushed past me.
I ignored the thought as I shut the door behind us.
“This might be boring for you, though,” I warned her. “Matt and I were just going to play video games all day.”
“I don’t mind,” she said with a shrug. “Watching you two play video games beats hanging out with my parents and my aunt and uncle.”
“What about Jade?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
Jade was Matt’s younger sister. She was thirteen going on three hundred. I say that because she often looked like a vampire. She’d been going through a goth phase for at least a year now, staying out of the sun so her skin would remain translucently pale, wearing dark red lipstick, black eyeliner and eyeshadow, and dressing in nothing but all black clothing. I’d seen her a few times since summer began, and even on the hottest days she’d been clad in a black t-shirt, a long black skirt and black combat boots.
In other words, not exactly the type of girl Riley probably liked to hang out with.
Riley responded with a giggle. “I love my little cousin, but at the same time she kind of frightens me.”
“Try living with her full-time,” Matt mumbled.
I chuckled as I led the way down to the finished basement—or as Dad liked to refer to it, the “Man Mansion”.
It wasn’t as big as the name would lead you to believe, but it did run the whole span of the first level of the house, so it was probably around fifteen hundred square feet of gaming consoles, leather armchairs, a foosball table, an air hockey table, a sixty-five-inch TV, a mini-fridge stocked with cans of beer, and many other dude-centric items that kept Rachel from ever spending time down there.
“I feel like I shouldn’t be here,” Riley said, glancing around.
“It’s all good,” I said with a dismissive wave as I plopped down onto the loveseat. I opened the drawer on the side table next to it and grabbed two PlayStation controllers and gave one to Matt. “Women are welcome. They just usually don’t care to be here.”
“Oh, good.” She smiled and took a seat next to me. Like, right next to me, so that the entire sides of our bodies were touching.
I wanted to move away from her slightly, but I was already sitting up against the arm of the loveseat, so I had nowhere to go.
Well, this was going to be fun.
Matt glanced at us and smiled before dropping into the leather armchair he always sat in. In fact, he sat in it so much that my dad actually designated it as Matt’s chair, and never sat in it himself.
“What do you want to play?” I asked Matt.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Football?”
I groaned inwardly. Matt always wanted to play football games and I always wanted to play shooters. Whenever we were at my house, since he was the guest, we’d play football. Whenever I went over to his house, we’d play something with either zombies or snipers.
I turned on the TV and the console. “Well, what do you know? The disc is already in there because we always play this when you come over.”
Matt grinned. “What can I say? It helps me stay sharp with the real thing.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said, rolling my eyes. He said that every time.
A few minutes into playing, I could tell Riley was bored out of her mind. Girls typically didn’t like to watch boys play video games unless they were gamers themselves. But even still, most could probably stomach the games I liked to play because sometimes they were like watching movies. The sports games, however, usually sent girls packing.
Which was probably why Riley had pulled out her phone and was busy texting or browsing a shopping app or whatever it was girls did on their phones when they were bored.
I was surprisingly beating the crap out of Matt when Riley suddenly shifted sideways and stretched out, draping her smooth, tanned, bare legs across my lap.
Normally, I would be all about that. I was a leg guy, so having a girl practically shove hers in my face was a welcome gesture. However, when I was in the middle of a game where I was trying to beat my best friend at something he should be winning, considering he played football in real life, it was more of an unwelcome distraction.
But I didn’t say anything because, at the end of the day, Riley was a beautiful girl who was apparently into me. And she had a killer set of legs.
“So,” I said, clearing my throat. I figured now would be a good time to throw out my double date idea, as promised. “Matt, I was just thinking the other day, it’s been a while since we’ve had a friendly game of mini golf.”
Matt snorted as he kept his eyes glued to the screen. “That’s because you can never remain friendly when we play.”
“What are you talking about?” I scoffed.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, dude.” Matt paused the game and turned to Riley. “This guy has a temper when it comes to competitive sports. Every time we play mini golf, I beat his ass and he throws a hissy fit.”
“I do not throw a hissy fit,” I grumbled, even though what he was saying wasn’t all that far from the truth.
Riley laughed. “Is that so? I’ve got to see this.”
“Perfect,” I said, “because I was thinking the three of us could go play sometime. Maybe bring Emma along and we could play as pairs.”
“Oh, yes!” Riley squealed. “That sounds awesome. I’m in!”
Matt looked skeptical. “I don’t know…”
“I promise I’ll be good,” I said. “Scout’s honor and whatnot.”
He proceeded to think about it for a moment. “Okay, sure. Could be fun.”
“Great. How about tonight? You guys have anything planned?”
Matt and Riley exchanged a questioning glance and shook their heads.
“No, tonight would be fine,” Matt replied.
“Excellent.” I set my controller down on the table next to the loveseat and moved to get up. Riley took the hint and removed herself from me.
“I’m going to go grab something to drink,” I said. “Can I get you guys anything?”
“I’ll take some water,” Riley replied.
“You can grab me a Coke,” Matt said as he snatched the latest copy of Sports Illustrated from the coffee table and began flipping through it.
I nodded. “Be right back.”
As soon as I made it to the kitchen, I took out my phone and texted Emma.
Me: if ur available 2night, mini golf with Matt and Riley is on
A few seconds later, she texted back.
Emma: Nice! Thanks for setting that up. You’re the best!
I couldn’t help but smile at her response. I really was the best. I was now fully putting into motion her romantic future with Matt. It was entirely possible that tonight would be the start of it all.
As I grabbed a couple cans of Coke and a bottle of water from the fridge, I felt my smile begin to fade. Something was suddenly nagging at me and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But the feeling was short-lived, so I just ignored it as I headed back downstairs.
It was probably nothing.