Logan, the asshole, snorted. “I’m sure they’ve heard stranger stuff.”
Andrew scoffed and said nothing.
The silence stretched, both of them just breathing into the phone like two weirdos. But he couldn’t make himself hang up. God, he felt like he’d burst into tears if Logan hung up on him.
“I really hate you,” he whispered, his voice catching. “How are you so well adjusted already while I’m such a mess?”
There was no response for a while.
A breath, then another.
Logan said stiffly, “I wouldn’t be calling you in the middle of the night if I were well adjusted.”
“I think that was an insult, but I’m too drunk to get offended.” Andrew wished it were true. He might be drunk, but Logan’s words stabbed something deep inside of him, stabbed and twisted. No one needed him. No one wanted him. No one wanted to need him.
It was fine. Fine. He didn’t want to need Logan, either.
Logan sighed. “Drink some water and go to sleep, Andrew.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he said, even though he was already getting up to go to the mini-bar. He opened a water bottle and drank as much as he could without feeling sick, the phone still pressed to his ear. He was irrationally afraid that Logan would hang up on him, and that fear creeped the hell out of him. He really was messed up in the head, wasn’t he?
Feeling tired, Andrew climbed back into the bed and lay on his side.
“Now sleep.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that,” Andrew mumbled, just to be contrary. I don’t need you to sleep, he wanted to say, but it kind of felt like too much of a lie.
Logan made an irritated noise. “Then why did you want my number?”
Andrew said nothing to that, turning onto his stomach and hugging his pillow. “Don’t hang up,” he ordered. Pleaded.
God, he’d never felt so pathetic.
There was silence on the line.
“I won’t,” Logan said at last.
Andrew breathed out, relaxing a little.
He didn’t even notice falling asleep.
Chapter 15
The hangover the next morning wasn’t as bad as the ball of humiliation that had settled in Andrew’s stomach ever since he’d woken up. Fuck, had he really gotten drunk enough to go look for Logan? Like some kind of pathetic stalker? Ugh. And then he’d basically begged Logan not to hang up on him. Double ugh.
“Stupid,” Andrew whispered, staring at the ceiling of the room.
The room in Logan’s hotel. Just great.
If life could give him one blessing, he would have forgotten what happened last night, but nope, he remembered the mortifying phone conversation with perfect clarity. It figured.
He considered getting up and going to the office, but it wasn’t like he was needed there. He wasn’t needed anywhere.
The thought just made him feel sorrier for himself, and he hated it, hated feeling so weak and pathetic. He refused to be that pathetic.
Andrew forced himself to get out of bed, take a shower, and go outside. He might not be needed anywhere, but it didn’t mean he should let himself sink into a well of depression. He should at least take a walk, be around other people, and hopefully become a functional human being instead of a… whatever mess he was now.
It was easier said than done.
The longer he spent outside, around all the noise, around all those people, the more anxious he became. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel so alone on a busy street, but apparently it was. No, “alone” was the wrong word. He felt like he was some kind of alien from another planet, like he couldn’t connect to all these people at all. He couldn’t understand them, he didn’t want to be around them, and the more he stayed around them, the harder his heart beat, his anxiety rising and transforming into a panic.
He returned to his hotel room, feeling mentally wrung out and physically shaky. He plopped down onto the bed and dropped his head into his hands, feeling defeated and freaked out.
What was wrong with him? Had he developed some kind of agoraphobia? He didn’t… He didn’t think so. The thought of being outside didn’t really make him anxious. He just didn’t like all the noise and people and—it was too much. God, the island had really fucked him up, hadn’t it?
A knock on the door made him lift his head.
“Enter,” he said listlessly. It was likely a maid wanting to clean the room.
It wasn’t a maid.
It was Logan.
It felt like everything stopped, the world coming to an abrupt halt.
Andrew stared at him, wide-eyed, his mouth going slack.
Thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud-thud, his heart beat in his chest, as though trying to escape it.
Logan closed the door, leaned back against it, and stared back, his dark eyes bottomless.
Andrew had to grip the bedspread in his fists to stop himself from doing something stupid. Something stupid like launching himself at Logan and clinging to him like a monkey.