Logan’s eyes met Cam’s. “Yeah,” he said, pulling his gaze back to his older brother. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “I just needed a breath of air.”
“Well if you two are done having your twin moment, you should come back in,” Tanner said, grinning at them both. “Becca’s drunk, Maddie’s half-asleep, and Van is talking about us all going clubbing. So I suggest we have one last drink and head back to our hotel.” He clapped Logan’s shoulder. “I want to raise a glass to my big brother.”
“I’m your big brother, too,” Cam pointed out. “And so is Gray.”
“Then I’ll raise a glass to you all. It’s not often we get the chance to spend time together like this.”
“Especially without kids,” Gray pointed out. “And there’ll be another little Hartson very soon.”
Logan’s mouth felt dry at the thought. He would be a dad in five month’s time. Totally responsible for another life, when he didn’t even have his own sorted. Weird how that thought hit him like a bolt from the blue when he’d seen the baby on the ultrasound screen, ran his hand over Courtney’s soft bump. Gray had told him before how hard he’d found it to connect with the twins during Maddie’s pregnancy, at least until he could feel them move and kick and squirm against his hand. And then when they’d been born, he’d felt a love so fierce it had taken his breath away.
Would Logan be the same? He was pretty sure he would be. And the thought scared him because if he thought he was out of control at the moment, that feeling would be tenfold once he was a father.
He had a lot to think about. But for now, he was going to go inside the restaurant and spend time with his family. The ones he was born with – not the family he intended to make with the only woman who’d ever stolen his heart.
“Come on, I’ll buy you all a drink,” he muttered, inclining his head at the kitchen door.
Cam slapped him on the back. “Sounds good to me.”
“Tonight was amazing,” Paris said when all the guests had gone and they’d finished shutting the restaurant down. It was almost two a.m. and Logan was beat. “I still can’t believe that you’re leaving this all behind.” She said as she pulled on her coat and they walked to the door. “This is who you are, Logan. It’s what you excel at.” She waved her hand at the restaurant, her eyes intense. “Look at what we’ve achieved together.”
He turned his head to look. Chairs and tables. Empty plates and stacked cutlery. It sent no thrill through him at all. “I’m done with this,” he told her. “It’s over.”
“You’ll be back,” she told him. “Just as soon as the excitement with your farm girl has worn off. She can’t keep you happy, Logan. You and I both know that. You’re a man that likes to get things done. What will you do there, spend your life changing diapers? You’re better than that.”
“There’s nothing better than that,” he told her. And he knew it was true. He didn’t need a week to think about it. Everything he wanted was in Hartson’s Creek. The woman he loved, the baby he knew he would be crazy over.
His whole damn heart.
“You’ll regret it,” she told him. “You will. Nothing will ever feel as good as this does. We’re vampires, Logan. We feed off this high.”
He shook his head. “I used to be. Once. But now I realize how crazy that is. Working like a madman just to make a few more bucks. To get our name in the paper and all over the city. But that doesn’t keep you warm at night. It doesn’t fill your heart. Not like family and love and knowing there’s a little piece of you growing inside of the woman you love.”
She blinked, her mouth tight. “So you really are doing this, huh?”
Yeah, he was leavin
g this behind. And going to Hartson’s Creek. He was in love with Courtney Roberts. All he wanted to do was take care of her and their baby.
Now he just needed to find a way to persuade her that he meant it.
Chapter Thirty
Giving somebody space was much harder than it sounded once you realized you want to spend the rest of your life with them. Logan barely slept on Saturday night, and Sunday was a blur of breakfast with the family at his favorite Boston diner, followed by farewells as most of his family left for the airport to head home, while Cam was leaving with the team for a football game the following evening.
That left Logan alone in Boston, with his thoughts and the knowledge that he had five days to decide how to make this better. Every few minutes his fingers would reach for his phone, his resolve wavering as he thought about calling her.
He wanted to hear her voice. There was an ache in his heart that wouldn’t go away, no matter how much he tried to ignore it. He knew that talking to her would soothe it. Make it all feel better.
But she’d asked for him to take some time and he was going to do that for her. For a little while, at least.
Walking toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that gave him a perfect view of Boston sprawling out beneath him, he leaned his head on the glass, his breath fogging it as he exhaled heavily. It was impossible to remember the last time he’d actually had time on his hands to think. Cam probably would tell him that was dangerous. The corner of his mouth lifted as he thought of his twin.
Cam had been right yesterday when he’d told Logan that he needed to let go of the outcome. But it was almost impossible not to wonder how to fix this thing between them. Standing here in an apartment he didn’t want to live in, looking down at a city he didn’t feel part of anymore, more than anything he wanted to fix it.
But first he needed to work on himself.
Needed to accept that he couldn’t control everything the way he’d always tried to do. He wasn’t perfect, his life wasn’t perfect, and no amount of pushing himself to the extreme was going to make it that way.