“You aren’t going to poison me, are you?” I felt the light puff of his breath on my neck as I heard his deep sexy voice ask me, his cologne invaded my senses.
“I thought about it, but I’ll let you live, at least for this visit,” I said turning, looking into those blue eyes. The anxious feeling that ran through me from his touch made my voice quiver.
“So, Mom tells me you are an interior designer,” he said pulling away from me and leaning against the counter opposite of me.
“Yep. I work for a small company here, it’s not exactly what I wanted, but it pays the bills.” I had only told my father and Anna that I would be moving and had asked that they not say anything to anyone else until I had announced it. At this point I would announce it on Saturday since I had to leave the following week, but I wouldn’t announce where I was moving, at least, not with Logan present, I would tell others afterwards.
“My god, they’ve been alone in the same room for fifteen minutes and they haven’t killed one another yet,” I heard Anna say behind us.
“It’s about time, after all they are adults. Logan, come sit with me. Tell me more about what you do while the girls get dinner.” Logan looked at me and smiled and went and sat down beside my father and they continued chatting about his life back in Boston.
Anna pulled the roast from the oven while I continued with the salad and vegetables. As Logan sat talking to my father, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. The longest I hadn’t looked at him was when he was in the living room and I was in the kitchen and I had still found reasons to go into the other room while he talked to Anna and Dad. He had grown up; he was always good-looking but now he was gorgeous. After he had left for school, I had dated several guys and subconsciously all I did was compare them to Logan. At first, I hadn’t even realized I had been doing it until I was sitting having coffee with Jenna one afternoon.
“You realize that since he has left his name hasn’t left your lips right,” she had said one afternoon. I almost choked on my hot chocolate. “Seriously, Leah, you’re always telling me something, Logan got an award, they voted him MVP of the football team. Logan called the other night. He is all you talk about.”
I went home that night and looked through my diary, every entry for the past six months had been about Logan since the night he kissed me in the kitchen. That was when it had dawned on me, not only had I been crushing on him in high school, I was still crushing on him after we moved into this house. It had just gotten worse after that kiss. I had already started with the letters and I kept them going, counting down the days between every holiday waiting to send them to him. Eventually I had even stopped dating and buried myself in school work.
I thought back to those letters, the only reason for them was to get him to answer me, acknowledge me. Instead, what I had done was pour myself into each one, finding some way to insult him in every letter so not to give my true feelings away, when all I probably had to do was stop writing them and he would return.
“Leah, dear, would you help me serve up dinner?” Anna asked now plating the roast.
Joe and Logan both continued sitting and talking while I pulled out more serving dishes. As soon as I was away from Anna and in the opposite corner, I couldn’t help but glance over at the table. I couldn’t help checking him out, those eyes and lips, the smooth skin of his neck that lead to his broad shoulders and chest. “It’s nice to have him home,” Anna whispered interrupting my thoughts and startling me, while handing over a bowl of carrots. I recovered easily and smiled gently, taking the bowl from her. “He seems happy.”
Once again, I glanced over at the table, this time locking eyes with him, his blue eyes sparkling. As I carried the bowl over to the table, I watched as his eyes washed over my body in a way a brother shouldn’t look at his sister. I could still feel his eyes on me as I walked back over to Anna to grab more dishes.
“Anna, did he show you the floor plan to his house?” Dad asked while Anna helped bring the remaining dishes to the table. I took my seat across from Logan and dished out food onto my plate.
“Yes, he did. I wanted to talk about that with you,” she said as she sat down and passed a bowl of potatoes to Logan. “I thought perhaps we could have him design us a home, for our retirement.”
“I like that idea.”
As Dad and Anna were talking, I kept my head down sliding my fork around my plate, Logan’s words from earlier playing through my mind, “I came to get my letter.” I looked up and saw he was watching me from across the table, a sly smile on his lips. Then suddenly I felt his foot run up the side of my leg.
I jumped up from the table. “Anyone want more iced tea?” I choked out grabbing my glass from the table.
My father looked at me and then to my glass, “Leah, what is the matter with you, your glass is still full.”
“Yeah but . . .”
“No buts, Leah, now sit down.”
I looked over at Logan who sat there with a shit-eating grin on his face, just like he used to do when we were younger, but that was over picking on me, not running his foot up my leg. I slowly sat back down, the conversation soon returning to normal. The only thing not normal was that for the rest of the dinner my stepbrother sat across from me, eyeing me, and playing footsie with me under the table.
“Dessert was fantastic, Mom,” Logan said dropping his fork on his plate and picking up his mug of coffee.
“Oh, no, don’t thank me, dessert was all Leah.” He looked over and then swiped his finger through the chocolate icing still on the plate and sucked the icing off his finger while looking me directly in the eyes. All that ran through my mind was his tongue licking chocolate icing from my body. I could feel heat rise to my cheeks as I studied the look on his face.
He glanced at his watch and let out a large yawn. “This damn time difference is a killer.”
“You’re more than welcome to stay in your old room,” Anna said rounding up the dessert dishes.
I almost dropped my coffee at her suggestion. He couldn’t stay in this house with me across the hall. I looked up and met Logan’s eyes, but I knew what was written on my face and it was nothing but a plea, begging for him to stay. The rational part of my brain saying no, the slut in me saying yes. “No, Mom, I’m staying at the Hilton, near the airport off McGill Road. room three sixty-eight.” I hung onto his every word permanently storing that information in my mind.
“Oh, honey, it’s such a far drive, are you sure you won’t just stay?”
He didn’t answer right away, instead he looked at me, studying my face. “Yep, I’m sure. I guess I will see you all on Saturday!” He gently smiled at them before turning his eyes to me, then he stood from the table and grabbed his jacket. He nodded at me. Dad and Anna followed him to the front door and said goodnight where they waited until he had driven away.
I was still sitting in my chair in the kitchen, fiddling with my phone, and drinking my coffee when my father and Anna returned to the kitchen. “Leah, help Anna with the dishes, please.” I ignored what he said. All that was running through my mind was Logan’s room number. I had a nagging feeling in my gut that I needed to see him, to clear the air once and for all over that damn kiss.