“Uh… have you seen the tabloids?”
“I never read those things. And anyway, the last person I’d want to marry is a Hollywood actress or a model.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve heard how they talk when nobody’s around, the casual way they reference cheating on their partners, the way they laugh as though nothing’s ever serious, nothing matters. I don’t know – it’s difficult to explain.”
“I think I get it,” she says softly.
I’m thinking of Rachael, of Anna, of everything.
“If I ever had another kid,” I say gruffly, “I’d need to be sure the woman felt the same as me.”
But maybe that was the problem with Rachael, I realize.
Shedidfeel the same as me.
She felt nothing.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Lucy
We sit across the street from my apartment building, the atmosphere in the car feeling thick despite the cracked windows.
It’s Logan, the heat emanating from his powerful body, the subdued rage, and passion that threatens any moment to erupt.
I remember what he said about kids, about needing the woman to feel the same as him.
What the heck does that mean, exactly?Howdoes he feel?
None of it matters. The fact that he feels comfortable enough discussing this with me proves I’ve been well and truly placed in the friend zone. I’ve never been here before. Or, if I have, I’ve never seen it as a problem.
But with Logan, it’s the last place I want to be.
What am I going to do, though? Tell him to stop sharing things with me.
Any contact is better than none at all.
He looks over at my apartment, giving me a side-on view of his strong jaw and the tension in his pulsing temples. I wonder again if he regrets oversharing and if that’s the source of all this tightness.
He’s done a good job evading my questions whenever I reference his playboy lifestyle.
It’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about it. Maybe it’s simple privacy, nothing more, but not what I wish.
Nothing to do withme, specifically.
Would you like to come up for a drink?I imagine myself saying, the way people do in movies. And real life too, I’m sure. Jane would have no problem saying something like that.
Logan doesn’t seem in any rush to make me leave. I wonder if he’s just being nice, but I’m sort of starting to be able to read him…I think.
A little.
But there’s always the danger I’m projecting what I wish he was feeling, what I pray in my wildest and most untrue dreams will come true.
I think about the weeks and months before I met him, but I knew who he was, how I’d imagine my hands squeezing onto his strong arms, his intense eyes fixing me in place.
It’s always so much sweeter in real life.