Page 27 of What It Means To Be Found

Damn, he was tall.

Logan’s lips were pressed a little tightly together, and the corner of his lips turned up just enough to let me know he was trying to hold it in. I narrowed my eyes at him as his hands lifted.

Your book. Logan signed. I cocked my head to the side, confused.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I kept my hand on his pec, mostly because it was a nice dense pec, but I played it off like I was distracted by our conversation and forgot my hand was still on him. He wasn’t shrugging out of my touch or anything.

A-L-I-E-N P-O-R-N, Logan finger spelled for me, I look at you like the porn you read?

I pressed my lips together as my eyes widened, my cheeks heating from embarrassment. Fuck, was he really already teasing me? I knew blurting that out at the gym would come back to bite me in the ass. I knew that explaining to him that I read alien erotica would be worse than him thinking I had a crush on him. At least at the time, he was polite to me. Courtney was right when she suggested that if he thought I liked him he would be nicer. He didn’t roast me as much at the gym.

Now, though, he was back to teasing me again. And it still felt condescending.

“No,” I replied with a defiant raise of my chin, lowering my voice as I lifted the sunscreen to spray the rest of his chest. “Because in the porn that I read, the men look at the women they’re interested in as if they’ll starve without her,” I explained, aggressively rubbing the sunscreen across Logan’s abs. “They look like they’re using every muscle in their body to keep from grabbing her and taking her, right then and there.” I knelt down, ignoring how Logan stepped away from me one pace as I sloppily sprayed his legs and bare feet. “They don’t look at women as you look at me; like you’re disgusted.”

I stood up and motioned for Logan to turn around, staring pointedly in between his pecs. God, they were massive.

Logan ignored me and lifted his hands, You – me.

“Huh?” I asked, not understanding all the words he used.

Logan signed again, stepping forward and lowering his head closer to mine as he mouthed, You are blind.

“How?” I rolled my eyes and walked around him, spraying his back and shoulders. I was lazy and knew that I would miss spots, but I didn’t care. Why I was even continuing to coat him in sunscreen at this point was a mystery to me.

“Do I get to rub my hands all over him next?” Josh’s voice interrupted our conversation, and Logan’s jaw clenched again before we both turned to the side to see Courtney and Josh approaching us. They were both wet from their waists down, having already dipped into the ocean.

“Are you arguing again?” Courtney placed her fisted hands on her hips, frowning at Logan and me.

“Yeah,” I replied, slapping the bottle of sunscreen against Logan’s chest, and walking towards the ocean, “But we’re done.” I wanted to get away from him, because I wasn’t going to look at Logan the rest of the day. I had gotten my fill. Honestly, minus the conversation, rubbing sunscreen on him would be enough to fuel my spank bank for the time being. I knew that was shitty of me, but I accepted that.

I had dipped into the ocean, going completely under, and wetting my hair in an attempt to cool myself off. I only stayed in there for a few minutes, hanging out with Taylor who was in the water with their cutoff shirt on and everything. After we started splashing each other so much that I was coughing up salty ocean water, we finally called a truce and trudged back to the group.

Adam and Beck were making out on their towels under their umbrellas.

Josh and Courtney were on the other side of Logan’s towel, chatting with him.

Taylor had just gently crawled on top of Adam and Beck in a silly attempt to remind them that they weren’t alone and had made Beck gasp loudly from the shock of a wet body pressing against her. I had accepted that I would sit by myself on my towel next to Logan.

I pulled on my sunglasses, grabbed my phone, and laid back in the sun.

I was reading a historical romance on my e-reader app, immediately lost in the story of corsets and sexism and swooning and exposed ankles, when I noticed it had gotten suddenly quieter around me. Unsure of how much time had passed, I glanced around to see that Beck, Adam, and Taylor were gone, back in the ocean on surfboards that Adam had brought. Beck and Taylor couldn’t stand up on the board to save their lives, and Adam was laughing at their failed attempts.

Courtney and Josh were closer to the waves where the sand was wet, clearly digging some sort of hole and occasionally tossing dirt on each other.

I glanced to my side, and Logan was right there, reclined on his back a foot away from me with a baseball cap resting over his face, and his hands tucked behind his head. He had dark tufts of hair in his armpits, and his biceps popped with the position he lay in.

I allowed myself time to ogle Logan.

He was unfairly good-looking.

Suddenly, his arm shifted and he lifted the cap from his face. His dark eyes were on me as I quickly turned my attention back to my phone. Movement from his hands caught my vision and I turned to glance at him, breaking my ignoring Logan rule I had set for the day.

Are you mad at me? Logan asked.

I let out a loud, dramatic, annoyed sigh.

“No,” I replied, only lying a little bit, “I’m just not bothering with you anymore.”

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