Page 56 of What It Means To Be Found

He would laugh-react to them or send memes from manly action-adventure movies.

There was one time when the texting seemed to swing into flirtatious territory, and I panicked again and didn’t push the conversation.

And then I saw him at the gym.

If I thought Logan exercising was attractive before, it was nothing compared to seeing him exercise after having the distinct memory of what it was like to feel him inside of me. It was a crude thought, I know. However, it was truthful. Every grunt he made brought back memories, every muscle he flexed reminded me of how it flexed for other reasons. Every exhale of breath reminded me of how his mouth felt against my skin.

I was embarrassed because he definitely picked up on my horny vibes during our workout. Thankfully, he didn’t seem irritated by it. He actually seemed pretty receptive, which made me wonder if I could somehow proposition him into crawling into bed with me again before I left, if Courtney and Josh wandered away at all.

They never did.

I had no one-on-one time with Logan, and we ended up leaving without another word between us.

So later that night I sent him another selfie of me, scantily dressed in bed. I felt my heart pounding in anticipation when I immediately saw the three dots appear before they disappeared. Then they appeared again. Then disappeared.

Finally, leaving me on the edge of my seat, a message from him came through.

He sent a picture back.

It was a bathroom selfie, and he had a white towel wrapped around his waist. He had clearly just gotten out of the shower and took the opportunity to tease me back.

One thing led to another, and within a couple of minutes, we were FaceTiming again, gasping for air as we both teased each other through our phones. My heart was pounding, and I was rubbing a bit of perspiration off my forehead as I grabbed my phone and smiled at the big guy, who was already smiling back at me.

That smile was what I thought about every time I saw him in person.

Which was starting to become more and more frequent.

Josh was taking a few weeks off from recording and performing to spend time with Courtney. Which also meant that occasionally we all got together to hang out with them. Thank fuck, because I didn’t want to keep any time available in my schedule for my mother to claim. She was becoming relentless. Clearly irritated with my moving out without her approval of where I was going, she was growing more and more irritated the more I blew her off.

I knew I needed to sit down and talk with her about all this eventually, but I wasn’t in the right headspace. Instead, I wanted to hang out with my friends, and the guy I was hooking up with behind all their backs.

Who, currently, was driving all of us to Orange because there was a cute little brunch spot Courtney wanted to try. It wasn’t the first time Logan and I had shared space since the gym. We had gotten good at pretending like nothing was going on between us. We still hadn’t really spoken to each other about how we both silently agreed to not tell our friends about us, but I weirdly loved it. How Logan and I were on the same page about our situation. How our physical relationship was sensitive information considering how rocky our friendship started all that time ago.

I sat in the middle of the back seat of his truck, and I would occasionally catch his dark eyes on me in the rearview mirror before they would quickly flick away. My stomach would heat at the moment our eyes met, making my nerves hum with energy the more and more we hung out without talking to or touching each other.

We finally made it to brunch and, just like Courtney hoped, it was cute and the food was delicious. I couldn’t tell you what we spoke about the entire time though. I couldn’t tell you what Taylor, Beck, Adam, or Josh chatted about. I could, however, tell you that the restaurant’s AC system needed to be fixed because every time I caught Logan’s gaze across the table, my skin would heat to the point where I was genuinely worried that I would start sweating.

We had texted the last few weeks, trying to see when we could meet up again. This was a task that was surprisingly difficult given his training schedule that was starting to prepare for the new hockey season and the schedule I had with work. There was an end-of-summer party the clinic was throwing for the clients and their families, and that ended up being much more time-consuming than I realized.

All of this to say, if I didn’t get to touch or kiss Logan again soon, I would probably explode from frustration.

Based on the heavy looks he kept giving me before promptly turning away and pretending to focus on the conversation around us, I had a feeling he was right there with me.

“Want to come with?” Beck asked me, making me blink out of my horny thoughts and focus.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“There is a cute little bookstore down the street, everyone else is going to get ice cream and browse the farmers’ market. Do you want to come with me?” Beck asked. I grinned and nodded my head. I wanted to buy a few books of my own, instead of always borrowing Courtney’s. I had recently lost one of her paperbacks, and no matter how thoroughly I ripped my bedroom apart to try to find it, I knew I needed to accept my fuck up and replace the book.

So I decided to pair off with Beck while everyone else agreed to meet back up at the farmers’ market in an hour (because otherwise Beck and I would spend the rest of the day in the bookstore).

Adam had just kissed Beck goodbye when Logan followed us out of the restaurant and glanced between the two groups. Josh, Courtney, Taylor, and Adam already all had their backs to us as they headed in the direction of the farmers’ market, and to our surprise, Logan had turned and followed Beck and me to the bookstore.

“Do you like to read, Logan?” Beck asked, smiling up at the large man. If she was surprised that he followed us to the bookstore, she didn’t show it.

Logan lifted his hands, and I tried my hardest to watch his ASL carefully while also watching where I was walking on the sidewalk.

Not a lot, Logan signed—and I mentally cheered for how helpful those online ASL classes I had been taking were, I like – find – books – I can.

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