Page 166 of In Spades

It had been two days of him avoiding me, and me doing my best to not make things awkward. I didn’t want to rush him into accepting my presence in their lives, but I was getting antsy.

For a grown man, I should have had more patience. But it was hard to tap into my self-control when all I wanted was to make life-altering moves.

Logan didn’t say anything as he filled his mug, so I decided to fill the silence. “Sleep okay?”

He grunted. “Yeah.”

I looked at the time. Zoey would probably be the first to wake up, but even she would sleep for a few more hours.

“Figured maybe you couldn’t sleep,” I said as I grabbed a bagel out of the bread box. I held the bag up, offering him one.

Logan shook his head.

“Hell, when I was your age, I’d sleep until noon if I could,” I said, returning to the fridge for a carton of cream cheese.

“It’s quiet here,” he finally said. “At the trailer park, there’s always noise. If it’s not stuff goin’ on inside the house, it’s shit happening outside. People gettin’ in fights, cars going by...” He blew on the coffee before taking a cautious sip. “I guess I’m used to sleeping through the noise.”

“Quiet makes you nervous?”

He shrugged again.

“I get it,” I said. “Probably makes all the little things seem bigger than they really are.”

“I guess.”

We stood around the kitchen in companionable silence. Logan drank his coffee while I ate my bagel. Not quite a truce, but a cease-fire at least. I could work with that.

“Anything on your mind?” I asked as I wiped the crumbs, poppyseeds, and sesame seeds off the countertop and into the sink.

Logan eyed me cautiously, as if he was trying to figure out my angle.

“Maybe you want to talk about what went down between me and your sister a few weeks ago? I’m an open book, Lo. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Why’d you lie to her?” he asked, staring hard at the floor. His question stung, but the look on his face spoke to the pain it caused him. “To all of us.”

I leaned against the kitchen island, facing him. Mimicking his posture, I leaned back and crossed my arms. “Sometimes love makes you brave, and sometimes it makes you stupid.” I looked down at the floor, paused, then back to him. “I fell in love with Kristin faster than I thought was humanly possible. And I was scared that being up front about who I was would make me lose her.”

“But you did lose her,” he said with an edge to his words.

“Yeah, I did. And it hurt like fucking hell.”

He smirked. Apparently, the best way to gain favor with him was to drop a solid four-letter word behind his sister’s back.

“Like I said, sometimes love makes you brave, and sometimes it makes you stupid. Watching Kristin walk away hurt more than anything I’d ever felt before. I knew that if I didn’t do whatever it took to win her back, I’d live with that hurt for the rest of my life.”

“So, it made you brave enough to…” His voice trailed off.

“To tell her I was wrong. To be a better man. The night she came over here to give me a piece of her mind, I knew she was pissed. She had every right to be. But all I could think was that I had a shot to make things right, and I was going to do whatever it took.”

“You really love her, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

I nodded. “That’s never changed.” I motioned for him to follow me to my office and was thankful when he did.

Logan paused at the door and squinted. The black-out curtains were drawn, bathing the room in nothing but utter darkness.

“It’s like a dungeon in here,” he said.

That made me laugh. “Kris thinks so, too.”

---