Page 64 of Hot Saltwater Kisses

“He made you ditch your friends?” A subtle mix of incredulousness and anger had crept into Logan’s question, and was this when he’d judge me after all?

“At first, we were hiding our relationship, right? So time with my friends was time away from him. And then, once I came out and introduced him...”Fuck.I exhaled around the shaky feeling in my chest. “Not everyone liked him. In fact, most didn’t. I thought it was because they had a problem with me being gay. But now? I think it’s true what they told me—they had a problem withhim, with how I was when I was with him. So I stopped bringing him along.”

“Let me guess.” Logan scoffed, although it didn’t seem to be at my expense. “He didn’t like that.”

“Got it in one.” I dragged in a harsh breath and stared at nothing. “Accused me of being ashamed of him.”

“Of course he did.” Logan’s tone was wry and laced with something that I needed a moment to decipher.

“Speaking from personal experience?”

“Ex-boyfriend, my first year in college.” A frown stole its way across Logan’s face. “You’d justlovehim—total rich kid. He didn’t like that I lived in the dorms, he didn’t like my artsy friends, and oh, yeah, he absolutely hated Kyle.”

Brief amusement eased the tightness of my ribs. “Why—did Kyle try to make him jealous too?”

Logan snorted. “Nah, it was before Kyle appointed himself my personal gold-digger detector. But I thought you guys made up?”

“We did.” Sort of. “What happened with your ex?”

“I tried to explain that I’m not suddenly a package deal. Not saying you should never meet friends together, but not all the time, you know? I’d rather not become that couple that turns every ‘I’ into a ‘we’ without permission.” He lifted a shoulder, his casual air falling short of its mark. “I’m still a person in my own right, and I’d want the same for my boyfriend.”

God, I fucking love you.

“Did it resonate?” I asked around the stumbling mess of my heart.

“No. He made me pick.”

“And you picked your friends,” I said, not a question.

“Yeah. I mean...” He huffed out a breath. “Look, if my friends had been objectively awful, like drug dealers or whatever, that’s a bit different. But they just didn’t fit his idea of a good time, and I guess... At that point, I kind of felt like I had no real right to my family’s money because it was my dad’s—who wasn’t my biological dad, so none of it was mine. And I was trying to figure out who I was without that. So maybe I reacted even more strongly to someone telling me to ditch friends who weren’t rich. Let’s just say it was a harsh breakup.”

“Well, you were smarter than me.” I shifted into a cross-legged seat, my knee pressed against his thigh, my gaze on my hands. “Me, Istarted seeing my friends less because of Michael. Then I felt bad for seeing them less, so I stopped hanging out with them at all.”

Logan was quiet for a beat, then gave my wrist a light squeeze. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

I shot him a glance. “It was my fault.”

“You were young.”

“That’s not a blanket excuse.”

“No. But...” He considered it, eyes growing a little distant, flecks of greenish brown mixed in with a blue that mirrored the sea. “He was, what—nine years older?”

“Eight.”

“Eight years older, yeah. And it sounds like he had a real knack for manipulation.”

My chest hurt. “I moved in with him when I was eighteen.”

Logan’s gaze focused on me, a hint of wistfulness in his features. “How did your parents react?”

“They always believed that children should be free to choose their own path.” I swallowed around the sharp taste of acid at the back of my throat, skin stretched parchment-thin. “Even if it took me away from them.”

“You lost touch?” He didn’t sound surprised, and when I managed a nod, he pursed his lips. “Yeah, I gathered there’d been a rift. But they just… They just gave up on you? They’re yourparents.”

“They tried. For a couple of years, they tried. But I kept rejecting them—thought I had it all figured out, that I was living on the edge like a true rebel and they just didn’tunderstand.” I’d been blinded and arrogant, miles deep under Michael’s spell. “It was how Michael wanted it, you know? No one left but him. Nowhere I could run to.”

“But you did.” Logan’s words were quiet, melting into the gentle rhythm of the waves. “You ran.”

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