Page 56 of Breathless

My head is racing. One side of my brain tries to remind me that girls do actually lope riders’ horses—warm them up in the ring—before a competition, but the other side screams that this girl wants to ride Logan. If she hasn’t ridden himalready.

When I reach his truck, I take a few calmingbreaths.

Talking to him last night about how he feels about me was somehow easier than this. Easier than dealing with hispast.

Maybe it’s because I can’t compete with these kind of girls, confident women who go after what they want. Women who can afford twenty-thousand-dollar horses when I can barely afford flip-flops atTarget.

What would it be like to get what I want? My whole life I’ve been scrambling to make ends meet and never quite achieving this goal. It’sexhausting.

Almost as exhausting as the idea that this run-in won’t be the last. How many more times will we run into girls Logan knows in the biblicalsense?

I get that it’s not fair to hold his past against him, but I can’t help how much it hurts to think of him with otherwomen.

It’s not as though this is the first time I’ve witnessed such a reunion. He had one yesterday with Renee. Except this feelsdifferent.

Because now I know what it’s like to have his hands on me. To melt under his kisses. To wake up to his warm body and gentletouches.

To feel like he’smine.

But he’s not mine. And he probably never willbe.

The Logan entourage exists the gas station, and I turn my back to them so I can blink away the sting in myeyes.

Will it always be like this? Will I always feel secondbest?

I need a distraction in the worst way, so I pull out my phone and notice I’ve missed a call from Dawn. I dial her up before I give in to my homicidal rage and murdersomeone.

“Joey, I’m glad you called! Do you remember thatcontractor…”

I try to listen to my cousin, I do, but I glance over my shoulder as the brunette says her “friend can join them for some fun if he wants” and my hearing cuts out like my circuit breakeroverloaded.

I take deep breaths to keep the tears at bay, but this blow to my heart is an arrow to the bullseye, and the hope that had been building this week bursts. Suddenly I feel like that pathetic kid who tagged along behind Logan, following him wherever hewent.

When my vision clears, the women have gone, and Logan is standing in front of me frowning, but I can’t speak. I’m too busy wondering if he’s envisioning a ménage with that girl and herfriend.

It’s almost comical. I’ve barely lost my virginity, and Logan has women in different parts of the state who want to sex him up. It makes me embarrassed about the things I admitted to him last night, to only having done it once and learning moves fromPornHub.

A tinny voice catches my attention, and I lift my phone back to my ear to find my cousin talking away. I let her yammer on as Logan quietly unlocks my door and I get in thetruck.

Logan gets behind the wheel, and I feel him watching me, but I stare out the window. A whirlwind of colorful houses on stilts whiz by, and I try to make sounds like I’m listening to what my cousin is saying, but I don’t because I’m having an out-of-bodyexperience.

We pull up to the condo, and I get off the phone still not having a clue what Dawn explained. I’ll have to call her back. She’ll think I’m a nutcase for not absorbing one moment of the conversation we justhad.

When Logan parks, I reach for the door handle, but he puts his hand on mythigh.

A knot of emotion wells in mychest.

“Bitsy, I’m sorry about what happened back there.” I swallow, and he lets out a long sigh. “You know”—he coughs—“you know my history, better than I’d like, so I’m sure none of that shit comes as a surprise, but just to be clear, I’ve never been with those chicks, and I have no plans to search themout.”

At a loss for words, he pauses, so I fill it in. “So you haven’t had a ménage?” I don’t know why I ask. Maybe to torture myself with how our experiences are so vastlydifferent.

When he cringes, my heartsinks.

“Fuck.” Dropping his head into his hands, he pushes his hair out of his face and turns to me. “This might be hard to believe because I know I have a terrible reputation, and I can only imagine what you’re thinking right now, but I haven’t been like that for awhile.”

I want to believe him, more than I want my next breath, but there’ve been too many times where I’ve seen him sneak off, presumably to get laid, to give those words muchcredence.

Logan must see my reluctance because he grabs my hand and looks in my eyes. “I swear, Joey, I’m not sleeping around and partying anymore. I’m not thatguy.”

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