Page 102 of Puck Struck
The words hit like a slap. I step back with a startled gasp.
"I'm not trying to make this about me. I just want to help."
"You want to help?" He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Then give me some space. Let me handle my family's crisis without having to worry about managing your feelings too."
Each word is like a knife twisting deeper into my heart. The pain of rejection douses the heat of the anger curdling in my chest and I feel myself falter, all the old wounds opened back up to pummel me like a crushing wave.
"Okay, I get it," I croak out. "Space. I can do that."
"Good." He reaches for the door handle then pauses. "And Cam? Maybe you should think about whether this whole thing," he gestures between us "is really what you want. Because it's only going to get more complicated from here."
He gets into the truck before I can respond. The door slams shut, ignition roaring to life. When he peels out of the lot, I just stand there, staring at the back of his truck, my feet rooted to the pavement like they’re submerged in sticky tar.
I walk to my car and slide into the driver’s seat. Resting my forehead against the steering wheel, I sit still for a long time after he leaves, trying like hell to process what just happened. The Logan who held me last night, who shared his deepest fears and childhood trauma, who made love to me like I was something to be cherished…that Logan is gone. For no good reason. Replaced by this cold, distant stranger who looks at me like I'm just another problem to solve.
Maybe I am.
Maybe Keating was right. Maybe I am the reason everything's falling apart for him.
A text rattles me. I grab my phone, hoping against hope it’s from Logan.
It’s not. It’s from Carter.
Team dinner tonight at Romano's. You coming?
Team dinner. As if I can smile and laugh and joke like my world isn’t crumbling. As if I could hold down a single bite of food when my insides are churning with the worst kind of anticipation and panic.
Maybe. Need to see how I'm feeling.
More importantly, I need to figure out how to give Logan the space he wants without losing him completely. How to be supportive without being clingy. How to love someone who's convinced he has to handle everything alone.
I finally pull myself together enough to start my car. I can't shake the feeling that I'm already losing him. That whatever we shared last night was just a moment of weakness, an emotional escape, a brief connection before reality consumed us both.
And the reality is that Logan Shaw has a family to save and a career to end, and I'm just the rookie who got in his way.
I spend the rest of the day pacing my apartment, checking my phone every five minutes for texts that don't come and sketching furiously in attempt to regain some sense of peace and calm. None of it works. Then, like a moron, I turn on ESPN news and immediately regret it. They're talking about Logan's retirement, speculating about his reasons, showing clips of him at practice looking distant and stressed.
I throw my pen against the wall.
They mention me exactly once.
"Shaw's linemate, rookie Cam Foster, had no comment when approached for this story."
No comment. Like I don't matter. Like I'm just a footnote in Logan's story.
Maybe that's all I've ever been.
Nighttime rolls in and I can't take the radio silence anymore. I grab my keys and walk to the door. I’ll just drive to his place and corner him. He’ll have to talk to me if I show up, right? I will find a way to make him explain why he's shutting me out when I'm just trying to help.
I press the ignition button and my phone rings in the console next to me. Logan's name flashes on the screen and I stab the Accept button.
"Hello?"
"Cam." He sounds exhausted. "I'm sorry about earlier. I was an asshole."
"It's okay," I say, even though it's not. "You're under a lot of pressure."
"That's not an excuse." He pauses. "Look, I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me."
