Page 39 of The Cowboy's Second Chance
“No,” he admitted, his voice little more than a whisper. “I didn’t know that.”
“Let me guess. You just assumed the worst,” Craig said. “You just assumed that my little brother would be the sort of person who would cheat on his girlfriend with you. Is that about right?”
Logan winced a little, but he couldn’t actually deny it. It was the simple truth, after all, and he knew that Craig was aware of the situation. Had probably been watching it from the background the whole time, since he hadn’t exactly seemed surprised.
“You know, Logan, some people aren’t just in this to screw you over,” Craig commented. He did reach over and pull Logan into a hug, which was nice. Logan had messed up, Craig hadn’t tried to hide that, but it seemed like he wasn’t going to be disowned because of what he had done to Derrick.
Not by Craig, anyway. Malcolm might be a different story when he got back. He had always been the more protective one, which given Craig’s recent activities, was definitely saying something.
“I’m sorry,” Logan said, his voice a little hesitant, but sincere. It wasn’t an easy thing for any man to say, but he had been wrong. The full force of just how terribly, horribly, completely wrong he had been would only sink in later, he was sure. He was still numb with it, for the moment.
“It’s not me you have to apologize to,” Craig commented, disengaging from the hug and pulling away from Logan. “You need to apologize to my brother, you idiot. And see if he’s stupid enough to take your suspicious ass back.”
Craig descended down into the main part of the barn, and then he was gone. The guy came off as blunt as a sack of bricks, but he was remarkably perceptive. He had seemed to sense, without needing to be told, that Logan needed to be left alone.
He had some stuff to sort out, some opinions about himself and others that had been severely challenged in the course of about two seconds by one man. Alone in the hayloft where he had spent so many happy, blissful hours with Derrick, he fought with himself. Craig had set the ball rolling, but Logan had to do the work.
It took very little time to sort through it all and realize that it all came down to one point. He loved Derrick. He had messed it up beyond belief, and yes, if Derrick wanted to, Logan would cheerfully come out as bisexual to the world, not just to Malcolm.
A split second after that, he had his phone out. Maybe Derrick would never talk to him again. Maybe he would ignore Logan’s texts, or even outright block him. Logan would deserve that.
Still, he had to try. Derrick had put himself out on the line, and it was time for Logan to do the same, to make himself just as vulnerable as Derrick had been.
I’m sorry. I love you. Call me if you want to talk.
There. That put the ball in Derrick’s court, didn’t it? As well as giving Derrick the chance just to ignore the whole thing, if he wanted to. It was the perfect balance, Logan thought, and he sent the text after reading it no more than a couple of hundred times.
That was done, and even just having that text sent helped Logan get up out of the loft and get to work. Derrick could decide if he wanted anything to do with Logan. Meanwhile, Logan would work.
