Page 68 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
“But?”
“But I’m grateful,” Logan said. He paused for a beat, the two of us just regarding each other. “It meant I could be selfish again.”
And you have so many crappy people in your life, Logan had said to me once.And I just… selfishly wanted to be a good one for you.
“I was going to call you,” I confessed. “I’d—I’d been thinking about it, but I wasn’t going to be able to hold out for much longer.”
Logan gestured to the store around us with a grand sweep of his arm. “Despite how lame I am?”
As I looked at him, it was almost like I could feel something welling inside me. When I’d first seen Logan, I’d been right about him, but I’d also beenwrong. Logan, with his golden hair and bright blue eyes. Logan, with his wrinkled clothes, surrounded by old mint-in-the-box action figures and costumes. He was handsome, but he was unique in a way I never could’ve expected.
Logan, too, had been right and wrong before—my mind on this place had been changed, but not becauseIthought it was cool. It was becauseLoganfound it all cool.
I like that part, too, I almost said.I like all of you.
The owner of the store came back then with a small box, apologizing that it’d been hidden underneath someone else’s order. Noah had paid online, but Logan still passed him over a bill—I assumed it was for the donations he’d mentioned.
But once we were back outside, he turned to me. We shouldn’t have been standing there, in the middle of the Brentwood sidewalk where anyone could drive by and see us, but in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about this secret. I was just thinking about how wrong I was about a lot of things.
Logan lifted two closed fists. “Pick a hand,” he told me.
“Oh my God, Logan.” I wrinkled my nose. “Donottell me you do magic tricks.”
Logan’s grin stretched wider. “Pick a hand.”
“You’re really testing me with the icks, you know that? I’m starting to think you’re doing it on purpose.”
Logan wiggled both of his fists impatiently. “Just pick a hand, Juliet.”
Even though I resisted, I looked down to his fists. There wasn’t anything really discernible about them—they were both the same size, so whatever Logan heldwas small. If he even held anything at all. I begrudgingly tapped his left one.
“Oof.” Logan exhaled harshly between his teeth. He turned his fist over, hesitating. “That… was a really good guess.” And then he revealed his palm.
Sitting perfectly in the middle of Logan’s hand sat the purple, fire-breathing dragon I’d admired in the store. In his palm, it looked no bigger than the size of a quarter, smaller in his grip than it’d been in mine. That’d been what he’d passed the money over for, and he now held it out to me.
“Why are you always giving me something?” My voice came out softer than I meant, almost unsteady. “The flowers from mini golf, the goose from the arcade.”
“So you have something to remember me by,” Logan replied, voice light. Our gazes locked.So you have something to remember me by, he’d said, as if a day would come where we’d no longer see each other.
My throat tightened as I brushed the pad of my finger over the dragon’s painted flames, tracing the fleck of white in its eye that looked like a wink. I couldn’t believe Logan thought I’d ever need something to remember him. Out of everyone in my world, Logan was the one person who felt unforgettable.
It was such a small thing, a silly trinket from a shop we’d only spent five minutes at, but it made my chest ache in a way I couldn’t explain. No one else bothered to notice what caught my eye, let alone hold on to it and hand it back to me like it mattered. But Logan did. He made me feel like I mattered.
As we turned back toward his car, under my breath, I murmured, “As if I’d forget.”
Sunday afternoons were dedicated times I spent with Mom. During the week, we were both beyond busy—her with all the principal things, me with all my cheer duties and homework and social life maintenance. We established Sunday as our movie day long ago, where we would do nothing but rot on the couch, watch rom-coms and dramedies, and eat our weight in chocolate-covered fruit.
Which was healthy. It wasfruit, after all.
And Mom picked a stellar movie from her lineup—the 2013 version ofRomeo and Juliet.
I might’ve laughed if I weren’t so paranoid that the universe was trying to out me.
“Do you think it’s ridiculous?” I asked Mom.
She was cuddled up on her favorite chaise, a blue floral-printed blanket drawn up to her chin. “Which part?” she asked. “Paris’s haircut? Do you think it’s historically accurate? Probably,” she went on, answering her own question. “Romeo’s, however, certainly isn’t. Looks good, though.”
Apparently, I got my rambling from her. “The fact that Romeo and Juliet are even into each other.” I rolleda dark chocolate coated blueberry around in my palm. “I mean, their families are enemies and have always been. What about that is enticing?”
