Page 43 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
“One would argue where you go to school affects your personality.”
“Only when you make high school your personality.”
I looked away from him and back out the windshield, feeling myself scowl. Another point to him. He could stop with the good comebacks at any time.
“He’s a neighbor kid,” Logan said, answering my question. “Goes to Jefferson’s middle school down the street. His mom works ’til seven, so he waits with me after his football practice ends so I can give him a ride home.”
“Selfless of you,” I said, but my tone was sarcastic. I hated myself for it—itwasselfless of him. Why did he have to be such a good-looking personandnice? He couldn’t have been like Ashton or Kyle, and been a complete jerk? He had to be kind, too?This is not gush about Logan hour. “I actually came here for a reason.”
“Sonotjust to yell at me, then?” For a second, a familiar glint returned to his eye. Logan took in my cheer uniform, and I wanted to squirm under his roaming stare. “You have a game today?”
“It was a spirit day.”
“For the Most Likely To list?”
My hands slipped off the steering wheel. “H-How did you?—”
“A few kids at Jefferson are subscribed to that gossip site,” he said, and then glanced off to the side. “I saw your name on there.”
Of course he’d seen it. My cheeks burned. “It doesn’t mean anything. I’m not going to peak in high school.”
“Okay.”
“I’mnot.”
Logan didn’t even blink. “I didn’t say you were.”
But he didn’t agree with me. He didn’t deny it with me.Of course you won’t. He didn’t say that, and it was the only thing Iwantedhim to say.
“You did, though,” I pointed out after a beat. “In the alley on Friday.”
“I wasn’t talking toyou.”
I could see the boy in the passenger seat of Logan’s car in the side-view mirror, and he was staring hardcore. “My friends used what you said and made me the laughingstock at Brentwood High.”
“That doesn’t sound like it’s my fault,” he murmured quietly, thoughtfully. “I said it in private. They’re the ones who took it public.”
“You could own up to what you’ve donea little,” I all but cried. Despite the anger that’d surfaced over the label, the hurt of what happened Friday still lingered. “If you’d never gone into Brentwood in the first place, I wouldn’t be in this mess. You never should’ve called me, never should’ve asked me out, never should’ve—” I barely caught myself.Made me like you.
Without warning, Logan leaned his arms on the ledge of my window, bringing him close. Instinctively, Idrew in a breath, filling my senses with him—and I immediately regretted it.
As an athlete, I’d learned to appreciate the scent of sweat over the years, the obvious badge of a person dedicated to their sport. Sure, most of the time, it stunk to high heaven—I’d rather take a nail file to the eye than step into the boy’s locker room—but the scent of someone’s natural body odor mixing with their deodorant, and the grass and dirt of the field… As a cheerleader, I could appreciate it.
Of course Logan didn’t smell bad. Of course it was the complete opposite. Earthy, sun-warmed, and heady in a way that made my head spin. That was just wrong.
And while I was trying to discreetly sniff him like an absolute freak, he caught me off-guard. “You shouldn’t be here,” Logan murmured. To his credit, he at least did look a little remorseful. “You know that. If anyone saw you?—”
“You care?”
Logan let out a soft sigh. “I do, Madison.”
Searching his eyes, I couldn’t find any hint of dishonesty. But, then again, I hadn’t seen it before when he said he went to Haven High, either. Logan was a very good liar—which made him dangerous.
“Tell me the truth,” I said to him, proud of my voice not quivering. “And don’t give me some stupid excuse about how it doesn’t matter, or that you think I’m too obsessed with Brentwood to give me a straight answer. I’m going to ask you, and I’m going to trust you to be honest with me.” I reached up and took my sunglasses off. “Did it mean anything to you?”
Logan’s eyes were so much brighter without my lenses, a clear blue instead of a dark, stormy color, whollyfocused on me. He didn’t ask me to clarify. He reached up and touched his fingertips to the side of his throat, an almost absentminded movement. “It didn’t at first,” he admitted quietly. “But then it did.”
I gripped my sunglasses so tightly that they bent a little. “When?”
