Page 28 of Fall From Grace
“No, but I can blame you for me not being able to relax,” he shoots back, his tall frame hunched over. “It used to be easy to lose myself in whatever vice I wanted. Drinking, getting high, fucking—then you had to come onto me at that club and give me that fucking look.”
“You’re the one who came onto me, and I don’t know what look you’re talking about. If you want to drink, get high, and see how many girls you can sleep with while here, then go for it. Have fun.” For some reason, it doesn’t sound like my heart is behind my words.
He laughs a bitter laugh. “This shit will never be enough to compare.” He quiets and adds in a hushed whisper I barely hear, “It’ll never be the same.”
“The same as what?”
The look he sends me is sharp and biting, and I flinch under its weight. “None of your fucking business,” he hisses out, sounding like an animal. Vicious, venomous, even violent.
“Why are you so… so—” I suck in a hard breath. “—so rude?”
And he is. He is mean and rude and everything I hate, honestly. From our very first interaction at the bookstore on campus to now; he’s hardly ever shown an ounce of kindness. He’s the very opposite of the kind of guy I like—then again, my ex wasn’t as nice as I thought he was, so maybe Logan is exactly the kind of jerk I gravitate towards.
“Why’d you have to look at me like that and fuck everything up?” he shoots back. “Worse than things were already fucked up?”
If there’s one thing this confusing, aggravating conversation is doing, it’s getting my mind off the reason I came outside in the first place. So yay for that, but boo for everything else. I’m getting more and more flustered as the minutes go by.
“I don’t even know what look you’re talking about,” I say, holding out my hands in a surrendering gesture.
“Yeah, like I believe that.”
I groan. This guy… it’s like he has a one-way ticket to my nerves. He knows exactly how to hit them in the quickest time possible.
Logan sits back, turning his face toward me as he studies me again. “You’re awfully dressed up tonight. Looking for another dick to ride?”
“You’re so crass, it’s gross.”
“You didn’t think I was gross when I was inside of you.”
My cheeks immediately heat up, and I can’t hold eye contact with him. I bring my hands to my face, hoping that I can, I don’t know, wipe away the warmth on my face with my palms or something just as silly. “Shut up,” I whisper while still looking away.
“If you didn’t come here for another dick, then why did you come? Call me crazy, but I don’t think parties are your scene.”
With a sigh, I lower my hands to my lap. “I wanted to have fun.”
“Are you?”
This whole conversation reminds me of the one we had at the club, before I decided to spend time with him, only things are different now. It’s been a week and two days, and things are so different.
But, at the same time, they’re still kind of the same. How sad is that?
I don’t know what makes me say it, but I tell him the truth: “No. I don’t know what I wanted out of tonight, but… I can honestly say I didn’t want to see my ex.” I pick at the dress’s bottom hem as I bite the inside of my cheek, the wound in my heart still too raw.
Logan sits a bit straighter when he hears me say that. “Your ex is here?” Don’t know what makes him so interested in that fact, the weirdo.
“Yeah, he’s inside. It’s why I came out here, before he could see me.” I chuckle softly, though that chuckle is full of pain. “Or maybe he did see me, and he pretended not to. I don’t know which one would be worse.”
“We could go inside. You could be all over me. I’m sure we could make the asshole jealous—”
“No,” I say quickly. “No, I don’t think so. What makes you think I’d want to be all over you, anyway?”
This guy is hot and cold. The smirk he gives me right then is legendary, the kind of expression that burns itself into your mind, making itself a permanent home. “It was only a week and a half ago that you were coming undone for me. Trust me, I could get you there again—with all your clothes still on.”
“You’re insane. Should I bring up your room of guitars just to change the subject?”
Logan scowls at me, that smirk morphing into a frown. Again, he’s hot and cold. “Shut up. You don’t know anything about that. Stop bringing that shit up.”
“Believe it or not,” I say, trying to sound as tough as possible, “you don’t have the right to tell me to shut up about anything.” Normally I’m the type of person who lets people walk all over me; being firm isn’t a strong point of mine, but this guy makes it easy for me to have a backbone and use it. I don’t know whatthat says about us. “Why does it matter if I bring up your guitar room?”
