Page 54 of Whenever You Call

“How often do you go back to visit them in Michigan?” I asked, my legs tucked up under my ass, and my cheek against my fist as my elbow rested on a thick, gray cushion beside me.

Logan looked at me, glass of wine in hand. “I don’t.”

“Never?”

“Not if I can help it. I find it hard to go back there after everything that happened.”

“Twelve years is a long time to be away from home, Logan.”

“Home isn’t a state for me.”

“Where is then?”

“Wherever I feel like I can be myself, I suppose.”

“And that’s here in LA?”

“For now,” he said simply. “I figured I could hide away in this overpopulated city while still doing some good. There are enough people here to keep me busy, and when I help others, I feel better about everything else.”

“You really do, don’t you?”

Instead of answering, he took a sip of his wine, draining the glass only to lean over to reach for the bottle and hold it up to me, asking for my permission to take more.

“Go for it. What’s mine is yours.” Realizing how strong that sounded, and noticing his raised brow, I added with a smile, “While you’re my guest, at least.”

“Damn. I was about to stake claim on the Range Rover.”

“You can have it. It’s not really my thing.”

“Score.”

“Stop deflecting,” I said when he sat back again, resting an ankle across his opposing knee and letting his wineglass sit upon that.

He looked good.

Really good.

Too good.

“What am I deflecting from?” he asked, bringing my thoughts back on track.

“Telling me why you never go back to Michigan.”

He looked off to the side, exhaling heavily before he brought his eyes back to mine. “People say death is inevitable. Like we should all be there, ready and waiting for it, holding a placard, and welcoming its arrival, no matter how much we dread it along the way. They put a timestamp on grief once it’s been and gone, too.Time’s a great healer. You’ll learn to live again.All those cliché, bullshit remarks we’re all guilty of using. Especially me with what I do…” He trailed off, glancing down at his glass and running a finger around the rim of it slowly. “But some deaths… we’re not meant to move on from them, and I got so sick and tired of people telling me that losing my best friend wasn’t my fault. That Dale made the choice. That there wasn’t anything I could have done. So, I decided to prove them all wrong and do something instead. Because therewassomething that could be done. I believed that then. I still believe it now.”

His eyes drifted back up to mine, and he let his hand fall from the rim of his glass back down into his lap.

“My family and old friends back home aren’t do-ers, Hannah. They’re ‘don’t do-ers’. They meet a problem with complications—with all the things that will get in the way. They linger around in misery and their strict, unwavering views oneverything. Spend enough time with that, and it really drags a person down. When Dale died, I realized how short life was, so I decided to be the change. To be the person who said that yeah, death can affect me, but I can also fight against it. I can pick up a sword, swing it around, and at least scare the bastard off for a while. I couldn’t bring Dale back. I couldn’t do any of the stuff to protect him the way I should have all those years ago… but I can sure as shit do it for him now. But every time I went home, I’d get dragged back down again. My family didn’t want me to be a paramedic. That was no good to them, and they reminded me of it every time I visited. The best thing to do? Stop visiting.”

I frowned. “What did they want you to be instead?”

Logan licked his bottom lip, dragging his teeth over it. “I had everything I needed to be a pro-football player.”

My mouth parted, and I stared at him, blinking only once. “Are you serious?”

“Apparently, I made a pretty good quarterback.”

“Logan…”

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