Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Lucy and I climb out. My phone starts ringing again.
“Can you believe it?” says the woman, presumably her roommate, Jane. “I can’t.”
“What?” I say.
“Look,” Lucy murmurs from beside me.
We both walk around the car, staring at Jane’s phone.
It’s a photo of Lucy and me taken at the window of the community center.
We’re kissing.
I answer my phone and hold it to my ear. “Yeah, Bryce. I’ve just seen it.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lucy
“I know you warned me,” Logan says on the phone, looking almost surreal as he sits on the couch, phone in his hand like I can’t believe he’s here.
Jane watches me from the kitchen divider, a what the fuck look on her face. I aim an I’ll tell you later hand at her, and she goes on with making our drinks.
“I should’ve been more careful, but people were going to find out anyway. She’s my girlfriend.”
“Since when?” I hear Bryce ask loud enough for me to hear too.
“Since an hour or so ago. Maybe less. No, but that’s the thing, Bryce, Bryce. Thanks. No, it’s fine…that’s it. This isn’t about my public image. This isn’t about any of that. This is just about her and me. I need to tell you upfront. When I canceled earlier, that wasn’t just this date. It was every date. Unless it’s with Lucy.”
He looks over at me with a soft smirk on his lips. I sit down, my hands smoothing over my belly as though I can already feel our future forming there.
Everything he said in the car about Rachael was awful, belly-turning to hear the agony in his voice.
When he began to cry, I felt so many protective emotions rising, knowing I had to keep my man safe. He may be a haunted tough guy to the rest of the world, but to me, he’s just my man.
He never wanted her. She cheated on him.
Everything he feels for me… It’s just for me.
“Yeah,” Logan says in a calmer voice now. “Thank you. Yeah.”
He looks up at me, his eyes getting dreamy.
“I think I will. Yeah, I’ll still be there later. Hell, man. I’ll ask.”
“Ask what?” Jane leaps in once he hangs up the phone, so full of jittering energy she can hardly place the drinks down.
Logan looks at her steadily. “Well, Jane, I’d like the honor of taking your roommate to a party. But the problem is, there are going to be cameras there.”
“That doesn’t matter anymore.” I laugh shakily, still cringing at the memory of the photos, how mismatched we looked, Logan tall and handsome and me… me. “I’ve never photographed well.”
“What?”
Logan’s on his feet, striding across the room on his powerful legs. He kneels next to my chair and takes one of my hands in both of his. It looks like he is proposing, and my everything sings out for him to make that crazy wonderful leap now.
“The only reason those photos have pissed me off,” he says. “Is because everybody else gets to see how hot you look in them, Lucy. That’s it. You’re beautiful. If that’s your concern, forget about it.”
“Do you mean that?” I whisper.
He leans over, kissing my cheek with surprising tenderness. “I mean it. In the same way, I’ve meant everything I’ve said to you today. Including the part where you don’t have to come to the party.”
“The whole world knows we’re together.”
“Yeah.” He nods, stroking his thumb over my knuckles, sending tantalizing sensations through me. “The whole world knows that you’re taken.”
“Yeah, and you,” I say, touching his hand.
“It’s official now.” He smiles, leaning over to kiss me. “Just me and you.”
Jane clears her throat loudly from the couch. Logan grins and leans back.
“She has a room,” Jane says. “But it’s not this room.”
Logan chuckles as he stands.
“What do you think I should do?” I ask Jane.
She shrugs. “You know what. Whatever you want.”
“No,” I say seriously. “But what do you think? I want your honest opinion, as my friend.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes.”
“I think you should go,” Jane says. “Whatever’s happened between you two today…I mean, look at you. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve been together for six months or a year. Or longer. You seem natural together, but also… romantic. I’m sorry. I’m playing armchair therapist.”
Logan shakes his head. “You’re right on the money as far as I’m concerned.”
“And me,” I say passionately. “Completely.”
“So go,” Jane says. “Show the world what a real couple looks like. Not that fake crap for the photos.”
My mouth falls open. “You knew?”
“I guessed,” Jane says. “It doesn’t take a genius. It looks like you don’t even want to be there in most of them, Logan.”
He laughs gruffly. “That’s sort of the point.”
“But I’m right, aren’t I?”
“You are. The only person I want is sitting right here.”
A glowing feeling whelms in me, even as something else tries to shatter it.
“Who’s going to be at the party?” I whisper.