The Tight End (Red's Tavern 6)

“Hate you? Logan could never hate you,” Dani said.

“Well, he’ll at least want to stay as far away from me as humanly possible, I’m sure.”

She shook her head. “Logan adores you, you know,” she said. “I’ve never seen him talk about anyone the way he does about you.”

There was such a bittersweet sadness to hearing that from Dani. On the one hand, I was elated to hear it. But I also knew that everything had changed, in the span of an instant, this morning.

My insides felt ice cold.

“He’s like nobody I’ve ever met, either,” I said.

“He’s falling for you,” she said, her gaze intense. “And I know Logan well. I know that he wants things he’d never admit. He probably does want to talk to you right now. Badly. But he’s somewhere alone, because he has no clue how to handle this kind of situation.”

My insides didn’t even know what to do with themselves. It was like butterflies had been let loose inside me, but the moment they sprang up, my instincts kicked in, trying to tamp them back down.

I didn’t want to feel so strongly about Logan. It went against everything I’d been trying to shut out of my life for the last two years.

I wasn’t supposed to fall for anyone. Especially not someone who hated public scrutiny and attention. This clusterfuck this morning was exactly the reason why I should have kept Logan far away from me from day one.

But there was no denying what I felt when I heard Dani say the words he’s falling for you.

It felt like winning the damn lottery and having to keep it secret from the whole world. Like inside, I was celebrating, even though no one else could ever know about it. How could someone like Logan—crazy intelligent, witty, and adorable, not to mention having his life in order—ever fall for a bumbling big oaf like me?

I snapped out of it, pulling in a breath and trying to stop fantasizing about things I’d never truly have.

“Well, I’m going to go look for him,” I said.

“That’s what I was going to do, too,” Dani said. “Let’s split up, look around the campus, and text each other if we find him?”

I nodded. We exchanged phone numbers and headed back down into the snowy world, starting off toward the school.

15

Logan

The cold breeze bit at the corners of my eyes as I walked across campus. I didn’t just feel like I had a pit in my stomach—I felt like I had a pit in my entire chest, all the way down, hard as stone. I glanced down the sidewalk every few seconds as I walked, checking. I didn’t even know what I was looking for.

And every time I thought about last night, it was like my heart hollowed out completely.

I missed him so much.

There was nothing more I wanted than to be wrapped in Brody’s warm arms right now. To rewind time and exist in last night forever. I had felt so safe, so cocooned in the comfort of who we were together last night.

How was it possible it had all disappeared in an instant, in the harsh reality of this morning?

It was also strange feeling like people might have been looking at me here on campus. Sure, it was a Sunday morning, and the school was mostly empty, except for the few early risers walking between buildings. But for almost four years now, I’d successfully blended into the background. I didn’t have much in the way of friends besides Dani, but I’d always sort of enjoyed the anonymous feeling I had walking around the campus.

I liked being ignored. After my high school experience, being ignored actually felt great, most of the time. I could walk around not worrying about bumping into anybody I knew. I’d get the occasional head nod from other people that I’d had multiple history classes with, but in general, people just regarded me as a shy, unassuming person. I liked keeping to myself.

This morning, everything felt different.

I felt like I had a target on my back.

Earlier, as I’d made my way up the low sloped hill that led to the campus, I’d walked past two guys who I swore I recognized from the party last night. As I walked by and glanced at them, they stared at me. And just as they walked past me, I heard one mumble to the other.

“That was the dude with Bryant,” one of them had said.

Even if only a percentage of the school actually read those stupid forums, it was enough. Enough to make me feel like some strange alien in a place I’d always felt comfortable in. Football was king at KMU, and I was starting to think that it might not just be a “small” percentage of the student body who read the gossip sites.