Logan (Carolina Reapers 4)

“What if he had?” Quinn asked. “What if he had told you everything that night. What would you have done?”

A broken smile shaped my lips. “I would’ve told him it didn’t matter. That I’d already fallen so much in love with him a thing like that couldn’t change it.”

Quinn threw her arms in the air, nearly knocking my hot mug of tea all over me. “Then what the hell is the problem now? Is it truly just because your ex outed him and you’re blaming Logan—”

“He didn’t trust me, Quinn!” I snapped, and her shoulders dropped. I lowered my tone. “He didn’t trust me.” I shrugged, tears pooling in my eyes. “After all we’d been through. He didn’t trust me enough to love him, all of him. He thought me no better than that bitch who hurt him before.”

And that hurt, possibly more than being lied to.

It meant he didn’t truly know me.

It meant that maybe he never had.

“Or,” I said, forcing the words out. “It meant that he didn’t care enough to tell me. That everything had been a lie and he just wanted to wait, and see how long it would take me to figure it out.” Even as I said the words, I didn’t believe them. Didn’t believe Logan could be that cruel, but after being lied to for weeks…it was hard to know which voice in my heart to trust.

Quinn reached over and squeezed my free hand. “Oh, honey, you know that’s a bunch of bullshit.” A choked, dark laugh tumbled from my lips, and Quinn smiled at me. “You can take the time you need. Trust me, I get the anger,” she said. “But you have to read that letter. You owe it to him.” I gaped at her, but she raised her hands in defense. “Like I said before,” she continued. “As someone who loves you unconditionally, I can recognize the same in someone else. That man loved you. And maybe when you’re not being so hard-headed, you’ll realize that he kept it from you because he was terrified of losing you.” She eyed me, rising from the couch. “Think about that while I bake us some brownies.” She trotted off to my kitchen, leaving me there with my mouth parted open, but no words to speak.

Because even if she may be right, the center of my chest was a gaping, bleeding wound where Logan’s name had once been.

Logan Ward.

A Carolina Fucking Reaper.

19

Logan

Sweat dripped down my face, but I barely felt it as the crowd counted down my penalty. It was a bullshit call, but there was little I could do about it now. We were tied, three to three, and hopes of making it to the next round rested on these last seventeen seconds.

“Three! Two! One!”

The door opened, and I flew from the box, legs pumping, eating up the ice to get to our zone, where we were struggling to fight off the power play.

I flew past the blue line, passing Lukas along the boards.

I spotted the puck ahead as their forwards passed and shot. Sawyer blocked it as I headed for the rebound, but the Bruin was already in position, firing it back as I reached him.

Sawyer reached.

The lamp lit.

The buzzer sounded.

Celebrations erupted around me as the Bruins players tackled each other to the ice before skating off toward their own net.

My stomach flipped as the reality of it set in.

We’d won the Stanley Cup last year and were favored to get there again this year...and yet, we were out. We were out in the first fucking round.

I grabbed Sawyer’s helmet, yanking him to me and patting him hard. “You played like a fucking beast.”

He nodded, but the devastation was clear.

I took one last look up at the family box, where Kaitlynn stood with Mom, her hands on her cheeks. The seat next to them was empty.

I’d left at least six messages since Delaney got into that cab last night, and dropped the tickets at will call, just like I’d said I would in those messages. If she even listened to them. Were we broken up? Was this just a bad fight? What the hell was I supposed to do?

My chest didn’t just ache, it fucking screamed as my heart ripped itself apart.

Axel pounded on my shoulder pad and gave me the nod, pulling me back to the present, and I let myself go numb as we headed for the locker room.

Losing that game—the playoffs—was nothing compared to the agony of losing her.

Two days and twenty-eight messages later, I sucked in a lungful of air, searching for the courage to open the damned door.

I’d tried to give her space, to respect that fact that she most likely needed time to process. Three days probably wasn’t enough, but I’d found myself here, standing at the back door to the library as the sun set. It was like my brain had shifted into auto-pilot after seeing Mom and Kaitlynn off at the airport, and I’d simply arrived here.