It’s utter bullshit, and I know it. Yet I have a hard time turning that part of my brain off, the part where I look at myself in the mirror and immediately see my flaws. They’re the first things I see, actually.
I’d love to look at myself and find beauty in the imperfections, but I don’t know how.
“You look really good in a swimsuit,” Logan says, and now it’s his turn to speak without thinking. “I mean, not that I really look or anything.”
The alcohol is hitting me and watching him blush is the cutest thing in the whole entire world right now. “You’ve never looked at me in a swimsuit?” I flutter my lashes.
Logan shakes his head, recovering fast. “Nope. I refuse to look at you when you’re indecent.” He brings his beer to his lips.
I lean forward and bite my lip. “So you’re not going to go to the beach with me at all this weekend?”
“Only if you wear one of those old-fashioned swimsuits.”
“Like the one Wednesday Addams wore in Family Values?”
Logan laughs, eyes sparkling. “Exactly like that one.”
The pizza comes, and after we eat, we walk around the airport, not wanting to sit when we have an eight-hour flight ahead of us. We’re in a little gift shop that has the most random crap. There’s a little display of bumper stickers, and I grab one that would be perfect for Owen’s car.
“I make frequent stops at your mom’s house,” Logan reads, looking over my shoulder. “I’m getting it.”
“Any bets on how long it’ll take him to notice this time?”
“Hopefully more than a day.”
I laugh. “You had that last one on your car for a week.”
Logan shakes his head. “I’ve gotten in the habit of circling my car at least once a day to check.” He and Owen have a long-running prank of putting stupid or sometimes straight-out offensive bumper stickers on each other’s cars and then seeing how it takes to notice.
We walk through the airport some more and then go back to the terminal right in time to line up to board. We head to the back of the plane and take our seats. I spend a few minutes arranging my stuff and pulling out my blanket from my bag.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” I get the ring out of my wallet. The center stone isn’t a real diamond, but the side stones are, and I really am a little worried about losing it. How do people wear expensive engagement rings so casually?
I slip the ring on and hold up my hand, wiggling my fingers. I turn, expecting to see Logan smiling or rolling his eyes. But he has a look of disappointment on his face, and that bad feeling starts to rise in my stomach again.
Did I make a huge mistake—again?
Logan is my best friend, and he’s going to pretend to be deeply in love and excited to marry me. It’s all fun and games for now. But what’s going to happen when we come back to Eastwood?Chapter 11DanielleI carefully pull Logan’s earbuds out of his ears and take the iPad from his lap, shutting it off and putting it away in his carry-on bag. The pilot just came on and asked us all to turn off our electronic devices so we can start our descent. It’s been rather cold this whole flight, and Logan and I were sharing my blanket as we watched Infinity War together on the iPad. Logan fell asleep halfway through, and I’m feeling just as sleepy.
After putting my own stuff away, I buckle my seat belt and look at Logan’s lap, biting my lip. I don’t know if his seatbelt is on, thanks to the blanket. I lift it up so I can check. His seat belt isn’t buckled, and I don’t want to wake him up. Unbuckling mine again, I lean over, trying to find both parts to his seatbelt so I can click it into place.
I can’t reach it, so I drop to my knees and inch closer. And then the plane hits a bit of turbulence. I pitch forward, hitting my forehead on Logan’s knee.
“Trying to cop a feel?” he asks, looking at me quizzically.
“Oh, you’d know if I was trying, because I would have succeeded.” I put one hand on his leg and push myself up. “I was trying to put your seat belt on. We’re going to land soon.”
“Told you I wasn’t a fully functional adult.” He smiles and runs his hand through his hair, messing it up. “Can’t even put my own seatbelt on.”
“Ha-ha. You so do believe that’s all I was trying to do. For all you know I could have been trying to steal your wallet. Maybe this whole thing was a ruse to get you to come to Hawaii with me so I could start a new life of crime.”