Logan (Carolina Reapers 4)

“I’m not giving up on this. I’m not walking away from you!” I walked straight for her.

She opened the door. “Good. You don’t have to walk away. I know it’s not in your nature. So I will.” It took a second, and then she was inside, the door firmly between us.

I rested my head on the cool steel, my hand gripping the handle.

Fuck this. I loved her. She loved me. I wasn’t going to let us live our lives in misery because we’d been too fucking stubborn to fight for this.

I turned the handle to open the door.

What the fuck?

It was locked. In all the months I’d known her, she’d never locked the back door. She’d never locked me out.

A wave of pure misery hit me like a tsunami.

She really was done with me.

20

Delaney

Desperate. Idiotic. Awful.

Two weeks of nothing but missing Logan had transformed me into a miserable puddle of pathetic.

Two weeks of regretting every single word I’d said to him when he’d showed up at the library. Despite the truth in some of the things I’d said, I hadn’t meant to cut him so deeply. But I’d been so hurt, so angry, and I’d bottled it up until it all burst out of me at the sight of him.

I know I should’ve told you the truth. I accept my role in that, but from the moment you threw that book at my head, I knew you were someone special. Someone important. And I didn’t want to risk losing someone as incredible as you. Not until you knew the real me. The man beneath the jersey. Because he’s a man who loves you with every inch of his heart.

Logan’s words.

From his letter.

I’d finally read it.

My heart begged me to reconcile, begged me to stop the pain. But nothing was that simple. The old familiar, cold doubt had magnified in my soul, whispering things like you were never good enough for him anyway and you were the blind one who asked for this into my mind twenty-four hours a day.

Even in my sleep, dreams plagued me, haunted me, always of Logan—of not being able to speak to him. Him being hit by a car because I couldn’t find my voice to tell him to move.

I wanted to erase the last three weeks.

Go back to when there was no one I’d rather see every single day. See his smile, hear his laugh, listen to his stories about his sister and their shenanigans when they were kids. No one I’d rather bounce ideas off of as we grew closer to reaching our goal rebuilding the southern wing of the library. Something that had once been my dream, but as we’d grown closer, it had quickly become ours.

I wrung my hands as I hesitated outside of Scythe.

I’d heard Connell mention it when we’d had our group dinner—it was a Reaper haunt.

And after two weeks of the hollow, acidic ache in my chest, I’d somehow managed to wind up standing outside the bar’s door.

I didn’t know what I’d say if I saw him.

But I knew I couldn’t go another second without trying.

Despite not having the answers to my own heart, I swung open the door and scanned the crowd as I walked toward the bar.

Instantly deflated.

No Logan.

I sank onto a barstool, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“What’s your poison?” A gorgeous bartender with long purple hair stood before me.

“I—”

The bartender jolted slightly, flashing me an apologetic look while she hurried to grab her cell phone from her pocket. “Sawyer?” Her voice was slightly frantic. “Everything okay?” Her shoulders dropped as she sighed, a small smile shaping her lips. “It’s in the basket next to the diapers. Okay. Yes. I love you, too.” She slipped the cell into her pocket, her attention back on me. “Sorry about that,” she said. “I have a two-month-old at home, and Daddy still hasn’t learned where we keep the emergency binkies.” She blinked a few times, shaking her head. “Can’t believe those words just left my mouth.” She laughed, her eyes filled with love and longing.

“It’s okay,” I said, my heart lifting at the sight of her happiness.

“So,” she said, eying me. “What can I get you? It’ll be on the house, naturally, since I had to take a call.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I totally understand.”

She waved me off.

“Surprise me?” I asked, unable to decide on any one drink but feeling like I needed all of them.

She tilted her head, those eyes scanning me. “What’s your mood?”

I sighed. She didn’t know me. Might as well be honest. “Heartbreak.”

“Ouch,” she said. “Cheater?”

I shook my head. “It’s complicated.”

“It always is.” She moved behind the bar in a flurry of hands and spinning bottles. In a blink, she sat a tall glass before me filled with ice and bubbling amber liquid. A lime decorated the rim of the glass. “Name’s Echo. Yours?”