“A fisherman?!” The man let out another barking laugh. “You want to go down to the pier, and track down a—”
“Yes! That’s a great idea!” Without thinking, Logan grabbed the man’s jacket, and started pulling him down in the general direction of the water. “Let’s go find a fisherman, and he can tell you whether or not the boat—”
“Dude.” The man planted his feet, jerking Logan back with him. “Are you drunk?”
There was a beat.
“...yes.”
There was a moment of silence (during which Logan literally held his breath), before the man burst out laughing all over again. “Of course you are. We must go find a fisherman! What the hell was I even thinking?!”
Without another word, he took off back down the street—chuckling under his breath all the while. Completely oblivious to way Logan stayed rooted to the sidewalk behind him—pale, and clammy, and wishing for death. He was already halfway up the next block, before he turned around with a cheerful wave of farewell.
“Come by sometime next week—we’ll go out on the water! See how she runs!”
Yeah...if the thing even floats.
Logan jerked his head up and down, fighting back the wave of bile rising up in his throat.
“Sure. See you then.”
He waited until the man had rounded the corner. Waited until he’d gotten his heartbeat down to a reasonable sprint. Then he spun around on his heel, and started heading right back up the way he came. Dylan might have assured him that everything was going to be fine, but it hadn’t been more than two hours, and Logan had already gambled some kid’s future college fund on a hypothetical boat. A boat he could only hope was remotely sea-worthy.
He needed to get back to the house. Lock the doors and shut the windows. Quarantine himself from the rest of Cleveland. Hole away somewhere that trouble couldn’t find him.
Just calm down. You literally swapped lives with your twin. There was bound to be at least one mishap along the way, right? Keep your head down, and nothing else will happen.
It was residential Cleveland. How much trouble could there possibly be?
Chapter 11
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Logan went for a run. It was an impromptu run, of course. Designed to ‘flee the scene’ rather than ‘exercise.’ But it was a run nonetheless. By the time he got back to Dylan’s street, the endorphins were flowing, the panic had subsided, and he was breathing in huge gulps of the crisp Cleveland air.
He felt fantastic!
His problems seemed more manageable when they weren’t looming seven feet tall in front of him. The boat seemed like a bad memory the second he got away.
With a burst of youthful strength, he put on a rush of speed and jumped the white picket fence altogether, skidding to a stop on the front porch. His suitcase was there waiting for him.
See—no one stole it. Things are looking up already. He dug around in his pocket with a little smile, searching for the house key Dylan gave him. Now if I can just get inside—
“Hey there!”
Logan whirled around on the spot, shielding his eyes from the sun as he searched for the source of the voice. Just a second later, he saw her. A busty blonde woman, leaning against a minivan parked in the driveway next door—a huge smile plastered across her face.
“Hey.”
Now that he was looking at her straight on, she was pretty impossible to miss. Busty had been a generous word to describe the surgical lengths to which she’d enhanced her body. If she took a deep breath, it was likely she’d bust out of her shirt altogether. Not that there was much of a shirt to begin with. The minivan had thrown him for a moment, but there was a provocative edge to the way she was leaning against the trunk. A sly sparkle he didn’t fully understand.
“You just get back from a run?”
Logan’s hair was damp with sweat, and her eyes dilated hungrily at the way the sun was glistening off his muscles. The tip of her tongue wetted her bottom lip, and he bowed his head to hide the self-conscious flush sneaking up his cheeks.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry—I’m kind of a mess.” He flashed her a quick smile, hoping to excuse himself before she asked him to appraise a condo, or a pool, and then proceeded to buy it on the spot. “Have a good—”
“Mitch is still at work,” she said abruptly.
Logan nodded slowly, racking his brain to remember whether Mitch was one of the names Dylan had told him to watch out for. He didn’t think so. The only instructions his brother had left were not to answer the phone if it was a number from California.