Out in Spring (Out in College 6)

Instead, I twisted to face him and asked, “What happened? Bad breakup?”

Logan shrugged but didn’t reply. He continued another block on the residential street before pulling to the curb in front of the local park. Then he shot a weak smile at me and gestured to the T-shirt in my lap.

“You should put that on. It’s clean and…it’s yours if you want it. I have a few. My mom’s in the booster club. She makes me foist them on unsuspecting citizens to advertise college hockey. My folks own a printing company. They specialize in promotional items…personalized mugs, baseball caps, keychains. She obviously over-ordered, ’cause they’ve got boxes of T-shirts in their garage, and I’ve been given strict instructions to act like Santa and give them away to whoever will take one,” he said with a self-deprecating half laugh.

I set my water bottle in the cup holder and unfolded the T-shirt to inspect the school logo and hockey stick emblazoned on the front. “Hmph. Does she know you’ve resorted to drastic measures to help move inventory? Or do you spill drinks and abduct random strangers at every team party?”

He snickered, turned off the engine, and unbuckled his seat belt. “You’re the first. Are you taking your shirt off or not?”

“Hold your horses. We just met, big guy,” I quipped.

My cheeks went hot in an instant. Where the heck did that come from? Was I flirting with the straight hockey player? Geez, I couldn’t blame the awkward on alcohol. I was just a Grade-A geek. I lowered my eyes and concentrated on the arduous chore of unbuttoning, hoping he’d ignore my dork-a-tude.

“Actually, I know you. You work in the bookstore on campus, right?” he asked.

I froze for a beat and nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t think we’ve met. I would have remembered you.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I had to get out of there. The sooner, the better. I unfastened my seat belt and sat forward to shrug my shirt off—not an easy task in the confines of the SUV. Logan tugged at my left sleeve to help me.

He grinned. “Well, we haven’t met till now. I mean…not officially anyway. I stood in your line when I purchased textbooks for the new semester.”

“Oh. It’s always a little crowded the first week back after the holidays,” I said lamely as I pulled the tee over my head.

“True. Are you cold? Stupid question. You’re shivering. Let me blast the heat. You’ll feel better in no time.” Logan pushed a couple of buttons on the console, sending a rush of warmth through the vents.

I set my hands over the one in front of me. “Honestly, I’ll feel better if I go home.”

“Just give me five minutes. Please.”

I blinked in confusion at his desperate-sounding tone. “It must have been a bad breakup. Do you really think she’s still waiting outside for you? It’s freezing, and if that was Kelly at the door back there, she was seriously underdressed for power-stalking.”

He snorted. “Power-stalking. That’s a good one. I want to agree with you, but Kelly is a wild card. And to answer your question, it wasn’t a bad breakup…it was a weird one.”

“How so?”

“I guess you could say we weren’t on the same wavelength. At all.” Logan gave a sheepish shrug and continued, “In my mind, we were friends with benefits who loosely used the titles of boyfriend and girlfriend. In hers, we were heading for the altar. I’m not ready for that. Hell, I may never be.”

“And she’s not taking no for an answer?”

“Mmm. Well, no, that’s not it. I, um…told her something I probably shouldn’t have, and now I need to keep my head down and avoid any awkward conversations that pull my brain away from the ice.”

I squinted as though it might help me make sense of his confession. It didn’t. “I see.”

“Fuck, now that I think about it, I shouldn’t have left with you.” He slumped in his seat and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. “Oh, my God.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he replied quickly.

I punched his rock-hard bicep, then immediately rubbed my knuckles. Ow. “You can’t say stuff like that and not explain. Spit it out. What do I have to do with your girlfriend drama, and why do your muscles feel like a block of cement?”

Logan chuckled lightly. “I work out. Wanna cop a proper feel?”

I shook my head with a laugh when he sat up, shifting in his seat to fully face me before flexing his muscle like a body builder on a podium. The over-the-top affectation was funny, and paired with his twinkling eyes and silly expression, he felt…familiar. Like someone I’d known for much longer than twenty minutes.

“No, the accidental feel was enough,” I assured him. “Keep talking. You were about to tell me why you didn’t want to be seen with me.”