“He’s wrong, Logan. He is.” My brother’s voice quieted. “Tate did this shit to you. Kris and Sam, they didn’t. Don’t let him make you think that.”
“No.” Mason was wrong, too. “Don’t you get it? It’s not them. It’s not even Tate.” That was the problem. “I wish it was them.”
“Then what is it? Are you hardened?”
“Yeah.” I drew in a sharp breath. That stung, even just admitting that. “But it’s not because of any of them. That’s not why I’m like this.”
“Then why?”
I had to laugh. The sound was sad and bitter. It came from a dark place in me. My brother, who knew everything, who’d raised me since we were little, didn’t know. But it wasn’t his problem. He had someone who’d never leave him. He’d never leave her. He never had to have this problem.
I backed up toward the house, shaking my head. “No, Mase.”
“Logan.” He started to come with me.
“No.” I shot my hands up, stopping him. “I need space.”
TAYLOR
Last night’s nightmare kept me awake for a while, so when I went back to sleep, it was late. I woke up late, and when I checked my phone, there were no texts from Jason or Claire. There were a few from Logan. I was already grinning when I clicked on the first one.
Drunk. 3 am. That means one thing. I’m missing my taco. ;) Are you my taco?
That was followed with, All jokes aside, I want to take you to that place. Your DoucheCanoe lives right next to it, but it’s good food. It’s worth the risk of murky douche waters.
I laughed and clicked on another message. It had arrived earlier this morning. Escaped unscathed. A little bit of a hangover headache. That’s it. Reading over my texts to you last night. No wonder I dreamed about fucking tacos. I thought I watched some weird porn last night.
And the last one was sent an hour ago. Heading home. If you don’t text back, I’m going to be that guy. I’m coming over. Don’t call the cops on me. I don’t have a record with them. Yet.
I got a five-second warning. I read that text, heard a car door shut, and my doorbell was ringing in the next breath. And it kept going. He was holding his finger to it. I cursed, made sure I was wearing a bra, and hurried to answer the door.
Logan stepped back, but kept his finger on the doorbell as I opened the door. “You didn’t answer my messages,” he said over the noise.
“Stop.” I grabbed his arm, pulled it away. Finally, the air was silent. My ears were not. They were still ringing. “I’m going to hear that damn thing for the next hour.”
“Give me an hour.” Logan passed me, heading inside and swatting my butt on the way. “I’ll make you come so hard, you’ll be hearing your own climax for the next week, Firecracker.”
Oh dear God. I stopped in the doorway. His words and the casual way he spoke them burst a dam inside of me. I was instantly wet, and I groaned under my breath.
“You coming?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes as I shut the door. “Did you have to use that word?”
He’d disappeared around the corner to the kitchen, but he came back now, a wicked glint in his eyes. “We can skip the formalities and head right for your bedroom, if that’s what you want?” he drawled.
My heart pounded against my chest like it wanted out. “Can you lay off and at least let me have a cup of coffee?”
I stopped as soon as I started. I used the wrong word this time.
“What was that about laying you?” Logan’s grin went up a notch. “You want me to stop, and you say that to me?”
I held up a hand, shaking my head. “Just…leave it alone for now.” I walked around him, giving him a wide berth. If he touched my ass again, I didn’t trust myself. We might end up in my bedroom sooner than I wanted. Logan followed me, and I snuck a look at him from underneath my eyelashes. He was poking around the kitchen and dining room, and for once, his hawk-like attention wasn’t on me.
I had to get real with myself, and I had to do it fast. Logan Kade was a tornado. When he showed up, he took over, and everything was swept up in his wake. Yes, as soon as I’d seen him on the doorstep, I knew it was going to happen. It always did, but this time, I hoped to prolong it. I wanted more time with him, outside of the bedroom. I poured myself some coffee and put the pot back. My hand tightened around the handle. I had to manage some semblance of control, or he would talk me into bending over the table.
Logan was hot and charming. He had charisma coming out of his asshole, but things needed to simmer. I looked at him and gulped. He was giving me bedroom eyes, like he could see through me, see my thoughts, and why the hell weren’t we already up there?
“You okay?” he asked.
“What?” I hadn’t expected that question.
He moved a step closer to me. “Your hand is shaking a little bit.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?” His tone ceased oozing sex and switched to concern. “You never did respond to my texts, you know.”
“Oh, yeah. I—” I glanced to the clock on the microwave. It was almost eleven. “Whoa. I slept late this morning.”
“You’ve been sleeping this whole time?”
“Yeah.” A chill went through me as I remembered the nightmare. “I couldn’t sleep very well last night.”
“Because you’re alone?” He glanced around the place. “The team should be back. We had breakfast with them before we took off. Mason rode back with us.”
My heart sank. “My dad will probably…” Fuck it. “I have no idea where my dad is. He’s been absent the last year.”
His voice softened. “I know.”
“That’s right.” He would know. He drove me that one night. A sad laugh wrung itself out of me. I leaned back against the counter and held my coffee cup with both hands. That had been back when I knew he wouldn’t care. If I saw pity or judgment in his eyes, it wouldn’t cut me deep—not that I’d expected to see that from him.
Things were different now. There were feelings involved. What type of feelings, I had no idea, but they were there. The lines had blurred.
“If he comes home, it won’t be till late.” My chest burned. “And that’s if he comes home. He could stay out all night…somewhere else…” With someone else, someone who wasn’t my mother. The burning grew stronger.
“Okay.” Logan took the coffee cup from my hands.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he put it on the counter and took my hand.
He led me out of the kitchen. “Go to your bedroom.”
“Already?” I blurted, then cringed.
He gave me a smug smirk, but stopped at the stairs and pointed up. “Go up there.”
“And do what?”
“Change.”
I looked down. “My oversized sweater and yoga pants aren’t working for you?”
He shook his head. “Those are period clothes. I know a thing or two about females. That’s the stuff you put on when you’re feeling like shit.” He held his hands up, palms toward me. “Not that I’m saying you’re on your period, but—” He gestured to my face with a finger. “I can tell something’s wrong. So go up and change clothes.” He turned me around and urged me toward the steps with a gentle push.
“Where are we going?”
“Does it matter? We’re going to have fun.”
“Fun?”
“Yeah. Go.” He made a shooing motion. “I’ll be in the car waiting.”
And with that, the decision was made. Logan went outside to the car. I went upstairs to change.
A few minutes later, I stopped in front of the mirror before I went outside. I smoothed a hand down my form-fitting black shirt and jeans. My mother had bought this shirt for me. It was the last time we’d gone on a shopping spree together.
I sucked in my breath, expecting a wave of sadness. It didn’t come… Why didn’t it come? Logan was waiting for me. I didn’t have time to wonder. Releasing the breath, I held my head up and went out to t
he car.
We had sex.
We had fun.
That was it.
Why was this feeling like more?
ABANDONED ROLLER COASTER HAVEN
TAYLOR
I didn’t know what to expect, but the entire day was different—a good different. We went to a few different places, and he had the normal one-liners and pick-up jokes, but he was different, a little more withdrawn and a little quieter than normal. Every time we left a place, I expected him to take me home. But he never did. It was a movie first, then the arcade across the street, then Pete’s Pub for a meal, and by the time we left my place of employment, it was evening.
I considered asking him back to my house, but I didn’t, and he drove to an old part of town. We pulled up outside a large door, and he put the vehicle in park to text someone.
“What is this place?”
The walls were high. It was a gated entrance to something, but I couldn’t get any idea what was on the inside. I glanced around at the abandoned houses and saw one of the street signs. “Is this the old amusement park?”
Logan nodded, sending another text before putting his phone away. “Yep.”
“This place went bankrupt years ago. I remember coming here when I was kid.” I twisted back around, lingering over some of the houses. They were rotting. The front porches were half falling off. Paint had peeled off, replaced with graffiti. “I haven’t been back in so long. I knew this place went downhill, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“My dad saw this place last year and bought it.”
“Your dad?” I settled back in my seat. Logan wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was trained on the dashboard, and I had a faint sense that he wasn’t even in the vehicle.
“He came to buy me out of a sticky situation last year.”
My mouth went dry. “What happened?”
A dry laugh slipped from him before he glanced over at me. His eyes weren’t laughing. “I got the shit beat out of me, that’s what happened.”
“What?”
He nodded, looking forward again. His head rested back against his seat. “I swung first, so there was a meeting about me. They were going to kick me out, but my dad came in and did what he always does. He paid big for them to keep me. The assholes got off scot-free. It was five on one, but they got it twisted around on me.”
“Who?” My heart pounded at the thought of five guys going against Logan. I wanted to find them and beat their asses back.
His head still rested against his seat, but he turned to grin at me. “You going to take them on?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I could hire someone. If I could get away with it.”
He laughed, but the sound was almost sad. “It was the guy your buddy worked for, Park Sebastian. He’s gone now. Mason ran him off.”
“Oh.” I frowned.
Logan gestured to the gate. “My dad was on the way out of town after that when he got lost. He drove himself that day, for some reason, and he ended up here. He had visions of a new factory or business or fuck if I know, and two months later he told us he’d bought this place.” He pointed to the houses. “Those too. I have no clue what he’s going to do with it, but it’s empty and abandoned for the next couple of months until all the permits are approved. I think he’s going to demo the whole place.”
All of this told me one thing: Logan was rich. Not just rich. He was rich rich, super-wealthy rich. He never acted like it. I’d thought I was the one with an inheritance, but it was nothing compared to what he described. I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Oh.”
That was it from me.
Logan laughed again. “I’m waiting for the guy to come let us in.”
“You come here?”
“Sometimes. It’s kinda cool in there, actually, and there’s one place I like to go. I usually just climb up and over, but I figured I’d be the gentleman this time and legally enter.” His eyes warmed as they lingered on me. “Do I get points for this? Being all nice and shit? Or do you want me to go badass and break into the place? Either’s good with me.”
Yep. I felt a flutter in my chest. Oh boy. But I only smiled. I’d been feeling those flutters all month now. “A badass and a gentleman. Suppose I should just answer that with, ‘you’re too kind, sir.’”
“Sir. I’d rather be called dipshit than sir.” He grimaced. “All my dad’s minions call him that.”
My smile faded. I’d been teasing. He knew that, but I could hear the anger from him. It sounded deeper than mine, and I wondered how long it had been there. “You said before that your dad and Samantha’s mom are together?”
“Yep.” He shook his head. “If you think your dad’s bad, you should meet Analise. That’s Samantha’s mom. She’s a piece of work.”
I frowned. He wasn’t angry with her; it was all directed at his dad. I wanted to ask more. I wanted to know more, what was hurting him, but I held my tongue. We weren’t—I didn’t know, but I didn’t think we were there. I hadn’t told him my own hauntings, so I had no place asking his.
“Good. The guy’s here.”
A car pulled up next to us. Logan opened his window and leaned over to talk, then a guy got out of the other car and went over to the gate. After a moment, it rattled open for us. He handed something to Logan through the window before getting back in his car. With a short wave, he drove off, and Logan pulled inside.
The buildings were all there, just like I remembered, but they had aged like the houses outside. Paint had peeled. Doors were rotted. Windows. Panels. The foliage had started to grow over things. The ticket booth was encased in a bunch of bushes. Trash blew over the ground.
I was entranced.
“My mom—” My voice hitched on the memory. “—she took me here a lot. Me and Claire. Jason came with us once in seventh grade, but that was it. It closed the summer after that.” I shook my head. “I never heard what happened to it. It’s been empty this whole time?”
Logan pocketed his keys as we got out. “I guess. My dad brought in some people. They cleaned up some of the graffiti.”
The old paintings were still there, but after he said that, I could see where white had been painted over parts of everything. “This is surreal, Logan. I can’t believe your dad owns this place now.”
He snorted. “He’ll build something, and then he’ll probably sell it. He won’t have it for too long.”
“Are the buildings safe to go into?” I started forward, moving past the bumper cars, the arcade, the kissing booth, the haunted house, the animal barn. I remembered everything. A large tiger had been painted on top of the building, but the middle of its face was whited out now.
Logan stopped beside me. “Some asshole painted a cock up there.” He was holding back a grin. I saw his mouth twitch.
“Don’t laugh. That tiger was gorgeous.”
“Sorry. I don’t get sentimental about places anymore.”
“This was part of my childhood.” I couldn’t stop taking everything in. The pink flamingo statue was covered with vines. “How can you not get sentimental about places like this?”
Logan shrugged. “I don’t get attached to places. I was always moving and living in different places in high school.”
“You were?”
He nodded, and suddenly he was the one looking around, and I couldn’t look anywhere but at him. “We were at the house in Fallen Crest when my mom left. I stayed with my aunt and cousins for that summer. Then Sam’s mom moved in, and everything changed. We lived in a hotel for a while, then Nate’s parent’s house. I think we lived somewhere after that too. My mom moved back to town—oh, I was in Paris with her for a month. When she moved back, I went to live with her. Sort of… I felt like I was half living with her and half living at Sam’s house our senior year. I guess that was the last place I lived before going to Cain. And we had a different house my