Those few moments when she’d been in his arms had been the closest he’d been to content in years. He shook his head as he realized that was completely true, and his dissatisfaction hadn’t just come about after The Incident. He’d started pulling away when Seth stopped coming home, when he no longer got those summers with his best friend. When he’d been left behind.
“She’s a gorgeous girl, and I was noble the first time around because I got nothing to offer her.” He wished he still had the tequila, anything to numb him out. God, this was just how he’d fucked up the first time. “Maybe I’ll take her this time. Fuck her out of my system.”
Seth shook his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “She’s in love with you. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“And you’re in love with her.” Now he forced himself to move, to make his body function, to get the hell out of here. “Good for the two of you. I’ll send you a fucking toaster or something.”
He walked past Seth. One foot in front of the other, placing distance between him and the long, shared history of their lives.
“Are you done with me?” Seth asked, his voice reminding Logan so much of that kid he’d been. Seth was still that kid who had gotten shipped to his granddad’s place and had no idea how to fit in. He was still holding out his freaking hand and asking the boy next door to play with him.
He hated Seth in that moment. Hated him as much as he’d ever loved him. Seth got the money and the girl and the world where everything was perfect, where he never had to find out just what a stupid, worthless bastard he was. “I’m not your boyfriend, Seth. I’m never going to be.”
The glass crashed to the floor, breaking through that horrible moment of silence that came after Logan’s words. This was another one. Fuck. This was one of those goddamn before and after moments, and he knew right then that he wasn’t going to like the after that came with this one. He was going to hate it. Like a kid who had just broken something precious, he scrambled to clean up the mess, praying that glue and tape could make the thing work again.
“I didn’t mean it.” He was righteously sober now. “Seth, I didn’t mean that.”
The minute he’d said the words, he’d known that he couldn’t break the tie between them. He couldn’t fucking lose Seth. He’d finally found that line he wouldn’t cross. Now he knew no amount of tequila would be able to numb that.
“Yeah, you did.” Seth stood up just as they heard a door in the back open and feet scooting across the hallway floor.
“Seth, I didn’t mean it.” Maybe Seth wasn’t the only ruthless bastard. Logan knew damn well Seth’s dad called him all sorts of nasty names when he got snockered and one of them was “queer.” Logan had gone straight for the weak point. The nasty bastard who’d taken up residence in his body had a laser focus when it came to dishing out the pain. “Please.”
It was the first time he’d said that word and meant it in over a year.
“Seth? Are you all right?” Georgia rushed in. She was wearing a set of pajama pants and a tank top, her hair soft and skin scrubbed clean. Yes, she looked so beautiful and fresh, and he could see how quickly those crystal eyes summed up the situation and found the proper villain of the piece. “What did he do?”
He. Yeah, she meant Logan, and he knew it. And it would be easy to save face. He could just shove his mask right back on and grab another bottle and walk away, and he couldn’t do it. God. This was what he’d been dreading. The choice. This was why he’d avoided Seth. Because he would have to make the choice to break with his best friend or to try to actually get his head out of his ass.
“I said something horrible to him, and I did it because I’m an asshole and I’ll do anything to take it back.” The words spilled out of his mouth, almost tumbling over each other, and he recognized his own damn voice for the first time in over a year.
“It’s cool.” Seth had his patented smile on his face, the one he used for investors and his parents. Damn it. “Georgia, sweetheart, could you get me a dustpan? I need to clean this up, and I don’t want you getting cut.”
Georgia. She would get so cut up if she came into Logan’s life. Just like he’d cut up Seth.
Unless he stopped trying to throw himself off a fucking cliff.
“I’m sorry.”
Seth’s head nodded in a clipped fashion, with none of his natural grace. “I am, too. Go to bed, Logan. You have to work tomorrow.”
“We’ll talk then?” Now he sounded like the kid.
“Do we have anything to talk about?” Seth asked, his voice hollow.
“Do you want me to leave?” Logan was deeply aware that they sounded like two freaking girls, but for once he didn’t give a shit. God. He’d finally found something to hang on to, and he was clinging. He wasn’t sure he would leave even if Seth told him to.
Georgia banged around in the kitchen and a long moment stretched between them.
“No,” Seth said finally.
Logan could breathe again. “Then we have something to talk about.”
“All right, but go to bed now. I can’t do this tonight.” Seth put the bottle on the table as Georgia jogged back in, all fussy female energy and affection, though none of it was focused on Logan. It was all for Seth.
“Let me get that,” Seth said.
Georgia shook her head. “It’s fine. I want to help.”
“There’s glass everywhere, Georgia.” Seth put out a hand to try to stop her from coming too close.
“I’ll be fine. I can see it,” Georgia insisted.
Seth was letting Georgia roll right over him. Logan knew what to do. Before she could step too close to the shards of glass, he wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her up against his body, her bare feet dangling off the floor.
“Let me down, you overgrown ape.” She dropped the broom and dustpan.
He held her close. “When it’s safe, I will.”
She lit into him. When that girl wanted to go, she could spit some serious bile.
Seth set about cleaning up the mess, but when he looked up, he mouthed a “thank you.”
Georgia went on and on about his parentage and the size of his penis—in her mind, extra small—but Logan felt something settle deep inside.
For the first time in forever, he felt necessary.
Chapter Five
Georgia came awake to the heavenly smell of breakfast cooking. She yawned, thanking god that it had all been a terrible dream and she was back in Manhattan. Yes, she could stumble out of her room and join Seth on the balcony for coffee. She hadn’t made a complete idiot of herself. She would open her eyes and see her Upper East Side bedroom.
She opened her eyes and screamed because something horrible was staring in her window. It was big and brown and had monstrous nostrils that steamed up the window.
The door opened in a flash, Logan slamming into the room, a gun in his hand. God, when had he gotten so damn familiar with firearms? He was wearing what he’d worn the night before, those low-slung jeans that looked about a size too small because they molded to his every muscle, and a ridiculously hot white muscle shirt that just proved he was a meathead who worked out. Like a lot. God, he was so hot.
“What is it?” He looked ready to kill anything that had invaded.
“Monster.” Nature could be like that. And there was lots of nature out here. She was really more comfortable in the city.
Sure enough, the massive alien thing was pressed against her window, its enormous nostrils leaving gooey stuff all over the glass.