You know those anxiety dreams where you’re walking down the hall in high school, or getting up on the stage of an auditorium to give a big speech—and you suddenly realize you’re buck naked and everyone is staring at you? And then all those pairs of eyes get bigger and bigger and it feels like hot lasers boring into your skin?
I am currently living that dream. Sure, I’m fully clothed, but despite Ramona’s numerous assurances that nobody is staring at me, I know I’m not imagining the curious looks and knowing smirks from my fellow students.
Damn Maya Stevens to hell. That bitch did the impossible—she made me afraid of walking into Carver Hall, my favorite place on campus.
It’s actually rather impressive that even limited by one hundred and forty characters, Maya’s sister managed to spin a beautiful tale of a pitiful, woe-is-me heroine whose fierce yearning for a certain hockey player leads her to fabricate a grand love affair filled with burning loins and endless passion.
In other words, Piper’s calling me a fucking liar.
“This is so humiliating,” I mutter as I pick at the chicken stir-fry on my plate. “Can we please just go?”
Ramona’s chin sticks out in an obstinate pose. “No. You need to show people that you don’t give a rat’s ass about what Piper is saying.”
Easier said than done. My brain knows that I shouldn’t care about some asinine Twitter bash fest, but my stomach hasn’t received the memo. Every time the words #GracelessLiar flash in my head, my insides twist into a mortified pretzel.
What the hell is the matter with people? It’s infuriating how they grant themselves the right to say whatever hurtful poison they want, without giving a shit about the person they’re hurting. Actually, you know what? I’m not even pissed at the rumormongers. I’m pissed at whoever invented the Internet and handed the assholes in the world a platform on which to spew their venom.
Fucking Internet.
My best friend treats my silence as an invitation to keep babbling. “Piper’s a bitch, okay? You know how possessive she is about the hockey players. She acts like every single one of them belongs to her, which is total bullshit. She’s probably consumed with jealousy that you managed to land one of the star players, who, by the way—” Ramona lowers her voice to a conspiratorial pitch “—she’s been chasing after since freshman year, but he keeps shutting her down.”
Sweet mother of Moses. Now we’re gossiping about Piper? Are there any mature adults at this motherfucking university?
“Can we please not talk about her?” I clench my teeth, which makes it difficult to take a bite of the noodles I’ve just raised to my mouth.
“Fine,” she relents. “But know that I’ve got your back on this, babe. Nobody talks shit about my BFF and lives to tell about it.”
I decide not to point out that Piper wouldn’t have been talking shit in the first place if someone hadn’t implied to Maya that I’d made everything up.
“If you want, we can talk about my misery,” she says glumly. “As in, the fact that Dean didn’t ask for my number after the movie last night—”
Ramona stops talking when footsteps sound from behind us. My shoulders tense, then relax when I realize the footsteps belong to Jess. Then they tense all over again, because it’s Jess. Lovely. Let another round of torture commence.
“Hey,” Jess greets me, her eyes awash with sympathy. “I’m so sorry about this Twitter bullshit. Maya shouldn’t have said anything to her sister. She’s such a gossip.”
If I had a dictionary on me, I would’ve opened it to the H’s, passed it to Jess, and forced her to read the definition of HYPOCRITE.
Luckily, my phone buzzes before I give in and hurl a bitchy retort her way.
When I see Logan’s name on the screen, my heart does an involuntary flip. I’m tempted to hop up on the table and wave the phone around to prove to everyone in Carver Hall that contrary to what Piper Stevens has posited, John Logan is “aware of my existence.” But I resist the urge, because unlike some people, I don’t need a dictionary reminder—I already know the meaning of futile.
Logan’s message is short.
Him: Where u at?
I quickly type back, Dining hall.
Him: Which 1?
Me: Carver.
No response. Okay then. I’m not sure what the point of that conversation was, but his consequent silence has a dampening effect on my already flailing self-confidence. I’ve been dying to talk to him since last night, but he hasn’t called, texted, or attempted to make plans. And finally he gets in touch and this is the result? Two questions followed by crickets?
I’m horrified to realize I’m on the verge of tears. I’m not sure who I’m even upset with. Logan? Piper? Ramona? Myself? But it doesn’t matter. I refuse to cry in the middle of the dining hall, or give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me rush out five minutes after I got here. The girls at the neighboring table haven’t stopped smirking since I sat down, and I can still feel them watching me. I can’t make out a word of their hushed discussion, but when I glance over, all five of them quickly avert their gazes.
Ignore them.
Although my appetite has disappeared right along with my self-esteem, I force myself to eat my dinner. Every last bite, shoving stir-fry down my throat while pretending to care about Ramona and Jess’s conversation, which has blessedly shifted to a topic that doesn’t involve me.
Fifteen minutes. That’s how long I last before I can no longer take it. My eyes are actually sore from the incessant blinking required to staunch the threatening flow of tears.
I’m about to scrape my chair back and feed my friends an excuse about needing to study when they both fall silent. Jess literally stops talking mid-sentence. The table beside us has gone suspiciously quiet, as well.
Ramona looks like she’s fighting a smile as she peers past my shoulders in the direction of the door.
Frowning, I shift in my chair, turn my head—and find Logan standing there.
“Hey,” he says easily.
I’m so surprised to see him that all I can manage is a dumbfounded look. With me sitting down and him looming over me, he appears even bigger than usual. A Briar hockey jersey stretches across his massive shoulders, his dark hair windblown and cheeks flushed with exertion, as if he was just out for a run.
Our gazes lock for one heart-stopping moment, and then he does the absolute last thing I expect.
He leans down and kisses me.
On the mouth. With tongue.
Right there in the dining hall.
When he pulls back, I’m gratified to find that Ramona and Jess are slack-jawed—and so are the girls at the next table.
Not feeling so chatty anymore, are you?
I’m still basking in the glow of victory when Logan flashes me that crooked grin I love so much. “Are you ready to go, gorgeous?”
We didn’t have plans. He knows that and I know that, but I’m not about to let anyone else know it.
So I play along by answering, “Yep.” I start to get up. “Let me just bring back this tray.”
“Don’t worry about it—I’ll do it.” He plucks the tray out of my hands, says, “Nice to see you again, Ramona,” and then plants another kiss on my lips before striding toward the tray return counter.
Every female in the room admires the way his black cargo pants hug his spectacular ass. Myself included.
Snapping out of my butt-leering trance, I turn to my friends, who still look dazed. “Sorry to eat and run, but I have plans tonight.”
Logan comes back a moment later, and I paste on the brightest smile I can muster as he takes my hand and leads me out of the dining hall.
The second I slide into the passenger seat of his pickup truck, the dam I’ve struggled to keep intact all evening shatters to pieces. As the tears spill over, I make a frantic attempt to wipe them away with my sleeves before he notices.
But it’s too late.
“Aw, hey, don’t cry.” He quickly reaches inside the center console and pulls out a travel pack of tissues.
Damn it, I can’t believe I’m bawling in front of him. I sniffle as he hands me the pack. “Thank you.”
“No prob.”
“No, not just for the tissues. Thank you for showing up and rescuing me. This whole day has been so humiliating,” I mumble.
He sighs. “I guess you saw that Twitter feed.”
My embarrassment triples. “Just so you know, I haven’t been going around and telling everyone about us. The only person who knows we hooked up is Ramona.”
“Obvs. She was there at the movies.” His smile is reassuring. “Don’t worry, you didn’t strike me as the type to B&B.”
I offer a blank stare. “Bed and breakfast?”
He snickers. “No. Bag and brag.”
“Bag and brag?” I’m laughing through my tears, because the phrase is so absurd. “I didn’t realize that was a thing.”
“Trust me, it is. The puck bunnies excel at it.” His voice softens. “And just so you know, the chick who started the Twitter bullshit? Huge puck bunny. And she’s still pissed at me because I turned her down last year.”
“Why did you do that?” I’ve met Maya’s sister, and she’s beautiful.
“Because she’s pushy. And kind of annoying, if I’m being honest.” He turns the key in the ignition and gives me a sidelong look. “Do you want me to drive you home? Because I was thinking of taking you somewhere else first, if you’re interested.”
My curiosity is piqued. “Where?”
His blue eyes twinkle mischievously. “It’s a surprise.”
“A good surprise?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“Um, yeah. I can think of a hundred bad surprises off the top of my head.”
“Name one,” he challenges.
“Okay—you’re set up on a blind date, and you show up at the restaurant and Ted Bundy is sitting at the table.”
Logan grins at me. “Bundy is your go-to answer for everything, huh?”
“It appears so.”
“Fine. Well, point taken. And I promise, it’s a good surprise. Or in the very least, it’s neutral.”
“All right. Surprise away then.”
He pulls out of the parking lot and turns onto the road that leads away from campus. As I gaze out the window and watch the trees whiz by, a heavy sigh leaves my chest. “Why are people such assholes sometimes?”
“Because they are,” he says simply. “Honestly, it’s not worth getting angry over. My advice? Don’t waste your time obsessing over the stupid actions of stupid people.”
“It’s kind of hard not to when they’re slandering my good name.” But I know he’s right. Why bother expending any mental energy on bullies like Piper Stevens? Three years from now, I won’t even remember her name.
“Seriously, Grace, don’t stress. You know what they say—haters be hating, and bitches be bitching.”
I laugh again. “That’s going to be my new motto.”
“Good. It should be.”
We pass the sky-blue sign with the words “Welcome to Hastings!” sprawled across it, and I peer out the window again. “I grew up around the corner,” I tell him.
He sounds surprised. “You’re from Hastings?”
“Yep. My dad’s been a professor at Briar for twenty years. I’ve spent my whole life here.”
Rather than head for the downtown core, Logan veers off in the direction of the highway. We don’t stay on it for long, though. A few exits pass and then he gets off at the sign for Munsen, the next town over.
An uneasy feeling washes over me. It’s so strange how a quaint, middle-class town like Hastings is equal in distance to both the campus of an Ivy League university and a town that my father, a man who doesn’t curse if he can help it, refers to as a “shit box.”
Munsen consists of shabby buildings in desperate need of repairs, a handful of strip malls, and rundown bungalows with unkempt lawns. The general store we pass boasts a flickering neon sign with half the letters burnt out, and the one building I see that isn’t dilapidated is a small brick church with a sign of its own—huge block letters that spell out “GOD PUNISHES THE SINNERS.”
The people of Munsen really know how to roll out a welcome mat.
“This is where I grew up,” Logan says gruffly.
My head swivels toward him. “Really? I didn’t know you were local, too.”
“Yup.” He gives me a self-deprecating look before focusing on the pothole-ridden road ahead of us. “It’s not much to look at, is it? Trust me, it’s even uglier in the daylight.”
The pickup bounces as we drive over a particularly deep pothole. Logan slows down, extending a hand toward my side of the windshield. “My dad’s shop is one street over. He’s a mechanic.”
“That’s cool. Did he teach you a lot about cars?”
“Yup.” He taps the dashboard in pride. “You hear that sexy purr coming out of this baby? I rebuilt the engine myself last summer.”
I’m genuinely impressed. And kinda turned on, because I appreciate a man who works with his hands. No, who actually knows how to use his hands. Last week, the guy who lives down the hall from me knocked on my door and asked me to help him change a light bulb. I’m not saying I’m Handy McHanderson or anything, but I’m capable of changing a frickin’ light bulb.
As we drive through a residential area, a burst of apprehension goes off inside me. Is he taking me to his childhood home? Because I’m not sure I’m ready for—
Nope, we’re on another dirt road now, driving away from town. Another five minutes, and we reach a large clearing. There’s a water tower in the distance, with the town name etched on its side, and it seems to glow in the moonlight, a stark white beacon standing out amidst the dark landscape.
Logan parks fifty yards from the tower, and my pulse speeds up when I realize that’s where we’re going. My hands shake as I follow him toward a steel ladder that starts at the base of the tower and extends upward, so high I can’t see where it ends.
“Are we going up there?” I blurt out. “If so…no thank you. I’m terrified of heights.”
“Ah, shit. I forgot.” He bites his lip for a second, before giving me an earnest look. “Face your fear for me? I promise, it’ll be worth it.”
I stare at the ladder, and I can feel all the color draining from my face. “Uh…”
“Come on,” he coaxes. “You can climb up first. I’ll stand down here the whole time and catch you if you fall. Scout’s honor.”
“Fall?” I screech. “I wasn’t even thinking about falling. Oh my God, what if I fall?”
He chuckles softly. “You won’t. But like I said, I’ll be here to catch you on the off, off chance it happens.” He flexes both arms as if he’s a bodybuilder who just won the crown. “Look at these guns, gorgeous. You really think I can’t catch all ninety pounds of you?”
“One hundred and twenty pounds, thank you very much.”
“Ha. I lift that in my sleep.”
My gaze drifts back to the ladder. Some of the rungs are covered with rust, but when I step closer and curl my fingers around one, it seems sturdy enough. I take a calming breath. Okay. It’s a water tower, not the Empire State Building. And I had promised myself I’d try new things before my freshman year was over.
“Fine,” I mutter. “But God help me, if I fall and you don’t catch me, and by some miracle I survive and still have the use of my arms? I will beat you to death.”
His lips twitch. “Deal.”
I inhale another wobbly breath, and then I start to climb. One foot after the other. One foot after the other. I can totally do this. It’s just a teeny little water tower. Just a—my stomach drops when I make the mistake of peering down when I near the halfway mark. Logan waits patiently below. A shard of moonlight emphasizes the encouragement gleaming in his blue eyes.
“You’ve got this, Grace. You’re doing great.”
I keep going. One foot after the other, one foot after the other. When I reach the platform, relief sweeps through me. Holy shit. I’m still alive.
“You good?” he shouts from the ground.
“Yeah,” I shout back.
Unlike me, Logan scales the ladder in a matter of seconds. He joins me on the platform, then takes my hand and leads me farther down to where the metal walkway widens, offering a nice—and safe. Safe!—place to sit. He flops down and lets his legs dangle over the edge, grinning at my very obvious reluctance to do the same.
“Aw, don’t chicken out now. You’ve already come this far…”
Ignoring the queasy churning of my stomach, I sit beside him and gingerly position my legs like his. As he slings an arm around my shoulder, I desperately nestle closer to him, trying not to look down. Or up. Or anywhere, for that matter.
“You okay?”
“Mmm-hmmm. As long as I keep staring at my hands then I don’t have to think about plummeting two hundred feet to my death.”
“This tower definitely isn’t two hundred feet tall.”
“Well, it’s tall enough that my head will crack like a watermelon when it hits the ground.”
“Jeez. You really need to work on your romance technique.”
I gape at him. “This is supposed to be romantic? Wait, do you have a fetish for girls throwing up on you?”
He bursts out laughing. “You’re not going to throw up.” But much to my relief, he tightens his grip around my shoulder.
The warmth of his body is a nice distraction from my current predicament. So is his aftershave. Or is it cologne? His natural scent? Holy Moses, if it’s his natural scent, then he needs to bottle that spicy fragrance up, call it Orgasm, and sell it to the masses.
“See that pond over there?” he asks.
“No.” I’ve squeezed my eyes shut, so all I can see is the inside of my eyelids.
He pokes me in the ribs. “It would help if you opened your eyes. Come on, look.”
I pry my eyes open and follow the tip of his finger to where he’s pointing. “That’s a pond? It looks like a mud swamp.”
“Yeah, it gets muddy in the spring. But in the summer, there’s actually water in there. And in the winter, it freezes over and everyone comes here to skate on it.” He pauses. “My friends and I played hockey there when I was a kid.”
“Was it safe to skate on?”
“Oh yeah, the ice is solid. Nobody’s ever fallen through it, as far as I know.” There’s another pause, longer, and fraught with tension. “I loved coming here. It’s weird, though. It seemed so much bigger when I was a kid. Like I was skating on an ocean. Then when I got older, I realized how fucking small it actually is. I can skate from one end to the other in five seconds. I timed it.”
“Things always look bigger to a kid.”
“I guess.” He shifts so that he can see my face. “Did you have a place like that in Hastings? Somewhere you escaped to when you were younger?”
“Sure. Do you know that park behind the farmer’s market? The one with the pretty gazebo?”
He nods.
“I used to go there all the time and read. Or to talk to people, if anyone was around.”
“The only people I’ve ever seen in that park are the old folks from the retirement home around the corner.”
I laugh. “Yeah, most of the ones I met were over sixty. They told the coolest stories about the ‘olden days.’” I chew on the inside of my cheek as a few not-so-cool stories come to mind. “Actually, sometimes the stories were incredibly sad. They talked a lot about their families never coming to visit.”
“That’s really depressing.”
“Yeah,” I murmur.
He lets out a ragged breath. “I’d be one of them.”
“You mean, not getting visits from your family? Aw, I don’t believe that.”
“No, I’d be the family member who doesn’t visit,” he answers in a strained voice. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I’d definitely visit my mom. But if my dad was in a home? I probably wouldn’t step foot in there.”
A wave of sadness washes over me. “You guys don’t get along?”
“Not really. He gets along better with a case of beer or a bottle of bourbon.”
That only makes me sadder. I can’t imagine not being close with my parents. As different as their personalities are, I have a strong bond with each of them.
Logan goes quiet again, and I don’t feel comfortable pushing for more details. If he wanted to tell me more, he would have done it.
Instead, I fill the awkward void by shifting the subject back to me. “I guess talking to those seniors was depressing sometimes, but I didn’t mind listening. I think that’s all they really wanted, anyway. For someone to listen.” I purse my lips. “It was around that time when I decided I wanted to be a therapist. I realized I had a talent for reading people. And listening to them without passing judgment.”
“Are you a psych major?”
“I will be. I didn’t declare a major this year because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go the psychology route or the psychiatry one. But I decided I don’t want to go to med school. Plus, psychology opens up a lot of doors that psychiatry doesn’t. I could be a therapist, social worker, guidance counselor. That sounds so much more rewarding than prescribing pills.”
I lean my head on his shoulder as we gaze out at the small town that stretches beyond the tower. He’s right—Munsen’s not much to look at. So I focus on the pond instead, and picture Logan as a little kid. His skates flying across the ice, his blue eyes alight with wonder as he basks in the certainty that the pond is an ocean. That the world is big and bright and teeming with possibility.
His tone becomes thoughtful. “So you have a talent for reading people, huh? Can you read me?”
I smile. “I haven’t quite figured you out yet.”
His husky laughter warms my cheek. “I haven’t quite figured me out yet either.”
