“What’s wrong with me? I think I’m pretty close to perfection.” He frowned and pouted his lip adorably.
Deflecting, always deflecting and making everything seem okay. Truth was, he was still a little lost. Logan had all these plans for the future, too. He should be in his own place by now but Jace’s death had taken over his life for a while as well. Now Logan had a big hole where his savings used to be and he was stuck at home until his bank balance looked healthier.
“You’re alright, I guess,” I said, turning my nose up. Logan was pretty perfect, as much as a person could be anyway. He was loyal and if he loved a person there was nothing he wouldn’t do for them. If it wasn’t for him I don’t know what I would be like now. Probably still curled up in bed, stuck grieving a life I’d never have.
“Fuck off, you love me.”
I hugged him because I did love him. “You know I do and that’s why I’m going to be as annoying about you achieving your goals as you are about me achieving mine.”
“Oh, good,” he said sarcastically. “Seriously, I don’t need saving. I’m fine, will be back on track soon.”
“Uh huh. So the girl at the gym the other day wasn’t pissed at you because you’d slept with her and ditched her?”
He held his hand up. “That happened months ago. I’m laying off women for a while, you know this.”
“I do. I just worry that while you’re so busy pushing me and holding Cassie together you’re going to relapse.” It was only six months ago that he was drinking himself stupid and sleeping with anything that crossed his path. I’d forced him to a sexual health clinic once – thankfully, he hadn’t caught anything – and was not keen to repeat the experience.
“Not gonna happen, sweetheart. I have no desire to wake up feeling like I’ve been run over or worrying who the fuck is next to me ever again. I can keep myself on the straight and narrow.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” he said.
“Okay. And you’ll come to me if you ever need to talk, right?”
He smiled tightly. Logan wasn’t a load his problems onto someone else person. It was one of the things I loved about him, but it frustrated me to no end. I wanted to be to him what he was to me. I wanted him to know he could rely on me for anything and to get him through anything.
“Sure. Now we gonna eat so much Chinese food we need to run an extra fifty miles tomorrow, or what?”
“Yes to stuffing our faces, no to running more. I’ll deal with the extra pound. You should still run though, you’re looking a little fat,” I joked, poking his very toned, very not fat chest. Practically the entire female race converted to the Church of Gym when they saw Logan’s body. Male fitness was a religion I really could get on board with.
“You wound me,” he said, smirking and bumping my shoulder with his.
Chapter Four
Logan
“Chlo, really?” I couldn’t help but laugh as she lay starfished out on the gym floor. She groaned and covered her eyes with her arm. “Oh God, my legs hurt so bad. I hate you. I really… just… hate you.”
I smiled wider. “You wanted to get back into shape.”
Not that there had ever been anything wrong with her shape, not at all. Her legs were perfectly toned and the object of many, many of my fantasies. She had a tiny little waist that was begging my tongue to trace every inch of it. Or maybe it was my tongue begging for it. Either way, she was fucking perfect and I wanted her so badly I had to take at least one ice cold shower every damn day.
“I take it back. A toned body is so overrated. No more, Logan. If you so much as want me to look at a cross trainer I will kill you.”
“Well,” I said and clapped my hands, “it’s good that you’re not overreacting.”
“You don’t understand the pain.”
I did. I understood perfectly and she knew that but she did like to get a little dramatic. It was cute and just another thing to add to the list of Things Logan Adores About Chloe. The list was long, and I was going to hell.
When Jace died I either worked out until my muscles screamed in pain or drank until my liver did. Chloe brought me back without knowing it at the time and stopped me fathering about seventy kids, too, I imagine. If I kept on the way I was going – whisky and women – I would be dishing out thousands in child support by now. The alcohol relieved the guilt but since I’d given it up – mostly – I felt like a proper bastard every second of the day.
“You want to hit the shower, then go home?”
“No. I want to lay here until I can feel my legs again. Possibly until morning.”
“People are looking at you.”
She shrugged one shoulder lazily. “Right now I don’t care if they’re dancing around me singing Kumbaya.”
I laughed, staring down at her and trying to keep my eyes off her cleavage and that sexy gap between her legs. “If you don’t get up I’ll sing Kumbaya.”
“So? You have a nice voice, that won’t get me up.”