My very understanding friend quickly gathered her things, and I said good-bye to her outside my building and left to catch up with Logan. I found him marching past the university toward the Meadows. “Logan…” I tried to match stride with him.
“Why is she acting like this?” He glared at me. “She’s not like this in the house. We’re great. We don’t argue. We’re fine. But then she’s out of the house and she’s kissing boys in media rooms and trying to get into nightclubs, not picking up her phone, making me worry. I got another phone call from school,” he told me. “Yesterday. She missed two morning classes.”
Dread moved through me. “Clearly this is deliberate. It’s not like her. She enjoys school. And she’s happy with you, Logan. I know she is.”
“Then why?”
I shrugged. “Maybe it’s about her mother… or… We don’t know everything she’s been through. We don’t know what’s she dealing with. Perhaps she should see a school counselor.”
“I don’t want to force her to do something she doesn’t want to do. Well… except drag her out of this bloody nightclub.”
“Maybe we can try to be calm when we find her?” I suggested gently.
“Calm? Grace, it’s nine o’clock on a Thursday night. I’ve been trying to call her for the last two hours and was just seconds from calling the police when I knocked on your door.”
“When was she supposed to be home?”
“She said she was having dinner at Layla’s so she’d be home around seven thirty.”
“It took you more than an hour to come to me?”
Logan glanced at me. “Things have been strained between us. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“It’s Maia. You’re never bothering me when it comes to Maia.”
“Right.” The word was laced heavily in sarcasm.
We fell into an awkward silence, compounded only by the silence of the almost-empty park around us.
“Are you okay?” he said, no longer sarcastic but concerned. “Maia mentioned she was going to Layla’s instead of yours after school because you had a doctor’s appointment.”
I blanched. “Oh… yes. I’m fine.”
“That was the least-fine-sounding fine ever. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Grace —”
“Logan —”
“I will keep asking until we find Maia, and after I’ve dealt with her, I’ll make you talk,” he warned, sounding completely serious.
I looked up into his eyes and saw the steely determination in them.
Oh shit.
“Fine… It wasn’t a doctor’s appointment. I had an appointment this afternoon at the health clinic.”
“For?” He sounded impatient now.
“A sexual health check.” I stared ahead, not wanting to see his reaction.
After a moment’s silence he said, “Because we had sex without protection?”
I heard something in his voice I had never heard before. Something a lot like hurt. I couldn’t help but look at him, and I found him staring at me in angry incredulity. “Logan, you’ve slept with a lot of women.”
“I use protection.”
“You didn’t with me.”
“Only you though!” He clenched his hands into fists at his sides and picked up speed.
I hurried to stay with him, my heart beating frantically. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings.”
“Hurt my feelings?” he sneered. “You didn’t hurt my feelings, Grace. But at least I know exactly what you think of me.”
“I don’t think badly of you. I just think you’ve slept with a lot of women and I was being safe. You can’t blame me for that!”
He stopped suddenly, and I stumbled to a halt to face him. His breathing had increased exponentially. “You must think I’m an irresponsible fuckup. Do you honestly believe I don’t get health checked? Of course I fucking do. I had a health check six weeks ago. I’m clean. I would have told you otherwise.”
“You were with the American after that,” I said, my voice quiet with pain at the idea of him being with her. “Only days before me.”
Logan caught the pain because his features instantly softened, remorse lighting his eyes. “Grace…” He raised a hand as if to reach for me, but I turned away and started walking toward Tollcross.
“Let’s just forget it, all right? We have Maia to worry about.”
We didn’t speak the rest of the way to the club, the tension mounting between us.
When we turned down the wide alley where the entrance to the club was, we took in the line of young people outside, searching for Maia.
“There,” I huffed out in relief, hurrying along the line to where she was standing close to the front. My eyes almost bugged out of my head as she turned to smile at Layla and I saw what she was wearing.
She did not own that dress.
It was short, it was tight, and it was no, no, no, NO!
“What the hell are you wearing?” Logan snapped, shooting past me. Obviously, he agreed with my assessment of the dress.
Maia’s cheeks flushed at the sight of us, but she didn’t look nearly as guilty as she should.