He reached over and gently pushed against her bare knee. “Hey, it’s fine. I do get to see a lot of beaches, though. Jungle. That’s familiar terrain for me, yeah.”
“You ever think about getting out?” The question bubbled up from nowhere, and she didn’t know why she’d asked. She never had before, mostly because she didn’t want to know the answer. It was part of the deal of loving Logan—she also had to deal with missing him, too.
He frowned. “Once in a while.”
Her heart jolted at the unexpected answer. “Oh?”
He shrugged and sighed. “This isn’t a conversation to have right now.”
“Okay.” She held out the sandwich box. “Here. Eat some before I devour them all.”
He shifted closer and set the box on the blanket between them. “There. We can share.”
They finished eating in companionable silence, but even after tucking the food containers away, Logan didn’t head for the pool of water. Instead, he rolled over and stretched out on his front, closing his eyes.
Tori took off her own shoes and followed suit, lying down on her back. The sun that filtered through the trees overhead was warm on her face.
“I kind of wish I never had to leave this place,” she finally whispered, breaking the silence.
Logan just grunted.
Men. She rolled her eyes.
“You’d miss Atlanta,” he finally said.
“No I wouldn’t,” she said, surprising herself just as much as him, probably. She did a double-take. No, she wouldn’t.
Her pulse pounded in her neck.
“Whoa,” he said, pushing up on his elbows.
She turned her head and found him looking at her with a worried expression on his face. “Whoa, what?”
“Don’t make any rash decisions.”
She frowned. “I’m not.”
“You’re thinking about moving away.”
Well yeah, now she was. But only in the hypothetical sense. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. No rash decisions. But I don’t think I can just keep going like my previous life decisions had all been totally cool, you know? Obviously they weren’t.”
“What? No, that’s crazy.” He scowled at her. This time, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. His heart was in the right place, even if he was being a bit obtuse. “This is all about Steve being a dumb shit. No reflection on you. In a few months, you’ll have totally moved on and nobody will remember that you were once engaged to that asshat.”
“Will I?” Of course, she’d move on from Stephen. She was already doing that in her heart, and her mind had been furiously working a mile a minute since her ex had dropped the bombshell on her two days earlier. Figuring out who would get trivia night—she would, Stephen hated it—and the Braves season tickets—all his, she didn’t care. Their life cleaved neatly into two piles, it turned out. And didn’t that just speak volumes to a reality she’d been completely blind to until Stephen got cold feet?
But she had been blind to it.
That couldn’t be skipped over.
She’d been a fool.
How could she just move on?
How could she trust herself to make sound romantic decisions ever again?
Logan bumped his shoulder against hers. “Where’d you go in your head?”
“An ugly, self-doubting place.”
“Well, stop that.”
She laughed. “It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is.”
Easy for him to say. Logan had never had a serious relationship, at least as far as she knew. She was his most serious relationship and given that they were platonic besties, that said a lot. Although…maybe she should try it his way for a while. She scrunched her face. Casual sex? Flings?
Didn’t really appeal.
Actually…had never appealed before. She sat up, intent on changing the subject. She brushed her hands together. “Last night was fun.”
He gave her a wary, confused look. “Okay.”
“Maybe that’s what I need more of this week. Fun.”
“You want to head back to that bar for dinner again?”
“Or find a place with more dancing?”
“You want to go dancing again.” It wasn’t a question. More of a flat, disbelieving statement.
She frowned. “Don’t tell me you think I need to have a mourning period over my broken engagement.”
“No.” But his jaw flexed and he looked away from her. Okay, so she’d jerked the conversation around a bit, but did he need to be such a downer?
Judgment from Logan Dwyer about her having a little fun now that she was single again? “I’m not going to have some random island hook-up.” Although why shouldn’t she? She shoved to her feet and yanked off her t-shirt. She’d worn a sturdy one-piece under her clothes for this exact reason. It was time to go swimming. Enough talking.
“Tori, stop…”