Heat Wave

“I thought you barely knew him before you came here.”


We turn the corner to the hotel and I lower my voice. “I don’t expect you to understand, which is why we’re trying to keep this a secret. But haven’t you ever…met someone and you knew that, without a doubt, he was supposed to be with you?”

“No,” she says flatly.

“Well then you aren’t going to get it.” I sigh as we climb up the stairs to our place. “Look, can we just keep it between us. You trust me with all your Charlie stuff.”

“That is so not the same,” she says, opening the door.

I walk in after her. “It is. You keep going back to Charlie for reasons I don’t know and I don’t pretend to know. Maybe he’s awesome in bed. Maybe you like guys who don’t wear shoes. Scratch that – you definitely like guys who don’t wear shoes. But the point is there is something between you guys that’s hard to ignore.”

“His dick is hard to ignore. That’s it.”

I give her a dry look. “Fine. Blame his dick. I blame Logan’s then.”

“Oh my god,” she says, throwing her hands up and going over to the couch, sitting down in a huff. “There’s no way I want to think of Logan that way.”

“You don’t think he’s hot?”

She scrunches up her nose. “He’s hot in an older, burly, Hugh Jackman kind of way, yes. Hot like maybe one of my dad’s younger friends.”

“Kate, he’s still in his thirties, he’s not that old!”

She shrugs. “You’re not thirty yet, so what, you have a ten-year age difference? More? It doesn’t matter. He’s old. A few more years and he’s in silver fox territory.”

“So you admit he’s a fox.”

“I admit nothing.”

“Well he is and I have to ask who the hell your dad’s friends are if they look like Logan.”

She actually seems to think that over, tapping her fingers on her chin. “Well there’s this guy who used to work with my dad…”

“Kate,” I warn her. “Back on track here. I need you to promise not to say anything to anyone.”

“Why, are you ashamed?”

“Me? No. Hell no. But you just proved why people wouldn’t understand.”

She exhales loudly and flops down on her side. “You’ve turned my world upside down, dude.”

“And he’s turned my world upside down,” I say quietly, taking a seat beside her, lifting one of her legs out of the way.

She lifts her head, studying me for a moment before letting it fall back on the pillow. “Damn. You’re serious.”

“I am serious. I think I’m in love with him.”

I’m in love with him.

Nope, it’s not getting any less terrifying.

Kate groans, covering her face with her hands. “This keeps getting worse. You love him?”

Yes.

I shrug. “No. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it is.”

“Look, Ron, we have a judgement free zone right, so I’m not going to break that. I just want you to think long and hard about this and, nope, don’t laugh at that, it’s not a pun. If you’re actually in love with Logan and this isn’t about hot sex or whatever the old man gets up to, good for you. But no matter what, this isn’t going to be easy. I mean, you know what it looks like. That Logan is a heartless bastard…and he kind of is a heartless bastard sometimes, so that doesn’t help.”

I nod, my heart flinching at those words. “I know.”

“I mean it. What good can come of this?”

I glare at her. “Ouch.”

She sighs and sits up straight. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you. I care. Believe it or not, I do have that capacity in me and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Logan wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I agree. I think the man is head over heels for you and has been for a long time. Kind of like the kid that used to pull your hair and tease you in grade school because he had a crush on you and didn’t know how to show it.” She pauses. “But where can this relationship go? Either you’re just fucking around or it’s going to lead to more and if it leads to more…will it be strong enough to survive what’s going to come?”

I don’t even want to ask what’s going to come. It will be a lot like this but with people being even less understanding. Maybe something worse.

“You couldn’t possibly marry him,” she adds quietly. “Do you know how bad that would look?”

Fuck. Obviously I know this, it’s just been something I’ve tried really hard not to think about. For one, I don’t want to jinx things and assume this relationship is going somewhere, even after what Logan said to me today. For two, I don’t want to think about how people would take it. How do we even explain what’s going on without painting Juliet in a bad light? There’s no way we’ll come out of it looking like decent people. Talk about a fucking scandal.