Logan Kade (Fallen Crest #5.5)

“What what’s like?”

She grinned at me. “You. Your face.” She looked around the room. “Seeing all of this for the first time. It’s overwhelming. That’s how I remember it.”

“They act like he’s a god.” That wasn’t normal, was it?

“Logan would have their backs in a heartbeat. That’s what he does. He’s actually a lot nicer now than he was in high school.”

“What?”

She laughed at my surprise. “He was meaner in high school, but I think he was just more protective of his brother.” She stopped, her lips pursed together. “Or maybe that was Mason bringing out the mean side of him?” She shrugged and patted my arm. “You’ll get used to it.”

What did she mean by that?

She read the question in my eyes. “Logan likes you. If he likes you, everyone else will, too.”

“Your friends didn’t.”

She waved that off. “They’ll come around.”

“How do you know?”

She started forward, turning back over her shoulder as she headed downstairs and said, so simply, “Because Logan said you’re a friend.”





#CHICKSHOWDOWN


TAYLOR


I was having fun. I was laughing. I was joking.

I was drunk.

Logan came back with another beer for me, and I stopped counting how many I’d had. It had been this way for the past two hours. Logan spent time with Nate and the guys, but he kept coming over to check on me. If I hadn’t been smart, I’d have let it go to my head. But nope. Logan and I were friends. Samantha had said it earlier. Logan had said it on a couple of occasions, and with a decisive bob of my head, I reminded myself of it, too.

Friends. Nothing else. But as I watched him line up a shot—his eyes narrowing so he could focus, ignoring the guys trying to distract him—there was a little pitter-patter in my heart. I wasn’t just in trouble. I was firmly in deep shit.

“I don’t want to be intrusive,” Sam said, leaning across the table. She cast a look over to her two friends, but both seemed oblivious.

She said they’d warm up to me, and they had. They were now past warming up and were drunk right along with me. Well, I still bordered between really tipsy and drunk. Both had glazed eyes and open mouths as they watched Logan. His ass was right in front of us as he bent over for a shot. I tore my gaze away and refocused on Sam.

She continued, “How did you and Logan get to know each other?”

I shrugged, shaking my head. “I was in a sociology class with him, and…” I frowned. There’d been something else. I snapped my fingers. “Jason.”

“Jason?’

Logan must have heard me, and when he finished his shot, and came over to stand next to the table. He leaned on his pool cue as Nate took the next shot. His eyes lingered on me.

“Delray,” he said to Sam, switching his gaze to her. “That little shit is one of her friends. He turned me down last year because of Sebastian, so I used Taylor to get a little revenge on him.”

“You used her?” Sam glanced at me, questioning.

I shook my head. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Come to think of it…” Logan lifted a hand to scratch behind his ear. “I used him to get her phone number.” He winked at me. “Best move I’ve made in a long time, that is until she abandoned me in my quest to mindfuck entire groups.”

“She abandoned you?”

I touched my cheeks. I should’ve been blushing, but the alcohol had already given me perma-blush. “I had to switch sections.”

“She couldn’t handle me anymore, Sam. I must’ve broken her heart without even realizing it.”

“Logan!” The guys called him for the game again.

He gazed down at me as if we had our own private joke. “Actually she broke my heart. She left me all alone. I’ve got no one to plot evil schemes with now.”

I couldn’t keep from grinning. “I don’t think you have a shortage of people who’d love to do that with you.”

“Logan!”

He ignored them, leaning down to grab my beer. He took a drink, his eyes on me the entire time, before he put it back down and murmured so only I could hear, “But no one like you.”

“Logan!”

He gave me another wink before going back to the pool table. He rolled his shoulders and lifted his cue in the air. “Chill, fuckers. I’m going to win now or five minutes from now. Why do you need to hasten my victory?”

Nate started laughing, but the others grumbled. My eyes lingered on Logan a moment longer than they should’ve as he leaned over and sank one more ball. I turned back into the table, only to realize Samantha had been watching me the whole time. She had a knowing expression in her eyes.

I coughed and stood up. I didn’t want to see the pity that would come next. She didn’t know me, even though in that moment, she probably knew me on a level no one else did. She saw feelings I was still trying to lie to myself about.