I nod so hard I bounce. “Yes, I’d love to.”
We walk up the path together, side by side. Logan puts his large hand on my lower back, and my skin tingles, burns. “Careful, there’s some debris—don’t want you to fall.”
But he’d catch me if I did.
The inside of Logan’s house looks Victorian in style—a large staircase with a thick square railing in the foyer, an open layout with big rooms, high ceilings, wood floors that have been sanded but not yet lacquered. Logan reaches up and tugs on a cord, lighting the bare bulb that hangs from a long wire where, one day, a chandelier will be. The walls are unfinished, open, exposing the solid wood beams, brick, and electrical wires.
With hushed footsteps, because it feels strangely like walking somewhere sacred, I follow Logan from room to room. In what will be the living room, there’s only a mattress on the floor, covered by a clean sheet and folded blanket. That’s where Logan sleeps—where he lays his head and body every night. Maybe his bare body.
It calls to me—makes me want to lie down on it, press my naked skin against the same fabric his has touched and roll around, bathing my body in his scent.
And I don’t care how crazy it sounds.
Despite the lack of appliances—there are just empty spaces and protruding wires where the stove and refrigerator will be—the kitchen is inviting. Muted, gray marble countertops, cherry cabinets, a tiled backsplash of one-inch white and clear glass squares. There’s a window above the stainless-steel sink, with a view of the backyard that would make even doing the dishes something to look forward to.
“You need curtains,” I say.
“I don’t have walls.”
I laugh. “Curtains make a house a home, Logan. They’re the eyebrows of a house. Have you ever seen how freaky someone looks with no eyebrows? You don’t want to do that to this place—all the other houses will make fun of it.”
And he laughs—a deep, rich rumble in his chest that I want to feel against my cheek.
His fingertips slide up my arm. “Come on, the best part’s upstairs. I want to show you.”
Logan takes a flashlight from the counter to light our way up the stairs, down the hall into the rounded tower room. It’s what will one day be the master bedroom. It’s enormous, as big as our whole apartment above the coffee shop in New York.
But that’s not the best part.
That honor goes to the ceiling. It’s a skylight—all of it—displaying the dark expanse of night and hundreds of twinkling stars, like the heavens are the ceiling.
“There are shades built into the glass,” Logan explains. “They’ll close with the push of a button, so I don’t end up sunburned in my sleep.”
“Logan . . .” I gasp. “It’s magical.”
He’s standing close to me, his arm just a breath’s away from mine. His grin is easy and relaxed. “I’m glad you like it, Ellie.”
My voice becomes breathless, words slipping from my lips without a worry or thought. “Just when I think you can’t amaze me more, you show me this.”
He turns to face me, his chin dipping. “I amaze you?”
“All the time. You always have.”
And here in this dim room, with the light aimed downward, it feels secret and safe. Charming and perfect. Another world—another dimension, where nothing and no one else exists. Just Logan and me, together, in this moment, beneath the stars.
“Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you . . . do you ever think of me?”
He doesn’t blink or turn away. His dark eyes shine in the shadows, holding my gaze.
“Do I . . .?”
The shrill sound of his phone ringing stops his words. Logan slips the phone from his pocket and puts it to his ear.
“Yeah?” His forehead creases and he covers his other ear with his hand, trying to hear. “What? Where are you? All right, all right—I’m coming now.”
He punches the disconnect button.
“We have to go.”
We drive in silence, Logan’s whole demeanor changed with that call. He looks at the road with a do-not-fuck-with-me expression and a death grip on the steering wheel. His shoulders are tense and his forearms are corded. As we drive, I notice that the scenery around us changes. The suburban homes fade into run-down buildings with graffiti, barbed-wire gated lots, abandoned houses and storefronts with black iron bars on every window.
We pull down a dark street and park at the curb in front of a ramshackle house. Logan reaches under his seat and takes out a small, black handgun. It’s mini, kind of cute, as far as guns go—if you can look past the whole capable-of-blowing-brains-out thing. He lifts my hand and wraps it around the butt of the gun.
“Tell me the rules,” he says.
Immediately, I know what he’s referring to. A few weeks after Logan showed me how to throw a punch and strapped a knife to my ankle, he took me to a gun range. So I’d know how to use a weapon if I ever needed to, without shooting myself in the process. There were rules he made me repeat back to him more than once: “Don’t put my finger on the trigger unless I’m going to pull it. Don’t point at anyone unless I plan to shoot them. Don’t shoot anyone unless I want to kill them.”
“Good.” He nods.
“You stay in the car with the doors locked. If someone tries to break the window to get in, don’t wait, don’t warn, you point and you pull the trigger—and you keep pulling until it stops firing. Do you hear me, Ellie?”
I nod, looking across the street and out the window. Then I whisper, “Logan, are we in the taint?”
The corners of his mouth quirk. “Yeah we are. If I’d had a choice I wouldn’t have brought you here, but I couldn’t leave you alone at the house.”
A crash and yells come from inside the house.
“I have to go in.” He looks me in the eyes. “Stay in the fucking car, Ellie. Yeah?”
“Okay, I will.”
And he’s gone. Charging up the steps, through the front door.
Silence closes in tight around me. It’s eerie—no cars are honking, no one out walking and talking, there’s not even a dog barking. Those are the sounds of a city, the sounds of life. The absence of those sounds means life has moved away or is too afraid to come out. In either case, it’s not a place you want to be.
The screen door of the house bursts open—snapping back with a bang and falling off its hinges. Logan stands on the front steps and literally throws a guy down onto the pavement. He lands hard but gets to his feet quickly, gripping a long butcher knife in his hand. Logan shakes his head and goes after him. My heart crawls into my throat when the guy swings the knife at Logan’s stomach, but he jumps back, grabs the guy’s arm and twists his hand back at an unnatural angle. The guy drops the knife and falls to his knees, screaming.
Logan drags him up and slams him face first on the hood of the car.