by Becky Monson
Without another word, Logan grabs me by the hand, and we head back to the tower.
Chapter 30
Holy crap. Logan may have been right.
I feel . . . well, I don’t feel like puking as I fly through the air, my hands gripping the bar above me. Some of the onlookers in the park below are clapping and cheering me on. I’m wearing the most unflattering black jumpsuit, a bright yellow helmet on my head, and goggles on my eyes as I zip down a wire in a harness that’s currently giving me a wedgie of such epic proportions. I should hate it. I shouldn’t like any part of this.
But I don’t hate it. I don’t hate it, a lot.
I almost didn’t do it. I nearly called it off when I had to sign a waiver which had words on it like “injury,” “disability,” and—I kid you not—“death.” But one of the guys running the whole thing talked me down. In his thick French accent, he promised that in his entire career, he’s never seen anyone get hurt. He appeared all of nineteen, so I question how long his “career” has actually been, but I signed anyway.
Then when we were at the top—on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, and even after I was all suited up, I briefly considered turning around and making a run for it—in the jumpsuit getup and all. It was that smile of Logan’s that did me in. That stupid, mind-melting grin that you’d think would at some point start losing its luster. Especially the more time we spend together. But it hasn’t. If anything, it’s getting worse. It’s very possible his smile might carry magical powers.
Now as I move down the line at a speed I’m fairly confident I don’t want to know, the wind on my face, Paris below me, I think I might get why people do this. There’s an energy pulsing through me, running through my veins, that I’ve never felt before. I like it. I don’t feel out of control like I thought I would. I just feel exhilarated.
Before I know it, it’s over and I’m at the end of the line, bobbing around as they pull me onto the platform and unhook me.
I feel like . . . well, still me. The me who just zip lined off the Eiffel Tower. My friends will never believe I did this.
I’ve only done it once, and I’m still feeling the adrenaline pumping through me, but I could probably do this again. I think. I don’t know. All I do know is I liked it.
I take off my gear, and then stand to the side to wait for Logan. I watch him take off, not being able to see his facial expressions from so far away. As he gets closer I can make out the hint of a grin on his lips.
And then I remember our bargain. If I liked it, Logan gets to kiss me. I feel the adrenaline start to pulse through my veins again just as it was starting to taper off.
I have a few options and I need to decide quickly since he’s getting closer and closer as each second passes.
First option: I could lie. I could say it was horrible and I never want to do it again. But I’m a terrible liar, and also I’m pretty sure I do want to do it again. I have half a mind to get right back in line now.
Another option would be to tell him the truth and then play it off like I forgot about the kissing part. Or tell him he’s off the hook.
Or . . . or I could just let him kiss me.
This thought does all kinds of things to my body. Butterflies in my stomach start reproducing rapidly and a tingle shoots down my back so quickly it borders on painful.
Before I can make up my mind, before I can make a solid decision, my time is up as Logan has reached the end of the zip line, the line bobbing up and down as he does. He’s helped up to the platform by the people working on this end and once he’s off the line, he starts getting out of his gear.
I decide, because I’m still not sure what I should do, that first I need to get off this platform. So I take the stairs down to the park and wait for Logan at the bottom.
Not even thirty seconds later, I see him walking down the stairs and the registering of relief on his face when he sees me there waiting at the bottom.
I must have a strange expression on my face because Logan asks, “Are you okay?” as he approaches me.
He eyes me with concern, his brows pulling downward, his mouth slightly open as he searches my face, looking for any signs that I may have been hurt. Like he did when he got to the hotel in London.
I shake my head as if to get myself out of a trance. I give him a smile, not sure what expression my face had taken on while I was weighing my options. “I’m fine,” I say.
He doesn’t seem convinced. He still looks worried—this man who’s done so much for me. This man who I thought hated me, but I’m pretty confident he doesn’t, and never did.
“Well?” he asks, after he’s satisfied that I haven’t broken anything.
“Well?” I echo.
He tilts his head slightly to the side. “You didn’t die.”
I move my head back and forth slowly. “I didn’t die.”
“I told you, you wouldn’t,” he says.
“You did say that.”
“So then, did you like it?” he asks.
I don’t answer. I take in a steadying breath and then I take a step toward him and, standing on my tiptoes, I grab his face between my hands and kiss him.
It’s a quick kiss—a little longer than a peck. I let go of his face after I pull my lips away. My hands falling to my sides, I take a step back from him.
At first, he just stares at me, stunned. But then his lips slowly curve up until those straight white teeth of his can be seen in full view. “You liked it,” he says.
I nod once. “I did.”
Just as quickly as that grin appeared on his face, it falls. “That wasn’t part of our deal.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Yes, it was,” I say folding my arms in a pseudo-confident manner. “If I liked it, we kiss.”
This was the deal; I know what he said.
Logan moves his head slowly back and forth, his eyes on me as he does. “The deal was I get to kiss you.”
“Oh,” I say breathlessly, unfolding my arms and letting them hang by my sides. That may have been what was said.
I start to nibble on my bottom lip, weighing my options. I could say my kiss counted, or I could let him kiss me again. With that intense gaze he has on me right now, and the echo of feeling his soft lips on mine, I’m kind of thinking the latter is the best option. I should let him kiss me again. It’s only fair.
I wait for the voice in my head, the one that warns me that I’m making a bad choice—but it seems silent right now. In fact, the only voice I can hear is the one that’s screaming, “Yes! Yes! Do that again!”
So when Logan takes a step toward me, a hand coming up to my face to cradle it, I don’t move. When his face moves slowly down to mine, I close my eyes and tilt my head upward.
When I feel his lips on mine, soft and tender, I place my hands on his waist, pulling myself toward him. After only a brief moment of his lips on mine, he gently pulls away, leaving his hands on my face. I slowly open my eyes to find him looking at me. That intense gaze of his makes my insides feel gooey. What I’m feeling the most right now is wanted. Logan wants me. I don’t know if it’s just for right now, or if this is only the beginning, but I want to find out.
What I do know for sure is that I want more than the one kiss. Right now, I want all the kisses. I want him to kiss me the way he did on Church Street.
I lean in slightly, and this is enough for Logan to get the hint. He doesn’t need any more coaxing than that as he crashes his lips onto mine and we go from zero to sixty in mere seconds. Gone are the chaste kisses we shared a moment ago—now his lips move over mine with such fire, such intensity, I melt into them, savoring every part of it. My hands move from his waist and wrap around his back and I pull myself against him. I want to be closer to him; I feel like I can’t get close enough. I open my mouth wider to give him more access, more room to explore my mouth with his.
Once again, my mind is blank—void of all its normal distractions. I can only focus on his arms around me, his hands moving from my face to my b
ack as he pulls me closer to him like he too feels we can’t be close enough. All the while his lips are hot on mine, taking my breath away, making me feel like I never want this to end.
This must be how it feels to be present, to be in a moment. I think I finally get it.
I like this moment. I like it a lot.
Chapter 31
Logan: I’ll be at the LJ today.
I’m home. Back in Orlando.
The rest of the day after the zip lining felt almost like something out of a fairytale with all the hand holding and stolen kisses as we took in all we could of Paris. I say almost, because it was with Logan. Fairytales aren’t his thing. But I got to see a whole new side of him for the rest of the trip. I could be totally off base, but it felt like a side that only I was privy to. Gone was the awkward inability to touch me. This Logan kept a hand on me at all times, like he was afraid to let me go. And there was a lot of grinning. The toothy kind.
Even the flight back was idyllic, especially when I was able to move Logan next to me in first class. There just so happened to be a seat open next to me, since the person reserved for that seat is still back in London . . . or who knows where.
Now we’re back in Orlando and Logan is at the Lava Java and I’m about to walk through the door of CT Anderson Bank and life is back to how it was before. Like old times. Only, it’s different times now.
I’m not sure exactly what those different times are. Not where Logan and I are concerned, at least. We never had a discussion about what was going to happen when we got back. But after the flight, when we parted ways last night, Logan left me with a spine-tingling, mind-numbing kiss. And there was no finality in that kiss—it was more a promise of things yet to come.
And I like that notion. I like it a lot.
I have a lot of feelings for Logan. All of them the warm and fuzzy kind. Which, if I think about it, is so weird. I had half expected to wake up this morning—back in my own bed, back to my reality—and something would snap and I’d realize all the vacation warm fuzzies were left in Paris. But they weren’t. They’re still there, and maybe have grown with all the possibilities ahead of us.
What wasn’t warm and fuzzy when I woke up this morning were my feelings about work. Which is a phenomenon I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around. Maybe it’s vacation brain and it’s been so long since I’ve had a real vacation, I’ve forgotten how that feels.
Regardless, I have a serious case of the Mondays. But on a Thursday. I can’t say I’ve ever felt this way about coming into work before. Like I don’t want to be here. Like I’d rather be any place else than here.
The only thing that makes me feel somewhat excited about being here is to see Marie. I want her to see post-vacation Holly. I think she’ll see a difference because I feel different. I can’t pinpoint what it is exactly. I just feel lighter, happier, which is probably thanks to Logan and Paris. Had I come home after London, after everything went down with Nate, I would have probably been worse off.
I’m excited for her to see this new me and then I can start taking steps toward my future—toward the CCM position. The strange thing? The idea of the CCM position isn’t giving me the excited butterflies in my stomach like they used to.
Maybe zip lining jumbled my brain. Or Logan’s kisses did. Or a combination of the two.
There’s no grand entrance as I make my way to my floor. Not that I expected there to be. It would have been cool to have a welcome back sign in my office somewhere. Tiffany’s team did that for her one time when she was out for a week.
But there’s nothing waiting for me when I get to my office and set my stuff down on my desk. I scan the room, with its boring decor and bland color palate. Such a contrast to the things I saw and did these past ten days. It kind of feels . . . stifling in here.
I leave the door to my office open, hoping maybe it’s just being back in an office and not out in the world where there’s so much to see that’s got me feeling this way.
It’s definitely vacation brain.
An hour later, though, as I’ve slogged through a ridiculous amount of emails, I’m not feeling that much better. I haven’t even checked on my team yet. I’m actually surprised not one of them has come to my office to see if I’m back.
I decide to rip the Band-Aid off quickly and go see them. Maybe that will get me back into excited work mode, even though managing my team is probably my least favorite part of this job. Not probably. Definitely.
But who knows. Maybe absence has made my heart grow fonder for them, and vice versa. I’m sure it must have been hard being under Tiffany’s thumb for the past ten days.
What I see when I enter my team’s office, with the sunny yellow paint and the fluorescent overhead lighting, is not what I’m expecting.
They’re all working. All of them. Every one of their heads are focusing on their screens, their headphones on, chatting away with what I can only assume are customers. This is not totally out of the realm of normalcy. I mean, it’s happened before, but usually I can find at least one of them not doing their job. And most of them not doing their job right.
Sarah and Sara both give me small waves when they see me and then quickly focus on their work. I walk around the room observing this phenomenon in front of me.
I stop by Avery’s desk and listen in on her call—she sounds … nice? Since when has Avery started using a nice voice with the customer?
I walk to the back of the room and . . . wait, what is this? Is Jim wearing a suit? He looks almost professional. I peer over at Brad and even he is looking businesslike with his moppy red hair tamed back with what might be some gel.
What’s going on? I’m totally mouth-breathing, my jaw slackened by the scene before me.
As they all seem to be busy working, like some freaky fine-oiled-machine straight out of The Twilight Zone, I walk out of their office and leave them to it. Maybe this is all a big prank. Maybe they’ll all pop out and say “surprise!” and Jim will have been wearing athletic shorts with that button-up and suit coat. And Brad’s hair will go instantly back to its unruly ways.
“Yoo-hoo,” I hear a high-pitched, sing-song voice from behind me, and I take a deep breath as I turn around.
“Hey, Tiffany,” I say, trying to make my expression pleasant. I was secretly hoping I could avoid her today since I was pretty sure her presence would burst the bubble of happiness from my vacation.
I was not wrong.
“How was your trip, Miss World Traveler?” she asks, all cheesy and fake-like. She’s wearing one of her signature suits today, her blond hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail.
“It was good,” I say, trying not to scowl at her and her perfectly tailored everything.
Vacation did not cause my heart to grow fonder for Tiffany.
“Have you seen the complaints team yet?” she asks, a bright smile on her face, her eyes practically twinkling with glee.
“I was just in there,” I say, with a thumb hitch in the direction of their office behind me.
“What did you think?” she asks, her eyes now dancing around.
“I, uh, I’m not sure what you’re asking,” I say, even though I have an inkling. And I don’t like that inkling.
She smacks her lips. “Holly, you silly—what did you think about your team? They look good, don’t they?”
I eye her through half-closed eyelids. “They look like they’re doing their jobs.”
“Right?” she says, all chirpy and happy-like. “And they’re total champs at the PFC report.” She pumps a fist in the air twice. Like a cheerleader.
I never liked cheerleaders.
“Good,” I say.
“It just took some better training and a little motivation, and they grabbed right onto it,” she says. “And now they’re like little worker bees. You should be so proud.”
There’s the dig. I was waiting for it. Better training? Motivation? What is she talking about?
I pull my lips up into a smile—albeit a ver
y fake one. I will not let her dig affect me. Sure, my team does look like they’re, well, they’re doing their jobs. But I doubt that had to do with Tiffany. It probably had to do with all the prep I did with them before I left. By the look of Tiffany’s face, though, I’d say she thinks this was all on her.
Jim walks out of my team’s office and sees us standing there. “Oh, hey,” he says walking toward us, a small stack of papers in his hand. He has pants on. Real suit pants that match his suit coat. S-word.
“There’s our Jim,” Tiffany says like a proud mom. “Holly, would you look at Jim? That suit coat and tie just look fantastic on you,” she says.
Jim preens. He tips his chin upward and sticks his chest out like he’s some champion horse.
“I told Jim, here, that if you want to be treated like a professional, you need to dress like one. And now look at him.” She beams at him and he beams back.
So much beaming.
“Well, thank you, Tiffany,” he says. Then he looks at me. “How was your trip?”
“It was good,” I say, feeling a little pride myself. Check out Jim taking an active interest in me. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Tiffany.
He turns to Tiffany. “Hey, so can I get your signature on these?” he asks.
“Jim,” I say, trying to get his attention.
“Yeah?”
“I can sign that for you,” I say.
His eyes dart from me to Tiffany, the papers in his hand going from her to me and then back to her. “That’s okay, Tiffany knows what these are,” he says.
“It’s the PFC report,” I say, recognizing the front page.
“Yeah,” he says, an expression of surprise on his face like I have no idea what that is. Like I never trained him on it in the first place.
“I’ve got it,” Tiffany says, snatching the papers from Jim. “Don’t you worry about that, Holly. You’ve got enough catching up to do.”
She signs the papers and hands them back to Jim.