by Evelyn Glass
She lay on my chest after the orgasm subsides, her body curled around mine, her face in my neck. Her breathing slowed and her body slowly relaxed, as did mine. I became soft and slipped out of her, but I wrapped my arms around her, wanting her to stay on top of me for as long as she liked.
When she finally rolled off she was still right next to me and I pulled her against me.
“That was amazing,” she said.
“You’re amazing.”
She smiled, a soft and tired smile. “I love you.”
My heart sang at those words. “I love you, too.”
I curled around her holding her close and I waited until her breathing became deeper, the sign she was asleep. I reached for a blanket and pulled it over us, letting myself fall asleep, too. For the first time in… well, ever, I knew I was going to have a great night’s sleep. I knew my future was set and I was happy with where I was headed.
Chapter 32
Selena
When I woke up, Logan was on his stomach splayed out with very little mattress left for me. We were going to have to get used to sharing a bed if we were going to live with each other. I’d never lived with someone and by the looks of things, neither had he. He seemed very comfortable with his own space and how much of it he had.
I nudged him and he shifted over without waking up. I smiled. I could work with compromises. I lay on my back, sheets over my chest. I looked up at the ceiling. So much had happened in such a short time I was still trying to wrap my mind around it. Besides the drama and subsequent trauma with May, there was also the week at the lake, the proposal and how quickly our relationship had escalated.
And then there was the publishing contract I was going to sign.
I got out of bed, quietly, and tiptoed to the bathroom. My lips were puffy from Logan’s kissing and nibbling. My neck was red with beard burn. My eyes were bright and the smile was quick on my lips. I got in the shower and washed Logan off me.
When I was done I wrote a note for Logan and left the apartment. I caught a cab back home.
My door was fixed. When I unlocked, there was no sign of the scuffle or the murder. It was like it had never happened. Logan’s men must have come during the night and made sure my apartment was ready for me to live in again. I kneeled down just inside the door and put my hand on the carpet where Mitchell had died. It didn’t look like anything had happened here, but I would never forget what he’d done for me. It was something very big when someone sacrificed their life for you.
I went into the bedroom and picked up the phone I’d forgotten in the drama that had followed after that man had kicked down my door. I dialed Joanne’s number.
“Are you busy today?” I asked.
“I’m always ready for a coffee,” she answered and we set a time.
I got dressed in fresh clothes and put on some makeup to cover the worst of my sex evidence.
Joanne waited for me in front of the café and we walked in together.
“It feels like it’s been forever since I last saw you,” I said.
“It has been. You were away for a week.”
I nodded. It wasn’t just that, though. Everything felt like it was a lifetime away. I was a different person. My life was different now.
“So, tell me what’s your big news?”
I smiled, feeling anxious and excited, all at the same time. “Logan and I are engaged.”
Joanne looked at me, her face a blank mask. After a moment she blinked and then frowned. “Are you being serious?”
I nodded. “He asked me two nights ago.”
A waitress appeared and we both ordered coffee.
She waited until the waitress left before she carried on. “Are you being serious about this? You haven’t even known the guy a month and you’re already going to marry him?”
I shrugged. I knew it sounded crazy. “He’s my other half. He’s the person I know I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. You know how you meet The One and you just know?”
Joanne shook her head. “That only happens in books and movies, Selena. Not in real life. This isn’t the kind of thing you can just call off when you’re not in the mood anymore. This is marriage we’re talking about.”
I nodded. “I know that. But so much has happened.”
The coffee came and we stirred in sugar and milk before I started telling her about everything that had happened. About May, the threats at the club, the lake and the Fallen Thorns arriving with news and gifts. Saul’s kidnapping. The part where I nearly died.
When it was all over my coffee was cold and Joanne’s face was one of shock and surprise and emotion. “This is the craziest story I’ve ever heard. If I’d read it in a book I would have said the author was putting too much in the plot outline. This is insane.”
I looked down at my coffee. It really was insane. “I think it’s going to work, though. We just fit.”
Joanne sipped her second cup of coffee. “If you’re sure…”
“Tell me about the book contract,” I said, changing the topic.
Joanne phoned her publishing friend and we set a date to meet up.
“Logan wants to get married this weekend,” I said.
Joanne froze. “That’s in like, a week.”
I nodded. “It’s very soon.”
“You’ll have known him for just about a month, then.”
I laughed. It was absurd. It was true.
“How do you feel about it?”
I shrugged. “When he mentioned it I was reluctant but the more I think about it the more I can’t see a reason why not. Everything has been a whirlwind, since the moment we met, and the truth is I want to be with him. We don’t have to wait – what would we be waiting for?”
I knew what was on her mind. We would be waiting to get to know each other, to know we weren’t making a mistake. But I didn’t agree. I knew we were doing the right thing. I knew what I wanted. I wanted Logan.
When I got back to the apartment, he was up, making breakfast. I had packed a bag I’d taken with to stay another night. Logan smiled when he saw me.
“You look great.”
I walked up to him and kissed him. He smelled fresh and clean, like he’d showered. He was wearing a white t-shirt and black shorts. I’d never seen him in something that light I had to admit he was dashing no matter what he had on. Or didn’t have on.
“I have a surprise for you.”
I hopped onto the counter. Logan turned to me, forgetting about his breakfast for a moment.
“Oh?”
I nodded. “You’ll have to wait until Saturday, though.”
He pulled a face. “Why did you tell me now? I’m going to die of curiosity all week.”
I hopped off the counter and pressed my body against his, kissing his shoulder.
“I’ll just have to distract you, then.”
He glanced at the kitchen counter and then at me with eyes that were full of sex and I knew what was coming.
Chapter 33
Logan
The week was strange. I wasn’t the official leader of the Fallen Thorns anymore but I kept going to the club because I didn’t know what to do with myself. Stepping down was strange. Saul had stepped into the role of leader like he was born to do it. He must have learned a thing or two, being my right-hand man for so long. Of course, he was cut out for the job.
I had to find something to do with my time. I could volunteer a lot more at the Boys and Girls Club but that was a Fallen Thorns’ thing. I had enough money not to have to work. I had no idea what I was going to do with myself.
I didn’t see much of Selena – she was meeting with publishers and editors and she had her job at the library, too. I left her to it. I didn’t want to bother her too much. She was in a good place and I knew I’d done that for her by sending that book in. It was a very forward thing to do but I knew she didn’t think enough of her own writing and I’d read enough to know it was good enough to publish.
By the end of the week
I was pretty sure what I wanted to do. I was thinking about starting up a group for young kids who lost their parents or siblings to violence to help them make the right choices and not end up in a mess themselves. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but I wanted to be to them what Saul was to me. I wanted to give them a life back the way Saul had given me my life and I wanted to make a difference. I wanted all my money to go to a good cause.
Selena phoned me Saturday morning and hearing her voice was absolute heaven.
“I missed you so much.”
I could hear the smile in her voice, too. “I missed you, too. Do you remember I told you to wait for your surprise?”
“I haven’t thought of anything else.”
I’d been curious as hell the whole week. I’d been trying to guess what it could be but there were sides to Selena I just didn’t know yet, and her mind was a labyrinth as it was, being a writer.
“Okay, well this is what you need to do. I need you to shower and shave and get into your best suit. I’m going to text you an address and you need to be there at noon. Okay?”
I had a feeling where this was headed. “Anything specific you want me to wear?”
“Something that makes you look as handsome as you are.”
She hung up and I smiled. I didn’t have a suit, obviously, but there was still time for me to run out and get a rental. I found a suit at a good price and when I fitted it, it was like it was made for me.
When I got back home Saul and most of the boys were outside my apartment building, also dressed up.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Saul said.
I laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. The others greeted me on by one and then we got on our bikes. The address that had come through was one I knew very well.
The Fallen Thorns were travelling in style today. They all wore suits and even though we were on our bikes we looked classy. I drove up front with Saul behind me like old times, like I was the leader, because this was their last official duty.
When I thought about what was happening, what had lead us to come to this, I felt emotional. The men behind me were a part of me and I was so happy they were there for me like that.
We arrived at the Girls and Boys Club, the motorbikes roaring and the kids were all outside, cheering. There were more people there, too, and I knew they’d all arrived just for me. For me and Selena.
Chapter 34
Selena
Everything was perfect.
I’d met up with Anjelica and we’d talked about my book. There was still a lot to be done – I needed to finish it in the first place and there was a lot of editing to do. I had to meet with a lot of different people. I needed an agent. I needed to refine my research. It felt like writing the book in the first place was the least of my worries. But it was going somewhere and I felt fantastic about it.
I had a feeling it would take a long time before the book appeared on the shelves but the publishing house was going to give me a fat advance, and I also had Logan who had promised to take care of everything so I could take a sabbatical and work on my book. It was perfect. Every day I got to know more of him there were more reasons to love him.
I got ready at Joanne’s house. Everyone was there. Everyone I held dear, except my parents. They lived upstate and it wasn’t possible for them to make it, but it wouldn’t have felt right, either. All of this was a passionate whirlwind romance and they were sensible people, the kind that would never do something like this. We were having a hen’s breakfast. The book club ladies were frothing with jealousy and surprise at my adventurous life that was real. I loved having them there even though I’d never felt like I fit in.
I told them in detail about all the things we’d been through and what we’d done together. The lake house was a setting we all agreed would be great in my book – the peace and the passion versus the tension and the danger. It was all like a fairytale.
Joanne was my maid of honor and my only bridesmaid. I had chosen a lacy empire waist type dress that worked for the weather and the informal venue without losing the bridal feeling. I had found lace ballerina pumps to go with it so I didn’t have to fall around on the grass in high heels. Joanne wore a peach-colored infinity wrap dress that she’d wrapped in an off the shoulder design and she looked regal, as always. Well-manicured and precise, she didn’t look like this whole thing had been jumped on her just a few days ago.
Joanne had arranged a hairdresser and a makeup artist to come to the house. We sat down in turns to have our locks curled and sprayed, eyeshadow painted on, and when we were done a photographer arrived. Between me and Joanne, we’d thought of everything. The whole thing felt like a dream.
When I stood in front of the mirror, looking at what the artists all around me had put together, reality hit me. My stomach turned and my heart hammered against my ribs and I was suddenly nervous. A fist of nerves knotted my stomach and I tried to breathe in deep through my nose and out through my mouth.
“Are you okay?” Joanne asked me, finding me in the room when I’d been gone for too long.
“I just realized what I’m about to do.” I looked at her in the mirror.
She came to stand next to me. We looked stunning next to each other.
“Do you love him?”
I nodded. I really did love him. He was everything to me and it was shocking how quickly that had happened.
“And you know he loves you?”
That I was more certain about than anything else in the world. He was more sure of his emotions toward me than my emotions toward him. If I thought back to when we’d just met, he had been set on courting me almost right from the start. I didn’t know where it had changed for him from looking for sex to looking for a relationship but I knew this was real.
It was real for me, too. It was just scary as hell because, well, marriage was forever. No one could take that shit lightly.
“I know you’re going to be just fine, then. If you both love each other and you know this is what you want – if you’re both willing to work on it – you will be perfectly fine. You’re not making a mistake, not in my books. Not if you know where you’re headed together. There have been people that didn’t know each other at all that were happily married for fifty years. Think about all those arranged marriages.”
I nodded. She was right. Of course, she was. Of all the women in my life she was the most down to earth, the most sensible. There was a reason she was my best friend. I was still scared, of course, because I hadn’t even had the time to think about this properly. But I knew it was what I wanted. If I thought about calling it off instead I knew for a fact that that wasn’t going to happen. And that was what kept me going.
“We have to get going if you want to be there at noon,” Joanne said.
I nodded. This was happening.
We’d ordered a limousine and all my friends piled into it. The car was luxurious. I’d never been inside one and it was stunning. We drove to the Girls and Boys Club, the place where I’d decided to make the venue, and I knew that this was a new beginning.
They were all there when we pulled up in the car. The kids were all arranged on the ground, sitting cross-legged, twisting around to see us. The Fallen Thorns were all in suits which was a spectacular sight. Let me tell you, no one cleans up as well as a badass on a bike.
Aside from my friends who were all taking their seats as they got out of the car one by one, Anjelica, my new publisher, and the editor, agent and PR lady were all there. Alicia stood to the side – I’d invited her, too – and some of the other staff I worked with at the library.
And right at the front, next to the priest I’d booked last minute, almost unrecognizable, stood Logan. He looked like an Adonis in his suit. I climbed out of the car and music played from speakers in the building’s windows. Life is a highway, and I’m going to ride it all night long. It was a song fitting of everything that had happened in our relationship until now.
Everyone clapped to the beat while I walked do
wn the makeshift aisle to a very unconventional song. Logan beamed at me, tears in his eyes. Saul stood next to him looking emotional, as well.
When I reached the front he took my hand and kissed it, never taking his eyes off mine.
“You look amazing,” I said.
He looked me up and down. “You look fucking fantastic.”
“I’m glad you could make it,” I whispered as we turned to the priest. “It would have sucked getting married without you.”
“Sugar, we’re never doing anything without the other again.”
I smiled and the priest cleared his throat, starting his little sermon.
It wasn’t very long before we reached the wedding vows. Logan turned to me. He took a small piece of paper out of his pocket and folded it open. When he cleared his throat I realized he’d written his vows, too. I wondered when he’d done it, after he’d gotten ready, or had he somehow known?
“Selena Hastings,” he started, “soon to be Selena Frost.” A giggle through the crowd. I glanced at the kids who were glued to the ceremony, taking everything in. “I promise to love you the way I love you now until the day I die. I promise I will endeavor to stay alive until we’re both old, taking my life seriously from this day forth, and I promise to rescue you from any danger, whether it be a papercut or an attempt to kill you. You are the air I breathe, I didn’t know I was drowning until you came along and saved me. I owe my life to you and for that reason I give you my heart. From this day on I will forever be yours.”
When he was finished I had tears in my eyes. I tried to blink it away so that it didn’t smudge my makeup.
“Logan Frost,” I said and my voice wobbled but I gathered strength as I went along. “I promise that you are and will forever be my happy ending. You are the climax in my life story when I didn’t have a set plot until you came along. I promise you will be my hero, my sidekick, my best friend and my love interest from here on out and we will determine the ending of our story together. You were my hero when I was a damsel in distress, and you have made me the leading lady. I will love you and cherish you forever, and give you hell whenever I feel like it because that comes with the territory.”