“Why didn’t you?”
“Jeni said no.”
“I’d argue more, but I get that.”
“I really am sorry.”
“I’ve had a few weeks to let it sink in. I was actually calling to check on you. See if you wanted to hang out. Talk or something.”
“Yeah? We’re still friends?”
“For now. Jeni’s a mess, and I need you to fix that.”
“I wish I could.”
Andrew’s sigh was audible through the earpiece. “Yeah, I get that too. I’ve been mostly worried about her, and then I realized I’m being an ass and you’re my friend and you might be a mess too. What are you doing? Want to get a beer?”
“I’m delivering a bed to a foster family, and then I have to go back and check for a car seat. The foundation has been insane lately. I probably won’t be home until after eight.”
“Okay if I stop by?”
“Sure. I’ll call you if I think I’ll be later than that.”
“Sounds good.”
“And Andrew? I am. A mess.”
Andrew laughed once without humor. “Yeah. Love does that.”
* * *
Two hours later, Logan and Andrew sat on Logan’s back porch, drinks in hand, watching the sky darken. They hadn’t said much yet. Logan wasn’t sure where to start, but he figured apologizing again couldn’t hurt.
“I wasn’t a good friend to you. Seeing Jeni behind your back like that. I should have asked you first.”
“Asked me? Like for permission?”
“Well, yeah. Or at least asked if you were okay with it. I know you probably don’t think I’m worthy of her, with the way I used to—”
“Stop.”
Logan halted his words and looked at Andrew.
“You’re one of my best friends. I think very highly of you.”
“You do?”
“Sure. You’re a great guy. You don’t always act like you think so, but I know you’re more than the Casanova role you play. Besides, who am I to judge? I’m no saint.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good to hear.”
“Would I have liked to know you were interested in my sister? Yes. You crossed a line there. But I’ve had a lot on my mind these last few months. I understand why you didn’t want to add that into the mix. Depending on the day, I might have flipped my shit on you. Chemo messes with your brain, man, I’m telling you.”
“I bet. Because of that, I’d have let you hit me. Once.”
Andrew laughed. “Once is all it would take, my friend.”
“Eh, I don’t know. Chemo makes you tired too.”
“Sure, okay. You want to use my chemo as a handicap, go ahead.”
Logan smiled. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Andrew.
Andrew must have been thinking something along the same lines. “I sort of blame myself too. I haven’t really been around much. If I hadn’t been spending all my free time with Lauren, I’m sure I would have figured out what was going on between you two.”
“You found your girl. Can’t fault you for that.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can forget about my friends.”
“You didn’t. You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I’m here.” Andrew took a sip of beer. “So really. How are you?”
“I’ve been better.”
“What happened exactly? Jeni only told me bits and pieces.”
“You want it from the beginning?”
“Sure.”
So, Logan told him everything. Well, everything except the mind-blowing sex. Probably best to keep that to himself. But he did tell him about the night of Andrew’s diagnosis and how they talked most of the night. And about the time he ‘saved’ her from the rest of their family, to which Andrew nodded in understanding. He told him about realizing he wanted to date Jeni, her resistance to the idea, and crashing dinner at Jeni’s house so he could spend more time with her.
He told him about the Chiefs game, softball, and having dinner with his mother. How Jeni found out about his involvement in the foster community and that she knew about his life before adoption. He kept that part brief because he’d never talked about it in detail with Andrew before. Even though he’d opened up to Jeni, it didn’t mean his past was suddenly open to the public.
He told Andrew about the time she called him for the little boy hiding under her desk and how they started brewing beer together.
“We’d both always wanted to but just never done it. We spent a lot of time together, sometimes just as friends and sometimes…not.” Logan cringed a little at that, but Andrew’s fist didn’t fly at his face so he counted that as a good sign. “But no matter what, she insisted that whatever we were doing was temporary and she never intended to get married again.”
“That sounds like her.”
“Like an idiot, I thought I could change her mind. Show her that I wouldn’t hurt her and that she was a priority. Now I know her fear of commitment goes deeper than that. She said she doesn’t think I could ever be happy with her because of…” Logan trailed off, suddenly worried. Andrew knew about that, right?
“Because she can’t have kids?”
Logan’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. I didn’t ask her to marry me for her uterus.”
“Really? That’s why I asked Lauren.”
Logan caught himself just before he took a drink and laughed. “Different strokes for different folks.” He thought it best not to tell Andrew which body parts of Jeni’s he gravitated to most.
“I think it’s different for women,” Andrew said. “Having children is a different experience for them. Not having that option is hard for her, I think.”
“You’re right. Absolutely. I want kids, and I know she does too. But I have no requirement for how we do that. Even if she could have biological kids, I’d want to foster and maybe adopt. She would too. I’m just as happy for those to be the kids that fill our home. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if my parents hadn’t done the same for me.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Yes.”
Andrew sighed heavily. “She’s stubborn. When she has her mind set on something, it takes an act of God to change it.”
“I know. But I’ve seen it happen, so I know it can.”
Andrew crossed one ankle across the opposite knee and regarded Logan steadily. “In this case, I hope she comes around.”
“You do?”
“I like you for her. I’m kind of surprised I didn’t think of it first. She hasn’t dated at all since her divorce, and I’ve been worried about her.”
“I don’t know if I’d call what we were doing ‘dating.’” At Andrew’s narrowed eyes, Logan quickly backtracked. “Not because—um, I mean because she won’t let us label it like that. It’s not like, just physical or anything…” Oh, hell.
“Stop. I get it,” Andrew interrupted.
“Thank fuck.” Logan took a long drink. “Is this always going to be weird?”
“Not if you marry her.”
“I’m trying. She won’t let me.”
“Keep trying.”
Logan was all for fighting for the woman he loved. But there was a point where it crossed the line from persuasive and romantic to pathetic and hopeless, and he felt like he was standing right on it. He risked a black eye to say the truth. “I’ve done my part. I put it all out there and said all I can say. It’s her turn, man. She’s gotta decide.”
Andrew was quiet for a moment. He tipped his head back, his eyes on the stars making their appearance in the sky. “Well. Let’s hope she makes the right decision.”
* * *
Logan began to lose hope. Two weeks had passed since Andrew came to visit and still no word from Jeni. He was tempted to track her down and beg her to reconsider. Or to tell her he would and they could go back to the way things were.
But when he really thought about it, he always talked himself out of it. He’
d end up in this same place time and time again. A vicious cycle of half commitment, which was really no commitment at all.
If there was hope for them, he had to know she’d come to the decision on her own. That she wanted him more than her fear of past failures and the unknown of their future together.
He hit the gym hard after work that day in an attempt to release his frustration and sadness. He came home and ate in front of the television. Another riveting Friday night. He’d spent more evenings alone the past few months than he had the entire year before he met Jeni but surprisingly, he wasn’t bothered. He didn’t feel the need to go out and meet someone new. Finding that physical connection with women he barely knew no longer held the same appeal.
Maybe it never had. He just hadn’t known any different.
Just as he considered the allure of exclusive familiarity and intimacy between two people, his phone rang.
His heart leapt, but when he looked at the screen, it wasn’t Jeni. It was someone even more unexpected. He hesitated for several seconds then answered the call.
“Cassidy?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jeni took a deep breath and said a prayer.
Her foot tapped the gas pedal, and she turned the corner, her eye catching on Logan’s house at the end of the street.
Her chest constricted. She hoped she wasn’t too late.
She’d wanted to run to him the day after she and Lauren spoke. But she also wanted to think things through and decided it would be worse to make a rash decision. She had to dig deep and really decide what she wanted and what she was ready for.
Jeni approached his house and slowed, noticing the red Camaro parked in front of his house for the first time. It looked a lot like—
Surely not.
But when she sidled her Hyundai up to the curb, her eye caught movement near Logan’s front door. It was open, and Cassidy and Logan stepped outside together. He enveloped her in a hug, and Jeni flinched as pain sliced through her heart.
Her thoughts whirled, her brain taking only a few seconds to catch up.
She was too late. He’d moved on.
“How could you?” she whispered, her eyes on his hands pressed against the upper back of another woman. Jeni directed the quiet words in Logan’s direction, but she may as well have said them to herself. She was to blame for this.
Why hadn’t she at least called? Texted him last week to tell him she was thinking things through and begged for a little time to figure her shit out?
Instead, she’d done exactly what Andrew predicted. Pulled back and isolated herself. She’d missed Logan desperately the entire time and had the audacity to hope he missed her too. Maybe he had, at first. Who knew. But who could blame him at this point for moving on? Not only had Jeni been difficult ever since he met her, but she’d basically dropped off the face of the earth after rejecting his marriage proposal.
Her chin trembled, and her chest burned. She was such an idiot.
As she sat there unable to tear her eyes away from the man she loved, Logan tilted his head up and looked right at her. Jeni straightened her spine, and her eyes went wide. She jerked the wheel and floored it, peeling away as quickly as possible.
Jeni couldn’t help but glance once in the rearview mirror, just in time to see Logan jog to the middle of his yard and watch her drive away.
* * *
An hour after she got home, Logan called.
Jeni was too embarrassed to answer. She’d been in front of his house like a total creeper, staring at him moments after he’d probably had sex with another woman.
If she thought she’d protected herself with her stupid relationship rules these last several months, she was sorely mistaken. It felt like someone had taken a torch gun to her heart, sending it up in flames and ash.
Thirty minutes later, she’d calmed down a little. So, he’d been with Cassidy. He and Jeni weren’t together right now, a situation she’d put them in, and he could do whatever he damn well pleased. Far as he knew, they were over for good, and she couldn’t fault him for being with another woman.
It tore her up inside, but she couldn’t be mad about it.
She had to at least try to talk to him. Maybe even say what she’d planned when she went to his house in the first place. She picked up her phone and called him back.
His voice was calm and deep when he answered. “Hey.”
“Hi.” She adjusted her grip on the phone. “I’m sorry about earlier. I wasn’t, like, camped out in front of your house or something. I was coming over to see you, and you two came out just as I pulled up, and I kind of froze up. I didn’t expect to see her there, and I didn’t mean—”
“Jeni.”
She closed her mouth and swallowed, trying to calm her racing heart.
“I called to tell you that it’s not what you think. I almost didn’t call at all, because I don’t need to explain anything to you.”
Jeni’s breath stuttered. “You’re right. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“I want to though. I’m not sure why.”
She braced herself, unsure if she wanted to hear it.
“Cassidy’s mom was just diagnosed with breast cancer. She and I worked together when my mom was going through treatment, and Cassidy remembered. She wanted to talk to someone who had been through it with a family member before.”
Jeni was ninety percent sure that’s not all Cassidy wanted. “I mean, I’m sorry to hear that, of course. I just…I thought…”
“You thought what?”
“You know what I thought.”
“That I slept with her?”
She pressed a shaking palm to her forehead, lowering her chin to her chest, phone still to her ear. “Yes. And it made me so jealous that I could hardly breathe. I thought you’d moved on, and apparently I’m such a possessive bitch that even now I’m wondering if she asked you for sympathy sex after you were so wonderful and talked to her at such a hard time in her life.”
“As a matter of fact, she did.”
Jeni leaned forward, burying her face between her knees. “Don’t tell me anything more. I can’t take it.”
Logan remained silent for a moment. “I didn’t.”
The lump in her throat was so tight she could barely get words around it. “You didn’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. Forget I asked that.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Is she still there?”
“No.”
“Can I come over?”
* * *
Jeni closed her eyes and knocked. She adjusted the paper bag in her left hand and fidgeted with her purse strap with the other. The door opened, and her heart swelled three sizes. Butterflies filled her belly, half from nerves and half with longing for the man standing before her.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Come on in.” Logan stepped back and opened the door wide.
Jeni walked inside, inhaling his familiar scent as she passed. Another appealing smell followed soon after. “It smells good in here.”
“I just had tacos.”
“Oh.” Why was that painful? So, he had tacos without her. They were tacos, for crying out loud.
But had he shared tacos with Cassidy? Stop. Let it go.
Jeni went to the living room and stood awkwardly in the middle.
Logan followed her and stopped a few feet away.
“Would you, um, sit? Please?” Jeni asked.
“Okay.” He sat in the middle of the couch and leaned forward a little, his forearms resting on his knees.
Jeni’s gaze tracked along the muscles and tanned skin of his forearms, and her mouth went dry.
Focus.
She gently set the bag on the coffee table and reached inside, grabbing a bottle. She retrieved a bottle opener out of her pocket and popped the top off, the cap landing on the table with a clink. She handed it to him.
&n
bsp; He regarded the unlabeled bottle. “What’s this?”
“Beer. I made it on my own a few weeks ago.”
Logan’s brows rose slightly, and he took a sip. His nose scrunched immediately, almost as if it were involuntary. “It’s, um…”
“It’s complete shit.”
He cocked his head sideways and sniffed at it.
Jeni knew how bad it was. She’d tasted it. “Like, it’s really, really awful.”
“What did you do wrong?”
“I don’t know! That’s what makes me so mad—I have no clue. I thought I did it exactly the same as when you and I did it together, and it came out terrible.”
“Oh. Well…I’m sorry?”
“Why are you apologizing? You weren’t even there.”
He frowned a little. “I’m not sure.”
Jeni’s thoughts were all jumbled. It was just so good to see him, and it was hard to focus when he was this close. “There’s a reason I’m here, you know. I have a point to make.”
“Okay.”
“Two of them, as a matter of fact.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “Can’t wait.”
“Actually, they’re more like questions rather than points. But whatever.”
Logan arched a single brow.
Spit it out, woman. “I was hoping you might give me a job.”
“Come again?”
“I got laid off.”
His expression remained the same. “I know. Sandra told me.”
“She did? When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“You didn’t say anything?”
Logan sighed. “I wanted to, but we haven’t exactly been on speaking terms. I didn’t know what I could do or even if you’d want to talk to me. I was pissed at Sandra at first, but I can’t stay mad at that woman.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Jeni said. “We both know that.”
“Still. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Be my boss.”
He angled his head. “How, exactly?”
“I know I said I wanted to work for a government agency, but that was when I thought it was my only way to have wide reach and make a big impact. After working with you and Fostering Sweet Dreams, I realized I was wrong. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think I’d really love a job like that. Not only do you reach a ton of families, but I also realized it’s not always about the numbers. Every family and every child matters. And I have a lot of ideas about how to help with organization, fundraisers, and community awareness. You said yourself you’re drowning in your donations and having trouble keeping the finance side up-to-date. You need a director to oversee the organization. I know it’s a nonprofit and it wouldn’t pay much, but it’s not like I made much as a social worker. I’d love to be a part of that mission. I used to think CPS was all I wanted, but now I think for me, this might be even better.”
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