Forever Logan

by Elena Matthews

  I glance at Ally out of the corner of my eye and see she’s shifted away from me at least a couple of inches up the bench, but I don’t miss the way her breath is still a little ragged even though she tries to disguise it by shoving a chip in her mouth.

  “So you should be. You know Logan and I can’t be in the same room for longer than five minutes without wanting to kill each other.”

  Nate just throws her a knowing smile as he places an arm around Remi’s shoulders. “Well, you didn’t look like you wanted to kill each other a second ago.” He winks.

  “I could easily dislike you, too, you know,” she threatens, throwing him one hell of a dagger.

  He doesn’t get to respond because the waitress returns, setting down a fresh cold beer in front of me and an awesome-looking margarita in front of Ally. Ally takes one look at it and wastes no time in bringing the straw to her mouth and sipping it back.

  “Oh, your guests have finally arrived, huh?” she asks me with a questioning raise of her brow.

  Then, her attention focuses on Nate and Remi. She seems to take a double glance at Nate, then me, and then back at Nate. I expect her to say some dumbass comment about how we’re twins, but thankfully, she doesn’t.

  “Are you guys ready to order, or do you need a few minutes?”

  They both order a drink, but I ask her to come back once they’ve had a look over the food menu. It’s relatively quiet as we ponder what we want, but I can’t help chancing a glance at Ally every few seconds.

  She’s fucking pretty, and damn it if she didn’t almost kiss me. I swear, that almost-kiss was the best kiss I’ve ever had. But now, she’s pulled back into herself, distancing herself from me, as if she doesn’t feel that palpable energy between us. She does. I know she does. I just wish she’d finally give in to it instead of denying herself of me. Pretending she hates me when, really, what she’s feeling is the opposite of hate. Then again, if she stopped pretending to hate me, we wouldn’t be playing this delicious game of enemies to lovers I’m obsessed with. Our arguments are the highlights of my day. Hell, every day, she’s the highlight of my day.

  Once we order our food, Remi gets down to business and pulls out a professional-looking binder and a big-ass wedding planner.

  “So, we have a lot to plan and not a lot of time to plan it,” Remi begins almost a little frantically before confusing the shit out of me with the finer details of a wedding.

  Before our dinner even arrives, we’ve discussed invitations, guest lists, favors, suit fittings, and dress shopping. Then, after dinner, we cover flower arrangements, the wedding website—I mean, what the fuck? Really?—cake ideas, hair and makeup, ring purchases, and menu tastings. We don’t even get to the fun parts, and here I was, thinking I’d just be organizing the bachelor party.

  “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” Remi asks, no doubt giggling at the dumbfounded expression I can feel playing across my face.

  Picking up my almost-empty bottle of beer, I say, “Just a little.”

  Then, Ally pipes up, “If I’m being honest, I’m overwhelmed myself.”

  Remi sheepishly glances over to Nate. “Sorry. I got a little carried away with myself. I guess I’m in manic bride-to-be mode. Would it help if I slowed things down?”

  “Yes,” both Ally and I say at the same time.

  “So, obviously, Nate and I will do most of the planning,” Remi explains before her eyes focus only on me. “I would like you to organize a suit fitting for all the guys because”—she glares at her future husband for a moment—“I want you all in tuxes and not just jeans and a T-shirt.”

  “Babe, I was totally kidding,” Nate tries to reason.

  Remi just shakes her head. “Too late. If you joke about anything that relates to this wedding, I will not have you responsible for anything. Do you understand me?”

  “Damn, girl, you tell him,” I say, grinning.

  In the corner of my eye, I see Ally smiling around the straw of her second cocktail. Just seeing the happiness on her pretty face warms my soul, and I shift my leg a few inches to the left until it’s touching hers.

  “Wait, and you trust him?” he argues.

  “More than I do you right now. So, Logan, if you can handle the suits and help pick out the gifts for the groomsmen, that would be a great help.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  She pulls her focus to Ally. “As the graphic designer of the group, I would love if you could design the invitations and the wedding website.”

  Ally’s eyes light up. “I kind of thought that was a given.”

  “You know, I’m a whiz at websites,” I suggest. “It’s what I used to do to get me through MIT. So, I’d be happy to do it.”

  Remi questioningly glances over to Nate with a raised brow, and he just nods. I pretend not to be insulted by her lack of confidence in me.

  “Yes, he’s right. While normal people had jobs at coffee shops, he was designing websites for the corporate types. Made a killing back then, didn’t you?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “Wow,” Remi says with amazement. “Is there anything you can’t do? You’re a cop, engineer, and a website designer?”

  “I’m not just a one-trick pony. I have a lot up my sleeve, but I preferred to be called a website technician, as I dealt with servers and hardware setups as well as web design. It helped that I was an MIT genius and all,” I say, puffing out my chest, smoothing down the collar of my T-shirt.

  Remi goes to speak, but she’s cut off by Ally beside me, “You’re so arrogant. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but I have the website covered. I am the qualified designer. I doubt Nate and Ally want some uppity, corporate, Wall Street type of website. So, leave it to someone who will put some elegance into it.”

  I pivot my body to face her. “You don’t think I can be elegant?”

  She eyes me up and down, her face impassive. “Nope.”

  I can’t help the snicker that leaves my lips. “You’re really underestimating my ability, huh? Yes, you might have me stumped with the design, but I bet you can’t make a website so encrypted that not even the FBI can get into it.”

  “It’s a wedding website, dipshit, not the world’s best hacking device.”

  “It’s still on the World Wide Web. It’ll need some form of protection.” I’m not even sure why I’m arguing with her. All I know is that seeing her beautiful blue eyes flare with anger is making my cock come alive.

  “It’s a website that will hold details about the wedding. The only form of protection it will need is a password.”

  Nate’s chuckling directs our attention to him. “I wish you would both just either kill or bone each other. This constant bickering is getting annoying.”

  “Ew, no,” Ally wastes no time in saying. “I wouldn’t touch him if he were the last guy on Earth.”

  “Last guy on Earth? Melodramatic, no? Surely, I’d be pretty damn irresistible then.”

  “Trust me when I say this, if there were an apocalypse and we were the last people to survive, I’d still prefer to use my hand.”

  “Jesus,” Remi snaps before pointing between us with a stern glare. “I can’t deal with the constant back and forth. Either learn to like each other or at least tolerate each other until after the wedding. I just can’t cope with my two favorite people arguing. And as for the website, Ally, you can design it, and Logan can handle the tech side of it, okay?”

  We go silent as Ally and I chance a sheepish glance at each other before returning our attention to a furious-looking Remi.

  “I’m sorry, Remi. I’ll lay off on purposely trying to piss Ally off, but in my defense, she’s the one who hates me. I like her.”

  Ally lets out a huff. “You don’t like me. You’re just trying to get into my pants, and you hate that I’m the first chick ever to say no to you.”

  I go to retaliate, but with one look in Remi’s direction, I quickly change my mind. “See? She’s the one with the beef, not me.”

  “Ally,�
�� Remi addresses, “you guys don’t have to be best friends, but please, for the love of God, stop the bickering.”

  Ally seems to contemplate that for a moment before she rolls those sexy eyes of hers. “Fine. I’ll pretend he’s one of my asshole clients and tolerate him because if I don’t, I’ll get fired. But just so you know”—she turns her head to me—“I’ll be hating you from afar.”

  I shrug my shoulders, holding back my smile. “You can either hate me or love me, but regardless of which, just knowing I’m inside that pretty little head of yours is satisfaction enough.”

  Without waiting to see her scowl and the eye roll to come after a line like that, I look to Nate and Remi. “Okay, so now that we have the wedding sorted, can we finally discuss the bachelor party?”

  It’s Friday night, and I finished my shift less than thirty minutes ago. I’m already on my second drink in the bar across the street from the station. Let’s just say, it’s been a rough day. I was thrown up on by a homeless guy not once, but twice; I had to put myself in the middle of an ugly domestic abuse case; and I also had to deliver the news to a family that I should never have to deliver. I mean, how does a family recover from the loss of a husband, a father, all because some drunken asshole in a pickup truck failed to stop at a red light? I sometimes hate this world we live in. The amount of bad I have to fight on a daily basis just in Dallas alone is ridiculous. I find myself surrounded by so much evil and hatred that it’s a miracle anyone can see the good. The negativity of the job rarely gets me down, but tonight, I’m feeling it all the way to my soul.

  I look toward my partner, Joe, and raise my freshly poured glass of bourbon—yes, I’m on the hard stuff tonight—to the man who lost his life today.

  “To Patrick McKinley.”

  Joe raises his glass with a sad smile. “To Patrick McKinley.”

  We do this every time we lose someone while we’re on shift. We might not have known anything about them other than their name, but when a family loses the most important person in their world, the least we can do is take a moment and raise a glass to them.

  I set my drink down and force myself to smile despite the mood I’m in. “Please tell me you’re doing something good this weekend.”

  Joe sips back his drink. “Well, Melanie has promised me some hot-ass sex in the morning, followed by breakfast.”

  “By breakfast, you mean, eating out her pussy, right?”

  “Hell yes,” he praises, and he high-fives me. “Then, we’re going to her sister’s for her niece’s birthday party for a few hours before heading to that new Italian place on Fifth for our anniversary.”

  “Now, which anniversary is this?” I only ask because they have a celebration for every single anniversary. Whether it be their first kiss, first blow job, first time they said I love you. It’s ridiculous how many anniversaries they have.

  “It’s the anniversary of when we got engaged.”

  I pick my drink up and assess him over the rim of my glass. “It’s not normal to celebrate every single milestone. Your actual wedding anniversary would suffice.”

  “But I don’t want sex just once a year,” he says with a hitch of his brow.

  I let out a deep laugh. “Fair enough.”

  “What about you?”

  I shake my head. “I plan on sleeping my morning away, eating a shit-ton of pizza, and then binge-watching The Office.”

  Joe snorts. “Well, I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When I’m getting more sex than you.”

  “Trust me, it’s not for a lack of trying,” I murmur, only one woman flashing through my mind.

  “You never used to have to try for sex. You had your pick of women by the truckload.”

  That was until a sassy brunette came into my life.

  “Maybe I’m just evolving.”

  “Or maybe you’re just pussy-whipped.”

  He’s right. I am one hundred percent pussy-whipped for Ally. She is all I can think about.

  “I am, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. God, why is it that the one girl I want is the most stubborn woman on the planet?”

  “Dude, all women are stubborn. You just have to find a way to get through their exterior.”

  “How did you bag your woman then?”

  “Well, for starters, I hadn’t slept with the entire population of Dallas.”

  I throw him a warning glare, but he ignores me.

  “Mostly though, my humor. If you can make a chick laugh—I’m not talking about a pathetic giggle. I mean, a hysterical, snort like a pig kind of laugh—then you’re halfway there.”

  “But you’re not funny,” I tell him with laughter to my voice.

  He really isn’t. He can’t even tell a knock-knock joke.

  “Funny or not, I once made Mel laugh so hard, she peed her pants.”

  I shake my head, my face scrunched up in disgust. “TMI, dude, but that reminds me. I need to take a leak,” I say, knocking back the last of my bourbon. “Order us another round.” Standing up, I set my glass down on the table before throwing a ten-dollar bill in front of him.

  I do my business, and just as I leave the men’s restroom, I’m halted to the spot when I catch sight of Ally’s boyfriend, Eddie, leaving the ladies’ room. I don’t miss the way he zips his jeans back up. My stomach flips with jealousy when I expect Ally to walk out after him, but instead, I’m met with fury when a woman who is definitely not Ally exits behind him, giggling. And with how flushed her cheeks are and how messy her hair is right now, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what they were just doing.

  I force myself to blink to make sure what I’m seeing is right because I sure as hell can’t believe what I’m witnessing right now.

  And to make matters worse, the woman spins him around and plants a kiss on his lips, and like the dirty dog I knew he was, he grasps her ass.

  That motherfucker.

  Two things come to mind. One: I should arrest him on the spot for having sex in a public place. Two: I want to murder him.

  How could he do this to Ally?

  As soon as I ask myself the question, I almost kick myself. Of course he would do this to her because he’s a dumb fuck. He’s never treated her right, and this is just the damn icing.

  God, she deserves so much better.

  I weigh up my options. I can either call him out for the cheating scumbag he is, but then I’ll want to beat him up, and as a cop, it’s frowned upon to cause bodily harm to someone just because you hate the guy. Or I can call Ally and tell her what I just saw. She might end up hating me just a little more, but I like her too much to let her continue staying with a guy who doesn’t treat her right.

  Deciding to go with the latter, I quietly slink back into the men’s restroom but not before taking a quick snapshot of them literally going at it against the wall.

  I pull up Ally’s number while I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

  When she answers, she’s as sassy as ever. “Well, if it isn’t the royal pain in my ass.”

  I would laugh at her comment if I wasn’t about to crush her heart, thanks to her douche bag boyfriend.

  “And hi to you, too.”

  “So, this is new. You usually just text me to annoy the crap out of me.”

  When I remain silent, she speaks again, but this time, I hear panic in her voice, “Is…everything okay?”

  I sigh, my eyes still on my reflection. “No…not unless your boyfriend has a twin.”

  I can hear the confusion in her pause.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well…” I begin, but I suddenly find it impossible to speak. I don’t want to be the one to cause her pain, but if it were me and someone I knew had seen my girlfriend screwing around on me, I’d want to know about it.

  “Damn it, Logan, just tell me,” she demands.

  “I’m at the bar opposite the police station, and when I went to take a leak, I saw Eddie and
another chick leave the women’s restroom, looking thoroughly fucked.”

  A few seconds go by when all I can hear is her heavy breaths. I don’t speak. I just let her have a moment to register what I just told her.

  “I’d ask if you were joking, but considering you called him by his actual name…you’re really not screwing with me.”

  “I wish I were…and I wish I were wrong, but even when they left the restroom, they weren’t exactly hiding what they’d just done in there.”

  “God, I’m such a moron.” She lets out an irritated growl. “We were supposed to go out tonight, but he canceled on me, told me he had a family emergency. And unless he’s screwing his sister, I’m guessing it wasn’t an emergency.”

  “You’re not a moron; he is. Do you want me to beat him up? I could get fired, but it’d be worth it to break his nose.”

  She ignores my lame attempt at a joke. “What bar are you at again?”

  “I’m at Macy’s. It’s the bar across from the police station.”

  “I’ll be there in ten,” she tells me before hanging up on me. Then, a second later, the phone vibrates in my hand with her name lighting up my screen. I answer, and before I can say anything, she snaps out, “Oh, and make sure that cheating son of a bitch doesn’t leave the bar.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” My reply goes unheard as she dropped the call before I could speak.

  I leave the restroom, and when I see the coast is clear again, I head back into the bar area, my eyes actively searching for Eddie. It doesn’t take me long to spot him by the bar with a group of friends while the woman he left the restroom with is literally hanging off his arm.

  I return to Joe, and without taking my eyes off the cunt, I take a seat and throw back my freshly poured glass of bourbon.

  “Hey, you were a while. Everything okay?”

  I flick my eyes to Joe. “You see that prick over there, the pretty boy with the ’90s Backstreet Boys haircut?”

  He follows my gaze until he stops on Eddie. “Yeah. What about him?”

  “That’s Ally’s boyfriend. But that chick practically humping his back? That definitely isn’t Ally.”