Sin Bin

by Maureen Smith

  “Yeah. She’s a news anchor.”

  “Really? What’s her name?”

  “Rosalie Ryan.”

  “Get outta here,” Logan exclaimed. “That’s your aunt?”

  “Yeah. You know who she is?”

  “Of course. What, you think I don’t watch the news?” He grinned at her. “Your aunt’s a local celebrity, Jupiter. That’s pretty cool.”

  Meadow grinned. “I think so, too.”

  The light changed, and they moved forward.

  “Speaking of celebrities,” Meadow said teasingly, “what do you have against meeting fans? And I’m not talking about the gushing bimbo who asked you to autograph her boobs. You obviously have no problem with those types of fans.”

  He grinned. “Jealous?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You wish.”

  He laughed.

  “Seriously though, Logan. Why’d you bail on the meet-and-greet tonight? Wasn’t it kinda mandatory?”

  His smile faded, a muscle clenching in his jaw before he gave a hard shrug. “I’m not a company man. Never have been. My job is to play hockey and help my team get into the playoffs. Everything else is a courtesy.”

  “Touché,” Meadow murmured.

  He threw her a sardonic look. “Those people at the party weren’t even real fans. Real fans sit in the stands, not in cushy suites.”

  “Oh, come on,” Meadow scoffed. “You don’t really believe that, do you? The Gamenetic people are diehard Rebels fans who never miss a home game. Just because they can afford a suite doesn’t make their support any less worthy.”

  Logan grunted, switching lanes. “The point is, I’m not into schmoozing and kissing ass. I just wanna play hockey.”

  Meadow smiled sweetly. “Then you should probably try not to get ejected from any more games.”

  He scowled at her.

  She laughed.

  When they arrived at their destination, Logan surrendered the truck to the valet and then guided Meadow inside the black brick building. The upscale skybar and lounge boasted sleek leather furniture, metal accents, custom light fixtures and a neon hue that completed the swanky vibe.

  They took an elevator to the rooftop patio and got off. The black-jacketed guy at the hostess station looked like a Tom Ford model. He greeted Logan like an old friend, coming around the desk to vigorously shake his hand and clap him on the shoulder.

  Surprise lifted his eyebrows when he got a good look at Meadow. She knew she didn’t look like the women Logan was normally seen with. She had on too much clothes, for starters. And she wasn’t gorgeous enough to grace magazine covers.

  Not that you care, she told herself.

  Logan murmured something to the host, who nodded and grinned before escorting them across the glass-covered rooftop patio. There were low leather couches surrounding cozy fire pits. Couples lounged around nursing drinks, talking in low voices and laughing quietly.

  Heads turned at the sight of Logan. As an excited buzz of recognition went through the crowd, Meadow glanced self-consciously at Logan.

  He winked at her, his hand at the small of her back as he guided her forward. She lowered her head, but not before she saw several camera flashes. She fervently prayed that her picture wouldn’t end up on some gossip blog.

  The host escorted them to a private area tucked in the back of the patio. Meadow took a seat on the couch that faced away from the watching crowd. She expected Logan to sit on the opposite couch. When he sat down beside her, she raised an eyebrow at him.

  He raised his eyebrow right back.

  The host handed them cocktail menus with a conspiratorial grin. “You kids enjoy.”

  As soon as he left, Meadow scooted away to put some distance between herself and Logan.

  His eyes glinted with amusement. “Was I invading your personal space?”

  “Like you didn’t do it on purpose,” she muttered.

  He let out a deep rumble of masculine laughter.

  She hated that her toes curled. Crossing her legs, she ducked her head to study the menu. “I don’t know what to order. Like I said, I’m not much of a drinker, and I already had a martini at the party.” She looked up. “Can I just have a club soda or something?”

  Logan gave her an indulgent smile. “You can have whatever you want, Jupiter.”

  She blushed for no discernible reason.

  The waitress came to take their order. A leggy blonde in a short black skirt, she ignored Meadow and flirted with Logan, twirling her hair around her finger and batting her fake eyelashes at him.

  When Meadow ordered a club soda with lime, the waitress smirked condescendingly.

  “I’ll have the same,” Logan told her.

  The blonde’s face tightened. She forced a stiff smile, took their menus and walked off.

  Meadow grinned ruefully at Logan. “You didn’t have to do that. I’m sure you wanted something stronger than club soda.”

  “It’s all good,” he said with a sexy chuckle. “I don’t need to be drinking this late, anyway. I have practice in the morning.”

  Meadow nodded, hypnotized by his long-lashed dark eyes.

  He stared back at her until she pried her gaze away and looked up at the starry night sky. The view was absolutely spectacular.

  “My birth parents used to take me stargazing,” she murmured after a few moments. “They were middle school science teachers, so they wanted me to share their love of all things science. They taught me everything about solar and lunar eclipses, about the constellations and how to locate them in the sky. Vegas winter nights were pretty clear, perfect for stargazing.”

  Logan smiled, watching her face as she talked. “That’s why you fell in love with astronomy. Because of your parents.”

  She nodded, her throat tight.

  After a long beat of silence, Logan said, “There’s supposed to be meteor showers next week.”

  “Really?” She smiled at him, grateful that he’d redirected the conversation before melancholy consumed her. “I love watching meteor showers.”

  “I remember that.” His expression was soft and warm. “If you weren’t leaving town, maybe we could have gone somewhere to watch them.”

  Before she could respond, the waitress returned with their drinks. She still seemed a bit miffed that they’d ordered club soda.

  After she left, Logan raised his glass to Meadow. “To long-lost friends.”

  She gave him a warm smile as they clinked glasses and drank, watching each other while flickering flames from the fire pit danced over their faces.

  Lowering her glass, Meadow settled back into the plush cushions of the couch. “Not to be mean, but technically we weren’t friends.”

  Logan’s eyes glimmered. “You still liked me.”

  She choked out a laugh. “For the last time, I did not like you! You broke my telescope, remember?”

  He hung his head in mock shame. “I’ll never live that down, will I?”

  “Nope. Never.” She was smiling.

  He returned her smile as he leaned back and draped an arm over the back of the couch. She couldn’t help noticing the way the fabric of his pants stretched over his thickly muscled thighs. Her sex-starved imagination conjured an image of her straddling him, those iron-hard thighs flexing beneath her while she rode him.

  The thought made her skin flush as heat rose within her. She looked away and took a huge gulp of her club soda.

  “I can’t get over how much you’ve grown up.”

  She turned back to find Logan looking her over. His heavy-lidded gaze sent little rushes of excitement through her body that left her tingling in secret places.

  “You were only nine the last time I saw you. Just a skinny little thing. And now…” He shook his head slowly and bit his bottom lip. “Wow.”

  She blushed. “I’m surprised you recognized me.”

  “It was your eyes. They’re unforgettable.”

  Sweet pleasure spiked through her. “So are yours.”

 
His lips curved into a smile that had undoubtedly broken many hearts. Then he reached over to tap the rim of her eyeglasses. “How long have you been wearing these?”

  “This particular pair? Or glasses in general?”

  He smirked. “Smartass.”

  She laughed a little breathlessly. “I’ve been wearing glasses since I was thirteen.”

  “Yeah?” His eyes roamed her face. “They look good on you.”

  “Thanks. Sometimes I switch up and wear contacts.”

  He gave a lazy nod and sipped his drink. The dark scruff covering his jawline must drive women absolutely wild. Her hormones were definitely responding.

  He caught her staring and cocked an amused eyebrow. “What?”

  “Nothing.” She bit her lip. “Are you growing a playoff beard?”

  “Of course,” he drawled, reaching up to stroke the wicked stubble. She couldn’t help noticing how long and broad his fingers were, with short nails and bruised knuckles. The tattoos on his other hand were intricate, but it was too dark to make out the design. The sight of them made her feel strangely warm between her legs.

  Redirecting her gaze, she smiled at him. “So what about the guys on your team who can’t grow a beard? Do they get teased?”

  “Mercilessly.”

  “That’s not fair,” she laughed. “It’s not their fault they can’t grow facial hair.”

  “Doesn’t stop us from giving ’em a hard time.”

  Meadow laughed again, shaking her head at him. “Jocks.”

  Logan grinned. “You make that sound like a bad word. Ever dated a jock?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “Not my type.”

  “What’s your type? No, wait. Let me guess. You like brainy types with big vocabularies. Straitlaced guys who wear pressed pants and organize their sock drawer by color. Nice guys who say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ and never break the rules. Clean-cut guys you can take home to Daddy.” His eyes glinted. “Am I right?”

  Meadow swallowed, cheeks warming. His assessment was uncomfortably accurate.

  He gave her a cocky grin, leaning further back into the couch. “You should seriously consider broadening your horizons. Your taste in men is…”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Is what?”

  “Predictable. Boring.” His grin spread. “It’s okay to step out of the box sometimes and let your freak flag fly.”

  She drew herself up straighter. “I don’t have a freak flag.”

  “Sure you do. You just have to find it.”

  “Whatever.”

  When he laughed and shifted on the couch, she had to force herself not to stare at his powerful thigh muscles. “Getting back to the original topic—”

  “Which was?”

  “You and your teammates.”

  “What about us?”

  “You must be pretty close.”

  “We are.” He smiled, letting her off the hook. “Hunter, Reid and Viggo are like the brothers I never had.”

  That made her smile. “I’m glad you have them in your life.”

  “So am I. They keep me out of trouble…for the most part.”

  She laughed. “I’m sure keeping you out of trouble is a full-time job. Seriously, Logan. How fitting is it that you grew up to become a Rebel, of all things?”

  He chuckled and took a swig of his drink.

  “I joined a sorority in college,” Meadow confessed.

  “Yeah?” His eyes glinted with amusement. “You don’t seem like the sorority type.”

  “I know.” She gave a sheepish shrug. “I guess I wanted to belong to something.”

  Logan smiled softly. She knew he understood. “Did it help?”

  “In some ways,” she said. “I made some really good friends, and we did a lot of community service projects that I’m proud of.”

  “That’s good,” Logan said warmly. “Where’d you go to school?”

  “Howard University.” She smiled. “My adoptive father thought it was important for me to have the HBCU experience. And he was right. I loved it.”

  “Awesome,” Logan said with a smile. “Why didn’t you stay in Washington, D.C. after graduation?”

  Meadow was impressed that he knew where Howard was located. “As much as I enjoyed living in D.C., I was homesick for Vegas, and I didn’t like being so far away from my father and Aunt Rosalie. So after I got my master’s in social work, I went back home.” She grimaced. “In hindsight, I probably should have stayed in D.C. Better job market.”

  Logan nodded, commiserating. “Sucks that you got laid off.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “C’est la vie.”

  Logan swirled his drink around, contemplating her. “There’s so much I don’t know about you. So much I want to ask.”

  “I feel the same about you,” Meadow admitted. “Back then we didn’t really talk much about personal stuff.”

  “I know.” His gaze never left her face. “How did you end up in foster care?”

  She swallowed, her eyes lowering to her glass. “My parents were killed in a robbery when I was six.”

  “Shit,” Logan murmured. “I’m sorry.”

  She acknowledged his sympathy with a nod. “After they died, none of my relatives wanted me.” She spoke matter-of-factly, trying to mask the residual hurt she still carried around. “My dad was an only child and his parents were already gone. My mom’s parents were barely making ends meet, and her sister didn’t want the responsibility of raising me. I had nowhere to go.”

  “Fuck.” Logan’s expression was grim, his jaw tense. He was angry on her behalf. It warmed her more than she wanted to admit.

  “It could have been worse,” she said pragmatically. “I only spent three years in foster care before the Ryans adopted me. Were those three years awful? Absolutely. But considering that many foster children are never adopted, I was one of the lucky ones.”

  “Lucky,” Logan repeated with a cynical twist of his lips. “You lost your parents and were abandoned by your family when you needed them the most. Lucky isn’t the word I’d use to describe what you went through.”

  Meadow sipped her drink, watching him over the rim of the glass.

  He stared back at her, his dark eyes probing hers. “Were they good to you? The Ryans, I mean. Were they good parents?”

  “Very good,” she said quietly. “They were just what I needed.”

  A faint smile touched Logan’s lips. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Thank you.” Meadow studied his gorgeous face in the flickering firelight. “What happened to your parents?”

  His expression instantly hardened and he looked away from her, staring out at the night through the glass surrounding the patio. He was silent for so long, she thought he wouldn’t answer.

  But then he spoke in a low, flat voice. “I never knew my father. He knocked my mother up and disappeared. She had to drop out of college and get a job to take care of me. It was tough for her. She worked as a cocktail waitress at a casino and she didn’t make much money. Sometimes she had to take me to work with her because she couldn’t afford daycare and she didn’t have any family around to help her. It was…” He paused, his fingers tightening around his glass. “It was more than she could handle. The day I turned five, she dropped me off at the casino and never came back.”

  “Oh God, Logan,” Meadow whispered in horror. “How awful for you. I…I’m so sorry.”

  He frowned and drained his glass, probably wishing he’d ordered something stronger than club soda.

  She had so many questions, so much more she wanted to know. But she didn’t want to pry open old wounds. It was clear that he’d never recovered from his mother’s abandonment. The pain in his eyes, the raw hurt, made her heart ache for him.

  She watched as he leaned forward to set his empty glass on the fire pit table.

  “How long were you at the casino before someone found you?” she asked softly.

  His jaw tighten
ed. “Long enough.”

  Before she could probe further, his phone rang. This time he pulled it out of his jacket pocket, seemingly relieved for the interruption. He looked at the screen, brow furrowed. Then he declined the call and began typing a message, thumbs flying across the small keyboard.

  Meadow looked away from him to stare up at the stars twinkling like jewels in the night sky. She remembered watching Roots with her parents when she was a little girl. During the iconic scene where Kunta Kinte lifted his infant daughter to the night sky in the tradition of his ancestors, Meadow’s father told her he’d performed the same “blessing ritual” after she was born. She’d giggled at the time because all she could think of was Rafiki raising Simba to the heavens in The Lion King. To this day she couldn’t watch Roots or The Lion King without feeling sentimental.

  “What’re you thinking about?”

  She turned her head to meet Logan’s dark gaze. He’d put his phone away and was once again leaning back with his arm slung over the back of the couch, one long leg stretched out in front of him as he studied her.

  She gave him a musing smile. “Have you ever wondered about your ancestors? Who they were? Where they came from?”

  “Hmm,” he murmured, stroking his bearded chin. “Sometimes.”

  She shifted on the couch, turning to face him. “When you grow up without your biological parents, familial connections take on even more importance. It’s like…you want to establish your identity, but it’s hard because a big part of your identity is tied to the people who brought you into the world.” She bit her lip, toying with the straw in her drink. “Sometimes I feel like I’m losing pieces of myself. Pieces of my past. The older I get, the less I remember my parents. And it scares me.”

  Logan was silent, those hooded eyes watching her so intently she felt seared to her soul.

  “Do you ever feel like that?” she whispered.

  “Actually,” he said quietly, “I remember my mother more than I want to. I was so young when she left, yet every memory of her is indelibly imprinted on my mind. And, yes, that scares the hell out of me.”

  Meadow held his gaze as an odd tightness gripped her throat, leaving her slightly breathless. She’d never felt more connected to another human being. It was both terrifying and comforting.

  She lowered her eyes to take a long sip of her drink. “Did she tell you anything about your father? His name? Where he was from?”