by Linda Kage
Clearing his throat, he glanced away and flushed. “Yeah. The trunk is a definite taboo.”
Paige turned away too, guilty and yet giddy. She couldn’t control the stir of excitement swirling through her.
“Well,” Sam encouraged. “What happened? Stand up, you two, and share.”
Together, Paige and Logan dragged themselves upright and met in the middle of the circle. Facing Samantha, Logan scratched the back of his neck as Paige gripped her hands at her waist.
“We, uh, well, we found this old trunk full of dress up clothes,” Logan started haltingly, “and spent most of the hour playing make-believe with different costumes.”
“Hey, now that sounds fun.” Samantha nodded in approval.
“Yeah, the kids really enjoyed the outfits we put on them.” Paige grinned big and risked a knowing peek at Logan, wondering if he’d flip out if she mentioned his outfit. “And ourselves.”
He narrowed his eyes in warning, silently demanding she keep quiet. Then he turned back to everyone and dryly confessed, “I wore a dress.”
Kevin snickered. “Dude.”
“He made a very cute girl,” Paige immediately defended.
He sent her a scowl but ended up cracking a grin a second later. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Incredibly.” She smiled back, aching to simply reach out and touch him.
“Aww,” Jamie spoke up from her chair. “You two are so cute together. Seriously, when are you guys going to stop fighting it and just hook up already?”
Paige gasped while Logan’s mouth fell open. Her face drained, and she felt suddenly very faint.
When nothing but silence followed Jamie’s comment, and everyone in the room stared at her and Logan standing side by side as if they wanted to know the answer too, Paige slapped her hands over her mouth and ran.
Frozen in place, Logan stared after Paige as she rushed from the Crimson Room. He wanted to go after her and soothe her, but since he was the source of her distress, he knew he was the last thing she wanted.
And he hated that.
After he sent a glare to Jamie for opening her mouth, she shrugged. “What? What’d I say?”
“Jamie—” Samantha started in a warning voice, but Logan spoke above her.
“I killed her brother. Okay?”
This time, the silence in the room was more stark and echoing.
“You what?” Kevin finally said, his voice halting and disbelieving.
“I…we grew up in the same county,” Logan explained. “Neighboring schools. Biggest rivals. Everything she told you about his death was true. I got into a fight with him, and after I hit him, he fell and hit his head, and he died. Then my lawyer dad got me out of trouble, and I never spent a moment in jail for killing him.”
As he finished, he closed his eyes, braced for the fallout.
Samantha was the first to react. “Well? Keep going.”
“Keep going?” Logan opened his eyes and frowned, confused.
Sam waved out her hand, signaling him to continue. “Yes. Keep talking. I know your story doesn’t end there. What happened after your father cleared your name?”
She didn’t look at all surprised to learn he’d murdered someone. It sent off alarm bells in his head. But everyone else was gaping, clearly not in the know.
Since he still stood in the middle of the circle, the center of attention, he kept going as the leader had instructed him to.
“After…after he cleared my name, my dad told me to leave and never come back.” He looked up, straight into Sam’s sympathetic gaze. “I haven’t seen anyone in my family since then. I moved away and ended up here where no one knew who I was or what I’d done. I just wanted to start fresh with a new life, as a new person.”
Swallowing down the hard lump in his throat, Logan looked down at his hands. “I know I didn’t lose anyone like everyone else here did. I don’t belong in this group. I…I’m sorry for deceiving you and misleading you into thinking I was…grieving.”
Wiping at his dry face, he lowered his head and started for the door.
“Logan, stop,” Sam said.
He paused and glanced back, ready for her to rip him a new one.
“But you did lose someone,” she told him softly. “You lost yourself.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
SAM WENT DIRECTLY TO LOGAN as soon as the meeting let out. Wrapping an arm around his shoulder, she hugged him to her side. “I’m so glad you talked to us. After you left for a couple months in there, I was worried you’d never be able to get this off your chest. I kept waiting for you to return, hoping you’d come back.” Tightening her grip with encouragement, she smiled proudly. “And now look at you. Maybe it’ll be easier for you to share the little things from now on too.”
He blinked, bowled over. “You actually want me to keep coming to the meetings?”
She laughed heartily. “Yes, I most definitely want you to keep coming. And—” she glanced around before leaning in close to whisper “—I have a little confession.”
When she winced, he frowned. “What’s that?”
“The first night Paige showed up to the group, I went looking for you afterward. Took me a while to find you, but when I did, I overheard a little of your conversation with her…in the back hallway.”
“Holy—you mean, you knew about me all along?” he realized with startling clarity. His mouth dropped open. “But why—” He gasped. “Is that why you signed us up for the cancer center’s visit on the same day? To force us together so we’d work out our differences?”
Sam winked. “Guilty.”
He shook his head, rattled by this revelation. “And Jamie?” he asked. Had she convinced Jamie to no-show at the children’s ward and then to tell them they needed to hook up?
Sam snorted and waved a hand. “She forgets to show up for everything she volunteers for. I was just banking on the odds there.”
This was almost more than he could take. Samantha had known about him for months, and she’d forced him and Paige to be together. He wondered how Paige would take such knowledge.
Jumping when Samantha slapped a quick kiss to his cheek, he blinked when she patted his arm and moved off only for Kevin to hedge closer, looking decidedly uneasy.
“Yo, man,” he said, not making eye contact.
“Hey,” Logan said and bit the inside of his cheek. He hadn’t been all that worried how the group would receive him when he’d blurted out his story. He’d been too busy trying to defend Paige and explain why she would never want anything to do with him. But now…now he worried.
“Damn.” Kevin blew out a long breath as he glanced askance to Logan. “And I thought I’d had it bad losing my dad and all, but for your entire family to drop you? That’s harsh.” He clapped Logan on the shoulder in companionship. “I got into a couple fights in my day. I can’t even imagine what it would’ve been like if any of them had ended the way yours had. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”
Kevin’s total acceptance of him caught him hard in the chest. For the first time in his life, he wanted to hug another dude.
Resisting, he nodded stiffly. “Thanks.”
Kevin nodded back, his brown eyes full of understanding. “Catch you next week.”
As he wandered off, a couple more people approached. Dumbfounded by all the support, Logan thanked everyone and escaped at his first opportunity. For three years, no one had accepted him, no one had forgiven him. And now, to have an entire group of friends at his back…it was overwhelming.
He was worried how Paige must feel, though. He glanced back once to make sure no one was following him, then he exited out the doorway she’d dashed through. It was the same door he’d used to escape the first time she’d come to a meeting.
He knew where he’d find her. And when he approached the entrance of the same dead-end hallway she’d caught him sulking in that first night, he heard her sniffles.
Bracing himself, he turned the corner and came to a stop. When he dared to look, he fou
nd her sitting exactly where he had sat, her back to the wall, her knees folded up to her chest, her misery etched deeply into her face.
Her dark eyes were the only thing that moved as she looked at him.
“I told them,” he said, hoping to reassure her. “I told them everything.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugged. “It was past time. And if Sam were here, I’m sure she’d say I needed to talk about it.” He smiled, hoping she would too.
She didn’t.
His soul cracked open and started to bleed. He couldn’t handle seeing her miserable.
“About what Jamie said,” he choked out awkwardly. “She didn’t mean anything. It was just—”
“Don’t.” Her voice was so hoarse it was barely a whisper. Stumbling to her feet, she shook her head fervently. “Please don’t do this.”
He stood stock still, not stopping her, as she fled past him, racing down the hall. When he heard her turn the corner, he closed his eyes and fisted his hands down at his sides, telling himself to let her go.
But he couldn’t let her go.
Whirling after her, he started running too.
“Paige.”
At Logan’s call, Paige quickened her pace.
“Paige,” he growled impatiently as he caught up to her. A warm hand wrapped around her elbow.
He didn’t make her stop, but she jerked to a halt, anyway, and spun around. “What?” Horrified by the crack in her voice, she gritted her teeth and commanded herself not to cry. “What do you want from me?”
“I…” Agony contorted his features. He looked so upset, she actually wanted to hug him, comfort him.
The very guy who’d taken her brother away, the guy she had forgiven and no longer blamed. The guy she should still avoid.
She pressed a closed hand against her aching chest, digging up the last reserve of her anger. “Look, just because I don’t…hate you anymore doesn’t mean…we’re not…we can’t be…”
God, she couldn’t even say it. When she was looking at him like that, and with him looking back at her the way he was looking at her, she couldn’t reject him.
Couldn’t bear to hurt him.
A weighty breath shuddered from his lungs. He gave a single, humble nod. “I know.”
Great. She was going to start crying again. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, wetting her cheeks. “Then what do you want from me?”
“What do I want?” When a sad smile flittered across Logan’s lips, Paige shuddered, practically tasting his misery. Closing his eyes, he confessed, “Everything I know I shouldn’t, I guess.”
She closed her eyes too. “Logan…”
“I know,” he said again, his voice rustic. “I know. When I look at you, I should feel nothing but guilt and remorse. I should close down and burrow into that wretched place inside myself. But I can’t. I just…I feel so alive. You’ve made me smile and laugh and…and want.”
Her eyes flashed open. When his gaze darted down her body, her skin warmed and her pulse throbbed in the most wicked places. She curled her fingers into her palms to keep from reaching for him.
“I can’t remember the last time I really wanted a girl. But I want you, Paige. In every way possible. I know it hurts you to hear this, but you’ve healed me like nothing else has. You’ve made me feel…forgiven. And hopeful. And complete.”
“But I can’t just…it wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t ever be with you; it would totally disgrace Trace’s memory. It…it…”
“I know.”
God, she hated how lost he sounded whenever he said those two words. Why did he have to keep saying them?
He gave a bitter laugh and ran his hands over his face. When he dropped his fingers, he looked up at the ceiling, addressing the white tiles. “Wow. Who knew falling in love would be so gut-wrenchingly disastrous?”
Paige choked out a sob and covered her mouth with both hands. Logan focused on her, his brow knit with worry. When he took a step forward, she countered with a skip backward.
Shaking her head, she muffled out her command from between shaking fingers. “Don’t say that. You don’t mean…you can’t—”
“But I do.” Misery filled his eyes. “And I don’t regret it. I’ve fallen in love with you, Paige. I just—”
She couldn’t listen to any more. Whirling away, she took off, but he caught her arm two steps into her flight. She gasped as he spun her back to him. When they literally bumped into each other, he caught her shoulders and coaxed her in reverse until her spine met a wall. Then he pressed his forehead to hers and simply held her there.
The press of his body against hers, the fall of his minty breath on her cheek, the warmth of his fingers as they barely slid across her cheek, just under her bruise, was too delicious to resist. She closed her eyes, her chest heaving from the anticipation racing through her. She wanted this, wanted it so bad.
He caught a piece of her hair. “I could count the reasons you made me love you, one for each strand of beautiful hair you have. Or…or I could show you.”
He kept his brow pressed to hers as he tilted his face just so until his breath fanned across her lips. Less than an inch away from kissing her, he paused and cupped her face, his fingers trembling against her skin.
“Paige?”
So tender and uncertain, his voice coaxed her into lifting her face to meet his mouth, greedy to taste him.
But at the last second, she pictured him and Kayla locked in this same embrace.
And Trace’s roar of outrage as he discovered them together.
With a sob, she tore her mouth away. “I can’t. I just—I can’t.” Ducking under his arms, she escaped and sprinted away. He didn’t take up the chase this time, and she knew he wouldn’t. But she didn’t slow down until she reached Grammar Hall.
When she shut herself inside her room, she was more than relieved to find Mariah absent. Tess and Bailey might’ve been around, but if they heard her come in, they didn’t pop over.
She sat on her bed, trying to regain her breathing—and her composure.
Logan loved her. Her chest swelled with euphoria. The first guy to ever really hit her radar felt the same intense awareness of her as she did for him.
But logically, she was all kinds of confused. Being with him had to be taboo. Didn’t it?
Then again, if she’d honestly forgiven him, then it shouldn’t matter what had happened three years ago. And in a way, it didn’t.
But what would Trace think of her?
What would Kayla think, or her father?
A small part of her brain said she didn’t care about her dad’s opinion; he could rot in his alcohol for the rest of his life. But she really did care. She loved Paul Zukowski, knew how tormented he was. She didn’t want to lose what little affection her only family left had for her. And she would if she started anything with Logan.
Wouldn’t she?
God, she was so confused.
Maybe she’d been the sole person who’d found Logan culpable for the past three years. Maybe her father had never blamed him. Maybe Kayla didn’t blame him either. Maybe Trace wouldn’t have blamed him.
Except his own family had kicked him out. If his own flesh and blood could do that to him, her family probably wanted much worse.
She winced. She wanted to call her best friend. She needed Kayla’s advice. But she’d never confessed what she knew about Kayla’s involvement that night. Unable to deal with more than one problem as a time, she cradled her head in her hands and came up with no easy solution.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“ARE YOU SURE you can’t come with us this weekend?” Bailey begged.
Beside her, Tess fluttered her lashes. “Please, please, please come, Paige. We already told you we’d both chip in to pay your way.”
Paige chuckled as she sat curled on Bailey’s bed. It was only the second Friday into the semester, and her suitemates had plans to go skiing with both their fami
lies over the weekend.
Watching them pack, she shook her head sadly. “I have to work.” When Tess opened her mouth to protest, Paige quickly added, “And I have a test first thing on Monday. A big test. I need to study.”
Bailey wrinkled her nose as she stuffed bras and panties haphazardly into her suitcase. “A test already? But it’s only—”
“World history with Daley,” Paige spoke over her.
Since Bailey had just taken that course with the same professor last semester, she snapped her mouth shut. “Oh.”
“Well, one of these days you have to promise to come home with us. We want you to meet our families.” Neatly folding her undergarments before placing them precisely in her own bag, Tess sent Paige a stern look, waiting for an answer.
Paige nodded. “I promise.”
She stayed with them, chatting until it was time for them to leave. Then she helped carry their luggage to Bailey’s car. “Have fun and be safe,” she warned as she hugged both girls goodbye.
After they left, she returned to her own room, morose and lonely. Without those two around, she always had too much time to think. And thinking was the last thing she wanted to do.
When Mariah blew into the dorm, instantly ripping off her shirt and digging through her closet for something else to wear, Paige welcomed the distraction.
“Going out again?”
“Yep.” Mariah sounded sidetracked as she found a slinky, glittery, backless party top to wiggle into. “I’ve decided the only way to get over one man is to block out his memory with a couple more. And I’ve met this guy named Reggie. He’s so hot. Dreamy hot.”
Paige perked to attention. “Reggie? Reggie Oates?”
“Mmm hmm. Do you know him?”
“Yeah. We had geography together last semester. He’s really nice.” And she could totally see Reggie and Mariah hitting it off.
Wrinkling her nose, Mariah sent Paige a disappointed look over her shoulder. “Nice?”
“I mean—” Back peddling, Paige thought quickly. “Nice in a total player, party-animal, hottie kind of way.”
Mariah thought that through. “Oh.” With a grin, she winked. “Cool.”
