“Today, that’s up to you.” Griffin clapped him on the back. “Welcome to the hot seat.”
WTF? Logan’s neck cracked, he turned so fast to glare at Griff. “How’s that? No heads-up, you prick?”
“We didn’t get one that you were coming home,” Knox said pointedly. “Call it tit for tat.”
“If you weren’t engaged to my sister, I’d make an awesome joke about taking all the tit we can get our hands on. Shit.” He gestured Lara over. In a hushed voice, Logan asked, “Can we say tit on the air?” And why hadn’t someone given him a list of rules? Was he being hazed for joining late?
Lara’s laugh filled the brick-lined hallway of the station. “This is satellite radio, sweet cheeks. You can say anything. Your friends here sure already have. Josh went on and on about the Pussy Pause right on episode one.”
Classic Josh. Josh, who pushed the envelope and could be hilarious at the drop of a hat. Logan could do a hundred push-ups without breaking a sweat. Letting loose a joke—on purpose—wasn’t so much his style. Feeling more desperate, he grabbed at Lara’s arm as she started to walk away. “I’m not a big talker.” There. He’d admitted it. Hopefully now she’d give him the magic key to getting through this thing.
“You’d better be in three minutes.” Taking pity on him, she loosened his tie before clattering away on those sky-high heels. Heels that suddenly made him wonder how awesome Brooke’s legs would look if she wore them.
She didn’t need fancy clothes to bring his dick to attention. But Logan thought about how she’d probably like dressing up and going someplace fancy with him. How much he’d like staring at her in candlelight, as it haloed around her face.
Josh shoved him toward the open door of the studio. “It’s radio, Marsh. You can’t skate by on your looks. Not that you could get far, with that mug. Grab some sac and pick a topic.”
As he sat down, Logan pulled out the only straw left in his quiver of excuses. “Shouldn’t we have voted on this? Like the time Ry wanted to do a survival vacation in the Utah desert?”
Knox nodded. “When we all voted to kayak with whales in the Sea of Cortez instead.”
“Technically, you weren’t exactly free of danger slapping paddles at the water right by the blowholes of thousand-pound cetaceans,” Riley pointed out as he wheeled his chair up to the big round table.
“Technically,” Knox mockingly echoed, “our kayaking vacation ended every night with margaritas and shrimp as big as my fist. I’m at peace with our decision to override you.”
Griffin fiddled with the microphone suspended in front of him from overhead. “And we’re all at peace with the decision to turn the Naked Men blog into a podcast. Living with no regrets means trying stuff.”
Riley tapped his own mic. “So when are we trying the survival vacation?”
Most of Logan’s life was spent in survival mode. He damn well didn’t want to vacation like that, too. “You told us we might have to drink our own pee if we didn’t find enough cactuses to drain. Pretty much hell to the never on that one, Ry.”
Banging out a complicated rhythm with his hands, Josh said, “There’s a minute on the clock. What’s the topic gonna be?”
“How should I know? You didn’t give me any time to think of something.” Sports? Logan had scanned the MLB standings the moment his Wi-Fi kicked in, but not well enough to lead a fricking discussion. Work? Yeah, the shit show that was his unasked-for promotion wouldn’t play well with the world at large. Deep down, Logan knew he should be honored his dad wanted to pass off the Foundation—the one he didn’t want to run—to him. It certainly couldn’t be bitched about when there were so many people trying to get any job.
“Hey, the rest of us don’t get any prep time, either,” Josh said. “So quit whining and start jawing.”
From behind the wide glass window, Logan saw Lara counting down the final five seconds with her fingers. Then a red light went on in the corner. Shit. A sandbox full of shit.
Griff’s voice came out as smooth as the guy who did all the movie trailers. “We’re your Naked Men: Griffin, Knox, Josh, Riley, and, making his official podcast debut, Logan.”
“Ha—Logan’s a podcast virgin,” Josh barked out with a laugh.
“Watch it. We tabled virginity as a topic after the first episode, remember?”
“Really?” That made no sense to Logan. And butting in with a question would help him stall for time. “Why’d you bother to talk about it at all? It’s not like there are any virgins over the age of consent in the District.”
Riley lifted an eyebrow. Shifted his gaze over to Griff and then back. “You’d be surprised.”
There was a story that clearly needed to be yanked out of Griffin with a freaking tow rope.
Griff kept up his announcer voice. “We’re celebrating Logan’s inaugural podcast by letting him choose the topic today. Now, he’s never heard the show, since he’s been elbows deep in mud, rebuilding a village.”
“Priorities, huh?” joked Josh.
“Here’s a recap for his benefit and for all the new listeners out there. The rules are the same as our blog—which means no rules. We share our naked emotions, reactions, and questions, and hope that our talking about them helps all of you out there who might be going through something similar.”
With a wicked gleam in his eye, Knox leaned forward. “So, Logan, what are you going through right now?”
Shit. The fucker knew. He’d watched Logan with Brooke on that damnably slow boat when he was supposed to be all about comforting his fiancée and he knew something was up. And now he was throwing Logan under the bus with it.
Not that Logan had any better idea of what to talk about. Why not treat this like any other Sunday, sitting through ribbing and good-natured insults until his friends finally came around to giving what always turned out to be rock-solid advice?
With both hands, he snapped and then shot out finger guns at the guys. “Let’s talk about what happens when a one-night stand goes wrong.”
The responses flew at him, starting with Riley. “The condom breaks?”
Josh scrunched up his face. “You get crabs?”
With a look of utter horror, Knox detoured back to Ry’s answer. “You get her pregnant?”
None of which had ever happened to any of them. Probably because their abject fear of all of the above made them more prepared than an entire Boy Scout troop. Logan had to get them out of panic mode. “Okay, not wrong. Let’s say sideways.”
Knox tilted his body, careemed his arms as if miming the action. “You need apparatus?”
“For the ever-living fuck of it, Knox, you can’t say things like that now that you’re engaged to my sister. It skeeves me out.”
“We can’t stop talking about sex.” Leaning back with a smug grin, Knox continued, “ ’Cause I’m having more of it than ever, let me assure you.”
Griffin put a restraining hand on Logan’s shoulders just as he started to lunge out of the chair. “We cut last week’s podcast short with you two waling on each other. How about we table this for now and discuss rules of engagement for your new sister/fiancée mess off the air?”
Logan never thought the day would come when he wouldn’t be able to listen to his best friend recount his sexual adventures. What was next? It already felt like nothing would ever be quite the same again between the five of them. What would happen when more women wove their way into this group?
He settled back with a sigh. Thought about Brooke. About how weirdly great friends they’d been in high school. About the off-the-charts sex they’d shared in Dominica. Lastly, how whenever they got together here in D.C., it wasn’t enough. How he wanted more. More time with her. More chances to make her smile, to hear her laugh, to feel the comfort she brought him on so many levels.
About how even thinking about all of that drove home that it would never, ever work.
“Here’s the deal—I’m talking about a one-night stand. A fling. Something you do with a definite e
nd point already identified and agreed upon by both parties.”
Josh gave him a thumbs-up. “Those are the best kind. No danger of getting entangled too deep.”
Ry nodded. “No danger of things getting messy. Or out of control.”
“Yes. That describes it perfectly.” See? His friends got it. They knew the score. Why didn’t women? “Maybe you let your guard down a little more, because it’s safe. Because you know you’re like one of those classic forties movies.”
“Full of cigarettes and in black and white?” Griff batted away imaginary smoke.
They’d all sat through Casablanca together in sociology class senior year. Why’d they make him spell it out? Except…oh, yeah. Radio. Logan straightened to talk a little more directly into the microphone. Not that he knew how close to get. Something else they could’ve put in his nonexistent how the fuck we do this Intro to Podcasting. “I mean, like two ships passing in the night.”
“More precisely, two ships dropping anchor for the night, and then moving on full steam ahead come morning.”
Ry had never met a metaphor he didn’t strip bare and repackage in exactitudes and fact. “Sure.” Logan circled his hand in the air. “Except what happens when that sleek, sexy little sloop pulls a U-turn and comes back around? When it anchors alongside you when you’re in dry dock and can’t go anywhere?”
Griffin made a time-out signal with his hands. “Uh, did you forget I’m a pilot? How about we drop the boat metaphors and work with something faster and about a billion times better?”
Blowing a loud, wet raspberry, Knox said, “You can’t hate on boats. You’re in the Coast Guard.”
“No hate. Just a deep appreciation of the two thousand horsepower spinning the rotors of my chopper. Instead of something that can be pushed along with a couple of oars.”
Did people get to call in to this show? If so, they were about to get a metric shit ton of angry boaters calling out the lieutenant. Logan flicked his microphone to get everyone’s attention. He needed their advice, and they’d stay on track until he got it—if he had to put them all in headlocks and noogie them into it. Because his inability to stop thinking about Brooke bugged the shit out of him.
Even though he didn’t want to stop.
Wasn’t that just a kick in the ass?
“Forget the planes. And the damn boats. And nobody better even try to bring up cars or rockets. I’m being serious.” God, Logan wanted to pace. Wanted to be lifting boulders or even digging a latrine trench while they talked about this. Then he’d have someplace to look besides the equally confused and amused faces of his friends. “Somehow, my hot one-night stand, my island hookup, turned into a relationship. I don’t know how things got so serious, so fast. I didn’t plan it. We didn’t even go through the normal drinks/dinner/doing-it progression. Now I’m in a serious, real relationship all of a sudden. One that can’t actually happen.”
“Wait—this isn’t a hypothetical?” Josh’s eyes bugged out. “Like when we all put money on which one of us could pick up a Victoria’s Secret model faster?”
Knox sniffed. “That was only a hypothetical for you losers. I knocked that off my bucket list three years ago.”
Logan glared across the table. “Griff, remind the man who is engaged to my sister that we said no discussion of his man-whoring past. Or my fist is going so far down his throat he’ll be belching my knuckle hair for a week.”
Instead of passing on the threat, Griffin shrugged. “Why can’t you date your fling girl?”
Because that’s not how it worked? Because dating implied a future? Being around—which his friends more than knew wasn’t his lifestyle. “She’s a friend. A good friend. An old friend.”
“That makes sense. Why would you want to date someone you already know you get along with?”
Not having a decent answer, Logan relied on the old standby with the guys, an insult. “Don’t be a jackass.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Griff lobbed back smoothly.
He wasn’t against dating in general. Not like Knox, who used to get the dry heaves at the mere thought of being “stuck” with the same girl longer than it took him to go through a load of clean laundry. Logan just knew it wouldn’t work for him. It wouldn’t be fair. Brooke deserved better. “It’s not just that we’re friends. It’s that we agreed nothing more could happen. You know I’ll be out the door in a month, probably.”
Lara banged on the glass with her fist, a muted thud that had them all swiveling to stare at her. Then she rolled her hands in the classic gesture for more. More what? Logan figured he’d done a pretty good job of laying everything out. Getting naked with his feelings. When he wrote a blog post, nobody interrupted or tried to edit. He wasn’t so sure this podcast adaptation worked for him.
Griff seemed to know how to interpret it, because he cleared his throat. “To all our Naked followers, Logan does disaster relief. It’s why he’s been MIA since we started. As soon as bad shit goes down anywhere in the world, he takes off to fix it.”
Oh, yeah. Guess an explanation of why he’d take off made him come off as less of a prick. Logan gave Lara a grateful head nod.
Josh drilled his finger against the table. “Which means he’s doing the right thing by not wanting to get serious. The honorable thing.”
“That’s only one possible outcome.” Knox propped his elbows on the table and leaned in to the mic. “What if fling girl keeps getting flung at you by Fate because she’s the one? Because you two are meant to be?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Logan could not believe the crap coming out of his friend’s mouth. “Do you shit wedding veils and roses now? I swear, Knox, being engaged has sucked all the testosterone out of you.”
“How about we go a couple of rounds on the heavy bag and see who lasts longer?”
Josh threw back his head and laughed. “I swear, if we had a ruler you two would whip out your dicks and measure right now. Which would be pointless, seeing as how I’m hung like a racehorse.”
Ignoring him, Griffin said, “Logan, it takes more balls to make that jump and admit you need someone. Walking away is easier than making the choice to stay.”
Wanting advice was different than getting ganged up on. Logan glared over at the lieutenant. “Says the other man in the room who wants an engagement ring more than a tricked-out Lamborghini Testarossa.”
“What do you actually dislike? The idea of a relationship? Or having one with this particular woman?”
Okay, he’d give credit where credit was due. It was a good question. It was spitting out the answer that was hard. Logan sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t want to hurt her. The more serious we get, the harder it’ll be for both of us when I leave. But I can’t…I can’t make myself walk away from her now. She’s like a bag of potato chips sitting next to a fresh container of onion dip. Doesn’t matter how full you are. Your hand’s gonna keep digging in and dipping as long as possible.”
“I get that. You should keep dipping.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Riley countered swiftly. “You’re both adults. She knows the score, right?”
“Yeah. She knows.”
Griff clapped his palms together. “Then keep going. You might be surprised by what you find at the bottom of the bag.”
Chapter 16
Brooke banged the silver soccer-ball knocker against the red door. Hard. Repeatedly. Then she rang the doorbell about a dozen times. The excuse would be that the rectory was an enormous five-story house. The real reason, however, was that she was pissed as hell at Logan Marsh and needed to vent that fury any and every way possible.
The door opened. The sockless loafers and white linen pants told Brooke it was Knox before she got up past the blue silk pocket square in his blazer to his furious face. “Jesus Christ, are you here to arrest one of us? What’s with the—Brooke?”
“Hi, Knox.”
“Why’d you beat up on our door?”
“Because I hadn’t gotten through
it yet to assault your roommate instead.”
“Ah.” He ushered her into the long hallway with pale blue walls and white trim. “Logan’s in for a world of hurt, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
His blue eyes gleamed, and his mouth curved up into a wicked grin. “I’ll bet I know why. Any chance you listened to the podcast today?”
“Yes.” Something she’d immediately regretted. And then realized that ignorance wasn’t bliss. It had been a good thing to discover how Logan really felt about her. About them. Not pleasurable, but good.
Knox led her up the dark wooden staircase. At the first landing, he asked over his shoulder, “Can I watch as you rip him a new one?”
“He talked about our relationship to a listening audience of…what, several million? I don’t think he’s exactly earned the privilege of privacy for my rebuttal.” In fact, Brooke wished she’d had the presence of mind to hop in her car and drive to the station and interrupt the podcast. Although, in the moment, she’d probably been too irate to string together a real sentence. “Call all the guys in, for all I care. Heck, get your butler in on the action.”
“Jerry’s got the night off. He’ll be sorry he missed this, though.” On the third floor, Knox turned right and knocked on the half-open door before walking into a sitting room. He dropped down onto the gray couch, put his feet on the coffee table, and crossed his arms behind his head. Basically, it looked like he was settling in to watch a show. “Marsh, you’ve got a visitor. And she’s packing a serious level of heat. You might want to put on your jock before you come out here.”
In the silence that followed, Brooke noticed a few things about the room. The dark gray walls. The squishy gray herringbone couch with deep orange pillows. A wall of shelves filled with handcrafts that looked like they’d come from the far reaches of the globe. And then Brooke hated that her gaze immediately scooted to the open doorway and the sliver of bed she saw past it. A bed she’d wanted to hop into with Logan. A bed she’d never thought to see through a red haze of anger and with Knox Davies along for the ride.
Giving It All Page 18
