Hail Mary

by Taylor Hart

  Unwillingly, she smiled. He was flirting with her. Flirting! Like he used to.

  He grinned back and his eyes sparkled. “There you are. There’s the Paris that lets me tease her.”

  It stunned her how beautiful he was. Truly, he looked like a male model: his dark, wavy hair hanging in his eyes, his perfect eyebrows, and those green eyes that set her heart on fire.

  “You checking me out, Pear?” He looked curious and happy all at once. He flexed his arm and pulled up his T-shirt, revealing the wolf tattoo. “Man, I bet this one hurt.” He frowned and examined it further. “Do you know they call me the Wolf? I can’t quite figure it out.”

  Out of the blue, she laughed at the way he looked so perplexed.

  His smile was back. “You think this is funny?”

  Now she felt her cheeks burning, thinking of how ripped he was. She felt ridiculous. Like she was eighteen and checking him out. “Stop, Logan!”

  “Oh, you’re checking that out.” He nodded, looking pleased with himself.

  She laughed again, loving this version of Logan, how he was so carefree when he was younger, and always looking to tease her or flirt with her. This version of him made her heart race. With effort, she averted her eyes and looked at the wall. “Whatever.” She would not check out how ripped his bicep was.

  Letting out a happy sigh, he leaned back into the couch again. “Okay, go on, Pear. Tell me. Tell me everything. Start with telling me about the championship game—actually, tell me about after the game.”

  She knew what he was asking. Turning back to Logan, she looked him straight in the eye and said with all seriousness, “You asked me to marry you.”

  Logan cocked an eyebrow in accusation. “Then why aren’t we married?”

  “Just listen.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You played that game. A good game, lots riding on it, and you won by a Hail Mary in the last seconds. So many of the fans didn’t think that would even be a possibility, but Shane caught it.”

  His lips stretched into a grin. “Man, I wish I could remember. It sounds awesome.”

  Remembering so much was making her dizzy. She tried not to think about the most recent stuff, or about the biggest thing. No. She wouldn’t tell him that.

  She kept going from after the game. “Part of the reason you got so much national attention for that game was because of that throw. Shane came through and pulled it out. Watching you guys play, it felt like you could just read each other. You always knew when the other needed help and you could see the field so well, and Shane and you just worked.”

  Logan scoffed. “I don’t understand all the stuff between Shane and I.” He shrugged. “I know he married you, which is enough to tick a guy off. But I don’t know how things could have fallen apart so much with him, either.” He shook his head. “He hates me now.”

  It made Paris sad to think of so many things, bad things, that had destroyed all the hopes and dreams of Logan’s friendships.

  His face burned red. “Please, just tell me why you’re not my wife? What happened when I proposed?”

  Memories of that rushed over her. “True to Logan Slade form, you took me to the bonfire and, in front of all the guys and all our friends, you pulled out the ring and asked me to marry you.” It was funny to her how the palms of her hands felt sweaty at this moment, thinking about the young Logan and the young her and everything that had happened that he didn’t remember. “And I said yes.”

  He fist-pumped the air. “I knew you would. I hoped you would. I love you so much, Pear …” He trailed off. “I still love you.”

  It hurt to hear the words come so easily from him, almost startling to hear the sincerity in them. Last night, she realized that kiss was the young Logan claiming her. It hadn’t felt different to him, but she hadn’t felt that in a long, long time.

  “Did we …” He cleared his throat.

  A smile played at her lips. “If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, no.” She sighed. “We promised each other we would wait.”

  “Really?” He looked doubtful. “I was kind of obsessed with the possibility.” Logan moved to the couch next to her and took her hand. “We waited. Until when?”

  Unwillingly, she laughed. She let him hold her hand. She remembered how his hand had always felt a bit rough. Not blistery, but he’d always had calluses where he held the ball all the time, how he gripped it and spun it to throw. Logan had manly hands. “It was your idea, actually.”

  He looked baffled and adorable. “I wish I could remember,” he whispered, so sincere and vulnerable, exactly like the boy she’d loved so completely for so many years.

  “Let me get back to the timeline.” She knew her cheeks were red.

  He put his other hand over her hand. “Back to when we would get married.”

  She stared at their hands, and then pulled them apart. All these emotions swirled inside of her, confusing her.

  “You know, Pear, you want to keep acting like there’s not this thing still between us, but there is.”

  She tried to avoid any more of it by scooting further away on the couch. “Logan, those are just memories.”

  “Not to me. And how come there’s still this between us?” He pointed back and forth between them. “I mean, I may not know everything, but I feel this, and it’s not one-sided.”

  She wasn’t comfortable with that question. She stood and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window that showed a whole view of the dock and boathouse. The sun was rising quickly. Even though it’d been chilly this morning, everything was heating up nicely. “Logan, I can’t. This all is …” She turned to face him. “Hard, Logan.” Tears were back in her eyes as she thought about how much he didn’t know. About the fact he really was still eighteen and innocently in love with her. She felt like her heart might shatter. She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”

  He joined her at the window. “Pear.” His lip trembled and he blinked back tears. “What did I do to you?”

  “Logan, just …” She broke off.

  His face was pained and he was clearly trying to understand all her emotions. She wished she could turn them off, but him being here was like turning on a faucet that had no shutoff valve. Her eyes fluttered as she struggled not to cry.

  “Pear,” he said softly, taking her in his arms and stroking her hair like he’d done their whole lives.

  Well, their whole lives before it’d all fallen apart. Now she searched her mind. How had it fallen apart?

  “Is … is Juilliard the reason we broke up eventually?”

  He was relentless. Another reminder of what he’d been like before, how he had this dogged determination about things, about her. He’d always been at her side. She remembered when she’d first gotten to Juilliard, feeling that stark loss. Of him.

  “Pear, I know this is hard, but please just go through it, rip off the Band-Aid, tell me the more intensive highlights so I can understand.”

  She reached for the necklace at her neck, the one with Logan’s ring on it.

  His eyes followed her movement and he paused to look closer, his fingers pinching the ring carefully. “You still wear my high school ring? Is that what this is?”

  It was his high school letterman ring, technically, and he didn’t even have it yet. Now she felt more like a fool than ever. A couple of months ago she’d found it and put it on this long chain to start wearing around bedtime, to feel safer. Of course she took it off before bed, but …

  It felt hot on her skin when he dropped it back to her neck. She took the necklace off and handed it to him. “I …” She was shaken, embarrassed. “I don’t know, I found it a couple of months ago. I wanted to send it to you or something, but you’ve been in the middle of this circus media with your fiancée.”

  Fiancée. Fiancée. Fiancée. Yes, she needed to remember he was engaged.

  Logan studied the necklace, then shook his head and handed it back to her, gently slipping it into her hand de
spite her resisting. “If I gave it to you, you keep it.”

  The moment felt intimate. Full of the now, not the past, and it all started feeling like it was melding together. Confusion swarmed her thoughts and senses when she realized he might kiss her again.

  “Pear …” he whispered, leaning in.

  It was the attraction and magnetism they’d always felt for each other. At least, she’d always felt it for him. Like she couldn’t stay away from him.

  Their lips touched like a whisper, and then he pulled back and stared into her eyes. “Pear, you’re so gorgeous, stunning, completely…” he trailed a bit breathless. “You were beautiful before, but now I find you even more … exquisite.”

  Getting lost for a minute in his eyes, his words, his touch, was dangerous, and she yanked back. What was she doing? She couldn’t fall in love with him. He didn’t have a memory!

  This wasn’t real. She went to the window and sucked in a breath. “Look, Logan, I’ll give you a timeline of your life. I’ll tell you what I know. Then you have to promise to leave. This isn’t real.” Her voice trembled as feelings she thought were sorted out bubbled to the surface. She went to the desk by the kitchen counter and pulled out a notepad and a pen. She turned a page and plopped it down on the table, running a huge line down the center of it.

  “Okay.” She started writing years to make it easier, leaving some extra space. She branched out to the next pages with the years assigned to each part of the line; then she just began filling them in, putting in all the highlights of Logan’s life. “First you and Shane got scholarships to—”

  “Cal,” he filled in for her. “Docs and Shane told me that.” He stared down at her timeline and events.

  “Okay, then I went to Juilliard.” She filled that in the same year on the other side of the line. She paused and pointed to freshman year fall. “I went to visit you a couple of times that first year, and it was pretty amazing.” Reluctantly, she smiled.

  “So we were together at this time, right?”

  “Yes, we were. You and Shane both did good. I found I liked Juilliard, but maybe I was a bit homesick.” She glanced at him. “We spent an absurd amount of hours talking, texting, and Skyping.”

  Logan half grinned. “So you said yes and kept my ring. Were we just getting married at a later date?”

  Her heart fluttered at the hope in his voice, and she felt the rush of how much he used to love her. It was so strange, staring at the twenty-six-year-old Logan who loved her like the eighteen-year-old Logan had. “Yeah, we decided we couldn’t get married and live across the country from each other. So we put it on hold for a year.”

  “Oh. But wouldn’t we both still be in separate parts of the country?”

  “I thought I might hate it and end up joining you in California.”

  He flashed a grin, then frowned. “But that didn’t happen.”

  She knew it was pointless to try to explain everything. “No, I ended up excelling quite a bit and truly enjoying it.”

  “That’s good,” he said slowly. “So when did we plan on marrying?”

  She shook her head and stared up at him, that persistence. That love in his eyes. Gently, she touched his face.

  Closing his eyes, he covered his hand over hers. “Who cares about football, about anything but us? Why didn’t we get married?”

  His sincerity nearly broke her and a tear leaked out. “We should have,” she said quietly, then regretted it. She pulled her hand back and pointed to the timeline. “But we didn’t.”

  He didn’t move, still right next to her.

  Every part of her was keyed up. She put a few more things on the timeline, then stood up. “I can’t do all this at once.”

  He grabbed her hand before she could walk away. “How did we not end up together?” His voice got louder. “Pear,” he said, gesturing to the timeline. “What happened between us?”

  “Everything!” She yanked her arm away. “You changed! I changed!” She let out a derisive laugh at how possessive he had been of her when they were younger. Of how much he’d needed her. How passionate he’d been. Then, in a long, sad breath, she let all the anger go. This was not him. Not the real him. He wasn’t in love with her.

  He would wake up. Things would be different. When he woke up from this, his eyes would change. The way he looked at her. Was it horrible how much she liked the way he looked at her now, even if it was angry, if he at least cared?

  “I can’t do this,” she said, rushing away from him.

  “What? Where are you going? Pear!”

  She stopped, heaving in a breath, torn between the past and the present.

  “Look,” he said quietly, sounding tired. “Fine. Fine, don’t tell me about us right now. Fine. I still need help, Pear.” He ran a hand through his hair, looking all out of sorts. “I need help. I can’t go back to a life I know nothing about.”

  He looked like a kid she was leaving with no one to babysit him. A flash of annoyance surged through her, easing the painful emotions. She didn’t have time for a blast from the past and all the memories this brought with it into her life. Moving back to the table, she rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll fill in the events, but then you need to go. We … aren’t anything to each other.”

  All business, she lifted a pen, filling in more events from both of their lives, and not giving him a chance to ask a bunch of questions. Methodically, she went through the past couple of years for her and him because he insisted on knowing. When she finished, she turned to him. “I’m going to take a walk, clear my head. Please just leave.”

  He stared at her, his eyes so like the boy she knew. He wasn’t that boy anymore, and she wasn’t that girl.

  His face was no longer that baby fat-face—no, it was very manly, chiseled, like the men in those romance books she’d read periodically. He was every hero, every good guy, strong, tough, tall, and beautiful. She couldn’t help but notice the way his shirt stretched across his chest and how he was definitely not that eighteen-year-old boy. He took her hand into his. “I need you. I wish your grandpa was here to set you straight.”

  Her heart pitter-pattered and she thought about how his facial hair was just at that perfect length. Not too fuzzy, mountain man-like. She never liked beards. But oh, that sexy model look. She frowned and forced herself to resist touching his face. Logan had always been hard to resist.

  “I loved your grandpa,” he said softly. His eyes turned serious. “Pear, the past may be the past, but I’m right here.”

  Thoughts of him and his fiancée, Kim, shot through her. They usually showboated around and Logan made everything work. If he wasn’t there, what would happen? “Stop, Logan, you don’t understand.” Turning away, she let out a breath, trying to come back to reality. “And I’ve got too much to manage right now.”

  “It’s fine, Pear. I can see how this would be hard for you.” He gave her a tentative smile. “I know you have a company. Shane mentioned some big event that you manage for me?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s right. I have a lot going on. It’s a charity event your company hired me to organize with a lot of other football players, entertainers, and movie stars, and you give a lot of money to cool causes.” Yes, she had to focus. Focus on the present, on what would help both of them. He needed to get back to his normal life. “Logan, look, I’ll help you find your agent and you can go stay at a hotel. You can go ask other people about your life while you wait for the All-Stars event next week.”

  “I don’t want to ask other people,” he said simply, looking like a kicked puppy.

  “Well, you can’t stay,” she said, exasperated. There was way too much history and chemistry between them.

  He picked up the timeline and looked over it, then set it back down and shook his head. “Nope, you’re not getting rid of me.”

  She frowned. “Yes, I helped you, now go.”

  Letting out a sigh, he still looked at the paper. “Right, you mentioned that, but I’m thinking if you work f
or me, then I’ll fire you if you don’t help me.” Another boyish look crossed his face. “That’s way cool that someone works for me.”

  “What?” Her heart hammered inside her chest.

  He shrugged. “I’m going to stay a couple of days and you’re going to help me get my memory back.”

  She was about to explode. “No,” she said quietly.

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “From what Shane said it’s a pretty big deal. So, I’ll stay. We’ll talk. Then I make a showing at your event. We help each other out. I could give you some extra money?” He looked at her like it was a question. “I have a lot of money, I think.”

  Not knowing what to do, all she knew was that she needed to go, to run. Get away from him. From the past. She needed to think. She turned to get her shoes. “Fine, I’m going for a run.”

  Chapter 12

  Logan sat at the table. He’d watched her run out and down the path by the lake. He knew the path, had run it every summer.

  He surveyed the timeline, not impressed by it at all. She’d put events on it such as:

  Berkeley

  Sophomore—father passed, we break up.

  His father passed. It still felt so unreal to him, and he realized he didn’t even know the details. He scowled and looked back to the timeline.

  Junior Year

  Me at Juilliard

  You—at Berkley

  Shane—at Billings

  You win the national championship for your team. Big sensation. You meet a bunch of women.

  This stung. Yeah, he knew he probably did—Kim was evidence—but it was unsettling for Paris to just write it so casually.

  Senior Year

  All at same places

  Paris engaged to Jeff.

  Whoa. What? His heart raced. She dated other men? He wanted to hit something. He would never get used to the fact they weren’t together.

  You—date lots of women. Win Championship, get drafted to the Wave. Playboy bunnies abound. Six months ago, meet Kim Turner. Been engaged for three months.

  That’s where the timeline ended. Playboy bunnies abound? Hmm…this bugged him.