by Miranda King
“Oh, I’ll bet you’d like that. Too bad though because we’re just friends.” She flips her hair back. “And friends don’t let friends…”—she twirls her hand in the air searching for the polite word to say in mixed company—“you know, watch each other do those kinds of things.”
“Good thing I’m not your friend.” Ollie chuckles.
That came out of nowhere. There’s a simultaneous tickle of laughter in her chest and a flush of heat in her cheeks.
Logan crosses his arms and stares at Ollie. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have some important stuff you need to do for the General right about now?”
“Yeah, I’m doing it,” says Ollie unfazed by Logan. “He asked me to check out the”—he coughs politely—“moaning.”
“Moaning?” she asks. Jeez, had she and Logan been that loud? “You could hear that way down the hall by your desk?”
He reluctantly nods. “Logan, the General wants me to remind you that sex on base is not allowed per military code.”
“So the General thinks we were having sex in here?” she squeaks. This is the same General her daddy did his tour of duty with, and she remembered meeting him as a little girl before her parents died. This is a man her father revered and respected. Her daddy, not to mention her mama, must be blushing up in Heaven. “The General probably thinks I’m a slut and Logan’s for sure in trouble, too.” She presses her fingers to her hot cheeks. “Did he really hear us?”
“Well, maybe not so much really.” There’s too much false hope in Ollie’s voice. “We’ve been running around overseeing the generators starting up. Maybe he’s not quite so sure what he heard.”
“That’s Ollie-talk for, yeah, the General clearly heard the moaning,” Logan teases her.
“I don’t see why you’re not taking this more seriously.” She jabs her finger at Logan’s hard chest, surprised she didn’t break a nail or he didn’t at least wince.
“You remind me of Dante when you do that.” He grins. “Except for those sharp nails. You could register those things as assault weapons, or at the least qualify them as a torturing device.”
She waggles one of her acrylic-tipped fingers at him. “You’re making jokes now when we’re in a crisis situation?”
“I wasn’t aware we are in a crisis situation. Ollie, are we being attacked?” His voice is so calm that it’s clear he thinks they are not facing anything even remotely close to a crisis.
“Not we—just you.” Ollie snickers to Logan with a pointed look at her nails.
“You’re both overlooking how this could explode into a scandal of gigantic proportions. Logan’s career, everything he’s dedicated his life to, could be over.” She sweeps the air with her hands. “Tell the General I was doing some preshow warm-ups with my voice or something,” she spouts off on the fly. “No, that would be lying.” She paces a few steps. “What can we possibly say?”
Logan tucks a hand under his chin. “Hmm, you really don’t want me to get into trouble, do you?” He grins at Eden. “Maybe you care more about me than just as a friend and you don’t want to admit it.”
Oh, how that’s just like him to sling her words right back at her. Maybe she hasn’t specifically told him she loves him, but in her every action, she’s shown him. Now his Let’s Just Be Friends crusade hardly encourages anything from her beyond braiding him a friendship bracelet.
“Friends don’t let friends get in trouble,” she comes back. “We take care of each other.”
“Just to clarify,” Ollie jumps into the conversation. “When you say ‘take care’ is that another sexual innuendo? Because I’m having a hard time keeping up.”
Logan razzes Ollie, “And I wondered why you don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Shut up, man.” Ollie bumps his fist on Logan’s solid shoulder.
“Logan, how can you jest when your career is on the line? And Heaven help you if a hungry reporter gets hold of this and turns it into a feeding frenzy for the tabloids. I can see the headlines now.” She spreads her arms wide. “Prince Logan Has Illicit Sex on Military Base, Embarrasses the Country.”
“Yeah, that is something to think about,” Ollie admits to Logan. “I’m sure Eden’s name will get trashed in the tabloids, too. She’ll be accused of being your mistress.”
There’s a flexing of muscles in Logan’s chest and arms and a Category Five Hurricane look to his eyes. “That won’t happen. Don’t ask, don’t tell, isn’t that right, Ollie?”
He nods emphatically. “What’s to tell? Doesn’t seem like anything got out of hand.”
“That’s right.” Logan crosses his arms. “Eden and I are just friends. Nothing got out a hand.”
“I suppose that’s one way to put it.” She rolls her eyes. There was that F word again—Friends. And yeah, nothing technically got out of hand—that is, her hand.
Ollie raises an eyebrow. “Was that another sexual innuendo? If so, I’d better get out of here before I actually have to report something.”
He’s halfway out the door, but turns to look over his shoulder. “Oh, Logan, we’re on partial lockdown. Someone has to stay with Eden until the lights come back on. So guard the door—and keep your lightsaber where it belongs.” He chuckles, and then he’s gone.
“Lightsaber?” she asks about the Star Wars reference.
“That’s Ollie-talk for don’t have sex.”
“No worry now.” She narrows her eyes at him. “If you truly want to be friends, fine. But friends don’t let friends have sex with each other.”
“You sure do have a lot of rules about what friends can’t do.” He chuckles. “So what exactly can they do? And I’m not asking about sex. I don’t want that from you.”
“Didn’t seem like that a few minutes ago.”
“That was a mistake. I promised”—he rakes a hand through his hair—“myself to end it between us and just be friends.”
“Why? Help me understand…”
“What’s to say?” He searches her eyes, as if he’s gauging about whether to tell her more. But in the end, all he says is, “What’s done is done.”
“Ugghh, you are so frustrating.” She flails her hands.
“Have you ever noticed that you and Dante both do the same thing with your hands when you’re being overdram—.”
She flails her hands again. “Were you about to call me overdramatic?”
“If I were, it’s only because I think it’s…” he hesitates, “adorable.” It’s like dragging that word out of him is done through torture.
“Adorable, really? That’s what people call puppies.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ve been reduced from a friend down to a puppy.” She blows a piece of hair out of her face, and it flops back down over her brow and cheek.
“God help me,” he murmurs. In one step, he’s less than an arm’s length away. His voice is a near whisper. “People love puppies.”
Why does it seem he’s speaking in riddles?
“Do you love puppies?” she eyes him carefully.
He doesn’t answer. Instead he reaches for that errant strand of her hair. His fingers twist around it and brush along the skin of her cheek. She trembles. He stares at her mouth.
She rubs her lips together, anticipating the mingling of his lips with hers. He closes his eyes for a moment and doesn’t lean in for a kiss. Instead he mutters a curse, unswirls the hair wrapped around his finger, and wrenches his body away from her.
He clears his throat. “Your hair has more pink in it.”
He’s commenting on her hair? No kiss? What the hell just happened?
Perhaps he really does just want to be friends. He’s always attentive, charming, and at times playful with everyone.
Everyone, even tonight with Ollie.
Is she even special to him?
For this whole year, she thought they been building a relationship, working towards marriage. Haven’t they even talked about it? He asked her questions, sure. But were those questions even anything beyond curiosity? And what’s wors
e, every conversation about marriage had been initiated by her.
Had everything been initiated by her? Because that would mean she’s more into him than he is to her.
Is that true? Well…
She’s the one that invited him back last weekend to her hotel room. She’s the one who slipped off her clothes in the bedroom, begging him to do the same. She’s the one after the lights went out tonight that put her hands all over him, coaxing him to touch her. She’s the one who escalated what happened between them tonight by unzipping his pants and fondling him.
And he’s the one that stopped it—well, eventually.
But she couldn’t blame him for that. Or for the sex last weekend. What man doesn’t drink the milk when a cow offers it not only for free, but practically pours it down his throat for him?
Great, now she’s comparing herself to a cow. A puppy is definitely better. Puppies and dogs are man’s best friends.
Friends. Just like he’s drilled repeatedly over and over tonight, like a New York City jackhammer tearing up a sidewalk, leaving nothing left to stand on beyond friendship.
Oh God, she’s been throwing herself at this man, and all along he just wants to be friends.
The reality cracks her chest open, and all her mistaken assumptions and everything she could’ve done wrong are like grains of salt, spitting on her wound and seizing her in heartache.
Get it together. Breathe. Let it go. Breathe. Move on. Breathe. Chin up.
She pushes herself away from him and flips her hair back into place. “Yes, I did add more pink to my hair for a photo shoot,” she says, hoping her voice betrays nothing of her insides jiggling like a salt shaker and pickling her nerves. “I’ve gotta keep changing to stay relevant. For people to pay attention. Otherwise, they’ll lose interest in me.”
Like you apparently did.
“I actually like your natural color.” His voice vibrates rich like cream that is oh-so-bad for her.
“I’ve almost forgotten what that is.” She glances towards the ceiling lights, almost willing them to magically turn back on faster so she can get away from here and start on a new diet, a Logan-free one.
“Red.”
She jerks her head to look at him. He knows her natural hair color? She hasn’t had red hair since she’s entered the music industry. He either had looked that info up on the Internet, or he remembered old pictures Dante might’ve shown him.
So what, he knows my natural hair color? Don’t read too much into it. That’s what got you into trouble in the first place. Recognize he’s being nothing more than a—friend.
She shrugs. “Yeah, well, the blonde shows up better on stage.” Plus, her business team insists blondes sell more because they are perceived as sexier.
Rumble-rumble her tummy squirms. LOUD. That noise is definitely not sexy. She hugs her stomach. Maybe he didn’t hear it.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, because of course he heard.
“No.”
Growl-growl-growl goes her traitorous tummy.
There’s no hiding it. “Maybe a little hungry.”
“You’re in luck. The General’s wife keeps this place stocked. Some of us sneak in here after the mess hall closes to grab snacks.” He opens and shuts cabinets below a countertop along the wall.
“The General’s wife is here? I didn’t know wives got to live on base.”
“She’s not here. She sends care packages almost daily. No wives are allowed on this base. Some bases they are.”
“Could you transfer to one of those bases?” She asks for reasons more beyond curiosity than she’s willing to admit.
“I guess I don’t really have a reason to.” He shuffles through the contents of some snack baskets set atop a sideboard without looking at her.
“I thought you did at one time.”
“Dreams and reality are two different things.”
What is he saying to her? Forget it. She doesn’t care. She’s no longer that woman who reads too much into what Logan says. “What does that mean?”
Okay, being that woman who doesn’t read too much into him lasted for about… one second.
“Means whatever you want it to.” He rifles through baskets, still not looking at her.
“That’s the problem. What you say and what I think it means don’t seem the same thing. It’s like today we started speaking two different languages.”
“No, we’re both speaking English.”
“Perhaps.” She furrows her brow. “Maybe it’s in the things that you’re not saying.”
He finally looks at her and grins. “God, I love that about you.”
He loves something about her? “Love what exactly?”
He chuckles. “That.”
“That?” she asks. “What does that mean?”
He chuckles again. “How you overanalyze things—it’s adorable.”
“Is that adorable in a puppy way—or something else?”
“I don’t know. Just adorable. That’s all I’m thinking right now. I’m not thinking about puppies or anything else. Just you.”
“Just me?” she asks, trying to process what that means. “But when you say I overanalyze things, what does that mean?”
“Only you would analyze what overanalyze means.” He laughs. “But I love that about you. You think about things that don’t even cross my mind. I just do. Sometimes without thinking. But you make me stop and think about reevaluating things I never did before.”
“Like what things?”
“I don’t know.” His words sound like he’s pulling them from somewhere deep inside. “You’ve made me see my grandfather in a different way. He called today, and I think he’s trying to ask for my forgiveness for basically abandoning me as a child. But it’s hard to forgive him.”
“Why?”
He shrugs.
Long moments pass before she quietly says, “I have a theory about that.”
“I’d expect nothing less from you.” His voice has a trace of humor to it.
“But you may not like what I have to say.”
“Maybe I need to hear it anyway.” He exhales a long breath. “You make me think about things I should, even when I don’t want to.”
“Well, it’s simply this: I think you don’t want to forgive your grandfather because then if you do, all that’s left is you forgiving yourself for what happened with your father.”
He braces one hand against the counter. “But I am the reason why he died, you know that, right? I dared my brother to ski down that slope when he told us not to.” He grips one of those pink Hostess Sno Balls snack packs with his other hand and squeezes hard. “If I hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have had to chase after Adam, and he wouldn’t have crashed into that tree.” The package bursts open and he lets it fall out of his hand down to the counter.
“But you didn’t force your brother to follow you. He’s older than you, and he certainly didn’t have to do whatever you told him to. It was his choice.”
“But I gave him the choice.”
“That he didn’t have to take, but he did.” Her voice tries to cut a path straight to his heart. “It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. It was just an accident. And deep down, you know that.”
He shakes his head slowly. “Perhaps. But I still wish I could go back in time and do things differently.”
“If you could, and you could ask your father one thing, what would it be?” She hopes it’s something about his brother because she suspects that part of the story tortures him.
He takes in a long breath. “I guess I’d ask, why did he choose to save Adam over me?”
“What do you think the answer would be?”
“Because Adam is more important. He’s the oldest. The heir. I’m… expendable.” He seems to actually believe that.
“But weren’t you the stronger skier?” she counters. “Maybe your father knew you’d be okay, but Adam wouldn’t. Have you ever thought about that?”
He doesn’t say an
ything right away, but a light breaks like dawn through the darkness of his eyes. “Leave it to you to make me think about things I’ve never thought about before. That’s why I love—”
He stops himself with the shake of the head. “—talking to you, as a friend.”
“Yep, got it. Friend.” She sighs. “That’s the word of the day. Friend. Let’s just keep saying it over and over until it’s drilled into our heads.”
“Okay,” he grins. “Someone is sounding a little cranky and probably just needs to eat. Let’s put the vocabulary lesson on pause”—he holds up a package of sea salt chips and barbecue ones—“and choose.”
“Neither.” She shakes her head. “Too many carbs and salt.” She crosses her arms. “And for the record, I am not cranky.”
He gives her an if-you-say-so look of disbelief. “How about this?” He tempts her with a candy bar.
“God, how I’d love, love, LOVE to have that right now. But too much sugar.”
“Okay…” He rifles through another basket and produces a packaged muffin.
“Nope. Way too many calories in that thing.”
“You don’t want it? Because I’ll gladly eat your muffin.” He slits open the wrapping with his mouth. “You didn’t seem to be counting calories last weekend. What’s changed?” He downs practically the entire muffin into his mouth.
“Last weekend I had a lot of… exercise. It doesn’t look like I’ll be getting any tonight, so I have to watch what I eat.”
He chokes. “You’ve got to have sex in order to eat?”
“What? …No. I can only eat 1800 calories in a day. But if I work out, then I can have more.”
“And you expected to get a workout tonight?”
“Of course.”
“Damn Dante.”
“Why’d you say that?” she asks. “It’s not his fault the lights went out. I can usually burn 600 calories in one show, but obviously I can’t tonight.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” His grin suggests it absolutely wasn’t.
“What exactly were you thinking?” She narrows her eyes, already knowing the answer.
“Truthfully, sex. Men always think about sex. Even that magazine on the coffee table claims that men think about sex an average of nineteen times a day.”
