I wonder how she’s doing? How she’s growing? What she’s learning?
God, what are you doing with her? I certainly hope You’ve gifted her with the peace and comfort that I lack.
“Beckham?” I jump at the sound of my name as I’m startled out of my thoughts. I look around to see who might have called me. “Behind you,” she instructs me. I turn and see Logan standing with her hands on her hips as she smiles at me. Her blonde hair is down and swept behind her ears, which are adorned with dangly earrings. She’s wearing a tight, pale pink t-shirt that she’s dressed up with a high-waisted, cream colored, lacy skirt that flows only to her mid-thigh. I stop myself from assessing her any further, not really interested in her long legs—the legs I love can’t boast of this height.
“Hey, Logan.”
“Hey, yourself. Where’re you headed?”
I shrug, slipping my fingertips into the front pockets of my jeans. “Nowhere in particular.”
“In that case, get that mysterious, sexy ass in here,” she demands, tilting her head to indicate she means for me to go inside the shop she’s standing in front of. As I look up at the sign to clarify where I am, she disappears under the assumption that I’ll follow. I realize that she’s working and, because I have nothing better to do, I follow her into The Smitten Kitten.
I can tell the shop is mostly geared towards women, as three-quarters of what I see are women’s clothes and accessories; but there is a small section of the store that seems to be for men, so I wander there as she’s pulled away by a customer with a question. I’m not alone for long before she joins me.
“So, what’s a guy like you doing strolling around with no destination on a gorgeous afternoon like this?”
“Gorgeous? It’s actually kind of hot.”
“Says the man in a pair of jeans,” she replies, resting both hands on her cocked right hip. “Is it really true that the mysterious Beckham is a glass-half-empty kind of guy?”
I furrow my eyebrows as I run my fingers along the velvety material of a vest that hangs in front of me. I’m usually not such a negative person. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that that’s what I’m putting off. Is that who I’m becoming? “I’m not always,” I mumble. “Just not having the best day.”
“Hmm. Well, allow me to cheer you up. I’m off in fifteen minutes, you can take me to dinner.”
“Dinner?” I reply with a smirk. “It’s not even four o’clock.”
“It will be when I get off,” she says with a smile. “Plus, I’m starving.”
I can’t help but smile at her enthusiastic insistence, but I shake my head, uncomfortable with the idea of taking her out. It’s such an ambiguous statement that it feels sort of like a trap; and regardless of what she means by it, I don’t want to lead her on. “I don’t know, Logan.”
“Oh, come on. I’m a fabulous dinner companion.” She bats her eyelashes at me playfully and her flirtatious smile adds a certain sparkle to her dark green eyes. When I continue to hesitate, her smile turns into a pout. “Beckham—do you have a girlfriend I don't know about?”
Insert dagger and twist.
“No,” I say softly, reaching my hand up to rub at the tense muscles in my neck. If her proposal was ambiguous before, it doesn’t seem like that now.
“Perfect! Then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t want to go out with me.”
I raise an eyebrow at her, uncertain how I feel about her confidence. Not that there’s anything wrong with her being sure of herself, but I don’t really have a lot of fight in me right now. “Look, Logan, I don’t have a girlfriend but…it’s complicated.”
“Well, damn,” she huffs, dropping her arms to her sides. “Why didn’t you say so? That just means I owe you dinner.”
I chuckle, because I don’t know how else to respond. “Logan—”
“No, no, no,” she insists, lifting her palms up to stop me. “Trust me, I know complicated. She’s a bitch. I’m buying you dinner. An early dinner. With a drink, because it’s five o’clock somewhere! Now, since that’s settled, stay. Look around. We’ll leave in a few minutes.”
She’s gone before I can argue; but as I watch her saunter off, I realize that I don’t want to. I might not be interested in her romantically, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy her company. There’s something about her brazenness that I appreciate. I attribute part of it to the fact that she doesn’t know that much about me or what I’m going through. She takes and demands without compromise.
While my friends are definitely getting sick of my poor attitude, they know my heart and they sympathize, so they walk around on egg shells and handle me with kid gloves even though I know I don't deserve their gentleness. Not that I blame them. But I’m reminded that Logan’s ignorance is refreshing. Mostly, though, I know that’s just her personality. Any way I look at it, I just found someone to distract my thoughts for a while. Or, rather, she found me.
Ten minutes later, she’s leading us down the street and filling me in on her day. Apparently, it wasn't all that eventful until I popped up, but she somehow manages to hold my attention until we’re walking into Cooper's.
Wait—we’re walking into Coopers.
“Whoa, here? You want to eat here?” I ask, stopping her with a gentle hold around her elbow.
She looks down at my hand and then her gaze travels slowly up to my eyes, where she stares from underneath her eyelashes. I let her go immediately. A knowing smirk tugs at her lips—what she might know, I have no idea—and then she reaches for the door handle in front of her. “Yeah. I’ve been dreaming of their black bean burger all day. I’m salivating now just talking about it. Let’s go.”
Reluctantly, I follow her. I’m not sure if my reluctance is because I’m too bogged down to handle seeing Addie today or if it’s because I'm afraid of Addie seeing me out with Logan. Just Logan. Whatever the reason, I have to stifle a groan when Logan chooses the bar over the dining room. I find myself praying that Addie isn’t working right now.
“Hey, Roman's here,” she informs me as she sets her bag down, on a table I’m assuming she’s claiming as ours. “I’m going to go say hi. I’ll be right back.”
As she goes, I scan the room looking for Addison. When I don’t see her, my shoulders slump in relief. I miss her, I do, but maybe right now I miss her too much? Or maybe I’m just getting used to this whole avoidance thing; the thought of being confronted with her presence, where I’ll be forced to restrain myself from following through with any of the threats I've been making against God, is overwhelming.
Who am I kidding? They’re only threats against myself—against her; against this whole situation. If I rebel instead of walking in obedience, it doesn’t hurt God. It hurts me.
I don’t need to look at the menu, as I have it memorized by now, so I look over at Logan and Roman instead. Almost immediately, I wish I had found a better distraction. They’re far enough away that I can’t hear what they are saying, but by the looks of it, it’s not good. And it’s about me. I notice Logan signal back in my direction, her attention still trained on Roman, and his eyes flicker my way. Since I’m looking right at him, he offers me a nod and a smile, but the smile disappears the moment his gaze falls back on Logan. His brow darkens as he scowls and shakes his head at her. She only shrugs her shoulders before she makes her way back to me.
“What was that about?” I ask.
“Oh, nothing. Just Roman being Roman. So, do you know what you're going to get?”
I’m weary of what she’s keeping from me, but I forget about it the moment Marla comes over to take our order. She’s sweet, like always, and I’m doubly grateful that she’s not Addie or Sarah.
“Alright, spill,” demands Logan, patting her hands in her lap.
“What do you mean?”
“Mysterious, I want the goods. Tell me about this bitch.”
I assume she means my non-girlfriend and, despite the fact that Logan doesn’t know she’s just called Addie a name she doe
sn't deserve to be called—ever, I really don't appreciate it and I’m offended on Addie's behalf. “Um—first of all, she isn’t.”
When Logan laughs, the sound full and melodious, I don’t hide my confusion. “I wasn’t talking about the girl, I meant the situation. Tell me about this complicated you mentioned earlier,” she clarifies, air quoting the word complicated.
“Oh,” I mutter, shaking my head as I try and discard my annoyance. It doesn’t work. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“That’s cool,” she assures me, lightheartedly. “At least tell me this much: are you the screw-er or the screw-ee?”
“What?” I’m starting to question my decision to come out with this woman. Talking to her is giving me a headache.
“Okay. Let me spell it out for you. This is how I know the bitch otherwise known as complicated.” She clears her throat and sits up straighter before she begins.
“About four years ago, when I started at CSU, I met this guy. Total dreamboat. Total douche bag. Love is blind and I was stupid and naive and I thought I was happy. We were together for six months, which was the longest relationship I had ever been in, and when he told me he loved me, I believed him. Even after I found him drunk and making out with another girl at a party.
“Oh, stupid me.
“He begged for my forgiveness and I couldn’t refuse him. Like, literally couldn’t. He had these eyes… Anyway, a month later, I found my dreamboat, douche bag, boyfriend drunk in the same girl's bed. That I wouldn’t tolerate. Couldn’t. Whoops, I slipped my tongue in someone else’s mouth is not the same as, whoops, I slipped my penis in someone else’s vagina. So we broke up.” She stops with a casual shrug and then takes a sip of her drink.
For a moment, I’m confused. First, because her story seems pretty straight forward to me; second, because she seems completely over it, judging by the tone of her voice—and I wonder why she felt the need to tell me something so personal about herself. “That actually doesn’t sound complicated. He cheated. You left. Good for you.”
She hums a laugh and shakes her head at me. “That’s not where the story ends. You see, three months later—a few weeks before the end of spring semester—that girl came and found me.”
“Found you? Why?”
“Because she couldn’t find him and she thought I might be able to help.”
My head is starting to hurt again. “Why would she want to find him?”
“Because he left her with a parting gift she was sure he hadn’t left on purpose and she wanted him to know, in case he wanted it back.”
“Okay. You’ve lost me,” I tell her, admitting defeat.
“He left a bun in her oven.”
“Wait, what? She was pregnant?” I ask, flabbergasted.
“Ding, ding, ding! Problem was—well, aside from the unexpected baby—he had dropped out.” She rolls her eyes and scoffs, seemingly at herself. “I picked a winner, right? And when I tried to get ahold of him, he wouldn't answer. I love you, my ass. He, dear Beckham, was the screw-er; and I the screw-ee. But poor preggers! I felt so bad for the girl—she had to carry that spawn’s baby. Which she did. Full term. He may have broken my heart, but he broke her vag.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she became my best friend. How do you like that bitch?”
“Wait, isn’t Daph—” I don’t even have to finish my sentence; the look she gives me as she sips at her drink is answer enough. Now it feels like my brain is completely empty. I have no words. I’m literally speechless for a least a minute.
“You okay there?” she asks, reaching over to squeeze my shoulder.
I’m jerked out of my wordless trance at her touch. Slowly, answers to questions I’ve asked myself in regards to the friendship between Logan and Daphne begin to fall into place. Just as quickly as old questions are answered, new questions take their place. The unlikely pair were drawn to each other in very unique and unusual circumstances. What happened to the baby? And how did they kindle a friendship out of that mess instead of ending up in a cat fight? When I look at Logan, I begin to understand that she’s more than what she seems.
“So mysterious,” she whispers, lightly tracing her fingers across my forehead. “What’s going on up there? I swear, you think more than any guy I’ve ever met.”
It isn’t until she speaks that I realize I still haven’t. I shake my head and she pulls her hand away. “Daphne—she has a kid?”
“No. She gave him up. That’s where my story ends, so enough about me. Now back to you. Are you the screw-er or the screw-ee?”
It takes me another second to shake off her story; but when I do, I find her question no easier to answer. “I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “Sometimes, I feel like both.”
“Well, shit,” she says with a laugh. “I’ll be sure to buy you some dessert, later, too.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe! Literally, every time I try and breathe in, all I can swallow is a cap full of air and that’s not nearly enough. While I know if I just took a second to collect myself, I’d probably be alright, my brain is too busy trying to define the emotion that’s currently invading my chest and clogging my airway.
As I watch them talk to one another, his gaze focused intently on her, I replay the scene I just walked in on. Beckham and Logan. Together. Alone. Her fingers grazing his face. His face! A small part of me—the smallest—is begging me to think logically, but I can’t. She had her fingers on his face. That speaks of intimacy. What is more personal than a person’s face? Aside from the obvious…
I try and shake the thought away, but I can’t take my eyes off of them.
Intimacy? Come on, Addison—they don’t have intimacy.
Then what was that? Have you ever seen him that way with someone else?
I ball my fingers into my palms and force myself to find a rational thought. Any rational thought. Like, how he said he didn’t want to see other people. He said that, right? He had been adamant about it, right?
Then, just as suddenly as the thought comes, it goes at the sound of their laughter.
Beckham and Logan. Laughing. Together.
Jealousy.
That’s what it is. That’s the monster that’s squeezing my lungs. I’ve felt some semblance of jealousy before. Who hasn’t? But never like this. Never. This is almost unrecognizable as jealousy. It seems bigger. More aggressive. More painful.
What is he doing here with her?
“It’s not what it looks like.” I register his words only after he gives my shoulder a friendly squeeze. Roman.
“You don’t know that,” I mutter, my eyes still glued on them. How is it possible that he doesn’t feel me in the room? When I walked in, I spotted him in less than two seconds! How has he not noticed me?
“Addie, look at me,” coaxes Roman.
“I can’t.” I can feel the aggression dissipating as panic and longing set in. Why does she get to be at that table with him? Laughing and touching him? Why her and not me?
“Addie, it’s not what it looks like.”
“You don’t know that,” I bite, shrugging away his hand.
“Yes, I do,” he mutters, taking my chin between his fingers and jerking my face so that I have no choice but to look at him. “I know Logan and it’s not what it looks like.”
He knows Logan.
Daphne knows Logan. Beckham knows Logan—even Avery knows enough about Logan to know that she doesn’t like her. I don’t know Logan. Don’t know her. Don’t trust her. Yet—she’s sitting across the room with the man that I love, capturing his attention like she’s the only person on the planet.
Can I blame him? She’s gorgeous and effortlessly graceful. Even the sound of her laugh sounds like music. How am I supposed to compete with that?
“Addie, do you hear me? It’s not what it looks like.”
“That’s not what my heart is saying,” I whisper as my eyes pool with tears.
“Well, your heart can’t see past th
e smoke screen that is Logan.”
I try and latch onto his words, to cling to his assurances, but I. Just. Can’t. I feel like I have no control of my thoughts and my confidence has disappeared, leaving me in this fight alone—and I can’t win! It doesn’t matter what she is or isn’t doing, what matters is that the two of them are here. Alone. Together. It doesn’t make sense. They hardly know each other.
Then again, how would I know that?
Suddenly, being broken up with Beckham feels overwhelmingly different than it did five minutes ago. In an instant, four weeks—almost five—seems like an eternity. What else don’t I know about him? What don’t I know about him that she does?
Stop.
I have to stop. I can’t go there. I can’t allow myself to ask any more questions. Not now. Not here. I have a shift to work.
“I’m fine.” I square my shoulders and take a deep breath. “I’m fine.” I repeat the words, unsure if I’m trying to convince myself or Roman, who is looking at me with the sincerest concern I’ve ever seen in his handsome brown eyes. “I have to clock in,” I manage, pulling away from him to go do just that.
She’s avoiding me.
No. She’s avoiding us. Our table. My table with Logan.
I shouldn’t be here with her. Like this. Regardless of what is not going on between us, I shouldn’t be here with her—alone.
I wouldn’t be out with just Logan if Addie and I were still in a relationship—and it shouldn’t be any different now. We’re not together, no, but my heart belongs to her. While Addie would never be opposed to me having female friends, she would be opposed to me allowing my female friends to act the way my dinner companion is acting. It’s not a matter of me seeking permission from the woman I love to go out with certain people, it’s simply a matter of respect. Not just respect on my end, but also respect on the other person’s end. I know what Logan is doing. I’m not oblivious. I can sit here and trick myself into thinking that every flirtatious move she makes is harmless, but is it? I can’t know that—I don’t know her intentions. I don’t know her. She thinks I’m single. I am single…it’s just—complicated.
The Promises We Keep (Made for Love Book 1) Page 28
