by Toni Blake
“So, Anna,” Adam said, “you getting settled here in Destiny?”
And it was all Amy could do not to roll her eyes. She knew Adam was just being nice, making conversation, but still . . . when had her life turned into The Anna Romo Show?
“I guess,” Anna replied with a noncommittal shrug. “Not quite sure of my plans yet. Whether I’m going to stay or go.”
“Oh Anna, you just got home, you can’t leave,” Sue Ann said as if the loss would kill them all.
And Jenny added, “Everyone’s been so happy to have you back.”
Hmm, not everyone.
“Well, coming here is a big change from the city,” Jenny’s husband, Mick, pointed out.
And Anna agreed with him, saying, “Definitely. A much slower pace.”
And just like earlier, Amy heard herself begin to speak without quite having weighed the decision. “You don’t seem as if you like it here much.”
And the moment the words left her mouth, she felt the air around them all thicken.
But Anna gave an easy reply. “Some things I like, some I don’t.” Though her smile, cast in Amy’s direction, looked a bit forced.
And then Amy heard herself talking yet again, not quite able to control herself. “I’m just saying, you shouldn’t stay if you don’t want to. I’m sure you don’t feel like you fit in very well.”
The silence that fell over the dock was heavy, intense. Amy felt people staring at her. But maybe the wine coolers had affected her more than she’d realized or something, because suddenly she didn’t care. She didn’t care what anyone thought. They didn’t know what she’d been going through. Even Tessa and Rachel, though they knew the story, couldn’t feel what it was like to be inside her, wanting so badly to just have what everyone else had. They couldn’t know what it was like to feel Anna was somehow stealing it from her.
Finally, Anna said, “Um, it’s a process, I guess. But . . . you’ve all made me feel welcome.”
“Well, it’s hard when all of us have been friends our whole lives,” Amy said. And part of her knew it really was time to shut up now—but some other part, some part she didn’t know very well, kept right on going. “I mean . . . you might never fit in. You’d probably be happier back in the city. You seem more like that type of person.”
“What type of person?” Anna asked quietly. Her voice struck Amy as smaller than usual, and this strange, new, mean part of Amy she’d never encountered in herself before . . . liked that.
“A city person,” Amy said. “You know, just not as friendly, not as worried about other people. No offense.”
Anna’s answer came out dry. “Um, sure.”
And it was then that the stark silence and stares struck Amy once more. And even as Anna wordlessly stood up, slipped her feet into a pair of sparkly white flip flops, grabbed up her towel, and walked away, off the dock, Amy wanted to feel justified. She wanted to feel like she’d had every right to do what she’d just done. And she kept trying to cling to that belief, that need, even as Mike flashed her a look of utter astonishment and followed after his sister. Even as Rachel did the same, murmuring, “I should go with Mike.”
Lucky followed after them, and Tessa’s expression finally told Amy exactly how badly she’d just screwed up.
“Amy,” Jenny began critically from where she sat next to her, “what were you thinking? It’s not like you to be mean.”
“I . . .” Have no answer.
That was when Logan stood up, walked over to where she sat, and glared down at her. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him look so disappointed in her. “Who are you, Amy? I don’t even know you right now. How could you say something so awful to someone who’s been through so much and is just struggling to figure out her life here? That was just wrong. Wrong, and mean. Badly done, Amy. Badly done.”
If the tension before had been heavy, now it was downright stifling. Amy felt as if she could barely breathe.
Sue Ann mumbled something about leaving “since it seems like maybe you two need to talk or something.”
And as she and Adam quickly grabbed up all the kids’ stuff, Tessa said, “I should probably take Johnny and go with Lucky, too. Will you be okay?” She touched Amy’s shoulder.
Feeling a little numb, Amy just nodded. Tessa had brought her here, and God knew she wanted to run away more than ever now, but at the same time, she didn’t feel she had a choice. She and Logan probably did need to talk, like it or not. She just didn’t really know how she was going to defend herself, how she was possibly going to make him understand. Since she didn’t completely understand herself.
Once the dock was empty of everyone but him and Amy, Logan walked onto the pontoon and sat down in the captain’s seat. He suddenly needed to get out of the sun. What had just happened here? He barely knew. He’d never, in his whole life, seen Amy act cruelly. To anyone.
And now the whole party had ended, in about two minutes flat.
So when Amy stepped onto the boat a minute later, silently taking a seat on the padded bench that ran along the side, he quietly got up, unlashed the pontoon’s rope ties from the dock, and then came back to his seat to turn the key, already in the ignition. The boat’s motor rumbled to life.
“Um, what are we doing?” Amy asked.
“Going for a ride. Because Sue Ann’s right, you and I need to have a talk.”
“We couldn’t do that here? And besides, you’re gonna have to drive me home anyway.”
“I just want . . . no distractions for this. I don’t want either one of us to be able to walk away from it until we get some stuff settled.”
As he steered the pontoon out into the open water of the lake, he glanced over to see her heavy sigh. She looked . . . regretful. As she should. At least they were in sync on that much. But at the moment he wasn’t sure they were going to be very like-minded on much else.
They didn’t speak as he drove—he wanted his full attention on this conversation once it started—and since the silence was beginning to be deafening, he reached down and turned on the built-in radio. The retro station whose signal was the only one to reach Destiny came on.
“God, I wish we could get some decent music around here,” he muttered.
“I like this station,” she said quietly. Reminding him how agreeable Amy usually was, how easy to please and how naturally happy. This was the Amy he knew. He wasn’t sure who that had been on the dock a few minutes ago.
“This song’s good,” he said, pacified. About the music anyway. “Baby Blue” by Bad Finger filled the air with something both pleasing and a little melancholy at the same time. “I just wish there was more variety.”
“Hmm,” she said, sounding a little terse. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t realize until recently just how much you like variety.”
Oh boy. Had she really just said that? He couldn’t keep himself from tossing her a look—but he still held his tongue, for now.
When the slow-moving boat had puttered to what Logan decided was just about the center of Blue Valley Lake, he turned off the engine, then got up, walked to the back, and dropped the anchor over the side. The sun had dropped behind the trees now, bringing cooler air as the July day turned to night, along with streaks of pink and blue across the western sky. This wasn’t exactly like he’d imagined the pontoon ride going, but it was time to face the matter at hand.
Walking back to where Amy sat, he lowered himself down onto the bench beside her. “So,” he said quietly, “you want to tell me what that was about back there?”
She sat silent for a long moment, and he could sense her thinking through what she wanted to say, maybe gearing up for it. He didn’t rush her—he wanted them to be totally straight with each other.
And finally she said, “Did it ever occur to you that if you wanted things to feel normal today that maybe inviting both Anna and me was going to make that difficult?”
“Yeah, sure it did. But I couldn’t exactly leave either one of you out. And to be
honest, I expected you both to be big enough to rise above the awkwardness of the situation and act like adults. I thought it would create some normalcy.”
Next to him, she only sighed, looking unmoved by what he’d thought was a pretty rational, reasonable statement. “Well then, did it occur to you that if you wanted things to feel normal that maybe rubbing sunscreen on her back while the two of you whisper and giggle might not be the best idea? Unless you only wanted to make it normal for everyone but me. And me you wanted to make feel like an idiot.”
Logan just blinked. And suffered a little guilt. Even if he didn’t understand the idiot part. “I . . . couldn’t really say no, could I? And the timing was bad—I had no idea you were about to come back up on the dock. But I’m sorry. Sorry you saw that.”
“Well, I’m sorry you’re so inconsiderate.”
Damn, this felt like yet another new side of Amy. Not mean, but . . . not so soft and sweet, either. And had he been inconsiderate? He hadn’t meant to, but . . . aw hell, he hadn’t known how to handle any of this from the beginning and he obviously still didn’t.
“Or . . . or maybe you don’t realize how I feel, Logan,” she went on. “I mean, I thought I’d made it clear enough without having to come right out and say it. But maybe I was wrong about that. So fine, I’ll spell things out.
“The night you let her pull you away from me at the carnival, that about ripped my heart out. And just now, to find you rubbing her back that way—it hurt me more than I can say to see . . . that apparently she wins and I lose. And the reason it hurts so bad is because I love you, Logan. And not just like a friend anymore. I love you with everything in me, with all that I am. And I’m afraid I always will. So there. Now you know.”
Nineteen
“I will tell you truths while I can.”
Jane Austen, from Emma
Logan just sat there, dumbfounded, as her words hit him like a brick. Because . . . yeah, he knew Amy had serious feelings for him—he knew instinctively that Amy would have to have serious feelings about anyone before she’d sleep with them. But . . . love? Like being in love? With all that she was? That was a mental leap he hadn’t quite made. And it caught him off guard, big time.
“Please say something,” she said, her voice gone soft, sweet. Back to being the docile girl he knew.
“No, I didn’t quite realize you felt that way,” he said, still trying to wrap his brain around it.
She looked up at him, clearly stumped. “Didn’t you read the notes? Back when I was your stupid secret admirer?”
The reminder took him back to how it had felt to find out it was her. How it had been shocking and yet . . . had made him happy. “First of all, you weren’t stupid. You were sweet as hell. And yeah, of course I read them, but . . . I guess I thought they were exaggerated, for effect. Or something.”
Next to him, she peered down toward her bare feet, crossed at the ankles. “No. No exaggeration. They embarrassed me, but everything in them was . . . completely true, completely real. And now I’m humiliated.”
Logan still felt like he’d somehow walked into this relationship in the middle of it, like he didn’t know things he was supposed to. “I don’t get that part. Why are you humiliated? Why would you feel like an idiot?”
She let out a sigh he felt in his gut and said, “Because you want her, not me.”
He just blinked, then crossed his arms, still trying to understand where she was getting this stuff. “What on earth gave you that idea?”
Which was when Amy lifted her gaze to his, now looking incredulous. “How about the rubbing of her back?”
He let his eyes go wide, realizing what a leap in thought she’d made from what was real to what she was imagining. “She asked me to,” he explained, feeling defensive.
“Did she ask you to whisper and flirt, too?”
Now it was Logan who let out a breath. He suddenly felt a little less defensible. “Okay, yeah, I was whispering. And flirting.” Only he knew he had to explain better. He just wasn’t used to this, to owing anyone answers for how he behaved with members of the opposite sex. “But you know what? That’s all it was. Whispering. And flirting. It . . . it means less than you probably imagine.” The fact was, those moments with Anna had been easy, because that had become the prevailing nature of his relationship with her—flirting. And it was something he knew how to do, something he was good at. This more serious stuff going on with Amy—hell, that he was new at and didn’t know how to pull off.
“It does?” she asked, peeking up cautiously. Her eyes struck him as wide, pretty, in the dusky light that had fallen over the lake.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice coming out a little softer than planned. It was something about the way she was looking at him. Maybe . . . maybe now that he knew she loved him, really loved him, maybe he felt it coming through her eyes. And maybe he felt it sinking down inside him to someplace warm and comfortable.
“Wh-what does it mean then?”
Logan stopped, sighed, tried to think how to explain. “Maybe just that I’m better at flirting with a girl than . . . being real with her. You know I haven’t had many serious relationships.”
She nodded.
“And on the flip side, I’m good at being real with you. About most things anyway. But I’m not sure I’m very good at being real with you about . . . love. I don’t even know if I’ve ever been in love, freckles.”
“Then you haven’t,” she said without hesitation. “Because when you’re in it, you know it.”
“What does it feel like?”
“It’s . . . the best, most awful feeling in the world. It fills you up. But it also owns you. Makes you feel a little helpless against it.”
“Wow,” he said, thinking it actually sounded pretty scary and was something he’d much rather push from his mind than explore.
“So, with Anna . . . what you feel for her isn’t serious?”
He shook his head. “I wanted it to be. But . . . there’s just something missing.”
“Oh. Well, I’m sorry . . . sorry I was so awful to her.” She hung her head, looking appropriately guilty. “I don’t know what got into me.”
He gave his head a tilt, tried for a smile. “I think I do. It’s called jealousy. And I’m sorry I was . . . careless and inconsiderate. I didn’t mean to make you feel at odds with her, and when I invited you both, I guess I didn’t think through it very clearly. I tried to think it was simple, would be easy and fun. But I guess, no matter how you slice it, it’s more complicated than that.”
She nodded, and he knew without either of them saying it that they both forgave each other. For what had happened today. And maybe for a lot of things.
“I’ll find her tomorrow and apologize,” she said. Then she sighed. “And I’ll need to apologize to Mike, too, and . . . well, pretty much everyone. I’m sorry I ruined your party, Logan.”
But he just shook his head. “Like I said, I didn’t think through it enough, so part of it was definitely my fault, too.”
They stayed quiet for a few minutes, simply soaking in the night, he supposed, or maybe trying to figure out what was next between them, when Amy said, “You know, if you really want to create some normalcy, for yourself and this whole town, you could just go back to work at—”
“Don’t say it, freckles,” he cut her off. “I already have a job.”
“You’re a horrible bartender.”
He could only sigh. “I know. But I’m getting better.”
“Says who?”
“Anita. Sometimes.” He stared out over the water, rethinking a recent conversation he’d had with his new boss on the topic. “But maybe she’s just being nice,” he concluded honestly. “She says I cut people off too early, that I’m too worried about them driving drunk.”
“That’s a good thing,” Amy pointed out.
Logan had thought so, too. He guessed it was just in his blood to try to protect people a little. “Not if you’re a bar owner, I guess.”
He just slanted her yet another look. “Amy. Don’t go there.”
“Fine, I won’t. But we both know.”
Damn it, she just wouldn’t quit on that. But he held his tongue, not wanting to fight with her anymore—and this time he cast a look of warning that at least shut her up on the subject.
But she rolled her eyes at him anyway.
A few minutes later, Amy looked past him to the western sky, and said, “So pretty.”
He turned to see it, too, and took in the deepening pinks and purples above the jagged silhouette of hills and trees surrounding the lake. “Yeah,” he agreed.
They observed the dramatic sunset in silence for a minute until an old song by the Climax Blues Band came on the radio, the first line about a guy who hadn’t had a care when he was a younger man. Logan thought it could very well describe him. There’d been a time—a long time—when he hadn’t needed to have a care. But now . . . hell, he did. He’d seen people die. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life and he needed to figure it out. His mother was getting older. His friends were all starting new phases of their lives—while he was flailing around in an old one that suddenly felt . . . stale, used up.
And one of his best friends for his whole life was in love with him. And she was the sweetest person he’d ever known, even if she’d made a mistake a little while ago. And she looked so damn pretty sitting here next to him, pretty and . . . kissable.
As the romantic song went on, about love changing the guy’s life, Logan reached out and took Amy’s hand in his.
It made her shift her eyes to his, and his gaze dropped to her lips, which appeared darker in color to him than usual, maybe from the dim lighting, or maybe they’d been pinkened by the sun today, same as her cheeks. But the main thing he noticed about her lips just now was that he wanted to kiss them—and so he didn’t hesitate. He bent toward her and pressed his mouth to hers. And when she kissed him back . . . damn, maybe he kept forgetting—maybe even choosing to forget—how good it felt, how easy it was to kiss her. Yeah, it had been a little awkward at first, all things considered, but not anymore.
