For something he had never wanted, he was sure mourning the loss of it now. Because he did want, and that was yet one more thing to lay at her feet. He was a perfectly miserable guy before she let him in. It wasn’t an ideal existence, but it was one he was comfortable with. One he had made peace with a long time ago, but then she made him want more.
Wanting more was the beginning of the end. This was a truth he was well acquainted with. People like him didn’t deserve more, so they never got more. Wanting it to be so just caused more heartache in the end.
“Hey, Logan. January’s not working here anymore. I figured you’d know that.” The deep voice startled Logan. He was so tied up inside his own head, he didn’t notice he had entered Pole Position. Hell, he didn’t even realize he’d driven there.
Good thing he made it there in one piece, considering he didn’t remember getting in his car at all. Logan mumbled a response to Ruger as he made his was to his preferred seat. Of course, he really had no reason to be there other than cold beer and a warm distraction.
He knew if nothing else, Platinum would be more than willing to offer him the distraction. The other girls loved Domino too much to even give him the time of day once they figured out where his interests laid, but Platinum had no loyalty to anyone but herself. She’d be more than willing to bad mouth Domino if she thought it would get her in his pants.
Logan wasn’t the best looking man around, but some types of ladies seemed to really love him, and he was not above exploiting that right now.
Of course, there would be no way he could sleep with her; his body belonged to January, and even if he hated the fact, it didn’t change it. The pathetic part was, even after everything she’d done, he knew he still loved her. You’d think after fighting it so hard, that truth would be the most devastating, but it isn’t. No, the most soul-shattering realization was, she had brought a part of him to life only to viciously murder it. And it was ripping him apart.
The brunette waitress—he could never remember her name—sashayed up to his table for his order.
“Bring me a Ghost Crab and a double shot of Cabo.” With a smile, she turned to do his bidding, but Logan stopped her with a shouted amendment. “Fuck the shots, bring me the bottle.”
“Are you sure?” she turned and asked half way to the bar. Logan didn’t say a word, just slammed his hand on the surface and gave a curt nod. Of course he was sure, he needed to erase a memory or fifty, and tequila was good for that.
Amber—that’s her name—Amber returned with his beer and the bottle, along with a shot glass, lemons, and salt. She shouldn’t have bothered; he didn’t need or want anything to cut the burn.
Logan gave her a couple of bills and waved her away. He took a healthy pull from his beer and chased it with a gulp or two of Cabo. He shook his head and grunted but embraced the burn. Rinse and repeat.
Logan was halfway through the bottle and on his third? beer by the time he paid any heed to what was happening on stage. Finally, a dancer who will look at me like I’m a whole fucking man. All January’s friends just stared at him with pity while they danced. They must have known what a lying deceiving bit— “Fuck it!” he shouted and sent the plastic bowl of lemons to the floor. I can’t even think the word in my own head. She has robbed me of the ability to control my own fucking thoughts.
Ruger appeared at his right. “You good, man, or do I need to cut you off?” A large hand landed on his shoulder awaiting an answer to the whispered question. Logan wanted to throw the man’s oversized mitt off him and take a swing. A broken nose would feel so good right now. But the tequila craving part overrode the suicidal part.
“Nah, man, I’m good. Just slipped is all.” A skeptical brown gaze met his. Ruger wasn’t buying it, but fuck it. He didn’t need him to. Logan just needed him not to cut him off.
The sympathetic squeeze almost did him in. “I don’t know what’s happened between you two, but it’ll work out. Jan’s a good girl. One of a kind, and if she’s got you in these kind of knots, you must already know that.”
Before Logan could respond, the big motherfucker gave him a pat and was back at his post. Good thing too, because Platinum was practically salivating while heading his way.
She had stepped off the stage and come around to his chair. Logan turned his seat for her, and she stepped right up into his personal space and practically gave him a lap dance right there. Logan allowed one hand to rest on her hip, but it didn’t feel as good as he’d hoped it would. The other hand was occupied with a dwindling bottle.
Platinum’s eyes bore into his with promise. A promise he cursed himself for not being able to collect on. Leaning into his face, she practically licked his ear and purred. As he was ready to recoil, a familiar scent hit him square in the gut.
January.
Turning his head to observe the whole of the club did nothing to make her appear. Platinum’s words commanded his attention. “Meet me in the office after my set and I can make you forget all about the mousy little blonde. I promise,” she purred in his ear before spinning around and rubbing her ass into his dick.
Even though the friction did nothing for him, that smell was attacking him on a basic animal level. Platinum wound her arms around him from behind, threw her head back on his shoulder, and moaned like she was having the time of her life. Logan turned into her and drew the scent into his lungs and held it there. It was coming from her. She smelled like…
“You like it? Domino gave it to me, said it was your favorite.” She spun once again, straddled his lap, and leaned in like she had some great secret to impart. By now, Logan’s body was reacting slightly to the combination of the friction and the scent, but her words stopped that in its tracks.
“Domino wanted us to be together, don’t you see that? She’s moved on and so should you.” Logan wanted to hurl, both the alcohol and Platinum. January really was over him. Hell, for all he knew, she was never into him to start with. Maybe she really was just slumming it with a low life before her fairy tale wedding.
He wanted to punish her and himself for ever caring. He grabbed both of Platinum’s hips roughly and ground her body down on his barely attentive dick. She moaned in pleasure and he in frustration. He did it again and again, just wanting to feel something, but there was nothing. There was not only a black hole where his heart should be, that abyss had claimed his dick as well.
Just as he was about to thrust Platinum away from him and finish the bottle, he was frozen by a voice.
“That’s quite enough of acting like a spoiled child. Let the stripper go and man the fuck up.”
John.
Whoa, John said fuck, and angrily too. Wait, John’s in a strip club?
Logan tried to focus on his never-would-be-brother-in-law when Stacy passed into his line of vision and removed Platinum from his lap. “Time for you to go, skank. Oh look, there’s a nice trucker over there with a five-dollar bill and at least two STDs. He’s perfect for you.”
Platinum started to protest, but Stacy was having none of it. “It wasn’t a suggestion, and if you don’t get to stepping, I will shove my Loub so far up your ass, the heel with knock your molars out.” Stacy shooed her away with her hands, and Ruger nodded her direction. That’s when Logan realized that pretty much the entire Reid clan was standing there in the strip club, like some sort of twisted redneck family intervention.
Shit.
Seventeen
The Uber driver didn’t bother helping her with her bags or even saying goodbye to her. January understood why, though. She hadn’t engaged him in conversation or answered any of his questions as he tried to make the ride a little less awkward. She simply stared out the window of the sedan and watched the Florida coastline pass by.
She had never taken an Uber before so she wasn’t sure of the etiquette anyway, but she was positive being nice was part of it. She felt bad, but she could do nothing about it now as she stood and knocked on her parents’ room door.
Even with that awkward
as fuck ride, January had no regrets about leaving Demon behind. That’s the only thing in my fucking life I don’t regret right now.
“Hello, darling,” January’s mother spoke sarcastically the second her dad opened the hotel door for her.
“No need to play nice, mother. That ship sailed a long fucking time ago.”
Her mother seemed overly affronted at her language. “January, language.” Her mother had said and heard worse. She still had her nose out of joint over January’s token act of rebellion by even daring to go to Florida and enjoy a small portion of her own life.
“Get over it, Mother. I’m here. What more do you want from me?” She spat the title like a curse, wondering for just a moment if her mother picked up on it. When Melody stood from her seat and put on her pissed face, January had her answer.
“You will not speak to me in that tone. Are we clear? I’ll never understand your attitude, January. We gave you everything, and you’re about to be married to one of the most eligible bachelors in the Wiregrass area. You’ll have a prestigious job, why, you’ll have a perfect life. You should show more gratitude and less attitude. Do you know how many young ladies would kill for your life?”
Her mother paused for dramatic effect, not because she actually wanted an answer to the question.
“Besides, look at that…cozy home your ungrateful sister is living in and surround by those rednecks, no less. Is that the kind of life you want, January Snow? It would be a shame if her life wasn’t even that, not like it’s much to start with…”
Melody Thorne trailed off, leaving her veiled threat hanging there like the eye of a storm. Calm from the center, but hell in the outer bands.
With her message clearly delivered, January’s mother brushed her sleeves of invisible lint and returned to her seat.
January wanted to scream, YES! That’s exactly the life I want, but her fight left her the minute she saw the hurt in Logan’s eyes. He was something worth fighting for, but now he was gone, and so was her heart.
Her shoulders deflated along with her hopes. Her mother’s smug look told her that. Her body bore the signs of her heartbreak and the death of her soul, and Melody relished it.
In that moment, it hit her like a rocket to the chest—she was and had always been, just Melody. She was never a true mother to either of her daughters. January had plenty of revelations over her lifetime concerning Melody, but deep down, she always still thought of her as a mother. One that sucked, but still, January justified her behavior. Making excuses and explaining why she acted the way she did. Now she realized there wasn’t anything remotely mothering in any cell of her being.
It should have felt more of a loss to her, but it didn’t. After all she had lost, this felt more like a relief. At least she saw things for what they were, and there was no way she would spend ten more years doing her bidding. January just needed to be clever to get out of it with minimal emotional pain to anyone else she loved.
She headed toward one of the doors in the suite. “I assume there’s a bed for me in there? I’ll be ready to go before check out.” Yes, she would feign compliance to bide her time with as little suspicion on her mother’s part as she could manage. She’d even go through with the wedding if that is what it took, but she’d be damned if she’d sleep with that bastard.
“Yes, dear. Oh, January?” January knew if she didn’t look at her, she’d never launch the verbal grenade she was wielding.
With a non-audible sigh, January turned and raised her eyes. Not trusting her voice to be as compliant as she was already making a herculean effort to be, she simply raised an eyebrow and waited.
“Chadwick will not raise another man’s child. I want a grandkid of proper lineage.” The expression on her mother’s face said it all. She was basically indicating January should just grab a coat hanger and fix any little problems that might arise.
A wave of sadness washed over January as she remembered Logan’s face when he told her he wasn’t someone who should ever have kids. The fact that she couldn’t possibly be pregnant wasn’t a pleasant one.
Her mother dismissed her just like that. Controlling her temper became a damn near impossible task. If it weren’t for her voice in her head chanting, remember the long-term goal, remember the long-term goal, she would have lost her shit.
Not validating her mother’s nastiness with even a sound, she turned and headed through the door.
Her mother’s voice trailed after her. “Sleep well, we have a big week when we get back home, starting with a dress fitting Monday morning. You don’t want bags under your eyes.”
January shut the door, more gently than she wanted to, then fell face down on the bed. When that failed to be as therapeutic as she’d hoped, she curled up in a ball and cried.
Guess she would have bags for days, because once she started, she didn’t think she could stop.
She had single-handedly just destroyed the man she loved. If she continued the path she was on, she would destroy herself, and if she came up with a plan to follow her own path, she would destroy her sister.
It was the very definition of a no-win situation, no wonder Kirk cheated.
Cheating wouldn’t get her out of this. Right now, she needed to be more Spock than Kirk. She needed logic. It was time to break down the problem into manageable segments, then tackle the smaller bites one at a time.
Sadly, Logan was in the books, not in every way she hoped, but the damage was done. She couldn’t even begin to make it up to him and beg forgiveness until she solved the bigger issues. So, as much as she hated to do it, she moved that bit to the back burner, opting to move to the next.
Since her happiness or lack thereof, was tied directly to Gus’, she had to find a way they could both have the future they deserved.
For once, January saw that she did deserve that. Living under Melody’s rule for so long, January had accepted that happiness was not on her horizon. Logan though, Logan changed all that in what felt like a blink of an eye.
Of course, he was much more than that. It was his sleep confessions and waking secrets shared. It was in how he treated January different than Domino. Even treating family-time January different than private-time January.
Not because he was hiding their relationship out of shame or anything. It was more because he liked having it be just them. Raw and natural, not some social construct that had to follow rules.
Even before they started sleeping together, he’d treated her like she mattered. He talked to her about things other than how pretty she was or awkward small talk.
Logan seemed fascinated when he learned she was a mechanic. He thought it was pretty badass, actually. She’d entertained dreams of them having a shop together. Working on everything from small engines to airplanes. But that was all it was and all it would ever be, dreams. Dreams I’ll never see. “Ugh,” she groaned, “now I'm stealing song titles to describe my pathetic life.”
Her mother’s, “What was that, dear?” told her two things—she’d spoken too loud, and her mother was loitering around her door enjoying January’s misery and compliance.
Not bothering to answer, she rolled over and cried herself to sleep. She wasn’t going to be able to solve any problems in the emotional state she was in. The drive up to Enterprise would give her plenty of time to reflect. Being stuck in a car for three and a half hours with her parents didn’t make her want to clap her hands and jump up and down while screaming “oh, goody,” but she would make the most of it.
The most of it being getting her life back, getting Logan back, and keeping Gus from being hurt in the process. Sure, easy-peasy…not.
After being coaxed out of the strip club by the weirdest intervention team ever, Logan found himself at Michael and Tori’s place. He wasn’t happy about that little detail, but it made sense; their house was closest to the club. Logan would prefer anywhere but here. So many things were eating away at his soul right now, one being his conscience. Looking into his brother’s concerned eyes did no
thing to decrease that gnawing.
The family photos of him and Tori and the dogs, the choice in art, even the throw pillows all reflected a bit of his brother and that was a punch to the gut.
How long could he sit here among their things and listen to these people go on about how much they cared about him and not say something? He was a dick, but he wasn’t that big of a dick.
Tori had sat him at the kitchen table and served him a fifth cup of black rot gut coffee. There weren’t too many things in life Logan splurged on, but coffee was one. Logan drank it down all the same. Must be that damned guilt working overtime.
His life had been much less chaotic and complicated when he didn’t give a shit. And a whole hell of a lot less painful too. “Damn it, why did I invite this fucking trouble into my life?”
“Because, dear, life without loving someone wholly and completely, at least once, isn’t really living. It’s just wandering around on this big ole planet in a shell wasting the gift the Good Lord gave ya.”
Francis’ words shocked Logan. For a second, he thought the stories about her were true because it seemed she’d read his thoughts. That shock must’ve translated to his face because Tori plopped into the chair across from him, curling on leg under her while bringing the other knee up chin level and embracing her warm mug like it was life.
“You’ve been mumbling into your coffee for five minutes straight, something about rot gut, love, and family. It was unintelligible for the most part until that last sentence.”
Tori’s eye twinkled with something he couldn’t identify as she eyed him over the rim of her oversized mug. After a healthy sip, her eyes slowly shuttered, and she made a moaning sound like it was the best thing to ever pass her lips. Francis rolled her eyes and excused herself from the room, leaving him alone with Tori. He was uncomfortable, at best. He felt like such an intruder in her life right now.
Unmistakably Us (Imagine Ink Book 5) Page 18
