He grabbed his orange juice to wash down the egg and waited for someone to tell him he was a fuckup, or that he should begrateful, or that he was lucky to have someone who cared enough to come looking.
But nobody said a damn thing.
Jax’s hand came down on Oliver’s shoulder. “Bud.”
“What? He did. I heard Bear telling Walker and Johanna on the phone last night.” Big brown eyes traveled from Logan to Walker and Johanna, then back to Jax. “Was it a secret?”
“It’s not really our business.”
“But it happened.” Oliver looked back at Logan and took another bite of his sandwich. “It’s okay. I ran away once, too. Dad and Echo found me, and he told me you can run as far as you want, but the stuff that made you run is just sitting there waiting when you stop running. He said running away don’t fix shit.”
Jax groaned softly. “What have I said about the bunkhouse language?”
“It’s not for me to repeat. But you did say that,” Oliver said, the picture of innocence, and River snorted a laugh.
Jax ran a hand over his face, drank the rest of his coffee like a shot. “Okay, kiddo, we have chores.”
“That kid’s running circles around you, Thorne.” X leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, his leather jacket open over a black tee that showed the top edge of his sleeve tattoo. He was grinning like he’d been standing there long enough to hear everything and had enjoyed every second of it.
Great. X was the last person Logan wanted to know about his fuck-ups.
As Jax and Oliver left, X pushed off the doorframe and strolled in like he owned the place, which, Logan was starting to understand, was just how X moved through any room. He dropped into the empty chair beside River, reached across him without asking, and stole a piece of bacon off the center plate.
“Don’t sweat it, hermanito. I ran away from three different foster homes by the time I was your age. Got real good at it.” He picked up a second piece. “But Oliver has a point. It don’t fix shit.”
River pointed his spoon at X. “You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
“I ask you stuff all the time.”
“You ask me stupid stuff all the time.” X finally looked at Logan, and there was nothing in his expression that resembled pity. “You want to help me edit some videos today?”
The idea sent a thrill through him.
“Yeah,” he said too fast, then pulled back on his excitement. “I mean…” He glanced at Walker. “If that’s okay.”
“It’s okay.” X grabbed a third piece of bacon, stood up, and jerked his chin toward the door. “Come on.”
X’s room in the bunkhouse was exactly what Logan expected and also somehow more. Guitar cases stacked in the corner. A half-eaten bag of protein chips on the nightstand. Kavik sprawled on the bed, one blue eye open, tracking Logan with mild suspicion. The walls had three things on them: a framed screenshot of his one-million-followers milestone, with the number circled in red; a vintage poster of some woman named Selena; and a handwritten note in Spanish that Logan couldn’t read but figured was either deeply inspirational or extremely profane.
“Don’t touch the guitar cases,” X said, dropping into the desk chair and pulling his laptop open. “Pull up that stool,hermanito. You’re my editor.”
The stool was underneath three hoodies and a pile of charging cables. Logan excavated it and dragged it over. Kavik dropped his chin back onto the mattress and went to sleep, apparently satisfied that Logan didn’t warrant further surveillance.
While X opened the editing software, Logan looked at the poster of the woman again. “Who’s Selena?”
X froze and slowly turned toward him, staring at him for a full three seconds with an expression somewhere between offended and genuinely bereft.
“Who is Selena,” X repeated, very quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Who.” He pressed a hand flat to his chest. “Is Selena.”
“I mean?—”
“Hermanito.” X turned the desk chair to face him fully, clasped his hands between his knees, and looked at Logan with the focused gravity of a man about to deliver a sermon. “I’m going to need you to understand something before we go any further. Before I let you touch a single frame of my footage. Before you set one finger on this laptop.”
