I remember him at Pearl’s charity gala last year, where I saidjet-owning billionaires were the destruction of humankind and a blight on the earth. I also remember he and his father gave away one million dollars to the children’s foundation.
I shake my head slowly, feeling regret at my words, then and now.
I was furious with Pearl that night. She never wanted me near her social circle, so when she called and said she needed me at the gala, I knew she wanted something. Sure enough, the owner of Easton’s football team would be there, and she needed me to bring Easton as my date so she could get an introduction.
I went anyway because the cause was real, even if her motives weren’t. She showed up at my apartment with a dress—vintage Chanel, she made sure to mention, with a pointed look at my hips, telling me I better not rip the dress with my fat ass. She added I was to keep my mouth shut, stay away from the donors and not embarrass her.
Just to piss her off, I got a little tipsy on champagne, which was easier to do than usual because things had actually been going well for me. I’d just secured funding to match my initial investment for my wellness practice, and things were looking up. So when I opened my mouth, I said some things I shouldn’t have, painting Logan and everyone in Pearl’s orbit with the same brush, as if her cruelty was on all of them.
I look over at Logan. His jaw is tight, the muscle ticking as he waits for me to speak.
“I’m sorry. I’m an ass.”
I think I’ve shocked him. His lips part, but nothing comes out.
“What I was trying to say is—you keep paying for things all day, even after I said I had it covered. Lunch, coffee, drinks. I don’t need that. But if you’re going to throw money around anyway, that woman with the kids needed that room a lot more than I needed you to buy me a sandwich. Since, according to you, the cost of a sandwich and shelling out five-grand for a seventy-five dollar room is basically the same to you.”
“The woman with the kids, the dad and son on a fishing trip, I get. What about the three stoners on a road trip?”
“Oh, that time I was just fucking with you.”
He laughs, then tips back his bourbon. When he lowers the glass, his eyes find mine and stay there—dark, unhurried. “For the record, you actually don’t seem like you can afford coffee and a sandwich.”
I snort and throw my drink coaster at him. “Rude!” He’s smirking. I know he’s joking, except he doesn’t know how right he is. “But yes, I am totally fucking broke.”
“So is that why you live with Easton? To save money?”
“He doesn’t charge me rent, the old softie. Though I clean the house in exchange.”
“You clean?”
“Oh, don’t tell me my darling sister never mentioned that my mother was her housekeeper. She loves to tell people that.”
“She did,” he nods carefully. “I just meant…” He waves a hand toward me.
“What?”
“You don’t seem like the type who knows how to clean.”
I burst out laughing, thinking of my bag splayed open back at the motel, the wrappers he kept quietly collecting off the floor of the Audi every time we stopped for gas.
“Okay, fair enough. Let’s just get all the insults out of the way,” I make a come-hither move with my fingers.
“You’re too easy a target, Rose,” he says, almost playfully, but that one lands differently. He catches my expression and leans forward. “Hey—sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, it’s fine. I am an easy target. I’m kind of a dumpster fire.”
He doesn’t try to fill the silence, just lets it sit there, waiting. Yesterday I would have let it stay empty. But we’ve regained traction somehow, the way it was briefly before we both managed to fuck it up.
“I was living with my boyfriend until a few months ago. I had a… bad day at work, came home early. He was fucking our neighbor in our bed.”
Logan goes still.
“Want to hear something funny? He proposed to me. Right then. After she left, of course, but he’d barely stuffed his dick back in his pants before he was on his knees with a ring. Stupid right?”
Logan doesn’t laugh, which, even though I said it lightly, I appreciate.
“He sounds monumentally stupid,” he says gruffly.
