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“Well, thank you anyway.” He turned away. “I’m going to stock up on supplies, and then we should go.”
After he disappeared into the back, she stared at the spot where he’d been standing. Shaking her head, she hurried after him. “Logan—”
He put up a hand again to stop her fr
om approaching any closer. “I can’t…” He wouldn’t look at her. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered, not wanting to push.
Logan cleared his throat. “I’m not…this isn’t…” When he glanced to her, he shook his head and sent her an apologetic look. “Forget the supplies. I should get you home and safe as soon as possible.”
His words sounded so final, as if he felt it was the last thing he’d ever say to her. It scared her. Even though he was going to escort her home, she didn’t want to leave the juice bar until they settled this. Following her body’s natural instinct to race after him, she caught him as soon as he reached the time clock.
“Logan, wait.” Grabbing his arm, she spun him around, and he let her. Hugging him tight, she pressed her cheek against his chest and clenched her eyes shut. “I won’t give up on you,” she said, meaning it from the bottom of her soul. “I can’t.”
He shuddered and hugged her back. “Paige, we can’t…this isn’t…God!” He squeezed her back and pressed his face against her hair as a full-body tremble seized him. “I killed someone. I killed your brother. And people here know that now. Whenever anyone else dies, I’m going to be the first person they look at. I’m—”
“No,” she insisted, shaking her head hard and tightening her grip.
“Yes.” He grasped her arms and pulled her back so she’d be forced to look at him. “Don’t you get it? Every bad thing that ever happened to you originated with me. Your brother, your mother, your father. Even your best friend. It’s like bad things just follow me around so they can attack you. I’m a…a bad-thing magnet.”
She couldn’t help but smirk. “A bad-thing magnet?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. My brain is fried. I couldn’t think up another term at the spur of the moment.”
This time, she grinned full-out. “I think my first gift to you is going to be a thesaurus.”
His eyes went moist. “How can you smile and tease at a time like this? It’s like…” He shook his head. “It’s like you’re pure sunlight and I’m darkness. You are so amazing, you don’t even realize. You’ve been so good for me. I need you like I’ve never needed anything. But I’m just bad for you. I hate that.”
When he closed his eyes and bowed his emotion-ravaged face, Paige wrapped herself around him again. He shook his head, but the rest of his body went into some strange kind of conflict. His arms came up between them as if he wasn’t sure if he should push her away or pull her against him, but the rest of him swayed close.
“You’re not bad for me.” Making up his mind for him, she folded her arms around his neck. “You’re not bad for me.”
When she kissed him, he resisted for a second. Just a micro-second. Then he groaned and tilted his chin to fit their mouths more firmly together.
Paige cradled his face in both hands as he cupped her waist. Lifting her off her feet, he swept her around until her back met the wall. Snuggled between him and another solid surface, she climbed him, hooking one leg around his waist.
He opened his mouth against hers and kissed her desperately.
Heat and energy and a crackling electricity curled through her. “I don’t want to be away from you right now. Especially at night. You’re the only one that brings me peace. Please. Come back to my room with me.” She panted between long liquid kisses. “And stay.”
“Yes,” he said, and he kissed her again. “Yes.” And again. “Yes.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
PAIGE WAS KIND OF GLAD it was so cold out; it gave her plenty of reason to snuggle as close to Logan as humanly possible on their long walk to Grammar Hall, a walk that suddenly didn’t seem long enough because it was filled with stolen kisses and straying hands. It felt as if she’d snagged a chunk of time and was able to keep it separate from everything happening around them. In this moment, they existed in their own little bubble. Just the two of them.
When her dormitory appeared at the end of the block, she let go of his hand and put a foot of space between them.
“We probably shouldn’t touch when we go inside. My friend, Einstein, hangs out in the entrance a lot and gets insanely jealous when he sees other guys around me.”
When Logan wrinkled his eyebrows and cocked her a strange look, she tried to explain. “I don’t want him to do anything to you. He’s scary smart on the computer. And one time, this guy simply smiled and said hi to me when he passed by the common’s room where Einstein and I were doing homework. They next day, I heard he’d had a bunch of problems because his transcript suddenly disappeared out of the system. He had to drive home and manually retrieve it from his high school and was lucky he didn’t need to repeat all the classes he’d taken last semester. I didn’t ask, but I had a bad feeling Einstein was behind that.”
With a frown, Logan shifted closer to her and grasped her hand, holding tight enough that she couldn’t let go. “That doesn’t sound good. Paige, if this kid is so obsessed with you—”
“He’s harmless,” she assured, leaning against him since he seemed to want to ignore her warning to keep his space. “Einstein is just—”
“He sounds disturbed. Like really—”
