I Live to Write & Write to Live

“Logan! How’s it going?” You watch as the two of them greet each other, and suddenly you feel as if you’re underwater, because everything comes out muffled. While tuning out their conversation, you fix your gaze on the clock conveniently located behind Beau’s head, restraining yourself from looking at the man that you’ve been avoiding for a week.

You don’t even notice that the two of them are trying to get your attention until Beau waves in your face.

“Hey, Earth to Y/N?” He chuckles, and you revert your gaze back to the football player. “All good?”

You stammer for a moment, and despite your tenacious attempt to ignore his warm eyes and crooked smile, you greedily sneak a look at Logan as you struggle to string together a coherent sentence. “Sorry, it’s been a long week.”

Beau gives you a side hug. “All good. Thanks again for the help,” As he exits the center, he gives a nod towards Logan. “Nice seeing ya.”

You follow Beau’s retreating body as he leaves through the glass doors, unable to fully look at the hockey player in his eyes.

“Hey,” His gentle voice snaps you out of your trance, and as your heart races to a rate that’s bordering on tachycardia, your mind conveniently goes back to Beau’s words.

Yeah, you would rather streak across campus than talk to John Logan right now.

“Hey. Um,” You bow your head to your shoes, trying to muster up the confidence to look him in the eyes. You never told him about your schedule on Thursday nights, yet here he is, showing up exactly when your shift is over. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

He shrugs, stepping closer to your body. You have bravely updated your stance from staring at your shoes to staring at his tattered Briar Hockey sweatshirt. Progress.

“Yeah, I just wanted to check in on you,” He confesses, and then lets out a chuckle that doesn’t have much humor to it. “I feel like I haven’t heard from you all week.”

Shit.

He’s not wrong. After last Friday, you haven’t texted Logan at all. And of course, as if he purposefully wants to add fuel to your self-inflincted anguish, he continues to message you, asking how you’re doing, and even sending the occasional meme on Instagram.

Suddenly, you feel the oxygen escape your lungs as he rests his index finger on your chin, tenderly lifting your head. A sharp ache thumps across your chest as you finally meet his gaze. You can’t quite pinpoint the emotion painted in his eyes.

“Is everything okay? It’s just me, you know.”

You internally scoff at the latter sentence, hoping that the self-pity doesn’t reflect on your face. It’s “just” Logan. It’s “just” your situationship. It’s “just” the man that your mind flickers back to as you lie on your bed. It’s “just” the man you think about after a particularly hard night, longing for his comforting arms and sustained body heat.

It can never be “just” Logan. That sounds too casual. Too relaxed. Too ridiculous.

“Yeah,” You breathe out shakily, hoping he doesn’t notice the uneasiness coursing through your body as you shift your weight from one leg on to the other. “I’ve…I’ve been swamped this week. I’ve barely been on my phone.”

To truly send you into ventricular tachycardia, he has the audacity to wrap a callused hand around your waist, pulling you even closer like it’s second nature. As if the two of you have been dating all along.

At least it’s just the two of you in the center. And if Logan has to decency to walk out the front door right now, you could self-combust by yourself, in peace.

“All good, I just wanted to make sure that you were still alive,” He jokes, but the sarcasm hits hard in your chest. His dimples don’t help with the desire churning deep inside of your heart either. “Are you free tonight?”

For what seems to be the millionth time in the past few minutes, you struggle again as you scramble through the English dictionary of your mind to figure out what exactly you want to say to him. To increase your self-misery, you decide to torture yourself by laser-focusing on the beads of water slowly dripping down the veins of his neck. He must have driven to the center right after his post-practice shower.

“Um, not really. I’ve barely slept at all this week,” And that wasn’t a lie. “I want to go home, take a shower, and fall asleep before the clock hits 10:00 PM.”

“Ah, isn’t that the dream,” Logan muses, and the twinkle in his molten eyes can disintegrate your trembling body right on the very spot. “Let me walk you to your car.”

You furrow your eyebrows at him. “You came all this way from the rink to ask me how I am? And now you want to walk me to my car?”

“You know, Y/N, if you just tilt your head up just slightly to look at the clock, it’s after 9:00 PM. And if you look outside, you’ll see it’s quite dark,” He teases, and you’re undeniably certain that your cheeks are as red as the feathers of the Briar University hawk. “I’m just fulfilling my duties as a gentleman.”

“Right, I forgot about that.”

And to shamelessly place the final nail in the coffin of your tightly-wound agony, he has the nerve to stick his arm out, gesturing for you to hold on it. And in an act of complete, utter selfishness, despite your effort to distance yourself from this man, you wrap a tentative hand around his bicep, greedily feeling his muscle tense beneath your fingers.

As the two of you walk through the parking lot in a “not too uncomfortable” sort of silence, you take the opportunity to lean against his shoulder, inhaling his scent. You breathe in his crisp cologne, cedar and pine bundling you to him like a tight-knit blanket. He smells like home. Like comfort. And that’s a dangerous feeling.

When he opens your driver-side door, you open your mouth to say goodbye. To rip off the bandaid. But he cuts you off.

“I missed you,” He confesses, exhaling a deep sigh as if he’s been holding on to that piece of information for years. “Truly.”

You recognize the sincerity in his eyes, and his lips part lightly and his eyebrows dip down and he looks…kind of sad.

You can’t bring yourself to come up with a half-assed lie as your hand still cradles his bicep. “Me too.”

“You said you aren’t free tonight,” He says in a resigned sort of tone, his other hand coming up to scratch the bank of his head. And then he throws another curveball at you. “But how about tomorrow? We’re throwing a game night. It’ll just be us and some guys from the team. It won’t be a party or anything.”

“Um, I don’t know,” You pull your hand away from his arm, trying to regain the tiniest bit of self-control, if that’s even possible at this point. “What kind of games will there be?”

“Some board and card games. Monopoly, blackjack, poker,” He accentuates the last word as he smirks at you, teasing dimples on full display. “And if I recall correctly, you were the reigning poker champ when we played together last Halloween.”

Your mouth stretches into a smile as you remember that night, but your eyes quickly widen as all of the details come back to your mind. “Wait, will it be strip poker again?

“No! No,” He frantically and adamantly confirms, his curls bouncing around as he tenaciously shakes his head. His frightened face stirs a loud laugh out of your chest, and you notice his eyes glimmer at the sound. “It will not be strip poker. I already see Dean in his boxers on a regular basis. I will not subject you to that image.”

“Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate the precautions that you take to prevent me from seeing that happen,” You allow yourself to joke, enjoying the current banter you have with him. “Very gentleman-like.”

“Anytime,” He tilts his head as if he’s taking off a hat, laughing with you. “You absolutely dominated last time. I would love to see you kick Garrett’s ass again.”

“Well, Mr. Graham needed to be humbled,” You jokingly put your hands up in self-defense, shrugging. “And I was honored to put him in his place.”

Logan’s smile has not wavered in the slightest. “It was awesome. And this night will be totally chill, I promise. The guys would love to see you as well.”

His mention of the boys warms your heart. “What time is it at?”

You didn’t think it was possible for this man’s eyes to light up even more. “Starts at 8:00. We might go on for a while though. Might be good to stay over,” Logan suggests with a casual shrug of his shoulders. He slips the last sentence in so quickly that you’re positive that you misunderstood what he said.

You sigh, biting your bottom lip. “Well, um…I’ll think about it.”

Logan sneaks a gaze to your lips, then returns to meet your eyes. “You know what? I’ll take that.”

You look back to your car, trying to signal to him that you wanted to go home. “Alright, I should start driving back now. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“See ya,” He grins, slyly pressing a quick kiss to your temple before walking away. Your mind only registers the kiss once he’s more than ten feet away, and you brush your fingers over your temple as if his kiss was still lingering.

You have his beaming smile imprinted in your brain as you drive back to your apartment.

You quickly scanned the living room and kitchen after Tucker let you into the house the next night. Logan was right, the game night seemed pretty chill. Other than the core group, along with Hannah and Allie, you recognized Birdie and Simms, as well as a puck bunny that you interacted with once at a game before. Carly, you think her name was.

Everyone gathered around the dining table, with Logan right by your side, of course. He pulls up a chair next to Tucker, who was sitting next to you, and tells him to “scooch” while casually handing you a beer bottle.

“You like pilsners, right?”

You stare at him, tilting your head at him in amusement. You don’t remember mentioning to him that you preferred pilsners over other kinds of beer.

“Yeah, I do.”

You grab onto the bottle and murmur a soft “thanks,” watching as his mouth twitches. The two of you don’t exchange any words. Logan just beams at you with that familiar glimmer in his eyes, and you laugh into the bottle.

“Huh, I was wondering why Johnny here got a whole eight pack of pilsners, considering none of us like ‘em,” Dean loudly mocks Logan as he sits across the two of you, grabbing onto Allie’s hand for her to sit next to him. You definitely think that there’s something going on between them.

Logan just reaches over and lightly shoves at the blond hockey player, muttering “idiot” underneath his breath. Hannah raises her eyebrows at you as she helps Garrett with shuffling the cards. You look at her in confusion, not understanding her reaction. She shakes her head, mouthing the words “we’ll talk later” to you.

As everyone gets settled around the table, Garrett proposes a game of Rummy. And over the next few hours, as you transition between Rummy to Speed to Crazy Eights, you try to tune out the presence of Logan beside you. But his breaths hover close to your neck, and his left ankle wraps around your right one, and his fingers brush around your shoulders as he leisurely rests his arm on the back of your chair.

And unfortunately for you, you perform poorly in the first three games, and you selfishly blame him for distracting you. In your head, of course.

Finally, you guys play a game of good old-fashioned Texas Hold’Em. The two cards that Garrett deals you at the beginning are strong, but you won’t go all in right away. Not yet.

As the game progresses, the majority of the players fold, including Logan. At the end, there’s only three people: you, Tucker, and Dean.

“Alright, let’s go,” Garrett drums his hands on the dining table, shaking the table so hard that the beer bottles on top start to wobble. Hannah rolls her eyes playfully, “Showdown time.”

Tucker goes first, a resigned expression on his face as he shows his hand. A regular flush. Not bad, but not good enough to win. Logan pats him on the back, muttering “next time, Tuck” as he looks dejectedly at the table.

Dean, already sporting his cocky “I won” face, dramatically flips over his cards. “And, that my friends, is what? A straight. Mother. Fuckin’. Flush. Boom!” He howls so houd that Hannah covers her eyes, lifting his beer bottle up high. “Read it and weep.”

He then leans over the table, pointing in fake menace towards you, the competitive streak still firing up in his eyes. “And what does little Ms. Y/N have? You don’t have a straight flush, don’t ya?”

All eyes turn expectantly towards you, watching as you sigh and look at your cards with a glum face. Logan’s arm is still lingering on the back of your chair. In its natural place, of course.

You slump your shoulders. “Yeah, Dean. You’re right, I don’t,” You finally flip your cards, looking back at the overconfident hockey player with an incredibly controlled expression. “I have a royal flush, actually.”

Cue the hollers. The hockey house goes haywire.

Tucker immediately bursts out laughing, slapping his hand on the table and pointing at Dean. Allie’s jaw drops. Hannah joins in on the laughter, her eyes wide as she looks at you in excitement. Garrett chuckles, shakes his hand, and gives you his own personal round of applause. And Logan, within the same vein as Tucker, also points towards Dean and yells, with his full chest, “Loooooooser!”

Meanwhile, Dean looks like he just got slapped in the face, his cheeks flushing so hard that you almost feel bad for the guy.

“No. No fucking way. You checked the entire time. You barely fucking raised!”

You shrug your shoulders, looking up at him with a sly grin. Your casual silence only tips Dean over the edge.

“Oh hell no. Garrett, shuffle the cards,” He orders his captain, who just looks at Dean with a straight face, completely dismissing him. “We’re replaying.”

You let a tired sigh, peeking at the time on your phone and rubbing the exhaustion out of your eyes. 12:14 AM. You’re junior in college and yet, you are the epitome of a grandma.

“Dean, for the love of God, just GOMD.”

As the letters slip out before your brain can catch up with your mouth, you halt and everyone looks at you in surprise. Dean just groans. You don’t even want to look at the satisfaction on Logan’s face right now.

“Jesus Christ, not you too,” He stares pointedly at Logan. “You got her saying bullshit acronyms now too?”

Logan shrugs at his roommate, sipping his beer and remaining silent. His other hand goes to rest on your upper thigh, and you try to not flinch in surprise.

Dean looks at you in pure exasperation. “And what the fuck does that even mean?”

At last, you stand up from your chair, playing with the chips in your hand. “It means to get off my dick, Dean.”

The house loses it again. Garrett’s composure completely breaks as his chest rumbles with laughs. Tucker is on the brink of fucking tears, walking over to Dean and shoving him, and Logan just looks at you in childish amusement, shaking his head as he laughs.

Dean chidishly huffs, turning his head away fron you and putting his palm to your face. “God, I can’t even look at you right now. I have half a mind to banish you from this house.”

“As if you would ever do that,” Allie remarks, rolling her eyes and patting Dean on the chest.

Garrett asks the group if they want to play another game, and even though a chorus of yes’s emerges, you shake your head at the captain, looking at the beer bottle you finished at least two hours ago.

“I’m spent. And I don’t feel like schooling Dean’s ass again,” You joke, and Dean rolls his eyes to the back of his head. “I might leave here in a bit.”

Once your comment registers to him, Logan instantly stands up with you, brushing a hand over your forearm. “You sure? You don’t want to stay a bit longer?”

His soothing eyes could melt you into a puddle. You’re calling it: John Logan is going to be the death of you.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty tired. I’m not too in the mood to play another game right now,” You explain as the two of walk away from the dining table, getting farther away from the group’s chatterings.

“Honey, I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know how I feel about you driving late at night. Especially when you’re tired,” He confesses in a low voice, his hand wrapping around your shoulder.

You’re not my boyfriend, you desperately yearn to say.

“You don’t trust my driving skills?” You opt to say instead, joking with him, but the stern look on his face doesn’t waver.

“I do, but I don’t want you to drive when you’re tired. And it’s late on a Friday, and I really don’t want you to run into any drunk drivers,” He adds, and his concern for you tugs at your heart. He then begins to knead at your shoulder, feeling how tense you are. “I was thinking we could chill for a bit. We can go upstairs, watch a movie, unwind a little. You definitely need to relax. Your shoulder’s crazy stiff.”

You tilt your head at him in confusion. “Yeah, and what are you going to do about it?”

He raises an eyebrow at you, his mouth twitching into his typical smartass grin. “Well, Y/N, I don’t know if you know, but I am an athlete,” You let an exasperated sigh, which only makes him smile wider. “And I’ve been given a lot of massages by PTs before, so I know some basics. I can definitely give you one.”

“A massage? Really?”

“Yeah,” That cheeky grin finally gets you, and you can’t control the blush plastered on your flaming cheeks. His fingers push a bit deeper into your shoulder and damn, that feels good. “See? You’ve been needing this.”

You look at him, really look at him, and you give him a resigned expression.

“I hate when you’re right.”

As soon as he hears the words fall from your lips, he’s grabbing your hand and leading you up the stairs.

Once your body hits the mattress, your self-restraint completely unravels. You shed some of your clothes, curling up into your unofficial side of Logan’s bed, getting yourself comfortable as he watches in amusement.

And right after he places his hands back on your shoulders, you feel your body sinking deeper and deeper, fighting with your life to keep your eyes open. But as Logan mutters sweet nothings into your ear, you can’t help but let the slumber overtake you.

You lie motionless on a concrete floor, your eyes frantically darting around as you try to recognize the walls of your enclosure. Groaning, you slowly pull yourself onto your knees, feeling your bones sink to the ground. You feel unbearably weak, trying your best to keep all of your limbs upright. It’s almost as if a huge weight is tied to your ankles, pulling you down as you try to stand up. You ultimately succumb to your fate as you use your elbows and knees to crawl on the grimy floor.

Everything is eerily silent. The only noise you hear is the sound of your own heavy breathing, hoarse exhales climbing from your trachea. You turn to your side and take stock of the metal bars holding you in your jail cell. Groaning, you slowly crawl to the bars, knees against scraping the rigid floor. Though the movement seems relatively easy, your lungs pound with a burning soreness, and your legs ache as if you’ve just run a marathon. It’s all in slow motion.

Finally, you reach a shaky hand up to one of the bars, shaking it so loud that your ears start to bleed. Gasping, you bring your face to the metal, mouth trembling as you let a scream.

“Help!” You cry out, banging on the bars. “Help me, please!”

The sobs spewing out of your body are uncontrollable. As the tears overwhelm you, an ache in your head begins to throb violently, the pain spreading like a virus to your temples. Completely and utterly debilitated, you roll your head as it bangs against the metal, surrendering yourself to the pain.

You let out a final scream for help, feeling your throat practically tear itself into two.

And then, you hear another voice.

“Y/N!” You hear the shout, but it’s rough and muffled and feels impossibly far away.

You let out a cry to signal your presence, but the voice only gets quieter and quieter. You try to call to this being, but they say your name one last time, before the room turns silent again.

“No! No!” You repeatedly try to scream, but you feel your lungs collapsing as your mouth abruptly begins to fill itself with blood.

Suddenly, before your body caves in and topples onto the ground, you hear your name. Again. As if it wants to taunt you.

“Y/N!”

But now, the voice is loud and clear. You open your eyes and practically flinch when you notice the wide eyes and parted mouth and furrowed eyebrows of the familiar face right above you.

No.

“Hey, hey, Y/N,” Logan calls out to you, his firm hands grasping onto your shoulders as the fear rocks through your body. You fix your eyes onto his bare chest, where you see him inhaling and exhaling at practically the same rate as your breathing. “Hey, it’s me. It’s Logan. It’s just me.”

No. This can’t be happening.

He brings a gentle hand to your cheek, but you recoil from his touch. The tears overwhelm your vision, but you can see the hurt plastered across his face.

“Y/N, you’re safe, okay? You’re with me.”

This can’t be happening.

You barely register his words as you scramble out of his bed, the jarring movement clearly taking him aback, and rushing to the nearest closed space. Away from him. Away from all of this.

Quick footsteps follow behind you, a “fuck” coming out under his breath.

The sound of the bathroom door slamming shut jostles you even more, and after you lock the door, your quivering body sinks below to the freezing cold tiles, and you wrap a hand your mouth to silence your wails. But you’re not sure it’s totally effective.

The rattle of the doorknob sends shock waves throughout your body, and you muster up all of the energy you have left to inch away further from the door, legs violently shaking.

“Shit. Y/N, can you please unlock the door?” Even though the door acts as a barrier and suppresses his voice, you can still hear his unsteady breaths. “Please. I’m really fucking worried.”

Everything burns. Your eyes sting. Your throat’s on fire. Your head pounds with an incessant and intolerable buzz.

You had a plan, and you didn’t stick to it.

Your mind immediately sends you into a turbulent spiral, convincing yourself with a terrifying intensity that you messed everything up. You placed another burden on him. You are the reason that this casual relationship will end.

It’s all your fucking fault.

And as you helplessly drown into the vortex of your mind, your ears still cling on to the pleas coming out from the other side.

“Y/N, please. Let me in,” He repeatedly calls out, frantically rattling the doorknob, and you hear a “thud” against the door. The sound initially makes you flinch, but you realize that it’s probably from his head leaning against the door. “Baby, please.”

Suddenly, you hear a commotion in the hallway, voices from various people all blending into each other.

Great, now you woke up several people. As if this night could get any worse. You begin to hyperventilate and wheeze, seeing stars form out of the corner of your eyes.

But Garrett’s captain voice comes out loud and clear, even though you can’t exactly hear what he says. You then hear an even louder, “don’t you fucking tell me to calm down” and “can’t you hear? She can barely fucking breathe right now.”

And as you rock yourself back and forth on the tiles, you realize that the booming voices feel farther and farther away, until you hear another knock.

“Hey, Y/N. It’s Hannah,” You freeze in surprise, head whipping towards the door. “Um, I don’t know if you can hear me. But Garrett took Logan downstairs for him to cool off. I think the loud noises just make everything worse, right?”

You don’t say anything back, but your breaths don’t feel as shallow anymore. The stars from your vision have faded away.

“Logan said that you had a pretty bad nightmare. Is that true? I trust Logan, but I also wanted to confirm with you. And to see if you needed anything.”

You crawl towards the entrance, your hands gripping onto the sink to pull yourself up. You swallow for at least a full minute before you decide to finally speak.

“Is there anyone else with you?” God, you hate how croaky your voice sounds right now.

“No, Y/N. It’s just me. I swear. I’m pretty sure Garrett and Logan are outside now. They can’t hear us—”

The words die down on Hannah’s lips as you open the door. You watch as her face visibly saddens when taking in your damp cheeks and bloodshot eyes. But she doesn’t say anything, waiting patiently for you to speak first.

“I had a night terror,” You confess, your voice coming out as a whisper. “I have them quite often, but I haven’t told him, or anyone at Briar, about them.”

Hannah nods, slowly and carefully. “Okay. Is there anything I can do for you right now? What do you need?”

Your bottom lip wobbles as you take in her kindness. “Uh…I don’t know. I needed some space, which is why I locked myself in there. I never planned on Logan seeing me like this,” Your throat throbs as you chuckle without humor. As if you could plan out your night terrors. “I didn’t know how he’d react.”

“He was very worried,” Hannah says with full sincerity while looking into your eyes. “He actually wanted to grab a screwdriver and unlock the bathroom door that way. But Garrett persuaded him not to. It probably would’ve freaked you out even more.”

Garrett’s not wrong. You sigh, trying to search for your phone, figuring you left it in Logan’s room. “What time is it?”

Hannah fishes her phone out of the pockets of her sleep shorts, the brightness of the screen overtaking her face. “A little bit after 4:00. But don’t worry about that. It’s Saturday, and they don’t have a game tomorrow.”

You let out a relieved sigh at her reassurance. When you shift your eyes to looking downstairs, Hannah follows your gaze. “You want to go down?”

After you nod, she extends her hand towards you, and you allow yourself to take it. The two of you walk down the stairs, and through one of the living room’s windows, you see Garrett leaning on the wall while Logan paces on the grass.

“I’ll talk to him,” You tell Hannah, and she gives you a supportive smile, and asks for your permission to give you a hug. You grant it, of course. And you really needed the hug.

“I’ll be in the living room if you need anything, okay?” She tells you, and hands you a jacket. “The cold is not anything like last week, but it’s still chilly out there.”

“Thank you,” You whisper to Hannah, and she nods back at you as if to say “anytime.”

You walk into the backyard, and the sound of your feet hitting the grass makes both of the boys’ heads turn around. Garrett looks at you with an expression that you can’t quite pinpoint; it’s stern, yet kind at the same time.

Logan, on the other hand, has completely disheveled hair after running his hands through his curls multiple times. His jaw twitches, and the corners of his eyes have the tiniest hint of redness surrounding them. He places one foot ahead of the other, but stops before completely heading to you, practically restraining himself from hugging you immediately.

He looks fucking wrecked.

“Garrett, um, I need to talk to Logan alone. If that’s okay,” You’re the first one to speak, and the hockey team captain crosses his arm and nods.

“Alright. I’ll be inside if you need anything,” He spares one last look at Logan, sighs, and supportively pats your shoulder as he heads back into the house.

God, you would rather lose miserably to Dean at poker than open up to Logan right now.

But you still take the first step. You walk by and take a seat onto one of the lawn chairs, sighing as you look down at your lap. Logan still hasn’t moved, clearly waiting for your consent before he gets close to you.

You turn towards him, nodding your head at the other chair, and he takes the hint, slowly taking a seat facing you.

Your heart rattles fiercely against your ribs.

“This is…really, really hard for me to do,” You confess, staring at the ground and focusing on the sounds of cars driving past the neighborhood. “I didn’t think it would come to this point.”

His face visibly blanches, hands trembling as he nervously wrings them together.

Okay, maybe you shouldn’t have worded it like that.

“I haven’t told anyone at Briar about this. Hell, I even just now told Hannah briefly when we were upstairs,” You let a huge exhale, and pull your knees to your chest. “But I think you deserve to know. We’ve been…fooling around for a couple of months now, and we’ve gotten, you know…close.” You wince as you hesitate on saying the last word.

When there’s silence from Logan, you take that as your sign to go ahead.

“Ever since I was four, I have been having night terrors. On and off. Some months, even some years are worse than others. One time in high school I went two years without them, and suddenly in senior year, they came back,” You ramble on, and you force yourself to inhale in order to center yourself. “And they’re different than nightmares. Much more intense. Nightmares usually occur in REM sleep, whereas my night terrors happen when I’m in a deep sleep, and it’s so, so hard for me to wake up. I thrash around, a lot. I’ve been to several doctors for it, even a somnologist,” You explain, and when you lift your head, you see his eyebrows furrow in confusion.

You quickly clarify. “A somnologist is a doctor who specializes in sleep disorders. But, yeah. Children usually grow out of their night terrors, but I never did. And it’s…debilitating. It’s fucking horrible.”

You fix your gaze on him, and you watch as he takes in every word that you say, his forehead wrikling with concern.

Finally, he speaks up.

Alright, Y/N. Your situationship is about to end things with you. Deal with it.

“The doctors that you went to…” He clears his throat, his voice coming out all ragged and rough. “Have they found the underlying cause for these?”

In all of the scenarios you went through in your mind in the thirty seconds before he spoke, you definitely did not consider one where he asked a question.

“They haven’t pinpointed an exact cause. But they have identified some triggers,” You sigh, looking up at the sky to prepare yourself to utter the next words you’re about to say. “Mainly stress-related. They believe that my PTSD plays a huge part in them.”

Immediately, his eyes widen and his lips part when he registers the last sentence. He lets out a shaky breath, looking down at his hands as he continues to wring them together.

“You have PTSD?”

You nod, biting into your lip. Remember, Y/N. Control.

“Yeah. I’ve been working through it since high school. Met with a therapist and everything. You know, trying not to let it define me. I spent my whole life being the mediator in my family, constantly solving other people’s problems instead of identifying my own. It was rough. Hell, I used to have panic attacks all the time in class,” You laugh mirthlessly, playing with the hem of your shirt. “Now I’ve upgraded. I just have them behind closed doors, when no one else is awake. I used to have both panic attacks and night terrors, luckily now I…only deal with one.”

Nothing about your situation is lucky.

The sheer magnitude of what you’ve revealed to Logan finally hits you. You grip the back of your thighs to hide your shaking hands.

Y/N, that was the opposite of control.

“I-I’m sorry,” You sputter out quickly, but Logan only stares at you in confusion. “I…I shouldn’t have unloaded all of that onto you. It’s a lot, I know—”

“Y/N,” He rasps out, and he presses his fingers into his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose before he looks at you again. “Can I take your hand?”

You nod wordlessly, giving your right hand to his left one. He draws soothing circles onto the back of your hand, even though his fingers are shaking as well. He bites his lip as he stares at you, looking utterly destroyed.

“Is this why you never stay over?”

The breath quickly escapes your lungs. You can’t find in yourself to speak, so you nod.

And Logan tightens his grip on your hand, his breaths coming out wobbly and unsteady.

“Thank you,” He enunciates, and you can’t help but look at him in surprise. “For…for trusting me with this. I had a feeling you were going through something, but I didn’t want to push you to say anything.”

You can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. “You’re not uncomfortable with me unloading all of this onto you? Even though we’re just casual?”

“Oh, baby,” He breathes out, and wraps his right hand around your cheek. You instinctively nestle into his warm touch. “There’s nothing casual about the way I feel about you.”

Before you can stop yourself, you reach out and wrap your arms around his torso, pressing your face into his neck to hide the incoming tears. Logan immediately welcomes your touch, settling your body onto his lap and tenderly cradling your head with his palm. His whole body relaxes as he runs his fingers through your hair, pulling you even closer. You feel your shoulder starting to get a tad damp as well.

“I was so fucking worried,” His voice trembles into your hair, which only makes your tears flow even faster. “I just needed to make sure you were alright. God, I was going crazy when Garrett pulled me aside.”

You don’t say anything, only breathing a watery sigh into his neck and tangling your fingers into his waves. Your heart rate finally slows down, and your muscles gradually loosen against his protective grip.

You’re safe.

The two of you remain in each others’ arms for a while until you twist around in his lap, turning to face him. He gives you a small closed-mouth smile, and you lazily trace his dimples. He turns his head to your palm, gingerly kissing your hand, feeling the stubble around his chin.

You could stay like this all night.

Logan then clears his throat, even though you’re sure that his voice is still raspy.

“You know, I kind of related to what you said earlier. About being the mediator,” He sighed, sneaking a hand under your shirt to rest his palm against your stomach. “I used to be the mediator in my family. We had so many fucking fights in our house. Between Jules and Jeff, Jeff and my mom, Jules and my mom…I got so sick and tired of it.”

You nod, listening intently. A few months ago, he gave you some information about his childhood and upbringing, about how early he had to start working and how he frequently argued with his mother. Ironically, it didn’t sound too different from your childhood, either.

“It’s the worst,” You add on, playing with his curls. “It feels like you have no space to breathe. Everyone vents to you, but you have no one to talk to. Their problems slowly drain you, even when you’re drowning in your own sorrows.”

“That’s exactly how I felt,” He tells you earnestly, his palm still resting against your stomach. He dips his head slightly to press a kiss onto your forehead.

“Yeah, I remember you telling me about your problems at home. I thought about sharing my own experience as well, but I didn’t want to be a burden. You already have enough on your plate,” You confess, eyes nervously darting to your hands. You felt like you needed to let him now.

But as he grasps the back of your head to pull you in for a much-needed kiss full of passion, serenity, and comfort, you know deep inside your heart that you do not have to fear for his response.

“Y/N, you are the absolute furthest thing from a burden in my life,” The emotion that exudes from his eyes is enough to send you back into tears, but you don’t feel your throat closing up. “Baby, you can always talk about your problems with me. Air out your frustrations and vent all you want. I’ll be here.”

And as the two of you hold on to each other, lingering outside long enough to see the sunrise, you know that your comfort zone is not necessarily a place, but the person who wraps his arms lovingly around your body and flashes that beautifully crooked smile for you. Only for you.

But ever since you stumbled into his bed on one October night during some Halloweekend festivities, Logan quickly became your comfort zone. And right now, as you restlessly writhe between his sheets, you have absolutely zero desire to leave this comfort.

“Fuck,” the man of the hour rasped and grunted, his head dropping unceremoniously onto the crook of your neck. He breathes frenzied exhales into your shoulder, hot air drifting towards the bottom of your ears. His body weight practically crushes you, leaving you with just the tiniest slot of air to supply your lungs. But you’re not complaining. You’re exactly where you want to be.

You gasp into his brown curls as his thrusts quicken, your hands desperately fisting and grabbing onto the fitted sheet as some sort of pathetic attempt to anchor yourself. Watching you twist underneath him with heavy-lidden eyes, Logan grasps your hands, carefully interlocking your fingers with his, your palms firmly sealing against each other. Like the satisfying connection of the final pieces of a puzzle.

The loving gesture tugs at your heart. This “casual” intimacy is too much to bear, but you can’t bring yourself to let go.

“Y/N,” He rasps into your skin, his frantic breaths imprinting themselves like love bites onto your neck. You know that he’s close, and judging by the tension breeding underneath your belly that’s threatening to release itself, you know that you’re not that far off either. With your elbows digging into his mattress, you arch your back, slightly lift your hips just a tad higher, and the sound that emerges from your throat reverberates off the walls of his bedroom. Logan immediately finds his own release as he moans your name into your neck, his stubble etching a mark onto your skin, and his own body shaking from head to toe.

After he takes off the condom, Logan’s chest makes its way on top of yours as you sink into his bed, trying to catch your breath as he lazily draws circles on your thigh. Though your mind flinches at the “casual” nature of your relationship with Logan, your heart eventually learns to return to slow resting state while around him. He’s a steady presence, and his company is much needed as you try to navigate around the various stressors in your life.

Already, your tortuous coursework and demanding work-study stint are clearly draining you. Hannah frequently points out the dark bags under your eyes and the sluggish, lethargic nature of your gait as you force yourself to attend class.

But you had another stressor that completely robbed the last morsels of life clinging on to your body. A hidden, yet dangerous stressor that you kept snapped shut in the corners of your mind, only giving the key to your therapist for her to unlock.

The reason why you always refused to sleep at Logan’s place.

“So beautiful,” Logan’s voice pulls you from your reverie, his hoarse whisper tickling your collarbone. He kisses over the hickeys he proudly implanted near your breast, admiring his view. “All for me.”

You bite your bottom lip at his comment, pressing down so hard that you’re sure blood will ooze out any minute now. You’re technically not “all for him.” Even though he skips hockey practice to help jumpstart your car on the side of the road. Even though he now uses a fragrance-free laundry detergent because his sheets would irritate your sensitive skin. Even though he looks at you with those eyes that compel you to answer his text every single time. Even though his bed feels so comfortable right now.

Control yourself.

“Back at ya,” You awkwardly laugh, delivering a very nervous and spur-of-the-moment reply. So smooth, Y/N. Did you flirt this badly when he tore your Tinkerbell costume off?

Chuckles rumble from his chest, pressing down onto your heart. You could play his laugh on repeat. Hell, even set it as your ringtone. “Still not used to receiving compliments, I see.”

You don’t offer a response. Suddenly, the bed feels way too warm and way too inviting. As his pillow swallows your head, your eyes start to close.

But you quickly force yourself to wake up, remembering that you do not, in any circumstance, want to fall asleep in his bed. You will not make that mistake.

Instead, you lean over to check the time on your phone. 4:09 PM.

“I need to get going to my shift,” You slide out from underneath him, removing yourself from his grap. The sudden loss of warmth feels like whiplash.

His dark eyebrows furrow as you grab the haphazardly laid clothes on the wooden floor. “Doesn’t it start at 5:00? You still have some time,” He pats your unofficial side of his bed, watching you shimmy yourself into your jeans. “Come ‘ere. Stay a ‘lil longer.”

You bite your lip even harder, using it like a stress ball, and you try to forget that your situationship remembers that tiny detail of your work schedule. Of course he does.

“I like getting there early, though. It’s much better than arriving five minutes before a session starts,” You zip up your jeans, chuckling softly when he flashes his signature sad puppy eyes at you. “I like to quickly refresh myself on the content beforehand.”

“As if you would need any refreshing, Mrs. Bio and Psych Double-Major,” He teases, and yep, you’re pretty sure that’s blood you’re tasting right now.

“Trust me, I don’t always remember the ins and outs of signal transduction.”

Logan tilts his head to the side, staring at you with those confused eyes that you find so absolutely endearing. “And what the hell is ‘signal transduction?’”

You sigh, kneeling onto the floor and tying your shoes. “That’s a story for another time. I better get going.”

“Wait, I’ll walk you down,” He says as he jumps out of the bed, rapidly putting on his sweatpants and grabbing a random flannel from his desk chair.

You roll your eyes as you open his bedroom door, hearing the noises of his roommates from downstairs. “I’ve been here plenty of times, Logan. I know my way around the house.”

He shrugs, buttoning up his flannel. “So? God forbid a guy wants to be a gentleman.”

“A gentleman?” You stifle a laugh, and he has the gall to put on a mildly offended face.

“Of course, my lady. I’m always on my best behavior for you.”

More blood seeps from your lip. You give him a playful shove on his shoulder, but he brandishes that signature crooked "John Logan smile" at you, and fuck, you’re in deep.

As the both of you walk downstairs, your peer at the living room and say a goodbye to the rest of the boys. Tucker and Dean were sitting on the couch, pouring over a textbook that you knew all too well. By the looks of it, Garrett wasn’t home. He was probably hanging out at Hannah’s dorm, per usual.

“Good seeing ya, Y/N,” Tucker smiles at you, lifting his head from the textbook.

“Yes, very good seeing ya,” Dean drawls, suddenly jumping up from his spot on the couch and making his way over to you. “And we are in desperate need of your guidance. This bio class is killing us.”

All of the boys knew you already. Though you and Logan weren’t “serious” by any means, neither of you kept your situationship a secret from others. At least Logan spared you the hurt and discomfort that comes from sneaking around.

Then again, all of his charming, boyfriend-coded compliments haven’t made the situation any better either.

You shake your head jokingly at Dean. “You guys have Professor Ragner, right? He’s chill. You’ll be fine.”

Dean gasps in fake shock, puting a hand to his heart as if he were in a melodramatic soap opera. “Wow, so you’re just leaving us to drown with no support? I see how it is, Y/N.”

You scoff. “No offense to y’all, but I don’t have time for free tutoring. I’m getting paid minimum wage, which is practically nothing to begin with, to tutor jocks like y’all in the first place. I’m sure as hell not doing any unpaid labor.”

“I can pay you in a different way,” Dean unabashedly flirts, blond waves falling over his eyes, voice dropping to a lower tenor. You raise an eyebrow in amusement, knowing that he’s joking.

Then someone behind you loudly clears their throat. You turn around to Logan, who is adorning an expression that you can’t quite decipher.

“Jesus, relax, Johnny,” Dean comes around and pats him on the back, which Logan rejects in fake disgust, pretending to flinch. “I was just suggesting an alternative method of payment.”

“Uh-huh, sure you were," Logan replies with a chuckle, though his smile doesn’t reach all the way to his eyes.

Tucker rejoins the conversation. “I don’t know about cash, but I’ll pay you back with free meals. I make a mean pasta carbonara.”

“Now that, I can get behind,” You point finger guns towards Tucker. “Well boys, I’m off to work. I’ll see y’all later.”

Tucker and Dean say their goodbyes. With a light touch of his hand on the small of your back, Logan leads you to the porch. He opens the door, and as you step outside, he wraps a hand around your wrist, wanting to say one last thing before you leave.

“Have a good shift,” He presses a kiss to your forehead. You force yourself to not bite your lip for the hundredth time. Control. “I’ll see you on Friday, yeah?”

You don’t know what to say. You knew that the team was throwing a party before their game on Saturday. A sharp inhale exits your nose.

“Yeah, sure,” You smile at him, starting to walk to your car. “See you, Logan.”

As you drive to the tutoring center, you chastised yourself for how close you were to falling asleep in his bed. This pathetic attempt at a situationship was going to tear you apart. And if you need to distance yourself from those warm eyes and beaming smile, then so be it.

Friday was two days away. You decided to not come over to the hockey players’ house for their party before playing Eastwood. Not only did you want some space between you and Logan, but you also had an upcoming midterm that made up a good chunk of your grade for your Psych class. You thus planned on devoting your entire weekend to studying for it.

So when Friday night came along, giving excuses to Logan felt easy. Somewhat easy.

(9:21 PM) Logan: Hey, I haven’t seen you yet. Are you on the way?

(9:46 PM) Y/N: I have a huge midterm on Monday. I need to study. Sorry, I forgot to tell you :/

(9:48 PM) Logan: Ahh I see, no worries.

(9:51 PM) Logan: I looked forward to seeing you.

(9:52 PM) Logan: I’ll see you after the midterm? Good luck, you got this.

(10:23 PM) Y/N: Thanks, good luck with the game. 

A twinge of guilt spread through your chest and hammered at your heart when you didn’t confirm the rendezvous. You always came to the boys’ parties before their games, even though you continuously stuck by your rule of never sleeping over, which definitely took Logan a little bit of time to get used to. During Halloweekend, you surprised him when you slipped out of his bed at 3:00 AM, grabbing your car keys and opening his bedroom door.

“You don’t want to stay the night?” You recall his gravelly voice, utterly rattled with sleep, as he watched you put on your shoes. “It’s kinda late.”

“I have an early morning. And I didn’t drink at all, so…” You explained, giving him a tight smile before closing the door so that you didn’t have to stare any longer at his bare, toned chest. “See ya.”

Starting with a clean slate was necessary. After all, you needed to keep your commitment to both your grades and your job. Logan would only serve as a distraction.

That’s what you kept repeating to yourself as you went to bed later that night, putting your phone on the other side of your room in order to stop checking it.

The first thing that you notice is that you can’t speak.

You bring a palm up to your mouth, but your face feels completely numb. Anything you say just comes out extremely muffled, as if you never had a mouth in the first place. You gaze around your environment with blurry eyes, looking at the four corners of the dingy room. You try to touch one of the walls, but as soon as your hand comes into contact, the wall becomes translucent, your hand just floating around in open space. But as you pull your hand back, the wall comes up again, inching closer and closer to your face.

Your breath hitches as you try to find an escape—a trapdoor, a window, just anything will do. But the room starts to resemble a box the more you look at it, as if you were an inanimate object shoved inside a carton to never be seen again. The lump in your throat grows as your vision subsides with each passing second, complete murk and darkness clouding up your eyes.

You try to bang on the walls, but your balled up fists just fall into air. You try to scream for help, but you feel chains wrapped around your mouth, silencing your cries and greedily swallowing up any remaining shred of air needed for your survival.

The sound of falling objects tears your gaze away from the walls. You eyes widen as you watch clumps of your hair disintegrating into the floor and massive droplets of blood emanating from your fingertips. You frantically search your whole body for any sign of a cut, a wound, an injury, but your hunt is fruitless.

And that’s when the walls start closing in, devouring every inch of space that’s not covered by your trembling body.

You sink to the floor as your knees helplessly buckle, crawling up into a ball as a fresh flow of tears sprint down your cheeks. Soon those tears also turn to blood, drowning your limbs in a sea of red. And the ceiling feels so fucking close to you, you’re certain that it’s going to collapse.

Sounds of whining sirens and howling wind and quick gunshots and terrified screaming all fuse and merge tightly together in perfect storm, a cacophony where you can hear each individual occurrence happening at once. The walls are up to your nose, and you try so hard to scream. To cry for help.

The sound of a door slamming shut finally wakes you up.

You’re heaving as you sit up in your bed, your fists rapidly unclenching to rest your palms on your chest. Your body feels so unbearably hot, outlines of your sweat etching themselves onto your sheets. A fearful whimper tears out of you, and you wrap your hands around your curled-up body as you begin to frantically rock yourself back and forth on your bed. The sobs pour out of you in an instant, breaths clawing themselves up your throat in such a sharp, stiniging manner that you’re sure there’s clawmarks scarred across your trachea. You’ve had night terrors ever since elementary school, but you’ve never really adjusted them.

The tears completely wreck you. You move your hands from your body to the sheets, fists digging into the fabric, helplessly searching for security. What a stark contrast to your time with Logan, where you desperately fisted at his sheets while waves of pleasure cascaded through your body.

Both times, however, you were looking for control.

Nevertheless, as your sobs gradually begin to subside, you inhale shaky breaths to center yourself back to reality. When your vision starts to clear up, you go back to the 5-4-3-2-1 coping technique that your therapist suggested to ground yourself.

Five things you can see. Four things you can touch. Three things you can hear. Two things you can smell. One thing you can taste.

As you slowly list through the four things you can touch, your mind goes back to the hockey player you’re trying so desperately not to think about. But all you desire is to feel his callused palm on your cheek, his long arm around your waist, and his mouth trailing kisses on your neck.

And you hate how much you yearn to be in Logan’s arms right now. You ache for his comforting presence, but you know you can’t place this trouble on him, this overwhelming burden to bring you back to Earth after a night terror. He already has enough on his plate.

Sighing, you make your way to the bathroom to splash some water on your face. On your way there, you grab your phone, looking at the date and time. 2:38 AM, Monday, February 23rd.

So you had a night terror the morning of your big exam. Great.

At least you can thank your neighbors’ rowdiness for pulling you out of your dream. They loved to slam the door after a night out, and unfortunately for you, they seemed to go out every fucking night. You kindly asked them to close their door more gently, but clearly, your words had zero effect.

After wiping your face and staring too long at your bloodshot eyes in the bathroom mirror, you walk to your desk, deciding to fit in a last-minute study session now that you’re awake. You definitely don’t want to go back to sleep now.

After five minutes of flipping through some flashcards, you make the mistake of scrolling through the notifications on your phone. Your eyes immediately lock on to some notifications from Instagram. Specifically, some DMs from Logan.

When your trembling fingers open your message thread with him, the slight shaking in your body stops when you browse through his messages. All of them were either the silliest of reels or the stupidest of memes. And under each and every one of them, he wrote a message: This made me think of you; or you definitely need to watch this; or even this is so stupid, but it made me laugh so hard that I had to send it you.

As you laugh while watching cat videos and overplayed vines, the desire for Logan seeps through your veins. He has no idea of the effect you have on him.

He groans, eyes squeezing shut as his bruised tailbone throbs. He doesn’t hear you run over and kneel beside him in the slush. So, when he blinks his eyes open, he’s convinced that fall took him out.

The world around you is a blur. The only thing that’s clear is your face, full of worry as you lean over him. You’re positioned perfectly to block the glare of the lamp behind you. It creates a golden halo around your face as the white snow continues to fall around you.

Your voice is soft, almost like a melody drifting through the air. “Hey… are you okay?”

“Am I in heaven?” It isn’t the opening line he had planned to use on you, but under the glowing lights and snow, it seems fitting.

Realising he’s not seriously hurt, you let out a soft laugh. It’s breathless and light, and the sound wraps around Logan like a warm hug. “Not quite.”

The fog in his brain clears, but he doesn’t take your outstretched gloved hand. Instead, his dark eyes imprint your features to his memory, utterly captivated. Looking down at him, your eyes catch the giant Briar U Hawks logo across his chest.

“Not so good on the ice, are you?” You tease, a playful smile pulling at your lips. “And here I thought the Hawks were a decent ice hockey team.”

Logan slaps his hand over his chest. “Ouch,” he groans dramatically. “And here I thought angels were supposed to be nice.”

“Only to people who need it.” Your eyes sparkle with amusement.

He chuckles, finally reaching up to take your hand. He doesn’t pull himself up right away though, instead choosing to look up at you with as much of a charming smile that he can muster through the pain.

“Well,” Logan starts, his voice dropping into a low hum. “I did just fall.” (for you)

You should’ve known Logan was up to something the second he told you to wear something warm. Not something nice, not something cute. Warm.

Suspicious. Even more suspicious was the way he smiled when he picked you up, leaning against his car with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, looking far too pleased with himself for a man who’d refused to tell you where you were going.

You stopped on the sidewalk, narrowing your eyes at him.

“No,” you said immediately.

Logan’s brows lifted, all fake innocence. “I didn’t even say anything.”

“You have a face,” you pointed out.

“I do, yeah,” Logan agreed.

“A guilty face,” you corrected.

His grin widened, clearly pleased with himself. “I think you mean a handsome face.”

“I mean a face that says I’m about to regret trusting you.”

He pushed off the car and stepped closer, still smiling like he was trying not to laugh. “You trust me?”

“I’m currently reconsidering.”

“Too late,” he said, reaching for your hand and pulling you in gently before pressing a quick kiss to your forehead. “You’re already here.”

“I’m standing on a public sidewalk,” you reminded him. “I can still run.”

“You wouldn’t get far.”

You gasped. “Rude.”

“You’re wearing boots with absolutely zero grip.”

You looked down at your shoes, deeply offended to find that he was right.

Logan laughed, opening the passenger door for you. “Come on, dramatic. You’ll like it.”

“That’s exactly what people say right before ruining my afternoon.”

“I’m not going to ruin your afternoon.”

“Logan,” you warned slowly, “where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” he answered.

“I don’t like surprises.”

“You told me last week that you loved surprises.”

“I like surprises when they involve flowers or coffee or you showing up with fries because I had a bad day. I don’t like surprises that start with you telling me how to dress.”

His expression softened at that, just for a second, like the memory caught him off guard in the best way. Then he kissed your hand before letting you climb into the car.

“You’re going to like this one,” he promised.

You didn’t believe him, not fully. But after six months of Logan looking at you like that — soft around the edges, all playful mouth and careful hands — you’d learned that trusting him was usually easier than pretending you didn’t.

So, despite your better judgment, you got in.

The drive didn’t take long. Almost too short, really. Long enough for Logan to keep glancing at you like he was waiting for you to figure it out, but not long enough for you to collect enough evidence to start a real argument. He hummed along to the radio, fingers tapping lightly against the steering wheel, one hand occasionally drifting over to squeeze your knee.

That should’ve been another warning sign. Logan was always affectionate, but this felt different — almost nervous, like he cared a little too much about whether you liked whatever he’d planned.

You turned in your seat to look at him. “Are you taking me somewhere illegal?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No.”

“Somewhere dangerous?”

“No,” he assured you.

“Somewhere embarrassing?”

“That depends entirely on how good your balance is.”

Your eyes widened as realization hit, and Logan’s mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile.

“No,” you said at once.

“You don’t even know what I mean yet.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“John Logan,” you warned.

“Oh, full name.” He pulled into the parking lot, still trying not to smile. “Serious.”

You looked out the window, already dreading what you were going to see, and then you saw it.

The rink.

The arena sat quiet under the afternoon light, the parking lot nearly empty and familiar in a way that made your stomach dip. Of course, you’d been here before — for games, mostly, practices sometimes, loud nights full of cheering and whistles and bodies slamming into the boards while Logan flew across the ice like he’d been born there.

But now, it looked different. Almost still. Almost private. Waiting.

Slowly, you turned toward him.

“Absolutely not,” you said.

Logan turned off the car. “You haven’t even heard my pitch.”

“I don’t need to hear your pitch. Your pitch involves putting me on ice, and I happen to enjoy having unbroken bones.”

“I’m going to teach you,” he assured you.

“That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”

“It should be,” he informed you. “I’m very good.”

“At hockey,” you corrected. “Not necessarily at keeping your girlfriend alive.”

Logan placed a hand over his chest. “You wound me.”

“You’re about to wound me physically.”

His laughter softened when he looked at you, and for a second, the teasing faded into something warmer.

“I got the rink for an hour,” Logan said, softer now. “Just us.”

You blinked, caught off guard, and your panic quieted a little.

“Just us?” you asked.

“Yeah.” He shrugged, suddenly looking almost shy, which was rare enough to make your heart squeeze. “I thought it could be fun. You come to games and everything, but that’s different. It’s loud, everyone’s there, and I’m usually trying not to get my teeth knocked out.”

“You make almost getting your teeth knocked out sound very romantic.”

His smile softened. “I wanted you to see it like this.”

The words landed softly, right in the place your panic had been a few minutes ago.

You looked back toward the rink.

This place belonged to Logan in a way you’d never fully understood before. Not all of it, maybe, but a big piece.

The ice.

The boards.

The sound of skates cutting across the surface.

The place where he was confident, fast, and completely impossible to look away from.

You’d watched him here from the stands so many times.

But Logan was right. This was different.

From the stands, Logan had always belonged to the noise.

To the team.

To the game.

To everyone cheering his name.

Today, he’d brought you here in the quiet.

Just you. Just him.

You swallowed, trying very hard not to show how much that touched you.

“I’m still going to fall,” you reminded him.

Logan’s smile returned, entirely unhelpful. “Probably.”

You smacked his arm.

He laughed, catching your hand before you could pull away and pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

“But I’ll catch you,” he promised.

“You sound very confident,” you said.

“I’m extremely confident,” Logan replied.

“In yourself?” you asked.

“In us,” he said.

That was deeply unfair.

You stared at him, your argument fading under the weight of the way he was looking at you. You sighed dramatically, because apparently that was the closest thing to winning you were going to get.

“If I die, I’m haunting you,” you declared.

“Fair.”

“And I want it on record that I was manipulated.”

“I’ll tell everyone you were brave,” Logan said, like that was generous and not deeply insulting.

“I’ll be dead, Logan,” you pointed out.

“Beautiful and brave,” Logan announced.

You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling by the time he got out of the car.

Inside, the rink felt completely different without the crowd. Your footsteps echoed down the empty hallway, and the air smelled cold and clean, carrying that sharp, frozen scent that always clung to arenas. Logan walked beside you, your skates in one hand and his in the other, looking more relaxed with every step.

You noticed it immediately — the way his shoulders loosened. The way his gaze moved around the rink was like he was greeting something familiar. The way he seemed quieter here, but not sad.

Peaceful.

You bumped your shoulder against his, smiling a little. “You like it when it’s empty.”

He glanced down at you, his smile small. “Yeah.”

“Why?” you asked.

He was quiet for a moment, thinking about it.

Then he answered, “It’s quiet. I don’t have to think about anyone watching.”

That made you look over at him again.

He gave a small shrug, keeping his eyes ahead. “During games, everything feels loud. The crowd, Coach, the boys, my own head. I love it, most of the time. But sometimes it’s a lot.”

You nodded.

Logan looked toward the rink entrance, voice softening. “When it’s empty, it’s just the ice.”

Something about that made your chest ache softly.

In six months, Logan had let you see plenty of versions of him. Flirty Logan. Sleepy Logan. Cocky post-win Logan. Frustrated Logan, after bad games, dropped onto your bed and complained into your pillow until you ran your fingers through his hair.

But this felt like another version of him, one he didn’t share with everyone, and the fact that he wanted you here to see it made your chest ache.

You reached for his free hand, and Logan looked down just as your fingers slipped between his, closing his hand around yours without hesitation.

“Well,” you said, because being sincere for too long made your heart feel too exposed, “the ice and your girlfriend’s soon-to-be-concussed skull.”

Logan laughed and squeezed your hand. “You’re not getting concussed.”

“That sounds like a promise you’re not legally allowed to make.”

“I’m not going to let you fall that hard.”

“So you admit I’m going to fall.”

“Baby,” he said, gentle enough to make it worse, “you’re definitely going to fall.”

You stopped walking immediately. Logan made it one more step before turning back to you with a grin.

“I hate you,” you told him.

“No, you don’t,” Logan replied.

“No, I don’t,” you admitted, irritated by how little hesitation there was.

His smile softened at that.

You sat together on the bench near the boards before Logan crouched in front of you, your rental skates in his hands.

“Oh, so we’re doing this now?” you asked.

“That’s usually how skating works,” Logan said.

“I thought maybe we’d admire the ice from a safe, non-life-threatening distance.”

“You can admire it from up close,” Logan offered.

“I can admire it from the floor once I inevitably collapse.”

Logan shook his head, laughing under his breath as he slipped one of your boots off, but he went quiet while helping you into the skate.

The simple intimacy of it caught you off guard, how careful he was with something so small.

His hands were careful around your ankle, his fingers steady as he tightened the laces. You watched him focus, brows slightly drawn together and mouth relaxed in a way that made him look softer than usual. He tugged the laces once, checked the fit, and then looked up at you.

“Too tight?” he asked.

You shook your head, still watching him. “No.”

“Tell me if it hurts,” he said.

“I will,” you promised.

“You say that, but you have a habit of pretending you’re fine.”

You blinked, caught off guard.

Logan kept his gaze on yours, and there was no teasing in it this time.

You looked down at his hands instead, suddenly unable to hold his gaze. “You noticed that?”

“I notice a lot of things about you,” he said softly.

Your heart did something embarrassing.

“Unfortunately for you, skating is going to make it very obvious if I’m not fine.”

“Good,” he said, tying the second skate. “Then I won’t have to guess.”

You were quiet for a moment before you said, “You’re being very boyfriend right now.”

He looked up at you, grinning. “I’m your boyfriend.”

“I know,” you told him. “But you’re being extra boyfriend right now.”

“Is that supposed to be a complaint?”

“No,” you admitted.

His smile softened at that. “Good.”

Once your skates were tied and Logan had his own on, you tried to stand carefully, but the second your blades touched the rubber flooring, your legs betrayed you.

You grabbed Logan’s arm with both hands, immediately abandoning any pretense of dignity.

“No,” you protested.

Logan laughed immediately.

“Don’t laugh at me,” you blurted.

“I’m not,” Logan lied.

“You’re literally laughing.”

“You’re just cute when you panic,” he teased.

“I’m absolutely not panicking.”

“You tried to sit back down before you were even fully upright.”

“That was self-preservation.”

“Come on,” he coaxed, holding both your hands as he stepped backward toward the gate. “Small steps.”

“I’m going to die before we even make it to the ice.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“You don’t know that,” you argued, taking one step forward.

“I do,” he said, as that settled it.

“You’re alarmingly calm for a man leading his girlfriend to her doom.”

His grin widened, but his hands stayed steady around yours. “I’ve got you.”

That shouldn’t have worked as well as it did.

But Logan said it as he meant it, his hands steady around yours, and that made it harder to keep pretending you were scared of anything except how much you trusted him.

So you moved slowly, dramatically, and with a lot of complaining.

By the time you reached the open gate and saw the ice up close, your stomach had dropped. It looked impossibly smooth and impossibly hard, like it’d been waiting all afternoon for the chance to betray you.

Logan stepped onto the ice first, easy as breathing, and the second his blades touched the surface, something in him changed. He became fluid, lighter somehow, at home in a way that felt almost unfair.

Your grip tightened on the boards.

“Absolutely not.”

Logan turned back, skating backward a few easy feet. “You haven’t even stepped on yet.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m still alive.”

He held out both hands, steady and waiting. “Come here.”

You stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

He waited with his hands still outstretched, not impatient or mocking, just there, and you hated how much it helped.

With a deep breath and what you considered heroic bravery, you placed one skate on the ice, only for the blade to slide immediately.

You made a noise that wasn’t your proudest moment, grabbing Logan so fast that his eyes widened before he laughed.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, though he was very clearly not sorry at all.

“I hate ice,” you muttered.

“You’re doing great,” Logan said gently.

“I have one foot on the ice, Logan.”

“And that foot is doing great.”

You glared at him, and he only looked more delighted.

Eventually, with Logan holding you steady and offering encouragement that was only occasionally interrupted by laughter, you got both feet onto the ice.

You didn’t move, but you were on the ice. That counted.

“Okay,” Logan said, standing in front of you with both your hands held securely in his. “Bend your knees a little.”

“My knees are locked because they’ve correctly identified danger.”

“Bend them for me, baby.” You did, but barely. “Good,” he praised.

You narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t use that voice.”

“What voice?” he asked.

“The soft coach voice,” you accused.

“You don’t like it?” Logan murmured, still smiling.

“I like it too much,” you admitted. “Which is irritating when I’m trying to be mad at you.”

His smile softened into something fond. “Noted.”

He started skating backward slowly, pulling you with him.

The second your skates shifted under you, your entire body tensed.

“Logan,” you warned.

“I’ve got you,” he said, hands steady around yours.

“Logan,” you repeated, grip tightening.

“Look at me,” he said gently.

“I’m looking directly at imminent death.”

“Look at me,” he repeated, his voice softer this time.

You dragged your gaze away from your feet and up to his face.

His eyes caught yours, steady and warm, and despite yourself, some of the panic loosened in your chest.

When you looked down, all you could focus on was the ice, the blades, the strange pressure in your ankles, and the terrifying lack of friction. But when you looked at Logan, there were his hands around yours, his eyes on your face, his body moving backward smoothly like guiding you was the easiest thing in the world.

You moved barely an inch, but it still counted.

“Oh my god,” you whispered, staring at him as he’d just performed a miracle.

Logan’s smile widened, proud and entirely too pleased. “See?”

“I’m skating,” you whispered, like saying it too loudly might ruin it.

“You are,” Logan said, smiling like he was proud of you.

“I’m incredible,” you declared.

“You’re extremely humble,” Logan teased, still guiding you backward.

“I’m basically ready for the Olympics.”

“Let’s maybe get you to the blue line first,” Logan suggested.

You looked down at the ice.

Mistake.

Your skate wobbled, your balance tipped, and a tiny scream slipped out as your arms flailed.

Logan caught you before you could fall, one hand at your waist and the other around your back, pulling you against him before you could hit the ice. Suddenly, your face was pressed to his chest, his laugh soft above you — not loud, not mean, just warm and happy as his arms stayed secure around you.

“I told you,” he murmured, his arms still secure around you. “I’ve got you.”

Your heart was pounding, and not entirely because of the almost-fall.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” you grumbled into his jacket.

“I’m enjoying holding you,” he murmured.

You lifted your head just enough to glare at him, but Logan only smiled down at you, warm and pleased in a way that made the glare hard to maintain.

That was the problem with Logan.

Sometimes it was impossible to stay annoyed with Logan when he looked at you like that, all soft eyes and quiet amusement, like your fear of ice was something precious he’d been trusted to hold.

You swallowed, trying very hard not to melt. “This is very manipulative.”

“What is?” Logan asked, looking far too innocent.

“You being cute while I’m vulnerable.”

His brows lifted, his smile already starting. “You think I’m cute?”

“I regret saying that,” you muttered, because Logan had clearly found a weak spot.

“No, no,” he said, holding you a little closer. “Let’s go back to that.”

“Absolutely not,” you muttered.

“You called me cute,” he reminded you.

“I was briefly concussed,” you replied.

“You didn’t fall,” Logan pointed out.

“I was emotionally concussed,” you replied, like that was a valid medical defense.

He laughed, kissing your forehead before letting you find your balance again.

For the next twenty minutes, Logan tried to teach you how to move.

You learned how to push off gently, keep your knees bent, and stop staring at your feet, even though they felt deeply untrustworthy. You learned that Logan was more patient than you’d expected, repeating himself without getting frustrated, catching you every time you stumbled, and praising even the smallest bit of progress as it mattered.

“That was good,” Logan praised after you managed three tiny glides without clinging to him.

“That was barely movement.”

“That was good,” Logan insisted.

“I moved approximately four inches,” you argued, like the measurement alone proved your point.

“Six, at least,” he corrected.

“Wow,” you deadpanned. “Alert the press.”

He skated a small, effortless circle around you, looking annoyingly beautiful while he did it. “You’re improving.”

“You’re showing off,” you accused.

“Maybe a little,” Logan admitted.

You watched him move, all easy bend in his knees and smooth shifts of weight, as the ice knew him as well as he knew it. He looked different here, not like he belonged to hockey exactly, but like this was one of the places where he could finally breathe.

It was beautiful, and a little intimidating.

Your smile faded before you could stop it, and Logan noticed immediately.

He slowed beside you, his voice gentler now. “Hey.”

You looked down at your skates, avoiding his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Nope,” Logan said softly.

You sighed, still avoiding his eyes. “What?”

“That’s your fake fine,” Logan pointed out.

You looked up at him, and his face was open, concern softening it in that quiet way he got when he wasn’t trying to turn everything into a joke.

“It’s nothing,” you tried, but Logan’s expression made it clear he didn’t believe you for a second.

“It’s nothing if it made your face change like that.”

Your throat tightened unexpectedly, and you hated that.

The day had been sweet and funny and light, and suddenly your eyes were threatening to do something dramatic.

“I just…” You looked past him, toward the empty stands. “You’re so good here.”

Logan blinked, like that wasn’t where he’d expected your mind to go.

“And I know that’s obvious,” you continued quickly, suddenly feeling silly, “because it’s literally your thing. But seeing it up close is different. You look so comfortable here, like this whole place makes sense to you.”

His expression softened at that.

“And I’m standing here like a baby deer with knives strapped to its feet.”

His lips twitched, but he managed not to laugh.

“Don’t laugh,” you warned.

“I’m not,” Logan lied.

“You want to,” you accused, because the corner of his mouth was giving him away.

“A little,” he admitted, the smile fading into something softer. “But keep going.”

You exhaled, suddenly embarrassed. “I don’t know. I guess I hate being bad at something you love.”

Logan went still, as that’d hit somewhere he wasn’t expecting.

And there it was — the small truth you hadn’t meant to say out loud.

It felt ridiculous as soon as you said it. This was skating, not some life-changing test, and Logan was your boyfriend, not someone waiting to judge you. Still, you felt exposed, unsteady in more ways than one.

“I know it’s stupid,” you rushed out. “I just don’t want you to regret bringing me here because I’m terrible at this and scared and—”

“Baby,” Logan said softly.

You stopped, and Logan skated closer until the tips of his skates nearly touched yours. Then he reached for your hands.

“I didn’t bring you here because I needed you to be good at it,” Logan said, his hands steady around yours. “I brought you here because I wanted you here.”

Your chest tightened at that.

His thumbs brushed gently over your knuckles.

“I don’t care if you fall every five seconds,” he said, thumbs brushing over your knuckles. “I don’t care if we spend the whole hour by the boards. I just…” He glanced around the rink, then back at you. “This place is a big part of me. And you’re a big part of me now, too. I wanted those things to overlap a little.”

You stared at him, too full of feeling all at once to know what to say.

Logan’s mouth curved into a faint, self-conscious smile. “Too cheesy?”

“A little.”

“Good cheesy or bad cheesy?” he asked, still looking a little unsure.

You squeezed his hands, smiling despite the ache in your chest. “Devastating cheesy.”

The teasing faded from Logan’s face. “I’m serious,” he said. “I like having you here.”

You swallowed, hating how small your voice sounded. “Even if I’m bad?”

“Especially if you’re bad,” Logan said gently.

Your eyes narrowed at him.

He laughed, his thumbs brushing over your knuckles. “Because then I get to hold your hands.”

“You’re impossible,” you murmured, but your hands tightened around his anyway.

“You love me,” Logan said, entirely too pleased with himself.

You froze for half a second, and Logan’s smile faltered like the words had caught up to him too late.

It wasn’t the first time either of you had used the word casually. You loved plenty of things — fries, sleep, the way Dean got offended when nobody laughed at his jokes. But this time, it landed differently.

It slipped out softly, easily, too close to something real for a relationship that was still new enough to make you both careful.

Six months was long enough to know his favorite breakfast order, the way he liked his hair touched when he was tired, and all the little things that made him feel familiar. But it was still new enough that some words felt too big to throw around carelessly.

Logan’s expression shifted, a little panic flickering at the edges, and you squeezed his hands before he could take it back.

“I do,” you said quietly, and his breath caught like he hadn’t expected you to let the words stay.

The whole rink seemed to go impossibly still around you.

Your cheeks warmed immediately. “I mean, I do love you,” you rushed out. “Not just because you’re holding me upright, though that’s definitely helping your case.”

Logan stared at you, and for once, John Logan had absolutely nothing to say.

You gave him a nervous smile. “You’re supposed to say something now.”

His mouth opened. Closed. Then he laughed under his breath, soft and a little wrecked.

“I was trying not to say it first,” he admitted.

Your heart stumbled.

“What?” you breathed.

He looked down at your joined hands before looking back up, his eyes softer than you’d ever seen them.

“I didn’t want to scare you.”

“You thought loving me would scare me?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, suddenly bashful in a way that made you want to kiss him until he stopped looking unsure. “Six months is still new, and you’re careful with stuff like that.”

“I’m careful because you’re terrifying,” you told him.

“I am?” he asked, looking genuinely confused.

“You’re John Logan,” you said.

“That explains absolutely nothing,” Logan said.

“You’re charming, and flirty, and everybody likes you, and sometimes you say things so easily, like they don’t mean anything, but they feel like something to me. I never know if I’m allowed to keep them.”

Something in his face changed, the softness there deepening until it almost hurt to look at.

“You’re allowed,” he whispered, and your throat tightened before you could stop it. “With me, you’re allowed.”

For a second, you stood together in the middle of the ice, hands linked, the quiet rink around you seeming to hold the moment carefully.

Then Logan looked at you and whispered, very softly, “I love you.”

There was no dramatic lead-up, no big speech, no smirk to soften it. Just Logan, standing in the place that felt most like him, giving you something he’d apparently been holding back out of fear.

You smiled, wobbly and helpless. “I love you too.”

His face broke into the sweetest smile, and then your skate slipped, because apparently romance and balance were too much for your body to manage at once.

Logan caught you before you could fall, laughter warm against your hair as you clutched at his jacket.

“Seriously?” Logan laughed.

“I was emotionally compromised,” you defended.

“You used that excuse already.”

“It keeps happening,” you argued.

He kept his hands at your waist, still smiling like he had no intention of ever letting this go.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded, still a little breathless. “Yeah.”

“Good,” he murmured, and then he kissed you right there on the ice.

It was soft at first, his hands steady at your waist while yours fisted in the front of his jacket. Cold air brushed your cheeks, but Logan was warm against you, his mouth gentle and smiling, and you felt the curve of it when he kissed you again, slower this time, like he had all the time in the world and nowhere else he wanted to be.

When he pulled back, your eyes stayed closed for a second.

“Still hate skating?” he whispered.

You cracked one eye open, like even that took too much effort. “I’m considering tolerating it.”

“Look at you. Big progress.”

“Mainly because there’s kissing involved.”

“Yeah, I can definitely work with that.”

You laughed, and he leaned in to kiss you once more, quick and sweet.

After that, you managed to make it a little farther across the ice, and while no one would’ve called it graceful or impressive, it still felt like progress. You even made it halfway around the rink with Logan skating backward in front of you, his hands holding yours as he smiled every time your eyes found him instead of the ice.

“Look at you,” he said, like he was proud enough to make your cheeks warm.

“Don’t hype me up,” you warned. “I’ll get cocky and die.”

“You’re doing great.”

“I’m doing okay.”

“You’re doing great,” he reassured you, his hands steady around yours.

You tried to glare at him, but the smile tugging at your lips ruined it.

Eventually, your legs got tired, and your ankles started to complain, so Logan guided you toward the bench. You nearly fell as soon as you stepped off the ice, but he caught you with a smile and claimed it didn’t count since you technically weren’t skating anymore.

He helped you sit before crouching in front of you again, his hands already moving to untie your skates.

You watched him work in silence, your fingers still cold, your cheeks still warm, and your chest still full from the kiss and the way he’d looked at you when he said he loved you.

“Thank you,” you murmured, watching his hands work at your laces.

Logan looked up from your skates. “For what?”

“For bringing me here,” you said, watching his smile soften. “Even though I complained the whole time.”

“Especially because you complained.”

“You’re too fond of me,” you said, like that was the problem.

“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice quieter now. “I am.”

You leaned forward and pressed your hand to his cheek. Logan turned into your palm without thinking, and the smallness of it almost undid you.

“You really wanted me here?” you asked.

Logan looked up at you, his expression soft. “I always want you where I am.”

Your heart gave a painful little squeeze.

“Stop being romantic,” you whispered, like your voice wasn’t already giving you away. “It’s embarrassing for both of us.”

He grinned, like he already knew the answer. “You love it.”

“I love you,” you corrected.

His expression softened all over again, like he still wasn’t used to hearing it and needed to hear it a hundred more times before he believed it.

He stood before sitting beside you on the bench, close enough that your shoulders brushed. You leaned into him without thinking, and Logan wrapped an arm around you, pulling you into his side.

The rink stayed quiet around you—no crowd, no whistles, no teammates yelling from the boards. No pressure. Just Logan, the ice, and you.

After a while, Logan pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“So,” he started, his voice light, “second rink date?”

You let out a groan. “Logan.”

“What?” he asked, grinning. “Too soon?”

“I barely made it through the first one.”

“You did more than survive,” he said, smiling down at you.

“I nearly died three times.”

“I caught you three times, so really, you’re welcome.”

“Exactly,” you said. “Dangerous.”

He laughed and gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze.

You tipped your head back to look at him. “Maybe.”

His brows lifted. “Maybe?”

“Maybe we could do this again.”

His smile went soft, though there was no hiding how victorious he looked. “Yeah?”

“If you promise you’ll keep holding my hands.”

Logan looked at you like there was nothing easier in the world to promise.

“Always,” he promised.

He leaned down and kissed you again, soft and slow, while you sat there beside the rink with your skates untied and your fingers curled into his jacket.

You still weren’t sure skating was for you, but you loved the way Logan looked at you every time you tried.

─── ⋆⋅🏒⋅⋆ ───

💌lmk if you want to be added to my taglist!

“You were talking to her! And you were smiling!” You shouted, your words coming out slurred from all the alcohol you had consumed throughout the night with your friends. You had your arms crossed, and you were swaying on your feet as you tried your best to glare at your boyfriend, who was standing across from you in his dorm room. Your glare was more adorable than angry. 

“I was being polite! She was asking for suggestions on how to get her and her girlfriend home,” Logan voiced loudly, emphasizing the girlfriend part. The whole ride back from Malone’s, you were giving the silent treatment, leaving Logan to sit there as he tried not to let it affect him, reminding himself that his adorable and dramatic girlfriend was very much drunk. 

The two of you had been at Malone’s with your group of friends for karaoke night. You had been dancing with Allie and Hannah when you noticed your boyfriend talking to another girl at the counter. You didn’t like how close she stood to him, and you hated even more that he had a smile on his face. Your mind was too clouded with all the fruity drinks you had with Hannah to notice how it was just him being polite. 

Now the two of you stood in his dorm room, your clothes and shoes thrown over his floor as you wore one of his shirts that was definitely on backwards, you swore that you didn't need his help to change. Logan nearly had a heart attack at the sight of you almost tripping over your own feet as you pulled off your shirt, too drunk to stand still. Logan was still in the clothes he wore out, too focused on defusing the situation to change. 

“She stood too close to you, and you didn't even care.” Your voice was much softer this time, your throat hurting from all the screaming and singing you had done tonight with your friends. You blame it on Allie. Your clearly altered mind started to play tricks on you as your imagination went wild; you couldn’t help but tear up. 

“You’re the most jealous woman I know!’ Logan threw his head up as he shook his head in disbelief before resting his hands on his hips. He wasn't upset with you by any means; he was just tired and strangely very entertained. How did he get himself into this situation? Logan clearly didn't notice your watery eyes because if he did, he would never have raised his voice. 

“You know other women?” Your whisper came out small and pitiful, tears slowly rolling down your face and mixing with your mascara as your arms fell at your sides in dramatic defeat. 

Logan’s shoulders sank as he sighed. His poor girl was just way too drunk to fully understand what was happening and her feelings. He stepped towards you and was quick to pull you into his arms for a hug that both of you desperately needed. “Aw, baby.” 

“Pretty, you are the only woman for me,” Logan whispered sweetly as he held you close to his chest. He felt you melt into your arms at his reassuring words, wasting no time to wrap your arms tightly around his waist. 

“Promise?” You sniffled, your voice coming out muffled from your face being pressed against his chest, but Logan heard you just fine. You closed your eyes, you felt so tired all of a sudden, and the safety and warmth of your boyfriend's arms were not helping you want to stay awake. 

“I promise pretty.” He promises as he rubbed your back softly, a small smile forming back on his lips when he notices your sniffles quiet down and stop. After a couple of minutes, you lift your head up to look at him, your chin resting on his chest. Logan smiled fondly and leaned down to softly peck the tip of your nose before placing a soft kiss on your lips. 

His thumbs softly wiped away your tears and traces of mascara on your pretty face. He spoke quietly with a grin, seeing the tiredness in your eyes. “Now, let's go to the bathroom, you forgot to take your makeup off on your left side.” 

┊࿐ ❛❛ continue on to my…. 𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 ❜❜

Ი𐑼 there’s just something about the concept of logan taking care of his drunk girlfriend that absolutely drives me insane 😻 okay this was short but sweet , please tell me your thoughts and opinions , feedback means everything mwah 💖

᧔᧓ if this seems familiar it’s because I’ve taken it from my old blog and rewrote it with someone new !

taglist : @pixiebratz @lovings4turn @minikiiikiii @toasttt11 @avreated @fantillisgirl @cixrosie

۶ৎ taglist is open

The semester ended in a blur of final exams and a desperate need to escape. With the first-place grant completely covering your research expenses for the upcoming semester, the savings you’d painstakingly scraped together were suddenly yours to spend. It probably wasn’t the most responsible choice, but you were reeling from a devastating friendship breakup, suffocating under the weight of the Briar campus. So, you booked a holiday with a friend from your major and left the country.

That entire winter break, you went completely off the grid. You didn't speak to Allie, Hannah, Dean, or Garrett. You didn't even speak to Tucker, though you made sure he knew you were grateful about him berating Logan on your behalf after being told by Allie that he’d done that.

They all understood without you having to say it—you needed a total detox from their entire world. And it worked. Away from them all, you actually had fun. You laughed until your stomach hurt, drank too much wine on sun-drenched balconies, and breathed in air that didn’t smell like ice rinks. For the first time in a long time, the relentless urge to check in on John Logan completely vanished.

By the time the new semester rolled around, you had officially decided your life was better without him. Frankly, you didn’t entirely believe it—at least not when it came to the version of Logan before he changed—but you repeated the words like a mantra until they started to feel like truth.

Over the next three months, you learned how to coexist with the rest of the group again. You’d catch Allie and Hannah on the quad and chat, grab a drink with the boys, or occasionally sit with all of them at Malone’s. But through some miracle of scheduling and hyper-vigilance, you managed to never see Logan. The guys tried to bring him up at first, telling you how completely wrecked he was, how he wasn't the same guy on or off the ice. You shut it down every time. You refused to make his misery your problem.

If he was hurting? Good. He earned every bit of it.

You narrowly avoided him for the majority of the spring. Sometimes you’d end up at the same massive rowdy party, and across a crowded, red-cup-littered room, your eyes would accidentally lock with his. A familiar ache would flare in your chest, and you’d immediately break the contact, turning your back even as you felt his gaze burning a hole straight through you.

You didn't miss him.

You didn't miss his stupid jokes. You didn't miss how absurdly observant he could be, or the terrifying comfort of being known so deeply by another human being. You didn't miss having someone who knew exactly what you needed before you even had to ask.

You didn't miss him at all.

Except, you couldn't convince yourself of that lie when it was three in the morning and the silence in your dorm room was too loud. In those rare, weak moments when the loneliness crept in, your thumb would hover over his contact card, considering unblocking his number just to hear the phone ring. But the night would always end the same way—you shutting your phone off completely, forcing yourself to sleep before you could do something stupid.

Minutes away, in the hockey house, John Logan was doing the exact same thing.

He took long, aimless walks across campus late at night, his boots slowing down instinctively every time he passed your residence hall. It was a muscle-memory habit; he used to walk you back here almost everyday, making sure you reached the doors safely. Now, every time something exciting happened in his life—a great game, a funny incident, a good grade—his first instinct was to text you, only for reality to hit him moments later. He’d sit on the edge of his bed, staring down at the friendship bracelet still tied tightly around his own wrist. He’d then glance at the one you’d left on the floor the night you left his life. He picked it up and kept it in his room, ending his night by staring at it. It was torturous, staring at the one piece of jewelry that reminded him that he was the sole architect of his own ruin. He couldn't believe he’d fucked up this royally.

And to make it worse, you looked happy. Happier without him. You were absolutely glowing.

The first time he’d caught sight of you after winter break, laughing with Allie near the campus cafe, Logan realized that maybe the best thing he could do for you was to just leave you alone. He would have to live with a permanent ache in his chest, knowing you were still hanging out at the house, still going to Malone's, still breathing the same air—just never when he was around. He had caused you so much pain that you had actively rewritten your life to exclude him. He had no right to fight against your peace.

But leaving you alone didn't stop him from cheering you on from the shadows.

When the end-of-year STEM banquet arrived—the prestigious ceremony where you were officially recognized for winning the showcase—Logan made sure he was there. He didn't sit with your friend group despite everyone telling him that he should come. He’d ruin your night. He allowed them to leave the house without him, instead showing up on his own so he wouldn’t be the plague that prevents you from walking up to everyone and thanking them for coming.

Instead, when he arrived, John stood all the way in the back of the auditorium, blending into the shadows by the exit doors.

When your name was called and you walked up to the podium, you scanned the crowd and found him. He looked visibly worn, a subtle pain etching his features, but his eyes were wide and filled with a profound gratitude just to watch you succeed. You didn't smile at him. You didn't offer a nod. But in the space that existed between you, he knew you saw him, and he knew you understood why he was there.

When it ended, you found your friends—Allie being the first to pull you into a hug and Tucker forcing you to take solo pictures. Dean and Garrett wore grim expressions, thinking you’d be disappointed that Logan hadn’t shown his face.

You chose not to tell them that he came.

He hadn't shown up hoping for forgiveness. He hadn't done it to beg. He’d done it because Tucker had been right all those months ago. He needed to bask in the wreckage of what he’d done. He needed to let the weight of his failure truly sink in, to think about you, and to feel exactly what he had forced you to feel on the night of your presentation: the agony of being completely alone in a crowded room.

John Logan had spent three long months doing exactly that.

And when he watched you walk off the stage with your award, the truth finally broke through his chest, clear and devastating. He realized it wasn't just a best friend he had lost.

He realized it was a soulmate.

Yeah, Logan realized that he might’ve been in love with you.

No, he was. Totally and completely in love with you, and perhaps too late.

It was a cruel, cosmic sort of joke, Logan realized. The universe had waited until the exact moment you erased him from your life to finally open his eyes. He was meant to discover he loved you only after he lost you—a lifetime of yearning as a penance for his stupidity.

Lately, he found himself utterly at a loss for words whenever you crossed his path. He’d catch sight of you in the campus hallways, effortlessly beautiful, and the breath would leave his lungs. He’d hear your laugh echoing in the distance at Malone's, a sharp pang hitting his chest because he knew he hadn't been the cause of that sound in months. And through it all, you paid him absolutely no mind. You looked right through him, paying him dust as if he were nothing more than a stranger occupying the same air.

It was fitting, he thought.

He wasn’t really okay with it—the hollowness in his ribs bled every single day—but he was content to accept it. He figured he was blessed just to be capable of loving someone like you, even if those feelings were a heavy cross he’d have to bear alone for the rest of his life.

Until St. Patrick’s Day.

Beau had thrown a massive party at his summer house. Nobody actually cared about the holiday itself, but the team had just clinched a brutal away game, and Briar students never turned down an excuse to drink.

You had dressed up for the occasion, looking striking in a white cropped tank with an oversized, unbuttoned green flannel draped over your shoulders and a light-wash denim skirt. You’d leaned into the theme, tying a green ribbon through one of your belt loops and layering two gold coin necklaces with a green clover one. You felt good, you looked incredible, and as the night wore on, you accidentally drank far too much.

The pounding bass from the speakers downstairs had eventually become too much, making your head throb with a vicious rhythm. Looking for an escape, you stumbled upstairs, pushed open the door to a random, dark bedroom, and collapsed onto the mattress. You told yourself you just needed a minute to let the room stop spinning.

A minute turned into two hours.

When your eyes finally flutter open, the heavy vibration of the music is gone. The house is dead silent. A quick check of your phone reveals a barrage of missed calls and frantic texts from Hannah, Allie, and your other friends. Your thumbs move sluggishly across the screen, typing out a quick “i’m fine, fell asleep upstairs” to let them know you hadn't vanished into the night. Since the boys were all staying at Beau's for the night, you figured Allie and Hannah were in their boyfriend’s rooms. You decide to just head down to the living room and crash on the couch so you don’t disturb anyone. You don’t know whose room this was meant to be and prefer not to wake up next to a stranger because of it.

You notice that your throat feels like sandpaper when you sit up. You’re thirsty.

Stepping out into the hallway, you quickly realize the alcohol hasn’t entirely left your system. Your balance sways, forcing you to grip the wooden railing tightly as you navigate the stairs. The house was is absolute wasteland of red plastic cups, crushed cans, and stray green beads. You can see the faint remnants of a cleanup effort that had clearly been abandoned halfway through when everyone succumbed to exhaustion.

The only illumination in the entire house was the low glow coming from the kitchen.

Holding your flannel shut against the chill of the house, your bare legs shivering slightly in your denim skirt, you pad quietly toward the light. You round the corner, your eyes blinking against the brightness, and freeze.

Standing by the sink, a glass of water halfway to his lips, is John Logan.

You suddenly grow intensely conscious of how insane you probably look. Your hair is a bird’s nest, your eyeliner is almost certainly smudged beneath your lower lashes, and stray green glitter clings stubbornly to your collarbones and cheeks.

Funny enough, you can’t be more beautiful to him right now. Logan stands entirely paralyzed, his eyes tracking the slight sway of your shoulders, the oversized green flannel slipping off one side of your white tank. You find yourself staring directly back into his brown eyes for longer than five seconds. A new record in months.

He stays still, unsure of whether he should speak first, or if he should grant you the right to decide your own boundaries—whether he is going to be an invisible ghost in this kitchen, or someone actually worth your breath.

He knows he isn’t the latter. But right now, with the fog of sleep and alcohol muddling your brain, he isn’t entirely the former either.

You clear your dry throat. "Hi."

Logan blinks, his chest heaving as he swallows hard. He looks utterly terrified and entirely shattered at the same time, like a man waiting for a blow he knows he deserves.

“Hi," he replies, his voice a reluctant whisper.

The sheer absurdity of the tension finally gets to you. You let out a soft, raspy giggle, making your way past him toward the upper cabinets. "You can breathe, Logan. I’m not armed."

A sudden, breathless laugh escapes him, his shoulders visibly relaxing at your surprisingly calm demeanor.

He watches you approach the cupboards, quickly realizing you’re searching for a cup, and clears his throat again. "Beau moved them," he mutters softly, pointing a finger toward the absolute highest shelf. "To keep people from smashing them tonight."

You stop, staring up at the ridiculously high shelf. For a fleeting second, you silently contemplate climbing straight onto the counter, but you’re wearing a denim skirt and you have absolutely no intention of flashing the guy you’re supposed to hate.

Logan shifts his weight, his brown hues searching your face. "Do you. . . do you want some help?"

You cut your eyes at him, letting out a defeated sigh. "Yeah."

He steps into your space, the scent of him—soap and cedar mixed with alcohol—wrapping around you instantly. He reaches up, his large hand grabbing a clean glass from the top shelf. As he brings it down, you make absolutely no effort to step back. You stay right there, your shoulder nearly brushing his chest.

Logan’s brow furrows in surprise at your proximity, but the second he tries to hand you the glass, your fingers tremble against the heavy glass. Your balance wavers, just a fraction.

The realization that you’re still drunk hits him at once. Of course you’re tolerating his presence; you aren’t thinking straight.

"Hey, I've got it," he murmurs, his fingers gently brushing yours as he takes the glass back, completely ignoring your quiet grunt of protest. He turns to the fridge, filling it with crisp, cold water before turning back and pressing the smooth glass into your palm.

Logan hooks his boot around the leg of a nearby stool, pulling it out for you. "Sit down. Drink all of it."

You glare at him over the rim of the glass, the alcohol making you bold. "Don't tell me what to do, John."

A faint, melancholic smile touches his stupidly kissable lips. "You already hate me. It's not like it can get any worse."

You take a long, desperate gulp of the water, the cold liquid soothing your burning throat. You set the glass down on the counter with a soft clink, looking up at him through smudged lashes. "I don't hate you."

Logan blinks, the words striking him right in the center of his chest. He doesn’t know how true that actually is, and as much as his heart flares with desperate, pathetic hope, he refuses to push you for answers in this state. It feels invasive. It feels wrong to take advantage of the liquor softening your edges.

"How much did you have tonight?" he asks quietly, trying to redirect the conversation.

A clumsy giggle bubbles out of your throat. You lift your hands, trying to recount the tally of green jello shots and mixed drinks on your fingers, stumbling over the mental math until you just shake your head. Logan can’t help the genuine laugh that rumbles in his chest at the sight of you, his eyes crinkling.

"Right," he smiles softly, checking his watch. "Do you need help getting back upstairs?"

"I'm just gonna crash on the couch," you mumble, gesturing vaguely to the trashed living room.

"The couch is covered in stale beer and God-knows-what bodily substances," Logan counters gently. "Go back upstairs. The room you were sleeping in is mine. I came down here because I didn't want to wake you up."

You let out a soft oh, a sleepy smirk pulling at the corner of your mouth. "Look at you. A gentleman."

"I try," he says, the old banter sending a bittersweet jolt throughout his body. He steps closer, his voice turning into something protective. "Come on. I’m gonna help you get back up there, and then I’m gonna help you get that makeup off. I know you hate waking up with your face feeling gross."

Your defense mechanisms flare, a sudden prickle of irritation cutting through the alcohol-ridden haze. "I don't need your help, Logan. I haven't needed it for the past three months."

The words cut deep, a sharp reminder of the reality he’d built for himself. The pain flits across his features, but he just nods, taking the blow without a fight.

"I know," he says softly, his voice thick with regret. "I know you don't. But just let me do this. Come on."

You grumble under your breath, throwing a half-hearted complaint into the air, but you don’t fight him when his large hand settles gently against the small of your back. He guides you back up the stairs, his palm a grounding anchor as you stumble on the top step.

He walks you into his room, gently guiding your shoulders until you sit down on the edge of the mattress. You don’t protest. You just watch him with sleepy eyes as he murmurs, "I'll be right back."

Logan slips down the hall to the bathroom Allie and Hannah had used to get ready, quickly rummaging through the counter until he finds what he’s looking for. A minute later, he walks back into the bedroom, carrying a bottle of Micellar Water and a handful of cotton pads.

He sits down on the mattress right in front of you, his knees nearly touching yours, and pours a few drops of the liquid onto the cotton. His hands, usually so rough and aggressive on the ice, are entirely weightless as he raises the pad to your face, gently wiping away the first layer of smudged makeup.

You watch him observantly as he works, your eyes tracking the pure focus in his expression. The alcohol has completely stripped away your internal filter, and before your muddled brain can stop them, the words stumble out of your mouth. “You're pretty, John."

Logan stops for a fraction of a second, a soft laugh huffing out of him as he keeps his eyes on your forehead. "So are you."

"Yeah, I know," you mutter, your attempt at displaying an attitude failing due to your slurring of words.

A genuine smile breaks across his face at your bluntness, his shoulders shaking with a soft chuckle. He shifts his hand, bringing a fresh cotton pad to your other cheek to wipe away the stray glitter and blush. As his arm moves, his sleeve pulls back, and your eyes lock onto his left wrist.

The blue and purple friendship bracelet is still there. It looks like it’s being held together by a prayer, but it’s still securely tied.

"Why are you still wearing that?" you ask, your voice dropping its playful edge.

Logan blinks, not entirely sure what you’re referring to at first. He follows your gaze down to his wrist. His expression softens into something melancholy, a look of guilt taking over his features. "It’s the least I could do.”

He doesn't expand on it, moving the cotton pad down to the makeup and glitter on your neck and collarbone. You internally curse your own biology because, despite everything, your body is still completely conditioned to his presence. Without meaning to, you find yourself leaning slightly into his touch, letting your head tilt back to give him access. At least tomorrow you can blame the pathetic display on the alcohol.

Your filterless brain jumps straight to the next burning question. "Do you still like Hannah?"

You had never told Logan that you knew about his crush. Even during your massive blowout three months ago, you had kept that specific detail to yourself, refusing to out his feelings in front of the entire living room. The pure surprise on his face is clear as day. He halts entirely, his hand hovering over your collarbone before he slowly pulls back.

He doesn't answer right away. He stands up in silence, tossing the used, makeup-stained cotton pads into the small trash can by the desk, buying himself time. When he comes back to sit on the mattress in front of you, his gaze is serious.

"I don't know what you mean," he lies.

You let out a dry laugh, shaking your head. "I'm not stupid, Logan. That’s what ruined us, anyway. Your feelings for her."

Logan stares at you, seeing the certainty in your muddled eyes, and decides there is absolutely no use in denying it anymore. The truth is, he had long gotten over whatever infatuation he’d harbored. It had actually been Hannah herself who helped him realize the reality of his feelings months ago—that he hadn't been pining for her, but rather envying the effortless, ironclad bond she shared with Garrett. He had been looking for what you two used to have.

"I don't like her anymore," Logan says, his voice level, entirely devoid of the old longing. You’re too drunk to observe that detail. "Honestly. . . I'm not sure if I ever really did."

You let out another sleepy, cynical chuckle, looking down at your lap. "It’s okay that if you do. I know you did. I saw the way you looked at her." You pause, swallowing the sudden lump in your throat as the alcohol forces the ultimate truth to the surface. "It was the way I wanted you to look at me."

Logan’s features change so violently you wonder if it’s possible to get facial whiplash. His chest heaves, eyes widening as the breath is completely knocked out of him.

"What do you mean by that?" he whispers, his voice trembling, practically begging you to elaborate.

But you don't reply. The sudden emotional confession, paired with the strength of the liquor, sends a massive wave of exhaustion crashing through your veins. Your eyelids flutter, growing impossibly heavy.

"I'm tired, Logan," you mumble, your head slumping slightly.

He stares at you, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, but he forces himself to take a breath. He chooses not to pry. As desperately as he wants to get answers, he knows this is absolutely not a conversation to be had when you can barely keep your eyes open.

"You wanna change into something else?" he asks softly, glancing at your denim skirt. "I can get you some sweatpants."

"No," you groan tiredly, already shifting your body to crawl beneath the heavy duvet. "Too tired."

Knowing how stubborn you get when you're sleepy, he doesn't argue. He gently grabs the edge of the comforter, pulling it up over your shoulders and tucking you in against. Once your head securely hits the plush pillow, Logan crouches down to your eye level, lingering for a moment to ensure you're completely comfortable.

Your eyes are shut tight, your breathing slowing into a steady pattern. Thinking you’ve already drifted off, Logan places his palms on his knees, preparing to stand up and leave the room.

Before he can move, your hand shoots out from beneath the blankets, your fingers wrapping tightly around his wrist—right over the threads of his friendship bracelet.

"Thank you," you whisper into the dark room, your eyes still closed.

Logan’s throat tightens, a wave of affection and ache washing over him. "Don't thank me," he murmurs. He leans forward, his movement entirely natural and devoid of malice as he presses a soft, kiss to your forehead. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," you mumble back, your grip on his wrist loosening as you sink deeper into the mattress. "This doesn't mean we're cool again, by the way."

An honest laugh escapes Logan, the familiar sharpness of your tongue bringing a bittersweet comfort to his heart. "I know," he whispers, his voice full of a quiet promise to earn every single inch of your trust back. "I know it doesn't."

He reaches over, gently clicking off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into warm, quiet shadows before slipping out to the living room, leaving you to finally sleep.

The morning sun slices through the blinds with a blinding brightness that makes your head immediately throb. You groan, rolling over, only to realize your skin doesn’t feel tight and clogged. Your face is clean.

Sitting on the dresser is a folded pile of oversized sweats and a sticky note from Hannah letting you know there’s a spare, unopened toothbrush in the bathroom. You let out a breath, extremely grateful for your friends. When you glance at the nightstand, you find a bottle of blue Gatorade and two ibuprofen tablets waiting for you. You assume those are from Hannah, too, and swallow the pills quickly, chasing it down with the blue liquid.

Once you’re changed, showered, and finally dragging your feet downstairs, you realize you are officially the last one awake.

Dean sees you step into the kitchen and immediately bellows, "There she is! The life of the party!"

You wince, pressing a hand to your temple. "Why are you yelling? Please don't yell."

Tucker lets out a low laugh from the kitchen counter and slides a foil-wrapped breakfast burrito toward you. “We ordered takeout. The bus leaves in thirty minutes so we’ve gotta head out in twenty.”

You take a bite, look over at Hannah and Allie, and offer a soft smile. "Hey, thanks for the clothes and the stuff on the nightstand."

They both nod, but Hannah frowns slightly. "No problem for the clothes, but what stuff on the nightstand?"

You pause, a sudden twist in your stomach cutting through the hangover. "The ibuprofen? The Gatorade?"

"Wasn't us," Allie says, popping a piece of toast into her mouth.

You quickly brush it off, and walk over to the kitchen island where Tucker is leaning. You figure it must have been his doing—the classic protective older brother move despite him being younger.

"Thanks, Tuck," you murmur.

Tucker just looks at you, a knowing, amused glint in his eyes as he takes a sip of his coffee. "Don't thank me. It was your lover boy."

Your heart does a violent flip-flop. Logan.

You glance around the room, but he’s nowhere to be found. Suddenly, the reality of last night crashes over you in a wave of mortification. Now that you’re sober, you don't even know how to approach it. You’re grateful he helped you, sure, but the baseline anger from the last three months is still burning in your chest. Worse, the unfiltered things you said start echoing in your mind.

It was the way I wanted you to look at me.

The memory makes you want to literally shrivel up and die on the kitchen tile. But since spontaneous combustion isn't an option, you clear your throat and look back at Tucker. "I'm, uh. . . I'm gonna go upstairs and finish packing my tote bag so I'm ready to walk out when you guys leave."

Tucker nods steadily, and you beat a hasty retreat back up the stairs. You figure Tucker would have warned you if Logan was up there, but you quickly realize your assumption is entirely incorrect.

The exact moment you pass the upstairs bathroom, the door swings open. You nearly collision-course right into a solid chest. You gasp, taking a sharp step back, and find yourself staring right into Logan’s eyes.

"Sorry," he says quickly, his hands instinctively twitching as if he wants to catch your elbows before he remembers he doesn't have the right to touch you anymore. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," you say, your voice restrained.

An awkward silence stretches between you in the narrow hallway. He looks exhausted, dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes, his hair damp from his own shower.

You clear your throat, forcing the words out. "Thank you. For the ibuprofen. And for. . . everything else last night."

Logan’s expression softens. “I told you last night, you don't have to thank me."

You offer a quick nod, shifting your weight to walk right past him and end the interaction. You can practically feel the desperate urge radiating off him; he clearly wants to talk to you, but he doesn't think you want to speak to him. And truthfully, you don't.

But for some stupid, inexplicable reason, you still do.

You stop, your sandals gluing themselves to the ground. Slowly, you turn back around to face him. "I meant it, you know. When I said I don't hate you. I could never hate you, Logan." You look down at your shoes, your voice dropping. "I was just hurt. Honestly, I still am."

Logan takes a tentative step forward, closing a fraction of the distance between you. "I know," he says, "You have every single right to be."

He swallows hard, his gaze locking onto yours with such a focus that it makes you furrow your eyebrows.

"I'm not going to give you some pathetic excuse about the charity event," Logan says, his hands curling into loose fists at his sides. "The truth is, I was selfish. I got so caught up in trying to chase something new that I completely blinded myself to the person who actually mattered. I took years of your loyalty and I treated it like it was a given. Like no matter how careless I was, you’d just. . . always be there."

He takes another small step, and you can tell he’s been wanting to say this for some time.

"When Tucker told me what happened—how you kept looking for me at the back of that auditorium, thinking that I was hurt because you couldn't conceive of a world where I'd just let you down. . . it made me physically sick. I have never hated myself more than I did that night. I broke a sacred promise to my best friend because I wanted to play the hero for someone else, and I left you to stand on that stage alone. You don’t deserve that, you have never deserved that.”

A painful silence falls over over the narrow hallway, the sincerity in his voice cutting right through your caged heart.

"I'm so sorry," Logan whispers, his eyes glossy. "I'm sorry I made you feel invisible. I'm sorry I ruined what should have been the greatest night of your life. I don't expect you to just forget it, and I know I don't deserve it, but I need you to know that I am so deeply, truly sorry. Even if you choose to never speak to me again, it’s well within your rights.”

Hearing it now, spoken with the emotion of a guy who has spent three months drowning in his own regret, feels like the exact piece of closure you’ve been suffocating without. You can see it in his eyes—how utterly desperate he is for just a sliver of another chance.

He’d done what you’d wanted him to, he basked in the actions of what he’d done. He sat with them, made them about you instead of him, and suffered in it.

"It's exhausting," you admit, a weary sigh escaping your lips. "Trying to avoid you all the time. It takes so much energy."

"I know," Logan whispers, his eyes swimming with guilt. "I'm so sorry I made you feel like that was your only option. I miss you. God, I miss you in my life so much."

You lean your shoulder against the wall, crossing your arms over your chest. You aren't going to let him entirely off the hook. "It won't be that easy, Logan."

"I know it won't," he says instantly, a determined certainty lighting up his gaze. "I don't expect it to be. But I am willing to work for it. Seriously. Whatever it takes. Throw it at me."

A sudden, wicked spark of mischief makes you perk up. You look him up and down. "Okay. You have to do my laundry for the rest of the semester and the next school year.”

Logan doesn't even blink. His jaw sets, and he nods with absolute dedication. "Done. I'll pick it up every Monday."

The seriousness on his face pulls a laugh out of you before you can stop yourself, the sound echoing in the hallway. "I'm kidding, dude! Oh my gosh, your face."

A massive, relieved smile breaks across Logan's features, his own laugh mingling with yours. It’s the first time you’ve shared a real, sober laugh in months, and the warmth of it temporarily banishes the void in your chest.

As the laughter dies down, Logan steps just a bit closer, his expression turning serious again, though the panic is gone. "Look, I know we’ll probably never be exactly how we were before. I know things changed. But. . . I'm willing to try, if you'll let me."

You take a good look at him and realize that the fortress you built over the winter break has officially been breached. You swallow the lingering nerves, offering a small nod.

"Yeah," you say softly. "We can be friends again."

Friends.

The word echoes in Logan’s head. It feels like a lifeline thrown to a dying man. It isn't everything his newly realized, aching heart wants—not after what you drunkenly confessed last night—but as he looks at your relaxed shoulders and the slight smile on your face, he thinks to himself—Friends.

I can do friends.

John Logan can’t do friends.

He’s learned that the hard way over the last two months.

Honestly, he doesn’t even understand how he was able to do it before. He looks back at the last ten years and wonders how he was ever blind enough to categorize what he felt for you as just a friendship. Especially considering how casually touchy the two of you used to be when you were closer. It had been second nature for you to be leaning your entire weight against his side on the couch, or mindlessly picking at a stray thread on his shirt, or tangling your fingers in his hair while you talked about your classes.

He had taken every single touch for granted. Now, he’d do absolutely anything just to have a fraction of that effortless closeness back.

But he has your friendship again, and he forces himself to remember that a thin slice of you is a million times better than nothing at all.

So, he sucks it up. He swallows the bitter lump in his throat when you ask Tucker or Beau to help you hold your heavy research bag, knowing damn well he used to be your automatic go-to for things like that. He forces a tight smile when you ask Allie or Hannah to go on a late-night walk with you, sitting on the porch and watching you walk away, aware of the fact that he’s the one being replaced.

And he especially sucks it up when he sees you laughing with another guy at a party. Logan will stand across the room, gripping his red plastic cup so tight his knuckles turn white, pretending he isn't completely sizing the guy up from a distance. He’ll stare at the stranger, a dark, possessive pettiness roaring in his chest as he wonders if the guy even knows your middle name or what your favorite flavor of chips is.

But then, there are the fleeting moments that make the torture entirely worth it.

Like when you’re standing in the entryway of the boys’ house, losing your balance for a split second, and you mindlessly drop your hand onto his firm shoulder to steady yourself while you adjust the heel strap of your shoe. Or when he makes one of his classic yet stupid jokes and without thinking, you roll your eyes, press your bare palm directly against his face, and tell him to shut up—just like old times. In those brief, beautiful seconds, the warmth of your skin completely blinds him, making him forget the crushing reality that he’ll never actually have you in the way he truly wants.

What you don't know is that Logan fixed your broken friendship bracelet.

He did it the very night after you agreed to rekindle things at Beau's summer house. He’d arrived at the house, gathered the ruined heap of strings from his dresser, and spent hours knotting them back together. It took him a long time, and he had to constantly switch through a multitude of YouTube tutorials, but it was worth it.

He’ll never tell you about it; he’s too terrified of what your reaction would be, afraid you'll think he's crossing a line. But every single night before he goes to sleep, he pulls that restored bracelet out and looks at it, reminding himself of the new beginning he’s been granted.

Maybe you really did love him at some point. Maybe you loved him in the exact same consuming, terrifying way he loves you now, your filterless words from St. Patrick’s Day echoing in his mind like a beautiful haunting.

But as he watches you navigate your life with a bright, independent glow, it’s brutally clear to him that you’ve passed that chapter. You don't look at him with longing anymore. You don't feel that way about him.

John Logan missed his window, and he’s just going to have to find a way to live with the view.

It’s ironic that the next time the two of you are truly alone again is in a kitchen. Only this time, it’s his, not Beau’s. And you’re not downstairs, stumbling around and reeling from a muddled, drunken nap. You are wide awake, the house is relatively dark, save for the moonlight peeking through the windows, and you are currently remembering that Tucker always keeps a tub of cookies n' cream ice cream from your favorite brand tucked away in the back of the freezer. He used to pretend to get mad whenever you’d eat his stash, but lately, you have a strong suspicion he buys it solely for you.

Malone’s had hosted a karaoke night, and Hannah had placed her dorm keys into Allie’s purse—which Allie had unfortunately forgotten at the bar. You hadn't seen the point in making everyone take a massive detour to campus just to drop you off alone, so you’d decided it would be perfectly fine to sleep on the boys’ couch. Garrett had continuously asked if you were sure about it, over and over, until you finally told him that if he asked one more time, you’d shove a car tire down his throat. He’d complied instantly.

Which takes you to now. It's one in the morning, and you're awake because the living room is freezing, but you didn't want to wake anyone up just to beg for a blanket. Eating ice cream when you’re already shivering isn’t exactly the brightest choice, but it’s easily the tastiest.

You are sharply reminded of just how cold the house is when you hop up to sit on the kitchen counter, your bare thighs making direct contact with the freezing tile. You’d been lent an oversized spare t-shirt to sleep in, but your brown ruffled shorts were surprisingly comfortable, so you’d decided to keep them on.

A floorboard creaks on the staircase, making you pause. Seconds later, John Logan enters the kitchen.

He stops, surprised to see you sitting there in the dark with a spoon in your hand. But funny enough, there is no awkwardness this time. The thick, suffocating tension that used to define your interactions has completely melted away over the last few weeks—even if things still aren't exactly back to old times.

Logan rubs a hand over his face, his voice groggy. "What are you doing still up?"

"Making myself significantly colder by eating ice cream," you reply easily, lifting your spoon. "I couldn't sleep because I'm freezing."

Logan frowns slightly, leaning against the counter a few feet away. "Why didn’t you wake one of us up and ask for a blanket?"

"I was going to," you admit, digging the spoon back into the tub. "But it was late, and I swear I could hear the cookies n' cream in the freezer literally begging to be eaten."

He laughs, the sound warming the kitchen. You remember, suddenly, that he loves this exact flavor just as much as you do.

You’re sitting right above the drawer where the utensils are kept. Leaning down slightly, you pull the drawer open, grab a clean spoon, and hold it out toward him. It’s an offering. An olive branch, if you will.

Logan stares at the spoon in your hand for a full minute, blinking before he slowly reaches out and takes it. You hold the tub of ice cream out between you. He steps in closer, scooping a bite directly from the container, and mindlessly cleans off the spoon with his lips.

As he does, you realize just how close he’s standing. For some reason, watching the slow, casual movement of his jaw makes a traitorous heat bloom, starting from your neck and spreading to your face. He’s standing right between your parted knees as you sit on the counter, close enough that his body heat is radiating against your cold skin, completely overriding the chill of the room. You internally hate yourself for the way your pulse immediately kicks up.

To make matters worse, he tilts the tub back toward you so you can take another bite.

Because you’re elevated on the counter, Logan is forced to look slightly up at you, his glimmering eyes wide and dark in the shadows. He shifts his weight, and his other hand—completely absentmindedly, just out of old, deep-seated habit—rests lightly against the edge of the counter, his knuckles slightly brushing against the bare skin of your thigh.

You don’t think he’s thinking much of it. To him, it’s probably just the casual, comfortable contact that used to be the norm between you two. But to you, it is absolutely terrible. You had managed to successfully drown out all of those impulsive, agonizingly loving thoughts for months, burying them deep beneath your anger. But they only ever seem to come roaring back to life during quiet, hyper-intimate moments just like this.

And that is exactly why you spent the last few weeks avoiding being alone with him like this.

You pray he can’t hear the way your heart is slamming against your ribs. Desperate to break the suffocating spell of his proximity, you hop off the counter, your bare feet hitting the cold floorboards with a soft thud.

"We should go get that blanket," you say, your voice sounding a little too quick, a little too breathless.

Logan studies your face for a lingering moment, his doe eyes searching yours before he gives a quiet nod. "Yeah. It's upstairs in my room."

You follow him up the stairs, the quiet of the house wrapping around you. But when you step into his bedroom, Logan stops by his closet, a sheepish look crossing his face as he remembers. "Ah, actually, I forgot. I threw it in the wash earlier. It’s probably still in the dryer downstairs." He offers an apologetic grimace. "Sorry."

"It's fine," you say, leaning against his doorframe. "At least it'll be fresh out of the heat."

He lets out a soft laugh. "Wait in here, I'll go grab it."

Once his footsteps fade down the hallway, you step fully into his room. It hits you all at once that you haven't been in this space in months. It looks the same—the rumpled sheets, the hockey gear tucked into the corner—but it feels entirely different.

Your eyes drift over to his desk, and you freeze.

Resting right on top of a stack of textbooks is a colorful weave of embroidery string. Your breath hitches. You know it’s not the one Logan wears, because you just saw his on his wrist seconds ago. You take a step closer, your fingers trembling slightly as you reach out and pick it up.

It’s fixed. Every single thread that had snapped apart on the night of your presentation has been carefully knotted back together. You had assumed it was thrown in the garbage. He never brought it up, never mentioned keeping it.

You lean back against the edge of his desk, staring down at the neat knots, completely lost in thought.

The door clicks, and you jump slightly as Logan returns, a warm, fluffy blanket cradled in his arms. He has an easy, happy smile on his face—one that drops instantly the second his eyes land on what is dangling from your fingertips.

“You still have it,” you observe quietly.

Logan’s movements turn hesitant. He walks toward you like he's stepping onto thin ice, gently dropping the warm blanket onto the edge of his unmade bed. Over the last few weeks, you’ve gotten so good at masking your emotions that he genuinely can’t read you right now. The unreadable expression is making him visibly nervous.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice dropping. "I didn't realize I left that out."

You ignore his apology, your eyes still locked on the tightly woven strings. "When did you fix it?"

"The day we rekindled things," he confesses softly.

Your chest tightens. "Why did you never show it to me?"

"I didn't think you’d want to see it." Logan swallows hard. "I didn't want to push you."

"Why did you fix it, Logan?"

There is a sudden, fragile falter in your voice—one you didn't even realize was coming until the words left your mouth.

Logan stares at you, completely at a loss. He doesn't know how to answer that honestly without entirely blowing his cover and confessing that he is desperately, entirely in love with you. So, he falls back on the safest truth he has. "Because it was important to me. You're important to me."

Silence stretches over the bedroom. You quickly avert your gaze, looking down at the floor, and Logan’s stomach drops through the floorboards. He thinks he’s done it. He thinks he’s finally fucked up for the last time. All those weeks of careful groveling, of trying to respect your boundaries, and he ruined it because he was an idiot who forgot to hide a fucking bracelet.

But then, a soft, ragged sniffle breaks the silence.

"Hey," Logan calls your name softly.

Instinctively, your head snaps up to meet his gaze. The moment he sees the watery sheen glossing over your eyes, any hesitation he had vanishes. He rushes across the small gap between you, his large hands immediately reaching out.

He gently takes the bracelet from your fingers, murmuring, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Before you can blink, his thumb reaches up, tenderly wiping away the single tear you allowed to escape down your cheek. His large palm doesn't leave your face; instead, his hand settles gently against your jawline, his fingers anchoring you, prompting you to look directly into the depths of his honey eyes.

The sudden proximity sinks into you. You are completely trapped between the solid breadth of his chest and the hard edge of his desk. And looking up at him, you can tell he is thinking the exact same thing you are.

Your gaze helplessly drops to his lips. When you snap your eyes back up to his, you realize with a jolt that he had just been doing the exact same thing to you.

"Tell me to stop," Logan whispers, his breath warm against your lips, his voice raw and begging.

You want to. You know you should. You know you’re supposed to be just friends, that you’re supposed to be protecting your heart. But the logic completely dissolves, and the moment his lips finally touch yours, you don't pull away.

You kiss him back.

The kiss is slow and absolutely intoxicating. You have never felt more utterly vulnerable in your entire life. Logan lets out a low, ragged sound against your mouth, his hands sliding down to grip the back of your thighs, effortlessly lifting you up so you're sitting securely on the edge of the desk. He doesn't break the contact for a single second. His hands shift, his large palms wrapping firmly around your waist, holding onto you with a distinct desperation—like you’re a buoy in the middle of a crashing ocean and he’s a drowning man.

The familiar warmth of him fills you up, once again erasing the chill of the house. You almost entirely forget who you are, where you are, and what exactly you’re doing—until the kiss deepens, and a soft, involuntary moan of pure pleasure escapes your throat.

The sound shocks you right back to reality.

Panicking, you put your hands against his chest and break away from him immediately, sliding off the desk and backing up until your spine hits the wall. Your breathing is shallow and erratic, your lips tingling.

Logan stands there, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and completely dark with a mixture of shock and terror. "I'm sorry. I—“

"No, it's—it's fine," you stammer, your hands flying up to touch your face, your mind spinning into complete overdrive. "I just—can’t. I can’t, I’m sorry.”

Before he can even utter another word, you dart past him, tearing open the bedroom door and sprinting down the hallway, leaving him standing alone in the center of the room.

Logan closes his eyes, a frustrated huff escaping his lips as he rubs his hands over his face. He’s certain. He is absolutely, one hundred percent certain that he just blew everything. He just ruined the fragile friendship you’ve spent ages building.

Slowly, he reopens his eyes, his shoulders slumped in utter defeat as he looks over at his bed.

At least you took the blanket with you.

note: i may or may not do a part two, my motivation fluctuates! hope you enjoy because this was super sad to write.

He’s looking at her.

His arm rests along the back of the couch, the sensation of it familiar enough that you barely notice it anymore. Every few minutes, when someone says something particularly funny, his hand shifts and his fingers brush against the exposed skin of your shoulder blade. It’s casual, absent-minded contact. It means nothing to him and everything to you.

Around you, the boys’ house is lively. Tucker is arguing with Birdie about the game they’ve been at for hours on the TV. Every once in a while, someone tells them to shut up. They do that for a total of five minutes before someone inevitably raises their voice, leading the other to do the same.

You should be finishing up your story. It was a stupid tale, one about falling asleep during a lecture.

Instead, you’re watching him.

Or rather, you’re watching where he’s looking.

His gaze drifts across the room so often that you’ve begun anticipating it, finding yourself following the path before he’s even finished turning his head. It happens during conversations. During periods of silence. During moments when he’s supposed to be paying attention you.

His eyes always find the same person.

You wonder if anyone else notices.

Maybe they don’t. Maybe they haven’t spent nearly ten years studying every version of John Logan.

Ten years.

Long enough to remember the cracked sidewalks of your hometown and the suffocating certainty that neither of you belonged there. Long enough to remember sitting on the roof of his garage at thirteen years old, passing back and forth what was always bag of Hot Cheetos while making promises far too big for kids your age.

You had been determined to leave.

And somehow, against every odd stacked against two middle-schoolers with seemingly unattainable dreams and no real plan, you did.

You earned your place through a STEM scholarship that had consumed countless nights and enough caffeine to raise alerts towards your cardiovascular system. He earned his through hockey, through early mornings and bruises and a relentless dedication that you supported him all throughout.

Different roads, same destination.

For nearly a decade, the two of you had existed side by side.

And for six of those years, you’ve loved him.

You weren’t sure when you realized it, but once you did, it felt as though things finally clicked into place. There had always been that speculation from others that you two were something beyond a mere friendship—but there was no weight to it. Not while it wasn’t true, anyway.

You thought it may have been the puberty. John was no longer a scrawny kid who you hovered over. He’d grown into himself as the years passed—taller, stronger, more confident. It was a simple crush that came as a result of change, you told yourself.

But you had began to think it was more than that, that it always had been. Once the feeling arrived, it made no effort to fade—settling into the empty spaces between inside jokes and late-night phone calls, between shared victories and devastating failures. It lodged itself so deeply within your bond that you stopped looking for where friendship ended and something else began.

Maybe that was your mistake.

Across the room, Hannah laughs.

The sound is soft enough that most people would miss it beneath the chatter, but John hears it.

Of course he does.

Hannah Wells has a way of drawing attention effortlessly. Her smile comes easily, brightening her entire face like a Christmas tree. Honey-brown hair spills over one shoulder as she speaks. Her deep cerulean eyes crinkle when she laughs. Hearing her sing for the first time made it no better.

And she is so kind.

She remembers your birthday, she asks you questions on a subject you think had long been over. She makes you feel seen.

It’s impossible to blame him for looking.

The problem is that lately, he hasn’t seemed capable of looking anywhere else.

His fingers brush your shoulder again, mindlessly.

Across the room, Hannah says something to Allie that you can’t quite make out.

Logan smiles.

And suddenly, despite his arm around you and his knee pressed lightly against yours and nearly ten years of friendship sitting comfortably between the two of you, you’ve never felt further away from him.

Tucker notices your shift in mood before Logan does. You like Tuck the most out of all of Logan’s friends. He’s a year below the rest of you, though you like to say he’s the most mature out of all of them. He’s observant, you learned.

He tilts his head at you, silently asking if you’re okay. You send him a half-hearted thumbs up. Something clicks for him and he accepts your answer, redirecting his attention to the game.

You think Tucker knows about your crush on John. A part of you hopes he doesn’t, but another part of you knows that he does.

At some point, Logan notices you’ve stopped talking. By the time he has, you’re fiddling with your bracelet. He frowns, glancing at his own matching one on his left wrist. You were both surprised they had never broken. Logan enjoyed referring to it as a testament to your long-standing friendship. The blue and purple embroidery of both your bracelets have become a halo of fuzz, but they remain intact nonetheless.

Logan glances back at you, studying you once again—knit eyebrows, lip tucked between your teeth. You’re upset.

“What’s wrong?”

You meet his doe eyed gaze and hate yourself for thinking about drowning in them. He knows you as well as you know him. So much so that you can’t lie and pretend you’re okay. He’s read you and he’s decided that you’re not.

So you do the next best thing.

“It’s just stuffy in here,” you reply passively, maintaining a poker face when you push off the couch and his fingertips leave your shoulder blades. “I’m gonna get some air.”

The cool evening air hits you the second the front door clicks shut, but it does nothing to clear the sudden suffocating weight in your chest. You walk over to the edge of the porch, gripping the wooden railing just to have something solid to hold onto.

Behind you, the front door opens and shuts. Familiar footsteps thud against the wood. You don’t need to turn around to know it’s him, you’d know the specific cadence of his stride anywhere.

"Hey," Logan says softly, stepping up beside you, jacket in his hand. He leans his forearms against the railing, his large frame blocking out the slight breeze. "You left your jacket inside. It’s freezing out here."

You make no effort to retrieve the coat from his grasp. You don’t look even at him. Instead, your eyes fixate on a tiny, industrious spider crawling across the top of a plastic patio chair a few feet away. It is small, frantic, and entirely unaware of the shifting plates of your universe, completely consumed by the monumental task of weaving a web between two cheap slats of faux-wicker. You envy it. You want to be anything else—a spider, a piece of dust, a thread on your frayed bracelet—anything but the girl standing under the porch light, slowly unraveling.

"I'm fine," you tell him, the words slipping out easily, rehearsed from a decade of practice.

"You're not fine," he insists softly. It’s not an accusation. It’s a statement of fact.

"I am fine," you repeat, but your voice is uneven.

You always are, somehow. It’s a reflex by now. Burn the midnight oil until your vision blurs, crash through exams on three hours of sleep, watch the boy you’ve loved for six years slip through your fingers like water—the answer is always the same: I’m fine.

"Don't do that," Logan mutters, turning his head to look at you. His eyes are swimming with an earnest yet frustrating concern that always makes you want to spill your guts. "We don't do that. Talk to me. Did someone say something inside? Did I do something?"

You let out a breath that cuts like a laugh, though there’s no humor in it. You look out at the dark front yard, at the dead leaves scattering across the pavement.

You finally turn your head to look at him. You note the exact way the yellow porch light catches the bridge of his nose, the slight shadow of stubble along his jawline. You know every iteration of this face. You know the childhood version, the teenage version, and this current, devastatingly handsome collegiate version.

And yet, looking at him right now, he feels like a stranger wearing your best friend's skin.

"That's just it, Logan. You haven't done anything." Your voice drops, stripped of its usual warmth. "You haven't been doing anything. Not with me, anyway."

He blinks, a small, defensive crease forming between his eyebrows. "I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t,” you murmur.

“Then explain it to me.”

"It means you’re pulling away," you say directly, the words tasting like copper in your mouth, but you force them out anyway. You don't mention Hannah. You don't have to bring up the way his eyes track her, or the way his laugh sounds higher when she’s in the room. This isn't about her. This is about him. This is about the space where your best friend used to be. "You’re always somewhere else. I talk to you, and it’s like I’m throwing words into an empty room. You look right through me lately. You’re right here, and it feels like there’s a thousand miles between us."

Logan stiffens. For a second, his mouth opens to deny it, the knee-jerk reaction of a guy who prides himself on being loyal. But as he looks at you—at the tight line of your jaw, at the way you're holding onto your own arm like you’re trying to keep yourself from falling apart—you can see the fight slowly leave him.

The silence stretches, punctuated only by the joyous yells of your friends inside.

"I didn't. . .” Logan starts, his voice dropping an octave. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, looking down at his shoes. "I didn't realize I was making you feel like that. I swear to God, I didn't."

"Well, you are." Your voice trembles just a fraction, and you hate yourself for it, pulling your shoulders back to overcompensate. "I know that friends drift. But I don’t wanna be background noise in your life.”

Logan steps closer, closing the small physical gap between you. He reaches out, his large hand wrapping around your forearm—right over the frayed threads of your bracelet. You pray he doesn’t notice the hitching of your breath.

"You're not background noise," he says sincerely, his desperate eyes searching yours. "You could never be. I'm sorry. Seriously. I've had. . . I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately, and I’ve been distracted. I’ve been a shitty best friend, and there’s no excuse for it. I’m so sorry."

You look at his hand on your arm. You look at the genuine regret pulling at the corners of his eyes. He doesn't know that the distraction is killing you for an entirely different reason. He just knows he hurt his person, and he wants to fix it.

You swallow the ache in your throat, nodding slowly. You let the anger go, because holding onto it hurts worse than forgiving him does.

"It’s okay," you assure him. "Just don’t forget about me, dork.”

"Never," he promises, squeezing your arm before letting go. A small, relieved smile tugs at his lips, the tension leaving his shoulders. He makes no effort to back away from you. It’s all the more suffocating. "I promise. Hey, you still have that big winter showcase coming up in two weeks, right? For your department?"

"Yeah," you say, a genuine spark of nervousness lighting up your stomach. "It’s the Friday after this upcoming one."

"I'll be there," Logan says instantly, his voice full of the certainty that usually makes you feel safe. "Front row. I'll even wear a stupid button-down shirt so your professors think I'm respectable. Deal?"

You look at him, wanting so badly to trust the boy who used to share bags of Hot Cheetos on a garage roof.

"Deal," you agree.

The fluorescent lights of the auditorium are blinding. It is 5:30PM. The STEM showcase had officially kicked off at five, the culmination of sleepless semesters, data sheets that blurred into meaningless code by three in the morning, and enough stress to permanently alter your brain chemistry.

Your phone sits completely dark and powered down in the bottom of your tote bag. You hadn't sent Logan a reminder text today. You hadn’t wanted to seem needy, and besides, you figured he’d remember.

He knew what this meant to you. He’d been the one to hold you on the floor of your bedroom a week ago ago when the overthinking caught up to you, his large hands rubbing slow circles into your back while you sobbed into his chest, terrified that it wouldn’t be enough. He’d promised then, just like he’d promised on the porch, that he’d be here.

Last night, you had even swung by the hockey house, your presentation slides printed out and shaking in your hands, just looking for a final bit of reassurance to quiet the jitters. But Logan wasn't there. He’d been at Malone’s, helping Hannah setup tables and banners for the upcoming weekend showcase she offered to host for music majors.

It was fine, you told yourself. It really was. He was trying to be better, and you could see the effort. The crush was still a persistent ache in your ribs, but he hadn't let it bleed into your friendship the way he had before. You understood what it was like to be at someone’s beck and call—hell, you’d been at his for six years. You couldn't blame him for falling under Hannah’s gravitational pull.

Logan hadn't been there last night, but Tucker had.

Tucker had stopped chopping vegetables, wiped his hands on a dish towel, and sat you down at the kitchen island. He listened to you stumble through your abstract, giving you a supportive nod when you finished. When you told Tucker he didn't have to worry about coming tomorrow since it was so last minute and Logan would be there anyway, Tucker had just given you an easy smile.

“Then you’ll have two of us cheering you on," he’d promised.

Now, standing by your trifold and your laptop, the nerves are a sickening weight in your stomach. You’ve just finished presenting to the final round of judges. Your mouth is dry, your throat tight, but you’d gotten through it just fine.

Tucker had slipped into the back of the room right before your time slot, his broad shoulders cutting a reassuring silhouette against the crowded aisle. Seeing his familiar face had kept your knees from buckling.

But Logan’s seat in the front row—the one he’d promised to occupy in a stupid button-down shirt—remained completely empty.

It hurts. A sharp, localized sting right beneath your breastbone. You hadn't told anyone else in your life about the showcase because public speaking made you feel entirely naked, meaning Logan and Tucker were your only safety nets.

Everyone else would most likely be at Malone’s. You didn’t want them to choose between you and Hannah, because you knew they’d try to compromise, complicating things. You didn’t want a whole crowd, you were okay with just one person being there.

But you swallow the lump in your throat and smooth down the fabric of your slacks. It’s fine. Logan probably just got caught in campus traffic, or he had a handyman gig that kept him late. He missed the actual presentation, yeah, but there’s still time. The showcase goes until eight.

As long as he shows up before the winners are announced, it’ll be fine. He’ll still be there to celebrate with you. He has to be.

Two hours later, the auditorium is a blur of echoing applause and bright flashing cameras.

When the department head speaks your name into the microphone, announcing you as the first-place recipient of the showcase, the room erupts. Your peers are cheering, clapping you on the back as you walk up the stage, but the sound feels like it’s happening underwater.

Even the heavy glass they hang around your neck and the oversized novelty check—grant money that will entirely fund your next semester of research—do nothing to lift the leaden weight in your chest.

Tucker maneuvers through the crowd as soon as you’ve left the stage, a massive, proud smile lighting up his face as he pulls you into a bone-crushing hug. He hoists you slightly off your feet, laughing, telling you he always knew you had it in the bag.

But when he pulls back, his smile falters. He looks at your eyes, watery and strained, and the pride in his expression softens into a deep concern. He knows. He can tell exactly how badly you're hurting.

But even now, with a first-place medal heavy against your sternum, you find yourself building a fortress of excuses for John Logan.

You give him the benefit of the doubt, because the alternative is unendurable. He’d never do this intentionally. Not after last week. Not to you. Something had to have happened. A family emergency with his mom. Something with Jules. Maybe he’d taken a brutal hit at practice and was sitting in the training room with a concussion, his phone locked away. He had to be hurt. He had to be incapacitated.

"Let's get you out of here," Tucker says softly, his hand settling on the small of your back, shielding you from the lingering crowds as you pack up your laptop. "I can walk you back to your dorm."

"Actually," you say, your voice tight as you zip your tote bag, "can you take me back to the house? Honestly, after the day I’ve had, I’m dying for a home-cooked Tucker special. I need some real comfort food."

You try to make it sound like a casual request, but Tucker’s hand goes entirely still against your back. He doesn't laugh it off. Instead, an uncomfortable hesitation washes over his features. He looks away, his jaw tightening as he stares out at the emptying auditorium.

In that single beat of silence, a cold and sickening realization dawns on you.

Perhaps Logan isn't sick. Perhaps he isn't hurt. He isn't in a hospital or dealing with a family crisis. Tucker knows exactly where he is.

He forgot.

The thought devastates you, a physical blow that leaves you in theoretical agony, but right on the heels of the sadness comes a sharp, blistering wave of fury. You’re a winner. You just secured your future for the next semester. This should be one of the greatest nights of your life, and yet Logan has latched himself so deeply into the fabric of your existence that he can still ruin it without even being in the room. You hate yourself for letting him have that much power over you.

"You sure you want to go to the house right now?" Tucker asks, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, laced with a warning he isn't entirely voicing.

You stop, staring at him. Your chest heaves. "Why? Is he there?"

Tucker looks at you, his brown eyes full of a grim, reluctant pity. He stays silent. He doesn't say a word, but his silence tells you everything you need to know. He's there. He's perfectly fine, at the hockey house while you were standing on a stage alone.

A hot, dangerous spark ignites in your blood.

"Take me there," you say, your voice dropping all the compliance, hard as flint. He begins to say your name, but you don’t allow him to. "Tucker. Take me to the house."

The ride to the hockey house is quick, though you believe that’s a product of the heavy thrum of your own pulse. Tuck keeps one hand on the steering wheel, your grim mood proving itself to be contagious.

Every few minutes, his voice breaks through the quiet of the truck, telling you to take a breath, telling you to try to calm down. But you can hear the sharp undercurrent of his own anger fueling the engine. He’s pissed on your behalf, but you don't have the capacity to appreciate it right now. You just stare straight ahead.

When the truck comes to a stop in the driveway, you don't wait for Tucker to kill the ignition. You throw the door open and march up the steps, completely ignoring him as he calls your name.

You push the door open, not so much that it was disruptive, but it was noticeable nonetheless.

The warmth of the house hits you first, along with the loud, easy cacophony of a Friday night wind-down. The TV is on, and everyone is scattered across the living room. Allie, Garrett, Dean, and Hannah.

And Logan.

The sheer normalcy of the scene feels like a slap to the face. You stand in the entryway, the first-place medal swinging slightly against your chest, dressed in the gray slacks and blouse you’d picked out so carefully. For a fraction of a second, looking at their relaxed posture and happy faces, you feel entirely microscopic. Like an ant on the back of someone’s boot, completely insignificant to the world revolving around them.

Then, the room goes quiet.

Dean is the first one to look up from the couch. His eyes take in your sharp posture, the formal attire, and finally, the heavy piece hung around your neck catching the ambient light. A grin breaks across his face, completely ignorant of the storm cloud rolling off your shoulders.

"Look at that," Dean announces, raising his cup in a mock toast. "The prodigal daughter returns!"

He’s trying to be supportive. Under any other circumstance, you’d smile, you’d thank him through narrowed eyes. You know he doesn't know. He has no idea what Logan promised, or what it cost you to stand on that stage alone.

But you don't look at Dean. You don't look at Garrett or Allie or Hannah.

Your eyes lock onto Logan.

He’s sitting on the edge of the cushions, and the exact moment your gaze finds his, the color drains completely from his face. It’s like watching a man realize he’s stepped off a cliff. His eyes drop to the medal on your chest, then snap back up to your face, wide and absolutely crushed. The realization of what he’s done hits him in a ton of bricks.

Usually, that look on his face would undo you. Usually, seeing John Logan look that miserable would trigger every protective instinct you’ve harbored for him, making you want to soften the blow, to tell him it’s fine, to smooth it over.

But tonight, you feel absolutely nothing.

The reservoir of sympathy has completely dried up, replaced by a fury that has been bubbling beneath the surface for months.

He hadn't just missed a presentation. He had broken a promise. He had lied to your face on the porch, sworn he was back, and then willfully chose to be somewhere else.

You stare at him, the silence in the room turning suffocatingly loud as the others finally catch onto the tension, and the only thought roaring through your mind is how completely invisible you’ve been to him.

That look of shame is enough gratification for you. If he can feel only a fraction of the pain you’d allowed yourself to endure these past few years, that was good for you. You couldn’t stand staring into the eyes of the man you once thought you knew anymore.

You turn your heel against the floorboards, every instinct screaming at you to walk out that door, to erase John Logan from your life, and to leave him standing in the wreckage of a ten-year friendship.

"Wait," his voice cracks through the silence of the room as he calls your name. "Please wait. I’m sorry. Just—please, just wait!”

You halt entirely. Your flats glue themselves to the floor, the medallion thudding against your chest like a pendulum swinging into a dead stop.

Sorry?

The word tastes rancid just hearing it bounce off the walls of the hockey house. You hadn't known what you wanted him to say when you walked through that door.

You hadn't known if there was a combination of vowels and consonants in the English language that could possibly fix this. But hearing his apology serves as nothing other than gasoline thrown directly onto a grease fire.

Slowly, you turn back around.

Your friends look horrified. You almost feel bad that they’re forced to witness this. You almost want to turn around and leave, leaving this argument for when you’re less heated, less hurt.

But you can’t. He needs to hear you. If not last week or the week before that, now.

Logan takes a step toward you, his hands raised slightly as if approaching a wild animal. "I lost track of time. The showcase at Malone’s—"

"Shut up," you say quietly.

The words aren't screamed. They are quiet, sharp, and dripping with an edge that makes Logan freeze in his tracks.

"Just. . . shut the hell up, Logan." You take a step forward, your shoes clicking against the hardwood. "Don't you dare use that as an excuse for being a pathetic, spineless coward."

He glances at the group that has gone dead silent. You don’t know if what he says next is for your sake or his, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Let’s go outside,” he offers, his tone resembling something of a plea. “We can—“

“No!” you spat harshly. “You’re gonna listen to me.”

You’d never spoken to him this way. Not in such a venomous tone, stripped from all warmth. For once, Logan does exactly what you’ve asked of him—to listen. His lips part but no words escape them.

"You sat on the porch two weeks ago," you continue, your voice rising now, the heat finally breaking through the ice. "You held my arm, and you looked me in the eyes and promised me you’d change. Do you have any idea what today was?"

Logan swallows hard, his brown hues welling with a desperate, pathetic panic. "It was the department showcase."

"It was the biggest night of my academic career!" you explode, the anger tearing out of your throat. "I have spent months working on this! I broke down sobbing over this because of how tired I was, and you were the one who held me! You knew exactly how terrified I was. You knew I didn't invite anyone else! What would’ve happened if Tuck wasn’t there?"

You gesture wildly to the medal around your neck.

"I stood on that stage alone, John. I scanned that auditorium for two hours, giving you the benefit of the doubt. I thought something had happened. I thought you were lying in a ditch somewhere or bleeding out in a hospital, because that is the only reason the John Logan I grew up with would ever miss this!"

A tear escapes his eye, rolling down his tanned cheek. "I messed up. Fuck, I know I messed up. Let me make it up to you, please—"

"You didn't mess up, you chose!" you hiss, stepping right into his space, forcing him to look down at the fury burning in your eyes. "You’ve made it perfectly clear where I rank on your list of priorities."

"I am wearing a first-place medal," you continue, your voice trembling with a devastating mix of triumph and agony. "I just won enough grant money to pay for my entire next semester of research. This should be the happiest night of my life. But all I can think about is how my best friend couldn’t show up when I needed him.”

"Please," Logan chokes out, reaching a trembling hand toward your shoulder, his fingers twitching to make that familiar, absent-minded contact. "Just—“

You snap your shoulder back, avoiding his touch as if his hand were coated in acid.

But as you jerk away, the zipper of his jacket catches on the frayed, fuzzy threads of your embroidered bracelet. There is a sudden rip. The threads give out all at once, unraveling in a split second as the broken token of your childhood slips from your wrist and flutters uselessly to the floor.

Logan freezes, his eyes dropping to the colorful, ruined heap of strings resting on the hardwood between you two.

It’s symbolic, you think.

"Don't touch me," you say, your voice dropping into a flat, dead register. You stare at him, washing away every ounce of the six years of love, every ounce of the ten years of friendship, until there is absolutely nothing left between you but a void.

"Don't talk to me. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever. You’re dead to me, John."

You turn on your heel and march straight out the front door into the freezing night air.

Logan doesn’t even think before stepping forward to follow after you, but Tucker shuts the door, preventing him from doing so.

He doesn't yell. Instead, he steps into Logan’s space, grabs a fistful of his shirt right at the collar, and shoves him backward into the hallway leading toward the bedrooms. Logan doesn't even try to fight it—he stumbles back, his eyes wide and vacant, completely numb from the fallout.

Tucker slams the door of his room shut, but he doesn't bother locking it. He doesn't need to.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Tucker demands, his voice a growl that vibrates through the walls. He isn’t screaming, but he’s not exactly whispering. “Because right now, I’m having a hard time recognizing one of my best friends.”

“Tuck, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen—”

“You made her a promise, man!” Tucker cuts in sharply. “You told her you’d be there. You looked her dead in the eye and gave her your word. Do you have any idea what today was like for her?”

“I lost track of time. Hannah—”

“Don’t do that,” Tucker says, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t make this about Hannah. This is about you. You screwed up. You’ve been taking that girl for granted for long enough, and she’s been in your corner through every stupid decision you’ve made. Last night, I was the one sitting with her while she practiced that presentation because you were too busy being handyman.”

“She stood on that stage tonight. Every time those judges walked up to her, she checked those doors. Every damn time. She thought something happened to you, because that’s the only reason she could come up with for why you’d break your word to her. And the whole time, you’re moving tables at Malone’s? That’s your excuse?”

“I know I messed up,” Logan chokes out. “I know. I’ll fix it. I’ll talk to her—”

“No, you won’t,” Tucker says immediately. “Not today. Not anytime soon.”

He takes a step back, folding his arms across his chest.

“She told you to stay away. So for once, stop thinking about what you want and listen to what she asked for. You made this mess. If you actually want a shot at fixing it, give her some space and hope she decides you’re worth talking to when she’s ready.”

“Tuck—”

“I’m serious, Logan. Leave her alone. The last thing she needs right now is you showing up trying to make yourself feel better.“

He raised an amused brow, “Chocolate?”

You nodded, sipping your beer. “Chocolate.” You confirmed, then pointed across the room to where Kendall was busy making out with one of the hockey players. “She’s vanilla. We’re chocolate and vanilla swirl.”

The football player nodded in understanding. “Ah. I see,” he said before looking over at Kendall. “Though vanilla isn’t very vanilla.”

You laughed at his witty joke, both of you watching Kendall as she did a body shot off of the hockey player she was kissing two seconds ago. She was dressed in the same tube top and bubble skirt set you were wearing, complete with the knee-high boots and matching headpiece; hers a whipped white color, yours a cocoa brown.

From the other side of the room, Tucker and Logan were talking when the former spotted you chatting with the tall football player.

Tucker nudged Logan, “Yo, is that your girl?”

Logan followed his line of sight and it landed on you, leaning against the kitchen counter and speaking to the good-looking stranger with an easy smile on your lips.

Logan looked away and gulped down his beverage. “She’s a big girl.”

Logan wasn’t one of those insecure, pompous boyfriends. He didn’t do jealousy. He’s convinced jealousy was invented by a short dick man with an easily bruised ego. Logan was secure enough in his relationship with you to never have any reason to feel jealous.

You turned to the jock and gave his costume a once-over. Knitting your brows together, you racked your brain’s storage full of pop culture references and iconic fictional characters.

“Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name?” You tried.

He let out a huff of laughter, “Close. I’m Luca from the Disney-Pixar movie.”

“Ahh,” you nodded. “Practically the same.”

He flashed a charming smile, dragging a sip from his bottle. He extended his hand to you, “James.”

You shook his hand and told him your name.

“Pretty name,” he responded. “Though…” he leaned in closer, “…cupcake fits better, don’t you think?”

Ah. At that, you picked up that he was attempting to flirt with you. Forever loyal to your boyfriend, you opened your mouth to turn his advances down. But before you could, you felt an arm wrap around your waist from behind and find purchase on your hipbone. You knew who it was without even looking.

“Hey, got you a refill,” Logan said, taking the half empty can from your hands and replacing it with a new one.

“Thanks,” you said. As your hand moved to pop the can open, Logan’s deft fingers beat you to it and he cracked the tab for you.

The football player, James, eyed the two of you, biting his lip whilst reconfiguring his whole plan. “You’re both…?”

“Air signs,” Logan teasingly remarked with a straight face, casually drinking from his red solo cup. You elbowed him with a small smirk.

“No,” James shook his head. “I mean—”

“Together,” Logan told him, putting his now empty plastic cup down on the counter. His newly freed hand joined the other by holding onto your other hip and giving it a squeeze.

James nodded to himself. “Got it.” And away he went. Probably off to find his Alberto.

Logan’s eyes followed his retreating figure, not easing up until he was out of sight. Only then did he drop his hands off your body.

You turned around and looked up at your boyfriend with a wide smile. “What was that?”

“What was what?” He returned, pouring himself a new drink.

“That whole thing,” you responded.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” You repeated.

Logan shrugged. “A normal interaction, no?”

“He was flirting with me before that.”

“Oh so you’re aware.”

Your expression dropped. Oh, is that why—

“Logan.”

“Hm.”

“Logan.”

“Hm?”

You tilted his face down to look at him. “I wasn’t going to entertain it.”

“I know,” he replied.

“I was going to shut it down right before you showed up.”

“I know.”

“I want to make sure you know that.”

“And I know that.”

You squinted your eyes. This was suspiciously too easy. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

You stared at one another for a beat longer than necessary.

“You’re still upset,” you observed.

“I’m not upset,” he answered.

“So what are you feeling?” You asked.

“I don’t like how he called you cupcake,” Logan told you.

“Me neither. Not when I’m so clearly chocolate.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

“Y/n.”

You sighed softly, “Okay, sorry. I thought humor would make it better.”

Your fingers curled into the hair at the nape of his neck, hoping to relieve some of his tension. It worked. A little.

“It was a shitty pickup line,” you said. “Wouldn’t work on me even if I was single.”

“I hope so.”

“Oh, please, Logan. Take me out the back and shoot me if you ever see me falling for that,” you commented. He let out a small laugh. That’s progress

His hands returned to your hips and he pulled you closer. Your arms instinctively wrapped around his neck. His large hands rested just above your ass.

“What if I called you that?” Logan said lowly.

“Wanna give it a try?” You offered.

He leaned in, his lips hovering right by your ear. You could feel his warm breath fanning over your sensitive flesh. “Would you be into that, cupcake?” He whispered, ending it with a gentle nibble on your earlobe.

You shivered, feeling goosebumps crawl over your skin. “Fuck, I guess you have to take me out back with a gun, Logan.”

He pulled back with a hearty chuckle. You gave a matching smile and he held your face, brushing his thumb across your cheekbone.

As he looked at you, his face turned thoughtful for a moment. You squeezed his hand reassuringly.

He leaned in again. “I didn’t like how he looked at you.”

“How’d he look at me?” You wondered.

“Like how I look at you.”

You stared up at him, biting your lip. “And how do you look at me?” You whispered.

He brought his forehead against yours, gazing deep into your eyes. “Like I want you.”

Oh screw your sexy boyfriend and his even sexier responses. And that’s exactly what you wanted to do now—if only you weren’t in the middle of Beau and Dean’s birthday bash.

You had enough of this game. You raised yourself up and pressed your lips to his. Logan was hungry; he seemed to devour your kiss, swallowing every soft sound you made. His hand strayed down to grip your ass, the other held your waist comfortably. His tongue was already begging to enter your mouth, and you obliged without hesitation.

When you pulled away several moments later, Logan chased your lips with eagerness, gently biting your bottom lip as you separated.

“Mine,” he breathed out under his breath.

You bared a dazed smile, “I only want you.” You mouthed silently.

Logan let out a soft sound of amusement, nodding more to himself than to you. Satisfied and high off your impromptu makeout session, he pressed one last kiss to your forehead before rejoining his friends, this time with a protective hand on the small of your back.

He texted you every morning before you were even fully awake, he always managed to find you between classes, even if it was only for a few minutes. He kissed your forehead absentmindedly while you studied together and wrapped an arm around your shoulders whenever you would walk across campus. He even remembered the little things you mentioned once in passing, like your favourite coffee order, the movie you’d watched a hundred times as a kid, and the fact that you hated thunderstorms but loved sitting by the window when it rained. Every day, he made you feel important, wanted, and cared for. And every day you become more convinced that it couldn’t possibly last. The problem wasn't Logan; the problem was you.

Before Logan, there had been other relationships. Relationships that had slowly chipped away at your confidence until there was almost nothing left. Ex-boyfriends who had made you feel like you were too much one day and not enough the next. Guys who flirted with other girls right in front of you and then accused you of being dramatic when you got upset. Guys who compared you to other women without even realising the damage they were doing. Over time, you had learned a dangerous lesson: if someone seemed to love you, it was only a matter of time before they changed their mind.

Then Logan had come along, and he was wonderful, which somehow made everything worse. Because you knew about his crush on Hannah, everyone knew about that. You remembered hearing stories before you and Logan ever got together. How hopelessly gone he’d been for her. How he’d looked at her like she hung the moon in the sky. How long he’d spent wanting someone who was never really his. Hannah and Garrett had their happy ending now, but that didn’t erase the history. It didn’t erase the fact that Logan had once wanted someone else so badly that everyone around him had noticed.

And you couldn’t stop wondering if those feelings had truly disappeared. Every time you saw Hannah on campus, your stomach twisted itself in knots. Hannah was beautiful in a way that seemed effortless. She laughed loudly. She spoke confidently. She never appeared self-conscious or unsure of herself. She fit naturally into every room she entered. Standing next to her made you feel painfully aware of every flaw you spent hours trying to hide. The comparisons became automatic. Hannah was prettier, funnier, more outgoing, confident, just everything. Meanwhile, you spent twenty minutes staring into the bathroom mirror every morning, wondering why Logan had chosen you at all.

At first, you managed to keep all those thoughts hidden. You smiled when you needed to smile, you laughed at Logan’s jokes, and you kissed him back when he kissed you, but the insecurities have a way of growing in silence. The longer you kept them to yourself, the larger they became. Eventually, you started pulling away from him without even realising it. You answered texts a little slower, you stopped initiating affection, and you constantly found excuses when Logan asked you to hang out.

Some days you convinced yourself that you were protecting your heart. That if you got too attached, it would hurt even more when he left. It was better to create some distance now than be blindsided later. The irony was that you were creating the very thing you feared, and Logan was starting to notice.

At first, he would simply check in more often.

"Everything okay?" "You seem tired lately." "Did something happen?"

And every time you would lie, every single time. Because how were you supposed to explain something that sounded so ridiculous out loud?

Sorry, Logan. I think you're secretly in love with another girl even though you've never given me a reason to think that. Sorry, Logan. I think you're going to leave me because everyone else eventually did. Sorry, Logan. I hate myself so much that I can't believe someone like you could actually love me.

So, instead, you just smiled and told him you were fine. However, he didn’t believe you.

One Friday night he showed up at your apartment unexpectedly. You had just gotten out of the shower when you heard a knock on the door. You opened it, wearing sweatpants and an oversized shirt, immediately freezing when you saw him standing there. He looked nervous, actually nervous, and that alone made your heart drop to your stomach.

"Hey," you said quietly.

"Hey." You both just stood there, not moving at all, before Logan started to rub the back of his neck. "Can I come in?"

Something about the expression on his face made panic flare inside your chest. This was it. He was breaking up with you. The thought arrived so quickly and naturally that you barely questioned it. Of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be?

You silently stepped aside and let him enter. Logan walked into the living room before turning to face you. The moment he did, you saw the concern that was written all over his face. It didn’t look like anger or frustration, just concern, which somehow made you feel even worse.

"Talk to me," he said softly.

You looked away immediately. "About what?"

His jaw tightened. "About whatever's been going on for the last few weeks."

Your stomach dropped. "Nothing's going on."

"Y/N." The way he said your name nearly broke you, because there was no accusation in his voice, only worry. "I know something's wrong."

You folded your arms across your chest, contemplating your answer, before finally settling on "I'm fine."

"No, you're not." The silence stretched between you. Logan took a deep breath before he continued. "You barely answer my texts anymore." You stared at the floor. "You don't reach for my hand." Your eyes started to burn. "You keep finding reasons not to see me, and I don't know what I did."

That was what finally shattered you. He wasn’t angry with you, he didn’t blame you for anything, just a genuine belief that he had somehow caused this. Tears filled your eyes immediately, and Logan’s expression changed the second he saw them.

"Oh, baby." The nickname only made you cry harder. You sank onto the couch and covered your face. Everything you had spent weeks hiding came crashing down at once. The jealousy, the fear, the self-hatred, the constant comparisons, the certainty that you were just temporary and that you were a rebound, a placeholder. Just someone who happened to be there because the girl Logan actually wanted wasn’t available. The words poured out between sobs. They were messy, embarrassing, and impossible to stop. By the time you finished, you felt completely exposed and humiliated. You were certain that Logan would finally see how broken you really were.

Your apartment fell silent. For several long seconds Logan didn't say anything, when you finally forced yourself to look up, the expression on his face wasn't annoyance. It was heartbreak, like hearing you say those things had physically hurt him.

"Y/N," he said quietly. His voice sounded rough. "You really think that?"

Fresh tears slid down your cheeks, but you couldn’t answer. Logan moved to sit beside you, then he gently took your hands away from your face.

"You really think you're a placeholder to me?" The pain in his eyes was unbearable.

"I just..." you whispered. "I don't know why you'd pick me."

Something inside Logan seemed to crack. He reached for you right away, pulling you into his lap and wrapping his arms around you so tightly you could barely breathe.

"You have no idea how much I hate hearing you say that."

You buried your face against his shoulder and softly whispered, "I know you loved Hannah."

"Hannah was a crush," Logan sighed heavily. You didn’t respond. "A crush," he repeated. "Do you know what that means?" His question was met by silence.

"It means I built a fantasy in my head about someone I barely knew." He tilted your chin upward. "This is real." His hand rested over your heart. "You are real." Then he pressed your hand against his chest. "And this? This is real too."

Tears blurred your vision. "I don't compare you to Hannah,” he said firmly. "I don't think about Hannah when I'm with you."

He pressed a kiss to your forehead. "I don't wish you were Hannah."

Then he pressed a kiss to your temple before continuing, "I don't want Hannah."

A kiss to your cheek. "I want you."

Your breath caught in your throat. Logan rested his forehead against yours.

"You,” his voice cracked slightly. "Just you."

For a moment neither of you spoke. Then Logan admitted quietly, "Do you know what I thought was happening?" You shook your head. “I thought you stopped liking me."

His confession stunned you. "What?"

A sad laugh escaped him, "You kept pulling away." His eyes searched hers. "And every day I wondered what I did wrong."

The guilt hit you instantly. "Oh my God."

"I was terrified."

You stared at him. John Logan. Confident, charming, popular John Logan was terrified because he thought he was losing you. The realisation changed something inside you. For weeks you’d been so focused on your own fears that you’d forgotten Logan had feelings too. Forgotten that he cared. Forgotten that relationships involved two people. He wasn't some untouchable guy waiting for someone better to come along. He was your boyfriend, and he loved you.

The months that followed weren't perfect. Healing never happens overnight. There were still bad days. There were still moments when old insecurities crept back into your mind. Moments when you doubted yourself. Moments when you struggled to believe you deserved the love Logan gave you, but Logan never made you face those moments alone. He didn't magically fix your, he couldn’t, what he did instead was stay. He stayed when you were feeling insecure, when you overthought things, when you were afraid. Day after day. Week after week. And slowly, you started believing him. And not because he constantly told you that you were beautiful, or because he showered you with affection. It was because he proved it, over and over again, with his actions, his patience, and with his unwavering choice to love you.

Garrett noticed it during movie night at the house.

You sat curled into the corner of the couch scrolling through your phone while Logan leaned against the kitchen counter pretending to watch the TV.

But he wasn’t watching the TV.

He was watching you.

Not even subtly.

You looked up at one point and your eyes locked for maybe half a second too long before Logan immediately looked away.

Garrett narrowed his eyes.

Then Logan left the room entirely.

Garrett turned toward you. “Why’d he run away like you’ve got the plague?”

Your face went suspiciously blank. “How would I know?”

“Uh huh.”

That was the beginning.

Now, Garrett walked into Logan’s bedroom at one in the morning without knocking namely seeking a condom, because boundaries had never existed in their friendship, only to freeze dead in the doorway.

You sat cross-legged on Logan’s bed wearing one of Logan’s hoodies.

Logan sat beside you.

Way too close beside you.

All three of you stared at each other for one horrible second.

Then Garrett exploded. “What the fuck?”

You jumped up instantly. “Garrett, calm down.”

“No, absolutely not,” Garrett snapped, pointing at Logan. “You.”

Logan stood slowly. “G.”

“Don’t G me, asshole!”

You groaned quietly. “This is why we didn’t tell you.”

Garrett whipped around. “Oh good, so you KNOW this is insane.”

“It’s not insane.”

“It’s Logan.”

Logan crossed his arms. “Little insulting, bud.”

You moved between them before Garrett could fully lose his mind.

“Nothing bad is happening.”

Garrett laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. “You’re sitting in his bed at one in the morning wearing his clothes.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. “Oh my god.”

But Garrett wasn’t even close to done.

Because now that he was really looking at Logan, he could see it.

The nerves.

The guilt.

The way Logan kept glancing toward you automatically like he was checking you were okay.

And suddenly Garrett felt sick.

“You’re serious?”

Your expression softened slightly.

Logan looked away.

And that was somehow worse.

Garrett stared at his best friend in disbelief. “No.”

“Garrett,” you started carefully.

“No, because this idiot does not do serious.”

Logan’s jaw tightened.

You crossed your arms. “People change.”

“Not him.”

“That’s enough,” Logan said quietly.

Garrett looked at him then, really looked at him, and somehow that made him angrier.

“You crush on my girlfriend and my sister?” Garrett barked out a laugh. “God, John, you want what I’ve got so badly.”

The room went dead silent.

You looked horrified instantly. “Garrett.”

Logan physically flinched.

And Garrett regretted it immediately.

Because Hannah had never really been a thing.

Sure, Logan had liked her once. Everybody knew that. But Logan had buried it the second Garrett and Hannah became real.

He’d stepped aside without complaint because Garrett was his best friend. And now Garrett had just weaponised it.

Logan swallowed hard once before speaking.

“That’s not fair.”

Garrett rubbed both hands over his face angrily. “You’re my best friend.”

“I know.”

“And she’s my sister.”

“I know that too.”

“Then what the hell were you thinking?”

Logan looked over at you then.

Not Garrett.

You.

Like you were the answer to the question.

“I tried not to.”

Your breath caught slightly.

Garrett stared at him.

And damn it all, Logan looked honest.

“I stayed away from her for months,” Logan admitted quietly. “I avoided her whenever I could. I didn’t want this.”

You reached for his hand instinctively. Logan took it immediately.

Garrett looked down at your joined hands and felt another wave of betrayal.

“You kept this from me.”

You sighed. “Because we knew you’d react like this.”

“You think?”

“You act like Logan’s some random asshole.”

“He kind of is.”

“Garrett.”

“I’m serious.”

Logan actually huffed a laugh at that. “Fair.”

But you looked furious now. “No, it’s not fair. You know him better than anyone.”

Garrett looked between you both.

At you standing protectively in front of Logan.

At Logan looking at you like you were the only thing in the room.

Garrett had seen Logan hook up with girls for years.

None of them had ever looked like this.

“You love her?” Garrett asked suddenly.

Your eyes widened.

Logan didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah.”

The answer hit the room hard.

Garrett felt his stomach drop.

Because Logan meant it.

You looked stunned too, staring up at Logan like you hadn’t expected him to say it out loud.

But Logan never looked away from Garrett.

Like he knew exactly what admitting that meant.

Garrett exhaled slowly.

“This is a horrible idea.”

You rolled your eyes immediately. “Thank you for the blessing.”

“I’m not blessing anything.”

Logan finally spoke again, quieter this time. “I know I don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt here. But I would never hurt her.”

Garrett looked at him for a long moment.

His best friend.

His idiot best friend.

Who looked more afraid of losing you than Garrett had ever seen him look about anything.