looking back over their history, there had to have been a moment when everything shifted, where their whole story could have been told with just their hands. first, the way they had smacked together in a careless, easy high-five, probably because she had beaten his ass for the millionth time at some playstation game. then it had been near-misses, the almosts—the way their fingers had hovered just a breath apart, never quite meeting but always there, a ghost of a touch waiting to happen. then proper hand-holding, his thick fingers locking around hers, arms stretched above their heads as they had moved together on the bed; sure, they had been drunk, but that had been intimacy in its rawest form, a silent confession neither of them had spoken aloud. not that iris had dared to acknowledge it, her vision too hazy, her body too lost in the way logan had looked at her—like she had been something to be devoured, worshipped, claimed. so to have seen his hands shoved deep into his pockets now, withdrawn and distant, had felt like a slap to the face.
but then he had said it—that he would have chosen her. and it had been like something inside her cracked wide open. a feeling she had spent her whole life chasing, the kind that should have felt familiar, given how many times her boyfriend had chosen her in theory. but theory had meant nothing when logan had stood there, looking at her like that, his voice curling around words that had made her stomach dip. then he had smirked, and his voice had taken on that easy, cocky drawl that she had known too well, the one that used to get her in trouble. her thighs had pressed together on instinct, though she had played it off as she had just been shifting her weight, ankle hooking around the other. her free hand, the one not gripping her bag in a death hold, had braced against the wall. “i know you can,” she had tossed back, dragging her teeth over her lower lip, letting the moment stretch. “that’s not useful knowledge for the game though. that’s for me to bury away for when we’re next locked in a hotel room, and i want to see how many rounds we can sneak in before morning.” it hadn’t been what he had said that had made her mind slip into dangerous places. it had been her. it had always been her. the way she hadn’t been able to stop picturing it—how he would touch her, how they would move, how long he could actually last before falling apart. if seven minutes had been all talk, or if he would ruin her completely. she had known where her thoughts should have been, whose name she should have been imagining, but the tension pooling between her legs hadn’t given a fuck about right and wrong.
he had jabbed at her boyfriend, and she had rolled her eyes, but it had been the slow, thoughtless drag of her tongue against her lip that had given her away. logan hadn’t missed it. he had never missed anything when it had come to her. then, like an unspoken epilogue to the story they had been writing with their hands, she hadn’t stopped him when his fingers had curled around hers, the ones clenched tight around her bag. her gaze had dropped to the movement, frozen, like acknowledging it too much would have shattered whatever fragile thing they had been balancing on. “you talking about the bag or us?” her voice had been quieter then, stripped of bravado. the truth had been, she had always been scared that if she had let herself really fall, she would have broken him even more. that had been why she had clung so tightly to the shape of their friendship, even as it had twisted into something else, even as it had vanished like everything else she had ever tried to hold on to. “logan,” she had breathed, his name slipping from her lips like something sacred. then she had given in. her fingers had loosened, her bag forgotten, and she had reached up instead—hand curving around the back of his head, pulling him toward her. not all the way, not yet, but close enough to feel the heat of him, to make them both wonder who would close the gap first.
