Unsettled (25 page)

“Sounds promising,” I said. A sly smile played on my lips.

After we stopped for gas, we got back on the highway. Fifteen minutes later, Logan pulled up in front of the 22 West building in the upper northwest side of D.C. The triangular shaped building was full of welcoming windows that waved at the Ritz-Carlton across the street.

Logan parked in one of the bays, grabbed my duffle from the back, and we made our way to the elevators. Logan took my hand as we rode the elevator to the top floor.

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asked, tossing his keys on the glass table as he walked into his kitchen. Rays from the yellow floating bubble lights basked the brown vase in the middle of the table.

“No, I’m fine, thanks.” I dropped my purse on the floor near the door. The penthouse was monstrous. Logan definitely wasn’t being jailed in a 6x9 sterile cell with only a queen bed and rough white towels.

Wall-length russet curtains framed the windows in the living room. A humongous flat screen graced the wall over a fireplace.

I walked over to one of the chromed sitting chairs that was neatly placed on top of an animal-shaped rug and took a seat.

“How long have you been staying here?” I asked, slipping off my shoes. I ran my toes through the plush fabric underneath my feet.

“Off and on, about two months,” he said, unscrewing a bottle of water and taking a sip. “My home is only about forty minutes from here, but it’s easier to stay here than have to drive during the week. It doesn’t hurt that I have a reason to be in the city more,” he said, tossing me a smirk.

“I bet,” I said, giving him a knowing smile in return.

The back pocket of my jeans began to vibrate. I pulled out my phone and read the text from Alex: Where are you?

I replied:

Logan’s place. Why, something going on?

No, Damon’s here. Wanted to give you a heads-up.

I squelched my urge to let out a groan, and rolled my eyes at my screen instead.

I replied:

Lifesaver—yeah, I’m spending the night. Thanks for the heads-up, though.

“WHAT’S ON TV TONIGHT?”
I asked, standing up to get the remote. “I don’t think there are many options on Saturday nights.” My attention was quickly pulled away from thoughts of TV, by the spectacular view of downtown D.C. from the French doors.

“Honestly, I don’t watch much TV,” Logan said, breaking my trance. He walked out of the kitchen to join me in the living room, taking a seat on the beige sofa.

“Well tell me Mr. Colton, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?” I asked in my best investigative reporter voice. I leaned in and pointed my imaginary microphone in his direction.

He leaned in and spoke into the mic, “Well, I enjoy long walks on the beach, baseball, picking up a good book about architectural practices, and enjoy long spa days,” he deadpanned.

“Somehow Mr. Colton, you don’t exactly strike me as the reading type, and I definitely don’t believe that you luxuriate at a spa for hours on end,” I said, feeding off his playfulness.

“Oh, you’d be surprised what you can learn trolling websites at three in the morning,” he said, grinning. He took a quick swig of his drink and placed his water bottle on the coffee table. “But in all honesty,” he said standing and closing the space between us, “lately the thing I’ve come to enjoy most is losing myself in you. I’d take that over watching mindless TV,” he quipped.

“What about you, Ms. Caldwell? What do you enjoy?” The way he asked ignited me to the core.

“Oh, I don’t know—reading, photography, listening to music…” I said, as I weaved my arms around his neck.

“And there’s one more thing…”

“What’s that?” he asked. His eyebrows stood at attention.

“I enjoy you,” I said, leaning in, pecking him on the lips.

He ran his hands along my torso, his fingers finding their way under my sweater, and then my tank top.

“I’ve wanted to do this all day,” he murmured against my lips. He didn’t waste much time responding to my gesture and deepening our connection. Logan’s kiss lit me like a cigarette.

He looked down at me with smoldering eyes. “Bed?” he asked.

“Uh, do we have to?” I whined playfully, attempting to throw him off of how badly I really wanted him. “I mean we just did it three days ago! Get a hold of yourself.”

“Well, you should know that three days is really three days too long,” he said. I could hear the desire in his voice. Logan wasted no time pushing my sweater down my arms. He kissed my shoulder blade. My nerve endings were instantly on high alert.

“I’m starting to think that you only want me for my body,” I joked as he lifted me off the ground with ease. “Perhaps I should reconsider what I’ve gotten myself into?” I said, giving him questioning eyes. I leaned in to kiss him fully.

After we came up for air, Logan and I locked eyes.

“Honestly, you probably should, but just not right now,” he muttered, averting his gaze away from me.
Huh?
His words were so much different from what he’d conveyed earlier.

His deprecating comment surprised me. I was baffled that he expected me to walk away. Things were actually going well between us. I wanted to let him know that I had no desire to be with anyone else.

“Please, look at me,” I pleaded. When he did, I was sad to see reticence in his eyes.

“If I wanted to run, I would have well before now. I’m right where I want to be, Logan,” I said in my most soothing voice.

I tightened my legs around his torso, attempting to show him that I wasn’t going to let go. I bent down and kissed him intently. I wanted every stroke of my lips to quiet any qualms he had. I hadn’t told him yet, but I was in deep. Too deep. I was falling in love.

LOGAN AND I CRASHED
onto his bed in a frenzied mass of legs and arms.

“God, I want you so much,” he moaned as he pulled my tank top over my head.

“You have me,” I murmured as he bent down and nibbled my breast through the thin fabric of my bra.

THE HUSHED SERENITY OF
my sleep was interrupted by a loud thud, something I didn’t recognize.

“Alex?” I whispered in the dark, but there was no response. I looked around the foreign room, and red numbers from the clock glared back at me. It took me a few seconds to realize it was three in the morning and I was at Logan’s place.

I felt around on the bed for Logan’s warm body. He wasn’t where I’d left him when I finally nodded off after an excessively long lovemaking session.

I reached over to my nightstand and flipped on the light, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

Just as I sat up in bed to investigate the thudding noise from earlier, I saw a pair of paled feet outstretched on the floor at the foot of the bed.

“Logan!” I breathed out.

My heart was gripped with fear as I scurried from underneath the blanket and onto the floor where Logan laid. When I reached him, what I saw seared my heart. Logan lay lifelessly on his side, mechanically clawing at the floor—his eyes wired shut.

“Pépé! Pépé!” he cried out.

I didn’t know what Pépé meant, but his voice sounded distressed and vacant. He seemed to be in so much agony. I didn’t know what to do, but decided to try to wake him.

“Logan, wake up!” I shrieked frantically, shaking him. I gently grabbed his shoulder with my palm. He didn’t respond on my first attempt, but by my third he snapped his eyes open, letting out a startled gasp and looked around the bedroom wildly.

“What—where am I?” he breathed. Logan had tiny beads of sweat on his forehead.

He sat up and propped himself against the footboard of the bed.

“Brooklyn?” he asked, puzzled. He rubbed his face with both his hands, pushing the flesh of his cheeks upward, causing red splotches. He looked at me as though he wanted to know that I was actually standing in front of him.

“I’m here. You’re at the penthouse,” I said reassuringly. My heart was still racing from the sight of him sprawled on the floor.

“Are you all right?” I whispered, trying to stop my heart from racing. I tried to keep my voice even to provide a sense of calm. I didn’t know what was going on, but seeing him lying on the floor terrified me.

“I’m sorry I woke you. I’m fine” he said.

Logan raked his hand through his hair slowly and let out a low breath. He was silent for a few minutes while I knelt beside him. The distress in Logan’s eyes penetrated my heart. I was at a loss for words. I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t know what words would comfort him.

“Let’s go back to bed,” he said nonchalantly, standing from the floor and taking my hand. My mind did a double take at his words. Logan was acting as though he hadn’t just been slumped on his bedroom floor, wrenching painfully, minutes earlier.

Apprehensively, I clambered back into bed, and turned out the bedroom light again.

“Logan?” I whispered in the dark.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, hoping he’d let me in on what he’d dreamt about.

“It’s nothing. I just had a bad dream.” Seeing him lying on the floor like that wasn’t nothing to me.

“What does Pépé mean?”

Logan drew a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “That’s what I called my grandfather.”

I reached out to him, finding him in the darkness. I wrapped my arm tightly around his middle. Feeling his dampened shirt beneath my skin seared me more. After meeting him, I’d felt more alive and at peace. I wanted to do the same for him. I wanted to help him forget whatever it was that was tormenting him.

“Don’t worry. I’m okay,” he whispered, pulling me close to him.

I couldn’t exactly accuse him of lying, but I didn’t believe him one bit. As my heart rate and mind slowed down to a crawl, I placed a tick mark in my brain. I needed to figure out how to get Logan to open up to me more.

I AWOKE SUNDAY MORNING
to my phone vibrating. My hand fumbled over the clock radio and lamp on the nightstand. It was my parents calling. I let the phone ring out and go to voicemail. I turned over to face a missing Logan. I sat up in bed, instinctively looking at the area where I’d found Logan earlier in the morning. I was glad to see that he wasn’t there.

I was too tired to get out of bed to search for him. As darkness came over me, I heard shuffling towards the kitchen. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why Logan woke up so early on the weekends. I let my eyes close and slipped back into the land of the lost.

AN HOUR LATER, MY
phone rang again, but this time I was awake and picked up.

“Hi mom,” I said into the phone.

“Hi honey! Are you still sleeping?”

“No mom, I got up a little while ago,” I said, hoisting myself into an upright position in bed.

“How’s the East Coast treating you these days? Are you heading back to the West yet, sweetheart?” My mom was patiently waiting for the day that I’d concede to her weekly inference and move back to California to be near my family again.

“No mom,” I said exasperated. She asked me the same question every week, and every week I gave the same answer. “The East Coast still suits me just fine.”

“You sound congested. Are your allergies bothering you?” she asked.

“A little bit, but I’ll be fine.”

“Good, I hate that you’re all the way on the East Coast by yourself.”

“I’m not by myself mom. Alex and Jay live with me, remember?” I sighed into the phone.

“I know, but Alex isn’t me. How is she, by the way?”

“She and Jay are well.”

“Have they set a date yet?”

“They can’t set a date if they aren’t engaged, Mom.” I swore my mom was just as eager to marry off Alex as she was me.

“Well, what about you? Have you met anyone out there yet?” I didn’t want to tell her about Logan specifically. My mom had a way of making me feel like a teenager again when she started her inconspicuous inquisitions.

“I’m dating around.”

“Honey, I don’t even know what that means. In my day people didn’t ‘date around.’” I’d heard that line at least one hundred times.

“I know mom. I promise I’ll let you know when Mr. Right waltzes into my life.”

“Don’t patronize me, Brooklyn. I just want to see you settle down. It’s not natural for a woman to be heading into her thirties without a strong prospect at least! I raised two smart and beautiful daughters. You have more than enough to offer a man. It’s just a matter of going after what you want. It doesn’t seem like you’ve ever truly gotten over Damon and I didn’t raise you to wallow in heartbreak.” I wanted to scream. I doubted my mom would have liked Damon half as much if she knew the shit he had put me through.

“Mom, can we not talk about him again. I don’t plan on becoming a nun if that’s what you’re concerned about,” I replied. My voice was peppered with irritation.

“Your father and I just want you to experience fulfilling companionship, honey. That’s all,” she said in a more soothing voice. I doubted my dad had given my lack of a relationship much thought if any.

“Yeah mom, I know. How’s everything else going?” I desperately needed to change the topic. My mom went into a flurried conversation about my sister and my nephew, how big
Aiden
had gotten since the last time I saw him, and all the new words he was saying. My mom was definitely the doting grandmother.

“Oh, before I forget, another student loan statement came in the mail. I opened it by accident,” she chortled into the phone. We both knew that was a lie; my mom was never big on respecting her daughters’ private affairs.

“You really should just let us pay off that debt, honey. It doesn’t make sense for you to have racked up all those loans. I’m sure your father and I can figure something out—we have some money in IRAs.”

“No mom. It’s fine. I don’t want you and dad putting a financial strain on yourselves. Dad’s retired now and you aren’t working. I wouldn’t feel right letting you guys take on my financial burden. I can handle it.”

Right before the beginning of my sophomore year in college my dad suffered a heart attack and hasn’t been able to work since. Climbing poles was no longer an option. I knew my parents had some money stashed away, but it wasn’t going to be enough to continue to pay for my tuition along with their regular monthly obligations. I decided it was up to me to step in and take some of the burden off my parents. I applied for private student loans in my name, which they weren’t too happy about, but I did what needed to be done at the time.