Page 29 of No First Kisses

“So what’s the story with you and Logan?” Nia tilts her head to the side for a second, her eyes on me as I catch a glimpse of Logan through the window. “I’m not from here, so I don’t know any of the history.” She nods toward the wall in the hall, where everyone had to see the photos of younger us.

“We grew up together,” I explain around a bite of pepperoni. “He was my first everything. He held my hand when I broke my arm in fourth grade and I didn’t want anyone to touch me because it hurt too much. And when I had my first dance in eighth grade, he went with me and kissed me on the cheek. But when one of the boys tried to dance with me, he punched him and then told my dad that he defended my honor. He was my friend. Then when I turned sixteen, he asked me out on a date after asking my father’s permission. I went to prom with him.”

After chewing on the crust of my pizza, almost choking on the dry bread, I rub my hands on my pants to push away the anxiety of telling someone the story, and I keep going.

“He was my first with sex, too, even though neither of us had any idea what we were doing. We figured it out together. It was perfect, until it wasn’t.” The smile I have on my face drops when the memories of what came next flood in. “We even stayed together after one of his sisters, my best friend Lettie, died. We were walking in an alley together, after he enlisted in the Marine Corps, taking a shortcut to meet our families for dinner. Someone came out of the shadows. He shot me. My heart stopped.” Absently, I rub that spot on my chest before pulling my shirt down slightly so that Nia can see the scar. “Logan did CPR and saved my life. But he left me after that. And now here we are.”

“He didn’t just leave her,” Chloe adds in, cutting me a harsh look while she’s talking to Nia. “Those pictures on the wall when you first walk in? That’s proof that he never really left. He was there, loving you from a distance the only way that he knew how. Someone who leaves… they don’t give up their life just to follow you if you go too far away. They don’t live their life with all the hopes and dreams that you had together, surrounding them.” She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest, ignoring the tears that pool in my eyes. “Don’t be like me, Poppy. Don’t give yourself the chance to regret anything. He’s here, and he’s showing you that not only is he trying… but he’s always been here. Even if he was too stupid to own up to his stupidity. Too stupid to keep you instead of letting you walk away.”

“Damn,” Nia calls from the hall where I hadn’t even seen her go. “There are pictures here that look like they’re twenty years old.”

Chloe and I both get up and go into the hall with her.

“Some of them are close to thirty.” I point at one in particular. Logan and Sam, both under five years old and both holding the hands of their little sisters. “That’s me,” I say while touching the red hair I’ve always had. “But this, this is Lettie.” I clear my throat. “Charlotte. Logan’s little sister. She died a few weeks before the night I was shot.”

Nia whistles quietly. “No offense, but I would have run, too.”

I pause, my fingers still touching our baby photo. “What?”

“The man lost his sister, and then he almost lost the woman he loved? No wonder he ran away and tried to keep you safe. He probably thinks that he’s cursed.”

My eyes move to the opening sliding glass door where Logan stands with a concerned look on his face, scanning the kitchen, until he catches sight of me in the doorway.

“You okay?” He starts toward us.

My heart races in my chest.

“Yeah,” I lie, putting a plastic smile on my face. “Fine. Just showing them the pictures.”

I’m not fine. And until we are alone and I can apologize, I won’t be.

How could I be so stupid?

I’ve never even considered what Nia suggested. All this time, and all I could ever think of was the fact that he pushed me away. I lost Lettie, and then I lost him too. And he vanished into thin air, first with the military. Then he was here, always teasing and laughing and pushing me for the physical side of a relationship, without the emotions.

But here… here on the wall, I see all of the things I thought were gone.

Hopefully, Logan will forgive me for being just as selfish as I’ve accused him of being for all these years.

10

LOGAN

“Please just leave,” I finally beg the guys, hoping they’ll get the damn point.

All of Dean’s club members are gone and so are the rest of Poppy’s family and mine. But Remy, Linc, Dom, and Ian are sitting around my fire pit like they never want to leave. Like they have the right to sit here and give me shit. Which, I mean, they’re the men I trust with my life, so they probably do.

“Why do you want us to leave?” Dom asks from his chair.

Hell, even their fuckin’ women have gone home without them at this point, which never happens because these guys are just like me and don’t want to be away from their hearts.

“Because my woman’s inside my house, for the first time ever, and I want to sleep with her in our bed, wrapped in my arms while I feel our kid kick her.” If I didn’t know with one hundred percent certainty that those jackasses wouldn’t be leaving until they got the truth, I wouldn’t have given it to them.

But I was there while each and every one of them had to pull their heads out of the sand when it came to the women they love, and they won’t pass up the opportunity to do it when it is my turn. So I’m not going to deny them.

Ian leans back in his chair and with a calculating look, he takes a drink of his beer. “You told me repeatedly that nothing changed. For you, that was the truth, wasn’t it?”

As always, he is careful about what he actually says in front of the others, and I have a ton of respect for his ability to still be my friend and my therapist at the same time. But the implication is there. The realization that every time he asked, or we talked, I was holding back and not explaining the truth.

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