Page 56 of Logan

He’d said I was honest with him, but that was a lie. I hadn’t been honest at all. If I were truly honest, I would have told him the real reason for my jealousy. I didn’t care about the plane ride. I just wanted his care and attention all to myself.

Logan wasn’t the only one I was lying to. I’d been lying to myself for a year now. Every time he called me, and we spent hours just discussing our day, every time I felt a thrill just from hearing his name, I lied to myself about my feelings for him. I insisted that what I felt was friendship, and anything else was just gratitude from the way he helped me.

Ever since my disastrous date with Kenneth that lie had slowly been eroding.

I couldn’t keep lying to myself. What I felt for Logan was beyond friendship. I was in love with him, and worse, I was attracted to him.

The thought nearly made me laugh out loud.

Who would want someone like me lusting after them?

My desires had no value. If anything, I’d just end up tainting him.

He’d surely leave and never come back if he knew the way I thought about him sometimes, and how the feeling of his arms around me made me feel.

I would just have to keep these thoughts to myself. Our friendship was too important to be spoiled by my impure thoughts.

My hand felt cold despite the summer heat. I was already missing his touch after only a few minutes apart.

This was going to be a very difficult vow to keep.

CHAPTER 23

Clay

My stomach swoopedwith a feeling of weightlessness before we even stepped foot in the plane. It was a small thing with only a few seats. The only planes I’d ever seen were commercial sized ones that carried hundreds of people, so this small contraption didn’t seem at all sturdy enough to get us airborne.

Under any other circumstances, I would have been terrified as I sat down in the cockpit seat within arm’s reach of the dizzying number of controls. Yet, as Logan sat in the seat next to me and his arm brushed mine, all I could focus on was his scent.

He was clean like soap and fresh air, with a bright note to his scent that made me think of sunlight filtering through green leaves. I’d forgotten what he smelled like. It was such a silly thing to worry about, but the fact that I could forget any part of him left me terrified.

If I could forget this, what else could I forget about him?

His voice.

His smile.

The color of his eyes.

If enough time passed, could I forget him completely?

With an impressive amount of confidence, Logan went through the sequence of starting up the plane and getting ready for takeoff. I never realized how much communication it required from other people, but he had to get confirmation from at least three different voices through the plane’s radio before we could even leave the hangar where the small plane was parked.

I clung to the arms of the chair with a death grip as we started moving. The runway area was completely flat, which created an optical illusion as if we were barely going anywhere, but I could feel the momentum of the plane around us and knew the tarmac was passing by just feet below us.

Beside me, Logan laughed and placed a comforting hand over mine on the arm of my chair.

“It’s okay. Take a deep breath. I’ve done this a million times. We’ll be fine.”

“Tell me that when we’re in the air,” I snapped at him though gritted teeth. “And keep your eyes on the road. Or the air. Or whatever you need to watch.”

Logan laughed again but didn’t say anything as he obeyed my order and focused on what he was doing. The plane crept across the tarmac, passing several other much larger aircraft that looked like they could run us over without even noticing. Apparently, even airplanes had to obey the laws of the queue and we waited for our turn at the start of the runway.

I got to watch several planes take off from an up-close view, and each time I still marveled at the fact that they were able to fly. It didn’t seem like it should work. These clunky metal beasts had neither the agility of birds, nor the delicacy of bugs, yet as soon as they got going fast enough their noses turned toward the sky and they left the ground behind.

Eventually, it was our turn and I clung to my chair so hard my fingertips turned white.

“Tell me when it’s over,” I said, though I never closed my eyes.

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