Page 23 of Under the Mistletoe
“That’s not what I asked.”
Logan stared out the window above the sink to the side yard. A few snowflakes were drifting down, but not enough to pile up. “I thought I was in love with someone once, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t notice.”
“Notice that you were in love with her, or notice you?”
Logan rested his back against the sink. “Yes.”
“Are you talking about Devin?”
Logan’s face must have shown his shock, because his dad just laughed.
“It wasn’t that hard to see your interest for people who knew you.”
“Awesome. So the whole family knew I was a fool. You all must have found Thanksgiving hilarious.”
“No, only your mom and I ever knew—maybe Libby. We didn’t find Thanksgiving funny. But it did give your mom and me hope. That is, until you acted completely indifferent to her. Although I can’t say she seemed indifferent to you.”
Ha. Devin hadalwaysbeen indifferent to him.
His dad stood and walked over to the coffeepot and filled his mug again. “Why didn’t you ever ask her out? Every time she came around, you seemed to keep your distance.”
“That’s a long story.”
“I’m retired, I have the time.”
“I don’t know if you remember, but we met Devin because she needed a ride up here to her cousin Jess’s house for Thanksgiving years back. Liam and I were coming up to Luke’s, and when we saw a message on the community board at college, we texted the number. We figured thisguyDevin could help share the cost of gas from Chicago.”
“And when she showed up?”
“Shock was an understatement.” Logan toed the wood laminate at his feet. “But Liam was already asleep in the back seat because he’d pulled an all-nighter for a final the night before. So she sat up front with me, and we talked for the first two hours with barely a break. We shared a lot of the same interests in music, in life.”
Every word seemed to pull a bit more pain to the surface, and Logan’s inner recluse shouted at him to make up an excuse to retreat to his room. And yet at the same time, a part of him wanted—no, needed to talk about it. With his dad, he could not pretend. “For the first time in my life, I found it easy to open up to a girl.”
“And then…”
Logan pushed off the sink and walked over to the fridge, taking in a photo of him and Liam. “And then we stopped for gas, and Liam woke up, and he had all her attention.”
The photo had been taken on a ski trip last year. Liam stood about three inches taller than him. His crazy smile just screamed adventure, ready for anything. Logan’s grimace saidplease don’t take my photo.
“Did you consider asking her out after that weekend?”
“That’s where things get more complicated.”
“I think I can follow.” He turned back to Logan with a full mug.
“I had planned on asking her out on the drive home. I’d hoped I could talk Liam into sleeping for a bit. But as it turned out, Liam had the same idea. He had also planned on asking her out on the ride home.”
“Oh.” His dad turned back toward him and leaned on the counter, sipping from the mug.
“Yup. It was Jacquelyn all over again. So we made an agreement that neither of us would ask her out while we were at college. We had no idea if she was interested in either of us, but the last thing we wanted was to let a girl come between us…again.”
“But Devin turned out not to be justa girlfor you. Did you ever talk to him about it again?”
Logan hesitated again. Well, if he’d gone this far, he might as well say it. “No. It became pretty clear that if she picked one of us, it would be Liam. Not that I should have been surprised.” Logan turned away from the photo and back to his dad. “Ask any girl we went to college with. Liam was the taller, cuter, funnier twin. I was theotherKingsley twin.”
“You’re selling yourself short. Besides, I never thought you cared to be the center of attention.”
“I didn’t. I only wanted one girl’s attention and couldn’t even get that.” He leaned his elbows on the island.
