“Stupid,” Andrew whispered, staring at the ceiling of the room.
The room in Logan’s hotel. Just great.
If life could give him one blessing, he would have forgotten what happened last night, but nope, he remembered the mortifying phone conversation with perfect clarity. It figured.
He considered getting up and going to the office, but it wasn’t like he was needed there. He wasn’t needed anywhere.
The thought just made him feel sorrier for himself, and he hated it, hated feeling so weak and pathetic. He refused to be that pathetic.
Andrew forced himself to get out of bed, take a shower, and go outside. He might not be needed anywhere, but it didn’t mean he should let himself sink into a well of depression. He should at least take a walk, be around other people, and hopefully become a functional human being instead of a… whatever mess he was now.
It was easier said than done.
The longer he spent outside, around all the noise, around all those people, the more anxious he became. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel so alone on a busy street, but apparently it was. No, “alone” was the wrong word. He felt like he was some kind of alien from another planet, like he couldn’t connect to all these people at all. He couldn’t understand them, he didn’t want to be around them, and the more he stayed around them, the harder his heart beat, his anxiety rising and transforming into a panic.
He returned to his hotel room, feeling mentally wrung out and physically shaky. He plopped down onto the bed and dropped his head into his hands, feeling defeated and freaked out.
What was wrong with him? Had he developed some kind of agoraphobia? He didn’t… He didn’t think so. The thought of being outside didn’t really make him anxious. He just didn’t like all the noise and people and—it was too much. God, the island had really fucked him up, hadn’t it?
A knock on the door made him lift his head.
“Enter,” he said listlessly. It was likely a maid wanting to clean the room.
It wasn’t a maid.
It was Logan.
It felt like everything stopped, the world coming to an abrupt halt.
Andrew stared at him, wide-eyed, his mouth going slack.
Thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud-thud, his heart beat in his chest, as though trying to escape it.
Logan closed the door, leaned back against it, and stared back, his dark eyes bottomless.
Andrew had to grip the bedspread in his fists to stop himself from doing something stupid. Something stupid like launching himself at Logan and clinging to him like a monkey.
“What are you doing here?” Andrew managed, glaring. At least he hoped he was glaring and not staring at him hungrily.
Logan raised his eyebrows, his inscrutable expression contradicting the stiff, tightly coiled tension in his body. He looked like he’d put on some weight. He looked good. Definitely more put together than Andrew was feeling. But then again, it wasn’t a high bar to clear.
“This is my hotel,” Logan said. “And you were the one who came here looking for me.”
Andrew felt blood rush to his face. “I thought you were in New York.”
Some emotion flashed across Logan’s face and then it was gone, too quickly for Andrew to recognize it.
“I was,” he said curtly.
Andrew moistened his lips with his tongue, unsure.
Silence fell between them, charged with something terribly familiar. It felt awful but also incredibly comforting. Easy.
To his utter disgust, Andrew felt more like himself than he had in weeks. The restless, maddening anxiety under his skin—the sense of wrongness—was almost entirely gone. He just looked at Logan, and everything felt right with the world. But he’s still too far—need him closer—why is he so far away—
Andrew clutched the bedspread tighter. Fuck, if he could bleach his own brain, he would. Seriously, what was wrong with him?
“Maybe I do need a therapist,” he said with a hoarse chuckle.
Logan’s expression remained sour and unhappy. He didn’t ask for clarification. In fact, he looked as though he’d rather be anywhere but there, something faintly irritated about him. Except his dark eyes remained fixed on Andrew with frightening intensity.
“You didn’t get a haircut,” Logan said.
Andrew blinked. He cocked his head to the side, confused. His haircut, or lack thereof, was the last thing he’d expected Logan to comment on.
Frowning, he ran a hand through his hair. It really was long now, almost touching his neck in messy curls. It probably looked like a bird’s nest. He really should get a haircut. He’d always cut his hair short for Vivian. It wasn’t that she hadn’t liked him with longer hair—the curls just made him look younger, making the age difference between them more pronounced. Andrew knew it had made his wife uncomfortable and self-conscious, hence the short haircut. But with Vivian gone, he hadn’t bothered. Self-grooming had been the last thing on his mind.
Catching his bottom lip between his teeth, Andrew looked back at him carefully. “Why are you here?”
Logan shrugged, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks, which drew Andrew’s gaze to—
He tore his eyes away, his ears turning hot, his mouth dry.
“I was in the area,” Logan said tersely.
“You just said you were in New York,” Andrew pointed out.
Logan glared at him, his expression dark, a muscle ticking in his jaw. His very tanned jaw. His neck still looked bronzed against that light blue shirt and—
Andrew dropped his eyes, balling the bedspread in his fists.
“I didn’t tell you my room number,” he said, just to say something. Anything. “You stalked me.”
“It’s hardly stalking when you stalked me first.”
Andrew’s gaze snapped up. He glowered at Logan. “Your hotel’s address is publicly available information. There was no stalking involved.”
Logan straightened from his slouch against the door, and Andrew’s heart started beating faster. He sat very still as Logan approached him.
He stopped in front of Andrew and looked down at him. “Let’s drop the bullshit,” he said quietly. His hand—large, strong, so familiar—touched the curly strand by Andrew’s temple.
Andrew couldn’t breathe. He could only look into Logan’s chocolate-brown eyes, like a rabbit caught in a hunter’s trap. “B-bullshit?” he whispered, almost shaking with the effort to keep still and not lean into the touch.
“You all but begged me to come,” Logan said, his expression half-disgusted, half-hungry. “You need me.”
Andrew scowled at him, his face uncomfortably warm. “No more than you need me.”
Logan’s lips thinned into a line, but he didn’t deny it.
He didn’t deny it.
“It’s a side effect of depending on each other for nine months,” Logan said, irritation lacing his words. “It’s codependency.”
Andrew nodded, in full agreement with him on that.
“It’ll pass,” Logan said, his hand burying in Andrew’s hair. “I already had a meeting with a therapist. She said it’s nothing incurable. We just need to relearn how to function normally and keep a healthy distance…”
Logan was still saying something, but Andrew couldn’t focus anymore. His whole world seemed to narrow to that hand in his hair, fingers raking against his scalp, the touch sending shivers of pleasure through his body. It wasn’t enough.