Jill filled me in on her new position. Jackie told us hilarious stories about the mishaps at the vet clinic she worked at. My mom injected her own stories about work—she was a receptionist at an attorney’s office which was where she met Ian. Throughout dinner Ian smiled and let the girls gab, only adding something when Jill, Jackie, or my mom asked him a question. He didn’t engage with me again until we left and he shook my hand and thanked me for buying dinner. Something I did to piss in my corner, something he saw right through and didn’t bother to argue about.
By the time we parted ways, Ian and my mom going to their hotel, my sisters going to my house to stay with me, I was unsure how I felt.
But Jackie, she knew how she felt and the second I started the engine she let me have it.
“I love you, Logan, but you’re a monumental prick.”
“Jackie, calm down,” Jill called from the back seat in an unusual twist.
Jill was the twin who was quick to blow her top while Jackie was the one to interject common sense.
“I’m not going to calm down. Mom deserves to be happy. And if you hadn’t been such a prick at dinner you would’ve seen for yourself how happy Mom is. But instead, she was uncomfortable and on pins and needles and that’s on you, Logan. God! She was nervous enough bringing him to visit you. I’m so mad at you right now I could bleach all of your clothes.”
Right, so as a result of my father’s constant abuse in the house no one threatened violence. My mom never scolded us and threatened a spanking, nor did she administer them. My sisters would argue and threaten the most bizarre retribution but never said they would hit, smack, or physically harm each other. When they were pissed at me they’d proclaim they were going to shave off my eyebrows in my sleep, throw away something I valued, use hair removal cream on my legs. That had not changed.
“You bleach my clothes, Jackie, we’re gonna have problems.”
“Problems like you being a jerk to Ian, bringing up his wife? Or problems like you bringing up an incredibly painful reminder he doesn’t have children because his wife went through chemo and they didn’t have the option to preserve her fertility. But you knew that because I told you. What I didn’t tell you is that both Ian and his wife wanted to freeze her eggs but they couldn’t afford it. Wanna know why? Because she couldn’t work due to her illness and Ian had to cut back to the bare minimum at his job—just enough hours to keep his insurance so he could take care of her. He refused to allow anyone else to see to her care. So they barely scraped by the whole time she was sick. That’s the man you were a supreme fucking asshole to. A man who loved his woman so damn much he practically starved so he could care for her.”
Fuck.
That dagger my mom stabbed into my heart with her sad smile was being twisted.
“Just give him a chance,” Jackie pleaded.
“I can’t.”
Jill sat forward and popped her head through the front seats. “What, why not?”
“I don’t know. I want Mom to be happy. But I can’t fucking watch a man touch her.”
“He is not Dad, big brother,” Jackie whispered.
“You’re right, he’s not. But he could turn into him.”
“I’m disinviting you to my wedding,” Jill mumbled.
I swerved and righted my car and growled, “What? You’re getting married?”
“One day, yes. And I’m preemptively disinviting you unless you at least talk to Ian.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Yes, brother, now’s the time when you should start praying before the hell you force yourself to live in becomes eternal,” Jackie added sarcastically.
I stayed silent the rest of the drive. I grunted and pointed when we got into my house. Neither of my sisters said another word about my obnoxious behavior.
I waited for them to settle in the guest room for the night, then not bothering to attempt to sleep in my own bed, I grabbed my keys and left.
14
It was official; I was a prune.
I’d been in the bath so long I’d had to warm the water three times and I was a quarter of the way through a new book. For as long as I’d been in the tub I should’ve been further along but my mind kept drifting to Logan.
He’d been a total grump when he’d left work, bitching and complaining about his mother dating. Had he not told me about his dad I would’ve been totally confused. Logan was closing in on forty, far too old to be put off by the idea of his mother being with a man.
Since I’d been home from work, I’d had to stop myself from calling Logan to check on him. Dozens of times I’d picked up the phone to call but then I chickened out. Calling him would mean admitting we were more than what I was trying to convince myself we were. Finally, I’d gotten in the bath and left my phone in the kitchen to alleviate the temptation.
But truth be told, I was worried about him.
I checked the time on my tablet and it was almost nine. I should get out and text him. A text wasn’t the same as a call. A text conveyed friendship. A call said other things. Faster than I cared to think about and what my urgency said, I got out of the bath and dried off.
I opened the bathroom door. My eyes fell on my bed and I screamed, narrowly escaping cardiac arrest.
“You scared the shit out of me, Logan!”
“Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt your bath.”
He won’t interrupt my bath but he’ll break into my house and get in my bed?
His voice was flat and monotone and upon further inspection, he looked…crushed.
“What happened?”
“I can’t do this, Lauren.”
The dreaded Lauren. Not Ren. Not baby. Lauren. My heart rate spiked and I braced for the end of us. Sure, I knew it was coming, but I figured we had more time.
“Do what?” I asked and clutched the towel tighter around my breasts.
“I can’t give my mom what she deserves. I can’t give my sisters what they want. I can’t fucking do it.”
I spotted Logan’s discarded t-shirt on the floor, picked it up, and slipped it over my head before I pulled the towel free, let it drop, and climbed into bed next to Logan. Once I was situated next to him—both of us on our backs, our eyes on the ceiling, not touching—did I debate how to start the conversation.
Sisters. That seemed the easiest course of action.
“What do your sisters want?”
“For me to get to know Ian.”
“Ian?”
“My mom’s boyfriend.”
Logan spat out “boyfriend” like saying the word was akin to eating raw whale blubber. Like he was going to vomit if he had to say it again.
Oh, boy.
“You met him tonight at dinner, right?”
“Yep.”
“You’re gonna have to help me out here. Did you not like him?”
“I was a total dick to him,” he admitted.
Maybe his age didn’t matter. Maybe thirty-eight-year-old men didn’t like seeing their mommies move on. Or maybe Logan’s instincts were telling him this Ian fella was no good. I’d learned the hard way that Logan could read people.
“Did you get a bad vibe or something?”