Just One Night (Black Alcove #2) (15 page)

“I tried calling, but
you didn’t answer.”

“I have no idea where
my phone is,” I say, giggling and taking a step toward him. “I
lost it somewhere between the last time I talked to you and the time
I made it out here.”

I trip myself and fall
into Logan’s chest. Liam reaches out to steady me, but Logan shoves
him back with the hand that isn’t holding me up.

“Don’t touch her,”
he says.
He’s pissed.
“I
think you’ve done enough already.”

“Logan, stop. It’s
not Liam’s fault. Actually, it’s the opposite. He’s been
helping me relax with everything that been going on. I just needed
one night to think about where I’m supposed to be or what I’m
supposed to be doing.”

“I should be the one
you come to for those things, Sara.”

“Hey, how do you know
where Liam lives, and you can’t be here for everything, Logan.
You’re a whole state away. Sometimes I need someone who is wherever
I am to lean on.”

“So call me next
time. It’s as easy as that.”

I push out of his arms.
I can hold myself up just fine, I just don’t want to because
letting someone else do it right now—well, and that sounds a lot
easier than doing it myself.

“I don’t know why
you’re making this such a huge deal,” I say, stepping away from
him. “Do you not trust me to go out every now and then?”

“I trust you
perfectly,” he says, turning his attention to Liam. “It’s the
people around you I’m not so sure of.”

“Who, Liam?” I say
and then burst into laughter before I can stop myself. “It’s
Liam, Logan. What in the world do you have to be afraid of? That I’m
going to let him move in with me and not tell you!”

“This is exactly what
I mean. He’s telling you shit and he doesn’t even know the whole
story.”

“Well, he knows
enough to tell me about it. And it’s been an entire week! A week,
Logan. Plenty of time for you to tell me.”

“I know.” His voice
drops and that’s when I notice the audience our argument has
captured. I glance around at all the faces. A few of them are my new
employees, which sparks my embarrassment. I shouldn’t be here. Not
just because of Logan and what it’s doing to him, but because these
people work for me. I can’t be both a friend and boss here.

“I have to go,” I
say to Liam.

“I’ll drive you,”
he says, moving toward me.

I nod.

“I’ll take her,”
Logan cuts in.

“Logan, it’s—”

“No, you’re my
girlfriend. I will take you home.”

The moment the words
leave his mouth, my heart drops into my stomach. My eyes go wide and
I just stare at him.

“God, Logan, don’t
be so intense. Being my boyfriend doesn’t mean you get to make
choices for me!” I yell and run through the house. This isn’t my
finest hour. And it’s one of the biggest reason I never drink. I
don’t like the person I become, and no matter how hard I try, I can
never control myself. The front door slams behind me just after I
hear Logan shout my name.

No way in hell am I
letting a man I’m supposed to be in a relationship with—meaning
we’re a team—think he gets to make my decisions for me. It may be
the wine talking, but if this is what it takes to be with someone I
care about, I’m not so sure it’s worth it.

Logan

“You can’t just act
like a crazy person!” Sara yells once I’ve caught up with her.
She’s walking down the street, and she isn’t slowing down.

“The fuck I can’t!
I haven’t heard from you, and when I finally make it down here,
you’re out partying and drinking, which you never do by the way, so
that’s awesome. You feel more comfortable drinking around some guy
you just met than you do around me. That makes me feel real good.”

“Stop it, Logan. It
wasn’t like that and you know it. Liam invited me because the bar
has been stressing me out. He saw that I needed to relax.”

“Relax, yeah, I’m
sure that is exactly what he was going to help you do later tonight.”

“Logan, jealousy
doesn’t look good on you. Whatever you have going on in your mind,
you need stop it and chill out. Liam and I are just friends. How many
times do I have to tell you this?”

“A couple more. Maybe
until I never see you in his apartment again or in his line of
sight.”

“Before I left, you
told me to have trust, Logan, and I did. What about you? Where is
your trust in me?”

“I trust you, Sara, I
just told you this five minutes ago. It’s him I don’t trust.”

“You’re going to
have to start. He’s going to be working with us for a while. I
mean, I’m still not sure when I’m going to make it back to
Wyoming.”

Everything inside me is
on high alert.

“This is a joke,
right? I thought there were only a few more weeks.”

“There are, but—”

“But you want to stay
here, with Liam.”

“That’s not even
it. I want to be here for The Silver Tap. I wasn’t there in the
beginning of the BA. I didn’t get to watch it grow and succeed. I
can do that here. I want to take pride in this place before I leave
some guy in charge of it.”

The way she says
some
guy
makes me feel a bit better.

“I trust Liam more
than I should, but I still—”

“Whoa, you trust him?
After a couple weeks?”

“Well, yeah, I—”

“It took me years,
Sara.
Years
before
you wanted to be alone with me. You never even chose me to run the
BA, your father did. Send Liam to the BA, and I’ll stay here with
you.”

She stops and my hands
find her shoulders. I rub my thumbs over her bare skin. I want her to
nod her head and smile and agree with me.

“I can’t do that to
him, Logan. His life is here.”

“You can’t do it
even for us?”

“That’s not a fair
choice to make.”

“Sounds fair enough
to me. Either you want me here, or you don’t.”

Sara looks up and a
tear slips from her eye. She walks away again, turning a corner until
we arrive at my truck. I open the door for her and once she’s
buckled in, I glance back to see Conner trailing behind us at a good
distance. I take my time walking to the driver’s side and we sit in
silence until Conner gets in. Even then, no one talks until we’re
at Sara’s apartment. Conner stays in the truck while I walk Sara to
the door. She still doesn’t say anything after she unlocks the
door. She sets her purse and keys down on the counter and looks at
me. She shrugs.
What the fuck do
I do with that?
Before I can make up my mind, she turns
for her bedroom. I take that as I sign I should go, even though every
part of me wants to stay.

“Logan, stop. You
can’t just leave. We need to talk this out.”

“Talk? You haven’t
spoken in the last thirty minutes. How much longer do I have to wait?
Your silence isn’t fair to me, and the fact you can’t tell me you
want us more that you want The Silver Tap … well, it doesn’t look
good in my eyes,” I say, praying she starts talking now. But she
doesn’t. “Call me when you know what you want.”

“We can’t fight
like this. This isn’t us.”

“I know, I just …
the thought of losing you terrifies me,” I say, pausing to give her
one last chance to talk to me. When her response is to look away, I
turn for the door and it takes everything I have to hold my head high
and not turn around to go back to her. If she doesn’t want me, I’m
not going to bust my ass trying to change her mind. We’ve been at
this long enough she should know what she wants by now.

Clearly, it isn’t me.

Sara

I can’t believe Logan
came down here acting like a caveman. The way he treated Liam at the
party, like every word was a warning. He wanted people to know I was
his, and I want that, too. Every time Logan acts that way, I can’t
resist him. But tonight was different. Something different in his
eyes —I can’t determine what it was exactly, but someone once
told me that fear can make a person mad. And the look I saw tonight …
I’m almost positive it was screaming fear all over.

As much as I’m scared
of what made him feel this way, I’m even more angry that I need to
talk to someone about what happened tonight and that someone should
be him, but I can’t because he’s right. Something has changed
since I’ve been here. I’m not sure Wyoming is the place for me
anymore. There is only one other person I can even consider calling
right now. I scramble to my couch where I dig through my purse. It’s
late and I’ll probably wake the baby, but I’m calling Kelsey
anyway.

“Sara, what’s
wrong?” she answers after one ring.

“Logan showed up here
tonight,” I blurt out. I’m too worked up to ease into the
conversation. I hear the baby crying in the background, and I know
Kelsey will understand that it’s best to just cut to the chase. “He
came here for me and I wasn’t here.”

“Where were you?”

“At Liam’s.”

“Liam’s, like his
apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“No! Oh, wow, no. His
roommate was having a party and he invited me.”

“Well that was nice
of him. I bet you needed a break.”

“Exactly, but all
Logan saw was me choosing to relax with Liam and not him, then he
asked me to send Liam to Wyoming so he could come here to Colorado
with me and I said no.”

“What? Why would you
say no? Does this mean you and Logan aren’t dating anymore?”

“I don’t know. I
just panicked and blurted out something about liking Rockland in a
different way than Wind Valley. And then he stormed off and told me
to call him when I got my life together.”

“You like Colorado
better?”

“No, I just … he
was all weird with Liam and Logan said something to make it sound
like he owned me or something. Maybe I’m just overreacting.”

“Oh, that’s
intense, but jealousy does things to people they never thought they
would do.”

“Yeah,” I say.
Kelsey isn’t helping as much as I thought she would.

“Do you want to hear
a secret? It’s probably going to make you feel like shit, but it
will explain a lot.”

“Oh no, what is it?”

“Well, Ethan told me
Logan has been looking into finding his sister. Last I heard, it
wasn’t going well.”

“He is?” My heart
breaks thinking of how this conversation has never come up.

“Yeah, it’s insane.
I can’t imagine not knowing my real family.”

“I have to go.” I
tap the end button and lean back on the couch. That was the fear I
saw. The fear of his real family not wanting him. I’ve always
thought of Logan as family, and I should have chosen him, I know I
should have, but I didn’t and now he probably thinks no one wants
him. If only he knew how wrong he is.

Logan

“You want to talk
about it?” Conner asks after we’ve been driving for a while.

“No.”

“You’re positive?
Because we have another two hours to drive and as much as I like
heavy music, I’d prefer to show up at home without my ears
bleeding.”

“She just—”

“Keep going.”

“I don’t—”

“You almost have it.”

“She didn’t pick
me,” I spit out.

Silence is the only
response I get.

“Hey, man, you wanted
me to talk, and now you have nothing to say.”

“Well, fuck, I didn’t
say I was going to know what to say back to you.” Conner grunts.

“Well, think of
something. I’m tired of no one having anything to say to me.”

I hit the steering
wheel with my palm.
Fuck.
She couldn’t even pick me. Before she left, she wanted to be with
me, and now she can’t even make a decision.

“Alright, so, I know
this whole road trip was my idea, but I have to be honest. I thought
you would act a bit more smooth when we got there,” Conner says,
keeping his eyes on his phone.

“Smooth? I was way
fucking smooth.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure
about that. You acted like you were back in high school or even
junior high. Sara had an excuse because she’d been drinking, but I
don’t see one for you. And I know exactly why you were there, so to
me it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but to others you may
have come off as a bit more intense.”

I glare at him.
“Intense?”

“Yeah, you were kind
of scary.”

I let his words soak
in. I wasn’t that bad. It’s not like I went in their throwing
fists and handing out black eyes. I couldn’t have scared anyone.
Did I? Shit. What if I scared Sara and that’s the reason she didn’t
answer me?

“And not to mention—”

“Okay, I think we’ve
done enough talking,” I interrupt him before he can say anything
else to make me feel like a jackass.

Intense.

Sara used that same
word at Liam’s apartment. Maybe I am intense, but it’s only
because I care about her. And maybe I need to tone it down a notch,
but no one ever said love needed to be monitored. Now is not the time
to start either.

Sara

“I knew he would do
something like this,” my father says over the phone.

“No, you didn’t,”

“Yes, I did. I had a
feeling he was a little on the crazy side.”

“He’s not crazy.
He’s mad and I hurt him.”

“Mad and hurt turns
people crazy.”

I roll my eyes and plop
onto the sofa. My plan had been to not tell my father about Logan,
but some how he overheard someone at the BA and now here we are.

“I don’t think you
should see him right now.” My father’s voice is firm.

“I can’t do that. I
may be mad, too, but eventually we are going to have to talk this
out.”

“Just stay in
Colorado for a couple weeks. Liam can keep you company in the
meantime. Now that’s the kind of boy you should end up with.”

“Dad, stop. I don’t
like Liam, not that way.”