Logan looks around the living room. “We have to move the coffee table out of the way and push the couch almost all the way back to the windows there,” he says, pointing around the room for visual aid.

  “Yes, I know. I want to know if you’re going to be comfortable with that.”

  Logan stares at me. “I already told you, Max. I don’t expect anything from you. I only take what you decide to give me. Tonight that’ll be sharing your mattress in the living room. I’m okay with that as long as you are.”

  I nod slowly, trying to figure out if my body wants to run or fight. Maybe a little bit of both. “Yep. I’m good with it.”

  It takes us a while to spread out the furniture in my living room, and then haul my mattress to the middle. We’ve pushed the couch all the way up against the living room windows, and I can feel it already providing a slight barrier to the cold air seeping in through the windows, strung-up sheets, and curtains.

  I bring my own blankets from my bedroom into the living room once the mattress has been transferred, and Logan grabs his own set and plops them right next to my mountain.

  We both glance down at the mattress, then back to each other.

  I wonder if he’s thinking about it, too, the one night we were in bed together. Maybe it’s all me, but I don’t think so.

  My heart rate goes haywire, and I excuse myself with a barely-there sound to hide in my en suite and get changed and washed up for the night. When I’m back in the living room, it’s to find that Logan is in the main bathroom, doing his own routine. I quickly blow out all except one candle, and then hop into bed, arranging the blankets just how I like them.

  When Logan opens the door, it’s to find me with the blankets all the way up to my throat, my hoodie pulled up over my head, my hair tied up in a bun and hidden underneath it.

  I don’t look ready for love. I look ready to survive another cold night with the guy who’s apparently my husband lying down beside me.

  He’s wearing his sweats and a giant sweatshirt. He’s not going to crawl in naked into bed with me, either, but I can’t help the hot little flare of disappointment all the same.

  Logan gets into bed, and now we’re both staring up at the ceiling as if it’s going to give us topics for discussion.

  I don’t know what to say, what to do.

  We had a heavy afternoon, and yesterday wasn’t fun either.

  Now we’re both lying down next to each other in the middle of a storm, and I hope to everything that is holy that I don’t somehow attach myself like a barnacle to Logan as the night drags on.

  “Good night, Max,” Logan says, his voice shattering the silence.

  “Good night, Logan,” I murmur back, turning to my side to blow out the last candle.

  The apartment is plunged into darkness. It’s a little scary actually, being in this much open space with all the dark and no light to see by.

  I’m acutely aware of every single move that Logan makes, the way he rolls more deeply onto his side and sighs like he’s had a hell of a day, too.

  I keep my eyes on the ceiling, the shadows resolving into shapes and movements as my eyes get adjusted to the lack of light.

  The storm still rages on outside, the pitter-patter of freezing rain hitting the windows with enough force to be annoying.

  The dark, too, makes it easier to confess to half-truths and lies I’ve told myself, or let myself believe. “I don’t believe in marriage because I don’t want to end up like my parents,” I whisper.

  Logan’s breathing is even and measured, but there’s a part of me that can tell that he’s listening.

  “I don’t believe in marriage because I’m afraid if I do get married, I’ll settle for the way that I’ve learned, knowing the way my parents treat each other. I don’t want that for myself.”

  Logan doesn’t say anything. It makes it easier to speak out into the dark like I’m having a conversation with the shadows instead of another human being.

  “I’ve been alone for a long time, too. I don’t navigate relationships well, either, as you’ve clearly seen.”

  I turn to look at Logan’s broad back, aching to reach out and touch his shoulders, to feel that connection.

  “I know I keep saying that you need to do all these things for me for Christmas, Logan, but…but if you think it’s going to be impossible, or you change your mind, then we don’t have to do this. I can go alone. I won’t actually die if I go alone.”

  Logan turns slowly onto his back, and then onto his other side so that he’s facing me. “I made you a promise,” he whispers in the dark, and a shiver races its way down my spine. “I plan on keeping that promise.”

  He stares at me with his dark eyes, willing me to believe him.

  If only I knew which promise he was talking about – coming to Christmas dinner with me, or this farce of a marriage?

  Which one is he talking about?

  FOURTEEN

  I wake up, my skin boiling. I cling to sleep as I fight to get my hoodie off, trying to navigate and pull it my body without opening my eyes.

  My elbow hits something that isn’t a pillow, and a grunt of pain whistles out of teeth.

  “Max, fuck,” Logan groans, but I refuse to open my eyes to see what’s going on. I’m still fighting with my hoodie, too tired to move and drag it off my body. “Do you want some help?”

  “Mmmm,” I murmur, frowning now since I’m more awake than I was a few seconds ago.

  I feel Logan’s hands move to the bottom hem of my hoodie, grab onto the material and start yanking it over my head. When I’m clear of it, I sigh, shivering in the cold, my skin pebbling in goosebumps.

  The blankets are twisted around my legs. I’m boiling like I’m inside the heart of a star. I futilely try to kick off the blankets but only succeed to make them more entangled around my body. Now I’m awake.

  I groan as I sit up, pulling the blankets off me and placing them on the side, letting the cold air circulating around my apartment cool me down.

  “S’too hot,” I groan, rolling onto my side, finding a cold patch of the mattress to gratefully sink into.

  “Because you’re sleeping next to me,” Logan says. I shush him. Logan chuckles. “You’re really not a morning person, huh?”

  “Still dark outside,” I point out.

  “The curtains are closed, Max. It’s morning, I promise you.”

  “Liar,” I groan, hiding my head underneath my pillow, trying to keep the blissful darkness close. It’s no use, though. I’m awake.

  Shit.

  Logan’s humming a song underneath his breath, and by the jostling I’m getting, I can tell that he’s moved further away from me, taking his scalding body heat with him.

  What an asshole.

  I shiver in the cold air, the exposed skin of my arms already feeling cool to the touch.

  Seems like everything is conspiring against me to get my ass out of bed. “What if I just spend all day in bed?” I murmur to myself once I get clear of the pillow and can breathe fresh air again.

  Logan laughs, turns onto his back so that our arms are brushing against each other. He really is scalding hot, in more than one way.

  I lift my head to squint at Logan in the semi-darkness. He’s lying there, chest and nipples exposed to the wind. I drop my head to the pillow and groan.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Why are you naked?” I ask, rubbing a hand over my burning cheeks. I use my foot to get my blankets on top of me again, snuggling close to the soft material. “Honestly, it’s like you want me to look.”

  “That’s kind of the point, Max.”

  I turn my head to look at him. What’s worse? He turns on his side to face me, and I’m faced with all of that glorious male beauty that I don’t really know what to do with this early in the morning.

  I know my hair’s a mess – it’s always a mess in the morning. This close, Logan can probably count my pores and start tracing constellations over the bridge of my nose and my cheeks.

  “You know you’re hot,” I say, licking at my dry lips. “I’m sure you know that.”

  Logan grins at me, clearly pleased with the roundabout admission. I roll my eyes, keep them closed and try to force myself back to sleep.

  “Are you really going back to sleep, or do you want breakfast?” he whispers. “I can make us pancakes.”

  Pancakes – the meal I was promised if I had stayed the whole night that time we slept together.

  I open my eyes to a squint. “I might want to go back to sleep,” I say. “But I won’t be able to. I really want to stay in bed all day.”

  Logan grins at me. “Nobody says we can’t. There’s nothing else to do anyway.”

  I frown at him. “You’re not supposed to give in to what I want. You’re supposed to tell me to get my lazy ass off the bed and do something productive with my time.”

  Logan frowns, his forehead adorably furrowed. This close, I could reach out and touch the skin there, smooth it out with my fingers. Not that I’m going to, of course, despite us sharing my bed.

  Even though we’re legally husband and wife.

  “Max, who told you that?”

  I pull the blankets up over my mouth in case I want to let out any more revelations today. Except Logan looks so earnest, and he’s right here, in my bed with me, in the middle of this fucking storm, and I want…I want him to know me better, to understand me.

  “When I told my parents I wanted to do the whole influencer thing full-time, they didn’t speak to me for three months straight. It was the longest silent treatment I ever got, and whenever I was around them, they’d give me the ‘disappointment eyebrows’.” I show him what I mean, frowning hard. “I wanted to do something for me, and they couldn’t handle it.”

  “Three months?”

  I nod. “The longest three months of my life. My dad went so far as to take his name off my car lease, and I lost his corporate discount when it came to my cell phone plan. It was all shit. But I don’t think they expected me to double-down and move out when I did.”

  Logan’s eyes flare wide. “That’s something to be proud of.”

  I nod slowly. “I did a lot of it out of spite. A giant ‘screw you’ to both of them. It was pretty lonely for a while, but it’s better this way.”

  “How is it better?”

  “I can do what I want when I want. Always. That sense of freedom, I wouldn’t give it up for anything,” I say, looking him dead in the eye.

  “Max,” he says, my name coming out on a sigh. “Max, is that what this is all about? Why you ran away from me?”

  I want to cover my head with the blankets, pretend we’re not having this conversation. My throat tightens, and I know the next words are going to be difficult to say.

  “I hate disappointing people, I hate it. I…I don’t want to disappoint you, either.”

  “How are you going to disappoint me?” he asks gently, leaning in just that bit more so that I could reach out, skim a touch over his arm, maybe even his cheek if he’d let me.

  “I work a lot, Logan. It’s kind of the only thing I’m good at. I mean, look at me. I’ve been going stir crazy for days because I can’t be productive.”

  “That’s just a habit you need to break, not a life-long affliction.”

  I look at him. “And this whole thing, tempting me with your body or whatever? It’s distracting.”

  He grins. “You’re supposed to be distracted. I want you to be distracted. Why can’t you rest?”

  “I wasn’t born with that gene, okay? Stop pushing it.”

  “Because you feel like a failure if you don’t try to prove to everyone around you that because you’re working so hard, nobody can touch you? Is that it, Max? Because it sounds lonely to me.”

  “Loneliness never killed anyone.”

  Logan smiles sadly. “I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that,” he says, gently lifting his hand. I watch it move like it’s some foreign object streaking across the sky, scared and elated all rolled into one. “Can I touch you?”

  I nod. My eyes close at the feel of him running a hand over my head, then trailing down my hair.

  “You can move closer if you want to,” he says, giving me permission that I’m too scared to ask for.

  I don’t let guys get this close. I certainly don’t intend to lay in bed with them all day unless we’re doing other activities.

  I slowly inch forward, until my cold nose is pressed to Logan’s warm chest. He hisses at the contact, and I marvel that steam isn’t wafting off our skin at the temperature change.

  “Is this okay?” he asks, holding me close, but not tight enough that I feel like I can’t breathe like I couldn’t get away if I wanted to.

  “You can hold me tighter,” I tell him, grunt when he does so. Logan rolls onto his back so I’m lying down on top of him, a mishmash of blankets and two bodies as close as they’re going to get.

  And because Logan can’t see my face, it’s easier to talk, pressed close to him like this. “Thank you for even offering to come with me on Christmas Day. I know it might seem like nothing, but it means a lot to me. A lot.”

  Logan gives me a squeeze. “Yeah, of course.”

  “And you don’t have to pretend to be head over heels in love with me, or pretend I’ve got diamonds up my ass.”

  Logan laughs. “I thought the ground you walk on was supposed to be made of diamonds,” he says, pressing his cheek against the side of my head.

  This is nice. It’s really nice. So nice in fact, that I’m scared to ruin it.

  Like this whole situation can be summed up like that one time my mom put out the very best tablecloth we owned for Christmas dinner years and years ago. I, of course, dropped some gravy on it and had to get up and clean the stain while everyone else was enjoying their meals.

  The embarrassment and shame are still hot embers in my chest, and the memory is enough to spark them into a full burning flame.

  “It wouldn’t be difficult, treating you like that, like how you want to be treated,” he says easily.

  I hold very still, afraid to breathe. Logan gives me another affectionate squeeze.

  “Don’t be scared now, Max. I’m going to give you want.”

  “But I don’t want to take it. This isn’t fair to you.”

  “Don’t make assumptions on what I feel. You can’t do that, Max, not for anyone.” Logan runs a hand through my hair, soothing me. I could fall asleep again, just like this. I really, really could.

  “So, what do you want, Logan?” I pull back enough to look at him, my hair blocking out the rest of the world so all we can do is look at each other.

  “You know, that first night we met, I thought that you were seriously out of my league.”

  I smile. “It’s the eyeshadow. It scares all the wannabes off.”

  Logan shakes his head. He slowly lifts his hand, telegraphing the movement. I hold still and shiver when he skims his fingers along the apple of my cheek.

  “No, I liked everything about you, immediately. And I couldn’t fucking stop talking the whole night. It was like I could hear myself from a distance, but I couldn’t get myself to shut up.

  “And then you smiled at something I said.” He mimes an explosion going off beside his head. “You have a really great smile.”

  “Thanks,” I murmur, my cheeks already starting to burn.

  “I knew that night, even after stammering like an idiot, and even after I had to pull teeth to get you to talk to me, but when you did? Shit, Max, I knew that I wanted to marry you.”

  “What? That’s insane. That’s not true. No way. I wasn’t even a good date.”

  “You treated the wait staff with respect, and you offered to pay for your meal at the end of the night. You were kind, even when I was babbling my head off. I’d get high just watching you give me the smallest of smiles.”

  I shake my head again, my heart beating erratically as I stare down at him.

  “Logan, you couldn’t have thought that you wanted to marry me that night. No way.”

  “Fine, I lied. It was after our third date.”

  I wince.

  “Yeah, exactly. After you ran off, I kind of got the point.”

  “Sorry,” I murmur.

  Logan grins at me. “Why? I kind of got what I wanted in the end. I put a ring on your finger,” he says. His hand rests over my ring finger, traces the ring that refuses to budge.

  It defies the laws of physics, honestly.

  If I believed in magic, or destiny, or whatever, I’d say there has to be a reason for a ring that doesn’t want to be removed from my body. Like it’s supposed to be there, for better or for worse.

  Yeah, right.

  “A ring which we will never mention again, based on the look on your face.” Logan grins, playful and sweet.

  My heart drums against my ribs, the blood pounds in my ears. I’m warm, too warm, settled on top of Logan like this.

  We’re close, but we’re not skin to skin, not like a part of me wants to be.

  Logan moves some of my hair out of my face, looping it carefully behind an ear.

  “You’re being very gentle with me.”

  Logan nods. “You don’t go barreling into a Christmas tree. You move around it carefully.”

  I snort. “That was cheesy.”

  Logan smiles, his eyes crinkling closed. “Yeah, but you loved it. I can tell.”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  “No, I can tell, Max. You smile at me like this when you like what I say to you.” He demonstrates a lopsided grin that’s been hanging around my mouth too often these past few days. I didn’t know I was being that transparent.

  “Well, don’t let it go to your head.”

  “Never,” he whispers. “Can I kiss you here?” He taps the middle of my forehead.

  My skin’s on fire, and my arms are starting to shake from holding myself up so I don’t crush him to death. “This just sounds like it’s me taking from you, again, Logan.”

  He leans back, giving me time to think. One hand is still absently petting my hair, and it’s going to seriously put me to sleep.

  My heart beats hard in my chest like I’ve gone and sprinted up fourteen flights of stairs.