Some Kind of Hell (10 page)

We randomly kissed whenever our lips were close enough to try. Most of the time our lips weren’t really together, neither were our tongues, making it sloppy but insanely sexy.

I wrapped my legs around Logan, never feeling so sensual in my life. Sex was never like this before. Sex. It had once started out as something good, but eventually went to just something out of need. Part of the relationship. But with Logan...

“Fuck, Annie,” he growled, placing his lips to my ear. He nibbled at my earlobe and said, “I’m going to come.”

I moaned and pulled at him, wanting it all.

He sped up, thrusting, loving, having all of me. I kissed his cheek and then our mouths came together. I could feel him thickening and a second before he came it occurred to me that the sex was so perfect and so hot it was almost virginal. Like starting over.

Logan came deep in my body, holding himself close and tight. I felt everything.

Literally everything.

We stayed in the same position for what felt like hours, Logan’s hands exploring my body, our lips like magnets unable to pull apart for more than a few seconds before coming together again.

When Logan finally moved off my body, we faced each other, naked.

He touched my face and I stared into his eyes.

Other than a few kisses that were noisy, we didn’t make a sound.

It was the most romantic moment of my life.

~10~

Waking up naked was a strange feeling for me because it was something I never did. Waking up to the feeling of someone touching me while I was naked was something else. I felt fingers touch my shoulder and then go beyond until a warm hand cupped my tender breast. That’s when my eyes popped open. I still had myself half convinced that up to that point anything with Logan had to have been a dream.

A complete and total dream.

There was no way he touched me like he did. There was no way he did what he did to me, on top of me, inside me...

The hand on my breast proved otherwise.

I looked at Logan’s hand first and then lifted the covers to look at the rest of my body.

Holy shit.

Everything really had happened the night before like my mind told me.

I looked at the curves of my body, to the spots that were hidden but still had the lingering memories of being touched. I gently shifted back and felt Logan. I felt his legs, his stomach, his chest, and, of course, I felt him hard.

“Logan,” I whispered. “Are you up?”

“Yeah, I’m up,” he said with a flirty tone in his voice. “Can’t you feel it?”

I rolled to him, feeling so exposed yet good at the same time. His eyes were still shut, but that didn’t stop him from touching me.

“I’m glad you stayed here last night,” I said.

“Of course,” he said. “You needed me here.”

“What?” I asked.

Logan opened his eyes a crack. “Right? You needed me here.”

“You couldn’t sleep in your car,” I said.

“I could have,” Logan said. “You didn’t want me to. So I didn’t. I slept here.”

I sat up and held the covers to my chest. It lifted the covers off most of Logan’s perfect body. He put his hands behind his head, obviously not caring about being naked as much as I was.

“What am I then? A pity fuck?”

“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Are you really asking that?”

“Why’d you stay then?”

“Because I fell asleep,” Logan said. “We had fun and we were just staring at each other. I didn’t want to ruin that.”

“So you stayed because of that?”

“Not just that,” Logan said. He sat up and threw the covers off himself, turning so I could only see his back. “Christ, do you always have to get like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like this,” he yelled. “So worried... and bothered. Fuck, Annie. I stayed over, so what?”

“I just want to make sure I’m not some chick. Or if I am, you just admit it to me now.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Admit it now? What does that mean? Are we going to run away and get married now? Live the
Annie dream
?”

The
Annie dream...

The words were evil and cut right to my heart.

I wanted to believe that Logan didn’t mean what he had just said but the look in his eyes suggested otherwise. He knew enough about me now so that he could attack me like that. That was the hardest part of it all maybe. Opening up and giving someone something to throw back at you someday.

“Why don’t you go finish sleeping in your fucking car then?” I asked.

“On it,” Logan said.

He stood and lifted his pants, giving me one last glance at his bare ass. Damn myself for looking, but I couldn’t control my eyes. They knew what they liked to see. Next, Logan grabbed his shirt and threw it over his shoulder. As if the wound didn’t hurt enough, he was going to walk out my room with a shirt on.

“You don’t care, do you?” I asked. “What you just said...”

“If you can’t figure out that I care by now, then maybe you don’t care,” Logan remarked. “Go ahead and get stuck in something that was meant to be over. Watch how fast the present turns to shit, Annie.”

“So, what? You walk out, fly to LA, and my life becomes shit?”

I tried to hold it together but that was the damn truth waiting for me.

“I never said that,” Logan said.

His eyes looked to my desk. To my phone. He took my phone and started typing something. A second later he threw the phone on the bed at me and I heard another ringtone sound. Logan took out his phone and silenced it.

“There,” he said. “You have my number. Call me or text me or whatever.”

“Oh, so it’s all up to me. You come to my apartment. Fuck me. Sleep in my bed. Then it’s all up to me.”

“Yeah, you believe that,” Logan said. “Live in your bubble and believe that.”

Logan left and I didn’t chase after him. I could have ran with the sheet against my body, or naked. I could have dressed fast and tried to catch him. All these scenarios played out long after he was gone as I sat in bed, stuck between heartache and shock. Of course I thought about Jared, wondering if he and his pregnant thing were having morning sex. That was the only time Jared really touched me towards the end of the relationship. That was part of the reason why last night meant so much to me. To be able to be up late, throwing all caution to the wind, having fun, having sex, being wild...

I fell back to my pillow and closed my eyes.

I thought if I held my eyes shut tight enough I wouldn’t be able to cry.

I was wrong.

Tears found a way out of my eyes.

They always seemed to find a way out of my eyes.

I heard my phone ring and jumped up. I felt so out of place and the room spun for a few seconds. The clock on the nightstand told me another hour had gone by. I had fallen asleep. Instead of chasing Logan down and fixing what was wrong, I let him go and fell asleep.

Smart move.

I grabbed my phone and hoped it was him.

But it wasn’t.

It was... work.

My boss wanted to know if I wanted to cover some shifts because a few people had called off. Normally he went down a list, starting with those who wanted extra shifts and those who never work extra shifts at all. I was on the
never work extra shifts
list. He would bully us into picking up the slack, but I usually always found a good excuse.

But that morning... after Logan... I needed the escape.

He had two doubles and one night open.

I took all three.

Doubles meant I’d wake up, go to work all day and night, come home, and sleep.

No reason to see anyone.

It was perfect.

I’d hide and wait for Logan to be gone to LA. Then I could face whatever waited. Plus, if he cared as much as he tried to say before he would have not left the apartment. And he would call me. Or text me.

But five minutes after hanging up with my boss, I both missed Logan and hated that I had taken on the extra shifts. But, whatever, it was money. I could always use money. In fact, what I should have been doing was saving as much as I could for whatever came next.

And that was the strangest part of everything.

Whatever came next.

I forced myself up for the morning and got a shower, then got ready for work. I talked to Maggie for all of a minute on the phone. It was well known by then that something happened between Logan and I, both good and bad. I told Maggie I didn’t want to talk about it then and that I was at work. I still had another hour before work started and I felt bad for lying, but I wasn’t in the mood to get annoyed with questions about Logan. The confusion was too fresh to go near.

Work that night flew by, along with the other crazy and painful shifts. My body was achy, tired, but it had kept me away from the world of DownCrash. I drove without the radio on, because I feared hearing their music and the only CD I had in my car was one of their old demo CD’s.

Oh well.

Maggie and I barely talked because our work schedules were hectic. She left me sticky notes on the table and I did the same for her. We had an ongoing joke, each taking turns writing a sentence or two and keeping the notes on the table. If someone saw it they would have sworn we had been doing this for weeks. It was these kinds of things, these little dumb things between Maggie and I that gave me some kind of hope. But sometimes it made me feel trapped. I’d feel guilty about leaving her and at the same time I’d feel jealous. Jealous because she had Tatum. Jealous because she’d be in the world of rockstars... going along with DownCrash and the amazing parts of their lives to come.

When my last night to work finally came, giving me two full days off after that, I welcomed it and feared it. There would be no more distractions from my life outside of work, and I’d have to face him.

But first I’d have to face Maggie, who made that clear when I left the bedroom and she had a sticky note on my door.

SIT

That’s all it said.

I took the note and found her sitting at the dining room table with a fresh mug of coffee waiting for me. I reached down the table and put the sticky note with our huge pile of notes and then took a seat.

I sipped the coffee and smiled.

It felt good to be alive, at least right then. But the look in Maggie’s eyes told me that was all going to be challenged.

“Thanks for the coffee,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. What’s going on with you and Logan?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t say nothing.”

“No. Nothing. Literally.”

“Nothing,” Maggie said.

“He wanted me to text him or call him but I’m not going to. He’s the guy, right?”

“What happened? The last I knew, or thought I knew, you two were coming back here to hang out.”

“Oh, we did,” I said. “We slept together too. Amazing sex.”

I don’t know what got into me. Normally I’d be squirming and blushing talking about sex, but that could have been because before that wild night with Logan, it would have been Jared my sex life revolved around. And that life... well, it was boring.

“Amazing sex,” Maggie said. “And yet you two aren’t talking.”

“His choice. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. What the hell?”

“You know, I don’t remember that much.”

I really didn’t. I had no need to memorize the conversation with Logan. As far as I was concerned, what was done, was done. What was said, was said. End of discussion.

Not for Maggie though.

“This is bullshit,” Maggie said. “What did he say to you?”

“He has something with his roommate at his apartment,” I said. “He sleeps either in Tripp’s house or in his car. I wanted him to sleep here and he did, but he... he acted like it was a favor or something. Like he had sex with me as payment to sleep here. I don’t know. We just don’t get each other. It doesn’t click.”

“Doesn’t click,” Maggie said. “Well, if you could see him, you’d take that back.”

Maggie leaned back and drank her coffee. She had a defiant look on her face, as though she wanted me to take the blame for everything.

I looked down at my coffee, already feeling different.

“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered. “Okay, Maggie? I just don’t. We just... we find ways to pick at each other I guess. He knows my buttons already and he uses them.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Maggie said. “To be challenged. To push you away from all the other crap in your head.”

“The crap,” I said.

“You know what I mean. All the crap.”

“I just... what am I doing? What am I doing here? Where am I going?”

“Would you rather be back home? Feeling alone?”

“No,” I admitted. “No. I haven’t even thought about Jared and all that stuff in a couple days.”

“Because of Logan,” Maggie said.

“Well, yeah. Why hasn’t he called me? Or texted me?”

Maggie sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t answer that.”

“Does that mean he’s just done? He pushes me, I push him, he leaves, and we’re done?”

“Is that how it happened?”

“Yeah, I guess. I liked pushing him, okay? I liked finding a way to get to him. Make him mad. Make him yell. Then feel him all over me. But when we woke up that morning, it was like... like waking up in a dream, but it was real. The first time waking up like that since everything happened. Like the final, I don’t know, the final goodbye to Jared, okay?”

Maggie slid her hand across the table towards mine. Our fingertips touched. “Annie, that’s okay. You didn’t have to get mad at Logan or pick a fight, but it’s okay to feel that way. When I... with Tatum and Derreck...”

“No, don’t talk about that,” I said.

“You should have told Logan then.”

“I didn’t know how I felt right then,” I said. “I woke up to his hand touching me. His body against mine. His... you know,
hard
...”

I felt color come to my cheeks and my body warmed up. Thinking about being with Logan was like an instant turn on. This wasn’t some hookup that I could forget and move on. There were feelings behind this. What kind of feelings, I didn’t know, but letting go of Logan wasn’t going to be easy.

At all.