“Baby…” he whispers.

“Hmm?”

“I want to know about your father,” he says unexpectedly. “Please?”

I blink my eyes open and stare into his, even though they’re unfocussed. He is earnest in his desire to know, and unwilling to let there be secrets between us.

“Sometimes I feel like I know you so well, that I forget there are things we haven’t yet told each other. My father, Buddy’s baby,” I name a couple of examples, and Logan nods, telling me that he feels the same way.

“Tell me about Richard Merkis,” he urges.

I smile a little. He remembered his name, I think affectionately. “Most of what I know about his death I’ve been told later in my life. What I remember about the day is minimal.”

“You were there?”

I nod.

“What do you remember?”

“Feeling cold,” I say immediately. “Ice cold. I was sitting in the back of the car. We were at a gas station and my dad was inside, paying. I had a doll in my hands, I was four,” I interject, reminding him and he nods, “and I was looking at her. I named her Fiona, after my imaginary friend,” I add. “I looked up and there was a man standing next to my car window. He made me jump, and I remember getting chills all over my body. He was searching the car for valuables, I guess, and when he looked at me…his eyes…they were hollow, like all of the goodness had left him. I felt even colder. There was nothing in the car that he wanted, so he left, he checked a couple of other cars and then walked into the gas station. A few seconds later I heard two gunshots, and that’s all I remember.”

Logan looks shocked. “Baby, I’m so sorry,” he breathes, his hand coming up to stroke my cheek. “Where was your mom?”

“At home. I found out years later that she was told over the phone, and then had to come and get me. She was my age at the time,” I shake my head, regretfully. “I can’t imagine losing the person who you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with, so early on.”

“Don’t imagine it. You’ll never lose me, Gemima,” Logan says softly.

I smile at him again. “Promise?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” he says.

I consider for a moment. “You were eleven when he died. Two years before the wayward years began, and one year after you got over your fear of the dark, apparently,” I say.

His hand slides from my cheek into my hair, and he holds my head gently as he brings his lips to mine, kissing me tenderly.

“Thank you for telling me,” he says, his pepperminty breath washing over me.

“You’re welcome, baby.” Then I smile a little, murmuring, “I like doing this: sharing, talking, falling asleep with you like this.”

“Me too,” he kisses me again. “I think we should forfeit sleep.”

I nod in agreement, saying, “I want you to know everything about me. I want to know everything about you. Everything that you think is inconsequential, like your nickname the Wolf. Everything that you think is too obvious, like Buddy having a son. Everything that you think is embarrassing, like Magic Mike,” I laugh. “Everything that’s too dark or too difficult…”

He does as I ask. We lie like this for an hour, two hours, I lose track of time as I hear story after story about Logan’s life, and share many from mine too.

I tell him that I was so overwhelmed on my first day of working at Pierson House, that I sat on the toilet lid at lunchtime and cried. I tell him that when I’m flustered and talking really fast I sometimes get spoonerism. I tell him that when I was little I wanted to be a veterinarian after my mom’s dog (who was older than I was) died, and I hated seeing my mom so sad. I tell him that I’m secretly hoping that Amber’s baby will be born on my birthday, September fifth. I tell him how vulnerable and unsafe I used to sometimes feel around Jerry and his friends. And that my mom made me a photo album filled only with pictures of my father and I, which she gave me on my fifth birthday.

He tells me that the first thing his father did when he picked him up from the airport this evening was apologise for the way he spoke to Logan two days ago. He tells me that when he first met Buddy he didn’t tell him about the five-hundred thousand dollar cheque his parents had given him; he tells me that in the early days they lived like students, and shared a scooter that neither of them had a licence for. He tells me that sometimes he still sees the look on Taylor’s face that fateful night he beat him up, and the look on his father’s face when he pulled him off; and that despite seeing it, he can’t remember what he was feeling at the time. He tells me that in his late-twenties he plucked up the courage to look up the young men that he was friends with in his troubled youth, and was saddened to learn that most of them are now dead, falling victim to their addictions. And he tells me that I’m the only woman that he’s basically lived with since his mother.

“There’s one last thing I want to ask you, baby,” he murmurs as I’m right on the cusp of sleep.

“Anything,” I mumble.

“What do you think about us living together, in one place?”

I smile against his lips. “Which of our places would we choose?”

“This one, considering the magic you just worked on the terrace.”

Oh, yes! “But my place is bigger,” I think.

He laughs sleepily. “I built them both. This place is bigger,” he tells me.

“But half of the space here is taken up by the pool.”

“I can convert that area into a more useable living space.”

I say nothing and Logan takes this moment of silence to press his lips against mine. “I’m hearing a few buts and hesitation, which is an answer enough.”

I shake my head, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. “I want to spend every second of forever with you, Logan…”

“But?” he grins.

“I love my little house, and I’ve only been there a short while, and it’s close to your favourite candy store,” I remind him, making him chuckle. “Can’t we keep doing what we’ve been doing? Living at both places, changing our scenery every few days?”

“Of course,” he says, kissing me again.

“But?” I ask, now grinning too.

“But, eventually…”

This time I nod. “Eventually we’ll be in one place.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he yawns, setting me off too.

“It’s good to have plans,” I concur. I have several sexy things planned for the very second we wake up tomorrow, I think happily.

But first, we sleep.

8. The Best

“You’re messing with my plans,” I say loudly.

It’s Thursday morning: Logan’s birthday. I’ve been roused from my slumber by the sound of rustling duvet covers and the feeling of Logan moving south and crouching between my legs. I stare down at the mound under the covers and a moment later I feel his lips against my inner-thigh. Oh!

“Birthday boy?” I throw the covers off of us, exposing his mischievous, energised, and utterly gorgeous face.

“Are you really going to deny the birthday boy what he wants the most?” he smiles at me, seducing me.

I try to ignore the seduction. Be strong, Gem. “I have plans for you,” I inform him. “They include me wearing bows.”

Logan laughs, enthused. “And I can’t wait to see those bows, baby, but it’s my birthday, and I want to start it down here, OK?”

I’m supposed to be treating him, I think, before remembering how much Logan enjoys pleasing me. I guess I could let him have his way, I say to myself slyly. I nod once, and Logan throws the duvet back over me, disappearing under it.

“It’s a cold morning. I don’t want you to freeze your tits off,” I hear him chuckle in a muffled voice, referencing our first lunch date when I first uttered those ineloquent words. Why did I say that again?

My mind is busy, despite just waking from my sleep it’s already going a million miles an hour, trying to remember everything that I planned to do for and with Logan this morning and the order I wanted things to run. He’s overridden me completely, which sends my mind off on a different tangent, now rearranging my whole schedule. It’s not until Logan’s lips caress my thigh once more that I realise how tense my whirling thoughts have made my body.