Page 100 of Riding the Sugar High

share his passions with me

Primrose

The front door opens,and my eyes shoot up. I lower the top of my laptop, wetting my lips as I put my lollipop in the glass on the nightstand. God, my heart is going to burst through my chest. He’s back. He’sfinallyback.

He left at two, and the police kept him for well over three hours.

I stand and walk to the corridor, the noise drawers being opened and shut and things being moved around reaching me from the living room.

Crap. It didn’t go well, did it?

I find Logan rifling through a cupboard in the living room, his helmet on. “Hey,” I say tentatively as he slams it shut, then flips to the top drawer. “Is everything...okay?” I wince as that one slams too.

“I don’t know where I left my keys.”

I nod as he smacks books and knick-knacks from one side of the shelf to the other, but he doesn’t seem in the right state of mind to be riding, flustered as he is. Even without seeing his face, I can tell. He’s moving like there are bugs inside his clothes.

“Logan?” When he walks into the kitchen and begins a new search, I follow him. “What happened?”

With every one of his erratic movements, my heart beats faster and faster. Is this it? Have we been made? Maybe the police are right behind him, coming here to arrest me. Maybe they’ll arrest him, and he wants to run away.

“Logan, please, just tell me?—”

He snaps his visor up, his bloodshot eyes meeting mine. “I told you,” he mumbles. “I’m looking for the fucking bike keys.”

Shoulders falling, I walk closer. He’s desperate, and that’s much scarier than his anger. It reminds me of that first night, when he had a panic attack. Is he having one now?

I rest my hand on his jacket’s faux leather sleeve, wishing there was some indisputable way to show him he can open up to me and trust me. But I know better than to try prying his mind open. All I need is for him to abandon the idea of driving the most dangerous vehicle he can get his hands on when he’sthisupset.

“How about we sit down for a minute? We don’t need to talk. We could just...” I shrug, knowing that “snuggle” isn’t the right word. “Just sit there and exist.”

“No, I need to—” He moves past me, opening yet another drawer, the forks and knives clinking together as he roughly pushes them around. “I’m going out. Need to clear my head.”

I guess these are the zoomies Kyle mentioned.

“Then let’s take the pickup. We can?—”

“I’m going for a ride, Barbie,” he says, and fishing into the cabinet next to the stove, he takes out his keys. He turns around, his unhinged gaze set on mine. “I’m fine to drive. Promise.”

I follow him to the door, my heart beating loudly in my chest. But I don’t know what else to say to stop him, and he’s not thinking straight right now. Watching him walk away, my stomach twists. I need to do something.

I shut the door behind me, then march after him. He turns as I approach his side, but I blatantly ignore him and step in front of the bike. Determined eyes set on him, I cross my arms. “You want to leave? You’ll have to go through me.”

He stops an inch away from my nose. Through the gap in his helmet, he stares down at me, and the disparity in size nearly makes me cringe. “My, oh my,” he says flatly, a flicker of faint amusement in his eyes. “What will I ever do?”

“You’ll do what any smart man would do once he’s been overpowered.” Tilting my chin up, I try to keep a straight face. “You’ll listen to the much smarter woman telling you to come back inside.”

“Yeah? You want me inside, Barbie?”

Look whose mood has suddenly improved.

Logan’s head shakes, and backing up to walk around me, he says, “I’ll see you later.”

“No—no way,” I say as I block his path again. I stare deeply into his eyes, though I’m not entirely sure he wouldn’t run me over.

I’mprettysure he wouldn’t.

“I think I’ve already established I can move you around quite effortlessly, Barbie.”