Page 25 of Break the Barrier

“I’m at the bar a lot,” I tell her. “It’s not super practical to have too much at home when I’m rarely here.”

“Yeah, but…” She trails off, spinning in a circle. “Don’t you want to feel comfy when you are at home? Dad says home is where we get to be ourselves. I like to decorate my room with things that make me happy.”

I try to picture Logan decorating his house and can’t see the big and tough cowboy taking too much care with design choices.

“Well, let’s go see your room then,” I deflect, taking the few groceries I need for dinner and leaving the rest behind.

The sooner we leave, the sooner the teenager will stop judging me.

I stand corrected. Logan does seem to care about design choices.

I pull up to his house where Lue directs me. It’s on a bit of acreage, so his neighbors are spread out, and there’s plenty of space for things like a chicken coop and a little barn out back, which he has, but according to Lue, there are no animals.

From the outside, the home looks like your typical farmhouse. It’s white with dark blue shutters, has a small but homey front porch with a swing hanging from the banisters, and there’s a welcome home mat settled in front of the door.

But the moment I walk inside, my mouth hangs open. The floors are sleek oak wood, and the couches are brown leather and look buttery soft. There’s a fireplace that is encased in rock, giving the inside of this home a cabin-like feel. There’s so much natural light streaming in that the dark furniture features don’t make it feel too small in here. When I look to the right, there’s a kitchen that should be small, but someone—I suspect Logan—took out whatever was there and filled it in with a good-sized island.

Simply put, it’s beautiful.

“Wow, nice house,” I say, setting my groceries on the island. Lue looks over at me with a smug smile.

“See, you gotta live somewhere you can be yourself.”

I smile at her and nod. “Got it.”

She helps me put away the groceries for the time being. I won’t need to start dinner for a while yet.

Then she sets me down on one of the couches, my body sinks into it in a pleasant way, and I breathe in the leather smell.

“Okay, so I just really quickly want to run through all my lines,” Lue says, shuffling back to a room down a hallway. “Be right back.”

I take a minute to look at my surroundings. There’s a photo on the wall that’s bigger than the others, and it’s of Logan andLue when she was younger. Logan’s hair is a little long, but he’s smiling wide in a boyish way that shows how young he was when he was thrust into fatherhood, tickling Lue, and making her laugh in the photo. It’s beautiful.

Surrounding it are smaller framed photos of his brothers and Lue, each photo is a glimpse into his life, and I realize that he’s truly that family man he depicts when I see him out with his daughter.

My heart thumps.

Dammit, heart. No thumping.

“Okay, got the scripts!” I hear her say, coming back into the room.

“What play is it this year?”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” she says right as she hands me an inch-thick stack of papers.

I blink in shock. “This is for a middle school play?”

“Well, not really. The play is for anyone to join, but it’s mostly kids from school.” Lue just grins broadly at me and settles herself on the coffee table in front of me. “Let’s get started!”

10

logan

It had beena long and grueling day. Summer had found us unexpectedly soon, and the heat had beat us down all day long with unrelenting force.

I drag myself home, desperate for a shower and half-hoping my mom handled dinner so we could eat and get to bed.

Pulling my truck into my driveway, I think I’m hallucinating when I see Thea’s car parked right there. It sits perfectly right beneath the weeping willow tree. I don’t hate seeing it here, like it belongs.