Page 138 of Let the Game Begin

“Just like I knew you’d spend the day locked up in the pool house. Selene asked about you earlier, and I told her you needed to be alone for a while.”

Logan did know me better than anyone else, and I’d often wondered what I would have done without him; what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had a brother like him?

“You do know me.” I stuck a cigarette between my lips and lit it. If people really did have soulmates, then Logan was mine: he was definitely the better half of me.

“You’re my fucked-up big brother; of course I know you.” He smiled and sat down on the chaise next to me, hands stuffed into the pocket of his sweatshirt. I gave him a thin smile and kept smoking, watching the dense smoke cloud rise up into the air.

“The cold freezes the memories, right? How long have you been sitting out here?”

Logan really did know everything there was to know about me. He could interpret all the details, every tiny quirk of my bizarre behaviors. I was vulnerable to him, stripped of all my barriers. I became nothing but myself,with all my endless flaws and issues.

“About five minutes,” I answered, pinching the beige filter of my Winston between my lips. They were my favorite brand because they relaxed me without leaving too much of a nicotine aftertaste on my tongue. Every one of my quirks had a reason—they were waiting to be discovered.

“Can I bum one?” Logan pointed at my pack of cigarettes, and I shot him a skeptical look. I didn’t like him smoking, though I knew he wasn’t addicted like me.

“No, just finish mine.” I took one last drag before passing it over to him. He took it in his fingers and lifted it to his lips to try it.

He almost never smoked, except when he was nervous.

“So, tell me about it. Do you like her?” he asked, looking at the glowing cherry on his cigarette rather than at me.

I could have pretended I didn’t know what he was asking about, but I knew that would have been pointless. But, hold on… Wasn’t he still pissed off at me?

“You know that I get confused about stuff like that,” I answered, vaguely but truthfully. I was confused by human relationships in general and with women in particular. For one thing, since I was child, a woman had never provoked anything more than a physical interest in me. For another, there were my sexual inclinations, which the monster inside forced me to impose on everyone.

Especially on blonds.

“Do you think the world might be less scary for you if you had someone by your side?”

I turned to examine my brother, trying to figure out why the fuck he was talking like this now.

“Need I remind you that you were the one who said I was unstable?” I threw his own words in his face and he sighed.

“Nah, I still think that and the reasons why I do are clear, even for you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t at least try to open your heart to someone.”

What the hell was he doing? First he was warning Selene away from me and now he wanted me to…date her? Try to start a relationship with her?

“Did you come here to play Jiminy Cricket for me? Why?” It would have been insane to open myself up like that to anyone, let alone someone likeSelene. It would have been like a death sentence for her, and I didn’t want Babygirl to die—I wanted her to live.

To live by the side of someone much better than me.

“They aren’t all like Kimberly or Scarlett. Have you ever tried just talking to a woman? Have you tried really getting to know someone and figuring out if you want her in your life and not just your bed?”

The answer was obvious: I never showed an interest in anything about a woman beyond her body. But I didn’t answer and Logan kept talking:

“You should give yourself a chance. You can’t keep forcing yourself to relive that torture all the time. I know that sex is nothing but pain for you.”

Something cracked open in my chest at the sound of these words because…Logansawme. Or maybe he had always known the truth about my behavior, deep down.

“I do it for the Boy…” I whispered, rubbing a hand over my chest where the patter of my heart was suddenly loud, so loud and then something abruptly caught my attention.

It was the Boy himself, the one who couldn’t rest, the one who forced me to soothe him in the most illogical way.

I saw him.

I saw him right there in front of me, standing on the other side of the pool with his blue shorts covered in dirt. His knees were scraped up, golden eyes filled with tears, long brown curls hanging over his forehead, his Oklahoma City basketball jersey and a ball tucked under his forearm. It was the same one he used to play with out in the yard. By himself.

We stared each other down and then he shifted his gaze to the clean, clear water in front of him for just a second before looking back at me. I frowned, unsure if he was trying to tell me something but I didn’t know. He smiled at me and then dropped like a dead weight into the water.