Page 36 of The Best Worst Thing

Loose Ends

They agreed to meet at his favorite diner, a greasy spoon a block off PCH where the air swirled with the smell of bacon and breakfast potatoes and burnt coffee.

On the far side of the restaurant, framed press clippings from long-gone local newspapers hung along a wall painted a muted shade of split-pea green.

Rounded, retro countertops teemed with sugar canisters and napkin caddies.

Forks clanked and cash registers dinged.

And at a corner table by the window—where the hot morning sun beat through the glass, clear and bright—Nicole Speyer twirled around her coffee mug and tried to look Logan Milgram in the eye.

“So,” she said, “how far did you run today?”

“Seventeen miles.”

“Oh, wow. That’s really far.”

“Yeah,” he said, scratching his neck. “And somehow, not far enough.”

Nicole chuckled. “I get that.”

Logan smirked, holding her gaze for a moment.

Nicole ignored the flutter in her stomach, the heat in her hands.

The fact that, five minutes ago, he’d walked in here looking better than ever—all scruffy and sun-kissed and scanning the restaurant, searching for her.

He wore a fraying, navy Mariners ball cap, a pair of faded jeans, and a crisp white T-shirt that reminded Nicole of exactly what she’d put the brakes on.

“Logan, listen, I …”

Goddamnit. He was still looking right at her.

His morning—that long run—was still all over him.

Sure, he’d showered off the sweat and the salt, but the distance showed.

It was in the sunburn settling across his nose.

In the lines of his forearms, all bronzed and taut and soft.

There was a certain thoughtlessness, a certain lightness to him that he couldn’t seem to shake, despite his hunched shoulders, his fidgeting fingers, his open ears.

He was exhausted, wasn’t he? That was what it was.

The run had worn him out in that quiet, delightful way—the kind that makes you want to crawl into bed and just …

float. He’d probably spend the rest of the day half asleep on his couch, playing video games, nursing a gallon of Gatorade and a six-pack of Red Stripe while his dorky friends came and went.

Maybe at night, he’d order a pizza or watch the ball game or …

Maybe he had a date. Maybe he was completely, totally fine.

Maybe he was just humoring her, like any nice guy would when the very-much-married girl he was half an inch from railing had a full-blown panic attack in his living room.

Maybe he’d already realized what she’d known all along.

That July had been a flash in the pan, an exercise in make-believe.

Fun as hell, but a fool’s errand. Nicole was here to tell Logan the truth, to clean up her side of the street.

To make sure that when she ran into him two years from now at some grocery store with her toddler in tow, she’d only half want to dive behind a teetering display of Wheat Thins.

“Nicole?” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry.” She stared at her menu. “I was just thinking about your run.”

“For three minutes?”

“No … not, uh, not like that, I …”

He tapped his fingers on the table, then chuckled. “Well, this is almost as awkward as the last time I saw you, isn’t it?”

She laughed, then took a deep breath. She could do this.

She’d already done it twice this week—with Valerie, and then with her mom and dad.

And sure, that second chat had gone about as poorly as expected, but Nicole was a grown-up now.

At least, she was trying to be. She didn’t need her parents’ approval to walk away from an asshole or raise a baby alone.

And if she could take that level of bullshit on the chin, then she could certainly handle this.

She could certainly fess up to some guy she’d been fooling around with for, like, a week.

“Do you remember that day on the beach? When I told you I couldn’t carry children?”

He nodded, lips narrowing. Face, straightening. “Yeah, of course.”

“Well, a year ago, we found this carrier. You know, like a surrogate?” Another inhale.

Another exhale. “Anyway, we transferred our embryos to her twice, but they didn’t take.

Then the third one, well, it was our last try.

It wasn’t supposed to work. The doctors, everyone, they all told us not to do it.

But we did. And so when I found out about Gabe, I got drunk and I ended up at your door and I thought maybe we could … I don’t know.”

Logan’s eyes were closed. Nicole swallowed the lump in her throat and kept talking. She needed to be more clear. She knew that.

“What I’m trying to say is, that night, when I came to see you, I was so confused. But I didn’t think, not in a million years, that the transfer was going to work. Everything happened so fast. It was all the same day. The transfer, finding out about Gabe, seeing you.”

Logan’s face had fallen. He gripped his elbows, closed his shoulders, and nodded. He’d already figured it out. But Nicole knew she’d have to say the words out loud. That he needed to hear it from her. She took another deep breath and finished the job.

“I’m having a baby,” she said. “My carrier is due in March.”

Logan’s chin dipped into a slow, gentle nod. Nicole tried not to read into his every twitch or blink or breath, but it wasn’t that easy. Somehow, she managed to keep talking.

“I found out the day after our run, our beach day. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I had a million reasons. They all sucked.”

He stroked his throat, then pressed his lips together and looked at her, his eyes distant but kind.

Nicole’s chest ached as her shoulders sank.

She’d been so sure that coming clean would leave her feeling lighter, better, back in control.

But already, something else—this old, familiar tug she’d felt from time to time—had begun to weigh her down and dull her senses.

“You could have told me,” he said.

“I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

Logan clasped his hands together. The tendons in his forearms tightened. But when he looked back up at her a moment later, every inch of him had softened.

“Okay,” he said. “I can understand that.”

Nicole pushed her coffee mug around, then bit down on her tongue to keep a frown from unfolding across her face.

“After our date,” she said, “when we were about to, well … I just didn’t want to lie to you anymore.

I’m sorry it was so sudden, and I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.

I just wanted to be sure about the baby.

But the more I think about it, the more I know I was just being a liar.

And I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry I led you on.

And I’m sorry I gave you the wrong idea about … about me.”

Logan pulled a half-closed fist to his mouth. He opened his lips to speak, but stopped himself. A sharp inhale later, he tried again.

“I’m sort of taking this all in,” he said, fiddling with a pod of coffee creamer without breaking eye contact. “But we’re good, okay? We were always good, and we’re still good.”

“You’re not mad? You don’t think I’m a fraud?”

“Nicole,” he said. “I know you. I’ve known you for years. I don’t know why you keep acting like I don’t.”

She crossed her arms over her body, hoping that might hush the stupid ache she felt tugging at the top of her ribs. She could never quite put her finger on it—where it came from, what it meant. And she could never quite figure out how to shut it up for good.

“I think you’re a good person,” he said. “I think you’re going to be a great mother. I think you’re loyal and smart and really funny. There’s not much you could do to change my mind about that. And that includes not sleeping with me, okay?”

Nicole nodded, swallowing. She knew Logan made things sound good for a living, but nothing had quite prepared her to hear that.

That was just a really nice thing to say.

The kind of thing she’d have liked to remember long after he walked out the door.

The kind of thing she somehow wished he’d sent in a text message, so she could read it over and over until the words didn’t surprise her anymore.

“Thank you,” she said. “For saying that. For always being so nice to me. For everything. This summer, and back at the office. It means a lot. It always has.”

He took a long sip of his coffee. “You’re welcome.”

Nicole wasn’t quite sure what to say next. Maybe he wasn’t either, because for the next little while, nobody made a sound. She scratched her leg. He fiddled with his creamer pod. And then, after another thirty seconds or so of silence, he looked back up at Nicole.

“Is this why you didn’t want me to listen to your podcast?”

“I just … I don’t know. It’s not very sexy, I guess. My past few years.”

“Well, now that we’re both totally clothed, feel free to fill me in.”

And so Nicole finally told him everything.

How after her first two miscarriages—those, Logan knew about—she’d gone to see the fanciest fertility doctor they could find because Nicole’s regular OB still wasn’t worried.

How he was still telling her she was only thirty, that these things happen, that if she miscarried a third time, they’d take a closer look.

How at the fertility clinic, there was no such wait.

She had every test imaginable scheduled within a week.

“A uterine septum,” Dr. Williams told her.

“A birth defect, but nothing we can’t fix.

” With no desire to waste another seventeen months trying at home, they jumped right into surgery and IVF.

“You’ll be a mother in a year,” the doctor said as Nicole signed an inch-thick stack of consent forms, hand shaking.