Page 38 of The Best Worst Thing

Three Weeks’ Notice

They spent the rest of the day driving around the county, stockpiling the last dozen pairs of Logan’s favorite running shoes.

Apparently, Brooks had changed the toe box on this year’s model of his most-beloved neutral sneaker, and Logan—who’d been wearing it religiously for a decade—wasn’t ready to search for a replacement just yet.

Nicole did the driving, which was probably for the better, because Logan had spent the past few hours recapping some Ken Burns documentary about Yosemite, dozing off in Nicole’s passenger seat, and downright staring at her legs.

A handful of times, he’d nearly managed to do all three at once.

“So, you just get a new one of these every few years?” he said, dragging his forefingers along the soft beige leather of Nicole’s dash. “You just pick a color, and that’s that?”

She signaled to change lanes as the hot inland sun baked through her windshield. “Yeah, that’s pretty much how car leases work.”

“Interesting,” he said. “Learn something new every day.”

Nicole scoffed as Logan fiddled with the tab of his half-empty soda can for a few seconds, then leaned his head against the glass and just looked at her.

A minute passed, maybe two.

Nicole bit her lip, then kept driving. She drummed the steering wheel. She fussed with the stereo. She itched her leg. And then, finally, as she veered down the Ventura Boulevard off-ramp, she turned her head.

She’d caught him midstare.

He blinked twice, then glanced away, chuckling.

“What?” Nicole said. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. It’s just, usually Dave drives me around on my long run days. And you’re much more fun to look at, that’s all.”

Dave and Logan had grown up together in Seattle, and their friendship was more than three decades old. After high school, Dave had gone to CalTech and never left Los Angeles. He was, much like Logan, a colossal nerd.

“Yeah, well, I feel like that’s not very hard,” Nicole said, turning into the parking lot of another strip mall anchored by a defunct pet store and a yogurt shop.

“The image of Dave in my head is pretty much that wizard from the weird arcade game. Bonkers hair, navy cape with stars, a zillion years old …”

“Actually, Dave’s very sexy. Like a Black James Bond, but with glasses.”

Nicole put the car in park. “That’s literally Idris Elba. If you know someone who looks like Idris Elba, you’d better tell me now.”

Logan laughed, then hopped out of the car and opened her door while she tossed a few things in her bag. But as soon as she’d climbed out of her seat, he took a step back.

It had been like this all afternoon—since they’d driven off from the diner.

Every time she’d catch him staring, he’d look away, then make some dumb joke.

And every time he got too close to her, Nicole’s body would begin to buzz, at once remembering the rush of his hands flying up her skin, the slick of his mouth sloping down her stomach, the heat of his shoulders hovering over her breathless body, and then, all of a sudden, he’d pull away.

He’d put space between them.

A foot, maybe two.

Not much—but enough.

“You hungry?” he said. “There’s this dim sum place here that’s pretty decent. We can put in a take-out order, grab it once we’re done at the store.”

Nicole just stood there, trying to not scan the parking lot for an oversize dumpster or any other larger-than-Logan object they could conceivably go and have sex behind.

“Speyer?”

“Sorry. What?”

“Food,” he said. “Do you want food?”

“Oh.” Nicole smoothed out her dress. “Sure, yeah. I like food.”

Logan laughed, then nodded her across the parking lot toward a hole-in-the-wall where he ordered a week’s worth of takeout, plus three extra trays of scallion pancakes, just in case.

He tossed a can of Diet Coke at Nicole, who barely caught it because her mind was …

elsewhere. And then, without a word, she followed him out the door and into their fifth and final store of the day.

The Runner’s Emporium in Encino was nothing to write home about.

The air smelled like rubber; every employee looked like a college student, a gazelle, or both; and decades-old one-hit wonders played so quietly you could hear the diagnostic treadmill in the corner screech.

The place was exactly the same as every other mom-and-pop running shop they’d visited today.

Except here, things felt different. Except here, as they walked past the cash register, Nicole was sure it was about to happen. That this time, finally, Logan was going to reach out and touch her. After all, he was a step behind her, maybe less.

His eyes, fixed on the small of her back.

His hands, rubbing the cotton of her dress.

His fingers, slipping down her spine.

But no. Nothing.

She’d imagined it.

Nicole walked herself to the back of the store and sifted through a sale rack of fluorescent exercise garb.

Logan, twenty feet away, stood by a wall of sneakers, lamenting the Great Crowded Toe Box Crisis to anyone who’d listen.

From time to time, she’d stop her inspection of a highlighter-yellow sports bra to look him up and down.

He could really wear a white T-shirt, couldn’t he?

It was the triceps. Also, the tan. That beat-up hat didn’t hurt either.

Logan must’ve been seven minutes into his impassioned speech, waving that criminally narrow sneaker in disgust while two equally outraged employees nodded along, when he caught Nicole staring right at him.

His whole face lit up.

He tilted his head.

He bit his lip.

And then, without taking his eyes off Nicole, he said a few words to one of the sales guys, handed him a credit card, and walked right toward her.

Nicole’s stomach somersaulted. The rest of the store blurred. And with his every step closer, she melted a little bit more. She knew it. He knew it. The smaller, younger, more brunet version of Logan ringing up Logan’s shoes while watching them from across the floor knew it.

It was written all over Nicole’s flushing face.

Over her damp hands and her slightly parted lips and how she couldn’t go thirty seconds without closing her eyes or touching her throat or running her fingers through her hair.

How, by the time Logan was standing a few inches beside her, Nicole had to remind herself to breathe.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” she said, barely. “Did you find your shoes?”

“I did,” he said.

Nicole nodded. This time, she forgot to inhale.

Logan coiled his hand around the clothing rod a few inches from her fist, which was now clenched so firmly her knuckles had turned white. His grip tightened, revealing every muscle and tendon and vein along his forearm. Nicole wanted to put the whole thing in her mouth.

All he had to do was come a little bit closer.

All he had to do was drop his hand.

All he had to do was say her name.

Grab her by the elbow, jerk her into that dressing room, yank the curtain closed. Slam her against the mirror, hike up her dress, bite into her neck. Use one hand to cover her mouth and the other to shove hims—

“Have you suffered enough?” he said.

“Wh-what?”

“I meant with the grand tour of running stores in the Greater Los Angeles area. Not, uh …”

Nicole nodded again. Swallowed. Hard.

“You see anything you want?” he said. “You ready to get out of here?”

She closed her eyes, rubbed her throat, and tried to get her mouth to be less … wet. “I’m ready, yeah.”

When she opened her eyes, Logan’s hand was still glued to the clothing rod. He unfurled his grip, wiped his palm on the front of his jeans, then nodded Nicole toward the door.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go then.”

The store—a very traditional rectangle that led to one single, clearly marked exit—was a maze. They somehow made their way outside and to Nicole’s car, each clutching a couple of shoeboxes while the late afternoon baked onto the steaming pavement.

Nicole started the engine, cleared her throat, and tried to remember which side of the road was the right one.

Logan, for once, didn’t have much to say.

He put something on the radio. Nicole kept her eyes ahead.

Neither bothered with the air-conditioning.

Music blurred. Traffic tensed. They just drove home in this thick, sticky silence that made simple concepts like time, space, and small talk wilt.

They did not remember that they had forgotten the dumplings.

And by the time they were off the freeway and around the block from Logan’s place, Nicole was a lost cause. She jerked her car into his alley and slammed her gearshift into park.

“Will you just kiss me already?”

Logan startled, then crumpled up some receipt he’d been studying for the past few minutes. “Listen, we should talk about what happened. About—”

“We can talk later,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt.

“Nicole,” he said, but not very loudly. Not very convincingly.

“Do you have any idea how much I want you?”

Logan shook his head, mouth half open. Outside, the sun had given way to that late-summer twilight, long and blue. Nobody was around.

“Do you want me to show you?”

He made a strange noise. Nodded.

Nicole climbed over her center console, pinned him against his seat, then straddled his waist. Her left knee was jammed against the passenger door; her right one, bending into Logan’s tensing hand.

She pushed him back another inch, then ran her teeth down his throat.

His head tipped back as he groaned, and his skin was rough and clean on her tongue.

“All I think about,” she said, “is how you kiss me.”

He pulled her closer as Nicole let the hem of her dress ride higher and higher up her waist. She yanked off his ball cap, twisted her fingers into his hair, and whispered again. This time, into his ear.

“All I’ve thought about,” she said, “since that morning in your car, is how you put your hands on me. That night, against your wall, it was like you already knew how I liked it.”