Page 68 of Until Tomorrow (Love Doesn’t Cure All: The Ashwood Duet #1)
Logan
I sat in the parking lot of the firehouse, finger drumming against the steering wheel. My nerves were alight with more anxiety than I’d felt in a long time. I wasn’t even sure why, but the desire to run away was intense.
Was I really doing this?
And then Elliot appeared in the open bay. His expression was composed as he waved. Just the sight of him eased a little bit of my chaos—not a lot but enough. Enough to convince me to get out of the car. I locked it and shoved my hands in my pockets to keep from fidgeting.
“You’re wearing contacts,” Elliot commented when I finally approached him. “What happened to your glasses?”
“I broke them,” I said and tried not to smile at the memory.
“How?” He frowned. Okay, honestly, I should’ve expected that one. I was always so careful with my glasses.
“I knelt on them—”
“What?”
“—in the bathtub.”
“ How ?”
“I may have taken you up on your advice to get adventurous,” I told him, picking my words carefully. For good measure, I added, “With Eva.”
He cracked up, his composure breaking under the admission. I grinned because at least I could still make him smile in the middle of whatever weirdness was growing between us.
“ About fucking time,” he replied. He nodded toward the garage door. “Come on. We’ll go to my office to talk.”
“Okay.” I trailed after him, walking through the firehouse and going over everything in my head.
I had a plan—a whole speech that I’d prepared.
I’d worked on it for hours as I tried to make sense of all the things I felt for him, about the crossroads it felt like we were stuck at, and everything else in between.
But one look at him, as we stood in the middle of his office, sent every word I’d planned out the damn window.
It was like seeing him for the first time.
Truly seeing him. This was Elliot we were talking about.
He’d been there for every little thing that ever happened in my life—the good, the bad, the ugly.
We talked every day and had more inside jokes than we knew what to do with.
He was the first to drop everything if I needed help.
He’d lived with me and vice versa. He’d studied law to make sure I passed law school, and I’d become his workout buddy to make sure he passed everything to become a firefighter.
There’d always been an us. Emotion constricted my heart. Were Amelia and Eva right? Was I in love with Elliot? Was that what this feeling was? Because it sure as hell felt like it.
“Logan?” Elliot raised a brow as he said my name when the silence dragged on for too long.
I gave up trying to say a damn word. Instead, I closed the distance between us. I took his face in mine, said a silent prayer that he didn’t hate me after this, and kissed him.
His response was instant, one hand curling in my hair. He kissed me back hard, his tongue driving past my lips in a cascade of peppermint and heat. The tortured moan he let out against my mouth shot straight to my core.
Head to toe and deep in every part of me, I felt that kiss. It wasn’t like kissing Loren. It elicited that same feeling I had when I kissed Eva. It was warmth and desire wrapped into one. Exciting and full of comfort. Consuming and welcoming.
It felt like home.
Elliot felt like home.
His breath fanned across my face as he broke the kiss. His forehead touched mine while one arm held me close.
“Please.” Elliot’s voice broke with the single word, thick with emotion. “Tell me what we’re doing here, Logan. I can’t… be someone you use. I can’t… my heart won’t survive it.”
The anguish in his words and the admission were barbed wire wrapped tight around my heart. It suddenly became clear why Elliot had never dated. How long had he been in love with me? How long had I not seen what he put himself through just to be around me?
I brushed my thumb over his cheek as I watched how he tried to hold it together, eyes shut and breathing carefully. It was as if his heart was fracturing right in front of me. I wanted nothing more than to ease his misery.
“I think I’m in love with you, Elliot.”