“Moi.” I stared up at him round-eyed and innocent. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Aye, right.” He held open the door to the restaurant, staring me down the whole time.
I pretended to be cowed.
After we ordered, the waitress moved away and Logan and I were left just staring across the booth at each other.
He looked very serious all of a sudden.
“What?” I said warily.
“You haven’t mentioned your family at all, with the exception of that fucker who doesn’t even count as a brother.”
Uncomfortable under his sudden intense scrutiny, I shrugged. “My friends – Aidan, Chloe, and Juno – are my family.”
“What about your blood? Your parents?”
“I don’t speak to them.”
He cocked his head in curiosity. “Why?”
Why did he suddenly want to know about me? I’d gotten the impression that he was avoiding any really personal discussions between us when he threw up a wall after our outpouring and hug in his car the other day. “Why do you want to know?”
Logan shrugged and took a sip of water. When he placed the glass back on the table, he said, “You’re my friend.”
That surprised me. “Yeah?”
He gave me a lazy grin, and something rippled low in my belly in response to it. “Yes.”
Shoving away that ludicrous reaction to him, I gave a huff of laughter. “Who would have thought?”
“Certainly not me. I was pretty sure you were a shrew.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You were no picnic either, Logan MacLeod.”
He grinned again, and it occurred to me I’d seen him smile more in the last few days than I had the entire time I’d known him. “I’ve missed that,” he said.
“What?”
“You saying my full name in exasperation.”
I giggled. “I don’t think you’ll have time to miss it. I’m pretty sure you’ll be hearing it again soon.”
“Stop changing the subject.”
“I didn’t!”
“Someone did.”
“It wasn’t me.”
He gave me a low-lidded no-nonsense look. “Why don’t you talk to your family?”
Trying for nonchalant when I felt anything but, I rolled my eyes. “My mother is cold and my father is distant. I didn’t like life in London with them, so I left them behind for a real family here in Edinburgh. End of story. Okay?”
He was quiet a moment. I didn’t know if he was processing that information or gearing up for more questions… and then he surprised me again. “Thank you, Grace.”
“For what?”
It was his turn to give a huff of incredulous laughter. “For everything.”
Just like that I found myself locked in his gaze. The air around us seemed to thicken until I was feeling a little breathless. My skin was flushed and I felt a shiver skate down my neck, following a tingling path around my back to my breasts.
Logan’s eyes darkened with heat.
“Unfortunately” – our waitress appeared at our booth, and I practically jumped out of my skin – “we don’t have any more of the…”
I wasn’t listening to whatever she was saying to Logan. I was too busy wondering what the hell had just happened.
The waitress broke the moment between Logan and me, and right away he jumped into asking me about my work, and if I’d spoken to the author who had tried to plagiarize Blade Runner. From there we chatted and joked about our work, about Maia, and avoided anything too personal.
After our supermarket run, we dropped by Mr. Jenner’s to give him his shopping and then Logan disappeared into his flat to start work on decorating Maia’s room, and I darted into my flat to start my own work.
I think I reread the same chapter ten times.
Before I knew it, Maia was home from school.
I immediately called Logan over.
“What?” Maia stared at us as all three of us stood in the living room. She’d come in, dropped her book bag in the living room, sauntered into the kitchen, and then reappeared in the sitting room with a glass of orange juice in her hand. She looked very smart in her uniform – a black blazer with the Muirhead badge on the left chest pocket, a black shirt, a green and black striped tie, black skinny trousers, and black boots.
“Well?” Logan said, sounding impatient. “How was it?”
She shrugged. “It was fine.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve got to give us more than that. How were classes? How were the teachers? Your peers?”
“I’m taking mostly the same classes I was taking back in Glasgow, except for media, which they let me take here. The teachers were teachers, and everyone was fine. I think I made a friend. What’s for dinner?”
I narrowed my eyes at how blasé Maia was being. I knew for a fact after our conversation about her friendless history that making a friend was a big deal. Why wasn’t she acting like it was?
“That all sounds great.” Logan looked at me, pleased, and I didn’t want to burst his bubble by suggesting there was something fishy going on, so I grinned back.
“Great.” Maia shrugged again. “What’s for dinner?”
“My shift change to days starts tomorrow, so I’m not working tonight. I was thinking – but only if you’re up for it – in honor of your first day at school, you might want to eat out? Shannon and Cole invited us out to a restaurant with them and Cam and Jo. What do you think?”