Toxic: Logan's Story (Torn #4)(13)

Jade. I squeezed my eyes shut. Don’t go there, brother. Jade was a subject I never wanted to think about.

Women are easy. I would just have to flash them my dimples and let them rub their breasts against my arm while I bought them a few drinks, and they would be mine. It was always as easy as that. They wouldn’t care to know anything about me—where I worked, if I went to school, what my favorite book was. No, all they would care about was how fast they could get my dick inside them.

Chloe. She’d done this to me. I couldn’t help but feel resentment toward the one person I’d loved. If I were being honest with myself, I still loved her. But I also hated her, too. After she had ripped my heart out, I’d changed completely. I’d stopped trying to be the nice guy, the gentleman. Time and time again, she’d proved that wasn’t what she wanted.

Not two weeks after our heart-to-heart when I’d told her I forgave her for what she had done to me, she’d gone back to Drake. I’d had to stomach seeing them together constantly, watching her kiss and hold him when it should have been me. I’d said nothing. I’d done nothing. Instead, I’d sat back and watched as he took everything I wanted. They’d barely made it six months before he f*cked up. The f*cker had been hiding a cocaine addiction for God only knew how long. Since Chloe’s mother had been an addict as well, the betrayal had hit Chloe especially hard. To add insult to injury, the dumb f*ck had gotten caught only a few weeks after Chloe’s mother committed suicide.

As horrible as it sounded, I had been glad when Chloe’s mother died. She’d tormented and abused Chloe her entire life. Up until the moment she’d died, she’d been on the run for beating and almost drowning Chloe. Only a few minutes before parking her car on a railroad track where she’d met her untimely fate, she’d even called Chloe to tell her how f*cking worthless she was.

Chloe had no idea that I still loved her or that I hated her. To her, I was still the same Logan I’d been when we first walked onto West Virginia University’s campus. Now, I hid who I truly was from both her and Amber. Neither of them needed to know that I was a cold-hearted bastard. No, to them, I was still sweet and kind Logan. To the rest of the world though, I was what I’d hated most about Drake. I was a slut. I used women. And the best part was that I didn’t give a damn.

I chuckled when I realized that Drake and I had switched positions in life. Now, he was the idiot who only had eyes for Chloe. He was whipped. I was the * who didn’t care. I guessed I should thank him for that. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be wearing my heart on my sleeve.

When Drake had f*cked up, Chloe had come running back to who she knew she could trust—Amber and me. We had taken care of her. We’d made sure that she ate, we’d tried to make her laugh, and to make her forget. I’d been an idiot at first, hoping that maybe she would see me as more since Drake was gone. Nope. Instead, she’d pined over the * for months. She’d acted skittish around me until I finally sat down and lied to her.



“Chloe, can we talk?” I asked as I walked into her new bedroom.

A week ago, Amber, Chloe, and I had just signed the papers to rent this house.

“Uh…sure. What’s up?” she asked. Her unease was apparent.

I sat down on the edge of her bed and looked up at her. My temper flared when I saw how bloodshot her eyes were. She’d been crying over that *—again. He’d ripped her heart out, and she still cried over him.

“Look, I’ve noticed how uneasy you are around me. I wanted to let you know that you don’t have to be.”

She frowned. “I’m sorry, Logan. I don’t mean to be. I’m just confused and upset right now. I need you, but I’m afraid something will happen, and I’ll lose you. I couldn’t handle that.”

In other words, she was afraid that I would try to win her back, and when she told me to f*ck off, I would leave—permanently.

“Chloe, I do love you.”

She winced.

“But I don’t love you like that anymore. I know now that we aren’t supposed to be together like that. We’re friends, and that’s how it should be. You don’t have to worry about me trying anything. I want nothing from you.”

She smiled, and I could tell it was genuine.

“Thank you, Logan. I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to you. You’re my best friend, and I refuse to ever let you go.”



She’d hugged me, thinking that everything was perfect between us. What a f*cking joke. Things had been far from fine, and they never would be.

That was the first night when I had gone out on my own. I’d been careless that night, going to a bar close to the house, but Amber and Chloe had never found out about it. I’d picked up a blonde, and we had gone back to her house. I hadn’t even known her name. After that, I’d started going out once or twice a week to pick up women. I never took them back to the house though. I always went to their places, and they never knew more about me than my first name.

Amber, Chloe, and I had fallen into an easy routine for almost six months. Then, just when Chloe had started to get back to normal, Drake had decided it was time to show back up again. He’d begged her to take him back, and she had. She was an idiot.

Once a f*ck-up, always a f*ck-up.

He would break her heart again. I had known it, and I had been sure he knew it, too, but I’d said nothing. Their relationship wasn’t my problem. Chloe wasn’t my problem. It was time I moved on with my own life and stopped worrying about her. She’d controlled my life for long enough.