The Trouble With Quarterbacks(60)

Logan smiles at me, and then the waiter arrives with our drinks and a lovely overflowing basket of warm breadsticks. I think I eat about half a dozen before our food arrives.

It’s all so good I can’t keep myself from moaning in bliss. The lasagna! The baked ziti! The fettuccini sauce! I could bathe in it.

“I want to eat here every day until I die,” I proclaim once I’m too full to eat another bite.

“Me too,” Briggs says, leaning back in his seat and patting his belly. “I finished all my chicken nuggets. Can I have some dessert now?”

“On the way home, maybe,” Logan replies. “It’s getting close to your bedtime.”

We don’t end up fulfilling that promise, because once we make it back to the car and buckle Briggs into his car seat, he’s asleep within a few minutes of driving. It must be the lull of the city noise. He’s a trueborn Manhattanite, and to him, it’s probably the best lullaby there is.

We pull up in front of a nice-looking brownstone a few minutes later, and Logan carefully unbuckles Briggs so he can carry him inside.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispers before taking him into the house.

While he’s gone, I help Pat undo the car seat so we can set it in the back of the SUV. Then he switches the radio to a sports game and we sit quietly, listening while we wait for Logan.

“I can put it on music if you’d like?” Pat offers.

“No. This is nice. I think I’m following along. Is this hockey?”

“Baseball.”

Ah well. I tried.

A few minutes later, Logan appears on the doorstep of the house. Briggs’ nanny is at the door, waving him off, and he nods to her before starting to tug off his bow tie. I still can’t believe he put on the whole getup just to make Briggs happy. It makes me want to squeeze my arms around him and never let go. He’s too good to be true, I think. At least that’s how it feels.

He opens the back door and slides into the seat beside me. Now that the car seat is gone, I can push right up against him so we’re thigh to thigh, finally close in a way we haven’t been able to be all evening.

“Home?” Pat asks, glancing back in the rearview mirror.

“Please,” Logan nods, pulling off his bow tie the rest of the way then laying it flat against his thigh. I reach out for it and feel the silky material in my hand. Then, like a weirdo, I bring it up and sniff it, knowing it’ll smell like his cologne, and it does. My stomach squeezes tight and I smile as Logan looks over at me with narrowed eyes, assessing me. He seems to do that a lot, stare right at me like he’s trying to pry back all my layers and see me at my very core. I want to tell him I haven’t got any layers. What you see is what you get, but maybe he feels the same way about me that I do about him—too good to be true, perhaps. Wouldn’t that be nice.

I have the urge to kiss him but don’t want to make Pat feel uncomfortable, and I’m not so crazed and horny that I can’t wait ten more minutes to have my chance when we’re back at his place and all alone.

Instead of dropping us out front, Pat rounds the block to the back of Logan’s building then drives down into a car park.

“From now on, we’ll enter and exit here. Just to be safe,” Logan tells me. When he sees my confusion, he adds, “Photographers aren’t allowed in here. It’s private property, so they won’t get any more photos of you coming and going from my place.”

Pat waves us off after we step out of the SUV. Logan grabs my hand and heads toward the back entrance of the building that leads straight into the lift, where he retrieves his wallet from his tuxedo pocket and swipes it along the panel underneath the buttons. We start to glide up toward the penthouse, and my mind immediately starts to wander toward nefarious goals.

“Do you reckon there are cameras in here?” I ask, glancing up at the corners of the rectangular box.

“I’m sure. This whole building is pretty secure. There are a lot of people who live here who value their privacy.”

“So if we kissed…someone could be watching?”

He turns to look down at me, and I don’t smile. I don’t want him to think I’m kidding. I’m definitely not. He glances up at the ceiling for a moment as if thinking it over for himself, then he looks back down at me. There’s a heat in his eyes now, this hunger that’s plain as day.

He turns his body so he’s facing me, and he takes a step forward.

I take a step back. It’s instinct, and I keep doing it as he advances on me.

I’m the one who put this idea in his head, but now suddenly, I’m tempted to shout, Chicken! Ha ha. What a lark, am I right?

It’s only because he can look so intimidating sometimes, especially when he hovers over me like this, his hand coming up to cradle the bottom of my face so he can tip my head up.

“What do you think they’ll see?” he asks, letting his gaze drop to my mouth. “Me kissing you?”

Are we still going up? How many floors do we have to ascend?! Surely, we’re in the clouds by now.

“Maybe they’re waiting for it,” he says, bending low so his lips hover right over my mouth. “Maybe they’re wondering why I haven’t done it already.”

But he doesn’t do it. That’s just it! We aren’t kissing. We’re suffocating to death. There’s no air in this lift and maybe I’ve sucked it all in with my big heaping nervous breaths. We’ll die here, I think, right as the lift dings! and we’re on Logan’s floor.