The Mistake (Off-Campus #2)(30)

“You okay?”

“Mmm-hmmm. As long as I keep staring at my hands then I don’t have to think about plummeting two hundred feet to my death.”

“This tower definitely isn’t two hundred feet tall.”

“Well, it’s tall enough that my head will crack like a watermelon when it hits the ground.”

“Jeez. You really need to work on your romance technique.”

I gape at him. “This is supposed to be romantic? Wait, do you have a fetish for girls throwing up on you?”

He bursts out laughing. “You’re not going to throw up.” But much to my relief, he tightens his grip around my shoulder.

The warmth of his body is a nice distraction from my current predicament. So is his aftershave. Or is it cologne? His natural scent? Holy Moses, if it’s his natural scent, then he needs to bottle that spicy fragrance up, call it Orgasm, and sell it to the masses.

“See that pond over there?” he asks.

“No.” I’ve squeezed my eyes shut, so all I can see is the inside of my eyelids.

He pokes me in the ribs. “It would help if you opened your eyes. Come on, look.”

I pry my eyes open and follow the tip of his finger to where he’s pointing. “That’s a pond? It looks like a mud swamp.”

“Yeah, it gets muddy in the spring. But in the summer, there’s actually water in there. And in the winter, it freezes over and everyone comes here to skate on it.” He pauses. “My friends and I played hockey there when I was a kid.”

“Was it safe to skate on?”

“Oh yeah, the ice is solid. Nobody’s ever fallen through it, as far as I know.” There’s another pause, longer, and fraught with tension. “I loved coming here. It’s weird, though. It seemed so much bigger when I was a kid. Like I was skating on an ocean. Then when I got older, I realized how fucking small it actually is. I can skate from one end to the other in five seconds. I timed it.”

“Things always look bigger to a kid.”

“I guess.” He shifts so that he can see my face. “Did you have a place like that in Hastings? Somewhere you escaped to when you were younger?”

“Sure. Do you know that park behind the farmer’s market? The one with the pretty gazebo?”

He nods.

“I used to go there all the time and read. Or to talk to people, if anyone was around.”

“The only people I’ve ever seen in that park are the old folks from the retirement home around the corner.”

I laugh. “Yeah, most of the ones I met were over sixty. They told the coolest stories about the ‘olden days.’” I chew on the inside of my cheek as a few not-so-cool stories come to mind. “Actually, sometimes the stories were incredibly sad. They talked a lot about their families never coming to visit.”

“That’s really depressing.”

“Yeah,” I murmur.

He lets out a ragged breath. “I’d be one of them.”

“You mean, not getting visits from your family? Aw, I don’t believe that.”

“No, I’d be the family member who doesn’t visit,” he answers in a strained voice. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I’d definitely visit my mom. But if my dad was in a home? I probably wouldn’t step foot in there.”

A wave of sadness washes over me. “You guys don’t get along?”

“Not really. He gets along better with a case of beer or a bottle of bourbon.”

That only makes me sadder. I can’t imagine not being close with my parents. As different as their personalities are, I have a strong bond with each of them.

Logan goes quiet again, and I don’t feel comfortable pushing for more details. If he wanted to tell me more, he would have done it.

Instead, I fill the awkward void by shifting the subject back to me. “I guess talking to those seniors was depressing sometimes, but I didn’t mind listening. I think that’s all they really wanted, anyway. For someone to listen.” I purse my lips. “It was around that time when I decided I wanted to be a therapist. I realized I had a talent for reading people. And listening to them without passing judgment.”

“Are you a psych major?”

“I will be. I didn’t declare a major this year because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go the psychology route or the psychiatry one. But I decided I don’t want to go to med school. Plus, psychology opens up a lot of doors that psychiatry doesn’t. I could be a therapist, social worker, guidance counselor. That sounds so much more rewarding than prescribing pills.”

I lean my head on his shoulder as we gaze out at the small town that stretches beyond the tower. He’s right—Munsen’s not much to look at. So I focus on the pond instead, and picture Logan as a little kid. His skates flying across the ice, his blue eyes alight with wonder as he basks in the certainty that the pond is an ocean. That the world is big and bright and teeming with possibility.

His tone becomes thoughtful. “So you have a talent for reading people, huh? Can you read me?”

I smile. “I haven’t quite figured you out yet.”

His husky laughter warms my cheek. “I haven’t quite figured me out yet either.”





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