Heat Wave(93)

“You are,” he says. “And that’s okay. I’m afraid too. Deep down. About what the world will say. But in the end, it’s not going to matter. The only thing that matters is us. I don’t want to hide us anymore. Veronica, I want you. I want all of you. All the time, every day, until the end. I want to tell the world just how much you mean to me because you are my world.”

I’m melting from the inside out. I always though Logan would be the one to make me shatter, but that’s not the case at all. It’s less violent than that. I’m liquefied, I’m reduced, I’m shedding every ounce of hardness I have, that plaster cast, the hard shell, it’s sloughing off until there’s nothing left but my heart, beating and exposed and all for him.

“Veronica,” he says, adding a nervous smile, “Ronnie. Freckles. I am one-hundred-percent, madly, endlessly, hopelessly in love with you.”

And there I go.

Veronica Locke has lost her heart.

Last seen in a puddle on the floor.

Now suspected in this man’s hands.

I can barely fucking breathe.

He loves me.

He loves me.

I try and speak. I try and get the words out. I know that the tears are coming to my eyes again, that I’m smiling so broadly I think my face is cracking open. I know this world is stop motion, slow motion, that the planet might actually be spinning backward. I wouldn’t notice.

And Logan, this beautiful, amazing man, has my heart.

He has all of me.

“I love you,” I whisper, choking on my words. “I love you.”

His smile lights up the darkness, fuels my spirit. He leans across the table, grabbing my face in his hands and kisses me until I’m reeling, breathless, wild.

“Ahem.”

We break apart, grinning like fools, to see the waiter standing by us with our main courses.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says.

I barely hear him, and even though our food, grilled mahi mahi and wahoo, looks amazing, I’ve lost my appetite. I can’t think of anything right now but Logan, I don’t want to have anything else but him and his beautiful words.

He loves me, he loves me, he loves me.

To be honest, I’ve never had those words spoken to me before. I never knew what it would feel like to hear them, and only imagined how good it could be. But now that Logan’s told me he loves me, now that I’ve told him, I know my imagination never even came close to this gorgeous reality.

I’m flying.

Logan has a dashing smile on his face, one of awe and wonder, and pushes the food around on his plate. “Honestly, and I’m not just saying this because you’re here, but food never tastes good unless you’re cooking it. Did you want to get these to go and get out of here? I don’t think I can eat right now. Not this, anyway.”

“Yes,” I say emphatically. I want go back to his place and fall into bed with him and never leave. I want him inside me while he says those words, I want to feel what it’s like to make love while being in love.

The waiter doesn’t seem all that surprised. I down the rest of my lychee martini and soon we’re in his Jeep, heading up the highway, until Logan quickly stops by the Foodland grocery store and picks up two floral leis.

“The plumeria is for you,” he says. “The hibiscus is for Juliet.”

“Juliet?” I think to her marker on the side of the road. “You’re the one who leaves the flowers for her?” My heart pinches at the thought, both for him being so thoughtful and for him being so invested still.

“I try to,” he says. “But other people do too. I think someone at Moonwater does, maybe Johnny. And I think that prick she was sleeping with does too.”

“I guess that makes him less of a prick though,” I point out.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, adjusting his hands on the steering wheel. “Believe me, it doesn’t hurt to think about the two of them together, more a blow to the pride than anything, and I’m used to that.” He glances at me, his eyes glinting in the passing streetlights. “Did I tell you I went to his house once.”

“What?”

“Yeah. A few months after Juliet’s accident. I went over there looking to kill him and…well, it didn’t turn out that way. I told him what happened and he was wrecked. Not quite in the same way I was wrecked, but at least I realized it wasn’t just a fling between the two of them. He had feelings for her and he was sorry. His apology didn’t change anything but he was sorry.”

“Wow,” I say. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.”

He sighs heavily. “It wasn’t easy. But it had to be done. And it made me realize some things. Though the guy was sorry, he was still a dickhead. I mean, an absolute wanker. Not so much in the sense that he was a vile homewrecker, which he was, but just in his personality. And, to be honest, he was better suited to Juliet than I was. He was a lawyer. He was ambitious. He had all the makings of someone who wanted to climb to the top and would do anything to stay there, and Juliet was like that too.”