Logan (Chosen Champions #1) - Macy Blake Page 0,30

blanked. Bailey had been around enough actors in the past few years to recognize that whatever line he was about to be fed was full of crap.

“You know, I’ve lost my appetite. I’ll call the detective and go through the videos with him.” Bailey grabbed his bag and pushed away from the table.

“Bailey, wait.”

“Why should I? One of my best friends was attacked last night, Logan. She could be the one lying in the hospital. Rebecca was raped. You knew that, right? So you can be cute and flirty all you want, and I can think you’re hot all day long. But you can’t lie to me about who you are and why you were there.”

Logan reached out and took Bailey’s wrist in his hand. It was a loose grip, fortunately, because Bailey had no problems swinging his pack around and whacking Logan upside the head with it. Everyone always claimed it felt like he carried around a load of bricks anyway.

“I won’t lie.”

“But you won’t tell me the whole truth either.” Bailey stared down at him, ignoring the way the light glinted in Logan’s deep brown eyes.

“I can’t, but I won’t lie to you, Bailey. I promise you that. I was there to help. I am here to help. That’s the truth. I want to stop this person. I will stop them.”

Their waiter paused a few feet away with a tray of food and cleared his throat. “Everything okay?”

Bailey nodded and sat down again. He tucked his bag between his legs as the server placed their food on the table in front of them.

Logan didn’t make a move to eat, even after they were alone again. “You read people well,” Logan said after a long, uncomfortable silence.

Bailey thought back to the previous night, when his friends had basically informed him that they were actually his friends. He didn’t read people anywhere near as well as Logan thought. Which meant he probably shouldn’t trust Logan. He didn’t know this guy at all. He gave his soup a stir, mixing the cheese into the rest of the creamy chicken-and-bean-filled mixture.

“Bailey?”

He looked up. Logan still hadn’t leaned forward and hadn’t made a move to touch his food.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Logan grinned, but it had a sadness to it that Bailey couldn’t quite place. “For making you uncomfortable and for not stopping this jackass last night before someone got hurt.”

Bailey turned his attention back to the soup. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re hot,” Bailey said. “I’m confused at the moment. It’s not the right time to flirt with the super-hot guy I just met, you know? I feel guilty about that, and guilty that Ashley almost got hurt, and guilty that Rebecca did get hurt.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Bailey scoffed. “The logical side of me knows that. The rest of me feels like a giant piece of crap for even thinking about anything other than keeping my friends safe from this predator until they’re caught. But I know that isn’t going to help anything either, and I’m just going to end up a worried mess.”

“Then why don’t we enjoy our lunch and not think about it for a while. I’ll do my best not to flirt.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m irresistible. All the boys say so.”

Logan made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl. The light from the window turned his eyes blue again for a moment. Bailey wondered how exhausted he must be to keep imagining such a fanciful thing.

“Eat your soup before it gets cold,” Bailey said. “And don’t growl at me.”

Logan huffed and poked the bread-and-cheese-covered top of his soup. “You’re so bossy.” He looked up, and Bailey swore his eyes glowed again. “I like it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Eat. Cold soup is gross.”

Logan snorted. “Soup is never gross. Take that back.”

They ate in silence for a while, even though they kept looking across the table at each other. Bailey wrapped his feet around the bottom of the chair so he wouldn’t jiggle his legs obnoxiously. He didn’t know what to do in a situation like this.

No one who looked like Logan, who had the charm and confidence Bailey found so incredibly attractive, had ever looked twice at him. He was always the one in the background, the one with the friends who always got asked out, but he never did. He had extremely limited experience, and even though he knew he was most likely bisexual, it wasn’t like either sex looked at him and thought he was super hot and dateable.