me I should go back to college?”
“I won’t tell you to go back to college.”
Logan relaxed and responded gruffly. “And I won’t tell you that you’re still pale.”
Alexander’s laugh was like soft morning light over a meadow. Exactly where Logan would go the next time he panicked.
Alexander ran his elegant fingers through his already mussed hair. “Anyway. Nico left a message. He’s pushing tonight’s dinner to tomorrow.”
Logan checked his phone. Sure enough, Luci had left him a message too.
Luci: Change of plans, sorry. Parents are dropping in. Nico is having dinner with us.
“Wow,” Logan murmured. “Your brother and my best friend are hitting it off.”
Alexander perched on the desk and played with a stapler. “Meeting the parents already.”
Logan watched him closely. “Seems soon, doesn’t it?”
Alexander dropped the stapler. “Exactly. How could they feel so deeply after such a short amount of time?” His lashes lifted and all that blue hit Logan right in the heart. “They can’t know all of each other’s flaws yet.”
Logan raked in Alexander’s frustrated, shy beauty. “Or all their good qualities.”
“Right. So, it’s ridiculous?”
“Hmmmm.” Logan pushed off Alexander’s seat and rounded the desk. He gently parted Alexander’s thighs and slipped between them. “It must be nice to be that certain.”
Alexander’s words trembled over Logan’s approaching lips. “You don’t think Nico is questioning his sanity?”
“It’d be a good idea to. But maybe they’re just enjoying the moment?”
Alexander pressed a heated kiss on Logan’s lips. Arms encircled Logan’s neck and pulled him closer still.
“We have the evening free,” Logan said between kisses.
“Yes.”
“What do you think about dinner?”
Alexander pulled back and searched his face. “Sounds like a date.”
Logan tapped their noses together, grinning. “I mean, we are boyfriends . . .”
Alexander let out a breathless yes.
“Great,” Logan said, scooping him up and kissing those tender lips once more. “I’ll arrange it. But first, I want to swallow the broken sound of my name off your lips while you come.”
After an intense door-rattling frottage session, where Alexander had panted for Logan to buy supplies so they could finally fuck each other, Logan made a trip to the pharmacy en route to Paragon Theater and Jane.
He might have made a stupid bet, but he and Jane were adults. They would work this out. As for the audition, he’d method acted enough. He could play the role.
Whether or not he’d be their first pick, he wasn’t sure. But he was capable.
Logan hauled in a steadying breath, tasting old wood and brick in the air as he entered the theater. God, he loved this place. No way he’d let his failed relationship with Jane determine his future.
If they had to work awkwardly side by side, so be it.
Logan found Jane tucked behind a rack of costumes. The door softly shut behind him, and she looked up sharply.
Her bored expression fixed on Logan like she knew exactly why he’d come. “Wondered how long it would take you,” Jane said, and rifled through stage dresses.
What did that mean?
Logan perched on a small table and drummed his fingers on the surface. “You know why I’m here?”
Jane didn’t bother looking his way. “You’re not a hard read.”
Neither, perhaps, was Jane. “My actions when Jack passed hurt you, didn’t they?”
Jane blinked hard. That would be a yes.
“I’m sorry, Jane. I was trying to help. Trying to respect Jack’s wishes.”
Hangers scraped over metal. Jane ignored the apology. “You’re here because you want to quit method acting. You can’t get your roommate to evict you.”
Logan flinched. He had the urge to object, to prove Jane wrong, but what was the point? Alexander was waiting at the gallery for him to take him out. The way Alexander’s eyes had lit up at the idea . . . that’s what mattered.
Logan unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Yeah.”
Jane shrugged. “Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it? You’ll tear up our contract?”
Jane snorted and pushed another hanger aside. “I knew better than to create a contract.”
Logan prickled. “What does that mean?”
Jane cast him a look of bored exasperation. “This is what you do. Why you haven’t amounted to anything. You give up when life gets a little tough.”
“That’s not true.”
Was that true?
Jane continued, “That bet we made? I hoped it’d motivate you to succeed. But I walked out of the room certain it wouldn’t work.” She sighed. “And here you are.”
Logan’s eyes and throat stung.
He hated the truth in Jane’s words. Access to Paragon Theater had never been what was at stake.
Logan had been at stake.
His entire sense of worth was plummeting to the