shirts, those tight jean shorts.
He dragged the basket close and folded the soft clothing into neat piles. His shirts, Alexander hung in the closet.
Logan’s woodsiness surrounded him, warm, mildly nutty, sweet.
He slipped the hangers into place and sighed.
His eye caught on the safe. He hesitated for a split-second and then keyed it open.
Chapter Twenty-Two
LOGAN
* * *
The bed dipped, and a heavy sigh stirred Logan. Air whispered close to his forehead. Alexander, leaning in to kiss him?
Logan cracked open his eyes. He sprung into a sitting position, clutching sheets to his chest like armor. Not the soft, warm lips he’d imagined.
“What the hell?”
Alexander’s blue eyes glistened. “I’m evicting you.”
Logan’s heart pounded. “I don’t know if there’s a right way to evict a guy, but I’m fairly sure pointing a gun in his face first thing in the morning isn’t it.”
Alexander rolled his eyes and fired the gun. Water shot out and hit Logan’s shoulder, dribbling down his chest.
Logan’s gun. “You filled it with ice-water.”
“You cannot stay in my house anymore.” Alexander’s voice sounded tired. “I need you to pack and leave.”
“Or you’ll shoot me again?”
Alexander cocked the gun toward the door. “Out of the bed.”
Logan followed Alexander’s instructions, padding at gunpoint to his bedroom.
His clothes had been folded. The bed straightened. Alexander had been in here.
Logan ached.
He turned. Their gazes held and so much passed unsaid between them. The air was thick with tension.
Another shot of cold water hit him in the belly button and ran toward his boxer-briefs, the only scrap of clothing he wore. Logan jumped and arched a questioning brow.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Alexander said huskily. “I’m trying to evict you right now.” He frowned. “Do something annoying.”
Logan felt Alexander’s frustration, his almost panicky need for compliance.
“Y’really don’t hafta throw me out.”
“Thank you. That should do it.”
Alexander lifted the gun like he needed it as a buffer between them. “Start packing.”
Reluctantly, Logan pulled his suitcase from the closet.
“The cans of possum?” Alexander’s quizzical expression said he was piecing the last weeks together.
“Re-covered chicken sammich.”
“Camping?’
Logan winced. “Never touched a rod—or a hunting gun—in my life.”
“Our night at Clash?”
“I was pissing myself the entire time.”
Silence followed, and Logan set the nicely folded clothes into the suitcase.
“Axe-throwing?”
“Not the date I originally wanted to take you on. Jane got to me.”
“About acting.”
“Not just acting. I went to tell her the bet was off.” Ask me why.
Alexander didn’t. “What was the bet?”
Shame washed over Logan. “If you evicted me, she’d leave Paragon. If you didn’t, I’d stop hanging out there. It was stupid, and I was fairly sure we could adult our way out of it.”
“Jane wouldn’t have it?”
“No, she expected me to give up the whole time. Thought the bet would motivate me. Thought she was helping me. Thought I needed help.”
“Is that what you think?” Alexander studied him.
Logan shivered under the scrutiny. “I . . . that’s kinda what I’ve been struggling with.” He jerked a hand through his hair. “I want to be . . . to be . . .”
“To be, what? Good enough to love?”
Logan shook his head and met Alexander’s eye. “Good enough to keep.”
Alexander stilled. He dropped his arm, gun pointing toward the bed. The suitcase.
Logan continued packing in the loaded silence.
When he next glanced over, Alexander had sagged against the wall, shoulders slumped. He stared vacantly out of Logan’s window, toward Luci’s place down the lake.
He wanted to know what was running through Alexander’s mind.
Logan murmured. “What about you? What are you giving up?”
Alexander’s jaw twitched. “Nothing that doesn’t need giving up for a while anyway. Actually, it’s something I have to give up.”
“That’s cryptic.”
Alexander gave a hollow laugh. “You’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure.”
Logan gathered his shirts from the closet, passing Alexander. He paused on the way out, heaped flannel over his arm. “Why won’t you tell me?”
Those blue eyes hit him with steely determination. “Because I need to evict you.”
“I told you, I don’t have a bet. I can still go to Paragon.”
“What about looking in the mirror?”
Logan sucked in his breath and his chest heaved. Sad. Overwhelmingly touched.
Alexander raised the gun again, but it wobbled in his grip. “You are frightfully talented, Logan. I wanted to evict your ass a thousand times over the last weeks. Every other hour, at the beginning.”
“You did?”
Alexander laughed softly. “You were everything I didn’t want in a roommate or a . . .”
Logan’s heart clomped. “When did that change?”
“At the monster trucks. Maybe before then at one of the darlin’s.” Alexander cleared his