Logan Kade (Fallen Crest #5.5) (32 page)

I didn’t see the point of lying, so I shrugged and walked out from behind the light. As soon as he could see me, his head fell back against the couch. “You.”

“Me.” I smiled.

“Who are you?”

My smile switched to a frown. “I thought you’d recognize me.”

“No.” He blinked a few times before focusing on me again. “Who are you?”

“I’m the guy screwing your ex-girlfriend.” I leaned down in his face.

His eyes jumped to mine, and a flare of anger appeared, but he didn’t say anything.

“Now.” I went back to smiling, though I knew my eyes weren’t showing it. My eyes were saying a whole host of other shit. He should be scared of me. He should be scared of Taylor. He should leave and never come back.

A wary expression flickered over his face, and I knew he’d registered each and every one of those messages.

“You’re going to tell me why you came to see Taylor,” I said.

“Why I—no.” He shook his head, his voice growing stronger. “No, I won’t. That’s between her and me. I don’t care who you are.”

“Dude.” I felt a speech coming—a good rip-into-’em speech—and the more I felt it, the more I knew I was going to enjoy it. I hadn’t delivered one of these in a long time.

I’d started to lean down again when I heard a door shut outside. Cursing softly, I whipped around as I heard Mason’s voice.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said. “I’m going to find Logan.”

This needed to be handled ASAP, so I pointed a finger at the douchefriend. “Stay. We’re not done.”

“What?”

Heading back around my vehicle, I opened the side door of the garage just as Mason walked by, raising his phone to his ear. He jumped at my sudden appearance.

“Holy shit.” He clapped a hand to his chest. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

“Shhh.” I looked around him. Nate was heading across the front lawn to his car. He was too far away to hear our conversation, and I was grateful. Nate had gone back to his weaseling ways. I didn’t want him anywhere near this guy. “Where’s Nate going?” I smirked. “Who’s he going to hang out with? Sam?”

“Fucking A.” Mason let out an aggravated sigh. “What the hell is going on with you two? I thought the petty bickering was done.”

“Never.” My grin turned frosty. “I was all fine and dandy till he started taking pot shots at me.”

He gave me a hard look. “I don’t like having a family rift. We’ve got enough to deal with.” He nodded behind me. “He’s here?”

I hadn’t known where else to take him. “Figured I shouldn’t go back to the amusement park, in case Street Thug has guys out looking for us.”

“Logan.” Mason twisted around, looking at the house. “This is our garage!”

“I don’t know of any empty warehouses,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ve only been here a year.”

He groaned, tipping his head back. “But five feet from Sam? She lives here, too.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Relax. This guy’s just an ex-boyfriend. And it’s not like I’m holding him here against his wishes or something, like I kidnapped him.”

“You pseudo kidnapped him.”

“Not really.”

“Really. You did.”

I shrugged. “He can leave whenever he wants.”

“Does
he
know that?” Mason asked before following me into the garage.

Fortunately, Eric was still on the couch, squinting toward where he could hear our approach. We stopped, standing right behind the light. He couldn’t see us, but he knew we were there. Mason shook his head.

Whatever. We’d done stupider things. It wasn’t like we’d get arrested for this…I didn’t think. Not wanting to dwell on that, I started forward. “I’m back, and that means you need to start talking.”

“But—”

“Now,” I said.

He let out a breath. Some of the fear had faded from his face, but he was still wary. “Or what? I don’t understand why I need your permission to talk to my girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend, bro.”

I grabbed one of the folding chairs leaning against the wall and set it up in front of him. I dropped in to straddle it, now glaring from eye level at the guy. This was better. I could intimidate up close and personally.

I smiled, waving my fingers. “Let’s cut the bullshit. I know what happened that day.”

He grew still. “What do you mean?”

“I
know
.”

“Bullshi—”

“You ran like a coward.”

He paled and fell silent.

“Dipshit,” I leaned closer, tipping the chair on its back legs, “I’m sleeping with her.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”

I laughed. The guy didn’t
want
to believe me. “What are you doing? Are you holding on to her? Is that it?”

“I know Taylor. She would never get over me that fast.”

“Well.” I gave him a pitying look. “She did. Sorry.”

“No.” He kept shaking his head. “Jason told me she would need me tonight. He said I could make everything better. I—” He stopped, studying me, before his head moved from right to left again. “No way.”

“She has a firecracker tattoo on her thigh.”

That shut him up. His eyes turned ragged. “No. No way.”

“When you’re inside of her and kiss her throat, she arches her back, and it’s the hottest thing I’ve seen in a long time. She makes a little sound that makes you want to go harder, just to make her do it again because you don’t want to disappoint her. She makes you want to satisfy her, makes you need to satisfy her—”

“Shut up,” he snapped, his chest heaving. “Shut up.”

“I could tell you a lot more. I won’t, though, because this isn’t about further hurting Taylor. This is about helping her. You being here is not helping her. It’s going to hurt her.”

He put a hand to his forehead and started rubbing. “Jason told me…” He cleared his throat. “Jason said, uh—”

I moved the chair closer, folding my arms over the back of it. “What did he say?”

“He said I could come back and make things right. This was the time to do it, if I was going to. That…” He hesitated. “That…he was leaving. I don’t know why,” he added hastily. “He wouldn’t tell me, and our conversation was really rushed. He was already heading out of town, but he said she’d need her family.”

“The fucker left town?” Wait. “Why’d he send you?”

“Because he—uh—.” He wouldn’t look at me. “He doesn’t like you, and he thinks I still have a chance. He doesn’t know about…”

I grunted. Delray would have a different opinion if he knew what Eric had done. I’d be the knight in fucking shining armor then.

Mason moved up behind me. I knew what he was thinking already. If Delray was gone, so was part of our problem.

“Yeah. That’s the only reason I went to find her.”

“How’d you know where she was?” Mason asked.

Eric looked up, his gaze shifting to my brother. “He told me a few days ago she’d started working there. I figured it was Friday night. It’s the best night to work. I’m not in contact with Taylor, and she doesn’t update any of her social media, so I guessed. That’s it.”

I grunted. The fucker had guessed right.

“Why’d you punch me? I wasn’t going to hurt her.”

“Because I wanted to.” I stood and put the chair back against the wall. The guy either had no clue, or he was just choosing to be stupid. “Delray has no idea what you did to her. You must know that, right?”

He continued to glare at me, but after a beat, he jerked his head in a nod. “Yeah. I figured.”

In that moment, I saw into him. He wasn’t there to hurt her; he didn’t think he would. He had no clue. “You’re delusional, you know that?” I scoffed, running a hand over my face. Before he could reply, I said, “You had her. You were with her for years. Even she admits that she would’ve married you. You
had
her.” I shook my head. “You have no idea how lucky you had it, but you did the one thing that would cut her deep, and it will continue to cut her deep for years. You left her. You could’ve saved her, and you ran like a dog with its tail between its legs. You were a coward.”

“You don’t know—”

“Yeah, I do.” I leaned over him. I wanted to make sure he didn’t walk out of my garage with the same delusions. I wanted every single one of them dead and shriveled up like dust. “Family never leaves each other. You save each other. If it ends, it ends together. That’s all you can do, because even if you get out, you’re alone. Don’t you get that? When you left her, you chose yourself. You chose being alone. You did it. You decided. Not her. If you hadn’t? Shit, you’d still be with her. You’d probably be cozied up to her right now instead of me being there in a few hours. You ended the relationship. Not her. Don’t put that on her,
ever
. You got that?”

Mason’s phone rang, and I heard him answer as he left. “Yeah?”

The guy never looked away from me. I straightened back up and gave him the biggest fuck-off look I could. I pitied him. “You lost her. Don’t think you can come back and just pick things up.”

“You’re—” He tried to muster something to throw back at me. I saw the anger, the resentment, the bitterness. But just as the strength to protest gathered in him, it faded. His head hung, and he sat there like a lost puppy. But I didn’t feel bad for this asshole.

I pointed to the door. “You can go whenever you want.”

“What?”

I jerked my head toward the door. “I was never holding you here. And now I’m done talking.”

“But—” He closed his eyes and rolled his head from side to side. “I came for a second chance with her.”

“You came to weasel your way back in. You said yourself you only thought of it because Jason called. Stop lying. It’s making me want to take an actual shit on you. You knew she wouldn’t want to see you. That’s why you haven’t been back since. But the first moment she might be vulnerable? She might be feeling exposed? You decided to be here. You wanted to come in like the hero you’re sadly not. That’s all you wanted, not to actually make things right.”

“What’s the difference? I mean, it’s my way of helping her.”

“It’s straight up manipulation, dipshit. You know it, too. Or at least you should. Your chance to help her is long gone.”

Just then, the door opened, and Mason’s voice called, “Logan? Phone.”

“Okay.” I had one more thing to do. “Stay away from her,” I told Eric. “Delray doesn’t know what you did, and if he did, I think he’d have a different opinion of you. Your presence will hurt her. If she wants to see you, she’ll come see you. That’s on her. That’s her right to decide when to deal with you—or not. Let her have that right.” I glared down at him once more. “That’s the only good thing you can do. Just stay the fuck away.”

I left him sitting there. He was nothing to me now.

As soon as I stepped through the door, Mason held his phone out. He glanced behind me. “You’re going to make him walk?”

I shrugged. “Message was received. He’ll stay away from Taylor now. That’s all I wanted.”

“Mind if I give him a ride to his car? Make sure he actually leaves?”

“I don’t care. He’s slime to me. If you want to dirty your car with it, that’s fine.”

Mason moved around me. “The longer he stays here, the more resentful he might get. I’ll feel better if he’s as far away from Sam as possible, and from you.”

I nodded. This was my big brother doing his big-brother thing. Some of the anger inside me chilled, and I gave him a half-grin. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “It’s what family does.” He pointed to his phone in my hand. “Before I go, give me my phone back.”

“Hey.” I stopped him. “I have to go find Taylor after this, but call Dad. I don’t want to worry about Rankin, and even if Delray’s gone, I’ll still worry about him.” He could get to Taylor. A darkness was in me, twisting, churning, threatening to spill over. “He can’t get to her.”

Mason held my gaze, studying me. “You know he’ll want something in return, right?”

I clenched my jaw. “He can try.”

“Okay. I’ll give Dad a call.” Mason nodded as he went into the garage. I stepped away as I lifted the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”

“Hey. Took you long enough,” Nate griped from the other end. “Did you and Mason have a nice chat?”

“Shut up. There are things going on here.” I frowned, hearing loud music through the phone. “Where are you?”

“I came back to Pete’s,” he shouted over the noise. “I wanted to see if the girls came back here or not.”

“Girls?”

“Yeah, asshole,” he retorted. “Your girlfriend. I came here for you, and that’s why I’m calling. Your phone’s not on, so you might want to check it, see if there are any messages from Taylor.”

“Why?” I reached into my pocket and pulled it out.

“Is she there?”

“No, but the other one is.”

“Other one?”

“That friend of hers, the one she left with in the first place. She said she left Taylor at some abandoned amusement park place.”