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He seemed so vulnerable in his half-naked state that I had to not only
steel myself against a desire to touch him, but also a deeper need to reassure
him that everything would be all right. Unable to bear standing that close to
him, I went to the door.
“I keep my promises,” he said, telling himself a story he needed to
believe. That he was a trustworthy and loyal man whose word was a
contract. I wanted to believe it too, but our contract was built on known lies
and unknowable truths.
“You will,” I said. “You’ll keep every last one of them.”
Before he could answer, I walked into the bedroom, not looking back
until my hand was on the doorknob, taking one last glance at physical
perfection partnered with emotional shortfall.
I closed the door between us, ending my wedding day.
As I lay in bed with the faraway party humming along, I couldn’t hear
Logan on the other side of the wall. The house was probably soundproofed
and too new for creaky floorboards, but I felt him pacing as if the vows
we’d taken connected us by more than a signature.
Of course he was worried. His mother had questioned our marriage, and
she was absolutely right to do so. We’d anticipated that, yet the reality of
those questions right after we had sex had probably caught him off guard.
He was competent, but he was also human.
I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but I did for a few hours, waking after
three in the morning to the music of crickets and the chatter of night birds.
The party must have ended.
Wide awake, I slid out of bed in my sweatshirt and plaid flannel sleep
pants to look into the darkness of the canyon. A deep balcony connected the
living area and the bedroom, and at a metal table sat Logan Crowne with his
face lit blue by his open laptop. He scrolled, banged at the keys, marked a
notebook, and scrolled and banged some more. He’d put on a hoodie
against the early morning chill, but his feet were bare in his slippers.
After putting on shoes, I dug around my bag, found what I was looking
for, and went outside. “Hey.”