Hiding Place

A sigh fell past my lips as I pulled into the parking spot that has been mine for the past three years. I stared at the building I’ve called home since I moved to San Francisco from San Mateo for college and now here I am in my final year at SFSU. Yet, I’m terrified to go into the building.

Two and a half hours ago, I left my apartment with an overwhelming feeling of uncertainty coupled with the fact that I straight up lied and ran away from the issue at hand – something I promised Logan I wouldn’t do – but I did it. I ran away from him. I left him sitting alone in the apartment with the unfinished, let alone started, conversation of ‘will they, won’t they’ that Danielle had so eloquently left the two of us with.

My excuse was lame. I claimed that I needed to go to the bookstore before class and I needed to get a good parking spot. Logan claimed that he understood, but I saw the reluctant look in his eyes. He told me to have a good class and that we could talk when I got back.

Now I’m back – kind of. My heart was pounding in my chest with the anticipation of what is about to happen when I walk into my apartment. Danielle would be home in just under two hours and she wanted us to have this all figured out before she got home. Apparently it was clear to everyone except me.

I needed to go inside. I needed to talk to the guy that gave me butterflies in my stomach, that made my heart pound in my chest and that made my cheeks look like someone painted my face red. He made me feel all of these things. And when he crawled into my bed this morning, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay there in his arms.

“Just talk to him,” I muttered to myself. Yet again, my overthinking of situations was hindering my ability to actually deal with something. I sucked in a deep breath and opened the door to my car. I had to have confidence about this – even if I wasn’t sure what I wanted – but I knew that I wanted and needed to have Logan in my life.

After retrieving my backpack from the backseat of my car, I sucked in another deep breath and headed towards the entrance to the building. Impatience struck as I avoided the elevator and made my way straight to the stairs.

I took the stairs two at a time to the third floor, something I probably shouldn’t have done because I was now slightly out of breath thanks to my heart pounding previously. I walked slowly towards the apartment door with the hopes of my breathing evening out.

“Here it goes,” I muttered to myself as I unlocked the door and stepped inside.

There was no reason for me to be freaking out. Logan was sprawled out on the couch once more. He had a blanket over top of him and the MLB network on the television. It was muted or the volume was too low to really hear what was being said. My lips curled into a smile.

Carefully, I toed out of my shoes and headed down the hallway towards my room. I put my backpack on my desk chair and emptied the contents. My laptop went back to my desk; I put the textbook on the pile for the semester and placed my notebook beside my laptop. After grabbing the container, which contained my snack for class, I quietly made my way back into the kitchen.

It was kind of nice to have someone to come home to. Every time my gaze drifted to the couch, I couldn’t help but smile. Part of me wanted to wake him up so we could talk but the other part of me wanted to let him rest. Logan was woken up before six this morning and he didn’t have to be.

“Em?” Logan’s sleepy voice filled the apartment. He lifted his head ever so slightly and tried to figure out where I was in the apartment.

Apparently I wasn’t as quiet as I thought I was. I walked over to stand in front of the couch. “Hi,” I smiled and instantly I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. Man this is really inconvenient.

Logan stretched before sitting up and folding the blanket. He placed it on the end of the couch, “When did you get back?”

“Just now, I was trying to be quiet because you were napping.” Suddenly I had no idea what to do with my hands. I shifted uncomfortably as I continued to stand in front of him. Even though this was my house, I felt like a stranger.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you going to sit down?”

Careful not to trip over my own two feet, because there was a high chance of that happening, I quickly sat down beside him. I left a little gap just like before even though I liked being close to him.

The two of us turned to slightly face the other, we weren’t completely square to the other but it was close enough. A blanket of awkwardness settled in between us and I wanted to throw it out the window.

“So we should probably talk about what Danielle left us with earlier, right?” His voice was soft and I could just hear him. It was almost like he was nervous.

I nodded. “Yeah, we should.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know where to start.” I blurted out. My eyes widened and I stared at Logan to see his response to that.

He chuckled. He fucking chuckled.

“Are you laughing at me?” My eyes were still wide and I felt nothing but embarrassment.

Logan shook his head and reached over to grab my hands that were twisted together in my lap. “I like this defence mechanism better than your other one, it’s cute.”

Defence mechanism? Oh. He meant that I didn’t run away but I just blurted out what I felt. Cue a darker shade of red on my cheeks. But I guess that’s a good thing that he’s okay with me revealing random facts like that.

“Cute? I just basically told you that you have to direct this conversation because I don’t know where to start or what to talk about. Like I get that Danielle called us ‘Ross and Rachel’ because she’s tired of this, and I’m quoting here, ‘this will they, won’t they crap.’”

He nodded as he untangled our hands and linked them together. He licked his lips and softly spoke. “What do you think? Will we or won’t we?”

Talk about jumping head first into the conversation that I thought we were going to build up to. Logan just dropped the bomb and basically put the ball in my court as to whether or not we will or we won’t. This is too much.

My heart was pounding at a rate that I couldn’t fathom. I knew my eyes were wide. I was ninety percent sure that my hands were sweating buckets and that any minute now Logan would be disgusted by that. I felt like I could throw up thanks to the butterflies causing havoc in my stomach. My muscles felt like they were twitching and itching for me to run away.

But somehow, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Logan’s.

Hesitation was a terrible thing to do in this situation, yet here I was doing exactly that. I was leaving him hanging with no answer as to whether we will or we won’t. His grip on my hands tightened and he continued to keep his eyes locked on mine. This both reassured me and terrified me.

Logan Couture was not going to let me run from this.

I forced in a deep breath. I wished that I could hide the terror that was likely plastered all over my face right now. He didn’t need that. He didn’t deserve that. Logan kept taking all the risks. The only risk I’ve taken is that one night at the bar… I hoped I could channel that confidence again.

“Will,” I managed to say. It was soft. It was barely audible. I knew I was going to have to repeat myself, but I said it. The Earth didn’t open up and swallow me whole. If he did hear me, he didn’t laugh.

“Will?” His voice was equally as soft as mine just was, except Logan was fighting a smile. His lips were trying to curl into a look that I loved to see on his face.

I didn’t fight it. I smiled brightly at him. I could feel it consume my entire face. My pulse was slowing down. It wasn’t unbearable anymore. The butterflies were calming down. My grip on Logan’s hands tightened but the rest of my muscles relaxed. “Will,” I said louder with more confidence than before.

Logan’s face lit up – I wanted to compare it to the way it did when he scored a goal but the look on his face now was something I hadn’t seen before. In a swift movement, Logan was sitting right beside me and pulled his hands from mine only to cup my cheeks with both of his hands. “Can I kiss you?” He whispered.

It was my turn to chuckle. “When have we ever asked permission for that?”

He slightly shook his head before closing the distance between our lips and pressing his to mine. It was slightly awkward with our positioning on the couch, but I slid my hands between his arms so I could pull him closer to me. I linked my hands, somewhat, behind his head and Logan dropped his hands from my cheeks.

Without breaking the kiss, in fact he deepened it, as he scooped one hand under my knees and the other around my waist. Suddenly I was sitting on Logan’s lap, sideways of course, as we continued to be twisted but we were closer.

All the time apart probably did us good – we actually got to know the other person rather than acting simply on physical impulses – but it also made me miss this. Despite the fact that Logan and I had only kissed a handful of times before this, I missed it over the summer. There was something about the feeling that shot through me when our lips met.

An unfamiliar chime of a phone rang out and ultimately ended the moment between Logan and me. He pulled away and proceeded to rest his head on my shoulder as a long sigh passed his lips.

I didn’t know where his phone was, so I made an effort to move off of his lap. I stayed right beside him and his arm that was on my waist slid up the back of the couch and curled around my shoulders. He pulled me into his side and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

He reached over to the end table and picked up his phone. His head fell to the back of the couch as soon as he read the message. “So, um, my mom says hi.”

I pushed myself up and pressed my lips to Logan’s cheek. “You’re adorable.”

He turned to look at me. “I’m not adorable. I’m manly,” he smirked.

“Right, that’s what I meant,” I leaned my head on his shoulder. “So, you told your mom about me?”

It was his turn to have his cheeks flush. “Well, I kind of had to explain why I was coming back to California early. Like I would have had time after the Olympic camp to go back to London but I came here instead.”

The Olympic camp – I completely forgot about that. It probably slipped my mind because I was so far into training camp that it didn’t register with me. “I’m sure she asked why you came back out here early, right?”

Logan nodded. “Yeah, when I tried to tell her I guess I got a little, um, unsure how to tell her so she just assumed it was because of a girl. So I ended up telling her about you and she wished me luck. Mom particularly liked the story of how we met.”

“That was a good day,” I laughed. “You should send her the picture of you in all that Giants stuff.” I poked his side. Logan squirmed slightly. “Oh, did I just detect that my, um, you’re ticklish?”

Quickly he grabbed my hands and raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m not ticklish. I just don’t like being poked. I’ll send mom the picture of you and me at the park. She doesn’t need one of me standing in your room.”

I let out a silent sigh of relief. He didn’t catch my slip up of almost calling him my boyfriend when really I had no idea what we had ultimately agreed upon. Basically at the moment it was just that something is going to happen – but what?

“Were you going to call me your boyfriend?”

Busted.

I feigned shock. “What? Why would I do that? I mean nothing has been established between us… I don’t know if that’s what you want, I don’t know if that’s what I want either. Not that I’m opposed to the idea. I mean we just agreed that something would happen between us. There weren’t any specifics…”

Logan covered my mouth with his hand. He had a smile on his face. “You’re adorable when you ramble like that, you know?”

He pulled his hand away and I frowned at him. Rambling was not adorable. When I rambled it usually meant that I was one hundred percent uncomfortable with something. My mind usually started spinning and somehow I just said everything that came across my mind. I didn’t filter anything out.

“We don’t have to decide anything right now. I thought we agreed that we would just take things slow?”

I nodded. We agreed to that back in May. Now it’s September. “You’re right.”

“But,” he smiled. “When I make the hour drive to come see you on an off day, I may have to explain that I’m going to see this girl I’m seeing…”

“Tell me about this girl you’re seeing,” I asked as I tried to tuck myself into Logan’s side. He was solid. He was comfortable. He made me feel safe.

Logan laughed. “Well what do you want to know?” He slid his arm around my shoulders once more and held me close to his side. He titled his head to the side and rested his head on mine. I knew that if Danielle were to walk in any time soon, she would claim that we disgusted her. That’s just her personality.

“What does she do? Why do you have to drive an hour just to see her?” I quietly spoke. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to know what Logan thought of me. Maybe it’s because I’m so obvious about how I feel, in that I blush every time something comes up between us, but Logan? He can hide his feelings pretty well.

He ran his hand down my arm and back to my shoulder. “Well,” he started to say. “She’s a student-athlete. She’s this amazing soccer player. I think she plays midfield and is one of the seniors on the team.”

“Oh really?” I said like I was someone who was interested in what he was saying, even though I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks again. I knew I would have to repay the favour when he’s done talking.

Logan nodded. “I’m not done yet,” he chuckled. “She’s also one of the smartest people I know. She’s doing a bachelor of science in kinesiology and she has this crazy specialization that I don’t really understand. I’m not sure how she can tolerate me with just my high school education.”

I tilted my head up to look at him. “She doesn’t care.”

“Is that so? I would have thought that a genius like her would care,” he questioned as his fingers teased to the bottom of my t-shirt sleeve and back up.

An awkward laugh fell from my lips. I turned to face Logan with a small smile on my face and slightly shook my head. “She is no where close to being a genius.”

Logan smirked. “That’s true, she is a Giants fan after all. It’s a real pity.”

The smile that had been on my face for the last half hour disappeared, “You are so dead.” I deadpanned and poked his side strategically before moving further away from him. Logan squirmed away from my touch. I made sure I was just out of his reach but we were both still situated on the couch.

Part of me was saying this was a poor decision; the other part of me, however, was telling me to go for it.

“Is that a threat?” he still had a smirk on his face as he brought his feet up to the couch. He turned to face me as he waited for my answer.

I shrugged. “Depends. Do you want it to be?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time a Giants fan threatened me. But just like the last threat, I think this Jays fan can handle it.” He had that confident smirk on his face, just like I remembered from the first night I met him – I both loved and hated how it made me feel. Who knew I was done for when I first saw that damn smirk of his.

Somehow I had confidence. I had confidence that as a five foot seven female soccer player I could take down and pin a six foot one male hockey player without being overpowered at all. Clearly, my confidence was flying high.

Right as I reached the middle of the couch, and before I could actually poke him in the side to distract him before my take down, Logan met me in the middle of the couch and grabbed both of my wrists. The smirk was still on his face.

He brought my wrists together and held on to both with one hand as I struggled to pull my arms from him. Damn my lack of upper body strength.

“I feel like this is a bad position for you,” Logan spoke softly with a hint of confidence in his voice. “Let me fix that for you.”

Rather than let go of my wrists like I thought he would, Logan took complete advantage of his strength and better positioning than I had. No wonder he was a pain in the ass to play against.

Quickly he let go of my wrists and before I could make a move to poke him or do anything in retaliation, Logan had his arms around me and had me pinned to the couch. Both of his hands were linked with mine above my head. He was slightly on top of me and had a triumphant smile on his face.

He leaned forward and kissed my nose. “Told you I could handle a Giants fan.”

As sweet as he was being, Logan made a critical error. He left the strongest part of me free on either side of him. My lips curled into a smirk, similar to the one he had before, “That doesn’t look good,” he spoke softly as his eyes searched mine for what I was thinking.

I’m not entirely sure how I did it or what I did exactly, but I managed to flip Logan off of me onto the ground beside the couch. I would have declared myself successful but, of course, he kept a solid grip on me and pulled me onto the floor with him. Luckily for me though, I had a much softer landing that the thin carpet. I was right on top of Logan.

Instead of acting defeated, I smiled proudly that I managed to flip him off of me. Logan slid his hands to my low back and locked them in place; there was no way I was getting up off of him without a fight now. I tried to move and he just shook his head ever so slightly. There was no point in fighting a fight that I knew I could not win.

I relaxed against him and let out a content sigh. He was comfortable to lie on top of. I let my head rest against his chest and tangled my legs with his.

“You’re lucky I like you,” he spoke softly. I could feel the vibrations of his voice in his chest.

My voice was just as soft. “Why’s that?”

“It’s fine with me if my back is a little sore going into camp if you’re going to flip me off of you and then lie on top of me after,” his right hand went up my back and then back down a couple of times.

I could feel my lips curl into a big smile. “Well I must like you too.”

Even though I’d known it for a while now, admitting it out loud to Logan was something completely different. All of those times we skyped or texted over the summer break, I knew it was more than the two of us just being friends. Since that day in May, there was some sort of spark between the two of us that couldn’t be denied and it all came out because of an argument over baseball.

Maybe Danielle was right, even though we both love baseball; the fact that we love different teams makes everything more interesting between the two of us.

“Really?” Logan asked with a hint of surprise in his voice.

I rolled my eyes and turned my head to kind of look at him. “You didn’t think it was obvious that I liked you?”

He shrugged as well as he could with me draped on top of him. “I kind of figured you did, I mean we talked almost every day all summer, we skyped a lot… But it wasn’t until I saw your face when I surprised you the other day that solidified it for me. That’s when I knew that you liked me too.”

I slid up Logan the best I could and pressed my lips to his. There was no better way for me to convey how what he said made me feel. Probably because it was completely true. That was probably the first time that I let it be known, especially to Logan, that I liked him too. I didn’t hide it. I didn’t run away. I just let the happiness of seeing him take over and it did.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You have a bedroom Emma. You don’t need to make out on the living room floor. Why are you two on the floor anyways? Wait, I don’t want to know and I’m sure Tristan, my lab partner, didn’t need to see this!”

Logan broke the connection between our lips and smiled at me. He released his grip on me that had shifted from my low back to my butt and let me crawl off of him. I got up quickly and he did the same.

I grabbed his hand and pulled him along with me. Right as we walked past Danielle and Tristan, I made a point of saying, “Nice to meet you Tristan.” And carried on pulling Logan down the hallway towards my bedroom. I didn’t care what kind of impression this was likely giving Tristan, all I knew was that I wanted time alone with Logan and I didn’t need to have everything that we did on display for Danielle and her lab partner.

“Nice to see you two figured everything out!” Danielle called as we reached the end of the hallway and I pulled Logan into my room.

He had a smirk on his face as I shut the door and he scooped me up to take me over to my bed. “Guess we did figure everything out, eh?”

A laugh fell past my lips, “You’re lucky I like you.”

“What? Why now?” Logan asked as he crawled onto my bed beside me.

I shook my head, “You’re so Canadian but it’s okay with me.”

Logan laughed then echoed the threat I gave him earlier, “You’re dead.” He proceeded to tickle me in all the right places as I squirmed helplessly on my bed. I was begging him to stop but he refused. Instead he kept declaring himself the winner and that I shouldn’t mess with the master.

If you asked me in May if I thought that Jays fan and I would be in this position four months down the road, I would have declared you a crazy person who should be tested. But now, I’m really glad it happened. I am, without question, one of the luckiest people in the world right now.