Hiding Place

Quietly, I closed the door behind me with a smile on my face as I shook my head. Danielle was still passed out, face down on the bed and hadn’t moved since last night. After the two of us got Amelia into her room, and pawned her off on Marcus, Danielle flopped onto the bed horizontally – still in her dress – and refused to move. So, I spent the night on the couch. I was thankful that Marcus and Amelia had a comfortable couch. It was probably better this way; it was easier for me to sneak out.

It was tricky, but I managed to sneak into the room without making a sound to get a change of clothes and my simple makeup for the day. Danielle didn’t even notice. I stopped just outside the door and pulled my phone out of my pocket, Good morning, I typed quickly to Logan. I promised him that I would text him this morning and I didn’t hesitate to do so. I wasn’t sure what came over me last night, but I was glad that I did.

Sending a text at just after nine in the morning was risky, I didn’t expect a response back right away. I debated putting the coffee pot on but that would only wake everyone else in the apartment. Instead, I sat down on the couch and crossed my legs underneath me. I picked up one of the magazines that Amelia had on the table and began to flip through it as I debated what to do for breakfast when I felt my phone vibrate on my leg. Good morning :) What are you up to?

My lips curled into a smile once more. I put the magazine down on the couch and leaned against the arm of the couch. Just debating making some breakfast, what about you?

I stared at my phone; I could see that he was typing a message; it was a benefit of having an iphone. You should come over for breakfast.

My hesitancy wanted to take over. Couldn’t we just meet somewhere? I licked my lips nervously. Meeting up was obvious, I figured he would want to and to be honest, I wanted to also. This way we could clarify everything rather than let it hang over us like it currently was. But I had no idea that us meeting up would possibly involve going to his place.

Nah, I have lots of stuff here. Just come over. He followed up that message with his address and which apartment he lived in. I opened up google maps and pasted the address into the directions bar and selected walking as my mode of transportation. Twenty minutes, not bad.

I sucked in a deep breath. Okay, I’ll be there in 20 or so.

Great see you then..

Careful to be quiet, I slipped my shoes on and looped my bag over my shoulder. I debated leaving a note for Marcus, Amelia and Danielle, but if they needed me, they could text me or call.

---

A tense shiver ran through me when I arrived at his building. I didn’t think I would be this nervous but I was. I pulled the front door open and checked my phone to make sure I had the right apartment number. The man sitting at the front desk of the building nodded at me, I nodded back and pressed the three button in the elevator.

My heartbeat started to pick up as I turned down the hallway to make my way to his apartment. I licked my lips and sucked in as much air as I could without making myself hyperventilate. After checking that I had the right door for a third time, I lifted my hand and gently knocked on the door.

The sound of the lock clicking made my heart thump loudly in my chest and my eyes widen. When the door pulled open I forced myself to put a smile on my face in an attempt to hide my nerves. “Hey,” he smiled and stepped to the side. “Come in.” His smile looked genuine to me.

I crossed the threshold into his apartment and slipped out of my shoes. “Hi,” I somehow managed to say. I hated how awkward and forced things felt between us, especially after how I behaved last night with him.

“I’ll give you a tour,” he grinned, mostly to himself. “The bathroom is down the hall to the right, the kitchen is down to the left and the living room is just in front of us here.” I nodded as we made our way into the living room. “I’m pretty hungry, so what do you feel like having?”

I pulled my bag over my head and placed it beside the couch. “What’s available?” I followed him into the kitchen where on the island he had a large fruit bowl, some eggs, bacon and bread. It gave me an instant idea. “I assume you have flour right? Butter? And milk?” He nodded and looked at me curiously. “Crepes,” I said with a smile on my face.

Logan laughed. “I don’t know how to make crepes.”

“You’re in luck,” I flipped the carton of eggs open to see how many he had. “I make excellent crepes.”

“Don’t those need a filling?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

I nodded. “That’s what you’re going to do. You have peanut butter right? Well you’re going to slice up some fruit and keep the bananas separate. Then we’ll have peanut butter banana crepes and some other fruit cut up.” The confidence I had about this idea was slowly starting to wear off. I shrugged at him with my eyebrows both raised.

He moved around the kitchen retrieving the ingredients I requested and a few others I remembered that I needed. Plus he handed me a bowl, frying pan and a spoon. Luckily for him, I’ve made crepes enough times that I don’t need to measure the ingredients for them to turn up perfectly anymore. “So you’re going to teach me to make these right? Cause if I have an amazing game tomorrow, I’m going to have to make crepes the day before a game every time.”

My eyes focused on his as I made a face. “I don’t measure anything so it might be a little tricky, but I can find the recipe I use and get it to you if you need it.” I shook my head at him.

“Have you been keeping track of our series?”

The laugh that escaped my mouth was involuntary. “No? I’m sorry I don’t really like hockey. If I hear about it on sportscenter I’ll listen but it’s usually when I’m doing something else.” I started scooping flour into the mixing bowl. “How are you guys doing?”

Logan sucked in a deep breath then ran his hands over his face and through his hair. Apparently I picked a touchy subject. “We’re down three-two in the series right now. Basically we have to win tomorrow to force a game seven.”

My lips curled into a half smile, “Well I wish you all the luck in the world tomorrow.” I hoped that my sincerity was obvious and that he didn’t question me as to whether I meant it or not. I might not know much about hockey or really even like the sport, but I did know that I liked watching him play it.

“Thanks,” he mumbled as he continued to slice up some fruit.

After I had the batter all prepped, I got Logan to come to the other side of the island so I could show him how to cook a crepe properly, and let him cook a few, just in case he needs to know. Secretly I was hoping that he didn’t need the superstition of a day-before-a-game crepe.

Only one burnt crepe later, the two of us had a stack of crepes, a pile of bananas, a jar of peanut butter and a bowl of fruit to eat spread out on the dining room table. Logan handed me a plate, fork and knife and sat down beside me, not opposite to me like I had expected he would.

Initially the two of us ate in silence – spreading peanut butter on the crepe, covering it in bananas and rolling it up – but I needed to talk to him. I needed to clarify things from the other day at the beach. Logan deserved that much from me.

“So,” I started to say when he had a mouth full of crepes and bananas. “I need to clarify my actions for you.”

He swallowed and a smirk appeared on his face, “If you’re talking about last night, that was one of the sexiest things I’ve seen.”

My cheeks flushed but I shook my head. “No, I need to clarify what happened between you and me at the beach earlier this week.”

Logan put his fork down and gave me his full attention, “Oh.”

I sucked in a shaky breath and let it out slowly. “I didn’t explain things very well to you. I didn’t express my feelings the right way and that, I think, gave you the wrong impression. So I wanted to clarify.”

He nodded as though saying, ‘yeah okay, continue.’

“You see, I normally don’t find guys who challenge me on baseball attractive, but you became the exception. It was like you didn’t care that I’m a girl, you weren’t going to let me bash your Jays. I know it sounds weird but I found that attractive.”

His lips straightened out from the slight frown he had going before that.

I licked my lips, “And then when I saw you play hockey? That made it worse. I don’t even like the sport but I’m going to be honest, my eyes were glued to you the entire time you were on the ice. Which reminds me, take longer fucking shifts okay? Then I’ll be more interested.”

Logan’s lips curled into a slight smile.

My cheeks had to be on fire at this point. “And lastly, that afternoon at the beach? Before I went and ruined it? It was perfect. So what I’m trying to say is that there’s a lot about you that I like and it scared the shit out of me because I don’t know you that well. I didn’t want there to be that pressure between us like I thought there would be.” A shaky breath passed my lips. “I know I shouldn’t have ignored you. I don’t have an excuse; it’s how I deal with situations that scare me. It’s a terrible defence mechanism because all it did was push you away.”

“Everyone deals with things differently,” Logan shrugged. “What bothered me most was that you just up and left. You didn’t give me a chance to reply or even process what was happening. You just took off.”

A sigh escaped my lips as I ran my fingers through my hair and pushed it back out of my face. “Yeah, I know. It wasn’t my finest hour. It scared the shit out of me.” I started to crack my knuckles as I did when I was nervous. “I, I don’t do flings. You know? And I still, I can’t… Honestly, I still don’t see how this – whatever this is – can be anything more than just that. But on the other hand, I don’t think I can fight my attraction to you any more Logan.”

I stood up to take my empty plate into the kitchen. I wasn’t hungry anymore now that I had spilled my feelings to him – confessed that I didn’t want a fling and that I didn’t want to fight just how into him I was. He didn’t say a word and I was running yet again.

Logan followed me into the kitchen. He took the rinsed off plate from my hand and put it on the counter. I didn’t want to look at him, I was suddenly afraid of what he was going to say, what he was going to do. I stared at my hands and tried to crack another knuckle.

The gap between us was minimal. He tucked his hand under my chin and forced me to look up at his eyes. The space between us was closed when he gently placed his lips on mine once more. It was soft, innocent and almost understanding. He broke the kiss and took both of my hands in his. “You have got to stop running away from me,” he spoke softly. “You have to give me a chance to process what you’re saying and give me a chance to react to it.”

I nodded in agreement. I had to be more patient. I had to be more understanding. I had to give the other person a chance to respond before I walked away because not everyone is going to be as easy going about my ‘defence mechanism’ as Logan. I pulled my hands from his and slid them around his waist as I rested my head on his chest. Logan wrapped his arms around me and held me close to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance to you know before,” I mumbled into his chest.

“Well it’s good I know to chase you now if you do take off on me again,” he murmured softly.

There was no way I was going to be letting go of Logan any time soon, but it needed to be asked. “So what do we do now?” I almost whispered. I wished that we didn’t have to talk about this, but we did. We had to acknowledge it. If this wasn’t going to be some fling, what was it? Was it going somewhere? Even with the all of the odds against this happening?

I could feel Logan’s chest expand as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I just asked him an extremely loaded question that I did not know the answer to myself. All I knew was that there was something here, something that needed a chance but I had no idea how to give it one. “When do you go back to San Francisco?” His voice remained quiet even though we were the only two people in the room.

He led off with a crushing question. “Two days,” I replied.

Logan ran a hand up and down my back, which made me relax into him more as the two of us stood connected in his kitchen. “Will you come to game six tomorrow?” I nodded against his chest. “I’ll talk to Gally about Danielle too.” I nodded once more.

“I’ll watch game seven too,” I agreed without thinking. At the moment, it didn’t matter if there was a baseball game on; I was going to watch game seven. I could feel him laugh at my agreement.

“Sounds good,” he whispered. “But realistically, to answer your question,” his voice got a little stronger and his grip on me got a little tighter. “I’m not going to ask you to do nothing over the summer and wait for me to get back to California. I want you to have fun. But I also want to keep in touch with you. I want to take this slow and see where it goes. I’m not okay with pushing these feelings I have aside right now.” I could hear and feel him swallow. “I want to see where this, you and me, takes us.”

His words echoed through my mind. He wasn’t asking for the moon and the stars, just a couple of stars for possibility that we might have something special. It wasn’t outlandish or crazy. It was realistic. It was possible. It was doable. I wanted to do it.

At the moment, forty-five minutes all the time didn’t matter. At the moment, hockey and soccer schedules didn’t matter. There was something here and it was worth taking a look at. Logan seemed to notice it early on, but I was too scared – or too stupid – to acknowledge that it existed.

I pulled my head off his chest, but kept my arms wrapped around him. I tried to look him in the eyes as I gave him my answer yet our height difference made that a challenge. “I want to see where it takes us too,” I spoke gently. If there were more than just the two of us in this apartment, he would have had to strain to hear me.

Logan smiled and quickly pressed his lips to mine. It was a short, chaste kiss – unlike the previous ones that we had shared. “So nothing official, nothing written in stone, we’re just seeing what happens here, right?”

I couldn’t help but smile back at him and nod. “Right. All we know is that I’m attracted to you –”

He cut me off, “And I’m attracted to you, even if you are a Giants fan and hate hockey.” He smirked.

My eyes rolled. “And that despite our glaring differences and distances, we’re going to see if this happens.”

“Exactly that,” he smiled and kissed my forehead.

Logan ushered me back to the table where he continued to eat some crepes, bananas and peanut butter while I snacked on some of the fruit he had sliced. The tension that existed between the two of us when I got to his apartment had evaporated now that everything was out and in the open. All of the necessary talks happened and feelings were discussed.

It was going to be interesting to see how this entire thing panned out between Logan and me. It wasn’t a fling, but it wasn’t a commitment either. It wasn’t official, but it was agreed upon. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was – at least I hoped it was – going to be worth it. Despite the odds, despite the miles, despite the circumstances and everything and anything else that could be against us, for some reason I had this slight belief in the back of my head that this would all work out in the end.