I love to chat and interact with you all through DMs or asks, so please do not hesitate to message me!
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Below is my masterlist. If you have any questions regarding what or who I write for, please send me a DM or an ask. When they are open, requests can also be sent via DM or ask. Thanks for stopping by!
Supernatural:
Sam Winchester Imagine
Sam Winchester Imagine
Dean Winchester Imagine
Dean Winchester Imagine - I Think I'm in Love With You
Dean Winchester Imagine Requested - A Bit of an Inconvenience
The Vampire Diaries:
Damon Salvatore Imagine
Damon Salvatore Imagine
Damon Salvatore Imagine Requested - Sexual Tension
Damon Salvatore Imagine Requested - A Slight Jealousy Problem
Damon Salvatore Imagine Requested Smut - It's About Damn Time
Damon Salvatore Christmas Imagine Requested - All Alone On Christmas
Damon Salvatore Imagine Requested - You Finally Got the Girl
Damon Salvatore Imagine Requested - Forever
Stefan Salvatore Imagine - Hopelessly Head-Over-Heels In Love
Stefan Salvatore Imagine Requested - I'm Not the Kind of Person You Fall in Love With
Stefan Salvatore Imagine Requested - Moonlight
Tyler Lockwood - Shut Up and Kiss Me
Stranger Things:
Billy Hargrove Imagine - Mysterious Boy
Billy Hargrove Imagine - Mysterious Boy Part 2
Billy Hargrove Imagine Requested - Brooklyn Baby
Billy Hargrove Imagine Requested - Missing You
Billy Hargrove Imagine Requested Smut - Pretty Unconventional
Billy Hargrove Imagine Requested Smut - Just For Fun
Billy Hargrove Imagine Requested - No One Deserves to Be Lonely
Billy Hargrove Imagine Requested Smut - Do You Mind if I Join?
Billy Hargrove Imagine Requested - A Quiet Life
Billy Hargrove Imagine - Something Special
Billy Hargrove Imagine - Pinky Promise
Billy Hargrove Imagine Requested - Songbird
Billy Hargrove and Max Mayfield (Platonic) Imagine - Dazzle Me
Billy Hargrove - A Simple Car Ride
Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington Imagine (Smut) - Three's a Party
Robin Buckley Imagine - The Drive-In
Kali's Group Imagine
Nancy Wheeler Imagine - Not So Drunken Stupor
Steve Harrington Imagine Requested - I'm Done Pretending
Steve Harrington Imagine Requested - The Tutor
Steve Harrington Imagine Requested - My Little Buddy
Steve Harrington Imagine Requested - I Love You So Much Most
Steve Harrington Imagine - A Sweet Distraction
Steve Harrington Imagine - A Sweet Redemption (A Sweet Distraction Part 2)
Steve Harrington Imagine - My Protector
Steve Harrington Imagine - The Feelings Are Mutual
Steve Harrington Imagine - As It Should Be
Fred Benson Imagine - The Best Bookworm
Fred Benson Imagine - The Set-Up
Fred Benson Imagine - A Library Date
Peter Ballard (001) Imagine - The Ultimate Betrayal
Henry Creel Imagine - Always
Henry Creel Imagine - ...And Forever (Always Part 2)
Gareth Imagine - Wonder Woman
Eddie Munson Imagine - The Adventurer and the Dungeon Master
Eddie Munson Imagine (Smut) - The Adventurer and the Dungeon Master Part 2
Eddie Munson Imagine - The Fire Genasi
Eddie Munson Imagine - Little Koala Boy
Eddie Munson Imagine - A Well-Deserved Apology
Eddie Munson Imagine - My Guardian Angel
Eddie Munson Imagine- Confessions
Eddie Munson Imagine - My Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
Eddie Munson Imagine (Smut) - You're Mine
Eddie Munson Imagine - Call My Bluff
Eddie Munson Imagine - Sonnet 18
Eddie Munson Imagine - The Yuletide Bluff
Harry Potter:
Draco Malfoy Imagine - Promise?
Draco Malfoy Imagine Requested - A Christmas Miracle
Luna Lovegood Imagine Requested - Yule Ball
Marvel:
Bucky Barnes Full Fic - It Was Always You Moodboard
Bucky Barnes Full Fic - It Was Always You Masterlist
Loki Laufeyson Imagine - The Blacksmith's Daughter
Okay but picture this meet cute: John Logan falls hard (on the ice, on the street, your choice) and the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is reader very softly asking him if he's okay (for sure he thinks he went to heaven)
OMGOMGOMG THIS IS SO CUTE YES. YOU ATE W THIS.
Falling for You (Literally)
☄︎ Pairing: Reader x John Logan
☄︎ Rating: PG
☄︎ Words: 553
It’s nearly midnight when Logan bursts out of the library doors and into the freezing night. He shivers slightly as he scans the courtyard looking for you.
You had been sitting a few tables over from him all evening. He had spent three hours of distracted studying, trying to build up the courage to walk over to you and say hello. When he finally had the perfect opening line, you had gotten up, packed your bags, and was already walking out. He knew he couldn’t just let you disappear so he ran out after you, not thinking to put on his jacket.
He spots you, about 30 meters ahead, walking like you were in a hurry to get where you were going. It looks like a scene from a movie. The path ahead is lit by nothing but a row of glowing golden street lamps, the white of the snow reflecting the warm hue.
“Hey! Wait up!” He calls out, his boots crunching loudly as he jogs down the snow-covered library steps to catch up to you.
He moves faster once he’s down the stairs. Not looking where he’s going, he doesn’t see the sheet of black ice peeking out from the snow. His right foot lands directly on it, causing his legs to fly out from under him. A split second later, he hits the frozen floor with a thud that knocks the wind out of him.
He groans, eyes squeezing shut as his bruised tailbone throbs. He doesn’t hear you run over and kneel beside him in the slush. So, when he blinks his eyes open, he’s convinced that fall took him out.
The world around you is a blur. The only thing that’s clear is your face, full of worry as you lean over him. You’re positioned perfectly to block the glare of the lamp behind you. It creates a golden halo around your face as the white snow continues to fall around you.
Your voice is soft, almost like a melody drifting through the air. “Hey… are you okay?”
“Am I in heaven?” It isn’t the opening line he had planned to use on you, but under the glowing lights and snow, it seems fitting.
Realising he’s not seriously hurt, you let out a soft laugh. It’s breathless and light, and the sound wraps around Logan like a warm hug. “Not quite.”
The fog in his brain clears, but he doesn’t take your outstretched gloved hand. Instead, his dark eyes imprint your features to his memory, utterly captivated. Looking down at him, your eyes catch the giant Briar U Hawks logo across his chest.
“Not so good on the ice, are you?” You tease, a playful smile pulling at your lips. “And here I thought the Hawks were a decent ice hockey team.”
Logan slaps his hand over his chest. “Ouch,” he groans dramatically. “And here I thought angels were supposed to be nice.”
“Only to people who need it.” Your eyes sparkle with amusement.
He chuckles, finally reaching up to take your hand. He doesn’t pull himself up right away though, instead choosing to look up at you with as much of a charming smile that he can muster through the pain.
“Well,” Logan starts, his voice dropping into a low hum. “I did just fall.” (for you)
summary: logan feels very on edge after the st. anthony’s game, you help him calm down. hurt/comfort, short fic, requested!
Something’s off about the way the Hawks are playing tonight, and even you can see it — the way Garrett struggles getting rid of the puck, refusing to pass it over to Logan despite his and Coach Jensen’s shouts. You try not to say anything to Jules, who’s already doing a pretty descriptive, crass rendition of the events happening on ice.
Then Birdie gets slammed, and you can’t help but think they’re fucked.
You only know for sure that they are fucked when you get a text from Logan during intermission.
logan: garrett is pissing me off rn
Logan never texts you during game intermissions. It’s a basic, personal rule he carries during games: once he steps into the ice, nothing’s distracting him. He knows just how much is at risk, and how harder he has to work to make himself noticed in a team formed by really fucking great players, some who definitely draw more attention than him. In almost a literal sense, he can’t afford to get distracted.
If he’s texting you right now, he can’t be in a good mood.
you: everything okay?
logan: no
logan: not at all
you: want me to come find you?
It takes him a moment to answer, which makes you think he’s considering it, and that makes it even worse for you to wonder, him being in such a wrecked state that he almost says yes.
logan: sorry
logan: i really can’t
logan: see you after the game?
you: yeah
you: love you
logan: love you too
You sink back into your seat, a weak smile on your lips when Jules starts shaking you by the shoulders in hopes of cheering you up, “It can’t get worse, right?”
By the end of the game, all hell seems to break loose. After Garrett had to be pulled out of the ice after smashing St. Anthony’s captain’s face, the team miserably keeps it together until the game’s over, Coach Jensen huddling them into some kind of emergency meeting.
You watch your boyfriend’s face switch into something almost unrecognizable for you — anger, sadness, humiliation, all together in the way his eyebrows furrow and lips frown.
Jules pulls you aside, their own face twitching in a dire way, “I think we should go.”
You want to say no, but deep down, you know they’re right. Jensen would never let that pass without a long, tiring admonition, and this one in particular should take a while, you think. So you sigh, linking your arms with Jules’ as you walk out back to your dorm.
—
You sit in silence, waiting for Logan to send you a text — a call, a smoke signal, any proof of life. Takes him two agonizing hours, and you jump once his name pops up in your screen.
logan: you at your dorm?
you: hello to you too
you: yes i am
you: how did it go?
logan: can i sleep at yours tonight
Your face drops. Much worse than you imagine, then.
you: of course
you: come over
It’s a 20 minute drive from their place to yours. Logan makes it in 12, knocking on your dorm exactly 15 minutes after he texts you. You open the door to find him looking knackered, shoulders crouched like he’s carrying the whole world over his shoulders.
“Aw, Logan,” you say, slightly opening your arms, a suggestion of a hug that he takes without hesitation, swooping you into his chest, “That bad?”
You feel him shaking his head, but he doesn’t say a word. You murmur, “Did you talk to him?”
He shrugs, letting go of you to walk into your bedroom. You notice he doesn’t have a bag with him, and you wonder if it’s anything to do with the conversation with Garrett, if he simply didn’t bother going back inside to pick anything up.
You sit in bed, patting on your pillow so he can lay down with you, “Get comfortable.”
His mouth opens into a soft grin, and he takes off his jeans before dropping into your bed and burrowing himself into your side.
“We’re fucked,” Logan says in a low, resigned voice, “Garrett’s out for the next four games.”
“No, you’re not,” your hand moves to his hair in a comforting manner, “Have you talked to him?”
He lets out a humourless chuckle, “I wouldn’t call it talking,” he says, “We had a pretty ugly argument back at the game.”
You hum, “I figured.”
“Then he wouldn’t talk about it when he got home.” He continues, “I got so mad– I couldn’t even face him.”
“That’s alright.”
Logan looks up at you, “Is it?”
“I mean, yeah. I think it’s okay for you to be mad at Garrett, as long as you two find a way to work it out.” You say, nails scratching the back of his head, “So what you yelled at each other? You both wait for things to calm down, you sit and talk. You’ll make it up.”
He lets out a chuckle, “Why do you always make it sound so much easier than it looks like?”
“Because it is. You boys just like making it harder,” you joke, then gently move your hand to his jaw, pulling his face up, forcing him to look in your eyes, “You’re good, Logan. A good player, sure. But also a really fucking good friend, yeah? You two will come around.”
He hums, turning his head to press a quick kiss to your hand, “I hope you’re right, honey.”
“I know I am.” You say, lightly pushing him, “Now get under the covers, you need to sleep. Take this day out of your system.”
Logan grins, then shifts to get under the covers, holding the blanket for you to join him, a makeshift fort around his shoulders for you to get under — which you do, gladly.
His arms sneak around your body, pulling you into him, “Thank you.” He murmurs, so quiet that you can feel his lips moving against your skin more than you can listen to him actually say it.
You turn to face him, fingertips brushing over his face for him to close his eyes, “Rest, honey. I got you.”
notes: thank you for reading! requests are open, likes/reblogs/thoughts are appreciated! <3
𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 — logan brings you to the rink on his day off, determined to teach you how to skate. you’re terrified of falling, but he doesn’t seem to mind giving you something to hold onto.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 — pure fluff, established relationship, boyfriend-coded logan, rink date, reader is scared of falling, hand holding, kissing.
𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 — 5,294.
𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 — based on this request 💌 this is exactly why logan is my favourite, he’s so boyfriend-coded it hurts. now i need him to teach me how to skate too. i hope you like it <3 also, i’m still trying to figure out a new aesthetic for my page, tell me what you think
𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ⟶ you can find my taglist here!
𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ⟶ you can find my masterlist here!
─── ⋆⋅🏒⋅⋆ ───
You should’ve known Logan was up to something the second he told you to wear something warm. Not something nice, not something cute. Warm.
Suspicious. Even more suspicious was the way he smiled when he picked you up, leaning against his car with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, looking far too pleased with himself for a man who’d refused to tell you where you were going.
You stopped on the sidewalk, narrowing your eyes at him.
“No,” you said immediately.
Logan’s brows lifted, all fake innocence. “I didn’t even say anything.”
“You have a face,” you pointed out.
“I do, yeah,” Logan agreed.
“A guilty face,” you corrected.
His grin widened, clearly pleased with himself. “I think you mean a handsome face.”
“I mean a face that says I’m about to regret trusting you.”
He pushed off the car and stepped closer, still smiling like he was trying not to laugh. “You trust me?”
“I’m currently reconsidering.”
“Too late,” he said, reaching for your hand and pulling you in gently before pressing a quick kiss to your forehead. “You’re already here.”
“I’m standing on a public sidewalk,” you reminded him. “I can still run.”
“You wouldn’t get far.”
You gasped. “Rude.”
“You’re wearing boots with absolutely zero grip.”
You looked down at your shoes, deeply offended to find that he was right.
Logan laughed, opening the passenger door for you. “Come on, dramatic. You’ll like it.”
“That’s exactly what people say right before ruining my afternoon.”
“I’m not going to ruin your afternoon.”
“Logan,” you warned slowly, “where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he answered.
“I don’t like surprises.”
“You told me last week that you loved surprises.”
“I like surprises when they involve flowers or coffee or you showing up with fries because I had a bad day. I don’t like surprises that start with you telling me how to dress.”
His expression softened at that, just for a second, like the memory caught him off guard in the best way. Then he kissed your hand before letting you climb into the car.
“You’re going to like this one,” he promised.
You didn’t believe him, not fully. But after six months of Logan looking at you like that — soft around the edges, all playful mouth and careful hands — you’d learned that trusting him was usually easier than pretending you didn’t.
So, despite your better judgment, you got in.
The drive didn’t take long. Almost too short, really. Long enough for Logan to keep glancing at you like he was waiting for you to figure it out, but not long enough for you to collect enough evidence to start a real argument. He hummed along to the radio, fingers tapping lightly against the steering wheel, one hand occasionally drifting over to squeeze your knee.
That should’ve been another warning sign. Logan was always affectionate, but this felt different — almost nervous, like he cared a little too much about whether you liked whatever he’d planned.
You turned in your seat to look at him. “Are you taking me somewhere illegal?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “No.”
“Somewhere dangerous?”
“No,” he assured you.
“Somewhere embarrassing?”
“That depends entirely on how good your balance is.”
Your eyes widened as realization hit, and Logan’s mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile.
“No,” you said at once.
“You don’t even know what I mean yet.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“John Logan,” you warned.
“Oh, full name.” He pulled into the parking lot, still trying not to smile. “Serious.”
You looked out the window, already dreading what you were going to see, and then you saw it.
The rink.
The arena sat quiet under the afternoon light, the parking lot nearly empty and familiar in a way that made your stomach dip. Of course, you’d been here before — for games, mostly, practices sometimes, loud nights full of cheering and whistles and bodies slamming into the boards while Logan flew across the ice like he’d been born there.
But now, it looked different. Almost still. Almost private. Waiting.
Slowly, you turned toward him.
“Absolutely not,” you said.
Logan turned off the car. “You haven’t even heard my pitch.”
“I don’t need to hear your pitch. Your pitch involves putting me on ice, and I happen to enjoy having unbroken bones.”
“I’m going to teach you,” he assured you.
“That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”
“It should be,” he informed you. “I’m very good.”
“At hockey,” you corrected. “Not necessarily at keeping your girlfriend alive.”
Logan placed a hand over his chest. “You wound me.”
“You’re about to wound me physically.”
His laughter softened when he looked at you, and for a second, the teasing faded into something warmer.
“I got the rink for an hour,” Logan said, softer now. “Just us.”
You blinked, caught off guard, and your panic quieted a little.
“Just us?” you asked.
“Yeah.” He shrugged, suddenly looking almost shy, which was rare enough to make your heart squeeze. “I thought it could be fun. You come to games and everything, but that’s different. It’s loud, everyone’s there, and I’m usually trying not to get my teeth knocked out.”
“You make almost getting your teeth knocked out sound very romantic.”
His smile softened. “I wanted you to see it like this.”
The words landed softly, right in the place your panic had been a few minutes ago.
You looked back toward the rink.
This place belonged to Logan in a way you’d never fully understood before. Not all of it, maybe, but a big piece.
The ice.
The boards.
The sound of skates cutting across the surface.
The place where he was confident, fast, and completely impossible to look away from.
You’d watched him here from the stands so many times.
But Logan was right. This was different.
From the stands, Logan had always belonged to the noise.
To the team.
To the game.
To everyone cheering his name.
Today, he’d brought you here in the quiet.
Just you. Just him.
You swallowed, trying very hard not to show how much that touched you.
He laughed, catching your hand before you could pull away and pressing a kiss to your knuckles.
“But I’ll catch you,” he promised.
“You sound very confident,” you said.
“I’m extremely confident,” Logan replied.
“In yourself?” you asked.
“In us,” he said.
That was deeply unfair.
You stared at him, your argument fading under the weight of the way he was looking at you. You sighed dramatically, because apparently that was the closest thing to winning you were going to get.
“If I die, I’m haunting you,” you declared.
“Fair.”
“And I want it on record that I was manipulated.”
“I’ll tell everyone you were brave,” Logan said, like that was generous and not deeply insulting.
“I’ll be dead, Logan,” you pointed out.
“Beautiful and brave,” Logan announced.
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling by the time he got out of the car.
Inside, the rink felt completely different without the crowd. Your footsteps echoed down the empty hallway, and the air smelled cold and clean, carrying that sharp, frozen scent that always clung to arenas. Logan walked beside you, your skates in one hand and his in the other, looking more relaxed with every step.
You noticed it immediately — the way his shoulders loosened. The way his gaze moved around the rink was like he was greeting something familiar. The way he seemed quieter here, but not sad.
Peaceful.
You bumped your shoulder against his, smiling a little. “You like it when it’s empty.”
He glanced down at you, his smile small. “Yeah.”
“Why?” you asked.
He was quiet for a moment, thinking about it.
Then he answered, “It’s quiet. I don’t have to think about anyone watching.”
That made you look over at him again.
He gave a small shrug, keeping his eyes ahead. “During games, everything feels loud. The crowd, Coach, the boys, my own head. I love it, most of the time. But sometimes it’s a lot.”
You nodded.
Logan looked toward the rink entrance, voice softening. “When it’s empty, it’s just the ice.”
Something about that made your chest ache softly.
In six months, Logan had let you see plenty of versions of him. Flirty Logan. Sleepy Logan. Cocky post-win Logan. Frustrated Logan, after bad games, dropped onto your bed and complained into your pillow until you ran your fingers through his hair.
But this felt like another version of him, one he didn’t share with everyone, and the fact that he wanted you here to see it made your chest ache.
You reached for his free hand, and Logan looked down just as your fingers slipped between his, closing his hand around yours without hesitation.
“Well,” you said, because being sincere for too long made your heart feel too exposed, “the ice and your girlfriend’s soon-to-be-concussed skull.”
Logan laughed and squeezed your hand. “You’re not getting concussed.”
“That sounds like a promise you’re not legally allowed to make.”
“I’m not going to let you fall that hard.”
“So you admit I’m going to fall.”
“Baby,” he said, gentle enough to make it worse, “you’re definitely going to fall.”
You stopped walking immediately. Logan made it one more step before turning back to you with a grin.
“I hate you,” you told him.
“No, you don’t,” Logan replied.
“No, I don’t,” you admitted, irritated by how little hesitation there was.
His smile softened at that.
You sat together on the bench near the boards before Logan crouched in front of you, your rental skates in his hands.
“Oh, so we’re doing this now?” you asked.
“That’s usually how skating works,” Logan said.
“I thought maybe we’d admire the ice from a safe, non-life-threatening distance.”
“You can admire it from up close,” Logan offered.
“I can admire it from the floor once I inevitably collapse.”
Logan shook his head, laughing under his breath as he slipped one of your boots off, but he went quiet while helping you into the skate.
The simple intimacy of it caught you off guard, how careful he was with something so small.
His hands were careful around your ankle, his fingers steady as he tightened the laces. You watched him focus, brows slightly drawn together and mouth relaxed in a way that made him look softer than usual. He tugged the laces once, checked the fit, and then looked up at you.
“Too tight?” he asked.
You shook your head, still watching him. “No.”
“Tell me if it hurts,” he said.
“I will,” you promised.
“You say that, but you have a habit of pretending you’re fine.”
You blinked, caught off guard.
Logan kept his gaze on yours, and there was no teasing in it this time.
You looked down at his hands instead, suddenly unable to hold his gaze. “You noticed that?”
“I notice a lot of things about you,” he said softly.
Your heart did something embarrassing.
“Unfortunately for you, skating is going to make it very obvious if I’m not fine.”
“Good,” he said, tying the second skate. “Then I won’t have to guess.”
You were quiet for a moment before you said, “You’re being very boyfriend right now.”
He looked up at you, grinning. “I’m your boyfriend.”
“I know,” you told him. “But you’re being extra boyfriend right now.”
“Is that supposed to be a complaint?”
“No,” you admitted.
His smile softened at that. “Good.”
Once your skates were tied and Logan had his own on, you tried to stand carefully, but the second your blades touched the rubber flooring, your legs betrayed you.
You grabbed Logan’s arm with both hands, immediately abandoning any pretense of dignity.
“No,” you protested.
Logan laughed immediately.
“Don’t laugh at me,” you blurted.
“I’m not,” Logan lied.
“You’re literally laughing.”
“You’re just cute when you panic,” he teased.
“I’m absolutely not panicking.”
“You tried to sit back down before you were even fully upright.”
“That was self-preservation.”
“Come on,” he coaxed, holding both your hands as he stepped backward toward the gate. “Small steps.”
“I’m going to die before we even make it to the ice.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“You don’t know that,” you argued, taking one step forward.
“I do,” he said, as that settled it.
“You’re alarmingly calm for a man leading his girlfriend to her doom.”
His grin widened, but his hands stayed steady around yours. “I’ve got you.”
That shouldn’t have worked as well as it did.
But Logan said it as he meant it, his hands steady around yours, and that made it harder to keep pretending you were scared of anything except how much you trusted him.
So you moved slowly, dramatically, and with a lot of complaining.
By the time you reached the open gate and saw the ice up close, your stomach had dropped. It looked impossibly smooth and impossibly hard, like it’d been waiting all afternoon for the chance to betray you.
Logan stepped onto the ice first, easy as breathing, and the second his blades touched the surface, something in him changed. He became fluid, lighter somehow, at home in a way that felt almost unfair.
Your grip tightened on the boards.
“Absolutely not.”
Logan turned back, skating backward a few easy feet. “You haven’t even stepped on yet.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m still alive.”
He held out both hands, steady and waiting. “Come here.”
You stared at him like he’d lost his mind.
He waited with his hands still outstretched, not impatient or mocking, just there, and you hated how much it helped.
With a deep breath and what you considered heroic bravery, you placed one skate on the ice, only for the blade to slide immediately.
You made a noise that wasn’t your proudest moment, grabbing Logan so fast that his eyes widened before he laughed.
“I’m sorry,” he managed, though he was very clearly not sorry at all.
“I hate ice,” you muttered.
“You’re doing great,” Logan said gently.
“I have one foot on the ice, Logan.”
“And that foot is doing great.”
You glared at him, and he only looked more delighted.
Eventually, with Logan holding you steady and offering encouragement that was only occasionally interrupted by laughter, you got both feet onto the ice.
You didn’t move, but you were on the ice. That counted.
“Okay,” Logan said, standing in front of you with both your hands held securely in his. “Bend your knees a little.”
“My knees are locked because they’ve correctly identified danger.”
“Bend them for me, baby.” You did, but barely. “Good,” he praised.
You narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t use that voice.”
“What voice?” he asked.
“The soft coach voice,” you accused.
“You don’t like it?” Logan murmured, still smiling.
“I like it too much,” you admitted. “Which is irritating when I’m trying to be mad at you.”
His smile softened into something fond. “Noted.”
He started skating backward slowly, pulling you with him.
The second your skates shifted under you, your entire body tensed.
“Logan,” you warned.
“I’ve got you,” he said, hands steady around yours.
“Logan,” you repeated, grip tightening.
“Look at me,” he said gently.
“I’m looking directly at imminent death.”
“Look at me,” he repeated, his voice softer this time.
You dragged your gaze away from your feet and up to his face.
His eyes caught yours, steady and warm, and despite yourself, some of the panic loosened in your chest.
When you looked down, all you could focus on was the ice, the blades, the strange pressure in your ankles, and the terrifying lack of friction. But when you looked at Logan, there were his hands around yours, his eyes on your face, his body moving backward smoothly like guiding you was the easiest thing in the world.
You moved barely an inch, but it still counted.
“Oh my god,” you whispered, staring at him as he’d just performed a miracle.
Logan’s smile widened, proud and entirely too pleased. “See?”
“I’m skating,” you whispered, like saying it too loudly might ruin it.
“You are,” Logan said, smiling like he was proud of you.
“I’m incredible,” you declared.
“You’re extremely humble,” Logan teased, still guiding you backward.
“I’m basically ready for the Olympics.”
“Let’s maybe get you to the blue line first,” Logan suggested.
You looked down at the ice.
Mistake.
Your skate wobbled, your balance tipped, and a tiny scream slipped out as your arms flailed.
Logan caught you before you could fall, one hand at your waist and the other around your back, pulling you against him before you could hit the ice. Suddenly, your face was pressed to his chest, his laugh soft above you — not loud, not mean, just warm and happy as his arms stayed secure around you.
“I told you,” he murmured, his arms still secure around you. “I’ve got you.”
Your heart was pounding, and not entirely because of the almost-fall.
“You’re enjoying this too much,” you grumbled into his jacket.
“I’m enjoying holding you,” he murmured.
You lifted your head just enough to glare at him, but Logan only smiled down at you, warm and pleased in a way that made the glare hard to maintain.
That was the problem with Logan.
Sometimes it was impossible to stay annoyed with Logan when he looked at you like that, all soft eyes and quiet amusement, like your fear of ice was something precious he’d been trusted to hold.
You swallowed, trying very hard not to melt. “This is very manipulative.”
“What is?” Logan asked, looking far too innocent.
“You being cute while I’m vulnerable.”
His brows lifted, his smile already starting. “You think I’m cute?”
“I regret saying that,” you muttered, because Logan had clearly found a weak spot.
“No, no,” he said, holding you a little closer. “Let’s go back to that.”
“Absolutely not,” you muttered.
“You called me cute,” he reminded you.
“I was briefly concussed,” you replied.
“You didn’t fall,” Logan pointed out.
“I was emotionally concussed,” you replied, like that was a valid medical defense.
He laughed, kissing your forehead before letting you find your balance again.
For the next twenty minutes, Logan tried to teach you how to move.
You learned how to push off gently, keep your knees bent, and stop staring at your feet, even though they felt deeply untrustworthy. You learned that Logan was more patient than you’d expected, repeating himself without getting frustrated, catching you every time you stumbled, and praising even the smallest bit of progress as it mattered.
“That was good,” Logan praised after you managed three tiny glides without clinging to him.
“That was barely movement.”
“That was good,” Logan insisted.
“I moved approximately four inches,” you argued, like the measurement alone proved your point.
“Six, at least,” he corrected.
“Wow,” you deadpanned. “Alert the press.”
He skated a small, effortless circle around you, looking annoyingly beautiful while he did it. “You’re improving.”
“You’re showing off,” you accused.
“Maybe a little,” Logan admitted.
You watched him move, all easy bend in his knees and smooth shifts of weight, as the ice knew him as well as he knew it. He looked different here, not like he belonged to hockey exactly, but like this was one of the places where he could finally breathe.
It was beautiful, and a little intimidating.
Your smile faded before you could stop it, and Logan noticed immediately.
He slowed beside you, his voice gentler now. “Hey.”
You looked down at your skates, avoiding his eyes. “I’m fine.”
“Nope,” Logan said softly.
You sighed, still avoiding his eyes. “What?”
“That’s your fake fine,” Logan pointed out.
You looked up at him, and his face was open, concern softening it in that quiet way he got when he wasn’t trying to turn everything into a joke.
“It’s nothing,” you tried, but Logan’s expression made it clear he didn’t believe you for a second.
“It’s nothing if it made your face change like that.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly, and you hated that.
The day had been sweet and funny and light, and suddenly your eyes were threatening to do something dramatic.
“I just…” You looked past him, toward the empty stands. “You’re so good here.”
Logan blinked, like that wasn’t where he’d expected your mind to go.
“And I know that’s obvious,” you continued quickly, suddenly feeling silly, “because it’s literally your thing. But seeing it up close is different. You look so comfortable here, like this whole place makes sense to you.”
His expression softened at that.
“And I’m standing here like a baby deer with knives strapped to its feet.”
His lips twitched, but he managed not to laugh.
“Don’t laugh,” you warned.
“I’m not,” Logan lied.
“You want to,” you accused, because the corner of his mouth was giving him away.
“A little,” he admitted, the smile fading into something softer. “But keep going.”
You exhaled, suddenly embarrassed. “I don’t know. I guess I hate being bad at something you love.”
Logan went still, as that’d hit somewhere he wasn’t expecting.
And there it was — the small truth you hadn’t meant to say out loud.
It felt ridiculous as soon as you said it. This was skating, not some life-changing test, and Logan was your boyfriend, not someone waiting to judge you. Still, you felt exposed, unsteady in more ways than one.
“I know it’s stupid,” you rushed out. “I just don’t want you to regret bringing me here because I’m terrible at this and scared and—”
“Baby,” Logan said softly.
You stopped, and Logan skated closer until the tips of his skates nearly touched yours. Then he reached for your hands.
“I didn’t bring you here because I needed you to be good at it,” Logan said, his hands steady around yours. “I brought you here because I wanted you here.”
Your chest tightened at that.
His thumbs brushed gently over your knuckles.
“I don’t care if you fall every five seconds,” he said, thumbs brushing over your knuckles. “I don’t care if we spend the whole hour by the boards. I just…” He glanced around the rink, then back at you. “This place is a big part of me. And you’re a big part of me now, too. I wanted those things to overlap a little.”
You stared at him, too full of feeling all at once to know what to say.
Logan’s mouth curved into a faint, self-conscious smile. “Too cheesy?”
“A little.”
“Good cheesy or bad cheesy?” he asked, still looking a little unsure.
You squeezed his hands, smiling despite the ache in your chest. “Devastating cheesy.”
The teasing faded from Logan’s face. “I’m serious,” he said. “I like having you here.”
You swallowed, hating how small your voice sounded. “Even if I’m bad?”
“Especially if you’re bad,” Logan said gently.
Your eyes narrowed at him.
He laughed, his thumbs brushing over your knuckles. “Because then I get to hold your hands.”
“You’re impossible,” you murmured, but your hands tightened around his anyway.
“You love me,” Logan said, entirely too pleased with himself.
You froze for half a second, and Logan’s smile faltered like the words had caught up to him too late.
It wasn’t the first time either of you had used the word casually. You loved plenty of things — fries, sleep, the way Dean got offended when nobody laughed at his jokes. But this time, it landed differently.
It slipped out softly, easily, too close to something real for a relationship that was still new enough to make you both careful.
Six months was long enough to know his favorite breakfast order, the way he liked his hair touched when he was tired, and all the little things that made him feel familiar. But it was still new enough that some words felt too big to throw around carelessly.
Logan’s expression shifted, a little panic flickering at the edges, and you squeezed his hands before he could take it back.
“I do,” you said quietly, and his breath caught like he hadn’t expected you to let the words stay.
The whole rink seemed to go impossibly still around you.
Your cheeks warmed immediately. “I mean, I do love you,” you rushed out. “Not just because you’re holding me upright, though that’s definitely helping your case.”
Logan stared at you, and for once, John Logan had absolutely nothing to say.
You gave him a nervous smile. “You’re supposed to say something now.”
His mouth opened. Closed. Then he laughed under his breath, soft and a little wrecked.
“I was trying not to say it first,” he admitted.
Your heart stumbled.
“What?” you breathed.
He looked down at your joined hands before looking back up, his eyes softer than you’d ever seen them.
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“You thought loving me would scare me?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, suddenly bashful in a way that made you want to kiss him until he stopped looking unsure. “Six months is still new, and you’re careful with stuff like that.”
“I’m careful because you’re terrifying,” you told him.
“I am?” he asked, looking genuinely confused.
“You’re John Logan,” you said.
“That explains absolutely nothing,” Logan said.
“You’re charming, and flirty, and everybody likes you, and sometimes you say things so easily, like they don’t mean anything, but they feel like something to me. I never know if I’m allowed to keep them.”
Something in his face changed, the softness there deepening until it almost hurt to look at.
“You’re allowed,” he whispered, and your throat tightened before you could stop it. “With me, you’re allowed.”
For a second, you stood together in the middle of the ice, hands linked, the quiet rink around you seeming to hold the moment carefully.
Then Logan looked at you and whispered, very softly, “I love you.”
There was no dramatic lead-up, no big speech, no smirk to soften it. Just Logan, standing in the place that felt most like him, giving you something he’d apparently been holding back out of fear.
You smiled, wobbly and helpless. “I love you too.”
His face broke into the sweetest smile, and then your skate slipped, because apparently romance and balance were too much for your body to manage at once.
Logan caught you before you could fall, laughter warm against your hair as you clutched at his jacket.
“Seriously?” Logan laughed.
“I was emotionally compromised,” you defended.
“You used that excuse already.”
“It keeps happening,” you argued.
He kept his hands at your waist, still smiling like he had no intention of ever letting this go.
“You okay?” he asked.
You nodded, still a little breathless. “Yeah.”
“Good,” he murmured, and then he kissed you right there on the ice.
It was soft at first, his hands steady at your waist while yours fisted in the front of his jacket. Cold air brushed your cheeks, but Logan was warm against you, his mouth gentle and smiling, and you felt the curve of it when he kissed you again, slower this time, like he had all the time in the world and nowhere else he wanted to be.
When he pulled back, your eyes stayed closed for a second.
“Still hate skating?” he whispered.
You cracked one eye open, like even that took too much effort. “I’m considering tolerating it.”
“Look at you. Big progress.”
“Mainly because there’s kissing involved.”
“Yeah, I can definitely work with that.”
You laughed, and he leaned in to kiss you once more, quick and sweet.
After that, you managed to make it a little farther across the ice, and while no one would’ve called it graceful or impressive, it still felt like progress. You even made it halfway around the rink with Logan skating backward in front of you, his hands holding yours as he smiled every time your eyes found him instead of the ice.
“Look at you,” he said, like he was proud enough to make your cheeks warm.
“Don’t hype me up,” you warned. “I’ll get cocky and die.”
“You’re doing great.”
“I’m doing okay.”
“You’re doing great,” he reassured you, his hands steady around yours.
You tried to glare at him, but the smile tugging at your lips ruined it.
Eventually, your legs got tired, and your ankles started to complain, so Logan guided you toward the bench. You nearly fell as soon as you stepped off the ice, but he caught you with a smile and claimed it didn’t count since you technically weren’t skating anymore.
He helped you sit before crouching in front of you again, his hands already moving to untie your skates.
You watched him work in silence, your fingers still cold, your cheeks still warm, and your chest still full from the kiss and the way he’d looked at you when he said he loved you.
“Thank you,” you murmured, watching his hands work at your laces.
Logan looked up from your skates. “For what?”
“For bringing me here,” you said, watching his smile soften. “Even though I complained the whole time.”
“Especially because you complained.”
“You’re too fond of me,” you said, like that was the problem.
“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice quieter now. “I am.”
You leaned forward and pressed your hand to his cheek. Logan turned into your palm without thinking, and the smallness of it almost undid you.
“You really wanted me here?” you asked.
Logan looked up at you, his expression soft. “I always want you where I am.”
Your heart gave a painful little squeeze.
“Stop being romantic,” you whispered, like your voice wasn’t already giving you away. “It’s embarrassing for both of us.”
He grinned, like he already knew the answer. “You love it.”
“I love you,” you corrected.
His expression softened all over again, like he still wasn’t used to hearing it and needed to hear it a hundred more times before he believed it.
He stood before sitting beside you on the bench, close enough that your shoulders brushed. You leaned into him without thinking, and Logan wrapped an arm around you, pulling you into his side.
The rink stayed quiet around you—no crowd, no whistles, no teammates yelling from the boards. No pressure. Just Logan, the ice, and you.
After a while, Logan pressed a kiss to the top of your head.
“So,” he started, his voice light, “second rink date?”
You let out a groan. “Logan.”
“What?” he asked, grinning. “Too soon?”
“I barely made it through the first one.”
“You did more than survive,” he said, smiling down at you.
“I nearly died three times.”
“I caught you three times, so really, you’re welcome.”
“Exactly,” you said. “Dangerous.”
He laughed and gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze.
You tipped your head back to look at him. “Maybe.”
His brows lifted. “Maybe?”
“Maybe we could do this again.”
His smile went soft, though there was no hiding how victorious he looked. “Yeah?”
“If you promise you’ll keep holding my hands.”
Logan looked at you like there was nothing easier in the world to promise.
“Always,” he promised.
He leaned down and kissed you again, soft and slow, while you sat there beside the rink with your skates untied and your fingers curled into his jacket.
You still weren’t sure skating was for you, but you loved the way Logan looked at you every time you tried.
𝗢𝗥 𓈒 𓈒 logan finds out that calling your drunk girlfriend jealous means instant tears
contains : established relationship fluff angst? dramatic and drunk reader she’s a mess but he loves it 𝘄 ｡ 710
“You were talking to her! And you were smiling!” You shouted, your words coming out slurred from all the alcohol you had consumed throughout the night with your friends. You had your arms crossed, and you were swaying on your feet as you tried your best to glare at your boyfriend, who was standing across from you in his dorm room. Your glare was more adorable than angry.
“I was being polite! She was asking for suggestions on how to get her and her girlfriend home,” Logan voiced loudly, emphasizing the girlfriend part. The whole ride back from Malone’s, you were giving the silent treatment, leaving Logan to sit there as he tried not to let it affect him, reminding himself that his adorable and dramatic girlfriend was very much drunk.
The two of you had been at Malone’s with your group of friends for karaoke night. You had been dancing with Allie and Hannah when you noticed your boyfriend talking to another girl at the counter. You didn’t like how close she stood to him, and you hated even more that he had a smile on his face. Your mind was too clouded with all the fruity drinks you had with Hannah to notice how it was just him being polite.
Now the two of you stood in his dorm room, your clothes and shoes thrown over his floor as you wore one of his shirts that was definitely on backwards, you swore that you didn't need his help to change. Logan nearly had a heart attack at the sight of you almost tripping over your own feet as you pulled off your shirt, too drunk to stand still. Logan was still in the clothes he wore out, too focused on defusing the situation to change.
“She stood too close to you, and you didn't even care.” Your voice was much softer this time, your throat hurting from all the screaming and singing you had done tonight with your friends. You blame it on Allie. Your clearly altered mind started to play tricks on you as your imagination went wild; you couldn’t help but tear up.
“You’re the most jealous woman I know!’ Logan threw his head up as he shook his head in disbelief before resting his hands on his hips. He wasn't upset with you by any means; he was just tired and strangely very entertained. How did he get himself into this situation? Logan clearly didn't notice your watery eyes because if he did, he would never have raised his voice.
“You know other women?” Your whisper came out small and pitiful, tears slowly rolling down your face and mixing with your mascara as your arms fell at your sides in dramatic defeat.
Logan’s shoulders sank as he sighed. His poor girl was just way too drunk to fully understand what was happening and her feelings. He stepped towards you and was quick to pull you into his arms for a hug that both of you desperately needed. “Aw, baby.”
“Pretty, you are the only woman for me,” Logan whispered sweetly as he held you close to his chest. He felt you melt into your arms at his reassuring words, wasting no time to wrap your arms tightly around his waist.
“Promise?” You sniffled, your voice coming out muffled from your face being pressed against his chest, but Logan heard you just fine. You closed your eyes, you felt so tired all of a sudden, and the safety and warmth of your boyfriend's arms were not helping you want to stay awake.
“I promise pretty.” He promises as he rubbed your back softly, a small smile forming back on his lips when he notices your sniffles quiet down and stop. After a couple of minutes, you lift your head up to look at him, your chin resting on his chest. Logan smiled fondly and leaned down to softly peck the tip of your nose before placing a soft kiss on your lips.
His thumbs softly wiped away your tears and traces of mascara on your pretty face. He spoke quietly with a grin, seeing the tiredness in your eyes. “Now, let's go to the bathroom, you forgot to take your makeup off on your left side.”
┊࿐ ❛❛ continue on to my…. 𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 ❜❜
Ი𐑼 there’s just something about the concept of logan taking care of his drunk girlfriend that absolutely drives me insane 😻 okay this was short but sweet , please tell me your thoughts and opinions , feedback means everything mwah 💖
᧔᧓ if this seems familiar it’s because I’ve taken it from my old blog and rewrote it with someone new !
summary: Three months of being in the doghouse, and John Logan has fully accepted the fact that there is no redemption for him. He’s accepted that, well aware that it’s a punishment brought upon by his own actions. But it’s St. Patrick’s day, so it seems his luck might just be looking up.
part two to this fic
content: more angst but it’s not as intense, reader gets drunk, logan painfully yearning, reader’s hair is mentioned to look a mess but i kept it pretty open for broadness, logan is taller than reader, brief making out (not while drunk!). the timeline gets a bit confusing towards the end because of the school year so just ignore that and pretend a bit more time has passed during the final stretch 😅
note: i was not expecting the love from part one?? thank you all so much!! i intend to create a part three, so no worries!! you all wanted to see groveling so i’m keeping him in the doghouse for a little bit longer 🫡
word count; 8.3k
The semester ended in a blur of final exams and a desperate need to escape. With the first-place grant completely covering your research expenses for the upcoming semester, the savings you’d painstakingly scraped together were suddenly yours to spend. It probably wasn’t the most responsible choice, but you were reeling from a devastating friendship breakup, suffocating under the weight of the Briar campus. So, you booked a holiday with a friend from your major and left the country.
That entire winter break, you went completely off the grid. You didn't speak to Allie, Hannah, Dean, or Garrett. You didn't even speak to Tucker, though you made sure he knew you were grateful about him berating Logan on your behalf after being told by Allie that he’d done that.
They all understood without you having to say it—you needed a total detox from their entire world. And it worked. Away from them all, you actually had fun. You laughed until your stomach hurt, drank too much wine on sun-drenched balconies, and breathed in air that didn’t smell like ice rinks. For the first time in a long time, the relentless urge to check in on John Logan completely vanished.
By the time the new semester rolled around, you had officially decided your life was better without him. Frankly, you didn’t entirely believe it—at least not when it came to the version of Logan before he changed—but you repeated the words like a mantra until they started to feel like truth.
Over the next three months, you learned how to coexist with the rest of the group again. You’d catch Allie and Hannah on the quad and chat, grab a drink with the boys, or occasionally sit with all of them at Malone’s. But through some miracle of scheduling and hyper-vigilance, you managed to never see Logan. The guys tried to bring him up at first, telling you how completely wrecked he was, how he wasn't the same guy on or off the ice. You shut it down every time. You refused to make his misery your problem.
If he was hurting? Good. He earned every bit of it.
You narrowly avoided him for the majority of the spring. Sometimes you’d end up at the same massive rowdy party, and across a crowded, red-cup-littered room, your eyes would accidentally lock with his. A familiar ache would flare in your chest, and you’d immediately break the contact, turning your back even as you felt his gaze burning a hole straight through you.
You didn't miss him.
You didn't miss his stupid jokes. You didn't miss how absurdly observant he could be, or the terrifying comfort of being known so deeply by another human being. You didn't miss having someone who knew exactly what you needed before you even had to ask.
You didn't miss him at all.
Except, you couldn't convince yourself of that lie when it was three in the morning and the silence in your dorm room was too loud. In those rare, weak moments when the loneliness crept in, your thumb would hover over his contact card, considering unblocking his number just to hear the phone ring. But the night would always end the same way—you shutting your phone off completely, forcing yourself to sleep before you could do something stupid.
Minutes away, in the hockey house, John Logan was doing the exact same thing.
He took long, aimless walks across campus late at night, his boots slowing down instinctively every time he passed your residence hall. It was a muscle-memory habit; he used to walk you back here almost everyday, making sure you reached the doors safely. Now, every time something exciting happened in his life—a great game, a funny incident, a good grade—his first instinct was to text you, only for reality to hit him moments later. He’d sit on the edge of his bed, staring down at the friendship bracelet still tied tightly around his own wrist. He’d then glance at the one you’d left on the floor the night you left his life. He picked it up and kept it in his room, ending his night by staring at it. It was torturous, staring at the one piece of jewelry that reminded him that he was the sole architect of his own ruin. He couldn't believe he’d fucked up this royally.
And to make it worse, you looked happy. Happier without him. You were absolutely glowing.
The first time he’d caught sight of you after winter break, laughing with Allie near the campus cafe, Logan realized that maybe the best thing he could do for you was to just leave you alone. He would have to live with a permanent ache in his chest, knowing you were still hanging out at the house, still going to Malone's, still breathing the same air—just never when he was around. He had caused you so much pain that you had actively rewritten your life to exclude him. He had no right to fight against your peace.
But leaving you alone didn't stop him from cheering you on from the shadows.
When the end-of-year STEM banquet arrived—the prestigious ceremony where you were officially recognized for winning the showcase—Logan made sure he was there. He didn't sit with your friend group despite everyone telling him that he should come. He’d ruin your night. He allowed them to leave the house without him, instead showing up on his own so he wouldn’t be the plague that prevents you from walking up to everyone and thanking them for coming.
Instead, when he arrived, John stood all the way in the back of the auditorium, blending into the shadows by the exit doors.
When your name was called and you walked up to the podium, you scanned the crowd and found him. He looked visibly worn, a subtle pain etching his features, but his eyes were wide and filled with a profound gratitude just to watch you succeed. You didn't smile at him. You didn't offer a nod. But in the space that existed between you, he knew you saw him, and he knew you understood why he was there.
When it ended, you found your friends—Allie being the first to pull you into a hug and Tucker forcing you to take solo pictures. Dean and Garrett wore grim expressions, thinking you’d be disappointed that Logan hadn’t shown his face.
You chose not to tell them that he came.
He hadn't shown up hoping for forgiveness. He hadn't done it to beg. He’d done it because Tucker had been right all those months ago. He needed to bask in the wreckage of what he’d done. He needed to let the weight of his failure truly sink in, to think about you, and to feel exactly what he had forced you to feel on the night of your presentation: the agony of being completely alone in a crowded room.
John Logan had spent three long months doing exactly that.
And when he watched you walk off the stage with your award, the truth finally broke through his chest, clear and devastating. He realized it wasn't just a best friend he had lost.
He realized it was a soulmate.
Yeah, Logan realized that he might’ve been in love with you.
No, he was. Totally and completely in love with you, and perhaps too late.
It was a cruel, cosmic sort of joke, Logan realized. The universe had waited until the exact moment you erased him from your life to finally open his eyes. He was meant to discover he loved you only after he lost you—a lifetime of yearning as a penance for his stupidity.
Lately, he found himself utterly at a loss for words whenever you crossed his path. He’d catch sight of you in the campus hallways, effortlessly beautiful, and the breath would leave his lungs. He’d hear your laugh echoing in the distance at Malone's, a sharp pang hitting his chest because he knew he hadn't been the cause of that sound in months. And through it all, you paid him absolutely no mind. You looked right through him, paying him dust as if he were nothing more than a stranger occupying the same air.
It was fitting, he thought.
He wasn’t really okay with it—the hollowness in his ribs bled every single day—but he was content to accept it. He figured he was blessed just to be capable of loving someone like you, even if those feelings were a heavy cross he’d have to bear alone for the rest of his life.
Until St. Patrick’s Day.
Beau had thrown a massive party at his summer house. Nobody actually cared about the holiday itself, but the team had just clinched a brutal away game, and Briar students never turned down an excuse to drink.
You had dressed up for the occasion, looking striking in a white cropped tank with an oversized, unbuttoned green flannel draped over your shoulders and a light-wash denim skirt. You’d leaned into the theme, tying a green ribbon through one of your belt loops and layering two gold coin necklaces with a green clover one. You felt good, you looked incredible, and as the night wore on, you accidentally drank far too much.
The pounding bass from the speakers downstairs had eventually become too much, making your head throb with a vicious rhythm. Looking for an escape, you stumbled upstairs, pushed open the door to a random, dark bedroom, and collapsed onto the mattress. You told yourself you just needed a minute to let the room stop spinning.
A minute turned into two hours.
When your eyes finally flutter open, the heavy vibration of the music is gone. The house is dead silent. A quick check of your phone reveals a barrage of missed calls and frantic texts from Hannah, Allie, and your other friends. Your thumbs move sluggishly across the screen, typing out a quick “i’m fine, fell asleep upstairs” to let them know you hadn't vanished into the night. Since the boys were all staying at Beau's for the night, you figured Allie and Hannah were in their boyfriend’s rooms. You decide to just head down to the living room and crash on the couch so you don’t disturb anyone. You don’t know whose room this was meant to be and prefer not to wake up next to a stranger because of it.
You notice that your throat feels like sandpaper when you sit up. You’re thirsty.
Stepping out into the hallway, you quickly realize the alcohol hasn’t entirely left your system. Your balance sways, forcing you to grip the wooden railing tightly as you navigate the stairs. The house was is absolute wasteland of red plastic cups, crushed cans, and stray green beads. You can see the faint remnants of a cleanup effort that had clearly been abandoned halfway through when everyone succumbed to exhaustion.
The only illumination in the entire house was the low glow coming from the kitchen.
Holding your flannel shut against the chill of the house, your bare legs shivering slightly in your denim skirt, you pad quietly toward the light. You round the corner, your eyes blinking against the brightness, and freeze.
Standing by the sink, a glass of water halfway to his lips, is John Logan.
You suddenly grow intensely conscious of how insane you probably look. Your hair is a bird’s nest, your eyeliner is almost certainly smudged beneath your lower lashes, and stray green glitter clings stubbornly to your collarbones and cheeks.
Funny enough, you can’t be more beautiful to him right now. Logan stands entirely paralyzed, his eyes tracking the slight sway of your shoulders, the oversized green flannel slipping off one side of your white tank. You find yourself staring directly back into his brown eyes for longer than five seconds. A new record in months.
He stays still, unsure of whether he should speak first, or if he should grant you the right to decide your own boundaries—whether he is going to be an invisible ghost in this kitchen, or someone actually worth your breath.
He knows he isn’t the latter. But right now, with the fog of sleep and alcohol muddling your brain, he isn’t entirely the former either.
You clear your dry throat. "Hi."
Logan blinks, his chest heaving as he swallows hard. He looks utterly terrified and entirely shattered at the same time, like a man waiting for a blow he knows he deserves.
“Hi," he replies, his voice a reluctant whisper.
The sheer absurdity of the tension finally gets to you. You let out a soft, raspy giggle, making your way past him toward the upper cabinets. "You can breathe, Logan. I’m not armed."
A sudden, breathless laugh escapes him, his shoulders visibly relaxing at your surprisingly calm demeanor.
He watches you approach the cupboards, quickly realizing you’re searching for a cup, and clears his throat again. "Beau moved them," he mutters softly, pointing a finger toward the absolute highest shelf. "To keep people from smashing them tonight."
You stop, staring up at the ridiculously high shelf. For a fleeting second, you silently contemplate climbing straight onto the counter, but you’re wearing a denim skirt and you have absolutely no intention of flashing the guy you’re supposed to hate.
Logan shifts his weight, his brown hues searching your face. "Do you. . . do you want some help?"
You cut your eyes at him, letting out a defeated sigh. "Yeah."
He steps into your space, the scent of him—soap and cedar mixed with alcohol—wrapping around you instantly. He reaches up, his large hand grabbing a clean glass from the top shelf. As he brings it down, you make absolutely no effort to step back. You stay right there, your shoulder nearly brushing his chest.
Logan’s brow furrows in surprise at your proximity, but the second he tries to hand you the glass, your fingers tremble against the heavy glass. Your balance wavers, just a fraction.
The realization that you’re still drunk hits him at once. Of course you’re tolerating his presence; you aren’t thinking straight.
"Hey, I've got it," he murmurs, his fingers gently brushing yours as he takes the glass back, completely ignoring your quiet grunt of protest. He turns to the fridge, filling it with crisp, cold water before turning back and pressing the smooth glass into your palm.
Logan hooks his boot around the leg of a nearby stool, pulling it out for you. "Sit down. Drink all of it."
You glare at him over the rim of the glass, the alcohol making you bold. "Don't tell me what to do, John."
A faint, melancholic smile touches his stupidly kissable lips. "You already hate me. It's not like it can get any worse."
You take a long, desperate gulp of the water, the cold liquid soothing your burning throat. You set the glass down on the counter with a soft clink, looking up at him through smudged lashes. "I don't hate you."
Logan blinks, the words striking him right in the center of his chest. He doesn’t know how true that actually is, and as much as his heart flares with desperate, pathetic hope, he refuses to push you for answers in this state. It feels invasive. It feels wrong to take advantage of the liquor softening your edges.
"How much did you have tonight?" he asks quietly, trying to redirect the conversation.
A clumsy giggle bubbles out of your throat. You lift your hands, trying to recount the tally of green jello shots and mixed drinks on your fingers, stumbling over the mental math until you just shake your head. Logan can’t help the genuine laugh that rumbles in his chest at the sight of you, his eyes crinkling.
"Right," he smiles softly, checking his watch. "Do you need help getting back upstairs?"
"I'm just gonna crash on the couch," you mumble, gesturing vaguely to the trashed living room.
"The couch is covered in stale beer and God-knows-what bodily substances," Logan counters gently. "Go back upstairs. The room you were sleeping in is mine. I came down here because I didn't want to wake you up."
You let out a soft oh, a sleepy smirk pulling at the corner of your mouth. "Look at you. A gentleman."
"I try," he says, the old banter sending a bittersweet jolt throughout his body. He steps closer, his voice turning into something protective. "Come on. I’m gonna help you get back up there, and then I’m gonna help you get that makeup off. I know you hate waking up with your face feeling gross."
Your defense mechanisms flare, a sudden prickle of irritation cutting through the alcohol-ridden haze. "I don't need your help, Logan. I haven't needed it for the past three months."
The words cut deep, a sharp reminder of the reality he’d built for himself. The pain flits across his features, but he just nods, taking the blow without a fight.
"I know," he says softly, his voice thick with regret. "I know you don't. But just let me do this. Come on."
You grumble under your breath, throwing a half-hearted complaint into the air, but you don’t fight him when his large hand settles gently against the small of your back. He guides you back up the stairs, his palm a grounding anchor as you stumble on the top step.
He walks you into his room, gently guiding your shoulders until you sit down on the edge of the mattress. You don’t protest. You just watch him with sleepy eyes as he murmurs, "I'll be right back."
Logan slips down the hall to the bathroom Allie and Hannah had used to get ready, quickly rummaging through the counter until he finds what he’s looking for. A minute later, he walks back into the bedroom, carrying a bottle of Micellar Water and a handful of cotton pads.
He sits down on the mattress right in front of you, his knees nearly touching yours, and pours a few drops of the liquid onto the cotton. His hands, usually so rough and aggressive on the ice, are entirely weightless as he raises the pad to your face, gently wiping away the first layer of smudged makeup.
You watch him observantly as he works, your eyes tracking the pure focus in his expression. The alcohol has completely stripped away your internal filter, and before your muddled brain can stop them, the words stumble out of your mouth. “You're pretty, John."
Logan stops for a fraction of a second, a soft laugh huffing out of him as he keeps his eyes on your forehead. "So are you."
"Yeah, I know," you mutter, your attempt at displaying an attitude failing due to your slurring of words.
A genuine smile breaks across his face at your bluntness, his shoulders shaking with a soft chuckle. He shifts his hand, bringing a fresh cotton pad to your other cheek to wipe away the stray glitter and blush. As his arm moves, his sleeve pulls back, and your eyes lock onto his left wrist.
The blue and purple friendship bracelet is still there. It looks like it’s being held together by a prayer, but it’s still securely tied.
"Why are you still wearing that?" you ask, your voice dropping its playful edge.
Logan blinks, not entirely sure what you’re referring to at first. He follows your gaze down to his wrist. His expression softens into something melancholy, a look of guilt taking over his features. "It’s the least I could do.”
He doesn't expand on it, moving the cotton pad down to the makeup and glitter on your neck and collarbone. You internally curse your own biology because, despite everything, your body is still completely conditioned to his presence. Without meaning to, you find yourself leaning slightly into his touch, letting your head tilt back to give him access. At least tomorrow you can blame the pathetic display on the alcohol.
Your filterless brain jumps straight to the next burning question. "Do you still like Hannah?"
You had never told Logan that you knew about his crush. Even during your massive blowout three months ago, you had kept that specific detail to yourself, refusing to out his feelings in front of the entire living room. The pure surprise on his face is clear as day. He halts entirely, his hand hovering over your collarbone before he slowly pulls back.
He doesn't answer right away. He stands up in silence, tossing the used, makeup-stained cotton pads into the small trash can by the desk, buying himself time. When he comes back to sit on the mattress in front of you, his gaze is serious.
"I don't know what you mean," he lies.
You let out a dry laugh, shaking your head. "I'm not stupid, Logan. That’s what ruined us, anyway. Your feelings for her."
Logan stares at you, seeing the certainty in your muddled eyes, and decides there is absolutely no use in denying it anymore. The truth is, he had long gotten over whatever infatuation he’d harbored. It had actually been Hannah herself who helped him realize the reality of his feelings months ago—that he hadn't been pining for her, but rather envying the effortless, ironclad bond she shared with Garrett. He had been looking for what you two used to have.
"I don't like her anymore," Logan says, his voice level, entirely devoid of the old longing. You’re too drunk to observe that detail. "Honestly. . . I'm not sure if I ever really did."
You let out another sleepy, cynical chuckle, looking down at your lap. "It’s okay that if you do. I know you did. I saw the way you looked at her." You pause, swallowing the sudden lump in your throat as the alcohol forces the ultimate truth to the surface. "It was the way I wanted you to look at me."
Logan’s features change so violently you wonder if it’s possible to get facial whiplash. His chest heaves, eyes widening as the breath is completely knocked out of him.
"What do you mean by that?" he whispers, his voice trembling, practically begging you to elaborate.
But you don't reply. The sudden emotional confession, paired with the strength of the liquor, sends a massive wave of exhaustion crashing through your veins. Your eyelids flutter, growing impossibly heavy.
"I'm tired, Logan," you mumble, your head slumping slightly.
He stares at you, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, but he forces himself to take a breath. He chooses not to pry. As desperately as he wants to get answers, he knows this is absolutely not a conversation to be had when you can barely keep your eyes open.
"You wanna change into something else?" he asks softly, glancing at your denim skirt. "I can get you some sweatpants."
"No," you groan tiredly, already shifting your body to crawl beneath the heavy duvet. "Too tired."
Knowing how stubborn you get when you're sleepy, he doesn't argue. He gently grabs the edge of the comforter, pulling it up over your shoulders and tucking you in against. Once your head securely hits the plush pillow, Logan crouches down to your eye level, lingering for a moment to ensure you're completely comfortable.
Your eyes are shut tight, your breathing slowing into a steady pattern. Thinking you’ve already drifted off, Logan places his palms on his knees, preparing to stand up and leave the room.
Before he can move, your hand shoots out from beneath the blankets, your fingers wrapping tightly around his wrist—right over the threads of his friendship bracelet.
"Thank you," you whisper into the dark room, your eyes still closed.
Logan’s throat tightens, a wave of affection and ache washing over him. "Don't thank me," he murmurs. He leans forward, his movement entirely natural and devoid of malice as he presses a soft, kiss to your forehead. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," you mumble back, your grip on his wrist loosening as you sink deeper into the mattress. "This doesn't mean we're cool again, by the way."
An honest laugh escapes Logan, the familiar sharpness of your tongue bringing a bittersweet comfort to his heart. "I know," he whispers, his voice full of a quiet promise to earn every single inch of your trust back. "I know it doesn't."
He reaches over, gently clicking off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into warm, quiet shadows before slipping out to the living room, leaving you to finally sleep.
The morning sun slices through the blinds with a blinding brightness that makes your head immediately throb. You groan, rolling over, only to realize your skin doesn’t feel tight and clogged. Your face is clean.
Sitting on the dresser is a folded pile of oversized sweats and a sticky note from Hannah letting you know there’s a spare, unopened toothbrush in the bathroom. You let out a breath, extremely grateful for your friends. When you glance at the nightstand, you find a bottle of blue Gatorade and two ibuprofen tablets waiting for you. You assume those are from Hannah, too, and swallow the pills quickly, chasing it down with the blue liquid.
Once you’re changed, showered, and finally dragging your feet downstairs, you realize you are officially the last one awake.
Dean sees you step into the kitchen and immediately bellows, "There she is! The life of the party!"
You wince, pressing a hand to your temple. "Why are you yelling? Please don't yell."
Tucker lets out a low laugh from the kitchen counter and slides a foil-wrapped breakfast burrito toward you. “We ordered takeout. The bus leaves in thirty minutes so we’ve gotta head out in twenty.”
You take a bite, look over at Hannah and Allie, and offer a soft smile. "Hey, thanks for the clothes and the stuff on the nightstand."
They both nod, but Hannah frowns slightly. "No problem for the clothes, but what stuff on the nightstand?"
You pause, a sudden twist in your stomach cutting through the hangover. "The ibuprofen? The Gatorade?"
"Wasn't us," Allie says, popping a piece of toast into her mouth.
You quickly brush it off, and walk over to the kitchen island where Tucker is leaning. You figure it must have been his doing—the classic protective older brother move despite him being younger.
"Thanks, Tuck," you murmur.
Tucker just looks at you, a knowing, amused glint in his eyes as he takes a sip of his coffee. "Don't thank me. It was your lover boy."
Your heart does a violent flip-flop. Logan.
You glance around the room, but he’s nowhere to be found. Suddenly, the reality of last night crashes over you in a wave of mortification. Now that you’re sober, you don't even know how to approach it. You’re grateful he helped you, sure, but the baseline anger from the last three months is still burning in your chest. Worse, the unfiltered things you said start echoing in your mind.
It was the way I wanted you to look at me.
The memory makes you want to literally shrivel up and die on the kitchen tile. But since spontaneous combustion isn't an option, you clear your throat and look back at Tucker. "I'm, uh. . . I'm gonna go upstairs and finish packing my tote bag so I'm ready to walk out when you guys leave."
Tucker nods steadily, and you beat a hasty retreat back up the stairs. You figure Tucker would have warned you if Logan was up there, but you quickly realize your assumption is entirely incorrect.
The exact moment you pass the upstairs bathroom, the door swings open. You nearly collision-course right into a solid chest. You gasp, taking a sharp step back, and find yourself staring right into Logan’s eyes.
"Sorry," he says quickly, his hands instinctively twitching as if he wants to catch your elbows before he remembers he doesn't have the right to touch you anymore. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," you say, your voice restrained.
An awkward silence stretches between you in the narrow hallway. He looks exhausted, dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes, his hair damp from his own shower.
You clear your throat, forcing the words out. "Thank you. For the ibuprofen. And for. . . everything else last night."
Logan’s expression softens. “I told you last night, you don't have to thank me."
You offer a quick nod, shifting your weight to walk right past him and end the interaction. You can practically feel the desperate urge radiating off him; he clearly wants to talk to you, but he doesn't think you want to speak to him. And truthfully, you don't.
But for some stupid, inexplicable reason, you still do.
You stop, your sandals gluing themselves to the ground. Slowly, you turn back around to face him. "I meant it, you know. When I said I don't hate you. I could never hate you, Logan." You look down at your shoes, your voice dropping. "I was just hurt. Honestly, I still am."
Logan takes a tentative step forward, closing a fraction of the distance between you. "I know," he says, "You have every single right to be."
He swallows hard, his gaze locking onto yours with such a focus that it makes you furrow your eyebrows.
"I'm not going to give you some pathetic excuse about the charity event," Logan says, his hands curling into loose fists at his sides. "The truth is, I was selfish. I got so caught up in trying to chase something new that I completely blinded myself to the person who actually mattered. I took years of your loyalty and I treated it like it was a given. Like no matter how careless I was, you’d just. . . always be there."
He takes another small step, and you can tell he’s been wanting to say this for some time.
"When Tucker told me what happened—how you kept looking for me at the back of that auditorium, thinking that I was hurt because you couldn't conceive of a world where I'd just let you down. . . it made me physically sick. I have never hated myself more than I did that night. I broke a sacred promise to my best friend because I wanted to play the hero for someone else, and I left you to stand on that stage alone. You don’t deserve that, you have never deserved that.”
A painful silence falls over over the narrow hallway, the sincerity in his voice cutting right through your caged heart.
"I'm so sorry," Logan whispers, his eyes glossy. "I'm sorry I made you feel invisible. I'm sorry I ruined what should have been the greatest night of your life. I don't expect you to just forget it, and I know I don't deserve it, but I need you to know that I am so deeply, truly sorry. Even if you choose to never speak to me again, it’s well within your rights.”
Hearing it now, spoken with the emotion of a guy who has spent three months drowning in his own regret, feels like the exact piece of closure you’ve been suffocating without. You can see it in his eyes—how utterly desperate he is for just a sliver of another chance.
He’d done what you’d wanted him to, he basked in the actions of what he’d done. He sat with them, made them about you instead of him, and suffered in it.
"It's exhausting," you admit, a weary sigh escaping your lips. "Trying to avoid you all the time. It takes so much energy."
"I know," Logan whispers, his eyes swimming with guilt. "I'm so sorry I made you feel like that was your only option. I miss you. God, I miss you in my life so much."
You lean your shoulder against the wall, crossing your arms over your chest. You aren't going to let him entirely off the hook. "It won't be that easy, Logan."
"I know it won't," he says instantly, a determined certainty lighting up his gaze. "I don't expect it to be. But I am willing to work for it. Seriously. Whatever it takes. Throw it at me."
A sudden, wicked spark of mischief makes you perk up. You look him up and down. "Okay. You have to do my laundry for the rest of the semester and the next school year.”
Logan doesn't even blink. His jaw sets, and he nods with absolute dedication. "Done. I'll pick it up every Monday."
The seriousness on his face pulls a laugh out of you before you can stop yourself, the sound echoing in the hallway. "I'm kidding, dude! Oh my gosh, your face."
A massive, relieved smile breaks across Logan's features, his own laugh mingling with yours. It’s the first time you’ve shared a real, sober laugh in months, and the warmth of it temporarily banishes the void in your chest.
As the laughter dies down, Logan steps just a bit closer, his expression turning serious again, though the panic is gone. "Look, I know we’ll probably never be exactly how we were before. I know things changed. But. . . I'm willing to try, if you'll let me."
You take a good look at him and realize that the fortress you built over the winter break has officially been breached. You swallow the lingering nerves, offering a small nod.
"Yeah," you say softly. "We can be friends again."
Friends.
The word echoes in Logan’s head. It feels like a lifeline thrown to a dying man. It isn't everything his newly realized, aching heart wants—not after what you drunkenly confessed last night—but as he looks at your relaxed shoulders and the slight smile on your face, he thinks to himself—Friends.
I can do friends.
John Logan can’t do friends.
He’s learned that the hard way over the last two months.
Honestly, he doesn’t even understand how he was able to do it before. He looks back at the last ten years and wonders how he was ever blind enough to categorize what he felt for you as just a friendship. Especially considering how casually touchy the two of you used to be when you were closer. It had been second nature for you to be leaning your entire weight against his side on the couch, or mindlessly picking at a stray thread on his shirt, or tangling your fingers in his hair while you talked about your classes.
He had taken every single touch for granted. Now, he’d do absolutely anything just to have a fraction of that effortless closeness back.
But he has your friendship again, and he forces himself to remember that a thin slice of you is a million times better than nothing at all.
So, he sucks it up. He swallows the bitter lump in his throat when you ask Tucker or Beau to help you hold your heavy research bag, knowing damn well he used to be your automatic go-to for things like that. He forces a tight smile when you ask Allie or Hannah to go on a late-night walk with you, sitting on the porch and watching you walk away, aware of the fact that he’s the one being replaced.
And he especially sucks it up when he sees you laughing with another guy at a party. Logan will stand across the room, gripping his red plastic cup so tight his knuckles turn white, pretending he isn't completely sizing the guy up from a distance. He’ll stare at the stranger, a dark, possessive pettiness roaring in his chest as he wonders if the guy even knows your middle name or what your favorite flavor of chips is.
But then, there are the fleeting moments that make the torture entirely worth it.
Like when you’re standing in the entryway of the boys’ house, losing your balance for a split second, and you mindlessly drop your hand onto his firm shoulder to steady yourself while you adjust the heel strap of your shoe. Or when he makes one of his classic yet stupid jokes and without thinking, you roll your eyes, press your bare palm directly against his face, and tell him to shut up—just like old times. In those brief, beautiful seconds, the warmth of your skin completely blinds him, making him forget the crushing reality that he’ll never actually have you in the way he truly wants.
What you don't know is that Logan fixed your broken friendship bracelet.
He did it the very night after you agreed to rekindle things at Beau's summer house. He’d arrived at the house, gathered the ruined heap of strings from his dresser, and spent hours knotting them back together. It took him a long time, and he had to constantly switch through a multitude of YouTube tutorials, but it was worth it.
He’ll never tell you about it; he’s too terrified of what your reaction would be, afraid you'll think he's crossing a line. But every single night before he goes to sleep, he pulls that restored bracelet out and looks at it, reminding himself of the new beginning he’s been granted.
Maybe you really did love him at some point. Maybe you loved him in the exact same consuming, terrifying way he loves you now, your filterless words from St. Patrick’s Day echoing in his mind like a beautiful haunting.
But as he watches you navigate your life with a bright, independent glow, it’s brutally clear to him that you’ve passed that chapter. You don't look at him with longing anymore. You don't feel that way about him.
John Logan missed his window, and he’s just going to have to find a way to live with the view.
It’s ironic that the next time the two of you are truly alone again is in a kitchen. Only this time, it’s his, not Beau’s. And you’re not downstairs, stumbling around and reeling from a muddled, drunken nap. You are wide awake, the house is relatively dark, save for the moonlight peeking through the windows, and you are currently remembering that Tucker always keeps a tub of cookies n' cream ice cream from your favorite brand tucked away in the back of the freezer. He used to pretend to get mad whenever you’d eat his stash, but lately, you have a strong suspicion he buys it solely for you.
Malone’s had hosted a karaoke night, and Hannah had placed her dorm keys into Allie’s purse—which Allie had unfortunately forgotten at the bar. You hadn't seen the point in making everyone take a massive detour to campus just to drop you off alone, so you’d decided it would be perfectly fine to sleep on the boys’ couch. Garrett had continuously asked if you were sure about it, over and over, until you finally told him that if he asked one more time, you’d shove a car tire down his throat. He’d complied instantly.
Which takes you to now. It's one in the morning, and you're awake because the living room is freezing, but you didn't want to wake anyone up just to beg for a blanket. Eating ice cream when you’re already shivering isn’t exactly the brightest choice, but it’s easily the tastiest.
You are sharply reminded of just how cold the house is when you hop up to sit on the kitchen counter, your bare thighs making direct contact with the freezing tile. You’d been lent an oversized spare t-shirt to sleep in, but your brown ruffled shorts were surprisingly comfortable, so you’d decided to keep them on.
A floorboard creaks on the staircase, making you pause. Seconds later, John Logan enters the kitchen.
He stops, surprised to see you sitting there in the dark with a spoon in your hand. But funny enough, there is no awkwardness this time. The thick, suffocating tension that used to define your interactions has completely melted away over the last few weeks—even if things still aren't exactly back to old times.
Logan rubs a hand over his face, his voice groggy. "What are you doing still up?"
"Making myself significantly colder by eating ice cream," you reply easily, lifting your spoon. "I couldn't sleep because I'm freezing."
Logan frowns slightly, leaning against the counter a few feet away. "Why didn’t you wake one of us up and ask for a blanket?"
"I was going to," you admit, digging the spoon back into the tub. "But it was late, and I swear I could hear the cookies n' cream in the freezer literally begging to be eaten."
He laughs, the sound warming the kitchen. You remember, suddenly, that he loves this exact flavor just as much as you do.
You’re sitting right above the drawer where the utensils are kept. Leaning down slightly, you pull the drawer open, grab a clean spoon, and hold it out toward him. It’s an offering. An olive branch, if you will.
Logan stares at the spoon in your hand for a full minute, blinking before he slowly reaches out and takes it. You hold the tub of ice cream out between you. He steps in closer, scooping a bite directly from the container, and mindlessly cleans off the spoon with his lips.
As he does, you realize just how close he’s standing. For some reason, watching the slow, casual movement of his jaw makes a traitorous heat bloom, starting from your neck and spreading to your face. He’s standing right between your parted knees as you sit on the counter, close enough that his body heat is radiating against your cold skin, completely overriding the chill of the room. You internally hate yourself for the way your pulse immediately kicks up.
To make matters worse, he tilts the tub back toward you so you can take another bite.
Because you’re elevated on the counter, Logan is forced to look slightly up at you, his glimmering eyes wide and dark in the shadows. He shifts his weight, and his other hand—completely absentmindedly, just out of old, deep-seated habit—rests lightly against the edge of the counter, his knuckles slightly brushing against the bare skin of your thigh.
You don’t think he’s thinking much of it. To him, it’s probably just the casual, comfortable contact that used to be the norm between you two. But to you, it is absolutely terrible. You had managed to successfully drown out all of those impulsive, agonizingly loving thoughts for months, burying them deep beneath your anger. But they only ever seem to come roaring back to life during quiet, hyper-intimate moments just like this.
And that is exactly why you spent the last few weeks avoiding being alone with him like this.
You pray he can’t hear the way your heart is slamming against your ribs. Desperate to break the suffocating spell of his proximity, you hop off the counter, your bare feet hitting the cold floorboards with a soft thud.
"We should go get that blanket," you say, your voice sounding a little too quick, a little too breathless.
Logan studies your face for a lingering moment, his doe eyes searching yours before he gives a quiet nod. "Yeah. It's upstairs in my room."
You follow him up the stairs, the quiet of the house wrapping around you. But when you step into his bedroom, Logan stops by his closet, a sheepish look crossing his face as he remembers. "Ah, actually, I forgot. I threw it in the wash earlier. It’s probably still in the dryer downstairs." He offers an apologetic grimace. "Sorry."
"It's fine," you say, leaning against his doorframe. "At least it'll be fresh out of the heat."
He lets out a soft laugh. "Wait in here, I'll go grab it."
Once his footsteps fade down the hallway, you step fully into his room. It hits you all at once that you haven't been in this space in months. It looks the same—the rumpled sheets, the hockey gear tucked into the corner—but it feels entirely different.
Your eyes drift over to his desk, and you freeze.
Resting right on top of a stack of textbooks is a colorful weave of embroidery string. Your breath hitches. You know it’s not the one Logan wears, because you just saw his on his wrist seconds ago. You take a step closer, your fingers trembling slightly as you reach out and pick it up.
It’s fixed. Every single thread that had snapped apart on the night of your presentation has been carefully knotted back together. You had assumed it was thrown in the garbage. He never brought it up, never mentioned keeping it.
You lean back against the edge of his desk, staring down at the neat knots, completely lost in thought.
The door clicks, and you jump slightly as Logan returns, a warm, fluffy blanket cradled in his arms. He has an easy, happy smile on his face—one that drops instantly the second his eyes land on what is dangling from your fingertips.
“You still have it,” you observe quietly.
Logan’s movements turn hesitant. He walks toward you like he's stepping onto thin ice, gently dropping the warm blanket onto the edge of his unmade bed. Over the last few weeks, you’ve gotten so good at masking your emotions that he genuinely can’t read you right now. The unreadable expression is making him visibly nervous.
"I'm sorry," he says, his voice dropping. "I didn't realize I left that out."
You ignore his apology, your eyes still locked on the tightly woven strings. "When did you fix it?"
"The day we rekindled things," he confesses softly.
Your chest tightens. "Why did you never show it to me?"
"I didn't think you’d want to see it." Logan swallows hard. "I didn't want to push you."
"Why did you fix it, Logan?"
There is a sudden, fragile falter in your voice—one you didn't even realize was coming until the words left your mouth.
Logan stares at you, completely at a loss. He doesn't know how to answer that honestly without entirely blowing his cover and confessing that he is desperately, entirely in love with you. So, he falls back on the safest truth he has. "Because it was important to me. You're important to me."
Silence stretches over the bedroom. You quickly avert your gaze, looking down at the floor, and Logan’s stomach drops through the floorboards. He thinks he’s done it. He thinks he’s finally fucked up for the last time. All those weeks of careful groveling, of trying to respect your boundaries, and he ruined it because he was an idiot who forgot to hide a fucking bracelet.
But then, a soft, ragged sniffle breaks the silence.
"Hey," Logan calls your name softly.
Instinctively, your head snaps up to meet his gaze. The moment he sees the watery sheen glossing over your eyes, any hesitation he had vanishes. He rushes across the small gap between you, his large hands immediately reaching out.
He gently takes the bracelet from your fingers, murmuring, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Before you can blink, his thumb reaches up, tenderly wiping away the single tear you allowed to escape down your cheek. His large palm doesn't leave your face; instead, his hand settles gently against your jawline, his fingers anchoring you, prompting you to look directly into the depths of his honey eyes.
The sudden proximity sinks into you. You are completely trapped between the solid breadth of his chest and the hard edge of his desk. And looking up at him, you can tell he is thinking the exact same thing you are.
Your gaze helplessly drops to his lips. When you snap your eyes back up to his, you realize with a jolt that he had just been doing the exact same thing to you.
"Tell me to stop," Logan whispers, his breath warm against your lips, his voice raw and begging.
You want to. You know you should. You know you’re supposed to be just friends, that you’re supposed to be protecting your heart. But the logic completely dissolves, and the moment his lips finally touch yours, you don't pull away.
You kiss him back.
The kiss is slow and absolutely intoxicating. You have never felt more utterly vulnerable in your entire life. Logan lets out a low, ragged sound against your mouth, his hands sliding down to grip the back of your thighs, effortlessly lifting you up so you're sitting securely on the edge of the desk. He doesn't break the contact for a single second. His hands shift, his large palms wrapping firmly around your waist, holding onto you with a distinct desperation—like you’re a buoy in the middle of a crashing ocean and he’s a drowning man.
The familiar warmth of him fills you up, once again erasing the chill of the house. You almost entirely forget who you are, where you are, and what exactly you’re doing—until the kiss deepens, and a soft, involuntary moan of pure pleasure escapes your throat.
The sound shocks you right back to reality.
Panicking, you put your hands against his chest and break away from him immediately, sliding off the desk and backing up until your spine hits the wall. Your breathing is shallow and erratic, your lips tingling.
Logan stands there, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and completely dark with a mixture of shock and terror. "I'm sorry. I—“
"No, it's—it's fine," you stammer, your hands flying up to touch your face, your mind spinning into complete overdrive. "I just—can’t. I can’t, I’m sorry.”
Before he can even utter another word, you dart past him, tearing open the bedroom door and sprinting down the hallway, leaving him standing alone in the center of the room.
Logan closes his eyes, a frustrated huff escaping his lips as he rubs his hands over his face. He’s certain. He is absolutely, one hundred percent certain that he just blew everything. He just ruined the fragile friendship you’ve spent ages building.
Slowly, he reopens his eyes, his shoulders slumped in utter defeat as he looks over at his bed.
summary: Being in love with your childhood best friend was no easy feat, but it was manageable. Until it wasn’t. When John Logan breaks a crucial promise, he’s forced to confront what’s been standing in front of him all along.
based on this request! i hope i did it justice <3
read part two here
content: so.much.angst. like, so much. unrequited love, reader is a stem major. the characters are more accurate to their book counterparts occasionally, namely tucker. oops. some things may be ooc but it is for the sake of the plot. logan is unknowingly an asshole.
note: i may or may not do a part two, my motivation fluctuates! hope you enjoy because this was super sad to write.
He’s looking at her.
His arm rests along the back of the couch, the sensation of it familiar enough that you barely notice it anymore. Every few minutes, when someone says something particularly funny, his hand shifts and his fingers brush against the exposed skin of your shoulder blade. It’s casual, absent-minded contact. It means nothing to him and everything to you.
Around you, the boys’ house is lively. Tucker is arguing with Birdie about the game they’ve been at for hours on the TV. Every once in a while, someone tells them to shut up. They do that for a total of five minutes before someone inevitably raises their voice, leading the other to do the same.
You should be finishing up your story. It was a stupid tale, one about falling asleep during a lecture.
Instead, you’re watching him.
Or rather, you’re watching where he’s looking.
His gaze drifts across the room so often that you’ve begun anticipating it, finding yourself following the path before he’s even finished turning his head. It happens during conversations. During periods of silence. During moments when he’s supposed to be paying attention you.
His eyes always find the same person.
You wonder if anyone else notices.
Maybe they don’t. Maybe they haven’t spent nearly ten years studying every version of John Logan.
Ten years.
Long enough to remember the cracked sidewalks of your hometown and the suffocating certainty that neither of you belonged there. Long enough to remember sitting on the roof of his garage at thirteen years old, passing back and forth what was always bag of Hot Cheetos while making promises far too big for kids your age.
You had been determined to leave.
And somehow, against every odd stacked against two middle-schoolers with seemingly unattainable dreams and no real plan, you did.
You earned your place through a STEM scholarship that had consumed countless nights and enough caffeine to raise alerts towards your cardiovascular system. He earned his through hockey, through early mornings and bruises and a relentless dedication that you supported him all throughout.
Different roads, same destination.
For nearly a decade, the two of you had existed side by side.
And for six of those years, you’ve loved him.
You weren’t sure when you realized it, but once you did, it felt as though things finally clicked into place. There had always been that speculation from others that you two were something beyond a mere friendship—but there was no weight to it. Not while it wasn’t true, anyway.
You thought it may have been the puberty. John was no longer a scrawny kid who you hovered over. He’d grown into himself as the years passed—taller, stronger, more confident. It was a simple crush that came as a result of change, you told yourself.
But you had began to think it was more than that, that it always had been. Once the feeling arrived, it made no effort to fade—settling into the empty spaces between inside jokes and late-night phone calls, between shared victories and devastating failures. It lodged itself so deeply within your bond that you stopped looking for where friendship ended and something else began.
Maybe that was your mistake.
Across the room, Hannah laughs.
The sound is soft enough that most people would miss it beneath the chatter, but John hears it.
Of course he does.
Hannah Wells has a way of drawing attention effortlessly. Her smile comes easily, brightening her entire face like a Christmas tree. Honey-brown hair spills over one shoulder as she speaks. Her deep cerulean eyes crinkle when she laughs. Hearing her sing for the first time made it no better.
And she is so kind.
She remembers your birthday, she asks you questions on a subject you think had long been over. She makes you feel seen.
It’s impossible to blame him for looking.
The problem is that lately, he hasn’t seemed capable of looking anywhere else.
His fingers brush your shoulder again, mindlessly.
Across the room, Hannah says something to Allie that you can’t quite make out.
Logan smiles.
And suddenly, despite his arm around you and his knee pressed lightly against yours and nearly ten years of friendship sitting comfortably between the two of you, you’ve never felt further away from him.
Tucker notices your shift in mood before Logan does. You like Tuck the most out of all of Logan’s friends. He’s a year below the rest of you, though you like to say he’s the most mature out of all of them. He’s observant, you learned.
He tilts his head at you, silently asking if you’re okay. You send him a half-hearted thumbs up. Something clicks for him and he accepts your answer, redirecting his attention to the game.
You think Tucker knows about your crush on John. A part of you hopes he doesn’t, but another part of you knows that he does.
At some point, Logan notices you’ve stopped talking. By the time he has, you’re fiddling with your bracelet. He frowns, glancing at his own matching one on his left wrist. You were both surprised they had never broken. Logan enjoyed referring to it as a testament to your long-standing friendship. The blue and purple embroidery of both your bracelets have become a halo of fuzz, but they remain intact nonetheless.
Logan glances back at you, studying you once again—knit eyebrows, lip tucked between your teeth. You’re upset.
“What’s wrong?”
You meet his doe eyed gaze and hate yourself for thinking about drowning in them. He knows you as well as you know him. So much so that you can’t lie and pretend you’re okay. He’s read you and he’s decided that you’re not.
So you do the next best thing.
“It’s just stuffy in here,” you reply passively, maintaining a poker face when you push off the couch and his fingertips leave your shoulder blades. “I’m gonna get some air.”
The cool evening air hits you the second the front door clicks shut, but it does nothing to clear the sudden suffocating weight in your chest. You walk over to the edge of the porch, gripping the wooden railing just to have something solid to hold onto.
Behind you, the front door opens and shuts. Familiar footsteps thud against the wood. You don’t need to turn around to know it’s him, you’d know the specific cadence of his stride anywhere.
"Hey," Logan says softly, stepping up beside you, jacket in his hand. He leans his forearms against the railing, his large frame blocking out the slight breeze. "You left your jacket inside. It’s freezing out here."
You make no effort to retrieve the coat from his grasp. You don’t look even at him. Instead, your eyes fixate on a tiny, industrious spider crawling across the top of a plastic patio chair a few feet away. It is small, frantic, and entirely unaware of the shifting plates of your universe, completely consumed by the monumental task of weaving a web between two cheap slats of faux-wicker. You envy it. You want to be anything else—a spider, a piece of dust, a thread on your frayed bracelet—anything but the girl standing under the porch light, slowly unraveling.
"I'm fine," you tell him, the words slipping out easily, rehearsed from a decade of practice.
"You're not fine," he insists softly. It’s not an accusation. It’s a statement of fact.
"I am fine," you repeat, but your voice is uneven.
You always are, somehow. It’s a reflex by now. Burn the midnight oil until your vision blurs, crash through exams on three hours of sleep, watch the boy you’ve loved for six years slip through your fingers like water—the answer is always the same: I’m fine.
"Don't do that," Logan mutters, turning his head to look at you. His eyes are swimming with an earnest yet frustrating concern that always makes you want to spill your guts. "We don't do that. Talk to me. Did someone say something inside? Did I do something?"
You let out a breath that cuts like a laugh, though there’s no humor in it. You look out at the dark front yard, at the dead leaves scattering across the pavement.
You finally turn your head to look at him. You note the exact way the yellow porch light catches the bridge of his nose, the slight shadow of stubble along his jawline. You know every iteration of this face. You know the childhood version, the teenage version, and this current, devastatingly handsome collegiate version.
And yet, looking at him right now, he feels like a stranger wearing your best friend's skin.
"That's just it, Logan. You haven't done anything." Your voice drops, stripped of its usual warmth. "You haven't been doing anything. Not with me, anyway."
He blinks, a small, defensive crease forming between his eyebrows. "I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t,” you murmur.
“Then explain it to me.”
"It means you’re pulling away," you say directly, the words tasting like copper in your mouth, but you force them out anyway. You don't mention Hannah. You don't have to bring up the way his eyes track her, or the way his laugh sounds higher when she’s in the room. This isn't about her. This is about him. This is about the space where your best friend used to be. "You’re always somewhere else. I talk to you, and it’s like I’m throwing words into an empty room. You look right through me lately. You’re right here, and it feels like there’s a thousand miles between us."
Logan stiffens. For a second, his mouth opens to deny it, the knee-jerk reaction of a guy who prides himself on being loyal. But as he looks at you—at the tight line of your jaw, at the way you're holding onto your own arm like you’re trying to keep yourself from falling apart—you can see the fight slowly leave him.
The silence stretches, punctuated only by the joyous yells of your friends inside.
"I didn't. . .” Logan starts, his voice dropping an octave. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, looking down at his shoes. "I didn't realize I was making you feel like that. I swear to God, I didn't."
"Well, you are." Your voice trembles just a fraction, and you hate yourself for it, pulling your shoulders back to overcompensate. "I know that friends drift. But I don’t wanna be background noise in your life.”
Logan steps closer, closing the small physical gap between you. He reaches out, his large hand wrapping around your forearm—right over the frayed threads of your bracelet. You pray he doesn’t notice the hitching of your breath.
"You're not background noise," he says sincerely, his desperate eyes searching yours. "You could never be. I'm sorry. Seriously. I've had. . . I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately, and I’ve been distracted. I’ve been a shitty best friend, and there’s no excuse for it. I’m so sorry."
You look at his hand on your arm. You look at the genuine regret pulling at the corners of his eyes. He doesn't know that the distraction is killing you for an entirely different reason. He just knows he hurt his person, and he wants to fix it.
You swallow the ache in your throat, nodding slowly. You let the anger go, because holding onto it hurts worse than forgiving him does.
"It’s okay," you assure him. "Just don’t forget about me, dork.”
"Never," he promises, squeezing your arm before letting go. A small, relieved smile tugs at his lips, the tension leaving his shoulders. He makes no effort to back away from you. It’s all the more suffocating. "I promise. Hey, you still have that big winter showcase coming up in two weeks, right? For your department?"
"Yeah," you say, a genuine spark of nervousness lighting up your stomach. "It’s the Friday after this upcoming one."
"I'll be there," Logan says instantly, his voice full of the certainty that usually makes you feel safe. "Front row. I'll even wear a stupid button-down shirt so your professors think I'm respectable. Deal?"
You look at him, wanting so badly to trust the boy who used to share bags of Hot Cheetos on a garage roof.
"Deal," you agree.
The fluorescent lights of the auditorium are blinding. It is 5:30PM. The STEM showcase had officially kicked off at five, the culmination of sleepless semesters, data sheets that blurred into meaningless code by three in the morning, and enough stress to permanently alter your brain chemistry.
Your phone sits completely dark and powered down in the bottom of your tote bag. You hadn't sent Logan a reminder text today. You hadn’t wanted to seem needy, and besides, you figured he’d remember.
He knew what this meant to you. He’d been the one to hold you on the floor of your bedroom a week ago ago when the overthinking caught up to you, his large hands rubbing slow circles into your back while you sobbed into his chest, terrified that it wouldn’t be enough. He’d promised then, just like he’d promised on the porch, that he’d be here.
Last night, you had even swung by the hockey house, your presentation slides printed out and shaking in your hands, just looking for a final bit of reassurance to quiet the jitters. But Logan wasn't there. He’d been at Malone’s, helping Hannah setup tables and banners for the upcoming weekend showcase she offered to host for music majors.
It was fine, you told yourself. It really was. He was trying to be better, and you could see the effort. The crush was still a persistent ache in your ribs, but he hadn't let it bleed into your friendship the way he had before. You understood what it was like to be at someone’s beck and call—hell, you’d been at his for six years. You couldn't blame him for falling under Hannah’s gravitational pull.
Logan hadn't been there last night, but Tucker had.
Tucker had stopped chopping vegetables, wiped his hands on a dish towel, and sat you down at the kitchen island. He listened to you stumble through your abstract, giving you a supportive nod when you finished. When you told Tucker he didn't have to worry about coming tomorrow since it was so last minute and Logan would be there anyway, Tucker had just given you an easy smile.
“Then you’ll have two of us cheering you on," he’d promised.
Now, standing by your trifold and your laptop, the nerves are a sickening weight in your stomach. You’ve just finished presenting to the final round of judges. Your mouth is dry, your throat tight, but you’d gotten through it just fine.
Tucker had slipped into the back of the room right before your time slot, his broad shoulders cutting a reassuring silhouette against the crowded aisle. Seeing his familiar face had kept your knees from buckling.
But Logan’s seat in the front row—the one he’d promised to occupy in a stupid button-down shirt—remained completely empty.
It hurts. A sharp, localized sting right beneath your breastbone. You hadn't told anyone else in your life about the showcase because public speaking made you feel entirely naked, meaning Logan and Tucker were your only safety nets.
Everyone else would most likely be at Malone’s. You didn’t want them to choose between you and Hannah, because you knew they’d try to compromise, complicating things. You didn’t want a whole crowd, you were okay with just one person being there.
But you swallow the lump in your throat and smooth down the fabric of your slacks. It’s fine. Logan probably just got caught in campus traffic, or he had a handyman gig that kept him late. He missed the actual presentation, yeah, but there’s still time. The showcase goes until eight.
As long as he shows up before the winners are announced, it’ll be fine. He’ll still be there to celebrate with you. He has to be.
Two hours later, the auditorium is a blur of echoing applause and bright flashing cameras.
When the department head speaks your name into the microphone, announcing you as the first-place recipient of the showcase, the room erupts. Your peers are cheering, clapping you on the back as you walk up the stage, but the sound feels like it’s happening underwater.
Even the heavy glass they hang around your neck and the oversized novelty check—grant money that will entirely fund your next semester of research—do nothing to lift the leaden weight in your chest.
Tucker maneuvers through the crowd as soon as you’ve left the stage, a massive, proud smile lighting up his face as he pulls you into a bone-crushing hug. He hoists you slightly off your feet, laughing, telling you he always knew you had it in the bag.
But when he pulls back, his smile falters. He looks at your eyes, watery and strained, and the pride in his expression softens into a deep concern. He knows. He can tell exactly how badly you're hurting.
But even now, with a first-place medal heavy against your sternum, you find yourself building a fortress of excuses for John Logan.
You give him the benefit of the doubt, because the alternative is unendurable. He’d never do this intentionally. Not after last week. Not to you. Something had to have happened. A family emergency with his mom. Something with Jules. Maybe he’d taken a brutal hit at practice and was sitting in the training room with a concussion, his phone locked away. He had to be hurt. He had to be incapacitated.
"Let's get you out of here," Tucker says softly, his hand settling on the small of your back, shielding you from the lingering crowds as you pack up your laptop. "I can walk you back to your dorm."
"Actually," you say, your voice tight as you zip your tote bag, "can you take me back to the house? Honestly, after the day I’ve had, I’m dying for a home-cooked Tucker special. I need some real comfort food."
You try to make it sound like a casual request, but Tucker’s hand goes entirely still against your back. He doesn't laugh it off. Instead, an uncomfortable hesitation washes over his features. He looks away, his jaw tightening as he stares out at the emptying auditorium.
In that single beat of silence, a cold and sickening realization dawns on you.
Perhaps Logan isn't sick. Perhaps he isn't hurt. He isn't in a hospital or dealing with a family crisis. Tucker knows exactly where he is.
He forgot.
The thought devastates you, a physical blow that leaves you in theoretical agony, but right on the heels of the sadness comes a sharp, blistering wave of fury. You’re a winner. You just secured your future for the next semester. This should be one of the greatest nights of your life, and yet Logan has latched himself so deeply into the fabric of your existence that he can still ruin it without even being in the room. You hate yourself for letting him have that much power over you.
"You sure you want to go to the house right now?" Tucker asks, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, laced with a warning he isn't entirely voicing.
You stop, staring at him. Your chest heaves. "Why? Is he there?"
Tucker looks at you, his brown eyes full of a grim, reluctant pity. He stays silent. He doesn't say a word, but his silence tells you everything you need to know. He's there. He's perfectly fine, at the hockey house while you were standing on a stage alone.
A hot, dangerous spark ignites in your blood.
"Take me there," you say, your voice dropping all the compliance, hard as flint. He begins to say your name, but you don’t allow him to. "Tucker. Take me to the house."
The ride to the hockey house is quick, though you believe that’s a product of the heavy thrum of your own pulse. Tuck keeps one hand on the steering wheel, your grim mood proving itself to be contagious.
Every few minutes, his voice breaks through the quiet of the truck, telling you to take a breath, telling you to try to calm down. But you can hear the sharp undercurrent of his own anger fueling the engine. He’s pissed on your behalf, but you don't have the capacity to appreciate it right now. You just stare straight ahead.
When the truck comes to a stop in the driveway, you don't wait for Tucker to kill the ignition. You throw the door open and march up the steps, completely ignoring him as he calls your name.
You push the door open, not so much that it was disruptive, but it was noticeable nonetheless.
The warmth of the house hits you first, along with the loud, easy cacophony of a Friday night wind-down. The TV is on, and everyone is scattered across the living room. Allie, Garrett, Dean, and Hannah.
And Logan.
The sheer normalcy of the scene feels like a slap to the face. You stand in the entryway, the first-place medal swinging slightly against your chest, dressed in the gray slacks and blouse you’d picked out so carefully. For a fraction of a second, looking at their relaxed posture and happy faces, you feel entirely microscopic. Like an ant on the back of someone’s boot, completely insignificant to the world revolving around them.
Then, the room goes quiet.
Dean is the first one to look up from the couch. His eyes take in your sharp posture, the formal attire, and finally, the heavy piece hung around your neck catching the ambient light. A grin breaks across his face, completely ignorant of the storm cloud rolling off your shoulders.
"Look at that," Dean announces, raising his cup in a mock toast. "The prodigal daughter returns!"
He’s trying to be supportive. Under any other circumstance, you’d smile, you’d thank him through narrowed eyes. You know he doesn't know. He has no idea what Logan promised, or what it cost you to stand on that stage alone.
But you don't look at Dean. You don't look at Garrett or Allie or Hannah.
Your eyes lock onto Logan.
He’s sitting on the edge of the cushions, and the exact moment your gaze finds his, the color drains completely from his face. It’s like watching a man realize he’s stepped off a cliff. His eyes drop to the medal on your chest, then snap back up to your face, wide and absolutely crushed. The realization of what he’s done hits him in a ton of bricks.
Usually, that look on his face would undo you. Usually, seeing John Logan look that miserable would trigger every protective instinct you’ve harbored for him, making you want to soften the blow, to tell him it’s fine, to smooth it over.
But tonight, you feel absolutely nothing.
The reservoir of sympathy has completely dried up, replaced by a fury that has been bubbling beneath the surface for months.
He hadn't just missed a presentation. He had broken a promise. He had lied to your face on the porch, sworn he was back, and then willfully chose to be somewhere else.
You stare at him, the silence in the room turning suffocatingly loud as the others finally catch onto the tension, and the only thought roaring through your mind is how completely invisible you’ve been to him.
That look of shame is enough gratification for you. If he can feel only a fraction of the pain you’d allowed yourself to endure these past few years, that was good for you. You couldn’t stand staring into the eyes of the man you once thought you knew anymore.
You turn your heel against the floorboards, every instinct screaming at you to walk out that door, to erase John Logan from your life, and to leave him standing in the wreckage of a ten-year friendship.
"Wait," his voice cracks through the silence of the room as he calls your name. "Please wait. I’m sorry. Just—please, just wait!”
You halt entirely. Your flats glue themselves to the floor, the medallion thudding against your chest like a pendulum swinging into a dead stop.
Sorry?
The word tastes rancid just hearing it bounce off the walls of the hockey house. You hadn't known what you wanted him to say when you walked through that door.
You hadn't known if there was a combination of vowels and consonants in the English language that could possibly fix this. But hearing his apology serves as nothing other than gasoline thrown directly onto a grease fire.
Slowly, you turn back around.
Your friends look horrified. You almost feel bad that they’re forced to witness this. You almost want to turn around and leave, leaving this argument for when you’re less heated, less hurt.
But you can’t. He needs to hear you. If not last week or the week before that, now.
Logan takes a step toward you, his hands raised slightly as if approaching a wild animal. "I lost track of time. The showcase at Malone’s—"
"Shut up," you say quietly.
The words aren't screamed. They are quiet, sharp, and dripping with an edge that makes Logan freeze in his tracks.
"Just. . . shut the hell up, Logan." You take a step forward, your shoes clicking against the hardwood. "Don't you dare use that as an excuse for being a pathetic, spineless coward."
He glances at the group that has gone dead silent. You don’t know if what he says next is for your sake or his, but you can’t bring yourself to care.
“Let’s go outside,” he offers, his tone resembling something of a plea. “We can—“
“No!” you spat harshly. “You’re gonna listen to me.”
You’d never spoken to him this way. Not in such a venomous tone, stripped from all warmth. For once, Logan does exactly what you’ve asked of him—to listen. His lips part but no words escape them.
"You sat on the porch two weeks ago," you continue, your voice rising now, the heat finally breaking through the ice. "You held my arm, and you looked me in the eyes and promised me you’d change. Do you have any idea what today was?"
Logan swallows hard, his brown hues welling with a desperate, pathetic panic. "It was the department showcase."
"It was the biggest night of my academic career!" you explode, the anger tearing out of your throat. "I have spent months working on this! I broke down sobbing over this because of how tired I was, and you were the one who held me! You knew exactly how terrified I was. You knew I didn't invite anyone else! What would’ve happened if Tuck wasn’t there?"
You gesture wildly to the medal around your neck.
"I stood on that stage alone, John. I scanned that auditorium for two hours, giving you the benefit of the doubt. I thought something had happened. I thought you were lying in a ditch somewhere or bleeding out in a hospital, because that is the only reason the John Logan I grew up with would ever miss this!"
A tear escapes his eye, rolling down his tanned cheek. "I messed up. Fuck, I know I messed up. Let me make it up to you, please—"
"You didn't mess up, you chose!" you hiss, stepping right into his space, forcing him to look down at the fury burning in your eyes. "You’ve made it perfectly clear where I rank on your list of priorities."
"I am wearing a first-place medal," you continue, your voice trembling with a devastating mix of triumph and agony. "I just won enough grant money to pay for my entire next semester of research. This should be the happiest night of my life. But all I can think about is how my best friend couldn’t show up when I needed him.”
"Please," Logan chokes out, reaching a trembling hand toward your shoulder, his fingers twitching to make that familiar, absent-minded contact. "Just—“
You snap your shoulder back, avoiding his touch as if his hand were coated in acid.
But as you jerk away, the zipper of his jacket catches on the frayed, fuzzy threads of your embroidered bracelet. There is a sudden rip. The threads give out all at once, unraveling in a split second as the broken token of your childhood slips from your wrist and flutters uselessly to the floor.
Logan freezes, his eyes dropping to the colorful, ruined heap of strings resting on the hardwood between you two.
It’s symbolic, you think.
"Don't touch me," you say, your voice dropping into a flat, dead register. You stare at him, washing away every ounce of the six years of love, every ounce of the ten years of friendship, until there is absolutely nothing left between you but a void.
"Don't talk to me. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever. You’re dead to me, John."
You turn on your heel and march straight out the front door into the freezing night air.
Logan doesn’t even think before stepping forward to follow after you, but Tucker shuts the door, preventing him from doing so.
He doesn't yell. Instead, he steps into Logan’s space, grabs a fistful of his shirt right at the collar, and shoves him backward into the hallway leading toward the bedrooms. Logan doesn't even try to fight it—he stumbles back, his eyes wide and vacant, completely numb from the fallout.
Tucker slams the door of his room shut, but he doesn't bother locking it. He doesn't need to.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Tucker demands, his voice a growl that vibrates through the walls. He isn’t screaming, but he’s not exactly whispering. “Because right now, I’m having a hard time recognizing one of my best friends.”
“Tuck, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen—”
“You made her a promise, man!” Tucker cuts in sharply. “You told her you’d be there. You looked her dead in the eye and gave her your word. Do you have any idea what today was like for her?”
“I lost track of time. Hannah—”
“Don’t do that,” Tucker says, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t make this about Hannah. This is about you. You screwed up. You’ve been taking that girl for granted for long enough, and she’s been in your corner through every stupid decision you’ve made. Last night, I was the one sitting with her while she practiced that presentation because you were too busy being handyman.”
“She stood on that stage tonight. Every time those judges walked up to her, she checked those doors. Every damn time. She thought something happened to you, because that’s the only reason she could come up with for why you’d break your word to her. And the whole time, you’re moving tables at Malone’s? That’s your excuse?”
“I know I messed up,” Logan chokes out. “I know. I’ll fix it. I’ll talk to her—”
“No, you won’t,” Tucker says immediately. “Not today. Not anytime soon.”
He takes a step back, folding his arms across his chest.
“She told you to stay away. So for once, stop thinking about what you want and listen to what she asked for. You made this mess. If you actually want a shot at fixing it, give her some space and hope she decides you’re worth talking to when she’s ready.”
“Tuck—”
“I’m serious, Logan. Leave her alone. The last thing she needs right now is you showing up trying to make yourself feel better.“
blurb: john logan claims that he doesn’t do jealousy. he thinks he’s above such petty feelings. but what happens when his girlfriend gets hit on at a house party?
warnings: fem!reader, suggestive, established relationship, alcohol
note: smut pt. 2 here
“Cupcake?”
You turned around at the voice, meeting the face of a 6’2” football player you didn’t know personally but recognized from the Briar sports Instagram account.
He was staring at your headpiece; a frosting top with colorful sprinkles. You realized what he was trying to say.
“Oh, no. I’m chocolate,” you said.
He raised an amused brow, “Chocolate?”
You nodded, sipping your beer. “Chocolate.” You confirmed, then pointed across the room to where Kendall was busy making out with one of the hockey players. “She’s vanilla. We’re chocolate and vanilla swirl.”
The football player nodded in understanding. “Ah. I see,” he said before looking over at Kendall. “Though vanilla isn’t very vanilla.”
You laughed at his witty joke, both of you watching Kendall as she did a body shot off of the hockey player she was kissing two seconds ago. She was dressed in the same tube top and bubble skirt set you were wearing, complete with the knee-high boots and matching headpiece; hers a whipped white color, yours a cocoa brown.
From the other side of the room, Tucker and Logan were talking when the former spotted you chatting with the tall football player.
Tucker nudged Logan, “Yo, is that your girl?”
Logan followed his line of sight and it landed on you, leaning against the kitchen counter and speaking to the good-looking stranger with an easy smile on your lips.
Logan looked away and gulped down his beverage. “She’s a big girl.”
Logan wasn’t one of those insecure, pompous boyfriends. He didn’t do jealousy. He’s convinced jealousy was invented by a short dick man with an easily bruised ego. Logan was secure enough in his relationship with you to never have any reason to feel jealous.
You turned to the jock and gave his costume a once-over. Knitting your brows together, you racked your brain’s storage full of pop culture references and iconic fictional characters.
“Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name?” You tried.
He let out a huff of laughter, “Close. I’m Luca from the Disney-Pixar movie.”
“Ahh,” you nodded. “Practically the same.”
He flashed a charming smile, dragging a sip from his bottle. He extended his hand to you, “James.”
You shook his hand and told him your name.
“Pretty name,” he responded. “Though…” he leaned in closer, “…cupcake fits better, don’t you think?”
Ah. At that, you picked up that he was attempting to flirt with you. Forever loyal to your boyfriend, you opened your mouth to turn his advances down. But before you could, you felt an arm wrap around your waist from behind and find purchase on your hipbone. You knew who it was without even looking.
“Hey, got you a refill,” Logan said, taking the half empty can from your hands and replacing it with a new one.
“Thanks,” you said. As your hand moved to pop the can open, Logan’s deft fingers beat you to it and he cracked the tab for you.
The football player, James, eyed the two of you, biting his lip whilst reconfiguring his whole plan. “You’re both…?”
“Air signs,” Logan teasingly remarked with a straight face, casually drinking from his red solo cup. You elbowed him with a small smirk.
“No,” James shook his head. “I mean—”
“Together,” Logan told him, putting his now empty plastic cup down on the counter. His newly freed hand joined the other by holding onto your other hip and giving it a squeeze.
James nodded to himself. “Got it.” And away he went. Probably off to find his Alberto.
Logan’s eyes followed his retreating figure, not easing up until he was out of sight. Only then did he drop his hands off your body.
You turned around and looked up at your boyfriend with a wide smile. “What was that?”
“What was what?” He returned, pouring himself a new drink.
“That whole thing,” you responded.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” You repeated.
Logan shrugged. “A normal interaction, no?”
“He was flirting with me before that.”
“Oh so you’re aware.”
Your expression dropped. Oh, is that why—
“Logan.”
“Hm.”
“Logan.”
“Hm?”
You tilted his face down to look at him. “I wasn’t going to entertain it.”
“I know,” he replied.
“I was going to shut it down right before you showed up.”
“I know.”
“I want to make sure you know that.”
“And I know that.”
You squinted your eyes. This was suspiciously too easy. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
You stared at one another for a beat longer than necessary.
“You’re still upset,” you observed.
“I’m not upset,” he answered.
“So what are you feeling?” You asked.
“I don’t like how he called you cupcake,” Logan told you.
“Me neither. Not when I’m so clearly chocolate.”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“Y/n.”
You sighed softly, “Okay, sorry. I thought humor would make it better.”
Your fingers curled into the hair at the nape of his neck, hoping to relieve some of his tension. It worked. A little.
“It was a shitty pickup line,” you said. “Wouldn’t work on me even if I was single.”
“I hope so.”
“Oh, please, Logan. Take me out the back and shoot me if you ever see me falling for that,” you commented. He let out a small laugh. That’s progress
His hands returned to your hips and he pulled you closer. Your arms instinctively wrapped around his neck. His large hands rested just above your ass.
“What if I called you that?” Logan said lowly.
“Wanna give it a try?” You offered.
He leaned in, his lips hovering right by your ear. You could feel his warm breath fanning over your sensitive flesh. “Would you be into that, cupcake?” He whispered, ending it with a gentle nibble on your earlobe.
You shivered, feeling goosebumps crawl over your skin. “Fuck, I guess you have to take me out back with a gun, Logan.”
He pulled back with a hearty chuckle. You gave a matching smile and he held your face, brushing his thumb across your cheekbone.
As he looked at you, his face turned thoughtful for a moment. You squeezed his hand reassuringly.
He leaned in again. “I didn’t like how he looked at you.”
“How’d he look at me?” You wondered.
“Like how I look at you.”
You stared up at him, biting your lip. “And how do you look at me?” You whispered.
He brought his forehead against yours, gazing deep into your eyes. “Like I want you.”
Oh screw your sexy boyfriend and his even sexier responses. And that’s exactly what you wanted to do now—if only you weren’t in the middle of Beau and Dean’s birthday bash.
You had enough of this game. You raised yourself up and pressed your lips to his. Logan was hungry; he seemed to devour your kiss, swallowing every soft sound you made. His hand strayed down to grip your ass, the other held your waist comfortably. His tongue was already begging to enter your mouth, and you obliged without hesitation.
When you pulled away several moments later, Logan chased your lips with eagerness, gently biting your bottom lip as you separated.
“Mine,” he breathed out under his breath.
You bared a dazed smile, “I only want you.” You mouthed silently.
Logan let out a soft sound of amusement, nodding more to himself than to you. Satisfied and high off your impromptu makeout session, he pressed one last kiss to your forehead before rejoining his friends, this time with a protective hand on the small of your back.
Would u be down to do a fluffy john Logan request where he takes care of reader when she’s super upset? Maybe it’s just been a week of one thing on top of another, and finally she just hits her breaking point??
Break Point
Pairing: John Logan x Reader
Word Count: 1147
Request open!
Off campus masterlist
John could tell you were hanging on by a thread.
He just hadn’t expected the thread to snap the second you walked through the front door.
The week had already been bad. He knew that much. You’d been tired, quiet, and just a little too determined to keep saying “I’m fine” whenever he asked how things were going. John had learned by now that your version of fine often meant you were one inconvenience away from losing it.
When you came into the kitchen that night, he was at the stove making something halfway between dinner and a rescue mission. He looked over expecting the usual tired smile.
Instead, you stood in the doorway with your bag slipping off your shoulder and your face already crumpling.
John shut off the burner immediately. “Hey.”
You took one look at him and started shaking your head like you were trying to outrun your own feelings. “No. No, I’m sorry, I just,”
And then your voice broke.
That was all it took.
John was across the kitchen in two steps, pulling you straight into his arms as the tears finally came. You made a small, frustrated sound against his shoulder, like you were mad at yourself for not being able to hold it together one second longer.
“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s okay.”
You shook your head against him. “It’s not.”
“Yes,” he said, holding you tighter, “it is.”
You laughed once, but it sounded wrecked. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I had a terrible day.”
“I know.”
“And then I got home and my email was somehow worse, and my phone kept ringing, and I couldn’t answer it, and I forgot to eat until three hours ago, and I just,” You broke off with a shaky breath. “I’m so tired.”
John’s expression tightened with concern, but his voice stayed calm. “You don’t have to keep going.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him, your eyes red and exhausted and furious at the world. “I feel ridiculous.”
“You’re not ridiculous.”
“I’m crying in your kitchen.”
“Yes,” he said, like that was the least important part of the conversation. “Because you’ve had a week from hell.”
The tears kept coming, but your shoulders loosened a little.
John brushed his thumb under one of your eyes, then the other, wiping away the tears with a care that made your throat ache.
“Talk to me,” he said. “What happened?”
You shook your head weakly. “Too much.”
“Start small.”
You looked at him for a second, then exhaled shakily. “My professor moved a deadline up without saying anything. Then two people at work called out. Then one of my friends got upset because I didn’t text back fast enough, and I felt bad, and then I felt worse because I felt bad about feeling bad.”
John let out a breath through his nose. “That is a lot.”
You laughed weakly. “I know.”
He guided you toward the couch, sitting down with you tucked close beside him. One arm stayed around your shoulders while the other rested over your hand, grounding you in a way that made your breathing start to settle.
“You could have told me sooner,” he said gently.
“I didn’t want to dump it on you.”
John turned his head to look at you. “You are never dumping on me.”
You sniffled and looked down. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s true.”
He said it so simply that it made your chest ache.
After a moment, he reached for the blanket on the back of the couch and pulled it over both of you, tucking it around your shoulders with careful hands. Then he stood up long enough to grab the mug he’d been making and pressed it into your hands.
Tea. Still warm.
You looked up at him. “You made me tea?”
“No, I just enjoy standing around with a mug for no reason.”
A laugh escaped you through the tears, and John immediately looked relieved to have gotten even that much out of you.
“There you are,” he murmured.
You leaned into him again, exhausted by the effort of being upset. “I’m sorry.”
He frowned. “For what?”
“For ruining the night.”
John gave you a look that was both soft and very serious. “You didn’t ruin anything.”
“I was supposed to be normal.”
“You were supposed to come home,” he said, “and let me take care of you when you needed it.”
That made your throat tighten all over again.
John shifted so he could see your face more clearly. “You don’t have to hold everything together all the time.”
“I feel like I should.”
“Why?”
You looked at him for a long second and then shrugged, miserable. “Because if I don’t, who will?”
John’s expression softened in a way that made you want to cry all over again, which was deeply inconvenient.
“Me,” he said.
The answer was so immediate that it stopped you.
He looked at you calmly, one hand still at your waist. “I will.”
You stared at him.
His voice went quieter. “That’s what I’m here for.”
The certainty in it made something inside you finally let go.
You lowered your face into his shoulder again, and John held you through the next round of tears without saying a word, just rubbing slow circles into your back until the shaking eased.
When you finally pulled back, your eyes felt tired and your face felt hot, and John was still looking at you like you were something important he had no intention of treating lightly.
“Better?” he asked.
“A little.”
“Good.”
You took a shaky breath. “You’re very good at this.”
John’s mouth curved slightly. “At what?”
“Taking care of me.”
He looked almost shy for a second, which only made him gentler when he answered.
“I like taking care of you,” he said.
That made you go still.
Then, because he knew exactly what he’d done to you, he brushed a thumb along your cheek and added, “Especially when you’re pretending you don’t need it.”
You laughed weakly, finally. “I do not always pretend.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You texted me ‘I’m fine’ three times today.”
You made a face. “That is unrelated.”
“It is absolutely related.”
You smiled despite the exhaustion, and he seemed to relax a little when he saw it.
He kissed your forehead once, then twice, lingering each time until your shoulders stopped feeling so tight. “There,” he murmured. “That’s better.”
You leaned into him with a tiny sigh. “You make everything feel less awful.”
John’s arm tightened around you. “Good.”
You looked up at him, eyes still wet but much steadier now. “You know you’re going to have to keep doing this forever, right?”
He smiled, quiet and sure. “I was kind of planning on it.”
And for the first time all week, you laughed like you meant it.
heyy could you do a john lohan x gf reader where like she goes to his games and wears his number and all and she gets a temp tattoo of 22 on her back and shows him after the game when they’re celebrating
22 for you | john logan
john logan x reader!gf
summary: you have always been a supportive girlfriend. wearing your boyfriends jersey, attending every game, and defending him in every hockey debate. after a big win, logan discovers a surprise that’s meant just for him.
word count: 1,7k
warning: fluff, kissing
authors note: guys i’m not gonna lie im really enjoying writing for logan he is just such a cutie
————————————————————————
it all started after you and your best friends, hannah wells and allie hayes had watched one tree hill the morning before your boyfriends would play.
“wait, wait, wait,” allie sat up straighter on the couch. “I just had the funniest idea.”
you immediately groan, remembering the last time allie had a ‘funny idea’
“that’s never a good sign.” hannah said
“oh come on” turning to hannah while saying “hannah back me up on this”
“ y/n should get a fake tattoo of logan’s number.’”
“why?” hannah said with confusion written on her face, not quite sure where this was leading to.
“to see lover boys reaction, duh.” allie said
the entire room went silent for a second.
before you could tell allie it was a stupid plan, hannah started backing up allies plan
“wait, that’s actually hilarious.’”
“seriously hannah.” you say staring at her with a fake offended look
“y/n, please do it.” allie said while looking at you with a pleading look
you looked at your friends like they’d both collectively lost their minds.
“you want me to pretend I got a tattoo?”
“yes.”
“of logan’s number?”
“exactly”
“you people need hobbies.”
“no, seriously,” allie laughed. “don’t tell him it’s fake. just walk up and be like, ‘surprise!’”
“he’d have a heart attack.” hannah said
“exactly”
you tried not to smile, because unfortunately they weren’t wrong. you could practically picture logan looking at the tattoo trying to figure out what just happened.
trying to hide your smile from the girls and failing miserably. allie starts shaking hannah while saying “she’s going to do it”
“guys, he’d freak out.”
“in a good way or a bad way?” hannah questions
“both.”
the two girls burst into laughter.
“he’d be so proud of himself.”
“that’s what I’m saying!” allie pointed dramatically. “his ego would grow three sizes.”
“he’d tell every single teammate.” hannah said agreeing with allie
“immediately.”
“dean would never let me live it down.”
“which makes this even better.”
you buried your face in a pillow.
this was such a terrible idea.
a terrible, hilarious idea.
“okay,” you mumbled giving in.
the room exploded.
“WAIT, REALLY?” the girls said collectively.
“only if one of you buys the tattoo.”
the cheering got even louder.
“logan is about to have the best and worst day of his life.” allie said while she and hannah pulled out their phones looking for somewhere they could find the temporary tattoo.
“okay moment of truth” hannah says while slowly removing the film of the tattoo, while allie nervously stands looking over her shoulder.
as she removes the film, allie gasps.
“oh my go-”
“stop allie what”
“it looks so good”
hannah takes her phone out to take a picture of the tattoo to show you, as she’s doing so she starts agreeing with allie
“it does, and it looks so real too”
she shows you the picture and a cheesy smile starts forming on your face.
“guys why do i kind of love it?”
the girls start cheering, ending the cheer with a high-five.
“maybe you should get a real one” allie says excitedly
you smirk at her while saying “depends on his reaction”
you guys get ready to go, late as always but this time you guys actually have an excuse.
not that you could tell them
watching logan on the ice never got old. everything seemed effortless when he played. the speed, the confidence, the way he weaved through defenders as though they weren’t even there. sometimes you found yourself forgetting to breathe whenever he had the puck.
the boys were on fire tonight, finishing the game with a win and a huge score difference. a win for the briar boys always meant a huge party afterwards at the hockey house.
you, hannah and allie wait for the boys after the game to congratulate them. starting obviously with your boyfriends and moving on to your friends.
you see logan walk out the changing rooms. he always looked so good after games and practices, cheeks flushed, wet hair, you just loved it.
he makes his way towards you with a grin.
“hey”
before you could say hey back he cuts you off with a soft kiss to your lips. between kisses you congratulate him, praising him for how good he played.
he pulls away halfway to kiss your forehead then pulls away completely.
“thank you baby.”
logan’s hand found your waist, pulling you a little closer. what started as a quick kiss quickly turned into something more, neither of you eager to pull away. resting his hand on your lower back not realising what was hiding underneath. every time you broke apart for a breath, you found yourselves leaning right back in, unable to stop smiling.
eventually getting cut off as dean knocks his hockey stick against logans leg.
“come on guys, party tonight” he says excitedly.
the party was in full swing but you had spent the last twenty minutes avoiding logan.
which, unfortunately, only seemed to make him more determined.
“there you are.”
you groaned as logan appeared beside you.
“i’ve been looking for you.”
“really, i’ve just been with the girls.” you say trying to convince him he was just imagining it
his eyes narrowed.
“why are you being weird?”
“I’m not.”
“you are.”
across the room, hannah and allie exchanged looks.
you pointedly ignored them.
logan crossed his arms.
“what are they smiling about?”
“nothing.”
“what are you hiding?”
“nothing.”
his eyebrows shot up.
“you’re definitely hiding something.”before you could stop yourself, you glanced toward hannah and allie.
mistake.
a huge mistake.
because now logan looked even more suspicious.
“y/n.”
you sighed.
“fine.”
you grabbed the bottom of his shirt pulling him behind you and dragging him close to his room.
out of the corner of your eye you can see hannah and allie trailing behind you giggling as they do so.
“then what’s going on?”
for a moment, you considered dragging this out longer.
then you remembered hannah and allie were probably lurking trying to eavesdrop.
“fine.”
logan waited.
you set down your drink.
then you began to lift your shirt just enough to reveal his number on your body.
for a second, logan just stared.
then he blinked.
looked at the tattoo.
looked at you.
looked back at the tattoo.
“is that…”
his mouth fell open.
“no way.”
you immediately started laughing.
“omg, your face.”
“Y/N!”
from behind a wall came the sound of hannah and allie losing their minds.
“we knew he’d react like that!”
logan pointed toward them.
“they knew about this?”
“maybe.”
“i knew it”
his gaze returned to the tattoo.
“you put my number on you?”
“It’s fake.”
“I don’t care!”
his grin was impossible to miss.
somehow, that only made you laugh harder.
because you friends had been right.
his reaction was absolutely worth it.
he pulls you to him, your waists touching.
“i actually liked it” he said while staring at your lips slowly leaning in with a smirk just before he could close the gap hes cut off by hannah and allie.
“right, that’s our cue to leave”
“yeah we’re just gonna go”
as they leave you and logan break out in giggles, he gently grabs your face pulling you in for a soft kiss. the kiss going from soft and sweet to more passionate.
it felt as if he was your oxygen
after a few minutes, your lips bruised, each breath coming out shaky your chest rising too fast to calm down, your cheeks flushed, logans hair slightly messy from your hands in it, his eyes half-lidded, dazed if this was his reaction to a temporary tattoo, how would he react to a real one
you guys made your way back to your friends, immediately when you get to them dean is practically floating after hearing about this tattoo
“alright let’s see it.” deans says enthusiastically like you were about to show him your first born
“wait.”
dean held up his hand after seeing the tattoo
“you’re telling me,” he said slowly, his eyes moving between you and logan, “that she got your number tattooed on her?”
“It’s fake,” you immediately said.
dean ignores you and carries on.
“that’s not the point.”
“It’s literally the entire point.”
dean turns to logan and immediately starts to interrogate him.
“did you cry?”
logan immediately dismissing that while looking offended
“I didn’t cry.”
“you look like you cried.”
“I didn’t cry.”
dean pointed dramatically.
“see? that is literally exactly what someone who cried would say.”
“shut up.”
“no, because I need to know.”
dean stepped closer.
“when you saw it, did wedding bells start playing in your head?”
logan groaned.
“dean.”
“logan i am being so serious right now.”
“well dean i am not having this conversation.”
dean gasped.
“omg.”
“what?”
“you totally imagined your future together, are you guys having kids together, no wait what’s the colour scheme for the wedding.”
“I hate you.”
“you did!”
logan buried his face in his hands.
across the room, garrett looked seconds away from falling off the couch laughing.
meanwhile, was just getting started.
“you know what this means, right?”
“no.”
“she’s officially your biggest fan.”
“she’s my girlfriend.”
“not anymore.”
logan looked up.
dean pointed towards you.
“that girl has got your jersey number tattooed on her body, come on logan”
you snorted.
“It was temporary.”
dean waved you off.
“details, immediately.”
then he looked back at logan.
“you’re never recovering from this.”
the grin spreading across logan’s face completely ruined any chance of arguing that.
dean immediately pointed.
“just look at him.”
“what about me”
“he’s smiling again.”
“am not.”
“he’s smiling.”
“am not.”
“he’s smiling at the tattoo.”
logan groaned.
dean leaned back triumphantly.
“best prank ever.”
“best prank ever,” hannah agreed.
“best prank ever,” allie echoed.
logan looked towards you.
unfortunately, the stupid smile returned instantly.
dean saw it.
and immediately started screaming.
authors note: guys if i’m being honest im not sure how i feel about this, love the idea but i think i could’ve done better. after he finds out about the tattoo, i wasn’t sure how to go on from there so i decided to throw dean in just to make it longer.
omg guys i just edited this i did not know it had so many mistakes 😭
summary: reader helps a woman with her baby. logan experiences a little baby fever. fluff, short fic. requested!
The sound of a bell ringing takes you out of your almost meditative state of sweeping floors. You turn to face the door, expecting to see Logan, just to find a woman and her baby staring back at you.
“We’re closed for the night. Sorry, ma’am.”
“No, I know, I’m sorry—” The woman starts saying, her voice apologetic, “I was hoping I could use your bathroom? I– I just need to change, I’m meeting someone and she dropped her juice on my shirt.”
Now that you’re closer, you can see the big, orange spot in her white shirt, along with the way the sling tugs on her shoulders and the frown on her young face, “I won’t take long, I promise.”
“Yeah, absolutely,” you nod, “Second door to the left, ma’am.”
“Uh, one more thing.” Her face twists in embarrassment, “I’m so sorry, do you mind holding her while I do it? I don’t have her stroller with me, I was just going–” She starts rambling, stopping to compose herself, “I’m sorry, it’s been a long day.”
You offer her a reassuring smile, “It’s okay. Here, hand me her–” you leave aside the broom you were holding, quickly cleaning your hands on a cloth over your shoulder. The woman carefully takes her baby out of the sling, handing her to you. The baby starts kicking her legs, making you chuckle, “Someone’s happy to be off the sling.”
She’s a quiet thing, the baby. Chubby face and big, dark eyes looking up at you. “This is Posie.” Her mother says, “I’m Mary. Thank you for watching her.”
“No problem.” You smile at her, Posie looking curiously at you, “Take your time, yeah? There’s paper towels in there, feel free to use it.”
Mary nods thankfully, quickly rushing to the bathroom. You look around the place, holding Posie on your hip as you fish the phone out of your back pocket — Logan was supposed to pick you up after practice today, but you don’t think you’ll close the bar in time. You're trying your best to type a quick message using just one hand when the door bell dings again.
“Hey, hon—” Logan walks in, stopping on his tracks once he sees you holding Posie. He looks around, eyebrows crossed in confusion, “Did I step into an alternate universe? Since when do we have a baby?”
“Ha ha. Very funny, Logan.” You say sarcastically, then smiling at the baby in your arms, “This is Posie. Her mom’s in the back using the restroom.”
Poor little Posie seems to grow fussy over the mention of her mother, face twisting in a frown much like her mother’s, “Aw, darling. You’re alright.” You say, voice so gentle, “Your mom’s in the bathroom. Let’s give her some time, yeah?”
Logan watches as the baby starts blubbering in your arms, and you shift to rest her little head over your shoulder. Your hands move to Posie’s small back, comforting her as you shush her little cries.
He can’t remember if he’s ever seen you interacting with a kid ever, but he thinks it must be the first time. There’s no way he’d ever forget this feeling, he decides, as he feels his ribs tugging, heart melting in such a lovely way.
“It’s okay,” you keep repeating, “You’re okay, Posie. Don’t cry, please. Let’s not startle your mom.”
Posie settles a little, lips still curved but now quiet, eyes fluttering closed.
“You’re good with kids.” He whispers to you, trying not to alarm the baby. You look up at him, watching as his eyes move from little Posie to you, pupils dark and adoring, “I think I’d be good too.”
Your lips quiver into a little smile, “Don’t even think about that.”
“What?” He lets out a quiet, incredulous laugh, “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yes, you were. I can see it in your face.” You say, and his mouth splits into a smile, “See! Stop!”
He shrugs, still smiling, “Okay, not thinking anymore.” Logan takes a step back, hands on his varsity pockets, “You’d want one?”
Your hand keeps drawing circles on little Posie’s back. “I don’t know. Maybe someday?” You murmur, “Do I have to answer now?”
“No,” he chuckles, “Of course not. I’m just wondering.”
“Okay. Someday, then.”
He hums, “Someday.”
Mary doesn’t take too long in the restroom. You quickly introduce her to your boyfriend, saying he’s here to pick you up. She seems mortified to have stalled you both, but thanks you profusely once she finds her daughter so close to sleeping in your arms.
“She’s so tired, poor thing.” Mary says, adjusting little Posie on her sling, “Thank you again.”
You just shake your head, “Have a good night, you and Posie.”
Logan helps you finish cleaning the place, stacking the chairs as you finish sweeping, a quiet domesticity fog dawning over you both. You watch as he looks up at you every other minute, a chuckle breaking through his lips.
You don’t scold him for his obvious train of thought. Instead, you quickly press a giggly kiss on his cheek, him wrapping his arms around you for a bit. There’s no promise over your heads, just a glimpse of a possible future, someday.
notes: thank you for reading! requests are open! likes/reblogs/thoughts are appreciated! <3
A/N: This was requested by an Anon. I took some creative liberty and made her insecure about his crush on Hannah as well.
Pairing: John Logan x reader
Words: 1,8k
Warning(s): feeling insecure, slight angst but happy end
The first month of dating John Logan should have been the happiest month of your life. Instead, it terrified you. Not because Logan did anything wrong, in fact, that was the problem, he did everything right.
He texted you every morning before you were even fully awake, he always managed to find you between classes, even if it was only for a few minutes. He kissed your forehead absentmindedly while you studied together and wrapped an arm around your shoulders whenever you would walk across campus. He even remembered the little things you mentioned once in passing, like your favourite coffee order, the movie you’d watched a hundred times as a kid, and the fact that you hated thunderstorms but loved sitting by the window when it rained. Every day, he made you feel important, wanted, and cared for. And every day you become more convinced that it couldn’t possibly last. The problem wasn't Logan; the problem was you.
Before Logan, there had been other relationships. Relationships that had slowly chipped away at your confidence until there was almost nothing left. Ex-boyfriends who had made you feel like you were too much one day and not enough the next. Guys who flirted with other girls right in front of you and then accused you of being dramatic when you got upset. Guys who compared you to other women without even realising the damage they were doing. Over time, you had learned a dangerous lesson: if someone seemed to love you, it was only a matter of time before they changed their mind.
Then Logan had come along, and he was wonderful, which somehow made everything worse. Because you knew about his crush on Hannah, everyone knew about that. You remembered hearing stories before you and Logan ever got together. How hopelessly gone he’d been for her. How he’d looked at her like she hung the moon in the sky. How long he’d spent wanting someone who was never really his. Hannah and Garrett had their happy ending now, but that didn’t erase the history. It didn’t erase the fact that Logan had once wanted someone else so badly that everyone around him had noticed.
And you couldn’t stop wondering if those feelings had truly disappeared. Every time you saw Hannah on campus, your stomach twisted itself in knots. Hannah was beautiful in a way that seemed effortless. She laughed loudly. She spoke confidently. She never appeared self-conscious or unsure of herself. She fit naturally into every room she entered. Standing next to her made you feel painfully aware of every flaw you spent hours trying to hide. The comparisons became automatic. Hannah was prettier, funnier, more outgoing, confident, just everything. Meanwhile, you spent twenty minutes staring into the bathroom mirror every morning, wondering why Logan had chosen you at all.
At first, you managed to keep all those thoughts hidden. You smiled when you needed to smile, you laughed at Logan’s jokes, and you kissed him back when he kissed you, but the insecurities have a way of growing in silence. The longer you kept them to yourself, the larger they became. Eventually, you started pulling away from him without even realising it. You answered texts a little slower, you stopped initiating affection, and you constantly found excuses when Logan asked you to hang out.
Some days you convinced yourself that you were protecting your heart. That if you got too attached, it would hurt even more when he left. It was better to create some distance now than be blindsided later. The irony was that you were creating the very thing you feared, and Logan was starting to notice.
And every time you would lie, every single time. Because how were you supposed to explain something that sounded so ridiculous out loud?
Sorry, Logan. I think you're secretly in love with another girl even though you've never given me a reason to think that.
Sorry, Logan. I think you're going to leave me because everyone else eventually did.
Sorry, Logan. I hate myself so much that I can't believe someone like you could actually love me.
So, instead, you just smiled and told him you were fine. However, he didn’t believe you.
One Friday night he showed up at your apartment unexpectedly. You had just gotten out of the shower when you heard a knock on the door. You opened it, wearing sweatpants and an oversized shirt, immediately freezing when you saw him standing there. He looked nervous, actually nervous, and that alone made your heart drop to your stomach.
"Hey," you said quietly.
"Hey." You both just stood there, not moving at all, before Logan started to rub the back of his neck. "Can I come in?"
Something about the expression on his face made panic flare inside your chest. This was it. He was breaking up with you. The thought arrived so quickly and naturally that you barely questioned it. Of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be?
You silently stepped aside and let him enter. Logan walked into the living room before turning to face you. The moment he did, you saw the concern that was written all over his face. It didn’t look like anger or frustration, just concern, which somehow made you feel even worse.
"Talk to me," he said softly.
You looked away immediately. "About what?"
His jaw tightened. "About whatever's been going on for the last few weeks."
Your stomach dropped. "Nothing's going on."
"Y/N." The way he said your name nearly broke you, because there was no accusation in his voice, only worry. "I know something's wrong."
You folded your arms across your chest, contemplating your answer, before finally settling on "I'm fine."
"No, you're not." The silence stretched between you. Logan took a deep breath before he continued. "You barely answer my texts anymore." You stared at the floor. "You don't reach for my hand." Your eyes started to burn. "You keep finding reasons not to see me, and I don't know what I did."
That was what finally shattered you. He wasn’t angry with you, he didn’t blame you for anything, just a genuine belief that he had somehow caused this. Tears filled your eyes immediately, and Logan’s expression changed the second he saw them.
"Oh, baby." The nickname only made you cry harder. You sank onto the couch and covered your face. Everything you had spent weeks hiding came crashing down at once. The jealousy, the fear, the self-hatred, the constant comparisons, the certainty that you were just temporary and that you were a rebound, a placeholder. Just someone who happened to be there because the girl Logan actually wanted wasn’t available. The words poured out between sobs. They were messy, embarrassing, and impossible to stop. By the time you finished, you felt completely exposed and humiliated. You were certain that Logan would finally see how broken you really were.
Your apartment fell silent. For several long seconds Logan didn't say anything, when you finally forced yourself to look up, the expression on his face wasn't annoyance. It was heartbreak, like hearing you say those things had physically hurt him.
"Y/N," he said quietly. His voice sounded rough. "You really think that?"
Fresh tears slid down your cheeks, but you couldn’t answer. Logan moved to sit beside you, then he gently took your hands away from your face.
"You really think you're a placeholder to me?" The pain in his eyes was unbearable.
"I just..." you whispered. "I don't know why you'd pick me."
Something inside Logan seemed to crack. He reached for you right away, pulling you into his lap and wrapping his arms around you so tightly you could barely breathe.
"You have no idea how much I hate hearing you say that."
You buried your face against his shoulder and softly whispered, "I know you loved Hannah."
"Hannah was a crush," Logan sighed heavily. You didn’t respond. "A crush," he repeated. "Do you know what that means?" His question was met by silence.
"It means I built a fantasy in my head about someone I barely knew." He tilted your chin upward. "This is real." His hand rested over your heart. "You are real." Then he pressed your hand against his chest. "And this? This is real too."
Tears blurred your vision. "I don't compare you to Hannah,” he said firmly. "I don't think about Hannah when I'm with you."
He pressed a kiss to your forehead. "I don't wish you were Hannah."
Then he pressed a kiss to your temple before continuing, "I don't want Hannah."
A kiss to your cheek. "I want you."
Your breath caught in your throat. Logan rested his forehead against yours.
"You,” his voice cracked slightly. "Just you."
For a moment neither of you spoke. Then Logan admitted quietly, "Do you know what I thought was happening?" You shook your head. “I thought you stopped liking me."
His confession stunned you. "What?"
A sad laugh escaped him, "You kept pulling away." His eyes searched hers. "And every day I wondered what I did wrong."
The guilt hit you instantly. "Oh my God."
"I was terrified."
You stared at him. John Logan. Confident, charming, popular John Logan was terrified because he thought he was losing you. The realisation changed something inside you. For weeks you’d been so focused on your own fears that you’d forgotten Logan had feelings too. Forgotten that he cared. Forgotten that relationships involved two people. He wasn't some untouchable guy waiting for someone better to come along. He was your boyfriend, and he loved you.
The months that followed weren't perfect. Healing never happens overnight. There were still bad days. There were still moments when old insecurities crept back into your mind. Moments when you doubted yourself. Moments when you struggled to believe you deserved the love Logan gave you, but Logan never made you face those moments alone. He didn't magically fix your, he couldn’t, what he did instead was stay. He stayed when you were feeling insecure, when you overthought things, when you were afraid. Day after day. Week after week. And slowly, you started believing him. And not because he constantly told you that you were beautiful, or because he showered you with affection. It was because he proved it, over and over again, with his actions, his patience, and with his unwavering choice to love you.
For the first time in your life, you began to understand something you had never truly believed before. Love wasn’t supposed to feel like waiting for someone to leave. Love was supposed to feel like someone choosing to stay. And John Logan chose you every single day.
John was clingy when he was tired in a way that was almost unfair.
When he was fully awake, he acted like he had his life together. He was calm, easygoing, a little too charming for his own good, and just smug enough to be annoying when he wanted to be.
But when he was half asleep, all of that disappeared.
What was left was soft, warm, and deeply attached to you.
You discovered this on a Sunday morning when you tried to get out of bed before he woke up.
The room was still dim, the blankets tangled around your legs, and John was sprawled out beside you in one of those ridiculous positions that somehow looked comfortable only to him. His hair was a mess against the pillow, his face turned toward you, one arm draped over your waist like he had been holding on all night without letting go.
You moved carefully, trying not to wake him.
It almost worked.
You had one foot on the floor when a hand caught the back of your shirt.
You froze.
“Where are you going?” John mumbled.
His voice was rough with sleep, low and thick and far too cute for someone who had already decided to ruin your escape plan.
You looked back at him. “I was getting up.”
His eyes were barely open, just a sleepy sliver of blue looking at you like you had personally offended him. “No, you weren’t.”
You blinked. “Yes, I was.”
John groaned and tightened his grip on your shirt just enough to make his point. “It’s too early.”
“It’s nine.”
“That is early.”
You tried not to smile. “You have practice in an hour.”
He made a sleepy sound that was halfway between a sigh and a complaint. “I know.”
“Then you should get up.”
John opened his eyes a little more, looked at you for one long second, and then shook his head against the pillow. “Absolutely not.”
You laughed quietly. “John.”
He reached for you with the hand that had been holding your shirt and hooked it around your waist instead, tugging you back toward the bed with slow, sleepy determination.
You let out a surprised sound as your balance shifted. “John, hey,”
But he had already succeeded.
He pulled you back against him until your back hit his chest and his arm settled across your middle like that was where it belonged. Then, without even opening his eyes all the way, he pressed a soft kiss to your shoulder.
It was so gentle and so absentminded that it nearly made you melt on the spot.
“Five more minutes,” he mumbled.
You let out a laugh. “You always say that.”
“Because it always works.”
“It does not always work.”
John hummed, clearly unconcerned by the truth of that statement. His hand slid over your stomach once, then settled there, warm and steady. “It works on you.”
You turned your head just enough to look at him over your shoulder. “That is manipulation.”
He smiled against your shoulder without opening his eyes. “That is love.”
You gave him a scandalized look that he absolutely did not see. “You are impossible.”
John’s answer was a sleepy kiss to the back of your shoulder blade.
You made a helpless noise, half laugh and half sigh, and he took that as permission to cling harder. One of his legs tangled with yours under the blanket, and suddenly there was no chance of getting up unless you physically fought him for it.
Which, judging by the way he was holding onto you, would have been a losing battle.
“John,” you said, trying for stern and failing a little, “you need to let me get up.”
He buried his face for a second against the top of your shoulder. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
You twisted a little in his arms so you could look at him properly. “You are acting like a giant sleepy baby.”
That got his attention.
John blinked at you, still very much half asleep, then frowned with all the seriousness he could manage while looking like he had just woken from the deepest nap of his life.
“I am not a baby,” he said.
“You’re pouting.”
“I’m not pouting.”
“You are absolutely pouting.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re mean in the morning.”
You laughed and reached up to smooth his hair back from his forehead. “You’re the one refusing to let go of me.”
He caught your hand before you could pull away and pressed a kiss into your palm, eyes still heavy with sleep. “You’re warm.”
That made your expression soften immediately.
John noticed, because of course he did. Even half asleep, he was still annoyingly good at that.
He tightened his hold around your waist again and added in a much smaller voice, “And you were gone.”
You paused.
Gone.
It was such a simple thing to say, but it landed in your chest with quiet force.
You looked at him. “I was just getting up.”
“I know.”
His thumb moved absently against your side. “Still.”
That made the teasing in your expression ease away. “Still?”
John opened one eye just enough to meet yours, and there was something so soft there it made your throat go a little tight.
“Yeah,” he said. “Still.”
You let yourself relax back into him then, your hand settling over his where it rested at your waist. For a moment the room was quiet except for the sound of breathing and the faint noise of the city outside the window.
Then John sighed dramatically and pulled you closer with both arms this time, like he had finally decided subtlety was overrated.
“Okay,” he muttered into your hair. “Maybe five more minutes.”
You smiled into the pillow. “Only five?”
He was quiet for a second.
Then, very seriously, he said, “Maybe ten.”
You laughed. “That is not what you just said.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You’re negotiating in your sleep.”
“I’m very persuasive.”
You turned your head again and glanced at him. “You are very sleepy.”
“That too.”
He kissed your shoulder once more, this one lingering a little longer than the others, and you could feel the warmth of it right through your skin.
There was something impossible about the way John got like this when he was tired. He was still John, still quietly funny, still handsome in that unfair way that made you stare at him when you thought he wasn’t looking, but the edges were softer. Needier. More honest somehow.
Like sleep took away the part of him that tried so hard not to need anyone.
You reached back and let your fingers run lightly through his hair. “You know you’re being clingy, right?”
His answer was a sleepy grunt. “Mm-hm.”
“And you don’t care?”
Another kiss landed against your shoulder.
“Nope.”
That made you grin.
You shifted a little, just enough to face him, and found him looking at you with one eye open and the most stubborn expression you had ever seen on someone who was technically barely awake.
“What?” he asked.
You smiled. “Nothing.”
He clearly did not believe you. “That means something.”
“I just think it’s cute.”
John stared at you for a beat, then went entirely still.
That was your first warning.
The second was the way his mouth twitched.
The third was when he suddenly reached out, grabbed you around the waist, and hauled you fully back into bed with him in one smooth motion.
You let out a startled laugh as he rolled closer, one arm pinning you gently against him while his face buried itself in the crook of your neck.
“John!”
“Too late,” he mumbled.
You were laughing harder now, trying and failing to push at his shoulder. “You are ridiculous.”
He made a low sleepy sound that was suspiciously close to a hum of contentment. “Mm. You love me.”
Your laughter softened.
You looked down at him, at the way his eyes had drifted shut again, at the way his arm stayed tight around your waist as if he was afraid the world might steal you away if he loosened his grip.
He was so obviously half asleep, and yet somehow he still managed to sound completely certain.
You brushed your fingers over his cheek. “Yeah,” you said quietly. “I do.”
John’s eyes opened just enough to catch your face, and something warm and lazy spread across his expression.
Then, because he was apparently determined to ruin every attempt you made at being coherent, he pressed one final kiss to your shoulder and sighed like he had finally found exactly where he wanted to be.
“Good,” he murmured. “Now stay.”
And with that, John closed his eyes again, held you tighter, and went right back to sleep like keeping you in bed was the most natural thing in the world.
summary: logan falls for garretts twin sister. garrett is not happy.
—
Garrett knew something was off long before he had proof.
It started small.
Logan suddenly getting up to leave the room whenever you came over.
You going weirdly quiet anytime Logan’s name got brought up.
And then there was the eye contact. Jesus Christ, the eye contact.
Garrett noticed it during movie night at the house.
You sat curled into the corner of the couch scrolling through your phone while Logan leaned against the kitchen counter pretending to watch the TV.
But he wasn’t watching the TV.
He was watching you.
Not even subtly.
You looked up at one point and your eyes locked for maybe half a second too long before Logan immediately looked away.
Garrett narrowed his eyes.
Then Logan left the room entirely.
Garrett turned toward you. “Why’d he run away like you’ve got the plague?”
Your face went suspiciously blank. “How would I know?”
“Uh huh.”
That was the beginning.
Now, Garrett walked into Logan’s bedroom at one in the morning without knocking namely seeking a condom, because boundaries had never existed in their friendship, only to freeze dead in the doorway.
You sat cross-legged on Logan’s bed wearing one of Logan’s hoodies.
Logan sat beside you.
Way too close beside you.
All three of you stared at each other for one horrible second.
Then Garrett exploded. “What the fuck?”
You jumped up instantly. “Garrett, calm down.”
“No, absolutely not,” Garrett snapped, pointing at Logan. “You.”
Logan stood slowly. “G.”
“Don’t G me, asshole!”
You groaned quietly. “This is why we didn’t tell you.”
Garrett whipped around. “Oh good, so you KNOW this is insane.”
“It’s not insane.”
“It’s Logan.”
Logan crossed his arms. “Little insulting, bud.”
You moved between them before Garrett could fully lose his mind.
“Nothing bad is happening.”
Garrett laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. “You’re sitting in his bed at one in the morning wearing his clothes.”
You pinched the bridge of your nose. “Oh my god.”
But Garrett wasn’t even close to done.
Because now that he was really looking at Logan, he could see it.
The nerves.
The guilt.
The way Logan kept glancing toward you automatically like he was checking you were okay.
And suddenly Garrett felt sick.
“You’re serious?”
Your expression softened slightly.
Logan looked away.
And that was somehow worse.
Garrett stared at his best friend in disbelief. “No.”
“Garrett,” you started carefully.
“No, because this idiot does not do serious.”
Logan’s jaw tightened.
You crossed your arms. “People change.”
“Not him.”
“That’s enough,” Logan said quietly.
Garrett looked at him then, really looked at him, and somehow that made him angrier.
“You crush on my girlfriend and my sister?” Garrett barked out a laugh. “God, John, you want what I’ve got so badly.”
The room went dead silent.
You looked horrified instantly. “Garrett.”
Logan physically flinched.
And Garrett regretted it immediately.
Because Hannah had never really been a thing.
Sure, Logan had liked her once. Everybody knew that. But Logan had buried it the second Garrett and Hannah became real.
He’d stepped aside without complaint because Garrett was his best friend. And now Garrett had just weaponised it.
Logan swallowed hard once before speaking.
“That’s not fair.”
Garrett rubbed both hands over his face angrily. “You’re my best friend.”
“I know.”
“And she’s my sister.”
“I know that too.”
“Then what the hell were you thinking?”
Logan looked over at you then.
Not Garrett.
You.
Like you were the answer to the question.
“I tried not to.”
Your breath caught slightly.
Garrett stared at him.
And damn it all, Logan looked honest.
“I stayed away from her for months,” Logan admitted quietly. “I avoided her whenever I could. I didn’t want this.”
You reached for his hand instinctively. Logan took it immediately.
Garrett looked down at your joined hands and felt another wave of betrayal.
“You kept this from me.”
You sighed. “Because we knew you’d react like this.”
“You think?”
“You act like Logan’s some random asshole.”
“He kind of is.”
“Garrett.”
“I’m serious.”
Logan actually huffed a laugh at that. “Fair.”
But you looked furious now. “No, it’s not fair. You know him better than anyone.”
Garrett looked between you both.
At you standing protectively in front of Logan.
At Logan looking at you like you were the only thing in the room.
Garrett had seen Logan hook up with girls for years.
None of them had ever looked like this.
“You love her?” Garrett asked suddenly.
Your eyes widened.
Logan didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah.”
The answer hit the room hard.
Garrett felt his stomach drop.
Because Logan meant it.
You looked stunned too, staring up at Logan like you hadn’t expected him to say it out loud.
But Logan never looked away from Garrett.
Like he knew exactly what admitting that meant.
Garrett exhaled slowly.
“This is a horrible idea.”
You rolled your eyes immediately. “Thank you for the blessing.”
“I’m not blessing anything.”
Logan finally spoke again, quieter this time. “I know I don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt here. But I would never hurt her.”
Garrett looked at him for a long moment.
His best friend.
His idiot best friend.
Who looked more afraid of losing you than Garrett had ever seen him look about anything.
“Yeah,” Garrett muttered reluctantly. “Well you saw what I did to that kid from St A’s so hurt her and say bye to your pretty face, John.”
Summary: When your car battery dies, there's only one person who can help you.
Pairing: john logan x graham! reader
A/N: based on this request :) i just finished watching off campus and i am obsessed UGH i love them all so much. kinda thinking about a part two where we get more of Logan's view on reader?? idk what it would be like yet though. reader is written as graham's sister, but as i am a WOC i never think of my readers as white-- so this could be read as like an adopted sibling/half sibling vibe! whatever works for your experience of reading it.
Word Count: 2.3k
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to anything related to DC, I am merely a nerd who hyperfixates a lot. I do not consent for my works to be reuploaded on other websites, plagiarised, translated, or fed into AI media.
Warnings !: reader is thirsty LMAO, hopeless pining on your part, unclear whether or not john returns your crush?? mentions of hannah. I have also never read the books— so this is solely based off of show logan :)
"G, don't panic." Are the first words out of your mouth when you call your brother. This of course has the opposite effect. In the background, you can hear Garrett hastily quieting the others.
"What happened? Are you hurt? Where are you?"
"I'm fine. I'm not hurt, but I'm—"
"Are you alone?"
"Yes, but—"
"Are you somewhere safe?"
"Garrett, if you let me speak, I could tell you that I'm fine." You sigh, a hand coming up to run through your hair. "I think my car battery died. I'm somewhere on the side of the road in Arlington."
A beat of silence. You can kind of hear the chatter from the other line, the absurd overlap of four, twenty-something-year-old, hockey players, discussing what's happening. Then, somewhere in the background, you hear someone — you don't even have to guess who, you could pinpoint him in any hectic frenzy— say "G, is she okay?"
Garrett ignores him, "What do you mean you think the battery is dead?"
"I mean I was driving back to campus when my lights started flickering and the next thing I know everything in my car is off."
"While you were driving?"
"Yes. What was unclear from the story?" You say bluntly.
"Holy shit, Y/N, did you get into an accident—"
"Relax, Gar. As I said, I managed to pull off to the side. I was the only person on the road. The point is, there's no one around to jump my shit and everything is closed."
"Okay, Okay. I can be there in like, twenty minutes—"
"Thought you were meeting with that philosophy tutor at 9— it's 8:48." You hear him let out a frustrated huff.
"I can cancel—"
"No. You can't, Garrett. Cancelling twelve minutes before a session is fucked up and you need the help." Another pause. You can practically hear him deflating.
"I'll send Logan."
Garrett hangs up before you can protest.
You stare at your phone for a second, then at the road, then at your phone again. Arlington is dead quiet this time of night, just streetlights and the distant sound of the city somewhere behind you. You lean back against the car and try not to think about the fact that John Logan is currently getting in his truck to come and look at your now sad, broken down wrangler.
Which you of course fail at.
Your phone buzzes.
John Logan flashes across the screen and you take one full second to compose yourself before answering.
"I'm in Arlington. Somewhere off Mass Ave, like in the suburbs somewhere? I can send my location—"
"Hello to you too."
You close your eyes. "Hi. I'm about a mile past the intersection off Mass Ave, pulled over by the—"
"Are you alright?"
It's a simple question. One that shouldn't make you lose your breath the way it is right now.
"I'm fine."
"G said you were on the road when the battery died?"
"Yeah." You try to brush off the obvious concern in his voice.
"Must have been scary. Are you alright?" He asks once more. Perceptive as always. There's a pause, but you can hear what sounds like the start of Logan's car. You dodge his question by just staying silent.
"Sit tight. I'm twenty minutes out."
You nod, though he obviously can't see. "Okay. See you soon."
You hear his car before you see it.
The low rumble of his engine cuts through the quiet of Arlington like it owns the street, headlights sweeping around the corner and finding you immediately. You straighten up, cross your arms, and do your best to school your expression. It's just Logan. He's just being a good friend and doing your brother a favor. His car pulls up right in front of yours and he kills the engine, hopping out of the car with both of his hands in his jacket pockets.
He doesn't say anything yet, just looks you over, and then the car.
"Get the hood?"
You furrow your eyebrows. "What?"
"Can you pop the hood?"
"Oh. Yeah, sorry." You mumble, walking to the front of the car where the latches of the hood are, and pop them open. You get the center hook, and Logan is there to put the prop rod up.
You take a step away from the car, giving Logan space. He pulls his phone out,turns on the flashlight, and takes a look at the battery inside. You lean against the driver's side door and watch him work, which feels awkward, so you look at the street instead. Then at your nails. Then back at him because there is genuinely nothing else to look at.
"When's the last time you replaced the battery?" He asks, not looking away from it.
"Um. I don't know."
He does look up at that. Just briefly.
"Garrett bought it used for me about two years ago."
"…So never, then?"
"So never." You pause, approaching his side and peering into the hood as well.
"Is that bad?"
The look he gives you is somewhere between amused and pained. "Yeah."
"Cool." You pull your cardigan around yourself just a bit tighter. "So it's my fault."
"That's not at all what I said—"
"It was implied."
"I implied that your battery was old." He turns to you. "That's not your fault. It's just what it is. Do you have jumper cables?"
"Do I look like I own jumper cables?"
"You look like a car owner, which means you should have jumper cables."
You open your mouth to argue, but close it. He is right. He tosses you the keys to his car, which you narrowly drop.
"Cables are in the trunk."
You take a deep breath, and walk towards his car trying to compose yourself. You can't help just how undone you feel around him. Like all sense of composure ceases being. When you open the trunk of his car, you get a waft of the air inside. It, much to your surprise, doesn't smell like sweaty hockey gear, but like Logan himself. A rich cedar with citrusy undertones to balance it. You locate the cables quickly, which means you have no reason to keep standing there, breathing him in. You grab the cables, and with a little more force than necessary, slam the trunk closed.
When you get back to the Wrangler he's crouched by the front again, looking at something on his phone, and he glances up when he hears you coming. You hold the cables out and he stands, taking them from you.
"Thanks," he says.
"Yep," you say.
Very normal. Totally fine.
"Okay." He holds the cables out toward you instead of the car. "Come here."
You blink. "I don't need to—"
"You should know how to do this." He says it simply, like it's obvious, like he's not just voluntarily extending the amount of time you have to stand next to him in the dark. "Come on."
You oblige.
He walks you through what needs to be done patiently. No condecension in his tone. You imagine if this is how he talks to the freshman boys on the hockey team…or if this is the tone he takes up when talking someone through it.
Pushing that thought to the back of your brain where you hopefully never find it again, he holds the cables out to you. One red and one black clamp.
"Two hands. Don't let these touch. Get into the habit of it." You nod, but reach for the cables with one hand, to which he pulls them out of your reach and shoots you a deadpan look. You shake your head in an attempt to get your mind back.
"Sorry." You take them with two hands, and he continues to talk about how the cables work.
"Red to dead first." He nods toward your battery. "Always."
You crouch down next to him and clip it where he points. "Red to dead," you repeat.
"Then red to donor." He reaches past you to attach the other end to his own battery, and for approximately one second his arm is right there and you are very focused on the cable. "Then black to donor."
"Black to donor."
"Last one goes on bare metal. Not the dead battery." He guides your hand — just barely, just enough — to a bolt on the engine block. "Ground it here."
You clip it.
He doesn't move his hand immediately.
"Why not to the battery?" you ask, because you are super interested in the car, and not the fact that he's so close to you right now. Definitely not that.
"Sparks," he says. "Dead batteries can off-gas hydrogen. You don't want a spark near that."
"Oh." You look at the cables, then at him, which is a mistake because he is still right there. "That's probably important to know."
"That's why I'm telling you. Now, we wait a few minutes before I start my car."
He leans against the front of the Wrangler, arms crossed, looking out at the empty street. Not at you. You mirror him without thinking about it. Leaning against the hood next to him, not close enough to be something, just next to him. The streetlight above you is doing that orange late-night thing where everything looks a little warmer than it actually is.
It's quiet for a moment.
"You doing okay out here? You know, before I got here."
"It was fine."
"I'm sure it was. But that's not what I asked." He turns his head to look at you.
You look at the road. A car passes at the far end of the street, headlights sweeping briefly over the pavement, and then it's quiet again.
"It was a little scary," you admit. "When everything shut off. The car kept rolling and all I wanted to do was get out."
He nods. Doesn't make it a big deal, doesn't say I knew it or you should have said so. Just nods, like he's filing it away somewhere careful.
"You called Garrett right away?"
"Immediately."
The corner of his mouth moves. "Good."
You look at him. "You're not going to tell me I should have roadside assistance or something?"
"Do you have roadside assistance?"
"No."
"Then there's no point in telling you that now." He looks back at the street. "Now you know you should have it."
You almost smile. "Yeah. Okay."
~
"Okay." Logan pushes off the hood. "Let's try it."
He gets in his car first and you get in yours, and when he starts his engine you can feel it faintly through the steering wheel from the cables still connecting you. You wait the way he told you to. Thirty seconds, maybe a minute. Then you turn the key.
The Wrangler shudders, clicks, and then —
Catches.
The dash lights up all at once and the radio comes back on mid-song and you let out a breath you have been holding since 8:48pm.
You get back out. Logan is already unclipping the cables in the right order, black from ground, black from donor, red from donor, red from dead, staring at the way his hands look wrapped around each clamp
"You're good," he says, coiling the cables back up.
"Thank you." It comes out quieter than you mean it to. "Really. You didn't have to—"
"Garrett asked me to."
"Right." You nod, a pang of embarassment filling your chest. Right. This was a favor for his best friend— your brother. Nothing more. "Still."
He looks at you for a second, then holds out the cables. "Keep these in the car."
"What about you? I can just buy some online when I get home."
"Really? Are you actually going to?" He tilts his head skeptically.
Unfortunately, he is correct in his assumption that you will likely forget. You sigh, but take them, fingers lightly brushing his as you pull the cables away.
"I'll follow you home," he says, and then he's walking back to his car before you can tell him he doesn't have to.
You watch his headlights in the rearview mirror the whole way home.
It's a twenty three minute drive back to campus, and you are aware of him for every single one of them. Every turn signal, every stop light, the way he stays exactly two car lengths behind you like he's done this before. You turn the stereo up just a little bit louder in an attempt to drown out any more thoughts of him from your brain, which of course, fails miserably.
You pull into your complex and he pulls in behind you. You were half hoping he'd just — flash his lights and keep going, waving you off into your dorm room. Instead, he parks.
You meet him just outside of the entrance to the dorm hall, pulling your jacket just a bit tighter around your shoulders.
"Thanks again." you say again.
"It's fine."
"I know…but thank you. I really appreciate it, Logan."
Something shifts in his expression. Just briefly, just enough that you notice and then immediately question whether you imagined it.
"…Call Triple A in the morning. They can come replace your battery." You nod obediently, and he tilts his head towards you just a little bit.
"Get some sleep," he says.
You nod. "Yeah."
He doesn't move for exactly one second too long.
You watch him walk off into the darkness of the parking lot. You keep standing there even after you hear his car start, and even after the sound of his engine fades out down the street. Finally, you scan your ID and let yourself into the building taking a deep breath once you're inside.
You are completely normal about John Logan. Completely.
summary: drunk reader confesses her feelings to logan. short fic, requested (via dm)
The glittery eyeshadow makes your eyes pop, Logan thinks as he stares down at you. It’s a shame he has to take it off.
“Why are you staring at me?” You say, giggling.
He shakes his head, “Nothing. Your makeup looks really nice.”
“Thank you.” You say, beaming up at him. “Your face looks really nice.”
Logan lets out an incredulous laugh, but how could he not? You’re stupidly drunk after one of the infamous Briar U Hockey Team parties, and the alcohol seems to have completely removed the filter between your mind and your mouth, leaving you rambling your every thought to him as he decided it’s time for you to go to bed.
Now, there you are, shiny eyes looking tired under the low lights of his room, wearing his clothes, sitting cross-legged on his bed, calling him pretty. It's both adorable and nerve wracking.
“You’re just drunk, honey.”
“I am so drunk.” You nod, chuckling, “But I’ve always thought you were pretty.”
He looks at you, “Yeah?”
“Yes, sir.” You say, solemnly.
Logan shakes his head, grabbing a makeup wipe he got from Hannah’s tiny box of supplies in Garrett’s bathroom. He sits by your side and delicately grabs your chin, holding you in place. “What are you doing?”
“Taking your makeup off.” He says, concentrating on wiping your face gently enough.
“Why? You just said you liked it.”
“Because it’s time for bed. Close your eyes for me?”
You do, and Logan carefully starts removing the smudged glitter on your eyes. You hum as he wipes the make up off of your eyes, “This feels nice.”
“Yeah? Not too harsh on your skin?”
You try shaking your head no, Logan’s hand still holding you in place. You giggle, “No, it’s not harsh at all. Well,” You say, “Your fingers are a bit callous.”
He smiles at your sincerity, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I like them,” You say, then a little more sure, “I like you.”
Logan’s grip completely falters, and he lets his hands fall to his lap.
He wishes he could’ve said it took him by surprise, but honestly, no, not really. Actually, he should’ve seen it coming tonight.
It was pretty obvious that Logan had a soft spot for you from the moment you got introduced into the group by Hannah, and he might be slow, but he’s not blind — he knows you like him too. It’s like you’ve been playing a silly game of will they, won’t they, both too coy to take the initiative. Until alcohol gets involved, that is. Then all your inhibitions are swallowed down, and next thing he knows, you’re a dream come true confessing your feelings for him.
It can’t be like that, Logan thinks.
You open your left eye just slightly, peeking through your lashes, “Logan?”
“I– I think you should go to bed,” he says, not giving you any time to repeat yourself, getting up from his bed, “We can talk in the morning, yeah?”
You blink, face turning from giddy-drunk to frowny-drunk, “Okay.”
Not okay, he can tell from your curved lips. “Yeah? You good?”
“Yeah.” You say, crawling to the top of his bed. “All good. Night, Logan.”
“Hey,” he says before you can close your eyes, “We talk in the morning, okay?”
You nod, then hide under the covers.
—
Logan doesn’t see you in the morning.
In fact, he wakes up with an awful back pain from sleeping on the big chair near his bed, just to find his bed empty, clothes carefully folded and not another sign of you.
Fuck, he thinks, grabbing his phone from the nightstand to check if there’s any phone calls or texts from you, to no success. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Logan gathers his last bits of hope to go downstairs, but the house is silent, and everyone seems to be asleep still.
He tries calling you, but you won’t answer. He texts you, hey, can we talk? Then, please? to no avail.
By the end of the morning, he’s desperately knocking on your bedroom door.
“Oh, my God,” You show up at the door, flunging it open, “What the fuck is wrong with– Oh. Logan. I– I wasn’t expecting you–”
“I called you.” He cuts you off, “I mean, you weren’t there this morning, and I tried calling but you wouldn’t answer. I– I was hoping we could talk?”
You frown, “So you can reject me to my face? Again? No, thank you. I’m too hungover for this.”
“No, no. What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about me reading this,” you point between you both, frustrated, “all wrong. Look, I’m sorry, but I thought–”
“I like you.” He says, watching as you close your mouth, taking a step back. He follows your step, getting an inch closer.
“You do?”
He scoffs, “Honey, you know I do.”
“I don’t know anything, Logan.” You answer softly, “I thought I did, but…”
“But you were really fucking drunk,” he says, hiding back a laugh as he gets closer, “And calling me pretty, and– And I was thinking, god, I like you so fucking much.”
You grin at him, “Really?”
Logan refuses to answer you, his lips finding the corner of your mouth, chasing your kiss over and over and over again til you’re dizzy again, drunk on something much stronger this time.
notes: thank you for reading! requests are open! likes/reblogs/thoughts are appreciated! <3
Summary: Logan and Y/N were best friends for as long as they could remember. They did everything together; they knew one another inside and out. Especially after they decided to become friends with benefits. What happens when the feelings become a little to real for Logan?
This was inspired when listening to Madison Beer's new album :) Especially after listening to Lovergirl and the Locket Theme
John Logan used to know exactly where to find Y/N.
Either being curled up on the couch of the hockey house, his hoodie on her figure while Dean complained about having to take care of kitchen clean-up this time. Her laughs echoing across the house. Or when she was outside with them all, encouraging their lift sessions as she joined in.
Or he could find her in the passenger seat of his truck during midnight drives. The nights where he could find her waiting for him after practice with a sarcastic comment, and leftovers from Malone’s she swore she wasn't buying specifically for him.
For years, she was his person. His absolute best friend. Garrett couldn’t compare to her.
Y/N was his favorite girl. His favorite mistake.
She was the girl he called when he couldn't sleep. She became the girl whose bed he'd climb into after parties. She became the girl he kissed when friendship stopped being enough, but commitment felt too terrifying.
They never put a label on it, and deep down, that was Logan's first mistake.
Because somewhere between late-night study sessions, tangled sheets, and whispered secrets, Y/N fell in love with him. She didn’t realize it until one night, tangled up in his sheets after quite a few rounds, his biceps wrapping around her naked figure. The way he would cover her up so she wouldn’t get goosebumps along her skin.
It was the way they held deep conversations during the night when everyone else was asleep around them. Logan kissed her like she was the only one.
The problem?
Logan did too, and he was just too much of an idiot to realize it.
So when another girl showed interest, something flipped. He didn’t know how else to put it. He didn’t want to admit he was in denial. So he said yes to her. The new girl was someone easy, uncomplicated, someone who didn't make his chest tighten every time she smiled. He convinced himself that was what he wanted.
Something simple.
Something safe.
So, Logan started seeing her. But instead of being honest with Y/N, he did something worse. He did something he knew he would never be able to take back.
He disappeared.
There was no explanation, conversation, or even a warning.
One day he was in her bed laughing at some stupid movie, cuddled up next to her like it meant nothing. Knowing it meant every fucking thing. Then the next, he stopped answering texts.
Logan stopped showing up. He even stopped looking at her.
Y/N had spent weeks wondering what she'd done wrong. She remembered sitting with Allie, Dean and Hannah, tears rolling down her face as she tried to figure out what she did wrong.
The courtyard at Briar had buzzed with the usual lunchtime chaos. Students crossed between buildings, laughter drifted through the warm spring air, and somewhere nearby a group of freshmen were throwing something back and forth.
Y/N barely noticed any of it.
She sat at the picnic table with her untouched plate in front of her, Allie had set it down knowing she hadn't eaten much in a few days. Her eyes fixed on the wood grain beneath her hands. Tears slid silently down her cheeks despite her attempts to stop them.
Across from her, Hannah looked heartbroken, while Allie reached over and squeezed Y/N's hand. While Dean had been chewing his own food, he had looked furious.
"Okay, no." He leaned back in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, but this is bullshit."
Y/N let out a shaky laugh that sounded more like a sob. "Dean."
"No." He shook his head, setting his fork down. "Seriously. One day you two are inseparable and then the next he acts like you don't exist? What the hell is that?"
She swallowed hard, sniffling lightly.
"That's what I don't understand,” Her voice cracked, as the table fell silent. Y/N stared down at her lap, picking the nail polish off of her fingertips.
"We have always been so close, we’ve always communicated when something was wrong," Her chest tightened. "We weren't officially together, but everyone knew what was happening."
Hannah nodded carefully.
"Everyone thought you guys were heading somewhere."
"Exactly, like fuck,” Y/N laughed bitterly.
"Then one morning he was just," She snapped her fingers. "Gone."
Allie frowned, running her thumbs over her friend’s hand. "He never gave you a reason?"
Y/N shook her head.
"Nothing?"
"No."
"Not even a text?"
"Nope."
The single word came out flat, and Dean muttered a curse under his breath.
"Dick."
"He stopped answering my messages." Y/N wiped at her face. "Stopped showing up. If I ran into him on campus he'd suddenly have somewhere else to be. He doesn’t come near me in class, I always catch him sitting with Beau or another one of the Hockey guys,” she explains, the hurt in her voice made all three of them wince. "I kept thinking maybe I did something-"
Allie immediately shook her head. "Don't."
"But what else am I supposed to think?" Y/N asked quietly, her tone sounding hopeless, eyes red and puffy as her lip quivers. "What if I said something wrong? What if I got too attached? What if he realized he doesn’t need me anymore?"
Dean's jaw tightened, watching Y/N’s body shrink down, shoulders sagging with a lack of hope.
"That's not it,” he mutters, shaking his head while playing with his lip.
"You don't know that."
"I know Logan."
Y/N looked up, and Dean sighed.
"I've known him for years, Y/N/N,” he says. “Living with the guy, and playing Hockey with him 25/8 kind of does that.”
"Then explain it to me, because apparently I don’t know a thing."
He opened his mouth, and then closed it. Not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't. Which made her hurt even worse.
“See?” Y/N laughed humorlessly, as Dean looked miserable.
Because the truth was he had noticed Logan acting strange. He was more withdrawn. More distracted. Every time Dean asked, Logan brushed him off. Left the house without another word.
Now, Y/N was sitting in front of him crying. Dean hated it.
"He still looks at you,” The words came softly from Hannah. Everyone turned toward her, while Y/N frowned.
"What?"
Hannah shrugged, with a slow nod. "I've seen it."
"When?"
"Everywhere."
Y/N blinked, and Hannah leaned forward.
"The library. Parties. Hockey games."
"He avoids me."
"He avoids talking to you," Hannah corrected.
Y/N stared. “Han, he’s avoiding me altogether. Like I don’t even exist.”
Something flickered across Y/N's face. Slight Hope. She still felt completely fucked up, and tired, but that hope was dangerous.
"If he notices me, then why won't he talk to me?"
Nobody had an answer, because that was the question. It was the one that didn't make sense. Yet, it was also still the one that had been tearing Y/N apart for weeks. She lowered her gaze again.
"Maybe he met someone,” Y/N frowns to herself, her eyes darting between her and Allie’s linked hands on the table.
The possibility tasted like poison, and Dean immediately shook his head.
"No."
"You don't know that."
"Y/N, I do."
"How?"
"Because if Logan had a girlfriend, Tucker would've accidentally announced it to the entire campus within twelve minutes."
That earned a small laugh from Hannah, and even Y/N managed a weak smile.
It came as quick as it disappeared, her face filling with heavy hurt and mental exhaustion.
"I just wish he'd tell me why. I swear I would have understood. I’ve known him for too long not to," Her voice was barely above a whisper.
The three of them exchanged glances.
Because that's what made it so awful. It wasn’t the ending, or the silence, or unanswered calls and messages. It was the not knowing that killed her most. Y/N lowered her head as fresh tears spilled onto her cheeks.
"I miss him."
The confession hung in the air. It was raw and honest. Her heart filled with breaking pain.
Across the courtyard, standing near the entrance of the student union with a hockey bag slung over his shoulder, Logan froze. Because he had heard every single word.
For the first time since he'd walked away from her, he had looked absolutely devastated.
But Hannah suddenly sat up straighter. "Wait."
Y/N sniffled, looking back over at Hannah. "What?"
Hannah's eyes lit up.
"You should write about it,” she conjures up, grabbing her songbook and a pen. Y/N laughed through her tears.
"Write what? A strongly worded email?"
"No." Hannah grinned. "Write how you’re feeling. In a song,” she admits, nodding at Y/N. “I’ve been needing ideas on how to start a melody, and finding someone to perform it with Justin being busy with his band. We can put a melody together tonight, and write up lyrics.”
Dean pointed immediately.
"Yes,” he said immediately while Allie nodded.
"Oh my goodness, yes. You’ve been in a songwriting funk, and I think this would be a perfect way to help explain your feelings throughout all of this,” Allie admits, squeezing Y/N’s hands. She gives them a sheepish look.
“I haven’t performed any of my music for anyone outside of that auditorium, Han.”
"And your voice is beautiful. Your songwriting is breathtaking. Listen,” she sighs before reaching over to place her hand over Y/N and Allie’s conjoined ones. “You're hurting," Hannah said gently. "And you're carrying all of it around because you never got closure."
Y/N looked away while Hannah continued.
"So let's make your own,” she smiles at Y/N, Allie nodding as Dean sat forward.
"And then sing it at open mic night,” he adds, going to place his hands on top of all of their’s. “I felt FOMO not holding all of your hands,” he says, making them all let out a slight chuckle. Y/N nearly choked.
"Absolutely not."
"Absolutely yes," Allie corrected.
"You know how to sing."
"That doesn't mean I want to sing about my emotional damage in front of strangers,” Y/N says. Dean shrugged, and she eyed him with a squint.
"Technically they'd be Briar students, not strangers."
"Dean."
"What? I'm helping."
For the first time all afternoon, Y/N actually laughed a real laugh.
Hannah smiled. "Come on, I will help you out with this one."
“What about date night with G?”
She pulled out her notebook, swatting at her. “He can wait, or better yet he can come listen. Be an outsider hearing it. You know he will give you an honest opinion.”
Y/N looks at them all, seeing the agonizing wait for her answer. She rolled her eyes with a sigh, wiping her tears. “Fine.”
The girls had taken over Hannah and Allie’s place for the night. Takeout containers covered the coffee table, and a half-finished bottle of wine sat between them. Sheets of notebook paper were scattered across the couch cushions as Hannah and Y/N worked on refining the song.
Allie sat cross-legged on the floor with a red pen, pretending to be some kind of music producer.
"You repeat that too many times here," Allie said, pointing it out as she chews on the edge of the pen.
"It's literally the point of the song,” Y/N chuckles, scribbling part of it out.
"I know. I'm just saying maybe make the last one hit harder."
Y/N rolled her eyes, and Hannah laughed.
"She's right."
"Traitor,” Y/N scoffed playfully, before sticking her tongue out at them both.
"Thank you,” Hannah gasps with a giggle. The mood was lighter than it had been all day.
It wasn’t healed, or good. Just light Y/N was reading over a revised verse when Allie suddenly gasped.
The room froze. Hannah looked up from her laptop, pushing her headphone to the side.
"What?"
Allie's eyes were glued to her phone, then slowly turned up to Hannah’s in horror. Y/N frowns.
“Allie?”
That single word made Y/N's stomach drop. "What?"
Nobody answered immediately, which was answer enough. Y/N slowly sat upright.
"Allie,” she says a bit more firmly. Allie winced.
"Oh no,” Hannah’s voice cuts in, her eyes glued to her laptop. Y/N shakes her head in confusion. “Oh fuck."
"Hannah,” Y/N trails off as Hannah looks horrified, and Y/N feels her pulse start racing.
"What?"
The girls exchanged a glance, then looked at Y/N. That’s all it took. Y/N knew. Her frown slowly turned into pure sadness. Her face contorted into sadness, pain, anger, shock, confusion. She knew before she even reached for the phone.
"No."
Nobody spoke.
"No."
Allie slowly handed it over, and Y/N did not hesitate to look.
Instagram. A close friend's story. One of the hockey guys had posted it from the ongoing party. There were people laughing, music playing.
Then, there it was. She was standing beside Logan.
A girl.
Pretty. Breathtaking. Looking at Logan like he was the world. Y/N’s eyes scanned the whole thing.
Her arm wrapped around his. His hand resting on her waist. The image had blurred instantly, but not because of the screen.
Because tears filled Y/N's eyes, as the room stayed silent. The kind of silence that hurts.
Y/N found herself going back and staring at it again. And again. And again.
The same image was proof for her. It was an answer.
After weeks of wondering, of weeks being confused. Of weeks blaming herself for doing something wrong that she didn’t realize.
There was another girl. There always had been.
A sharp laugh escaped her. It was a broken laugh, filled with humiliation.
"Oh."
Nobody knew what to say, and Y/N swallowed hard.
"So. That was why,” Her voice cracked, handing the phone back. “Y/N-”
"I get it now."
Her chest hurt, like physically hurt. It felt as if it were caving in.
"He found someone else,” she sniffles, letting her head fall as she began to scribble every word she once had written. Hannah’s face faltered slightly, looking at Allie, who looked just as distraught. "You don't know that."
Y/N laughed bitterly, shaking her head. "I literally have eyes, Hannah,” she sighs. "He couldn't even tell me."
The realization hit harder than the picture itself. Not that he might have moved on, it was the fact that he never respected her enough to tell her.
He had simply vanished, and left her searching for answers. While apparently moving on with somebody else. She pursed her lips, tearing out the page in the book, crumpling it and throwing it across the room.
"I was sitting around wondering what I did wrong,” she bitterly laughs, going to write again. Her voice had broken with every word as she spoke. "And he was just-"
She couldn't finish the sentence as the apartment door opened.
"Hey babe, I brought-" Garrett stopped mid-sentence, his smile disappeared immediately. The hockey captain took one look at Y/N crying and set the grocery bag down.
"What happened?"
Nobody answered. Garrett looked toward Hannah, and then toward Allie. Hannah pans her laptop his way, watching as his face darkened. Because he knew exactly who the picture involved.
"So there you go,” Y/N sniffled, running hands through her loose pony. Garrett frowned.
"What?"
"That's why he disappeared,” she says, throwing her hands up in the air defenselessly. His expression tightened.
"You don't know that."
Y/N laughed bitterly, scoffing at him. "It kind of looks that way."
Garrett didn't answer right away, which was unusual. Because Garrett Graham always seemed to know what to say.
Finally he sighed. Garrett was usually the calm, responsible and level-headed one. Right now he not only looked ready to kill one of his teammates, but also he looked completely lost.
"I don't know what's going on in Logan's head,” he grumbles, running a hand through his hair. The honesty surprised everyone. "But I know him."
Y/N looked at him with a frown. "And?"
"And whatever this is, it doesn't make sense."
“Oh, it makes perfect sense, G,” She almost laughed.
"No,” Garrett shook his head, chuckling darkly. "Not to me."
"Did he tell you why?" Y/N asked quietly, and watched Garrett shake his head.
"No."
"Did you know?"
"No."
He didn't hesitate, not even for a second. Somehow that made her believe him.
Garrett sighed. "If I had known he was doing this, I would've called him out weeks ago,” he admits, before his eyes dropped to the notebook on the coffee table. "What's this?"
"The song," Hannah said.
"The one she's writing for open mic night."
Garrett blinked, and then immediately looked interested.
"No way."
“Garrett, please,” Y/N groaned.
It was already too late, because he was already grabbing the pages. The apartment fell silent while he read a few pages that still had some lyrics circled, he squinted as he read them.
A few moments passed.
Then a few more.
Finally he reached the end, and looked up. Then Garrett pointed at the notebook.
"Okay,” he huffs, as he hands her back the notebook. Everyone waited. "That's going to absolutely destroy people. These little mental lyrics you’ve written. This feels real."
She swallowed hard. "Because it is,” she assured him, and Garrett nodded.
"That's why it works."
His eyes drifted briefly toward the picture displayed, but also partly being hidden behind the garage band icon on Hannah’s laptop. Then back to the lyrics.
He paused on one section. "But if you put these all together, they may work. But it's still missing something."
Allie sat up, a shit-eating grin on her face. "Oh, I knew it."
Garrett nodded.
"The whole song is making statements about you. How you love, and how you are,” he explains, and Y/N frowned.
"Okay,”
"But now, you need to make it into how he made you feel throughout everything. From start to finish," he explains, and she tilts her head. Hannah smirks, knowing she would definitely be giving Garrett shit later about his songwriting smarts.
The room grew quiet, as everyone knew exactly what answer he meant.
"You don't need to make it angry,” he said as he looked at her carefully. "You just need to make it honest."
Y/N stared down at the page.
At the lyrics she'd spent hours writing, scribbling and retrying over and over again. She stared at the hurt she'd poured into every line. Suddenly she realized Garrett was right. The song wasn't about Logan leaving. It was about what finding that picture felt like.
The bar is packed. Dean, Tucker, Garrett, and Logan are crowded into their usual booth. Allie and Hannah had told their boyfriends that they would be coming with Y/N as emotional support. She had been rehearsing the song day in and day out.
She even had Justin help her through it, through the emotional side of it. He helped her figure out when to breathe, when to make it feel the pain she felt as she sang it.
Y/N’s eyes didn’t miss the way Logan’s new girl was sitting right next to him. She didn’t bother to dissect that he had zero interest in her advances. She just saw him with her, and that was enough.
Beside her, Hannah squeezed her shoulder. "You've got this."
"I absolutely do not,” she chuckles dryly, Allie coming up to squeeze her tight. "You do."
"I might actually throw up."
Allie laughed. "You'll be fine."
On stage, Justin finished the final song with his band, the crowd erupted into cheers and hoots. Justin grinned into the microphone.
“Thank you for all the love tonight,” he chuckles, and then eyes dart over towards Y/N. He nods at her, and her eyes widen. She let out a puff of breath.
Then his expression shifted, slowly softening. "Before we take off, I want to introduce the next performer. This next song is a little different. It was written by somebody who probably doesn't realize how talented she is."
Y/N wanted the floor to open and swallow her whole, as Justin looked toward the side of the stage at her. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "And from what I've heard, she wrote this one from a very real place."
Then he pointed toward the side of the stage, giving her a warm welcome. "Everybody give it up for one of Briar U’s brightest singers, and also my dear friend, Y/N L/N."
The applause started immediately, not thunderous, but completely supportive. It was enough to make her heart pound harder. Y/N stumbled onto the stage slowly, the spotlight hit her instantly.
And suddenly every person in Malone's seemed to turn and look at her. Her pulse roared in her ears, where the microphone stood waiting. She could barely breathe. Then she spotted her friends.
Hannah smiling, Allie practically bouncing in her seat, Garrett giving her a reassuring nod, and Dean raising his drink in support. Tucker and Beau let out a few hoots and cheers for her. She smiles softly at them.
For a moment, everything felt manageable. Then her eyes moved farther back, because her eyes met his own. Logan was standing by the exit of Malone’s, as if something stopped him from leaving. He was looking up at her with a frown. The girl by his side, pulling him to leave with her.
Logan couldn’t find it himself to want to leave. Not now. Logan looked confused. Curious. Almost nervous as if he suddenly realized this song might be about him.
Y/N swallowed hard, finally pulling herself back, she looked away. The room quieted completely. Finally, she spoke.
"This song starts off slow, like an intro." she explains softly. “It’s called locket theme,” she says, and then clears her throat. “The intro is very personal, and goes into this song I wrote. The song is called Lovergirl.”
The titles alone seemed to catch Logan's attention, making him walk slowly back into the crowd, and his expression changed immediately. Y/N saw it.
So did Garrett, and suddenly his jaw tightened. Because for the first time all night, Logan looked like he might finally understand exactly how much damage he'd done. Y/N wrapped her fingers around the microphone.
The first chord rang through Malone's, and every eye in the room turned toward her as she began to sing.
For Logan, the entire room disappears. The lyrics aren't subtle, they're raw.
Did you miss me? I like to pretend you did. Was crying nightly, I know you can picture it
All our memories safe in my locket, I carry it.
I know I missed you, I’m not gonna lie ‘bout that. I had to leave you be and see how I felt ‘bout that
If you don’t hear from me, it don’t mean I loved you less. Had to get this off my chest
I’ve been searching, but the answer’s right in front of me. My protection’s so divine and now I see
Pain on a necklace, set it down, I’m weightless
Everything I need is within me
Every word feels like a punch to the ribs, and Logan can't breathe. She poured out everything in that intro, and he didn’t know if he would be able to handle hearing what she wrote in the song. He wasn’t just hearing lyrics, he was hearing memories. She kept every single one tucked away, because he pushed her away.
The music began to transition into a new low melody. It sounded like pain, heartbreak and yearning, turned into something deeper. Prettier.
I care too much all the time, love so hard it makes me cry
No, it's not worth it to deny. 'Cause when it's good, it's so good, it's so nice
One look right into your eyes, One touch and I'm yours tonight
I, I just can't help that I'm a lovergirl. Why not embrace the simple pleasure? Let me hold you close
And we can take off all our clothes. I, I thank God I found you in this lonely world
Why would we ever stop ourselves from doing what feels good? Baby, if we can, we should
I've flown too close to the sun. And I've been burned far more than once
But it still hasn't stopped me from doing it again, I'm doing it again
One look right into your eyes, One touch and I'm yours tonight (tonight)
I, I just can't help that I'm a lovergirl. Why not embrace the simple pleasure? Let me hold you close
And we can take off all our clothes. I, I thank God I found you in this lonely world
Why would we ever stop ourselves from doing what feels good? Baby, if we can we should
I, I just can't help that I'm a lovergirl. Why not embrace the simple pleasure? Let me hold you close
And we can take off all our clothes
Logan’s mind began to hit him with realization. With memories. With every single fucking thing he had been denying. The memories filling in one after another.
The night she fell asleep on his shoulder after finals. The way she'd laugh when he got jealous. The mornings he'd wake up beside her and pretend it didn't mean anything. The look on her face the last time she texted him asking if she'd done something wrong.
The messages he never answered.
Across the table, Garrett slowly lowers his drink, and Dean goes completely silent.
Tucker mutters, "Oh, fuck,” with a hiss after, because everyone knows exactly who the song is about.
And then Y/N sings the final verse, not angry, or bitter. Just with hurt. So much hurt. The kind of hurt that comes from loving someone who never chose you. The kind that sounds devastatingly permanent. For the first time in his life, Logan realizes the truth.
He never stopped loving her.
Not once. Not when he dated someone else. Not when he avoided her. Not when he convinced himself she deserved better.
Not even now.
He loves her. He's always loved her.
And he's spent months watching her slip through his fingers because he was too scared to admit it. Now, he couldn’t breathe. It was all making him feel dizzy. Because standing there watching her sing her heart out, he couldn't imagine a future that didn't include her.
Couldn't imagine another girl making him laugh the same way. Couldn't imagine another girl understanding him the way she did. Couldn't imagine another girl hurting this much because of him.
It hit him so quickly. Almost like a lightning strike. Logan understood what Dean had been trying to tell him for months.
He wasn't protecting himself, he wasn't protecting her. He'd just been terrified. Terrified of how much she meant.
The final chord faded.
Silence.
One second. Then two.
Then the entire bar erupted.
Applause.
Cheers and hoots.
Whistles.
People rising to their feet, and Y/N's eyes widened in shock. She smiled widely, thanking them politely as she stepped off the stage, hugging Justin, Allie and Hannah tight.
Logan barely heard anything, because he was too busy staring at her, realizing he might have completely screwed this up.
She disappeared into the crowd almost immediately after breaking apart from their hugs. Logan instinctively started moving.
He needed to talk to her.
Tonight.
Right now.
Immediately.
He was stopped abruptly when hand grabbed his shoulder. Hard. He turned, and was face to face with Dean.
He was not smiling. Not joking. Just staring.
"Sit."
Logan frowned. "Dean-"
"Sit. Down,” his tone was something that did not hesitate to make him listen. A few moments later Logan found himself back at their table.
Garrett sat across from him, and Tucker beside him.
Beau leaned against another chair, and now none of them looked happy.
That was unusual. Especially for Tucker and Dean. Tucker was normally incapable of looking serious for more than thirty seconds. Now he looked annoyed.
“What?” Logan sighed, and this caused Dean to laugh. A short, humorless laugh as he rubbed at his jaw.
"What?"
Garrett folded his arms, nodding at Logan."That's your question?"
Logan looked between them. Nobody answered, but nobody looked away.
That was when he suddenly had realized. They knew. They all knew, every single bit. Dean leaned forward first. "Do you have any idea how many nights she cried over this?"
Logan's stomach dropped, but Dean continued. "Do you?"
No answer. He stayed quiet, only gulping, because he didn't. Garrett shook his head.
"You ghosted her, Logan,” he says, his tone sounding defeated as he crosses his arms, making Logan immediately look away.
"Garrett-"
"No,” Garrett cut him off. "You don't get to brush this off,” he snaps, and the table goes quiet. It was a rare sighting for Garrett to be putting Logan in place, when it was usually the exact opposite. "She spent weeks wondering what she did wrong."
Logan closed his eyes with a sigh, as every word felt worse.
"You didn't even give her a reason,” Dean pointed out, making Logan nod. "I know."
"You just disappeared."
"I know."
Dean scoffed. "No, I don't think you fucking do. Because if you understood what that did to her, you would've fixed it already."
Logan rubbed a hand over his face as Tucker spoke up next. Which somehow felt even worse.
"Man, she looked miserable,” he admits, talking about how he had seen her moping around campus for weeks. Her being around the house less and less. The way she looked so pained while singing in front of them. Logan's chest tightened, and Tucker shook his head. "And she still defended you."
That surprised him enough to snap his gaze back up, frowning in confusion. "What?"
"Every time."
The table fell quiet again, and Beau nodded. "She's never once talked badly about you,” he adds, trailing off and Logan looks down at the wood tabletop because somehow that hurt the most.
After everything.
After disappearing. Avoiding her. Leaving her with nothing. Y/N still hadn't tried to destroy him.
Dean sighed heavily. "What were you thinking?"
“I fucking wasn’t. That was the issue, Dean,” Logan laughed bitterly. Dean’s eyes sharpened at his friend’s tone.
"Clearly."
Another painful silence, but then Garrett leaned back as he let his expression softened slightly.
"Do you love her?"
That was when Logan froze.
The question hung there.
It was so simple, yet so terrifyingly direct. The one question he had ignored for months. Keeping it buried away. Locking it for far too long, or just pretended it wasn't true.
But after hearing that song? After seeing her on that stage? After realizing she'd been hurting this entire time? There wasn't really a point in lying anymore. So quietly, he answered.
"Yeah,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair as all of his emotions break through. They shattered completely. “Yeah. I really fucking do.”
Nobody looked surprised. Dean immediately rolled his eyes. "Oh, for fuck’s sake."
Tucker threw both hands in the air, pursing his lips, leaning back into the booth cushions. "I knew it."
"Everyone knew it,” Beau laughed, and Garrett pointed at him.
"Literally everyone,” he agrees, and Logan groans.
"Great."
"No," Dean said, shutting it down completely. "Not great."
The table quieted again, because out of every single one here, surprisingly Dean was right. Knowing the truth didn't magically fix what happened. It didn't erase weeks of pain.
It didn't undo the damage.
A few moments later, Hannah and Allie approached the table, both immediately noticed Logan sitting there. Neither looked impressed. Especially Allie, as she folded her arms.
"Seriously?" she hissed, not missing how Logan winced. Garrett slid over so Hannah could sit beside him, while Allie took the empty chair next to Dean. The tension was instant.
Logan looked around. "Where's Y/N?"
Hannah glanced toward the front doors.
"Outside."
His heart immediately sank.
"She okay?"
Allie laughed, but not kindly. It was a pointed and sharp toned laugh. "You don't get to ask that,” she shot back. “Where’s your girlfriend anyway?”
Logan looked away, before letting out a huff. “I never made it official with that girl. I couldn’t, something in me couldn’t.”
“Something as in your love for Y/N? Maybe?” she retorts, making him close his eyes because she wasn't wrong.
The table fell silent. Outside the windows, the spring night stretched across campus. Somewhere beyond those doors, Y/N was standing alone. Trying to catch her breath after singing her heart out in front of an entire room.
While inside, for the first time in months, Logan was finally being forced to confront the truth.
Not that he'd hurt her. He already knew that. The truth was worse.
Because sitting at that table, surrounded by the people who cared about both of them, Logan realized something he'd been trying not to admit for a very long time. Losing Y/N hadn't made things easier.
It had made everything harder.
Now? Knowing that there was a very real possibility that he was too late fucked his entire body up. Logan is on his feet before he even thinks.
"Logan-" Dean starts to call out, Allie’s expression softening as they watch him sprint out, but he's already gone.
The rain had started sometime during the last chorus. Not enough to send people running, but just enough to leave the pavement shining beneath the streetlights. Y/N stood outside Malone's with her arms wrapped around herself.
The cool air felt good against her overheated skin. Inside, everyone was celebrating. The buzz of her music, of her song. Justin’s band had gone back up for a couple of covers from what she could hear.
She couldn't handle any of it right now. The emotions were too close to the surface. The tears were too close, glossing over her eyes.
The rain dampened her hair as she stared across the empty parking lot, slowly beginning to walk out from under the cover from the rain. Then the door behind her opened, closing quickly as feet padded behind her as if trying to catch her.
"That song was about me."
Not a question, but a statement.
Y/N laughed bitterly, not needing to turn to know who it was. "You figured that out all by yourself?" she snaps back, whipping back to face him with a cold stare, Logan flinches.
Good, she wanted him to.
"You have no idea what you put me through,” Her voice shook lowly, the cold rain starting to make her shiver lightly. The anger she'd been holding in for weeks finally surfaced.
Logan swallowed hard. "I know-"
"No,” she stood still, rain droplets clung to her eyelashes. The hurt in her eyes nearly destroyed him. "You don't. You don't get to say you know."
His chest tightened.
"Y/N-"
"I spent weeks blaming myself,” Her voice cracked as she talked over the rain, teeth chattering. "Weeks, Logan."
Logan looked away, unable to hold her gaze. The rain began to pour down hard, drenching them both.
"I thought I wasn't enough. I-I had thought I scared you away,” another tear slipped down her cheek. "I thought maybe I imagined the whole thing,” she laughs to herself, hugging herself to keep any warmth she had left. The rain hid some of the tears falling freely, but not all of them.
Logan felt sick, because he remembered every text he ignored. Every hallway he'd avoided. Every opportunity he'd had to fix it. Every time he'd chosen not to.
"I never stopped caring about you,” The words escaped before he could stop them.
Y/N stared at him, and then laughed. It was her broken laugh. "Seriously?"
"I'm serious."
"You have a funny way of showing it."
She wasn't wrong, not one bit. Logan closed his eyes briefly, because there was no defense. No excuse. There was nothing he could say that would make it better. When he looked at her again, his voice was quieter.
"I got scared, Y/N."
Y/N scoffed.
"Of what?"
"You."
That made her heart stutter for a second. Something in her paused. For the first time all night.
The rain continued falling around them, and Logan stepped closer.
"I was fine when it was casual,” His voice shook, nerves coming out with each word. "I was fine when I could convince myself I wasn't falling for you."
Y/N's heart started pounding.
"But then suddenly every time something happened, you were the first person I wanted to tell,” He laughed bitterly. "Every good day,” Another step closer. "Every bad day,” Another. "You were the person I looked for."
Y/N's eyes began filling again. His bottom lip quivered as he spoke once more. "And it scared the hell out of me, Y/N."
The confession hung between them. It was raw. Honest. Painful.
Logan ran a hand through his wet hair. "So I did what I always do."
"What?"
"I screwed it all up,” he admits. “I fucking ran like a coward. Denied every single fucking feeling you were making me feel,” his voice cracked, a tear mixed with the rain on his cheek.
Y/N froze. Because Logan wasn't just emotional. He was crying.
Actual tears. Logan almost never cried.
His voice broke. "I thought if I walked away first, it wouldn't hurt as much,” The next laugh that escaped him sounded miserable. "Turns out that was the dumbest fucking decision I've ever made."
Y/N stared.
Because she'd imagined this conversation a thousand times. None of those versions involved Logan looking completely shattered. The tension snapped.
Not completely. But enough. It was enough for all the hurt beneath it to finally surface.
Logan stepped closer again. This time neither moved away. Rain soaked through both of them now. Neither cared.
"I. Love. You."
The words came out suddenly. Unplanned. Unfiltered.
Y/N stopped breathing, and Logan looked terrified the second he said it. He didn't take it back.
"I love you, Y/N," His voice cracked, another tear sliding down his face. "I think I've loved you for a long time. I just didn't realize how much until I lost you."
Y/N felt her entire world tilt. Weeks of anger. Weeks of heartbreak.
Weeks of missing him.
All crashing together at once. Her own lips began to quiver again. "You don't get to say that now,” she squeaked out, the words came out weak. Because that part of her wanted to hear them again.
"I know,” he nods, biting his bottom lip as it keeps quivering.
"You don't get to disappear and then tell me you love me."
"I know."
"You broke my heart,” she sobs, the tears returned immediately. Logan nodded his tears were continuous too.
"I know,” His own voice broke. "And I'm sorry."
Y/N stared at him. Stared at the boy she'd loved for so long. The absolute fucking idiot who had shattered both of them.
At the person she'd spent weeks trying to forget.
Her shaking hand coming up to cup his face, he lets out a stuttered sob at the contact, taking her wrist softly in his hand as he leaned his cheek into her touch. "I hate you,” she says, her eyes still glossy and red, but full of love.
Logan laughed through tears, nodding. "I know."
"I really hate you."
His eyes never left hers.
"I know."
The space between them disappeared. One second they were arguing.
“But I still love you,” she admits, making him smile sadly at her as he cried with her. “So fucking much, John Logan,” The next moment, Y/N grabbed the front of his jacket, and pulled his neck down to kiss him hard.
Angry.
Months of frustration pouring into it. Logan made a sound somewhere between relief and heartbreak as he kissed her back. The rain fell harder around them.
Neither noticed, and neither cared.
All the words they'd never said.
All the feelings they'd buried.
All the hurt, and the love.
It all collided at once beneath the streetlights outside Malone's. Thunder sounding in the distance, the music inside blaring softly. Their lips moving together like puzzle pieces that were meant for one another. Hands wandering wherever they could grab and hold.
For the first time in months, neither of them ran.
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