Announcements

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I sit against Carr's desk with a hand to my lips, wondering what the hell just happened. My plans have been horrendously derailed, and morning announcements haven't even come on yet. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out to a voice memo from Sam. I move to tap it at the same time the loudspeaker comes on.

"Good morning, Ryder Academy."

My finger hovers above my phone as I turn my attention to the speaker in the room. Spencer does the morning announcements, but it's not his voice echoing through the room. "Sam Evans standing in for Spencer Price, and with a very important message. So listen up, assholes."

I grin in spite of myself. Of course. Does he have everyone at this school wrapped around his little finger?

Sam starts by saying that he's been a self-sabotaging dick for as long as he can remember. It started when he was twelve and found out that he could piss off his mom by stealing cigarettes from her purse and smoking them out his bedroom window when she was out at meetings. He'd smoke, she'd yell, and he'd get a high out of both. It was easy to want more of that, and soon sneaking cigs wasn't enough. He says he quickly devolved into drinking and drugs. And women. But then he met someone who wanted him to be better.

He takes a long breath before plunging on, and my heart is firing like mad in my chest. I want to run but I can't move.

"Unfortunately, that someone was my best friend's biggest enemy—the same best friend that dragged me out of terrible situations time and again." Sam's voice is clear and painful. "So I was between a rock and a hard place, wanting—needing—this girl, but beholden to a friendship that often felt like the only stable thing in my life.

"Many of you have heard some version of the shit that went down two Saturday nights ago. I want you to hear the truth, and I need you to know the role that I played in it. Because when Logan Grey was accidentally placed in my room at the start of this year, I thought that I was doing the right thing by fucking with her, messing with her head, even though I couldn't keep her out of mine. But I continued to play both sides of the game, supporting my best friend's hatred, while building a relationship with the only girl who's ever mattered. Logan is amazing not just because she's beautiful—and I know you all think she's beautiful; it's why you're so jealous and petty and cruel. Or at least partly. Some of all that cruelty is because of me. It's because of Brandon. So let's set the record straight."

I gasp audibly as Jared's voice comes over the loudspeaker, the confession he just made in Carr's office playing for the school to hear. The text message from Sam sits unplayed on my phone and I glance at it, knowing exactly what it is now.

After Jared comes Brandon's ugly confession. I gnaw at my bottom lip listening to him, the hatred in his voice so obvious. I wonder if Sam is helping or hurting by doing this. But then Brandon's voice is cut off, and Sam's starts up again, and my heart is swelling. He's directing his message to me now.

"Logan: I hope you're still listening. I want to apologize and grovel at your feet. I want everyone to know what an ass I've been for not claiming you as mine the moment you walked into my life. I want to prove myself to you. I want to be the kind of guy that you deserve. But I know—especially after all of this—that that guy would be prepared to let you go. So I am. I'm letting you go, Logan, and I hope that you find happiness and freedom away from all this bullshit. Selfishly, I can't do that without saying two final things. I need you to know that I am so, goddamn sorry."

The pause is long enough that I glance at the speaker, thinking it has gone dead. That's only one.

Sam's voice finally comes on again, though it's lower, more tentative. "More importantly," he says before another long pause. "I love you, Logan."

The speaker really does go dead then, and I slump against Carr's desk, dumbstruck. He loves me. He loves me? And everything else...

In a daze, I move to the door of Carr's office, opening it slowly. Beth is nowhere to be found, and I step into the hall, moving like a ghost through the kids who are coming out of homeroom and staring at me, whispering too loudly. I hear something different in their tones, but I don't care. I don't feel anything at all. I walk through Hollinger and out the front doors, my feet carrying me without any instruction from my brain.

Before I even know how it happened I'm standing outside MacMillan and pulling open the familiar doors, walking the path to room 202. I don't know how I know that Sam will be there, but it feels obvious that he will. And when I pull open the unlocked door and find him standing there—his side of the room the mess I've come to know so well over the past few months; mine still bare and lonely, as if waiting for my return—I'm not at all surprised.

"That was your apology?" I want to forgive him so badly. Ryan's voice comes back to me, an echo of what he said after Sam's sudden appearance on Saturday: the guy seems genuinely sorry...I've never seen a dude grovel like that before...why not hear him out?

I believe Sam now, I truly do. And I'd be lying if that three-word confession at the end of his little tribute didn't make my heart stop. But I need to hear it now, again, when it's just the two of us. I need to know.

Sam is dumbstruck. "I tell you I love you—over the school intercom—and you're asking if that was my apology? Did I miss something?"

I shrug, a grin creeping over my features without my permission. "Say that again."

He's onto me now, and his own crooked smirk is beginning to appear. I wonder why I ever thought I hated it. He steps toward me in the middle of the room, close enough to touch me if he reached out. Though he doesn't. Not yet.

"What do you want to hear, Grey?" He asks. Then, before I can respond, he puts his hands on my waist, pulling me to him. "You want to hear me say I'm sorry?" He brings his mouth to my ear and whispers it against me, sending a thrill through my core.

I nod.

"I'm so damn sorry, Grey." But he doesn't sound sorry, he sounds desperate, his voice dropping an octave and his grip on my waist tightening, shifting slightly lower.

"And?" I ask as his fingers move toward the lip of my jeans.

"And what?" Sam dips his mouth to my neck, nipping me just below the ear. My belly thrums with need.

"Sam," I whine, bringing my hands to his shoulders and digging my nails in. Sam takes this as approval (it is) and presses his body against mine. I can tell that he's already rock hard.

"Ohhhh, that," he sighs as his lips move over my neck, kissing and sucking at the skin there. I fist a hand in his hair and tip my head back at the feel of it. "I think I know what you're looking for."

I gasp as his mouth leaves me, angry at the sudden loss of contact. When I open my eyes, Sam is staring at me with an intensity I've never witnessed before.

"I love you, Logan Grey," he says definitively, before he kisses me in a way that takes my breath. I stop thinking and suddenly we're both grappling for each other in a frenzy, all hands and heat and need. Sam deftly removes my shirt and unclips my bra, lifting me onto my now-barren bed and hovering over me, his familiar, wolfish grin spread over his features. The cold mattress has me shivering, but Sam's mouth on my breasts lights me on fire and I arch into him, moaning as I grip the hem of his shirt.

Sam's hot mouth moves from one nipple to the other, his hands massaging and grasping at my burning skin. It takes entirely too long for me to get enough control to pull his shirt over his head, and as I do, I catch one look at the scorching desire in his gaze and the pulsing between my thighs intensifies to something I can't keep in me for long.

"Sam," I murmur as his hands move to the button on my jeans.

"Logan," he groans as he presses kisses to my stomach, his fingers unzipping my fly and tugging at the denim that hugs my thighs. "I need you out of these right now."

I help him, shifting my body to slide the jeans off and moving to his belt, unclasping it and fumbling for the button of his pants. We're moving fast now, maybe too fast, but I can't stop and even if I could...I don't want to. 

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