Not that I'd expected anything else, but Logan did just fine on the hot air balloon ride. I hadn't ever gone and was a little nervous myself, that tiny basket and a plume of heat right above our heads, but the scenery was magnificent.
Gone were the city streets and buildings, activity from the harbors, and the sounds of Seattle. The sky opened up, the air was fresh and clear, and the dark evergreens that carpeted the landscape around the rugged dark brown rock on Mt. Rainier, contrasted by the white-capped snow peaks were stunning.
Even with Axel's grizzly-man appearance, the close proximity of Logan behind me and his arms around me while his white-knuckled hands gripped the edge of the basket made the ride back romantic. I happily leaned against his chest and silently watched the quiet, natural landscape that passed around and underneath us.
Once our feet were steadily back on the ground, we thanked Axel then proceeded to the part of our date that I was nervous about. We chatted casually about what we'd seen, the eagles in particular, while I scrolled through the pictures I'd taken on my phone. I directed Logan back to Seattle, right through downtown, then out the other side and uphill to Kerry Park.
"For the record," I admitted as we climbed out of Logan's truck. "I've never been here either."
We walked into the park entrance, past a children's playground along a paved sidewalk path that curved with a black railing for the elevation. In a sweet gesture, Logan took my hand in his and a comfortable silence surrounded us. A few couples and families walked in front and behind us but largely we were alone, definitely no one from campus was here.
"Wow..." At point point, Logan paused at the edge of the railing, gray metal aged from the constant wet weather here. Silently, I stood next to him and took in the reason I wanted to come here.
Kerry Park came up as one of the first search results when I'd looked for romantic Seattle date ideas, along with the hot air balloon ride. Now that I stood here, my hand in Logan's at sunset, I saw exactly why.
Perched up on a hill, we saw all of downtown Seattle and the harbor painted in dramatic colors like a professional photograph. The golden sunset highlighted the water side of the buildings, but cast black shadows over the other sides and made them stand out behind the white towered Space Needle. Grayish purple clouds streaked through the blue sky, etched with orange and red striations, interrupted only by the Seattle skyline and the white peak of Mt. Rainier in the background. The darker buildings glittered from interior lights switched on in them.
I stepped back from the railing, dropped Logan's hand, and took a seat on a worn wooden bench with black iron armrests. Logan stood for a few minutes, where the evening breeze lifted up a few of his short, blonde hairs on the top of his head. Since his back faced me, I shamelessly ran my eyes over his broad, muscular form.
With a quick turn of his head, I caught the sparkle in his eye when he looked back at me. "Are you checking me out, or the view?"
"Yes," I replied as he sat next to me. Even though the bench had space for three seats, I appreciated how he sat so close to me, his leg almost brushed against me. My heart thumped happily when his closest arm lifted and rested behind my shoulders. All of my thoughts were focused on him, this amazingly private surrounding, and how peacefully relaxed Logan now looked.
After a few moments, I nodded at the bag I'd stowed inside Logan's truck during the balloon ride and he'd carried through the park. "Hungry?"
"You thought of everything." He obliged me and handed the backpack over to me.
"I tried," I mumbled, unzipped the bag, and pulled out some dinner containers. "Didn't think to bring a blanket, sorry."
"Still making it hard to top this date," he admitted, shifted away, and I set the food out between us.
While I wished I'd prepared romantic stuff like chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne, college-student budget dictated we just ate leftovers. I'd made pulled chicken and veggie wraps, two for him and one for me, a spinach and walnut salad, and fruit-based smoothies.
"Not cauliflower, right?" He teased while one of the wraps hovered outside his mouth.
"No." I scowled at that failed recipe. "Sometimes, okay a lot of times, recipes don't work out. You lived though."
"I do really appreciate your cooking, Ellie." He lowered his wrap and looked intently at me, flickers of the sunset reflected in his pupils. "I even feel better."
"That's the idea." I smiled before we fell into a comfortable silence. We just ate and traded looks between the incredible view and side glances at each other.
"You're really happy here," he mused to me at one point and bumped his knee against mine.
I threw him a lazy grin behind the last bites of my wrap and nodded. "That obvious, huh?"
"I'm glad." He nudged again, so I nudged him back.
"If I can be forward..." I popped in the last bites of my wrap and looked up at him. The sunset brushed over his skin, highlighted his sharp facial features, the bridge of his nose, and cast a few golden highlights over his short hair. "I'm glad that you're here too."
"I like forward Ellie." He shifted slightly in his seat but threw me a half-grin and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "But me too... Happier than I'd hoped I'd be."
His gaze intensified the longer he looked at me but I was determined that I told him the words that ran through my head over the past few days. I dropped my eyes down to my salad and softly admitted, "Sorry I've been such an emotional hot mess, the thing with James... but... Thanks for letting me apologize."
His low-toned laugh drew my eyes back up, but behind the spark in his eyes sat a tenderness that melted away my apprehension. "Only you would thank me for hearing your apology, Ellie. I'm sorry you were upset but hope you feel better."
"I do." I shoved his arm playfully since we both shoved in our last salad bites. "I appreciate you listening and hearing me out, plus your patience. You said you wanted to talk, somewhere private."
"What?" He threw me an amused smirk and sipped at his smoothie. Based on his lack of reaction, I'd successfully hidden the cauliflower within the strawberries, almond milk, Greek yogurt, honey, and eurythritol. "Like twenty questions?"
"How about twenty confessions," I teased back at him.
He sat for a moment in silent reflection, then his smirk widened upwards into his cheeks. "Let's make it more interesting, twenty embarrassing confessions," he offered.
My eyebrows lifted at the suggestion. "Like generally embarrassing things?"
"Not like you walked into a wall, Ellie," he clarified.
"I don't walk into walls." A hint of indignance slipped into my voice. "They jump out at me. And hey, you haven't had to catch me, so I think I'm doing better in the clumsy department."
"You say that like I mind..." he admitted quietly and held his gaze on me.
"Can't be worse than you hearing me finger myself in the shower," I murmured and ran my hands over my face.
"Let's start with that." His smirk widened into a wicked grin but the unspoken challenge in his eyes definitely grabbed my interest.
"Let's end on that," I compromised. "You can ask me the first question though."
"I'll give you an easy one," he assured me, even though his smirk never wavered. "Did you go to Prom?"
"Did I... what?" My eyebrows creased up near my hairline with how high they raised, but he held the curious look in his eyes and nodded. After I paused for a few moments, I realized this was an embarrassing question. "No, but..."
"But?" He prompted.
I looked down at my hands, which I'd folded over my knees. "No one asked me since... probably because the rest of high school I kept to myself."
The memory replayed itself in my mind, how I'd laid in bed, holed up inside my room, with no idea that Saturday night was Prom Night until Mom entered and reminded me. Slight tears pricked my eyes as the sense of disappointment that Jake, not Logan, had arrived as my date resurfaced. I lifted my eyes to Logan's and figured he deserved the honest truth, so I gave it to him.
"I wanted to go. Mom told me a 'handsome guy' was downstairs," I gestured with air quotes. "I rushed downstairs thinking it was you, hoping it was you, but... it was Jake."
At the softness that crept into his gaze, I dropped mine back to my hands. "I went upstairs and stayed in my room the rest of the night."
"You wanted it to be me..." he stated, not asked, in the softest, most gentle voice. He sounded like he reminisced in the past and shared a slight regret of his own when he admitted, "I didn't go either. You were the only one I would've taken and... I struggled with staying away, I would've beaten your door down if I had any idea you felt that way."
"I'm sorry," I whispered as two of my tears trailed over the edges of my eyes, which I quickly wiped away. A forced laugh escaped through my lips as I diverted the attention back to him, "I assumed you were Prom King."
"I was." He chuckled quietly and ran his free hand's fingers through his hair. "But I still didn't go."
While I had no idea why he asked me that, I remembered the question he'd promised he'd answer tonight, "What have you been holding back since you've been here?"
"Some things," he replied vaguely, sat back against the bench, then rubbed his palm over the back of his neck. A nearby overhead light flickered on and cast an eerie, almost white light over his skin. "Ask me for details, I said I'd answer."
I wracked my brain over the conversations we'd had while we'd been roommates. "How did you learn how to cook?"
"From your videos," he replied right away, but a definite sheepish look cast over his eyes. "I'm probably half your views on them."
"You're... what?" My mouth nearly dropped down the hillside at that candid admission.
"I watched your videos," he repeated. "So did Mom, although I can't say they helped her not burn down her kitchen every time."
"I watched your videos," I blurted out, which oddly felt like a slight weight was lifted off my chest and shoulders each time my word vomit came up. "Post-Aggies games, your mom also sent me pictures that... I might have kept... Every one of them."
"That wasn't Mom." He returned his hand on the bench behind my shoulders and grinned widely. "She couldn't do social media if her life depended on it."
I needed a few moments before the gravity of what he hadn't said sank in me, that he'd hung them out like bait. My lips parted and my mouth hung open so long that my tongue and palate dried out. "You... you!? Why?"
"I... wanted to know you were still out there." His voice was no louder than a mumble, an admission more to himself, but he lifted his eyes back to mine with such a wistful, almost nostalgic expression that tugged a tightness in my chest. The fact his fingers played with a strand of my hair hadn't helped.
"It helped when I really missed you."
Wow. Just... wow.
Who wouldn't be flattered by that?
Say something just as sweet, romantic, anything Ellie.
"I made a mistake with James." I mentally facepalmed myself at the words that blurted out my mouth instead. "I should've listened to you, and I'm sorry."
His broad chest lifted as he inhaled deeply, then collapsed with his long exhale. "Honestly that wasn't my best moment either but..." At his pause, his lips curled upwards into a smirk. "I won out by the end of the evening."
"You're shameless." I scoffed and pressed my hands into my warm cheeks, then leaned forwards and rested my elbows on my thighs.
His smirk faded slightly, which made sense with his next admission, "I'm sorry about Lydia and Angel. I really didn't feel anything."
"Oh..." My throat dried up at the mention of those names. "As long as we're trading embarrassing stories, I'd rather you find out about this from me than anyone else and don't know how long it'll be before it probably gets leaked out."
"Ellie, what?" He prompted in a low voice, then gently trailed his fingers on the bench over my closest shoulder. It wasn't a suggestive or sexual touch, just soft and comforting.
"Bit of a story," I admitted quietly with a sigh and bitterness that soaked into my voice. "I stupidly rushed a sorority freshman year, ZTE of all possible choices."
"You?" No part of me blamed the shock on his face because a social butterfly, particularly a sorority sister, was the last thing anyone associated me being. "That's..."
"I know, stupid." I ran one hand over my hair and figured I'd tell him the entire story. "Spring quarter, in a terrible decision to put myself out there more socially and deal with the nightmares, I attended some parties, including sorority rush events."
I appreciated how Logan hadn't needed me to remind him how party houses triggered nightmares of Ryder's assault. The silent nod he gave me added an unspoken reassurance that relaxed the slight bit of tension that had crept up my neck.
"Charlie knew enough that somehow something bad had happened to me." My lips twitched at the vagueness of that situation. "Nothing NDA-related but as my roommate, she knew about why I refused to go to parties. She... knew enough that she, Wes, and Darrius went with me to some parties, stuck by my side the whole time."
At the concern that clouded over his irises, I added, "I think they wanted to prove to me that nothing really would happen, and nothing did. That was Dr. Sterns' angle as well."
"Same doctor who told you to date around," he replied dryly.
"It sounds so terrible when you say it like that." I reached over and squeezed his bicep on the back of the bench lightly. "This suggestion worked. After a few parties, I had nightmares but they stopped. I haven't had any since."
"That's good though," he replied slowly, with a thread of uncertainty in his voice.
"I thought so. From that, I made friends in the ZTE house, or so I'd thought." I shook my head at my own stupidity. "Enough that I pledged there in the spring, until they had one hazing event that was too much."
At Logan's lifted eyebrows, I knew he needed to know the truth, no matter how embarrassed I felt. "They took all of us pledges, stripped us down to our bras and underwear, then made us kneel in the basement together, one long line, shoulder to shoulder."
A slight tremor quivered down my spine at the memory. "Kept us completely in the dark, until a guy came in. We realized pretty quickly that he was from the football team, then we were told more guys would come and we'd get picked by one to have sex with whoever he picked that night."
What I hadn't shared was how each guy whipped his dick out, which thankfully we hadn't seen because of the dark, and pointed it at whichever girl he wanted. The most embarrassing part was if a guy hadn't picked a particular girl then she was kicked out of the pledge process. No part of me was flattered when I'd been picked first and who I'd been picked by.
Logan's silence, which I'd expected, was still deafening. The only sound between us was the soft whispered night breeze, which had shifted colder. The longer we sat silently, the thicker the air became. Finally, my curiosity lifted my eyes to his fists and jaw clenched tightly shut. The blue in his eyes so bright they looked like they'd burn two holes through his skull.
"That's fucking disgusting Ellie," Logan finally spat out.
"And embarrassing," I mumbled and slid my eyes closed. "I refused to do it, walked right out in a screaming fit, certainly did not sleep with him..."
"Football player..." he mumbled quietly in a cool, even tone that I knew masked the anger that his eyes, tensed shoulders around his neck, and ticked jaw all completely gave away. "Is he still -"
"Still on the team," I whispered. "Technically yes. He can tell you I didn't sleep with him, although it's pretty obvious..."
"Fan-fucking-tastic," he grumbled and sat back in his seat. "I don't need to ask, he wouldn't want you if -"
"Not if," I clarified quickly. "Because I wouldn't sleep with him. He even tried to say he was helping me, during the last initiation... event but I wasn't having it."
My chest tightened and my pulse quickened in my veins at this part of the conversation, what Logan thought of me. "I swear, I didn't. I mean I haven't..."
Oh gosh. The I's again. Stop rambling, Ellie.
"I believe you Ellie." His expression softened slightly but those four little words relaxed all the nerves my admission had fired up. "Does anyone else know about this?"
"Outside of the Zeta house and guys involved, just Charlie, Wes, Monique, and Darrius," I admitted. "Which is why they're super protective."
Since I assumed he wouldn't have known where Lydia came in, I added, "Lydia was Pledge Director at the time. Afterwards, I quit completely, happy to forget the whole thing but she posted a list of the top five biggest prudes on campus on her news whatever U-Dub gossip site she writes for. My name got the honor of being at the top. The rest of the girls hadn't gotten picked by a guy."
"Fuck..." Logan leaned back in his seat, with a deep frown creased his forehead between his eyebrows. "Ellie, that's horrible. I'm sorry."
"Thanks, I... I think we've embarrassed me enough though," I huffed and looked away from his gaze, at the darker sunset sky tipped with darker blue that threatened the incoming night. "But I thought you should know since it's probably a matter of time before someone digs around about me."
"I hope you know I don't care about any of that... attention," he said firmly with a direct stare at me. "But I do care if something hurts you."
"Thanks..." I mumbled, buried my face in my hands for a few breaths, then we fell into an awkward silence. With a forced laugh, I admitted freely, "Maybe we should've talked about masturbation."
"Ellie -" He threw me a look that suggested my flippant, sarcastic remark fell short of its mark.
"Well, being honest." I puffed out my cheeks and exhaled sharply. "I was a bit riled up after our teasing. But please, let's embarrass you now."
"I get it." He chuckled quietly. Despite the cooler night air that now settled in, my skin warmed at the intensity that burned in his eyes. "I heard my name, in your voice, out your lips."
This is not the conversation I thought we'd have.
"I know... You said that in the shower." My cheeks now flamed molten-magma temperature, which flowed down my neck and into my chest. Right when I wanted to crawl under the bench, his eyes lowered down and focused on my lips.
"And you?" I exhaled out in a raspy whisper. "You left... for a lucky towel."
His head tipped backwards and his throat bounced as his laugh cut through the slight breeze that blew into my cheeks. Since I hadn't expected this reaction, I just silently watched him with an arched eyebrow.
"I don't have a lucky towel," he finally admitted when his laughs subsided. "You had me so worked up, I bolted then rubbed one out in my truck."
"In the parking garage?" My eyes stretched wide and one hand clamped over my mouth. Even so, my shoulders twitched at the slight laugh I held inside.
Priceless.
"I'm flattered, I didn't know what happened," I admitted with a soft giggle that threatened to deepen. "Although if we're confessing further then I preferred your hands over mine."
"Ellie..." At his lower tone of voice, I shifted my eyes back to his, which were now two shades darker and matched the deep undertones that wrapped around each word. "You practically broke my toes off with how good the blow job felt."
"Gosh, when you say it like that..." I pressed one hand into my still very warm cheek. "I promise I haven't done that with anyone here. Not even kissing anyone. Despite... umm, what I just said."
His hand warmly cupped the back of my neck, where his thumb softly stroked an arched path over my skin. "I believe you, Ellie."
"Well, parking garage jerking off is beyond embarrassing," I reminded him. "But I'm still making it your turn next."
"Fine, but I don't have anything like what you went through..." He took in a deep breath, then blurted out, "I haven't been with anyone else. A few girls kissed or grabbed me at parties but... I wasn't feeling it."
"No one, not since... us?" I squeaked out. Even though he nodded, shocked was an understatement of my reaction. My brain short-circuited for a moment and I just flatly replied, "Really."
Jake should take a page from his personal playbook.
Or, even better, Harper.
"Really." He nodded slowly.
"Why?" I pressed further because I barely believed that. Not because I questioned his morals, but his warm personality, ridiculously attractive face and muscular body, all the attention just so far...
He couldn't have been short on willing candidates.
The soft, wistful gaze returned to his eyes, even under the now dark night sky that surrounded us. His skin looked white-pale under the overhead street light but he still looked straight at me. "I tried to get over you but... anyone else just felt wrong. I screwed up with girls before I met you and figured if I ever saw you again, I didn't want a repeat of that."
My lips parted slightly in a response that all of me wanted to give him, but he stood up abruptly and extended out his hand before I said anything. "I wasn't ready to tell you when I did, but I meant it when I said why I'm here..."
"Heading home?" I asked quietly, but took his hand, then grabbed my backpack of empty food containers. A sense of disappointment at the unsettled part of this conversation filled me while we walked back to his truck in silence.
"Not exactly," he finally replied once he sat behind the steering wheel. "I told you that you're my endgame Ellie. So..."
"So?" I prompted at the seriousness that trailed off his voice.
"So I'm going to prove it."