The Blood That Binds by Madeline Sheehan
Willow
Logan and I walked to dinner in stony silence, the short journey rife with tension by the time we’d reached the dining hall. Passing Jordy on the porch, who’d ducked his head at the sight of us, Logan’s silent stewing grew increasingly louder. Collecting our dinners without a word, we took our seats at our usual table, where Logan began immediately plowing through his dinner, as if he couldn’t eat it fast enough.
This was typical Logan behavior—shutting down instead of dealing with things head-on. And maybe I wasn’t any better, but I was attempting to be honest about my feelings, at least. With a hard sigh, I stabbed a potato wedge with my fork and shoved it in my mouth, chewing angrily. All men, I decided, were completely and utterly ridiculous.
“Hey there, lovebirds,” Britta dropped her tray noisily onto the table, taking the seat beside me. “Why the long faces—y’all tuckered out from all that horizontal refreshment?”
While Logan only continued shoveling food in his mouth, I dropped my fork on my plate, sending Britta a scathing look. “Can you not?” I mouthed silently.
“Party pooper,” she mouthed in reply.
“You ever have one of those days where you’re like, what’s the fucking point?” Ella dropped down beside Logan and plucked a potato wedge from her tray, eyeing it with disgust. “Fucking potatoes again,” she said, flicking it away. Pulling her flask from inside her shirt, she took a long swig.
“Somethin’ ugly in the air today?” Britta glanced around the table. “Ella, you picked those taters with your own hands—that ain’t no small thing. Wasn’t so long ago that you were starvin’ somewhere—you’d be wise to remember that.”
“Because picking potatoes was always my lifelong dream?” Ella snarled in reply. “You might fool everyone else with your happy-hillbilly act, Britta, but you don’t fool me. You’re all talk, all the time—always flirting with guys half your age and talking yourself up like you’re something special, like you know something the rest of us don’t, when in reality, you’re just a sad old hag who lost her husband and baby.” Ella had shoved up from the table mid-speech. Spinning away, she charged across the room, slamming through the double doors.
Britta had a baby? Oh my god, Britta lost her baby? I stared openmouthed after Ella, before quickly turning to Britta.
“Don’t listen to her,” I said in a rush. “She says stupid shit all the time that she doesn’t really mean—”
“Oh, she meant it all right,” Britta replied evenly. “She’s meaner than a wet sittin’ hen, that one. It ain’t her fault, though—it’s this whole goddang world.” Shaking her head, Britta pushed her tray away and stood from her seat. “Seems I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Britta, wait.” I hurried to place my hand on her wrist. “I’ll come with you. We can go for a walk.”
“Now don’t you worry about me, sugar,” Britta said, patting my hand and setting it aside. “It’s times like this I like bein’ alone. Think I might just take a stroll—maybe find somethin’ that needs some killin’.” At the mention of bloodshed, the corners of her lips curled up.
As Britta departed the dining hall and I stared sadly after her, Logan finally looked up from his dinner. “What the hell just happened?”
I shook my head, shoulders shrugging. “No idea,” I muttered, slumping in my seat.
“Jesus Christ,” Logan said, tossing his fork away. “All day I couldn’t wait to see you and this is what we’re doing—sitting here listening to everyone else’s depressing bullshit? Do you wanna get the fuck out of here—go for a drive maybe?”
I jerked in surprise. “A drive? Like, outside the wall?”
Logan was already on his feet, grabbing my hand. “Outside the goddamn wall,” he said, pulling me from my seat.
“Did you see the look on Leisel’s face?” Laughing, I leaned my head back in the seat, the Jeep’s caged top blowing warm wind through my unbound hair. “Oh my god, it was fucking epic!”
Leisel had been adamantly opposed to Logan taking one of the vehicles; she’d begun shaking her head before Logan had finished his request.
“First off,” Leisel said. “No one goes out this late in the day unless they’re on patrol—what if you don’t make it back before sunset? Second, you haven’t even been here six months—how can I trust you with something as valuable as a vehicle?”
Before Logan could argue, Joshua had placed his hand over Leisel’s. “Logan recently helped us with something important,” he said quietly. “I think we can trust him. And if they’re not back before sunset, I’m sure they’ll be back first thing tomorrow—right guys?”
While Logan and I stammered through our assurances, Leisel, with her mouth set in a straight line, pulled a set of keys from her pocket. “You can take the Jeep,” she said woodenly, while side-eyeing Joshua as she continued. “If anything happens, this is on you.”
As we flew over the forest floor, onto a barely there dirt road, Logan flashed a smile in my direction, bigger and brighter than any I’d ever seen grace his handsome face and I found myself watching him in a way I’d never done before—freely and without reservation. Had he always been so good-looking? Of course he had, but something felt distinctly different about looking at him now, like I was looking at him without a lens for once, without anything obstructing my view.
I was still staring at him when he pulled the Jeep to the side of a road—a residential neighborhood, the surrounding homes in various stages of decay.
“So we’re scavenging?” I asked, unbuckling my seat belt.
“We can if you want,” Logan replied. “But I thought you might want to learn how to drive?”
My eyes shot to his, my face splitting into a grin. “Are you serious?” I exclaimed, clapping my hands together. “Are you fucking serious?”
I’d only just started driver’s education classes when the world had closed its doors for business. To date, my time behind the wheel amounted to a few quick practices in parking lots, each instance so long ago I barely remembered them.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, into Logan’s lap, I opened his door, practically pushing him out of it. “Goodbye,” I said. “Good day, sir, this is my seat now.”
“This is a stick shift,” Logan warned as he switched to the passenger seat. “It’s not going to be as easy as driving your dad’s Suburban.”
“I’m ready,” I said, gripping the wheel with one hand and the shifter with the other. “My body is ready.”
“Great,” Logan replied dryly. “Can your body shift into first then?”
“My body can definitely shift into—” My words were cut off by the sharp scream of grinding gears.
“One foot on the brake,” Logan instructed. “One on the gas—give it a little gas while you ease up off the clutch.”
As it turned out, my body was not, in fact, ready for driving a stick. As I jerked the Jeep up and down the street, I stalled out more than not, grinding gears left and right, and flooding the gas each time I had to start from stopping.
“I just don’t get it!” I shouted, throwing the Jeep into neutral and slamming on the brakes. “I can’t do four things at once—I’m not a fucking octopus, Logan.” As if to further my point, I began angrily flailing my arms around in the air.
Logan burst out laughing—intense, vivid, messy laughter that had him bending over in his seat and clutching his stomach, his guffaws echoing up and down the otherwise silent street. Again, I merely stared at him, somewhat dumbstruck by the unfamiliar sight, but more so startled by my own remarkable reaction to him. A reaction that began as a warm ball in my belly slowly unfurling, that gradually spread to each and every limb, releasing into the ether with a smile on my face.
Reaching across the seats, I placed my hand on his arm. “This is when it feels right,” I heard myself say.
Logan’s laughter tapered off quickly; breathing hard, he stared into my eyes. “This feels right?”
Nodding my head, I blew out a slow, shaky breath. “Yes.”
His eyes darkened, his features tightened. “I want you,” he said.
His declaration was an instant aphrodisiac to a body that was already willing and waiting. “Right here?” I asked, laughing a little.
“Right here,” he growled, reaching for me. “Right fucking now.”
We never made it back to Silver Lake. After a hot and heavy session in the Jeep, we’d stumbled inside the nearest house, quickly securing it and setting up camp for the night before falling back into bed… or in our case, falling onto the kitchen counter, the dining room table, and finally the living room floor.
With our sleeping bags twisted beneath us, I was half sprawled over Logan’s naked body, running my fingers through the trail of hair that spanned the space between his belly button and hips. It was the middle of the night, we’d been sleeping on and off in between being tangled up in one another, and my body was spent, deliciously sore in ways it had never been before. And yet, I still wanted more.
“Logan?”
“Hmm?”
Propping my chin on my hand, I gazed up at him. “Who was the last person you were with?”
Logan placed his arms behind his head and peered down at me. “What do you mean?”
“Sex, Logan—I’m asking who’s the last person you had sex with. Was it that girl in Kentucky? What was her name?” I snapped my fingers. “Krista or Crystal?”
“Crystal,” he said slowly. “And yeah, I had sex with her… but she wasn’t the last.”
I sat up suddenly, folding my legs beneath me. “Wait, what? Who else was there?”
Logan followed my lead, shifting to sitting. “Really? This is what you want to talk about? Right now?”
When I nodded, maybe a bit too enthusiastically considering the subject matter, Logan shot me a dubious glance and shook his head. “Alright, fine,” he said, sighing. “Do you remember that couple we ran into in the middle of West Virginia? At the gas station?”
It wasn’t often that I had to put actual thought into recalling someone we’d met on the road; they’d been so few and far between. “The married couple?” I asked, my eyes widening. “No way—her?”
We’d crossed paths with the young, seemingly happy couple from Vermont at a small country store in the middle of the West Virginia hills, parting ways after only two nights together—they’d headed south, while we’d ventured west. I’d never had even the slightest inkling that something had occurred between Logan and the pretty blonde woman.
“Did Luke know?” I mused, shaking my head. “I mean, he never told me.”
“I didn’t tell him,” Logan muttered, dragging his hands through his unbound hair.
“When did you do it?” I asked abruptly, still stunned. “Where did you do it? Did you come on to her or did she come on to you?” I scowled at the idea of either.
“I couldn’t sleep and neither could she and, I don’t know, it just fucking happened, okay?” Again, he ran his hands through his hair, scratching angrily at his scalp. “Why are we even talking about this?”
“I don’t know,” I snapped, irritated for reasons I couldn’t quite explain. “I guess I just didn’t expect that… her!”
“You didn’t expect what exactly—that after Mackenzie and you, I didn’t become a monk? Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I hardly thought you were a monk,” I shot back with a snort. “Since I very clearly remember crazy Krista from Kentucky.”
“Crystal,” he growled. “And why the fuck does any of this matter?”
It didn’t matter. Or at least, it shouldn’t have, and yet something was inexplicably bothering me about it. “Sorry—Crystal,” I scoffed. “Are there any others you’ve been keeping secret?”
“Willow, what the hell—what’s with the inquisition?”
I gaped at him. “So there are others?”
“Again, why the fuck does it matter?” Logan’s tone took on a razor-sharp edge. “Does it change something between us? Was I supposed to keep my hands to myself while you and Luke humped like rabbits?”
“What? Excuse you—we didn’t hump like rabbits. And no, that’s not what I meant.” Cursing, my hands rose and fell in my lap. “I guess I’m just surprised. I thought I knew everything about you, and now…” I trailed off with a sigh, before muttering, “This isn’t even what I wanted to talk about.”
“Hey.” Leaning forward, Logan captured my chin, locking eyes with me. “Can you clue me in with what’s happening right now? Because I’m fucking lost.”
“Nothing. Never mind.” I attempted turning from his touch only to have his hand slip into my hair, holding me still.
“Talk to me,” he demanded. “Tell me what you wanted to say. Tell me why you’re pissed at me. I want it all, alright? The good and the bad. Don’t shut me out.”
I had so many feelings in that moment, the most prominent being how I felt each time Logan showed some tenderness or a bit of vulnerability, acts I hadn’t been entirely sure he was capable of until recently.
A little bit speechless and a whole hell of a lot turned on, I swallowed past the myriad of feelings lodged in my throat and fumbled for the right words. “I just… I wanted to know if sex had ever been like this for you before. If it had ever been this crazy kind of intense with anyone else.”
With his hand still entangled in my hair, he brought his face close to mine. “Willow, nothing has ever felt like this… no one has ever felt like you do.” His voice deepened in the most skin-shivering, toe-curling way.
I sucked in a potent breath, my stomach doing a dip dive straight to my core. I couldn’t respond right away; I was momentarily lost. Lost inside his heated gaze. Lost in the feel of his warm breath mingling with my own. Lost among the very same intensity I’d been trying to convey.
“Now, tell me why you’re mad.”
“I’m not,” I breathed. Though, part of me wondered if I was, in fact, mad. Mad as in, the Mad Hatter sort of mad. Entirely bonkers and whatnot. This was me and Logan, after all—a man I’d once professed to hate forever, but lately was feeling anything but. Feelings and sensations that seemed to have crept up on me out of nowhere, exploding from the calm like a lightning storm in the dead of night.
And strangely enough, I didn’t want to soothe the storm inside me. Instead, I found myself wanting to feed it.
No, I wanted to be it.
Like Britta had said, we’re the hurricanes, sugar, and all them storm chasers better take cover.
Sliding onto Logan’s lap, I gripped his face and slanted my mouth over his.