15. Logan

15

LOGAN

E ven with a fireplace, my room would never pass as a Pinterest-perfect winter wonderland, but I’d done my best with the two-foot artificial tree I’d scrounged from Gable House’s basement storage. God knew how long it had been in there or how it’d gotten there in the first place. It shed glitter everywhere, and the few ornaments that had still been hanging from the branches looked like they were the last ones standing after a raucous party a decade before I’d ever stepped foot in the house. But it was festive. Sort of.

I fiddled with the tree’s scraggly branches as I waited for Josh to arrive. Last week of finals meant we hadn’t seen each other as much, between exams and all my tutoring sessions ramping up. But he’d crushed his final—actually texted me a picture of his B+ with about fifty exclamation points—and now we had tonight, just us, before heading home for winter break tomorrow.

A soft knock preceded Josh poking his head in. “Hey.” He stepped inside my room, a wrapped package tucked under his arm. Snowflakes clung to his hair, and his cheeks were pink from the trek across campus. He took in the tree, his face lighting up. “You decorated.”

“Barely. Pretty sure this tree is older than both of us combined.”

“I like it. The fire is clutch, of course.” He set his gift down and caught me by the wrist, pulling me closer and planting a kiss on my lips that tasted like peppermint. “I like you more, though.”

The casual way he said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world, made my heart beat faster. A month of dating and I still wasn’t used to how freely he gave affection now that we were together. How he’d gone from the guy who’d bailed on our group project freshman year to someone who texted me physics memes at midnight just because they made him think of me. I loved it, though. Fucking couldn’t get enough of it, actually.

“You’re freezing.” I stated the obvious mostly just to keep from blurting out something embarrassingly sappy, even though I got the idea sappy wouldn’t faze him. Maybe someday I’d write a letter of thanks to Enya in her castle with her cats, thanking her for her contribution to my love life.

“It’s gnarly out there, for sure.” He rubbed his hands together. “Glad I’m not driving home until tomorrow.”

Just the mention of tomorrow made my chest tight. Almost three weeks apart shouldn’t feel like such a big deal. But that was before I knew what it felt like to fall asleep with Josh, before I’d memorized the exact sound of his laugh when my fingers accidentally caressed over this one particular spot on his ribs, before he’d become such an essential part of my daily life that the thought of not seeing him for three weeks made me ache.

Josh pulled me in close again, pressing the cold tip of his nose against my neck. “It’s gonna be weird not seeing you,” he said, channeling my thoughts.

“Yeah, I’m not loving the idea.”

He pulled back a bit. “But when we get back…”

“Massive amounts of sex?” I supplied with a wry smile.

“Well, yeah, but what I was gonna say was how good it’d feel to see you again. Like, I hate the distance, but I can already feel how much I’m gonna miss you and there’s something about that that also feels…” he hesitated, then shook his head. “I dunno, good somehow. I like having someone to miss.”

Before I could totally melt, he stepped back and grabbed his gift. “C’mon. I want to see your face when you open this.”

“Oh god.” I huffed out a laugh as we settled on the floor by the tree, close enough that our knees touched. The fire blazed behind us, and even with the old decorations and slightly crooked tree, everything felt cozy. Right.

I handed him his gift first, pulse picking up as he turned the package over in his hands. “It’s not much, but?—”

“Stop.” He nudged me with his knee before ripping into the paper, dimple popping as he revealed the snow globe. He turned it side to side, taking in the winter scene inside—two figures lying in the snow beneath a scatter of silver stars. “Oh wow,” he breathed out, and some of the anxiety leached from my shoulders. I was afraid he’d think it was cheesy.

“I’ve got a friend who custom makes them. There’s also…” I took the snow globe from him and turned it over, twisting the knob on the base until the first notes of “Orinoco Flow” filled the air. “Musical accompaniment.”

“Holy shit!” Josh’s mouth hung open for a beat, before he shook his head. “It’s fucking… this is amazing.”

Before I could deflect or babble my way out of the flush rising to my cheeks, his hand closed around the back of my neck and he pulled me in for another long kiss before leaning back and saying, “Thank you. I love it.”

Then he pushed his gift toward me, suddenly looking more hesitant. “So, funny story—I actually went in looking for a physics book…”

I unwrapped it carefully, revealing a copy of The Physics of Starlight . My eyes widened. “Oh wow, I’ve been wanting to read this! A bunch of people in my contemporary lit class wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“Yeah?” The relief in his voice was adorable. “I, uh, actually opened it up to write something inside and realized it wasn’t the kind of book I thought it was and panicked at first. Then read some reviews and thought it sounded like something you might like and... yeah.”

I flipped open the cover, finding his inscription: To my favorite physics wizard. Thanks for helping me see stars. Love, Joshua.

“Josh…” My throat felt tight.

He shifted closer, fingers drumming nervously on his knee. “Is it okay? I mean, I know it’s not actually about physics, which was kind of the whole point when I first saw it, but?—”

I cut him off with a kiss, just like he’d done to me earlier, one hand curling around the back of his neck while the other still clutched the book. Josh made a soft sound of surprise before melting into it, his hands settling warm on my thighs.

“So you like it?” he murmured against my lips.

“I love it.” I love you , I almost added, the words pressing against my chest before I swallowed them back. Instead, I set the book carefully aside and tugged him closer.

“You know what else I love?”

“What’s that?”

“The way your eyes light up behind your glasses when you’re excited about something.” He slid them off my face, setting them aside. “Like right now.”

I exhaled a self-conscious laugh that turned into a sharp inhale as his mouth tracked lower, finding that spot below my ear that always made me shiver. “I’m not excited.”

“No?” His breath was warm against my neck. “Could’ve fooled me.”

His hands slid up my thighs, and I let him guide me back until I was lying on the floor, the glow from the fire throwing shadows across his face as he leaned over me. In the back ground, the last notes of “Orinoco Flow” faded away, but I barely noticed, too caught up in the way Josh was looking at me.