Hypothetical Heart (Farewell Fairwood #2)

Chapter 31

31

OCTOBER

F or fall break, none of us went back to Fairwood. Everyone wanted to do something different, and going back to freezing cold Connecticut just didn’t seem like much fun. So the six of us, and most of our parents, board flights to Myrtle Beach. And it’s honestly been a huge weight off my shoulders.

Being back with the people who feel like home, even if we’re not technically home. It makes me realize how lucky I am to have such amazing people who are worth missing so much.

The house is packed to the brim with people, and there hasn’t been a dull day since we got here.

It’s Saturday night. We’ve been here since Thursday. Fall break ends tomorrow when everyone will be taking many different flights to various different places on the East Coast.

Shockingly, our parents all wanted to go bar-hopping for the night, leaving the college kids to fend for ourselves after dinner.

As soon as we walk back into the house, Luke goes straight to the liquor cabinet. “If our parents get to have fun, so do we,” he says, pulling out the biggest bottle of Grey Goose I’ve ever seen.

“Flawed logic, considering we’re underaged, but I won’t argue,” Genevieve replies, grabbing glasses down from the cabinet.

All of us make drinks before heading out onto the back deck, the one that is hoisted up above the beach on giant beams, with steps leading down to the beach and only about a hundred yards from the ocean. It’s October now, and at night, the air is crisp, but during the day, it’s just warm enough to remind us why we love the feeling of summer.

I take small sips from the glass between my hands. A lot of the time, alcohol makes me sleepy, which is why I don’t find myself participating often. But tonight, I’m not in a random house, and my bed is right inside.

Slowly, I’ve started to slump down in my chair as the effects of my vodka soda started to slowly kick in, especially when the boys pulled out the metal fire pit and made a small fire to sit in the middle. The breeze blows the warm air toward me, which makes my eyes become even heavier. It’s somehow always me who’s falling asleep around the fire, and it’s always a serious conversation that stirs me awake.

“Can we talk about the skeleton in the closet, please?” Genevieve sighs, sitting forward in her chair.

“We’re outside.” Luke jokes from where he’s sitting across the fire.

“It’s an idiom, idiot,” she shoots back.

“Go ahead, Gen.” Logan waves her on.

“What would really happen if Winnie and Logan got together?” Her question has me almost catapulting myself out of my chair and into the fire.

“ What ?” Logan and I ask at the same time before his eyes lock on mine.

I twirl a piece of hair between my fingers, so caught off-guard from Genevieve’s question that I can barely think straight.

“We’ve been dancing around the question for years.” She argues. “I know to you guys it seems impossible, but just think for a minute about what it could be like.”

“Gen,” Logan sighs, letting out a ragged breath. “Stop. Don’t make something out of nothing.”

I physically wince at his words. Nothing? Really? It didn’t seem like nothing when he’s been kissing me in my apartment every day.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the intensity in his voice like a stab in the chest. I didn’t think that he’d act so against the thought of being with me in front of our friends.

Whether or not they know about our current situation doesn’t matter. There is no reason for him to act completely disgusted by the thought.

“Logan,” Eloise counters. “Don’t be stupid.”

“This is none of your business,” he says, sounding more neutral after he sees the look on my face.

Genevieve looks at me, a pleading look in her eye. As if she’s begging me to talk some sense into him. I try to hone in on the fact that everyone else is a lot more intoxicated than me, but all I can think about are Logan’s words.

I know I can’t force Logan into having feelings that aren’t there. I can’t make him love me. If he’s showing how he truly feels right now, in front of all our friends, that’s fine.

“We’re friends,” I say flat out, watching Logan’s face drop the same way mine did.

“Winnie—” Luke presses .

“That’s it, that’s all we are,” I reaffirm. “ Friends .”

Jameson stays silent because he’s caught between a rock and a hard place, siding with his best friend or siding with his girlfriend.

Not that there are sides.

I don’t know if I’m sweating because of the fire or because of the intensity of Logan’s gaze.

“Okay, but we’ve all known that the feelings you both have towards each other are not completely platonic,” Genevieve says like she’s admitting something everyone else is afraid to say.

I’m not even sure what to feel.

“Well, maybe that’s not the case anymore,” I reply, only looking at Logan.

Before he can say anything else, I stand from my chair and run towards the porch steps. Everyone else stays put except Logan.

“Winnie!” He yells as I stomp up the steps and throw open the sliding glass door. “Winnie, wait!”

I don’t want to hear what he has to say. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Once I make it into the house, through the kitchen, and up the stairs, I stop for a moment, listening for Logan.

Our entire childhood, Logan was known to be the peacekeeper of the friend group. He never wanted anyone to be mad or feel left out. He spent his entire life keeping everyone happy.

For once, I selfishly want him to stop caring about what our friends think, or how things between me and him could affect our friends.

But when I don’t hear any sign of him, I go into my bedroom and lock the door behind me.

Everyone has known all along that for Logan and me to work out, something is going to have to give.

I just don’t know what else there is to give.

I wake up the next morning to the feeling of a cool, ocean breeze coming through my window and the sound of someone pounding on my door.

“Winnie!” Eloise shouts. “Come on, it’s time to get up!”

“No more moping in your bed!” Genevieve yells, pounding on the door again. “Get up!”

“Okay, okay,” I sigh, just loud enough for them to hear me. “I’m up!” I throw the covers off my legs and stand from my bed.

“We’re going to the beach in an hour,” Eloise says as I open the door. Luke and Logan are standing behind Eloise, and Genevieve and Jameson now are nowhere to be seen.

Eloise and Luke look at each other before they silently head down the stairs, leaving Logan and I alone upstairs.

“Win,” he sighs, stepping forward, making it so he’s within arm’s reach.

“Logan,” my voice echoes through the hall, and I have a good feeling all of our friends are eavesdropping from downstairs. “I think you said everything you needed to last night.”

I try to sidestep him and escape down the stairs, but he catches my arm. “Listen to me,” he demands.

“Is this a game to you?” I pull my arm from his grip. “Have you spent our entire lives baiting me into telling you how I feel about you just so you can laugh in my face? Because that’s what last night felt like.”

I expect tears to form, for me to cry in front of Logan the same way I cried alone in my bed last night, but they don’t. I’m more angry at him than I am upset.

“That’s what you think?” He sounds close to laughing. “Winnie, you can’t be serious.”

“You might as well have spit in my face last night, Logan.” I throw my hands up, clearly aggravated. “You sat there and told our friends that you and I are nothing.”

“I didn’t mean it like that?—”

“You’ve never been one to say things you don’t mean, Logan. If you want me to make it easy for you, then I will. We’re nothing.”

“Winnie.” he grabs both my shoulders. “Listen to me for a minute!”

“Why?” I shout back. “So you can reaffirm that my feelings for you are different from yours for me?”

“That has never been the case, and you know it!”

“Maybe I don’t, Logan!” I hear movement downstairs, and for a moment, I’m scared someone is going to come up here, but the sound stops, and Logan and I go silent.

Neither of us says anything for a while. He hurt me, and now I can see I'm hurting him too. There's no guide for what to do when someone so good causes you pain, and you know you've hurt them as well.

“I’m not going to beg you to want me,” I finally say, letting out a long breath. “I never have, and I never will. That’s your choice to make.”

“It’s the one I have made,” his voice breaks, and I feel like I’m breaking his heart. God. “Over and over again, I’ve made that choice, and I’ll continue to do so for as long as you let me.”

His words play through my head on a loop, like they’re fighting for room to reside within my brain forever.

At this moment, after all the time I’ve spent wishing for Logan to say the words he just said, I can’t get myself to care for whether he’s placating me, and I’m simply falling for it.

Because if there’s one thing I know about Logan Callaghan, it’s that I’ll fall for him every time. Over and over.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

“I believe you. What you said last night was a mistake, and it didn’t come out entirely how you intended it to.”

“It was a mistake, Win,” he tells me, sincerity dripping from him. “I may always say what I mean, but I don’t always mean what I say.”

I should have known this from the moment the words left his mouth. Logan may not hold his tongue very often, but that doesn’t mean everything he says is always perceived how he wants it to be.

“Yeah.” I lean into him, the strength of his large frame steadying me. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have freaked out the way I did.”

“It’s not your fault,” he assures me, squeezing my hands as he pulls me closer. “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t intend to give you the impression that I thought we were nothing. I was only trying not to make it obvious that all of their assumptions were correct.”

We both know this doesn’t mean we’re together now because it doesn’t feel right to solidify our relationship directly after one of the biggest fights we’ve had in a while. But it stands as further confirmation that it’s what we both want.

“Well, I think they might have a hint now.” I laugh as he drags me into his embrace. “They did watch me storm off because you rejected me.”

“Who gives a fuck? They’ll get over it.” It’s not like we’re even together, anyway. They have nothing to suspect. “And I did not reject you.”

I laugh, and my head drops on his shoulder, and his hands wrap around my waist. It’s the type of comfort I look for in moments of uncertainty, where I feel like I’m teetering on the edge and need something to pull me upright again.

“It kind of seems like they’re on board.”

“They’re our friends, Win. Of course they’re on board.” I can only imagine the looks on Genevieve and Eloise’s faces when they find out.

“Let’s go downstairs. Everyone’s probably waiting for us.”

S taring at the ceiling of my bedroom in the beach house, my brain rattles while it debates what to do about the current predicament.

For as long as I’ve known her, Winnie and I have been beating around the bush of feelings that we have for each other, both of us too scared to progress any further than friends.

My issue has always been the idea that if anything ever happened between us romantically, there’s a good chance that if something went wrong, our friendship would never recover .

Winnie’s fear, however, is the idea of forever. I admit, it is terrifying to think something could happen to either of us, and we would lose both our best friend and the person we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with.

But whenever I think about Winnie and I, there is only one word to sum up everything I feel for her.

Inevitable.

The two of us, the emotions we have for one another, they have been inevitable from the beginning of it all.

I jump out of my bed, crossing the hallway quickly and knocking on Winnie’s bedroom door twice before it opens.

I don’t even think about what happens next, mostly because it shouldn’t shock anyone.

My hand wraps around Winnie’s jaw, and we both take a step back into her bedroom as my lips connect with hers.

“Logan,” She gasps when her door slams shut behind us. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t you think it’s about time we give in?” I ask in return, spinning us so that her back is against the door. “Stop holding back, have me the way you want me.”

She expels a shaky breath as her hands grasp onto the collar of my sweatshirt. “Do you really mean that?”

“Win, there hasn’t been a day where I haven’t thought about all the things I want with you.” I kiss right next to her lips. “And this is only part of it.”

She pushes her head against the door, forcing a gap between us. “When we were in kindergarten, I went around telling everyone that you were my husband.”

“I know.” I remember the times when kids would come running up to me, asking if it was true. “I never denied the rumors.”

“This is like a dream,” Winnie replies when she looks up at me again.

“No, honey, this is reality.” I push the loose strands of hair behind her ear. “Be my girlfriend? Please, Sweetheart?”

She smiles happily. “Yes, Logan, I’ll be your girlfriend.” There’s a tone of finality in her voice, like this is all we’ve ever needed.

We have waited long enough for this moment, and we’re now living it. It doesn’t feel like some type of far-fetched dream anymore because I’m actually kissing Winnifred Carter.

She kisses me again, pulling me by the sweatshirt so that we’re pressed chest to chest.

All of her movements match mine, and it feels like a force of nature, the way we match each other so perfectly.

Our lives have forever revolved around each other, with underlying promises of this happening one day.

“What are we going to tell everyone?” she asks as she pulls away from me. We’re both out of breath, our chests rising and falling together.

“Do you think we’ll even need to tell them?” I joke. “It seems like they already have a pretty good idea.”

“Well, we have to see who won the bet,” she says as she grabs a sweatshirt from the dresser, pulling it on over her tank top, like she was ready to burst through our friends’ bedrooms and tell them the news.

I’m not even shocked that there are bets in our friend group revolving around Winnie and me.

“Woah, woah, woah.” I grab her wrist to stop her from leaving. “Why don’t we take the night to figure out what we’re telling them, at least.”

Her face falls slightly. That’s not the answer she was looking for. “Logan, I’m done waiting around. You either want to be with me, or you don’t. Tell me now.”

“Of course I want to be with you, Winnie. That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I emphasize, making her smile. “But we’ve spent our entire lives waiting. I don’t think one more night will be too hard.”

“You’re right,” she sighs. “Tomorrow morning, though.”

Her eagerness to tell our friends brings a smile to my face. “Bright and early, I promise.”