Logan

*****

Amelia was going to drive me straight to the loony bin, I'm not kidding. I could fucking feel it. If I was not going to plant my foot down and show her who the man was, I was going to get there faster than a speed of light.

I couldn't understand how she couldn't see that her 'friend' as she called him, wanted to fuck her to a pulp.

This is what girls didn't understand. In fact, I think they choose not to put it in their thick skulls full of cotton. No matter how good-hearted, good intentional the guy may seem to be, in the end, we are always predators only after one thing, and to show you how serious I am about this, I'm not excluding myself from the bunch.

A good lay.

We are all after that. We are ready to chase it to the end of the world if it means we get some. The only difference is, if the guy likes you, then maybe he will stick around even after the deed is done.

Ethan didn't even bother to hide his intentions from me.

The way he challenged me like it was so easy for him to do it. Like he had some kind of reassurance from her. The way he subtly threw words with an underlying message. 'She is my business.' If that wasn't a message enough as to what his intentions were, I don't know what else was.

What really pissed me off was that Amelia didn't even seem to catch up on that. But I did, I saw it all too well. Just the way I usually see a lot of other things.

Seriously, how naive could she get, how many signs did she need? Or maybe she was enjoying it to some degree? Flattered with the amount of attention from both of us. And what the fuck was that with Luke?

I wanted to drive my fist through a wall, or anybody that was close by, preferably that Ethan boy.

I had gone to school with one goal that day, two if you want me to mention other plans I had for Amelia, only for everything to completely change in a matter of seconds. Instead of quality time with her, I came across a freaking nightmare of a message. So, you can imagine my frantic state of mind.

Her mother had told me where she was and thank God I got there just in time before she drove off with him.

Call it a sixth sense or whatever, but as soon as she told me Amelia was at her dad's, something nagged at the back of my head. I didn't know what it was at the time, I only knew I needed to get there. Pronto.

Turns out, I should listen to my sixth sense a lot more. The nagging was its way of advising me to hurry the fuck up, goddammit.

And then, get this, I get there, and what do I find her wearing? A fucking short shorts. Basically, inviting him to watch. I mean, unless he was gay which clearly, he wasn't from the way testosterone reeked from his pores, any straight man would bulge from that.

So, combine her choice of attire and her beauty, I was ready to get her away from him as fast as possible.

"Let's go. " I grabbed her hand, ready to get the hell out there.

We needed to talk. No, scratch that, I needed to talk and she needed to listen. In fact, talk was putting it mildly. I wanted to shout, scream until she gets it and I couldn't do that at her dad's house. I've had enough of him.

"What? Logan, I can't just leave."

She didn't get it did she. She didn't have a choice. She was going to go with me. How the fuck she managed to piss me off twice that day was beyond me, but I was going to get answers the easy way, or the hard way. Her choice.

I threw her a look. In my mind, I was thinking, 'I'm gonna throw her on top of my shoulders and carry her out kicking and screaming. But I decided on a much civil choice.

"I'm gonna bring you back. We can't talk here."

I wasn't sure if that was the truth. Bringing her back meant bringing her back to him, but we will think about that when the time is right.

She followed me. Good choice.

I led her out past her car to mine. None of us spoke. I didn't want to speak until we get there.

I unlocked my car and opened the passenger's side for her to get in before I strolled to the driver's side and drove off.

*****

You know that time when you have so much to say but you have no idea which topic to start with or how to even put it the way that would make you sound rational and calm?

That was my situation.

I had literally planted Amelia down on the couch in my living room and sat across from her and since then, we had just been staring at each other.

So many words were at the tip of my tongue but none of them sounded remotely calm or nice, to say the least, and I think I was shaking. The words on the tip of my tongue build-up until I couldn't take it anymore. Until I couldn't wait.

"What the fuck?" I roared and threw my hands up in the air. The tone of my voice in no way as cool and collected as I'd hoped it to be.

"I can explain." She shot her small hands in front of her, palms facing me. "It is not what it looked like."

Explain? Explain! She needed to do much more than that. I needed evidence, explanation, and probable cause.

"How can you explain kissing my best friend in the middle of a parking lot in a broad daylight?" I shouted. Not that I wanted her to do it at night where nobody could see, but at least I wouldn't have seen it.

"I wasn't kissing him!" She yelled back. "He wasn't kissing me, please let me explain."

I didn't know there was another general name for when a man and a woman press their lips together.

Her denying it sparked a wave of anger inside me. Anger so overwhelming I ground my teeth in an attempt to contain it, somehow.

I couldn't contain it. So, I planted my fist on the side of my couch. "Don't you fucking lie to me. I saw the God damn video."

She enclosed her arms around herself like that was going to protect her or get her out of that situation. It wasn't. I looked at her and wondered how the fuck did that small, vulnerable girl in front of me could possibly drive me around like a kite. What the fuck was happening to me.

I felt bad for yelling but I was just very angry. She was mine and her going around kissing other men drove me to insanity. I needed the truth, I needed her to tell me it was a mistake or some kind of messed up prank or... Shit, I didn't even know what she could say to calm me down.

I wasn't out there questioning Luke while squeezing the life out of his neck because the son of a bitch disappeared. Just like she did. The only difference was, I knew just where she had gone to. When I saw that video, I was lost. Couldn't believe what I was seeing, and then flushes of some peculiar behaviors from Luke came to me. To be honest, since he was my friend, I never for a second entertain the possibilities of him liking Amelia that way. Now I just don't know anymore.

"I wouldn't kiss anybody else, " she said, her voice breaking like she was on the verge of crying. "You should know that. Luke was only trying to save my life."

I blinked. The fuck he was. I never heard of someone saving a life by a kiss. Unless they were doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but I also never seen that being performed while the patient was standing.

"Saving you?" I narrowed my eyes and bobbed my head up and down before I stood up and began to pace up and down in frustration.

"Listen to me, something was wrong when I got to school." She stood up and took slow steps towards me. "I think I had a panic attack, and Luke was there, and I couldn't breathe properly, he had to act."

Oh, he acted alright. The first chance he fucking got. He acted very well.

My face must have shown exactly what I was thinking because she took another step and looked at me as if saying 'please, believe me.'

"It wasn't a kiss, " she said, almost in a whisper. "I wouldn't kiss him or anybody else, Logan. One way to help someone who's having a panic attack is to stop them from breathing even if only for a few seconds. That's what Luke did. He stopped me from breathing."

There was a truth to those words to some degree. But still, who's to say he didn't enjoy it. the thought of her kissing him or even just pressing her lips with his got all my rational thoughts to fly out the window.

"Okay, " I said. "What about him? That Ethan guy. What's going on there?"

"Nothing is going on between Ethan and I. We are just friends."

That's what she thought? Seriously, that's what she thought was going on there.

"Really?" I quirked my eyebrow. "Look at me in the eyes and tell me you think that's all he wants from you."

She stopped to think for a minute. I could see it in her eyes even she knew something was up with him.

"It doesn't matter what he wants. He never even hinted on anything else, Logan, please you've got to trust me."

Oh, I trusted her. It's all the other sex-hungry men that I didn't trust.

"I don't want you to see him, " I said. I knew very well that I was being selfish, and controlling, but the thing was, I didn't care.

Her brows furrowed in disbelief. "What?" Her mouth hung open. "Logan, you can't be serious. You can't tell me whom to talk to and whom not to."

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't, " she shouted this time. "Ethan is my friend and you need to trust me just the way I'm learning to trust you again."

For some reason, anger flickered inside me, yet again. Maybe it was those words she said, maybe the confirmation she had indeed lost faith in me even if just a little, and I hated that. And to rub salt in my wounds, her immediate resistance to stop talking to him wasn't helping much.

Why did she need to talk to him? What was so almighty about their conversation she couldn't do it with someone else? Why couldn't she find another friend? Better yet, a girlfriend would be a good fit. Suzy was already her friend and, in my books, she was more than enough. I didn't see why she needed to go out and find another one.

I took a deep breath to calm my erratic pulse. "Give me one good reason." I raised my forefinger. "Why him? I don't trust him. I don't want you talking to him. One good reason, Amelia, and I will understand."

I wasn't sure I would understand, but just for the hell of hearing something, anything that would make me see the light at the end of the fucking, long, dark tunnel.

She blinked and took another step, closing the little distance that was left between us before she reached out with both her hands and took mine.

I let her.

Slowly, she raised my hand and grazed it along her soft lips, leaving a trail of small kisses on each of my knuckles.

I tried to stay strong. To remain stoic and show her I was still angry, but I was losing it inside.

She looked at me. Deeply looked at me like I was the only thing in the world. Her big, deep dark eyes looked even deeper, causing my thoughts to halt and my pulse to quicken. And then, she opened her mouth and utter the words that shook me to my core and crumbled all my walls.

"Because I love you."

*****

Damn, I didn't think she was brave enough to tell him that.

Continue to part two.

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