With our hectic schedules that inched closer to finals, Logan and I took the next three weeks one day at a time. Those three weeks unfortunately included the Huskies' first loss in an away game against Oregon State. Logan played at his same elevated skill level, the Beavers just overall played better and won 31-28. Logan arrived home with a sense of disappointment in his heavy gaze and slumped shoulders, even though he'd personally played really well. I consoled him pretty much the only way I knew how, with as many physical intimacy assurances that I knew of.

On paper, Logan was primed for not only a top-five quarterback rating, he was on pace for career-highs in touchdowns, games without an interception, and his passing percentage. All of those indicators proved UW was in fact a good fit for Logan. Huskies fans agreed by the increased call volume into his weekly radio call-in interview and ridiculous volume of fan mail my boyfriend received.

Occasionally both letters and gifts slipped through both the team's address and Logan's PO Box into our personal mailbox. My mail volume was laughably paltry in comparison but I went through everything so our bills weren't swallowed up inside his growing mountain of fan mail.

We have enough girl's underwear to start our own Victoria's Secret store.

Logan also demonstrated his heart was as big as the rest of him when he joined a few guys on the team and visited Sacred Heart Children's Hospital in Spokane. The quiet, unannounced visit made a big impact on Logan, since he arrived home with a silent, weighed down conscience, wrapped his arms around me within two steps past the front door, and relayed stories of the small heroes he'd met with glossed over eyes.

Game-wise, the Huskies rebounded on the road against Arizona State and crushed Stanford at home where the only out of character occurrence was Emmitt sat in the stands in the row ahead of me and Monique for the second half of the game. I hadn't even noticed his presence until Monique pointed him out, kept one eye on him the rest of the game, and possibly threatened she'd sic Darrius on him if he got out of line.

In what felt like an eye blink, UW stood atop the PAC-12 at 7-1 and we headed towards not only Thanksgiving but also the Black Friday afternoon game against Cal. A bye week and three games made up the rest of the regular season. With an adorable grin, Logan informed me Wednesday morning during breakfast that some bowl game scouts planned to attend Friday's game.

The day before the Cal game though, Logan and I walked down the hallway for our makeshift Thanksgiving brunch with our closest friends in Wes and Charlie's apartment. Once we got there, Monique flung open the door so hard I was surprised it stayed on its hinges, then thrust her left hand at my face.

"Ahhh!!!" She and I traded simultaneous screams at the gigantic, princess-cut diamond that sat over a gold band on her left ring finger.

I shoved the spinach salad I carried into Logan's hands behind me and squeezed my arms tightly around Monique's neck. At the sight of the large smile over her shoulder, I squealed out, "Darrius!!"

"Finally got the hint, Miss Ellie," he said in his low, sweet voice.

"Congrats." I squeezed my newly engaged friend again, pulled back, and held the tips of Monique's fingers while I inspected the ring. "It's gorgeous."

"It was Momma Williams," Monique replied with absolute stars in her brown eyes and extra glow in her usually flawless skin. Her gaze dropped to her ring as the smile never left her lips, "Well, the diamond. Had to get a different band, Momma's fingers are a bit stubbier."

"How did Momma take the news?" I finally stepped inside, where I quickly hugged my arms as far around Darrius' big frame as they fit.

"Fine," his deep, honey-like voice coated my ears as he warmly hugged me back. "As long as we get married under the same magnolia tree she and Daddy were married under, she's cool."

"Don't forget the fine print." Monique added with narrowed eyes.

Darrius' head shook but his gigantic smile gave away his true opinion. "And lots of grandbabies."

"We're still negotiating that part but I'm getting married!!" The happiness that radiated from both Monique and Darrius was contagious. Only when I stepped towards the kitchen had I noticed Logan's stiff posture and stoic expression from where he stood near a wall close to Charlie's dining room table.

Why does he look like he's waiting to get a root canal? I've never pressured him to propose, have I?

I'm just glad we're together again, wherever that takes us.

I should tell him that before he passes out, or -

"You're turn next, pretty boy," Darrius joked with one hand slapped on Logan's shoulder.

Logan just silently shook his head and set the dishes down on Charlie's dining room table, but his eyes lifted and flickered with amusement at me. With the addition of Darrius and Monique, the four-person space felt a lot cozier and we squeezed two extra seats around the table anyways.

"I hope this is okay," I said quietly to Logan as his eyes roamed around the minimal dinner items. "I didn't feel like turkey, so..."

My voice faded out as my hand just waved at our dinner like that gesture explained anything. Without knowing if Logan was a traditional turkey guy, I'd made a pork tenderloin roast with apples, cranberries, bacon, and -

"Mo, is that -" Wes' large feet stopped as abruptly as his words. His only movement was one of his hands lifted and a long finger pointed at a yellow blob in a side dish bowl.

"Yes, bacon butter." Monique smiled at his silliness. "Recipe compliments of Momma Williams."

Contrary to bacon butter's name, it was compounded butter with bacon, green onions, garlic, honey, and pepper. By the look of the tiny colored dots in the butter, Monique had finely chopped everything into nearly unrecognizable pieces, which helped as we smeared it generously over Charlie's low-carb rolls that included, of all ingredients, butternut squash.

Or in Wes' case, eat it out of the butter dish.

"Is it okay if I take some blog pictures?" I held up my camera and took a few pictures of the table spread. "It's for a Thanksgiving alternative to turkey post. Before Wes destroys our spread."

I looked up and since Charlie, Wes, and Logan nodded while Monique and Darrius excused themselves to the bathroom, I sat down in one chair and snapped a few pictures to be shared online later. I hadn't kept up as consistently with my food blog as I'd hoped, had certainly posted more pictures and recipes than any videos this quarter, but my number of followers had gone from ten thousand to fifty-five.

Not like I can take credit, most of them ask me for insight into Logan's eating habits.

I had posted a sample daily menu of Logan's nearly five-thousand calorie days, which mostly earned me a lot of sympathetic posts. In a heartwarming moment though, a Mom in Oregon sent me a private message of thanks because she had twin boys on their high school team that ate her refrigerator and pantry bare. I more than happily exchanged a few recipes with her and 'aww'd' at the picture of her boys she'd sent me.

In lieu of the normal stuffed Thanksgiving turkey, my pork roast worked well enough with my usual spinach salad, Charlie's rolls, and Monique's baked cinnamon sweet potatoes. The longer I looked over our simple dinner, a warm glow filled my chest as I looked around our small table's get-together and the five happy faces that looked down on me.

"Looks good," Wes' eyes roamed over the table like a predator eyed a freshly killed carcass and took the closest seat to the pork roast. Charlie rolled her eyes and, once Monique and Darrius sat down, Charlie took the seat between Wes and Monique, Logan sat on Wes' right, and I sat between Logan and Darrius with a direct view at a pair of large hands that dished one-third of the roast onto his plate.

And that's why I made two.

"Sure you got enough, Wes?" Charlie snickered quietly, grabbed some potatoes, and handed the bowl to me.

"Hang on," Darrius interrupted Wes mid-fork raise. "We should say grace, it is Thanksgiving."

With a slight whimper from Wes, joined hands, and bowed heads, Darrius' smooth voice filled the silence around the table, "Dear Lord, we thank you for the blessing and joy of family. Thank you for those gathered here today and those far away but close in our hearts. May we appreciate how you provide for, comfort, and protect us. Bless this food to make us healthy and strong... and able to kick Cal's -"

My 'aww' was swallowed up by a giggle when Monique clamped her newly blinged out hand over Darrius' mouth. His eyes flickered in amusement when he finished with, "- butts."

"That was really sweet," I told him in a low voice while Wes finally enjoyed his first bite, groaned loudly, and flashed me a thumbs up. The rest of us had a bit more civility and passed the food plates around until everyone had what they wanted, although my, Charlie's, and Monique's plates contained half the food of our significant other's plates.

"Thank you, Miss Ellie." Darrius winked at me.

"Only thing missing is a Christmas movie running in the background." Wes grinned widely then passed the pork to Logan, who helped himself to just as much. "You know, like Die Hard."

Charlie frowned at her fiancé's proclamation. "Die Hard is not a Christmas movie."

Darrius sat back in his seat, shook his head, and focused on his food. "Sittin' this one out, Wes."

"Me too," Monique mumbled, but her wink assured me she and Darrius had battled his argument out before.

"Sure it is." Wes looked at me then offered a pretty pathetic argument in my opinion, "It starts with Christmas music in the beginning."

"No, the plotline has nothing to do with Christmas." Charlie now looked at me. "Elf, A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation... Those are Christmas movies. Monique?"

"Still sitting out," was Monique's deadpanned reply.

"It is, babe," Wes answered Charlie but shifted his gaze to Logan and practically pleaded with his brown eyes for some backup.

One corner of Logan's mouth turned up but he sat silently and looked at me. After an unnecessarily tense pause, he conceded, "It is."

"It's not." I winked at Charlie when Logan's phone rang from within his pocket.

"Sorry," he muttered, frowned at the contact, and excused himself from the table. He lingered close by, just paced a few times behind Wes' chair. "Hello? Yeah..."

"Right, well now isn't - what? What!?" Logan stopped completely still, only shifted his eyes to me but his mouth dropped open and free hand raked over his short blonde hair. "She's right here."

"Ellie," he spoke over the phone at me, then extended the phone in one hand with a somber expression. His eyes darkened until they more resembled a gray stormy ocean than the normally beautifully filtered ocean-blue I usually saw.

At my raised eyebrows, Logan added, "It's your mom."

Assumptions that Mom pulled a holiday guilt trip on me rose inside me, which wrenched my mouth sideways as I answered, "Mom?"

"Ellie!" she rushed out in a raspy, panicked voice. "Sweetie I've been trying to reach you -"

"Look, if it's about Dad," I started with a frown when she interrupted me.

"It is about Dad! He's been rushed to the hospital," Mom's voice choked up and was overtaken with soft sobs.

My eyes lifted and met Logan like somehow he held the confirmation that this information was true. "Mom, what happened? Was he in an accident?"

"No, we're at Maria's for Thanksgiving," she confirmed my earlier suspicion that they were fine at my relatives for the holiday. "He slumped over in his chair, we think it might be a heart attack. Jake..."

As Mom offered a further explanation, the cream-colored walls of Charlie and Wes' apartment squeezed in tighter on me. My pulse buzzed in my ears until the sound drowned out what Mom said and my life as I knew it screeched to a halt.

"Ellie?? Ellie!" The phone chirped into my ear, which I blinked at and mumbled, "What?"

No. NO.

My Dad. My cranky, asshole, controlling father.

He can't be...

Warmth on my shoulder drew my attention to Logan's presence. His eyes, normally as beautiful as the ocean on the clearest, sunniest day, looked down at me full of gray pity and remorse. And, for once, I hated seeing Logan's eyes on me.

I knew the gentle squeeze of his hand into my shoulder was how he assured me of his presence, an unspoken reminder of his steadfast stubbornness that he wasn't going anywhere, but I only felt more alone than ever as my world shrank smaller around me.

I last said to Dad...

The fact I cried uncontrollably hadn't registered in my mind until Logan's hands swept over my cheeks. He said nothing, only silently caught and dragged away my tears. Charlie and Wes looked at me with eyes wide not in confusion but complete sympathy and one of Charlie's hands pressed into the center of her chest.

My own chest tightened and my heart dropped like a weighted stone into the bottom of a well, where it cracked and broke. The only displacement of my pain was bubbles of guilt that rose up to the surface. My first gasp choked off my throat, of both words and oxygen. My lower lip trembled violently and Logan's hands moved faster with the streams of tears that I couldn't have held back if I'd tried.

A low humming sound came over my ears and my brain shut down. I comprehended nothing at that moment. My eyes saw Logan's lips moved but what words he said, I hadn't heard or interpreted anything from what I saw. Unlike time, so much of which I'd completely wasted, my entire body just froze.

"Ellie?" My name fell on my deaf ears and only the gentle shake of my shoulder brought my attention out of my internal reactions. With more weight than I'd ever felt, I dragged my eyes up and met Logan's, then just blinked at him.

"Ellie, I said you should go there as soon as you can," Logan's voice sounded like he'd repeated himself and my only reaction was I nodded.

My silent agreement set off a flurry of reactions around me. Monique shot up from her chair and hugged me tightly, Darrius patted my closest arm, Charlie searched for the quickest flight into San Jose, Logan left for our apartment, where he packed a suitcase for me. Through the chaos, I was pretty sure Wes finished his dinner, which earned him a smack on the shoulder from Charlie.

I sat, completely frozen and still, both at the dinner table and in Logan's truck on the way to SeaTac, until I found myself outside the security line with Logan's arms wrapped tightly around me.

"I'll come as soon as I can after tomorrow's game," he promised in my ear, then kissed me several times and hugged me again. "Call or text me when you get there. Jake will pick you up once you arrive in San Jose, should take about two hours."

"Right," I mumbled and, in a near dazed state, my feet moved me through the line, one of my hands dragged a small suitcase whose contents I had no idea since Logan packed it, my other hand hand produced my ticket and license, and my brain was still left behind at Wes and Charlie's apartment.