Friends. Friends. I started reciting that to myself. Friends only…I looked up and caught his gaze. He wasn’t looking at me in a friends-only way.

I gulped.

Nate had rounded the other side of the car. He paused now, hearing Logan’s offer, and looked at us. He snorted, shaking his head before he got inside.

The first girl had looked ready to say something, but her mouth formed an O. “Oh. Okay then.”

Logan moved around me, and his hand trailed across my back, sending a fresh wave of sensations through my body. That same hand lingered on my hip before he got into the backseat. It was a small car. He pushed a bag and blanket to the middle between him and Nate, then held his hand out to me.

This was…I didn’t think.

The way he looked at me, it was hypnotic. My legs worked on their own, and I went to him. Somehow I perched on one of his legs, turned toward the inside of the car. I tried to sit up so all of my weight wasn’t on him, but he tugged me down. His arm lifted around my back to rest on his leg. I was cupped in his arms. I could’ve laid my head on his shoulder and curled into a ball.

Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the fact that I’d survived my first week at Cain University, or maybe—I didn’t know what it was. But what should’ve been the most awkward situation ever just wasn’t. I tensed as both Nate and Logan gave directions to my house, but Logan tugged me back down. His hand went from his leg to my leg and anchored me in place.

I couldn’t deny it felt good. To be there in his arms, and that both of them were giving directions for me. The same feeling from before trickled in again. I felt included—by Nate, too. I was drunk, but I knew this sort of inclusion was a rarity.

The envious looks I’d been getting all night at the bar, the ones at the food court this week, in sociology, and even now from the two girls in the car—they wanted to be where I was. Now, where that was I had no real idea. But for now, I wasn’t going to question it. I was going with the flow, a very Logan thing to do.

“Your girl have a hot date she stood up?”

My eyes were closed, but Nate’s voice grew clear as he must’ve looked in my direction. Logan shifted underneath me and leaned forward. His voice sounded from right above my forehead. “Is that Delray’s car?”

My eyes opened in a flash. Thoughts whirled in my head. I tried to remember…then I did.

I was supposed to watch movies with Jason tonight. I’d just stood up my best friend.

I groaned, falling back against Logan’s chest.

STILL BAD

TAYLOR

Logan’s hand tightened over my leg. “You want me to come in with you?” he asked, right next to my ear.

Oh God. The idea of someone else taking care of my business was so welcome. I wanted to say yes. I’d done so much in the last nine months: arranging all the funeral plans, picking out the casket, burying my mother, being the hostess when people brought food to the house, transferring to Cain U, registering for classes, getting my books, going to school, and even today, looking for a job. It was just life, but it was exhausting. I wanted someone to help me, but it couldn’t be Logan.

I shook my head, feeling weak but determined. “No. I messed up.”

Jason would’ve had a conniption if I sent someone in my place, particularly Logan. I owed him an explanation. He was my best friend.

The girls’ smiles were brighter when they realized Logan wasn’t getting out with me. Both Logan and Nate offered a wave as I stepped back and the car took off. The little flirtation I’d just had with Logan was nice. Hell, it was like dancing with the devil for a moment. It was tempting—the promise of something great—but in the end that was all it was. A dance with the devil. I’d be blind not to see how many girls wanted him. I was also not deaf. I’d heard him at the bar when he said we were friends because we hadn’t had sex. Yet. Sex seemed inevitable when it came to Logan.

“We haven’t had sex, and you haven’t called me an asshole or slapped me yet, so yeah.” He’d winked at me. “That classifies us as friends in my book.”

Logan slept with girls. They got emotionally attached. He didn’t. Then he was called an asshole and slapped. That was likely the story of so many, and maybe if there’d been no Eric, or maybe if my mother hadn’t died in front of me, maybe I would’ve turned off my rational side and let myself go down the same path as those other girls.

But there was an Eric who left me, and I lost my mom on the same day. I couldn’t fall for Logan Kade. I understood why girls did, but I just couldn’t. I wouldn’t come back from that if I let myself go. I wasn’t special. I was just like any other girl, and Logan Kade didn’t love. He’d told me that as well.

“If I love you—and don’t get ahead of yourself because that list is really short—then I’ll do almost anything to protect you. Girls drink that shit up...”

The writing was on the wall. “I’m not being cocky when I say that girls like me, they really do like me. I’m funny, sarcastic, quick-witted, and enough of a bad boy to make girls wet. If I like you, I’m loyal to you.”

For whatever reason, Logan liked me. I would take that. I could make do with his loyalty. I remembered how it felt when he’d touched me, how his hands held me and I wanted to close my eyes, sink into him, and let his strength wash over me. That was the dangerous side of him.

I shook my head. The car was long gone, but I was still standing on my front lawn. I had to reset myself, pull out the hooks Logan had put in me. I couldn’t walk in like this with an angry Jason waiting for me. He’d see right through, and when Jason was mad, he didn’t hold back. I needed to wall myself back up so I could handle whatever he threw at me.