Next in Line Page 5

  When I woke up in the morning, I jumped up out of my chair and looked around the room. Cooper and Sophie were back and chatting with Holly. “Whoa. Chill out Logan. It’s just us” Sophie said to me. I sat back down on my chair and looked at Cooper. I was feeling pretty on edge after what happened last night and by the look on Coops face I could tell that he knew how I was feeling. I rubbed my eyes feeling exhausted from not getting much sleep. I’ve got no idea how Holly managed to sleep through the night with all of the noise and the nurses coming in to check on her. I sat back down on my chair and looked at Holly who was sitting up on her bed. “The doctor will be back in a second with the discharge papers for me to sign and then I can go home” Holly said smiling. That smile made me start to feel better. Well a little anyway.

  We got back to the girls’ apartment about half an hour later. I made Holly sit on the couch even though she insisted that she was feeling fine and picked a movie out of the DVD rack. Sophie and Cooper had gone next door to our apartment to spend some time with Toby and make sure that he didn’t destroy any more of our stuff. We didn’t end up watching the movie even though I had put it on. Holly and I just sat on the couch talking about our childhood and telling as many embarrassing stories as we could think of about Sophie and Cooper. Holly let out a big sigh and looked straight at me. I just stared into her beautiful green eyes. “So I think we should go to the movies and actually watch something that I haven’t seen about a hundred times” Holly said. A part of me didn’t want her to ever leave her apartment again. I wanted her to just stay on the couch with me forever so I knew that she was safe. I smiled at the thought that we would be able to go on our second date. Something that I had been desperately wanting to do since our first one got cut short. “Sure” I replied. I got to my feet and then helped Holly to hers before making sure that the door was locked as we left.

  Cha

  pter Nine

  Logan

  Holly had gone to the bathroom and I was in line to get the tickets for the romantic comedy movie that we had decided to see when I heard someone yell out to me. “Oh! My! God! Logan Shields. I can’t believe that it’s you.” I turned to see that it was my ex-girlfriend Amy. Oh great. She came running up and jumped on me wrapping her arms around my neck and hugging me. “What the hell are you doing Amy?” I asked hoping that she could hear the anger in my voice while I pushed her away from me. Amy and I didn’t exactly have a nice break up. I finished work early one day and quietly walked into our apartment to surprise her with some flowers but I was the one who got the surprise. I had walked in on her sleeping with some guy that she had only just met. After I kicked the guy out of the apartment practically naked, Amy and I had a big argument which ended with her smashing the only photo that I had of my mum, dad and myself. After that Amy left and I never heard from her again. She had tried to call me a few times a couple of months ago but I never answered when I saw that it was her calling. “I’ve missed you Logan. I tried calling you a little while ago to see if we could catch up and talk” Amy said to me. Was this girl serious? We had broken up just over a year ago and it’s not like we had kept in touch or stayed friends. “No, I don’t think so. Look Amy, I’m here on a date so I really don’t want to even be talking to you right now.” I turned my body so I was facing the front of line instead of in Amy’s direction. I felt her put her hand on my arm and pull me towards her. I opened my mouth to tell her that she needed to leave now but she leaned in quickly pressing her lips hard against mine and throwing her arms around my neck. I grabbed her hips and pushed her away from me. “What the fuck? I just told you that I was here on a date. You need to leave me alone.” I knew that what I was saying was making me sound like a whiny girl but I didn’t know how else to say it so she would get it through her head. She started talking about how much she had missed me and wanted us to get back together. I wasn’t really listening to what she was saying because I didn’t really care. I looked up and that’s when I saw her. Holly standing a couple of feet away from us with her mouth wide open and tears filling her eyes. Oh shit. She had seen what just happened. I hoped that if she saw the kiss then she should have seen me pushing Amy away and having a go at her for doing it. “Holly” I called out to her pushing Amy to the side so I could go to Holly and explain but as I started walking up to her, she turned and ran for the door. I started to chase after her and calling out “Holly. Wait, please let me explain.” When I got outside I had a quick look around but couldn’t see Holly anywhere. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and tried to call her and after it ringing a few times, went to her voicemail. “Shit!” I said loudly running my hands over my face and through my hair. It was just then that I heard Amy’s voice again. “So, I’m guessing that was your date. She seems… Um nice” she said laughing. Anger went through my body and I felt my hands clench into fists. I turned and looked Amy right in her eyes. “You need to go away and leave me alone. I really couldn’t care less if you missed me. There is no way I would go back to you. I could never trust that you wouldn’t screw anything else that moved. I have moved on now and it’s time that you do the same.” Amy just stood there looking shocked not saying anything else to me. I turned and headed for my truck. I had driven Holly here which meant she was walking so I should be able to find her in no time. I drove around for fifteen minutes with no luck so I decided to go back to the apartments hoping that she was already there.

  When I pulled up in the car park I saw Holly walking across the grass heading to her door. I quickly jumped out of my truck and started running towards her yelling out her name. She turned to look at me when she had reached her door and I could tell by how puffy and red her eyes were that she had been crying. All that I wanted to do was hold in her in my arms and make her feel better but I couldn’t. It was because of me and Amy that she was upset. I got angry again thinking about why this was happening. I had almost made it to her door when she slammed it shut and I heard her lock it. I started banging on the door yelling “Holly please open the door. Let me explain.” I kept banging on the door when it suddenly flew open. Cooper was standing there in only a pair of jeans. “What did you do?” Cooper asked me. “Where is she Coop?” I asked him hoping that he would answer me straight away and not give me some lame joke that I wasn’t in the mood to hear. “In her room but she doesn’t want to see you” he said. I pushed past him and walked up to Holly’s door. I went to knock but I could hear her talking to Sophie. I turned and gestured for Cooper to follow me. I walked into the kitchen of our apartment and grabbed a can of coke out of the fridge. “Seriously Logan. What the hell happened?” Cooper asked me. I told him the whole story. About what Amy had done and what I said back to her and that I think Holly had seen the whole thing. I was so angry that my entire body started to shake. Coop was silent for a minute and then looked at me and said “Wow. Amy’s a bitch. But she is hot. She’s a hot bitch.” Coop had managed to not joke for a total of about five minutes. That must have been a new record for him. I couldn’t control my anger anymore so I let out a little growl and threw my almost completely full can of coke at the kitchen wall. I heard a little gasp so I turned to see Sophie standing in the doorway to the kitchen with her hands up as if she was surrendering. I wanted to apologise for scaring her but I was still too mad so I just stood there silently. Sophie walked up and stood in front of me. “Look, Holly is just upset at the moment. She was shocked and hurt when she saw what she saw which is why she ran away. Just leave her for tonight and maybe you can talk to her tomorrow” Sophie said. I let out a big sigh and started to walk towards my room. “I’m sorry” I muttered before closing the door.

  Holly

  It had been three days since the incident with Logan and that girl from the movies had happened and so far I had managed to avoid him. I knew that I had overreacted that night but I just couldn’t help myself. I was crazy about Logan, but had been trying to play it cool. The last thing that I wanted to do was scare him away. But when I walked out of the bathroom and saw tha
t girl kissing him, I felt crushed. I saw Logan push her away from him and then he had a go at her but I couldn’t move past the hurt and the tears started filling my eyes. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stop the tears from pouring out so I ran off and took all the back streets home so he wouldn’t be able to find me. I really didn’t want him to see me cry. So for the last few days I had been getting up really early and going into work to do as much study as I could before my shift started. When I got back home I had managed to make it into my bedroom without seeing Logan. I plonked myself on my bed and sighed into my pillow. I felt silly and knew that I was overreacting but I just couldn’t face Logan yet. Sophie came into my room and started going through all of my clothes in my closet. “What are you doing? I asked her. “You and I are going out to the pub tonight. We need to have some girl time before I go away” Sophie said. I sat up on my bed and put my pillow in my lap so I could hug it. “Sophie, you’re staying out in the country for the week. It’s not like you’re going half way across the world for years”. Cooper decided to take Sophie out to the country for a week so they could spend some alone time together. I knew exactly what Cooper meant when I saw the giant smile on his face when he was telling me. I was going to argue with Sophie about staying home but I knew there was no point because I wouldn’t win. She would have dragged me there still in my work clothes if she had to. Sophie threw my gold sequin tank top and my black high waisted skirt at me and said “get dressed. We are leaving in fifteen minutes.” Was she crazy? I was going to need way more time than that to get ready. I quickly got dressed, fixed my makeup and left my hair in the bun that it had been in all day. I grabbed my black heels and clutch out of my closet and raced out to the living room. Sophie was sitting on the couch all ready to go. Something was off. Her behaviour was a little strange.

  When we got to the pub Sophie made us go to the room that had karaoke. It was about 9pm and the place was already fairly packed. I got myself some weird drink with tequila in it and a glass of coke for Sophie. When I walked back into the karaoke room Sophie was sitting at a table right near the stage. What was she doing? After an hour, another five drinks and the many people who got up on stage to sing but failed at doing a very good job, I sunk back into my chair and started playing on my phone. I didn’t pay any attention to what was happening around me until I heard the guy who was in charge of the karaoke introduce the next person who was going to sing. “So next up is Logan singing ‘If I had you’ by Adam Lambert.” Surely it couldn’t be him. I shot my head up and saw Logan walking out on stage and up to the microphone. Was he actually going to sing? I had tried to get him to sing for me again after I heard him that night in his truck on the way to Sophie’s birthday party but he never would. He just kept saying that he was too shy to sing in front of people. He put a long stem red rose on the floor next to the microphone stand and the music started playing. Cooper came up to us and sat down on the empty chair that was next to Sophie. “Did I miss it?” Cooper asked. “No you’re just in time” Sophie said to him. So this is why Sophie had been acting so weird earlier. I’m guessing that they were all in on the plan. I turned my head and looked back at Logan as he started to sing. He looked so sexy on that stage in his denim blue jeans, white button up shirt and his leather jacket. I tried to fight off the smile that was creeping up on my face. After a while I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I let the smile spread across my face and could feel myself blushing every time that he would look at me. I could see Sophie and Cooper out the corner of my eye smiling at me and whispering but I didn’t care. I was lost in Logan’s voice. When the song finished Logan picked up the rose and jumped off the front of the stage. He walked up to me, put his hands around my waist and pulled me close to him. “I love you Holly” he said as he put his face closer to mine. I wanted to say that I loved him back but I just couldn’t stop myself from pressing my lips hard against his. Everyone in the room cheered and applauded and it made me giggle. I took a step back from Logan and he handed me the rose. I smiled at him as I grabbed Logan’s hand and took him outside.

  It was a really cold night so we sat in Logan’s truck so we could talk without freezing. “I’m so sorry about everything that happened the other night. You should know that I pushed her off and had a go at her for doing it. She was just trying to be a bitch” Logan explained. I placed my hand in his and said “Let’s not talk about that. We are having a good night and I don’t want to ruin it by talking about what happened” I said back to Logan. He just nodded and gripped my hand tighter. Logan leaned in and gently pressed his lips to my cheek. Suddenly there was a loud banging on the passenger side window. I jumped and let out a little squeal. I turned and saw Cooper standing there with a massive grin on his face. “That’s not funny Cooper. You scared the shit out of me” I said. Cooper jerked backwards looking shocked. “Did you just swear Holly?” Cooper asked grinning at me. I had to think about what I had just said and when I realised, I burst out laughing and so did the boys. I didn’t like to swear very much. I thought there were better ways to let someone know how you feel but I couldn’t help it every so often when it would just slip out. “Sophie wanted me to let you know that she wants to go home because she’s tired but because she drove you here she wants to know if you’re ready to go” Cooper said. I looked over at Logan and then back at Cooper. Before I could say anything Cooper started grinning and said “Oh I see. Well I’ll tell Sophie that Logan is going to take you home. I have to be quick otherwise Sophie will get mad at me and then I won’t get laid tonight.” I laughed and shook my head before saying “That’s way too much information Cooper, and besides we all know that you’ll get laid no matter what.” Both Cooper and Logan started laughing. “Yeah that’s so true. Well Goodnight and Logan, remember that sex in a public place, even if it’s in a car is still illegal and if you get caught I’m going to tell everyone at the station so they can all help me make fun of you. Bye” Cooper said and he slowly jogged away. “Ass” I said once he was gone and I knew that he couldn’t hear me. Logan started chuckling as he placed his hand on my thigh. I felt my breathing start to get a little heavier and I looked him in his eyes. I don’t know what it is about him, but he really is so irresistible. I leaned over and crashed our lips together and I felt Logan’s hand start to slowly side further up my thigh. My heart started to race and I kissed him harder. I placed my hand at the bottom of his shirt and started to run my hand slowly up his stomach when his phone rang. I pulled away from him and let out a sigh of frustration. Logan grabbed his phone, placed in on speaker and through his teeth asked “What Coop?” “Nothing. I just wanted to make sure that I was interrupting something” Cooper’s voice said. Then I heard him laugh and the call ended. I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I should probably take you home now so that I can go and kill Coop” Logan said as he reached for his keys and started his truck. “Okay” I said still giggling a little as I buckled my seatbelt.

  Chap

  ter Ten

  Logan

  Today was a terrible day. The chief wouldn’t stop yelling at me for everything. Even the things that weren’t my fault. I let out a sigh of relief when I pulled into the car park in front of the apartment building. When I got to the door I saw that Holly was sitting on the ground leaning on her front door. “Oh hey” Holly said looking up at me from the magazine that she was reading and smiled at me. “What are you doing out here?” I asked her. “Well Sophie and Cooper left this morning to wherever they are staying and my keys were in my bag when I got mugged and I don’t have a new set yet, so I can’t get into my apartment” she said. “How long have you been waiting out here?” I asked her. “Um, since about three.” I looked at my watch. It was 7:45. “Wow” I replied. “Where are going to do about keys?” I asked her. “I haven’t really figured that out yet” Holly said. I opened my front door and then walked over to Holly and held my hand out to help her up. “Well I’m not going to leave you stranded” I said. “You can spend the week with me”. The thou
ght of spending the week with Holly definitely made me happy but I tried not to show that on my face.

  When we got inside I sunk into the couch and just relaxed. Holly sat quietly on the other side. I sat up and asked “Are you okay?” She looked straight at me and said “I’m fine. I just can’t stay here for the week. I can’t intrude on you like that. And besides I don’t have any clothes or anything.” I chuckled a little and said “You’re not intruding Holly. You’re keeping me and Toby company while Coop is gone and you can’t get into your apartment anyway so you don’t really have another option. Really Holly its fine.” Holly just smiled at me. “I’ve had a bad day so, pizza for dinner?” I asked smiling back at her. I ordered the pizza and then got the shower ready for Holly. While she was in the shower I found my smallest pair of shorts and shirt for her to wear so I could wash the only clothes she had, which luckily was her work uniform. I just sat down and started flicking through the channels on the TV when Holly came and sat down on the couch next to me. I grabbed her legs and placed them on my lap. She looked so little in my clothes that were way too big for her. I started running my fingers gently up and down the side of her calf. I saw the sides of her lips start to curl up, when there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it” Holly said jumping up and running to the door. While she was getting the pizza I went over and picked a DVD off the pile we had next to the TV and put it on. We just started eating when Holly looked at me and said “What movie is this?” “It’s Bad Boys” I replied. She looked back at the TV and started laughing. “Isn’t this movie about a cop?” She asked. “Are you watching this so you can learn some new cop moves?” “I know that you’re replacing Coop for the week but you don’t need to copy his cruel sense of humour” I said chuckling. Holly just laughed and continued watching the movie.