Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
“Are you okay?”
“I’m… more than okay. I’ve never felt this way in my life. And the weird thing is that I feel like I could do this forever, too. I feel kind of perfect with you, as dumb as that sounds.”
My heart jumped in my chest. “It doesn’t sound dumb to me at all.”
That small hint of a smile appeared on his face again. The loveliest fucking thing. “You make me feel like I can do anything. Like I can be a whole person. And I’d never really realized that was something I needed.”
“I needed it too,” I said. “Logan, I love you.”
I hadn’t been planning on saying it, even though the words had been burning in my mind for at least the last few weeks. But as I said it, it was like everything in the world suddenly felt right.
Of course I loved him. Of course it was true. And the look on his face was like nothing I’d ever seen before.
“I love you too, Brody,” he said, his voice quiet and awestruck. “You’ve changed my life. In the best ways possible.”
I shook my head. “No. You’ve always been this awesome. You just didn’t know it yet.”
I had the warmest glow inside my chest, and I knew it was pride. Pride for who Logan was, and who he’d always been. Pride that I got to spend time beside him.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” I said. “I can’t stop saying it.”
In fact, I hadn’t said it to anybody in years, other than my family. Logan really had changed my life for the better, too.
“Well, maybe by the end of all my complaining about this movie, you’ll hate me, instead.”
I laughed, pulling him tight to me and kissing him. “Hate to break it to you, but I’m going to love every little complaint you have, too. Let’s turn it on.”
As we sipped our cocoa and watched the movie, the snow kept falling outside of the two windows on either side of the TV.
I still didn’t know exactly what the future held for me. All my life, I had known what my priority was, and it had been football. Now, there was something else. Something a lot deeper, even if it was a lot more of a mystery.
All I knew was that I wanted a future with Logan. Whatever that ended up looking like. And wherever it took me. Because if I could have nights like this with him, it would make up for any of the harder days we’d inevitably face. I felt like I could get through anything with him.
And I absolutely, definitely, was going to have to get my revenge on him—I was already planning all of the ways I could edge him just like he had edged me, tonight.
I could have so much fun with Logan. And I knew that this was still only the beginning.
Epilogue
Logan, Five Months Later
Thousands of graduation caps flew up into the air as the marching band began playing again. We were on the KMU Wolves football field, the smell of fresh-cut grass filling the late spring air. We’d been sitting in a bunch of plastic chairs for the last two hours as the graduation speeches and ceremony went on, and finally it was over. The sun was shining and the weather was the perfect early June hint at summer.
And, after four long years, we’d done it.
We’d graduated.
It had been something I’d dreamed of forever—the day of my college graduation. How proud I’d be. It had never felt real, and honestly, it still almost didn’t hit me today.
College was over.
And right now, amid the sea of tossed graduation caps, all I wanted to do was search the crowd for Brody. My boyfriend was getting way better at his personal organization skills, but finding him in a huge crowd was still a task—no matter where Brody went, he always ran into people he knew, getting into long, sweet conversations every time.
“Logan! Hey!”
I turned to see Henry, beaming as he walked toward me with Dani at his side. Dani leaped over to give me a huge hug, and I gave Henry a hug, too.
“We fucking did it, dude,” Dani said. “We’re graduates.”
“And all of us are just going to do it all over again in grad school now,” I said with a laugh.
“Honestly? I can’t wait,” Dani said. She reached out to squeeze my arm. “You have to come visit me lots, though. Okay?”
“Of course I will,” I said. “It’ll only be a four-hour drive.”
I’d almost broken down in tears of joy when I’d received my acceptance letter to Northwestern University’s PhD program in History. I was going to be just north of Chicago, living in a real, big city for the first time in my life. I hadn’t gotten into Harvard, but I’d taken it in stride, knowing that Northwestern might even be better. Dani and Henry had both been accepted to the University of Michigan. I would be within easy driving distance of my best friend.