Since I was a kid, making it into the World Hockey League was the ultimate goal. No relationship could match my first love, and after my rough childhood, I wasn't putting my heart on the line.
When Bellerive makes a successful bid to move the Califo...
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I can't remember the last time I was nervous about something where my gut brimmed with excitement rather than dread.
Logan didn't want to hide, so I think he'll be okay with Tamiko's plan, but executing it without consulting him is still risky. There's nothing Logan takes more seriously than his career. He's told me, and he's shown me how true that is.
I follow the Bullets' representative to the seat Tamiko arranged behind the Bullet's bench in Boston. When she came to see me, she already knew exactly what she wanted from me. Up until I got to the arena, I'd been convinced that coming here was good for Logan's career, but doubt is trickling in. What if, despite Tamiko's certainty, I'm playing this all wrong? I've read him all wrong? What if there's a very big difference between not hiding and being this public?
I'm also trying to convince myself that I'm not giving into someone else's needs at the expense of my own. Which, in the whirlwind leading up to boarding the Tucker private jet to get here in time, didn't even cross my mind. Fixing the problem was my priority.
Tamiko's positive that the more the press and public see Logan and I together, the less the age gap will be criticized. Familiarity breeds content, she said, which isn't exactly how that phrase goes.
On the plane here, I took a peek at my social media accounts, and hockey followers and middle-aged women—weirdly—were raging about me being thirty-one and Logan being twenty-one. Apparently, I'm taking advantage of him. Even if familiarity actually breeds contempt, I can't see how any of them could dislike me more.
Part of me wanted to reach into my phone and shake each and every one of them. They don't know him.
On paper, yes, the age gap might be eyebrow raising. A few months ago, before I met Logan, I would have been right there with the naysayers. But I'm convinced that if the critics came to know him like I do, they'd understand our age difference barely matters. A few pop culture references that I have to explain sometimes. He's more mature for his age than most obscenely talented twenty-one-year-old guys with overflowing pockets of money. On top of that, I'm recovering from a traditional age gap relationship that nearly destroyed me. Honestly, I don't know if that thought works in my favor, but age wasn't the problem between Dalton and me. Or maybe it was. God, I wish I could just pick a lane of thinking about the mental chaos Dalton caused.
I shake my head to clear my thoughts. Dalton doesn't matter.
At this point in our lives, Logan and I have common needs. It's that simple. Anonymous people on the internet don't get to sway me when they don't know either of us.
Or at least that's what I've kept telling myself ever since I deleted all my social media apps just before the plane landed. Even the little bit I read is wiggling into my brain and emotions in a way I don't want. Anonymous opinions will fester—I shouldn't have looked—I'm just hoping that the sight of Logan acts like a salve.
