Colliding Love - Tucker Billi...

"Doc!" I call out when I get home. Her car wasn't in the lot, but for some reason, I'm still holding out hope. By the time I left for the photoshoot and the commercial, I thought we were okayish. At least enough that she'd be here. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Why she shows up for me shouldn't matter, and I hate that it's like a canker, irritating me every time we're together.

I rip open the package on my island, and I take out the variety of sex toys I ordered a while ago. Probably a stupid idea, anyway.

My phone buzzes, and I take it out of my pocket. My manager wants me to call when I'm done the photoshoot and commercial. He's probably not expecting me to be done early. Normally brand endorsements feel like having a tooth pulled. But I was so keen to get home tonight that whatever they asked me to do, I just did it. No pushbacks.

"I finished the shoot and commercial early," I say when he picks up the phone.

"That's a first."

"Do you have something for me?"

"Nothing legal," he says with a sigh. "You're sure these photos aren't yours?"

"Not mine."

"Not of you? Not taken by you? You're not in them?"

"Nope."

"So, this is about Sawyer then, is it?"

"This is actually about keeping one of your top talents out of jail," I say. "Because I'll fucking bury the dude if he leaks anything."

"There are laws."

"He's a slippery bastard. Maybe being a little illegal in another direction would be worth it. White collar crime versus murder."

My agent sighs. "These are things you should not say out loud."

"Just tell me if what I want can be done. Do you know that much?"

"It can be done. Or at least that's what I've been told. No name yet on a hacker skilled enough to get in and out without being detected or caught."

"Once something gets out, it becomes impossible to control."

"Preaching to the choir, Logan. I've had enough of these stories break that we run a whole class on sexting, possession of this sort of content, secure passwords, and all that shit. Remember? You had to sit through it at eighteen before I took you on as a client."

"Yeah, I remember." At the time, it felt like a waste of my time. Obviously, Dalton had gone to the politics version of that class where someone learned how to emotionally blackmail someone else with that content.

"If you get a name of someone willing to do it, I'll pay whatever. I don't care how much it costs."

There's a knock on my door, and I check the security camera on my phone.

She came.

"I gotta go," I say. "Take care of this for me, so I don't have to take care of it myself."

"I'll do what I can," he says with a sigh.

I hang up and leave my phone on the island as I head to the front door. When I open it, I don't even have time to say anything before she launches herself at me.

On instinct, I catch her. She slides her hands along the sides of my face, and we're kissing. With my foot, I kick the door closed, and then I walk her back to brace her against the door while I snap the locks back into place.

As long as she's forgiven me for being so fucking needy, I'll give her whatever she wants.

"Where?" I ask against her lips.

"Where's my package?" She scrapes her teeth against my ear.

"I opened it already."

She draws back to search my expression. "I didn't think you'd be home yet."

"Finished early."

"What'd you get?" She tries to peer around my shoulder.

I scoop her up tighter in my hands and I carry her into the kitchen to set her on the island beside what I had delivered. She picks through vibrators, cock rings, dildos, nipple play toys, and a bunch of other stuff I don't even remember ordering.

"You buy the whole store?" she asks, casting me a teasing glance.

"Some of it's for you, some for me, some for us," I say, tucking stray strands of her hair behind her ears. I'm just so fucking glad she showed up, and it's causing my chest to tighten unbearably. Ever since she came on the road with me, it's like my heart can't get it through my head that her being there was more for show than for real.

"Show me something that's for us," she says as she pushes wisps of my hair that keep falling across my eyes. "I need to get you a hairband."

"Don't you fucking dare," I say with a little laugh. "I'll get it cut."

"I don't know. Messy is kinda cute." She scooches forward and wraps her arms around me. "Tell me what's been going on with your family."

"That doesn't really go with sex toys, doc."

"Pick out one that's for both of us, then we'll have a real chat about what you've been avoiding telling me." She searches my expression. "Okay?"

I pluck a dual couples vibrator that had some pretty descriptive reviews and set it on the edge of the counter. "This one."

She hops down off the island and takes my hand, leading me over to the couches. Instead of sitting beside me, she pushes me down, and then she straddles me.

"Tell me."

"You expect me to concentrate when you're like this?"

"I know how good you are at compartmentalizing," she says, and she brushes my hair back again. "What do you know about them? What do you want to know? Do you want to meet them?"

"I read my mom's diary," I say, and I rest my hands on her hips, trying to resist the urge to get her to rock. Rather than giving into that urge, I tug her a little snugger against me.

"Was that hard?"

"Weird, I guess. I was three when she died, so the little I remember... Typical mom shit. She wasn't really a fully formed person to me. Seems like she got along fine with her parents until she got pregnant. The boyfriend—my dad—had moved away before she knew. Couldn't find me, or that's what she says in the diary. Parents wanted her to abort. She refused. They kicked her out. She broke off contact. And then it's just a lot of hardship while she tries to raise me."

"She never got in contact with them again?"

"No according to the diary. The fact that they didn't seem to know she died, that I went into foster care. I guess that supports that?" I don't know or understand enough about family dynamics to figure out if that seems likely. Which is part of what's made me hesitate to reach out to them. Did they really not know she died? That I was alone? "Her entries make her seem a bit stubborn."

That gets a laugh out of Sawyer, and she kisses my cheek. "Apple didn't fall far, huh?"

"That's the part that I think I'd like. Getting to know her through them. At least a little. She's been this shadowy memory all my life. To have her feel real would be, I think it might be good for me at some point."

"But?"

"Do I really know they just figured out their daughter died? That she left behind a kid who was run through the system until he was thirteen, developed a talent for hockey, and got taken in by a single dad and his son?"

"You think they'll want something from you?"

"Besides knowing a piece of my mom—their version of her—what would I want from them?"

"Family connection. When you have kids someday, you might want that."

"I'm not splitting my focus," I say, instinctually. "Kids and all that can come in my thirties when I'm done striving so hard for my career. Gives me lots of time to figure out if I want to connect with them."

Sawyer leans back, and she seems lost in thought for a minute. "What's the harm in meeting them?"

"Finding out they want my money and not me," I say.

"Then you let them go without a second thought," she says, and she loops her hands behind my neck. "If they really didn't know, Logan, you could be giving up something that I think you really want and need. That family connection."

I want to tell her that as long as I've got her, I don't need anything or anyone else. That's scary shit to admit even to myself, let alone out loud. Knowing that she's put a ticking clock on us and that I agreed makes my desire to put her above everything and everyone else even worse. I'm in so deep with her that rock bottom, when it comes, will feel like drowning.

"I hear what you're saying," I say. "If I agree to meet with them before the end of the season, will you be there?"

"Yeah," she says, her voice soft. "Of course."

"Satisfied?" I ask, tugging her tighter again.

"Not yet," she says before kissing me. "But I have a feeling you've got a plan to fix that."

Thanks for reading! Comment. Vote. Let me know what you think of Sawyer and Logan.

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