Chapter 29
I felt my cheeks flush. Oh shit. I immediately turned to head back to the rest area. No way was I going to let him see me looking like this. Nor could I bear looking at a half naked Logan.
As soon as I turned away, I heard my name.
“Hazel?”
I turned, looking down at the ground. “Yes?”
“Would you….um. I could use some help if you don’t mind?” Logan said, looking a little embarrassed himself.
“Of course, sir,” I said.
He walked back into the locker room, and I hesitated. Did he want me to follow him in there? Surely not. But…he kind of implied….
I stood frozen in place, my anxiety rising and my mind racing to make a decision. Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.
“You can come in,” Logan called out from the locker room. “There’s no one else in here.”
I walked in. The steam from his recent shower made my glasses fog up and suddenly I couldn’t see anything. I took my glasses off and set them on top of my head. I was nearsighted, so I could get around okay enough without them, but the steam still made it a little hard to make anything out.
I slowly turned a corner and saw a form I assumed was Logan. I walked towards it and finally made out Logan sitting on a bench. By this time he had slipped on some athletic shorts, but he was still shirtless. He was holding a small tube of something in his hand.
“I’ve got some scratches on my back that I can’t reach. Would you mind putting some of this antibiotic on them?” Logan said.
I slowly stepped closer to him. Once I got close enough to see his back, I realized he’d been more injured than I initially thought. He had several scratch marks, like he’d gotten into a tussle with a cat street gang.
“Do you u
want me to take you to a hospital? Just in case?” I asked, awkwardly standing about a foot away
from him.
“No,” he s
said. “It’s not that bad. And besides…I don’t want the press getting wind of this.”
I hadn’t even considered that. It must be tough living in the public eye like that, where you can’t even take a simple trip to the doctor without getting scrutinized by paparazzi.
He handed me the tube and turned his back towards me. I hesitated again. He was so big on boundaries and keeping his distance from his workers, I was surprised he had called me into the locker room to help him apply ointment. He surely would not have asked Elena to do something like this.
I squirted some of the antibiotic into my hand and caught a glimpse of my pajama bottoms. Oh.
Dylan’s words from earlier in the evening about my attire popped in my head. Maybe that’s why I was the one Logan trusted to be around the most, to do his shopping or stay at the office late. I was safe. No chance he would be tempted by me. His wife would take one look at me and be relieved. No threat here.
I gently patted the ointment onto his wounds. I guess at least that’s working in my favor at work now, I thought. Still, didn’t do much to soothe my bruised ego. I would do anything to be considered beautiful like Elena or even Natalie. To have men always swooning over me.
To have someone leave their girlfriend of several years to propose to me instead.
“You must think I’m pathetic,” Logan said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.
“Wha… Why?” I said. Pathetic was the last word I would use to describe the man in front of me.
“Having your spouse call the police on you is not exactly something to be admired,” he said. “Dylan certainly had a good laugh at my expense. So go ahead, make your jokes now. Get them out of your system before Monday rolls around.”
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