The Boy That Stole My Heart

CHAPTER EIGHT

Logan and I spent the next day together... And the next... And the next. The more we were together, the harder it was for me to be away from him, the emptier I felt when I was alone. At night we would facetime, talking of anything and everything, laughing loudly until it drove our parents mad. "Some of us have to work you know?" They would yell making us only laugh louder, or we would play games online until we could no longer keep our eyes open, breathing through the headsets and into each other's ear as if we were laying side by side.
          It was our fourth day together that I suggested he sleep over. Our moms had decided to have dinner together, my father was on call, and afterwards we went upstairs to play Call of Duty Warzone while they stayed downstairs to have a very heated dialectic about some court case that had managed to make national news. I was destroying Logan to the point where he lost it, reached over, yanking the battery pack from my controller and tossing it over his shoulder while proceeding to shoot me.
          "Cheater!" I called, reaching for him but he hopped up, evading my hands until he could win the match.
          "You lose sucker!" He shouted at me and I wrestled him to the ground, rolling around until he sat on top of me, pinning my arms above my head. I always lost, partly because it made him happy but mostly because it was my favorite view of him with pink cheeks and disheveled hair, laughing childishly and worry free.
          "I can feel your heartbeat," he told me, letting go of my wrists and placing his hands on my chest. I let him think it was from exertion but the truth was that it always beat like this when he was around.
          "Tell me a secret."
          Logan looked at me curiously. "A secret? Like what?"
          "Something you wouldn't tell just anyone," I told him shrugging.
           I watched him scrunch his nose as he considered it. "I have webbed toes."
          ".......uh, what?"
          "My toes... They have little webs between them," he told me, scooting off my chest and onto the floor, pulling off his socks and holding his feet up for my inspection.
          His feet were so small and pink, soft and smooth to the touch and true to his word, between each toe was a little webbing of skin that stretched from one toe to the next.
          "That is the cutest thing I have ever seen," I cried, pulling at them. "Can you feel them?"
          He scowled. "Of course I can feel them you idiot!"
          "Oh my God, I bet you're so good at swimming! You're like a little mermaid!"
           Logan yanked his feet away and punched me in the arm. "Dude! Shut up! Anyways, it's your turn so spill it."
          I smiled to myself. I wanted to tell him, "I think I'm falling in love with you. I don't care about your PI or the fact that we just met. I don't even care that we are both boys. I just want to be with you, to spend all of our time together. I want to hug you and hold you and kiss you. I want you to be mine as much as I am yours and I am.... I am yours and only yours." But instead I said, "I want you to spend the night."
           His eyes went wide and he quickly looked away. I knew instantly that he was trying to find a way out. "C'mon man, that's not a secret."
           "Okay... Then I want you to be the first person to ever sleep over."
           "You've never had a sleep over?" He asked incredulously.
           After a moment, I shook my head. "You are the only person who has ever been in this room besides me. Even my parents have never come in here."
           "Wow, bro... That's sad as fuck."
            "Fine! Swim on home then Mermaid Boy!" I told him, but when I tried to get up he hopped onto my back, wrapping his arms around my neck, squeezing tightly, and forcing me back to the ground.
            "Okay, okay," he whispered into my hair. "I'll stay."
            All three of our moms received the news with the same stoic expression and it would have been difficult to tell what they were thinking if the sound of gears turning inside of their head wasn't audible. Linda was the first to speak.
           "Oh, sweetie I'm not sure tonight is such a good night. We have-"
           "It's okay mom," Logan interrupted her. "I want to."
           She didn't bother looking embarrassed, simply giving me a shrug and informing us that it was fine with her if it was fine with my mom who then looked at me in turn.
           "I want him to," I said to her and she nodded her consent.
          Logan turned and I realized again how small he was as he looked up to me. "I have to go home and get some stuff but I'll be back... Last chance to change your mind."
          "Too late for you to change yours," I told him, ruffling his hair. "See you in a bit."