I barely keep up with the details of the conversation happening between Alex and Saint. Apparently, there’s some beef between Saint and our captain, Reeves. But to be honest, I’m too distracted to care. Why? Because I’ve just made the decision to visit Summer when I return to Boston.

One last time, I’ll open myself up and give her my full truth. Total honesty, just like she requested of me.

I’ll tell her how I feel, and if she rejects me again, then that’s it. I’ll move on.

23

LOGAN

It wasn’t difficult to get Les to give me Summer’s address, which I have mixed feelings about. He shouldn’t give out her personal information, but I may have implied that I needed it for counseling purposes, so perhaps I can’t blame the guy. Maybe he thought he was only doing his job.

It’s a twenty-minute drive across town, and then another several minutes before I locate a parking spot. It’s just after seven on a Wednesday evening. The sky is dark, and the night air is freezing as I approach her building on the sidewalk.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Her apartment building is in an area of town I’m not familiar with, and to be honest, I don’t ever want to visit again. There’s a liquor store on the corner with bars in the windows. A pawn shop and a laundromat flank her building on either side. Across the street is a bail bonds storefront.

This is a rough area. I don’t like the thought of Summer living here alone, no matter how affordable the rent is.

Expecting the building’s front door to be locked, I press the buzzer, but it doesn’t work. So I try the door, and to my surprise, it isn’t locked, so I let myself into the building.

The hallway smells like tobacco and is filled with doors lining both sides. Her apartment is number eighteen, and I head up the stairs and find her door. There’s a mat outside the front door with the word HOME written on it, but the O is a heart.

An unexpected pang of emotion hits me. Realizing that this is it—this little apartment is her home where she cooks and sleeps alone every night—is a sad thought. Summer deserves so much more. She deserves the world. Someone who loves her. A family to call her own…

I lift my hand and knock twice on the door, hearing footsteps approach on the other side. There’s no peephole in the door, and I realize that showing up here unannounced may surprise her. And not in a good way.

I knock again. “Summer? It’s Logan.”

She twists the lock and the door opens. “Logan?”