Chapter 59

The next morning I sat in a most uncomfortable chair next to Logan’s hospital bed, waiting for him to wake up. I flipped through a fashion magazine that I found in the waiting room, but I couldn’t concentrate on it. I sighed and closed it.

A moment later there was a knock at the door. I stood to answer it.

“Oh, Dylan! Hey!” I said, my heart skipping a beat at the sight of him. As handsome as the man was in his usual suit and tie, he somehow looked even better dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt. He was holding two iced coffees in his hands.

“Hey,” he smiled. “Thought you could maybe use this after the day you had yesterday.”

He held out a coffee towards me. I took it with a smile.

“God yes,” I said and took a sip. “Oh! This is my favorite! How did you know?”

He shrugged. “I have my ways,” he winked at me.

I held open the door for him to walk through.

“How is he?” He asked me, walking over to Logan.

“He’s been asleep since I got here,” I said. “But the nurse said he’s been doing great. He should be released sometime soon.”

“Excellent,” he said, then turned to look at me. “How did you sleep?”

I sat back in my chair. “I didn’t.”

Truth was, I waited up for a long time in Natalie’s room, ready to rip her a new one when she got home. But she never came back, and I spent a fitful night tossing and turning in her bed.

“Oh,” Dylan frowned at me. “Well I can sit here with him if you want to go home and try to get some sleep in?”

“Nah, I’ll be okay,” I smiled. “Thank you, though.”

“Have you eaten? I can go grab us some breakfast,” he offered.

My stomach growled at the mention of food. I’d been forgetting to feed myself a lot lately. “That would be great, actually. Let me find some cash…”

“Don’t be silly, it’s on me,” he said. “There’s a food truck that parks kind of close to here, they have excellent breakfast burritos. How does that sound?”

“Sounds perfect,” I said.

“Great, I’ll be back soon,” he walked back out the door. I looked at the door for a moment, wondering how a man like that was still single.

I heard a soft moan from the bed. I turned. Logan’s eyes were fluttering open and he was trying to sit up. I ran over to him to help.

“Hazel?” He said groggily as I helped him get to a semi-seated position. “What are you doing here?”

I sat on the bed, facing him. “I didn’t want you to wake up alone,” I said. “And I wanted to make sure you were still okay.”

His eyes met mine. It looked like he was struggling to keep them open. “You are so sweet,” he said after a moment.

He looked down and took one of my hands in his.

“The nurse told me you saved my life,” he said, his voice soft and weak. “She said I probably wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t called 911 when you did.”

I didn’t quite know what to say to that. I placed my free hand on top his hand and squeezed it. “It was just luck that I got to you when I did,” I finally said.

He shook his head. “Hazel, you saved me.” He said it as though it were just finally sinking in for him. “I almost died. I can’t believe I came so close…”

“Hey,” I said gently. “You’re okay. Don’t think about that.”

“Life is so, so fragile. And short,” he said. “I’ve been living my life like it’s forever, like I have time for all the things I really want, but this…I’m starting to realize that maybe I don’t.”

“This was an accident brought on by crazy, manipulative she-devil,” I said. “You’re young, you still have time.”

“Maybe…but…I do need to make some changes in my life,” he said.

He looked down at our hands. He intertwined his fingers with mine and started rubbing the side of my thumb with his. He looked up at my eyes again.

“Hazel, I…” he trailed off.

He sat as straight up as he could manage. He placed his free hand gently on the back of my neck and pulled me in closer to him. He looked me in the eyes, then down at my mouth, then finally closed his eyes. I followed suit and closed mine. I let my lips part slightly. My heart began to race.

His lips finally reached mine. He paused for a moment, our lips barely touching, the anticipation driving me wild, and then he gently pressed his lips fully into mine. A million butterflies burst forth in my chest. It was the sweetest, softest kiss I had ever had in my life. His lips felt just as good as I had imagined them.

He pulled back and looked in my eyes again. I couldn’t be sure what he was thinking, but the look on his face seemed to show the same thing that was running through my head: Did we really just do that?

He looked down at my lips again and pulled me in for another kiss. This one was more intense than the first, his lips pressing harder than before, with a sense of urgency. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me as close to him as I could be. I threw mine around his neck.

A gentle knock came at the door. It barely registered in my mind. Then, a harder knock. Logan pulled back and looked at me, but kept his arms around me. We were both breathing heavy.

“Wow,” he said softly.

“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice from the doorway said.

I pulled away from him and turned. One of the nurses had entered the room.

“I just need to check a few of your vitals. Although you seem to be doing just fine,” she winked at me.

My face began to burn. I jumped off the bed and grabbed my purse. “I’ll just be out in the hall,” I said, looking down at the ground. I left the room as quickly as I could.

I leaned against the wall in the hallway and took several deep breaths to slow my breathing down. My head was spinning. I think that part of me thought that Logan almost kissing me the night before was a fluke. It didn’t seem real that someone like him would want to kiss someone like me. I never actually expected it to happen.

I was in a daze as I pulled out my phone to tell Maria about it. I unlocked it and opened our messages.

“GIRL. You will not believe what just happened to me!” I typed, then pushed send.

“Hazel?”

I jumped and dropped my phone. I looked up. Dylan had returned with two foil-wrapped burritos. I had forgotten he had gone to do that. My adrenaline was way too ramped up to eat now.

“Oh, hey,” I said, trying to sound normal, but I was still slightly out of breath.

“Why are you out here?” He asked and bent down to pick up my phone for me.

“The nurse came in to check on him, I just thought I would give them space for that,” I grabbed my phone. “Thank you.”

“Ah. Well, I have two kinds of burritos here: egg, cheese, and sausage, or potato, egg, and cheese.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I never understood the potatoes in breakfast burritos thing.”

He laughed. “Sausage it is then,” he said and handed me one of the burritos. “Do you want to eat these in the waiting room?”

“Ah…actually, I think I’m going to take mine to go. I need to…run some errands,” I said. Really I needed to sit in my car alone to clear my head, but I didn’t want to explain that to him.

“Oh, okay,” he looked a little disappointed. “I’ll see you later then?”

I nodded. I began walking towards the exit when my phone buzzed. It was Maria:

“OMG. YOU BETTER TELL ME YOU FINALLY KISSED ONE OF THOSE MEN OF YOURS.”