Insider (Exodus End #1)(100)
Author: Olivia Cunning

Logan laughed. That was all it was? Seriously? She felt out of place? “You’re at a metal concert. The only requirement for fitting in with a bunch of metal heads is to not fit in.”

She wiped at her tears with the heels of both hands. “Then I must be the most metal metal-head who ever lived.”

“You did just do a stage dive onto a stage. We usually aim for the crowd. But hey, keep the audience on its toes, I always say. Do the unexpected. I don’t know why I’ve never thought to get the wind knocked out of me onstage. Very metal.”

She rolled her eyes at him and then produced a breathy laugh. “That really hurt.”

“Your head or your pride?” He stroked her hair again, wanting to kiss her so badly he was practically salivating.

“My rear end.”

“Oh,” he said.

She rubbed a hand over her ass and winced. “I think I’m going to have a huge bruise.”

“Well, there’s only one thing to do in a situation like this,” Logan said.

She frowned at him. “What’s that?”

“Let me take a look.”

“You just want to see my butt,” she said wisely.

“Your butt?” he asked. “Oh no, I want to take a closer look at dat fine ass.”

Her eyes widened at his use of ghetto speak. “You’re weird.”

He tapped her nose with his index finger. “I prefer to call it obsessed.” He rose to stand before her, his best bored supermodel look in place. “Obsession by Logan Schmidt,” he said, framing her face with his splayed hands. “Obsession,” he repeated, like the distant echo heard in an arty commercial, at the same time framing her boobs with his hands. “Obsession.” He framed her ass. “Obsession.” He framed her crotch. “Obsession by Logan Schmidt.”

She got caught in a fit of giggles that made her wheeze again. He immediately dropped his hands. He wasn’t sure if the paramedic would survive another attempt to put a breathing mask over Toni’s face.

“Are you always this silly?” she asked.

“I think the word you’re looking for is sexy. And yes, I’m sexy and you know it,” he sang, doing a dance that was part ride the pony, part running man, part stripper lap dance until Toni was laughing so hard he feared she’d stop breathing altogether.

“Stop, please,” she gasped as he shook his ass for her and turned to grab her by the back of the head so he could dry hump her face stripper style. “I’m dying.”

He loved to make people laugh—didn’t care if it was at his own expense—and in all his years, he’d never made a woman laugh so hard she might actually die laughing. He took it as another sign that she was his perfect woman.

“Literally dying,” she wheezed.

He stopped in midmotion and sat on the equipment case beside her to catch his breath and allow her to catch hers again. “So,” he said, “how’s your ass?”

She flushed. “Huh?”

“Does it still hurt?”

She shook her head. “No, but my stomach hurts from laughing so hard.”

“It’s a miracle,” he said throwing up his hands like a TV evangelist. “You’ve been healed by the power of my sexy.”

She giggled. “If that’s what you want to call it. Aren’t you embarrassed? People were staring at you.”

“Fuck them. No one invited them to my party.”

She opened her mouth, but just then the stagehand returned with Toni’s camera in one hand and a wide-angle lens in the other. She groaned and accepted the two pieces, immediately trying to fit them together.

“Is it broken?” Logan asked.

“It’s seen better days,” she said as she forced the lens to turn in place and held the camera up to her eye. She groaned again. “The optics are out of alignment.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“I don’t think so. At least not by me.” She squinted up at the stagehand. “Did you find my glasses by any chance?”

“She can’t see a thing without her glasses,” Logan said. That might explain why she’d been tickled rather than impressed by his sexy.

“No,” the stagehand said, “and I looked everywhere. That’s what took me so long. I found the camera right away, but no glasses. Sorry.”

Toni cringed. “I really can’t see a thing without my glasses.”

“I’ll go look,” Logan said.

The stagehand insisted on helping him, so they left Toni alone and went back into the noisy arena to look for her glasses. Poor woman was having a rough day. He would be sure to make her feel extra nice later when they were alone. Well, as alone as they could be while riding on a tour bus with five or six other dudes. Every time he’d tried to get close to her today, either she was busy or someone was commandeering his attention. Was it strange that he’d missed her? He was certain it was.

Logan hunted the stage wing for any sign of Toni’s glasses. The main problem was that it was dark and the flashes of light from the performance onstage kept momentarily blinding him. He was seeing so many spots, it was a wonder he ever found the elusive eyewear. But he did find them. With his foot. Crunch! He cringed as he lifted his shoe and spotted the familiar glasses. The lenses were intact, but the frame had been snapped in two at the center of the nosepiece.

“Oh no,” he said and lifted the separate pieces up to his eyes. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.

He waved off his useless assistant and returned to the corridor where he’d left Toni. Broken camera in her lap, she was staring down at it, her hand clenched in the thick material of her skirt and avoiding the curious gazes of anyone who glanced her way. He sat beside her and bumped her arm with his.

She looked up from her demolished camera and smiled hopefully at him. “Did you find them?”

He cringed and handed her the broken pair of glasses.

“What happened?” she said as she took them from his hand and tried fitting the two pieces together, as if the frame would meld back together if she lined it up just right.

“There was this icicle and it fell off the roof and it, and it, hit me in the eye. And it, broke your glasses.” He made fake crying noises, not sure if she was familiar with the movie he was quasi-quoting.

“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid,” she said miserably.

Yep, she was familiar with the movie.

He rubbed her back, liking her a little more with each interaction they shared. “Do you have another pair?”