Insider (Exodus End #1)(76)
Author: Olivia Cunning

“I wouldn’t do that.” She didn’t know whether she should be hurt or angry that he thought she would betray him.

“Go ahead and include it. I might get some sympathy pussy out of the ordeal.”

Toni scowled. “You can be a real jerk when your feelings are hurt.”

“But I don’t have feelings. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

She shook her head at him. “I don’t believe it for a second.”

“All those loving things you claim I said? I only say things like that to get in your pants.”

Toni’s face went numb with shock. That couldn’t be true, could it?

“I say things like that to every girl I meet.”

“Hundreds of them,” she said dully.

“Exactly.”

She stared at him, noting the tension in his shoulders, the crease in his normally smooth forehead, and the way his eyes refused to meet hers.

“You’re lying.” She hoped.

“Why do you say that?”

“You can’t even look at me, Logan.” She touched his hand, surprised when instead of drawing away, he turned his hand over to clutch hers in an iron grip. “At least look at me while you break my heart.”

“I don’t want to break your heart, Toni.” He lifted her hand and pressed it into the center of his chest. His heart thudded against the back of her hand. “Not when seeing you upset breaks mine.”

And she wasn’t supposed to take those words as him having deep feelings for her? Maybe he simply wasn’t ready to admit how he felt. Or maybe she was thinking wishfully.

“I know you don’t like me to refer to you as a friend,” he said.

She cringed automatically. Her dislike was that obvious, was it?

“Hear me out, Toni.”

She nodded, resisting the urge to shield her delicate heart with her hand. As if that would help.

“All the relationships in my life have been fucked up. All of them except those with my friends. My friends have always been more like family to me than my actually family ever was. So when I call you friend, I don’t want you to take it lightly.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t realized he’d attached special meaning to the word. She’d assumed it was his way of forcing her to keep her distance, not his way of drawing her close.

“It’s not a marriage proposal either,” he added, giving her hand a squeeze.

She laughed hollowly, more from tension than any semblance of good humor. “I’m sorry for pressuring you.”

“You are?” He lifted his eyebrows at her, meeting her eyes now, making her heart thud and her belly quiver with just a stare.

“Uh, well, I’m sorry you didn’t react the way I’d hoped.” She bit her lip, searching his face for answers she didn’t find. “Are we still friends?”

“And lovers.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and the tension melted from her muscles. She took a steadying breath. He hadn’t dumped her. They were okay.

“So do you want to finish the interview,” he asked with an ornery grin, “or learn to appreciate anal sex?”

Her buttocks clenched automatically, causing her spine to lengthen and her to sit ramrod straight. Ram rod? He would not be ramming that rod up in there if she had any say in the matter.

He snorted at what must have been her most horrified expression.

“Interview it is,” he said, inclining his head in her direction.

Flustered, she touched her overly hot cheek with cool fingertips, tucked a poof of hair behind one ear, and then licked her lips. Okay, let’s see how he likes to be thrown off guard.

Knowing him, he’d probably relish every moment.

She pretended to read from her legal pad. “Rumor has it that anatomically correct robot prototypes have been crafted in the images of each member of Exodus End,” she said in her most professional voice. “Can you explain why there is so little going on in the pants of the Logan Schmidt model?”

He blinked and gaped at the wall.

“Uh, they ran out of android-making materials trying to generate a life-sized rendition of my love hammer,” he said.

Toni managed not to snort at his ridiculous euphemism, but just barely. “That’s not what I heard.”

“What did you hear? If you’ve forgotten the size of my pool noodle, I’d be happy to offer it up for your journalistic inspection.”

At this rate, she’d never keep her composure. But she was going to try.

She stared into his eyes and said, “I heard engineers feared that life as we know it would come to a standstill as all under-sexed women on the planet became addicted to your life-sized mechanical beaver cleaver—”

His bark of laughter startled her to silence. “Did you seriously just call it a beaver cleaver?”

“I’m sorry. Do you prefer yogurt cannon?” She tilted her head to peer at him over the top of the rim of her glasses. “Got it. Logan’s . . . yogurt . . . cannon,” she said as she wrote the words in the margin.

She waited until he stopped laughing before she continued.

“I also heard somewhere that you were the original lead singer for Exodus End; care to sing me a few lines?” She stared at him hopefully, her heart fluttering in her chest with romantic anticipation. She was dying to hear his singing voice.

“And who told you that? Was it Max? Because he seems to think understating his vocal talent earns him more compliments or something. I can’t sing. Never could. I have the harmonics of a drunken crow.”

“Prove it.”

He squawked out a few lines of their first-ever hit, “Rebel in You,” and he did indeed sound like a drunken crow. She was pretty sure he was singing horribly on purpose, but that didn’t stop her from cringing and covering her ears with both hands.

“So you see,” Logan said, “we needed Max whether I liked it or not.”

She blinked at him. “You didn’t want Max in the band?”

“I thought we were just fine with three members. I was fortunately outvoted by the other two, and we sought an additional band member.”

“Fortunately outvoted?”

“I was devastated at the time, but you’ve heard me sing. Do you think we would have been at all successful with me as a front man?”

She shrugged. There was no way to know for sure.

“There are those occasional instances in your life when you’re glad you’re proven wrong. I was wrong. We needed Max to make us a better band. But never tell him I said that.” He winked at her, and she smiled before glancing down at her notes. It was time for her to get a little silly just for fun.