Chapter 2 - The Suspicious Pair

As soon as Logan regained his wits about the bomb his parents had dropped on him, they checked if he was okay and bid him goodbye, having to go back to their busy jobs. The young man sat down on a nearby stony bench and took a deep breath, his head lolling over the rest to look up at the cloudy blue sky, the crisp autumn wind hitting his face.

Forbidden from attending the Homecoming Dance unless he had a real date to escort. About thirty days to forge a real connection with a girl.

This is bad, really bad, he thought, starting to panic a little. School dances were always one of the highlights of every year since he got into high school, and even though there was more than one dance per year, this was his senior year. Logan didn’t want to miss out on any school event in his last year there.

Was it possible to really connect with someone that deeply in just a month? That was the question permeating his mind at that very moment. The young man knew he was good at creating connections with people, but strengthening them that much in such a short time? That could prove to be problematic. His musings were interrupted by a pair of feminine steps heading in his direction, and Logan gave a small smile when he lowered his face to see two of his best friends coming to him with quite worried expressions in their lovely features.

“So…,” the cute, petite blonde inquired, biting her bottom lip. “How did it go?”

“Well,” he let out a chuckle as they sat down, flanking him from each side. “We’re not expelled or even suspended, so I guess it went as well as I could expect.”

The other blonde, the one with a more classic beauty, cocked her head to the side with a stern look. “You two were incredibly reckless, Logan,” she said, her emerald-green eyes analyzing him as she always did when he pulled off a stunt. “I’m glad neither of you were expelled, but you have to know the school would be completely within their rights to do it.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Vicky,” he sighed. “My parents hammered that into me pretty efficiently already.”

The petite blonde let out a laugh, her baby-blue eyes twinkling with excitement. “Still, you and Shar, I can’t believe we’ve never noticed!”

“Speak for yourself, Ash,” Vicky retorted. “Even to me, it was quite obvious Logan and Sharon had something. You want to tell me you never noticed them sneaking off or making faces at each other?”

Ash seemed annoyed that her best friend, usually more reserved, had noticed a potential couple before her, but Logan had always known Vicky was the more observant one in their little friend group. It didn’t put out the cute blonde cheerleader for long, though.

“You’re gonna have to tell me all about it!” Ash shook his arm with a pretty smile on her face. “‘Cause I don’t think Shar will be too forthcoming, you know?” She said that in a funny, ironic tone.

Logan grinned at them. Victoria Walker and Ashley Woodsen were two of his oldest friends. Two blondes, a lively, spunky one and a smart, reserved one. How they were such good friends, it was almost impossible to know, but they made it work. Together with Sharon and Logan’s cousin, Heather, they made one of the most beautiful quartets in the school, if not the entire town. Victoria had a more naturally toned, curvy figure, not being a cheerleader like the other three girls, while Ashley was slender and fit in all the right places. Logan always thought they were smashingly gorgeous, but it often felt wrong to think about them in that way, which was weird, considering the sinful way Sharon lived in his head.

“Wait a sec,” he frowned once a question popped up in his mind. “How did you two learn about Sharon and me?”

Ashley and Victoria exchanged a guarded look before they both turned to him. “Well, it was all over ‘BS News’. They said you two were found by someone in one of the bathrooms.”

“You know how they only post in blind items, right?” Victoria asked, the chief-editor of the school’s official newspaper in her managing to hide the distaste for the gossip app. “This time they weren’t too zealous in their choice of words, and well, you and Sharon disappeared during lunch break. It wasn’t hard to do the math.”

“Look,” Ashley produced her phone with the ‘BS News’ app opened on their latest blind item and showed it to her friend.

Logan raised an eyebrow, it wasn’t that he was a stranger to being featured in the gossip app that ‘informed’ people about the comings and goings of the students and teachers in their school, but he didn’t want the secret nature of his relationship with Sharon exposed that way. Right there on the screen, the following sentence could be read. ”Spicy explosion right under our very noses! Leo caught deep into Red Vinegar in a secluded water closet by an undisclosed, distressed third party. Totally BS!”

Huh, Grace sure was distressed. I wonder why they didn’t give a hint about her identity, he mused.

“Leo is easy with your family crest being a lion,” Victoria pointed. “And Red Vinegar could only be Sharon with how… acid she can be at times.”

Ashley laughed. “Acid is a compliment in her case, Vicky. I love Shar, but she can definitely be a bitch sometimes.”

“So?” Logan scratched the back of his head. “Could’ve been Heather.”

“They would’ve used Lady Leo, as they did in the past,” Ashley said. “What I wanna know is who caught you guys!”

“Ash, that’s private!” Victoria glared at her old friend. “Logan might not want to tell people.”

“You’d be right, Vicky, I don’t,” he nodded, there was no way he would tell Victoria that her cousin was the one who walked into him and Sharon going at it. He then looked at the hopeful expression on Ashley’s face. “Sorry, Ash, it’s not my place to tell.”

“Aww, you two are no fun,” Ashley shook her head and crossed her arms. “Well,” she seemed to recover pretty quickly as her blue eyes got that gleam back. “You promised to tell me about you and Sharon. How did it even start?”

Logan laughed fondly at his cute friend. “I never promised it,” he teased, causing Victoria to stifle a laugh at the other blonde’s expense. “But really, there’s not much to tell. We’re not dating, Ash.”

Ashley looked crestfallen at hearing that. She had always been obsessed with pairing people up, and now he had taken from her the possibility that two of her best friends were dating. She pouted and he found it adorable. Even Victoria chuckled at it. “Now you took away her candy,” the green-eyed blonde pointed out.

“Vicky!” Ashley exclaimed and then laughed, happy that her usually guarded bestie could joke with them. She wasn’t that way around other people.

Logan smiled at his friends’ antics, but then his expression turned into one of pure fear as he was reminded of another person in their group. “Oh, crap. How did Heather react to… well, the whole thing?”

Vicky and Ash exchanged another look, this one similar to the frown in his own face at the moment. “Oh, yeah, she’s pissed,” Ashley admitted, grimacing. “She’s waiting by your car and hers.”

“I guess she’s mostly annoyed for not noticing it and you two for never telling her,” Victoria pointed out. “You know how your cousin is, Logan.”

“Well, time to face the music,” he slowly stood up and gave them a small smile. “You two coming?”

The beautiful blonde duo nodded and the three of them began crossing the parking lot, Logan and Ashley flanking Victoria, until they arrived at the usual parking spot of the three Ravers cousins. Paris’ car was there too, but his other cousin was nowhere in sight, probably still at soccer practice. The look on the stunning pale brunette’s face waiting there, though, that one sent shivers down Logan’s spine.

Heather Ravers was quite possibly the sexiest girl in Sunset Haven High School. Cheerleading captain, a body to die for, and a rather large pair of breasts almost spilling out of her low-cut blue top, her unreadable electric-blue eyes were fixed on her cousin and could mean anything from bitter disappointment to cold fury.

“Ash, Vicky, let’s go,” she said in her usual bossy tone, slowly making her way to the driver’s side of her sleek, silver convertible. She then stopped and gave her beloved cousin one last glare. “You, we’ll talk later.”

Logan nodded, knowing it was useless to try and talk to Heather while she was mad, so he just smiled at Victoria and Ashley and watched them get into Heather’s car before she pulled out of the parking lot soon after. Letting out a sigh, he leaned back against his own blue sports car and pulled out his phone, figuring there was no rush to get home. Now with a whole vacant spot between his vehicle and Paris’ black car, there was an odd tranquility to being in that lot at the moment. As he opened the ‘BS News’ app, he allowed himself to let out a long, relieved breath. Logan had dodged a bullet that day, fully aware that he could have been expelled and brought disgrace to the family’s name.

Scrolling through the comments on the post about him and Sharon, the young man was relieved to notice that, unlike his own friends and cousin, people didn’t seem to have guessed who it was about. The ones who had commented, at least.

Good news for a change, he thought with a nervous grin.

Figuring he could check his social media account on ‘The Pulse’ while he had his phone in hand, Logan spent the next few minutes doing so and never noticed the time passing until the sounds of footsteps passing through the parking lot broke his concentration and he pocketed the device once again.

Huh, guess I should go home. Can’t avoid Heather forever, he decided, and was about to unlock the door of his car when someone called out his name.

“Logan? What are you still doing here?”

He turned and smiled at the sight of his other cousin, probably finished with soccer practice for the day, judging by the dark-orange gear with light-blue trim that she was wearing. “Oh, hey Par. Just got out of Hartburn’s office,” he greeted her with a smile, which he also directed at her companion. “Hi, Bonnie.”

“Hey there,” the quite tall girl with her dirty-blonde hair in a ponytail waved back at him.

Paris Ravers grinned mischievously at her cousin, her grayish-blue eyes dancing with mirth. “Heard you got caught with your wiener in the tomato jar,” she jested, dropping a duffel bag in the trunk of her car and doing the same with Bonnie’s. “What’s the verdict?”

Logan let out a chuckle, glad that she didn’t know it had actually been one of her best friends who caught him in the bathroom with Sharon earlier. With long, dark-brown hair decorated by a few powder-blue highlights, and an athletic build, she was someone Logan loved to chat with sometimes, probably chalking it up to their mutual interest in girls. Unfortunately, despite living in the same mansion, Paris and Heather had never gone along too well, which meant she wasn’t a part of their own little friend group, the ‘Inner Circle’. However, Logan was glad that she found good friends of her own, and he always tried to spend time with her when he could as well.

“I’m not too clear on how this is gonna work yet, but I’ll apparently help clubs and teams for a month,” he explained. “Hey, maybe I’ll end up carrying balls and goalposts for you guys.”

Paris and Bonnie laughed at that, and the latter winked at her friend. “Well, it’ll be nice having you around to do that, you know how Paris doesn’t like handling balls.”

When Logan joined in the laughter, Paris elbowed Bonnie even though she found it amusing. “Yeah, I'd rather kick them!”

“Ouch!” Somehow Logan felt that in his own pair before Bonnie got a serious expression on her pretty face as she quickly darted her gaze to another part of the parking lot.

“Look! There they are!” She whispered and Paris’ eyes narrowed as she pulled Logan behind her car with her and Bonnie.

“The hell, Par?” He demanded, very confused as she made him crouch to hide better.

“Shhhhh!” Paris finally had enough and silenced her cousin. “They’ll hear us!”

Logan frowned deeply, getting even more confused until he realized his cousin and her friend were spying on a pair that was walking toward one of the cars, not too far from their own vehicles. The girl was a tall blonde and was wearing a similar uniform to the one Paris and Bonnie had on, but hers was light-green, and judging by the pair of gloves she was stuffing into a duffel bag, he surmised she was one of the goalkeepers. It made sense, he had come to watch a few of Paris’ games with his good friend, Sebastian, in previous years, and that girl matched his memory of the team’s goalie. She was accompanied by an older man, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, by Logan’s estimation.

“Who’s that guy?” He whispered the question at Paris, briefly checking out how good Bonnie’s tight ass looked in her orange soccer shorts.

“The new coach we got this year,” his cousin replied in the same volume.

He nodded and they continued spying on the pair. Logan wondered what the hell they were doing until the man slowly lifted his arm and encircled the girl’s elbow with his fingers, the girl giving him a small smile. He frowned once again, was the coach hitting on his player?

“That son of a b…,” Paris started, but was shushed by Bonnie.

“Shhh! Let’s keep watching,” the blonde said, her ponytail wildly flying around her head. Her honey-brown eyes were fixated on the scene happening just a few feet from them. Unfortunately, though, they couldn’t hear what was being said.

Logan admittedly didn’t have a particularly bad opinion about it, since he would gladly fuck any of his attractive female teachers if they wanted him, but more often than not, a secret student-teacher affair happened by means of ****, ****, or ****. The girl didn’t look like she was being ****, but well, Paris and Bonnie knew her better than he did. The trio observed the suspicious pair for a few more moments until the coach got in his car and drove away while the girl walked off to the school gates. It was only then that they left their hiding spot behind Paris’ car.

“That son of a bitch!” Paris gushed, finally able to complete her insult.

“I take it that you two suspect he’s trying to seduce her?” Logan inquired, crossing his arms as he leaned back into his car.

“Kaylani has never been outgoing or even talkative,” Bonnie explained. “But now… since Coach Lincoln got here, it was like a butterfly getting out of her cocoon.”

“Well, maybe she has a crush on him, and on the off chance they’re having something, it looked consensual to me,” Logan reasoned. “You know, once you put aside the fact that it’s wrong for a faculty member to be in a relationship with a student.”

“Or he most likely seduced poor Kaylani,” Paris fired back, her medium-to-large breasts lightly bouncing under her jersey. “I heard you men are quite fond of it.”

Logan let out a sigh. “Look, I can’t speak for every man on Earth, but I can assure you that neither I nor any of my male friends ever **** a girl to do anything she didn’t want to.”

Paris’ shoulders sagged. “I know, I’m sorry, okay. I know you’re not a jerk, it’s just that I can get so… ughh!”

“Hey, don’t apologize for being a good person,” he said, briefly squeezing her upper arms in a reassuring manner.

“The question is…,” Bonnie piped in. “What are we gonna do about it?”

“What do you mean? We gotta report it to Hartburn!” Paris claimed in a decisive tone, hands going to her hips.

“Hey, hold your horses!” Logan tried to placate the girls. “We don’t even know if he’s really putting the moves on her.”

“That’s what I was gonna say,” Bonnie nodded in agreement. “We need to be sure of what’s really happening.”

Paris let out a chuckle of irony, but Logan ignored her views for the time being. “Can’t you two ask Kaylani? Maybe sound her out?”

“She’s gonna clamp down the moment we even mention it to her!” Paris claimed, waving off the suggestion.

Bonnie sighed. “Yeah, she’s really on the shyer side. She might get defensive if we go all out.”

“Unless…,” Paris’ blue eyes got a glint. “Unless someone with no connection to her, who has time in their hands, kept an eye on Kaylani for us and found out what’s really going on.”

“Oh!” Bonnie grinned as it dawned on her. “That would be fantastic, Par!”

“Who are you two…,” Logan started asking, but then his own blue eyes widened in recognition at the way they were looking at him and he began wildly shaking his head. “Oh, no! No, no, no! Didn’t I just tell you I suddenly found myself swamped with work all of a sudden?”

Paris smirked and then chuckled, leaning her cheek on her cousin’s shoulder for a moment. “It’s not gonna bite into your time, Loggy! You can just spy on her when you can and report to us,” she argued. “Bonnie and I can’t ‘cause we’re her friends and Kay would definitely notice us following her.”

“And won’t she notice me?” The male Ravers shot back before continuing it with a bit of sarcasm. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, Par, but I’m not exactly a wallflower here.”

“That’s exactly why you’re perfect for it, Logan,” Bonnie claimed, giving him a sweet smile. “Kaylani will never suspect someone like you can be interested in her if she notices you walking near her.”

Logan stared at the two of them for a couple of seconds and then let out a big sigh of defeat. The things I do for a pretty smile on a sexy girl.

“Awesome! You’re the best, Loggy!” Paris took his silence as acceptance and briefly hugged him from the side. “Don’t you worry, we’ll find someone to help you!”