“Yeah, baby,” he replied, moving from the living room into the foyer to the stairs.
“I can walk, Snooks.”
Logan felt his lips curve up.
Snooks.
The boys called him High.
Millie didn’t call him High.
She called him Logan, Low, and Snooks when they were in company and when they weren’t.
But she called him Snook’ums when no one was around.
It was goofy and it was cute and it was all Millie.
He loved it.
Halfway up the steps, he stopped and put her to her feet but he didn’t take his arm from around her.
She slid hers around him and they walked up the rest of the stairs together.
“You get done what you needed?” he asked.
“No clue. I don’t remember when I crashed, but I’m guessing... no,” she answered.
Logan’s lips didn’t curve up at that.
They tightened.
It was finals. She was taking a heavy second semester schedule in hopes of graduating in three and a half years rather than four so they could start their life and their family and do it without delay.
She was also still working part-time at the mall. She made dick but no matter how often he told her she should do it, she wouldn’t give up the job.
She also wouldn’t give up on him, the Club, their life.
She was all in with everything. She never missed a class. She studied between classes. She was never late for work. She studied when she got home. They went to movies. They went to bars. They went to parties. They went to concerts. They went to rallies. She cooked for him. She cleaned the house for him. And she studied more whenever she had the chance.
Business. That was her major.
“Don’t know what I’m gonna do with it,” she’d told him on a grin. “Just know I’m gonna kick ass whatever it is I do.”
He believed that. She didn’t do anything in half measures. She sucked life dry, setting her teeth in deep, straight to the bone and pulling out the marrow.
But this shit had to end. She was about to finish her first year of college and she wasn’t going to take a break. She was going to take two classes during the summer and go full-time at the store in the mall until her sophomore year started.
Which meant more of this. All-nighters where he went to bed alone, woke up alone, saw her faking it and drained dry but giving him a grin and the cute when he knew she was about ready to pass out.
He watched her pull off her clothes, dropping them to the floor as she wandered to their bed, and he decided it was time for this shit to stop.
She got in and Logan got in with her. Pulling her into his arms, he tangled himself up in her as she returned the favor and snuggled deep.
“Babe, you gotta quit that job,” he told the top of her head.
“Need the money,” she muttered sleepily.
“You don’t,” he replied. “I can cover us.”
And he could. Chaos business, the garage and shop called Ride, and the other shit they did, he could totally cover her and him. He could even do more. Get them nicer furniture, new shit that looked good. After a year or two put money down on a house. Take her on vacation to get her away from her work. Take her to Paris and kiss her under the Eiffel Tower.
He could give them better than what they had.
He could give his girl everything.
He could do that.
Absolutely.
“Can’t do that,” she mumbled, sounding very close to sleep.
“Millie,” he gave her a squeeze, “you’re gonna burn out, you keep this shit up.”
“Only two more years,” she replied. “Most... two and a half.”
“Babe—” he started but didn’t go on when she suddenly tipped her head back.
“No, Logan,” she whispered, her voice still sounding tired but it was also strong. “I do my bit.”
“You’ll do your bit when you got your degree and you get a fancy-ass job that makes us a lotta cake,” he returned.
“I do my bit now. I do my bit every day,” she shot back stubbornly.
He dragged her up his body so they were eye to eye in the dark. “You know it’s no hardship, me takin’ care of you. You also know that’s my job, one I get off on, so stop bein’ so stubborn and let me do it.”
“If I can do my part, I will, and I can, Low,” she retorted.
“Millie, this is the third night in a row you crashed at the dining room table,” he reminded her. “When it’s finals, it’s worse, but it’s bad all the time and that shit’s not good for you.”
“I have to.”
Logan went silent at the fierce tone in her voice.
“I have to, Logan.” She slid a hand up his chest to curve it around the side of his neck. “I know you can take care of me. I love how you take care of me. But I have to do this. For you. For us. To prove something to myself. My parents. You. I have to. And if you wanna take care of me, that’s how you can take care of me. By letting me do it.”
“I know what you need, baby,” he whispered back. “And you gotta know I don’t need that. I’m in. I know you’re in. We’re both in. All in. There’s times I gotta have your back. There’ll be times you’ll hafta have mine. Let me have your back now, Millie. It’ll mean a lot you got the time to do what you gotta do and I can go to bed beside you.”
She was silent a minute and he thought he had her, then she shook her head against the pillow.
“Please understand,” she said softly. “I just need to do my part. I need you to know I’m going to. No, that I’m able to. Life’s gonna throw a lot at us, Snook’ums. I need you to know I’m ready to do my bit when it does.”