Full Strength

Twelve-Lillian ❤️‍🩹

"LILLI!"

This is odd. Our normal method of communicating in the middle of the night is that Logan calls me, which wakes me up and I go help him with whatever he needs. Yelling is not typical for us.

Tumbling out of bed, I stumbled and yanked open my door. "What?" I asked, barely awake. He looked fine, holding his phone in one hand. No apparent danger in the room.

Logan's head looked ready to explode. "Your dad is Carson West?"

         Aaaaand he'd found out. A small, very bad part of me considered lying, but again, that would've just resulted in distrust and me feeling like a bad person.

        "Yeah," I said, squirming uncomfortably. It wasn't just that he'd discovered my secret; I was also dressed in pink pajamas-the ones with the too-short shorts. But it was mostly the secret.

        "How did you not tell me?" he asked, sounding more curious than angry. A good sign.

        "Well, it's not like that's how I introduce myself. Hi, I'm Lillian, also, my dad is Carson West. Nice to meet you!"

        "But you know I love hockey. Like, I feel like that's something you'd mention," he pointed out.

         More squirming. "I didn't want you to get all fangirly. Most people ask for autographs or if they can meet him. Especially you being a hockey player, I figured you'd definitely ask."

         "Fair," he admitted. "I get that. But why you'd pretend to not know much hockey then? Or do you not know hockey?"

        "No, I know hockey," I said with a faint smile. "I don't know. I guess I was just self-conscious. I shouldn't have pretended; sorry."

       "That's okay," Logan assured me. "We all do weird things when we're self-conscious. Me, I make really bad jokes. Like worse than dad jokes, since most dads don't find them funny."

        I smiled against my will. "Good to know."

        Then he asked, "Wait, are you betraying San Francisco by literally getting me back to full strength?"

        "Eh. Maybe. Worst case scenario, you guys play each other in the conference final and I feel mildly conflicted, but root for the Wave because that's my dad's team," I said, sitting down on the other side of the couch-bed.

         Logan clutched his heart. "Ouch."

         "I mean, if you won, I wouldn't be totally devastated," I laughed.

"That makes me feel better," he said, smiling. "So anything else you need to tell me? Or want to tell me?"

"Nope. That should be all my deep, dark secrets," I said with a yawn.

"Awesome. Glad we worked that out. You can go back to bed now," he said cheerfully.

"Thanks," I said, using all my energy to let go of the pillow I'd grabbed. "Night."

"Night, Lilli," Logan said, lying down again and shutting off the lamp.

Crawling back into bed, I fell asleep hard. Despite the commotion Logan had caused, I was still tired enough to go back to sleep in a matter of minutes.

        With Christmas less than two weeks away, I still had a lot of shopping to do. Being at home with Logan meant I could order things online, but going to the store was pretty hard.

         "Okay, I'll be back around supper. I'll pick up food, so whatever you want, just text me," I told Logan, stuffing my feet into my winter boots.