What Happens in London…
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Rory smiled fondly as she walked into the small café and selected a table in a back corner. The blonde barista, who she knew from prior visits, was already bringing over a steaming mug of black coffee.
"Thanks, Victoria," Rory said softly.
"It's good to see you; it's been quite a while," the woman said warmly, before hesitating. "Are you by yourself this time?" she asked, glancing to the door as if perhaps Rory's normal companion was just a bit slow to follow.
"Just me," Rory answered, biting her lip. This was her and Logan's place; it always had been, ever since her first visit to London to see him so many years ago. But that time was long past; she was surprised to still find Victoria working here, and even more so that the barista still remembered her so clearly.
"Well, enjoy the coffee," the blonde said awkwardly. "Let me know when you're ready for a refill," she said over her shoulder as she headed back to the counter.
Rory sighed, pulling out her leather-bound notebook. After her exhausting meeting with Naomi Shropshire, she knew she would definitely need at least two refills, even if it was already eight in the evening. Of course the woman was a genius in the world of feminism, but she was also utterly exhausting. Rory still felt buzzed from too many glasses of champagne, and her new co-author had imbibed at least three times as much as she had.
The brunette sipped at the hot coffee and pored over her notes and doodles from the disastrous meeting. It was only their first one, and already, Rory was feeling a little apocalyptic. Maybe Paris was right and Rory should just accept the job at Sandee Says. But she couldn't help feeling that it would mean accepting defeat. She had covered Obama's campaign and had written several good articles for newspapers all over the globe, but she just couldn't get a permanent foothold. The familiar fear reared its ugly head again… maybe Mitchem Huntzberger had been right about her, after all.
The bell on the café's front door jingled and Rory shot a look over her shoulder. She thought she'd have the joint pretty much to herself given the hour; it wasn't exactly prime time for coffee, was it? The sight of a familiar, handsome face hit her like a bolt of a lightning.
"Hey, Ace. Ready for a refill?" His smile was still the same, that crooked half-smirk-half-grin that always melted her heart.
"Sure," she breathed, still in shock at his unexpected arrival. He turned to the counter and she ran a trembling hand through her hair; she had only seen him once since the rejected proposal, at a party of her grandmother's just a couple months after graduating from Yale, although she had been in London countless times over the years. And now, here she was in their café, a total mess. Why did all of her old lovers – Dean, Jess, now Logan – have a knack of showing up at the worst of times?
But before Rory could even process it properly, Logan was at her table, pressing a new mug of coffee into her hands. "May I sit?" he asked formally, always the gentleman.
"Please," she said. "I never thought I'd see you here," she rushed to explain, " not after all these years… I knew you were still in London of course, because of my grandmother," she said, blushing, stumbling over her words.
Logan quieted her with a grin. "Still running with the D.A.R. crowd, are you?"
"Not quite," Rory acknowledged with a wry smile. "I've been a bit too busy running with the journalist crowd, you know."
"I do know," Logan responded, staring determinedly into his own mug for a moment before raising his honey brown eyes to meet hers. "I've been following your work."
"Then you'll have seen it's a bit scattered," Rory answered, trying to hold back the edge of bitterness in her voice. She cut Logan off before he could respond. "Enough about me, though… How have you been? How's the Huntzberger business coming along?"
"Well enough, I suppose," Logan drawled. "Although Mitchem and Shira's plans for the empire never seem to find an endpoint," he spat. Rory arched an eyebrow; it seemed she wasn't the only one feeling a little sour about how her life was going as of late.
"Why am I not surprised?" Rory asked rhetorically, tracing the edge of her mug with a fingertip.
"I am surprised," Logan replied quickly, reaching out to softly touch Rory's chin. "To find you here, I mean. It's been what, six years?" She nodded and he seemed to hesitate for a moment. "I don't mean to interrupt your work," he gestured to her still-open notebook, "but would you like to relocate, get a drink somewhere, perhaps?"
Rory debated internally for all of thirty seconds. She had probably had quite enough to drink that night as it was, but… she hadn't seen Logan in several years, and one drink with an old friend couldn't hurt, could it?
"Name the place, captain," she declared, scooping her notebook into her purse and throwing her ex-boyfriend a quick salute.
Logan beamed. He placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her toward the exit, dropping a twenty-dollar bill on the counter on their way out. "I know the perfect place," he whispered in her ear as they slipped through the door. "It's just around the corner."
Rory struggled to contain her smile at the comfortable yet exciting sensation of Logan's touch through her thin blouse. It took her back years… she glanced up at him, one step ahead of her, and admired the span of his broad shoulders. He had always been incredibly attractive to her, even if he was a little too aware of that fact for her liking.
"Here we are, Ace," he murmured, opening the door of the small corner pub for her. The bar was dimly lit and sparsely populated. Rory knew that eight in the evening on a Tuesday wasn't the best time for a coffee, but she imagined that it wasn't exactly the ideal bar-hopping hour either.
"A scotch neat and a vodka martini for the lady," Logan called to the bartender before pulling a chair out for Rory at a table towards the back of the restaurant.
Maybe it was just the remnants of champagne raging in her blood stream, or the continued shock at seeing her old lover in one of their old haunts, even more handsome than she remembered him, but Rory felt emboldened. She reached out and stroked his jaw line. "How have you been, really?"
"I've been good, Ace, same old, same old," he said, carefully studying the empty tables around them.
"Tell the truth," she insisted.
"The truth?" he sighed, finally peering into her eyes. "The truth is that I'm practically engaged to a girl that my parents hand-picked for me," he spat. Rory felt like she had just been punched, but she bit her lip. She wouldn't interrupt. Logan eyed her and then continued darkly, "The truth is that my future is set and I've got the Huntzberger empire on my shoulders. The truth is that I miss you, Rory; I've missed you every day for more than five years, but I can't have you, and I don't even deserve you because I haven't had the nerve to come after you…"
Logan paused to throw back what remained of his drink, and Rory couldn't hold back any longer. She almost felt like it was an out of body experience as she leaned across the table and caught his soft lips in a kiss, but then his hands were in her hair, and it was all too beautifully, tragically real.
She leaned back, struggling slightly for breath. Twelve hours ago when her plane had landed in London, she never would have imagined her day going like this.
"Ready for my truth?" she said faintly, and he nodded, grasping her hand in his and leaving feather kisses on her fingertips. "The truth is that I'm totally lost. I'm dating a guy I can barely stand and I feel like I have nothing. I'm a journalist without a journal, but I'm giving it my all and I refuse to just quit. The truth is that I miss you too, Logan, but I just can't be the girl that ruins you for your family." She shuddered and gazed into his caramel eyes. "I can't fight for you, when I barely have any fight left in me…"
The blond reached over to give her another deep kiss that left her reeling yet again. "So now what, Ace? Your call."
The brunette woman rose to her feet, pulling her handsome companion up with her and placing his hand on her hip. "Well, Mr. Huntzberger. I happen to know firsthand just how fond you are of Vegas," she announced jauntily. "May I propose a new arrangement? What happens in London, stays in London."
In the seemingly eternal interim before his lips met hers once more, Rory thought back to Dean and Lindsay, her disastrous first time and the shame of causing a divorce. Maybe she was making a terrible mistake, just as she had then. But she was in London in the summertime, her career was crashing and burning around her, and she was thirty years old and unlucky in love. When Logan's lips landed on hers, she closed her eyes and let her worry go. She knew this was wrong, but for now, she was just too tired to figure out her way to right.
So, what happened in London, would stay in London…
Author's note: I'm still processing everything that was given to us in the revival. I never ever justify cheating, but I had to find a way to think this Rogan decision through! Let me know what you thought about this relationship in the revival, and my take on how things began.