Wow, chapter 9 was a long chapter, that was double the length of my normal ones and nothing happened in it. Writing Max and Logan not in a "relationship" is so not as much fun, I only did it once before and I had them doing each other. So makes things more interesting.

Chapter Ten

History Lessons

"You know once upon a time you could get signal almost anywhere in this country," Logan said with a look of disgust at his cell phone, completely bar-less.

Max smiled, she liked Logan's random history lessons. There were a lot of things she would have never known if weren't for him or at least not fully understood, since he and OC were the only ones who even knew she'd barely been in the world pre-pulse. Logan had explained to her about the preset buttons on the radio, 12 for FM alone. Apparently once upon a time there had actually been dozens of real stations, not the little bootleg ones, pirate stations whose signals were always weak or the two real ones they had in Seattle targeted at people who could afford the things they were advertising. TV had once consisted of hundreds of channels…

There had been multiple TVs and computers in every household, even little kids had cell phones. Funny world to imagine, she knew a lot of kids who didn't have shoes that fit, she couldn't imagine them having a cell. Yet when she'd asked Original Cindy, she just shook her head like it was common place and told her she'd gotten one the day she'd started eighth grade after spending the whole summer bitchin' about how she didn't have one. Weird little things like that.

She shook her head as she raised up her milkshake to take a sip.

"I still can't believe you're drinking that," he said looking over at the milkshake she'd ordered to go when they'd finished eating lunch at the small diner they'd stopped at on the road.

"I'm sorry it's not a private reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, the diner was all out."

He laughed, "I meant the fact that it's freezing."

"Luckily not a problem for me."

"That was a good wine though," he said thinking back to dinner three nights ago.

"That was an overpriced bottle of wine."

"It was worth it."

She shook her head, only Logan would celebrate finishing an article with a hundred dollar bottle of wine, Oh well at least it wasn't pre-pulse. She watched him shake his head as she took another sip, " Logan, you know you could just say you want some."

He laughed, "No I still think it's freezing."

"It's good," she said moving the white cup closer to him.

"I know what a milkshake tastes like thank you."

She gave him a disbelieving look.

Another laugh, "I was a kid once Max."

Two things stood out from that statement one was her inability to picture Logan as a child, despite having seen the pictures, the second was he just made her sound like a kid, she glared.

He caught her look and laughed, "If it makes you feel better I was drinking soda and beer well into my twenties."

"You still drink beer."

"It takes a lot longer to taste good now." He held in the shudder at the thought of beer at Crash, even their 'good' beer wasn't good.

She laughed, she knew exactly what was going through his mind, she'd definitely tasted the difference between the beers he'd order while they were out at someplace decent versus the ones he'd get as Crash, "So what was your favorite milkshake?"

"Black and white," he answered without hesitation.

"Vanilla with chocolate syrup?" Interesting, a classic, yet not ordinary.

He saw her looking at him, awaiting a further explanation, "Vanilla got boring after awhile, chocolate was always too much chocolate, mint chocolate chip had a weird texture, strawberry was nice, but not too often."

She laughed, "You put a lot of thought into that."

He grinned in returned, amazed at how easily the memories had returned to him, "That was at least a decade of careful analysis."

"You drove your mother insane didn't you?"

"Mother, nannies, housekeeper," he admitted honestly.

She shook her head and took another sip; she was the last in a long line of females who had been pushed to the brink by this man.

ooOoo

"Why is there another car here?" Max voiced the question running through both of their minds looking at the navy blue luxury car in front of the cabin.

"I have no idea," he said extracting the keys and opening the door to face the chilly winds thankful he'd left his coat on after they'd stopped even Max pulled the tan coat around her tighter as they looked at the cabin.

The door opened and Bitsy emerged with a puzzled look at first and then a smile, "This is why we used to call each other when we were coming out here."

They both smiled instead of the groans they were repressing.

"Kyle and Brit just went for a walk, grab your bags and come inside it's freezing," Bitsy said rubbing her covered arms.

Logan's smile was replaced by a puzzled look during Bitsy's words as he noticed Max suddenly make a fist and shove her hand into her pocket, then it hit him, they were still wearing rings, there was no way he'd be able to get out of explaining that, his hands quickly found their way into his pockets.

He hit the button to open the hatch from inside his pocket as the walked around and gave each other a pitying look as they leaned in trying to remove the rings that had been on their fingers for almost 24 hours now. "Nice save," he said as he slipped the ring into his pocket and grabbed only his laptop and bag, he'd come out for everything else later.

"Uncle Logan, Max!"

They turned for the delighted cry as Logan braced himself to be attacked by the pure bundle of energy, her pigtails secured by purple pompoms matching her coat.

The jolt rocked him as always as she hugged his legs. "Hey Brit," he said looking down as Max smiled at his obvious discomfort with the child.

"Are you and Max staying for the weekend?" she asked looking up.

"Looks that way."

"Max," she said finally detaching from her cousin's legs. "We can go feed the ducks, they were supposed to be gone, but they're still here."

"They're geese honey," Brittany's father said walking up to them, "hi guys."

"Hi," they returned.

"Okay why are we standing outside talking?" Bitsy asked walking over in a baby blue jacket. "Let's go inside. Sweetie, grab the rest of their things."