AN: Hey, hi, hello. Sorry, it's been awhile. I've been pretty busy with school and other nonsense. I hope yall like this chapter. :] I'm going to try to get another one up before the weekend, but I have a paper due on Friday. If it's not up by Friday, it definitely won't be up until at least next Thursday. The super crews roll this weekend, and I'll literally be camped out in a tent in New Orleans with a bunch of my friends from Friday afternoon until Tuesday night. However, seeing as Wednesday will be my hangover day, I should be writing again after that. If you could, reviews would be great. :] -Emily.

Logan had to admit, Mardi Gras had been one of the best experiences of his life. It was something different. He was used to never ending parties, but he wasn't used to a continuous 4 day party with people he had never met. Finn had declared his love for New Orleans so many times that strangers were starting to refer to him as 'that Australian guy who loves New Orleans'. He knew that Steph was beyond excited to really get to know Rory, Addie, and Kinley. He was happy that she finally had girls to hang out with, and he was pretty sure Colin didn't care what they did with the rest of their year off. They had talked about their plans once the parades ended and had decided that New Orleans would remain home until they thought of a place they would rather be. It had been almost a week since life around New Orleans returned to normal and Logan had a problem. Rory had been M.I.A. since their whole group went to lunch the Wednesday after Mardi Gras. He had seen the other girls and John Halpin quite often, but never Rory. The worst part was that everyone knew he was wondering where she was and no one would tell him. They made him ask.


"So where has Rory been hiding?"

"She doesn't do anything during school," Kinley said.

"What does that mean?"

"It means just that…she gets up, goes to class, puts in some time at the paper, comes home to study. She does make a point to eat dinner with us, but besides that…she really just focuses on her schoolwork."

"So if I wanted to drop by and take her out to lunch tomorrow…"

"Logan," John Halpin interrupted, "if you want to see Rory, go see her. Bring coffee and don't be offended if she doesn't pay attention to you. But she'll be at the newspaper tomorrow afternoon."

"Which newspaper?"

"Tulane's paper. You want directions?"

"Sure. It's about time I took a look around Tulane. The way you guys talk about it, it's the best place ever."



He was kind of regretting that now. He never voluntarily showed his face in a newspaper office, he just didn't do it. He opposed it on principle. He didn't like that she didn't go out with them at night. Sure, they had only been out twice since he had seen her, but he felt weird being with all of her friends knowing she was sitting at home studying or hanging around the house. And there was the fact that he wanted to see her in her element. Every one of her friends had expressed how dedicated she was to her classes and the paper and he wanted to see her in action, so to speak.

He was walking slowly towards the building that John Halpin had pointed out to him when he saw Jackson walk in one of the doors. Quickening his pace, he followed him into what he assumed to be the newsroom. He still couldn't pinpoint the need he had for finding his way through the Tulane campus to the newsroom, and if he were honest with himself, he didn't want to. But once he caught sight of her, he was certain that there was no other place he'd rather be at that moment. He looked around quickly taking note of how similar it was to the Yale newsroom before his eyes settled on her figure.

He watched as she stopped typing and wiped a hand over her eyes and ran it through her hair. She sighed heavily and rolled her head back. She looked like she needed a break, a well-deserved break. She grabbed her coffee mug and got up from her desk. He took this as his chance to walk over. He sat at her desk and took in the room before saving the work she had been doing on her computer and turning it off. He started pulling together her notebooks and folders, putting them all in a messenger bag he found under the desk.

Watching her from the corner of his eye, he had to suppress laughter when he saw her face register who was sitting at her desk. She paused and watched him for a few minutes before walking back towards her desk.

"Logan, hi. What are you doing?" she asked.

"Solitaire."

"What?"

"You asked me when I'm doing. I'm playing solitaire, Ace."

"Oh. Okay."

She paused and tapped her pen on the desk for a minute before she said anything again.

"So…Logan?"

"Yea, Ace?"

"What are you doing here? You know…at Tulane…sitting at my desk?"

"Taking you out to lunch. Ready?" he said as he got up and started walking towards the door. Halfway there, he realized that she wasn't following and stopped and walked back towards her.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't just go, Logan. I have work to do."

"Take a break, have lunch with me. I'm very worried about you. Word on the street is that you're running out of books to read, you need to slow down."

"Logan."

"Okay, not working? What about if I tell you that I've been wondering where you've been. We've gone out with your friends a few times and you aren't ever there."

"Well is that the truth?"

"It is. But don't tell anyone, it's a secret. Will you let me buy you lunch now?"

"I can buy my own lunch."

"I'm sure you can, Ace, but it's not like I'd ever let you," he told her as he pulled her out of the newsroom.


"You didn't have to walk me back, Logan."

"I know, but if I didn't walk you back, I know for a fact that you wouldn't go home right now," he told her as they walked into the newsroom.

"Grab your stuff and I'll drive you home."

"Fine, but I have to go make some copies. You can sit at my desk."

He told her to take her time and turned on her computer to check his e-mail. He got bored with his dad's e-mails pretty quickly and went back to playing solitaire. Eventually, he leaned back in the chair to watch her talk to people he assumed were other reporters. He watched as her friends looked at her with shocked faces and then smiled as she blushed and motioned towards him. He smiled and waved when the other girls looked in his direction. Finally, she told her friends goodbye and walked towards her desk.

"So what was that about?"

"What?"

"Those girls looked pretty shocked at what you were telling them," he started, "what'd you say?"

"Oh. They were just surprised I was leaving."

"I see. Ready?"

"Um…yea. Jackson wanted to say hi before we left, if that's okay."

"Ace," he groaned, "I hate that guy."

"I know. I'm sorry. Why don't you just go, you don't have to drive me home. Actually, I should try to get—"

"No. You are going home. Kinley said you haven't made it home before 6 all week. I'll deal with Jackson if it lets me bring you home."

"Okay…maybe you're right. Oh, here he comes. We'll just say bye and we can go, okay?"

"Deal, but you owe me."

"Okay, I'll buy you some ice cream. Hey Jackson, we were just walking out."

"Hey Ror, Logan."

"Hey man, how's it going?" Logan asked.

"I can't complain. Running the paper gets stressful, but I deal with it."

"I can imagine," he said and smirked at Rory. "So you're in charge here?" he asked with a wave of his hand.

"Yea, editor."

"Ah, I see. Oh, I've got to take this. You guys keep talking," he said and walked away, pulling out his phone.

Turning to tell Jackson bye, she heard Logan answer his phone and cringed.

"Huntzberger….Seth! What's up?....No, I'm in New Orleans…I'm actually in a newsroom right now, can I give you a call later when I'm with Colin and Finn? You know that three heads are better than one when planning things…Oh, Tulane…I'll explain it to you later, man….Okay, bye."

After he hung up, he turned around to see Jackson staring at him and Rory shaking her head. Not knowing what happened, he started walking over. He heard Rory mumble something and she was pulling him out of the newsroom before he could even muster a goodbye to Jackson.

"What was all that about? I thought we were being nice to him?" he asked once she stopped dragging him.

"Do you seriously always answer your phone like that?"

"Like what?"

" 'Huntzberger,' " she said, dropping her voice to imitate his.

"Of course I do. Why?"

"Well because you just answered your phone like that in front of Jackson. Jackson. The guy whose dad was just contacted by your dad to buy their newspaper. Remember?"

"Oh."

"Oh?!"

"Oops?"

"Logan, I don't care if he knows who you are or not. It just seemed like you didn't want him to know since you had carefully avoided the subject any time he was around. I'm just trying to look out for you," she told him.

He felt his entire chest swell with contentment. Cocking his head to one side, he looked at her. He believed her. She was only looking out for him. Those weren't words he had been told many times. Usually, looking out for him meant one of his friends steered a gold-digger out of his path. It never meant looking out for his happiness, even if the other person didn't understand why he needed to remain inconspicuous. He had never had anyone just accept him and take him on faith as he had the past week with Rory and her friends.

"Logan. What's wrong?"

He snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her. She was looking up at him, fidgeting, and biting her lip.

"Nothing. Everything's perfect. Let's get you home," he said and led her to his car with an arm around her shoulders.


Throwing her messenger bag under her desk, she had to admit that it felt good to call it an early day and relax for the rest of the afternoon. Walking downstairs, she saw Logan looking at all of their pictures around the living room. She couldn't help but laugh when she saw his face scrunch up when he saw a picture from a high school dance.

"You went to prom with Jackson?" he asked without turning around.

"I went to his prom with him."

"His prom?"

"Yea, we didn't go to school together, remember? He asked me to his, I took my boyfriend at the time to mine."

"Oh. Okay, that makes sense."

"Yea…it was a fun night. But, now that you made me come home early, I want to really live up my afternoon off. You want to watch a movie with me?"

"Nothing I'd rather, Ace."

"Okay, well pick a movie. I'm going get food," she said and walked out of the room.

Great. Now she was going to be watching movies with him all afternoon. Not that she minded. That was the problem, she definitely didn't mind. At all. She never was the girl who let a guy drag her out of the newsroom or library, but Logan had barely had to ask. She knew as soon as she saw him sitting in her desk that she wouldn't be getting any work done that day, and she was okay with that. Her mom would laugh at her. Yes, she most certainly would. She would laugh, tell her that she had a crush on a hot guy, and push her into the living room. Kinley would do the same thing. John Halpin would probably ask her if she was sure she didn't want to join the Ursuline Nuns again. Yea, John Halpin was always trying to stop them from dating. She didn't know what she was going to do. Even better, she knew that she probably didn't have an option. There was no way she'd ever let Logan knew he could probably convince her to do anything he wanted. No, not when she didn't have a clue what he thought. She heard the front door open and close, but she went on putting the food on a tray to bring out to the den.

"Ror, what are you doing?"

She looked up to see Kinley standing in the doorway to the kitchen wearing a shocked expression and Logan walking up the hall behind her.

"Getting food to watch a movie."

"Why? What's wrong? Is everything okay? What's going on?"

"Nothing's wrong, Kinley. Why?"

"You're home. It's not even 2:30, Rory. Why are you here?"

"I live here too, you know."

"I know, but you're never here before 6 on schooldays. Are you sure you're okay?"

"She's fine," Logan said, "I passed by Tulane today and took her out to lunch. When we got back to the newsroom I asked her to take the afternoon off and here we are."

"You," she said, pointing at Logan, "got her," pointing at Rory, "to take an afternoon off?"

"Yea," he shrugged.

"Ah…I see."

"You see what?"

"Nothing, Ror."

"What? Tell me."

"I had a test this morning. I'm exhausted. I'm going take a nap. Don't wake me up, okay?"

"Okay…what do you want for dinner?"

"How 'bout we go out?"

"Oh. Sure, that's fine."

"Wow," Kinley said. Rory watched her walk towards the stairs shaking her head.

"I wonder what's up with her."

"No clue, Ace."

"Oh well. You ready to watch a movie?"

"I'm ready for anything, Ace," he told her with a wink.