A/N: I don't think it qualifies a rating raise due to some scenes, but if anyone else feels this way - feel free to let me know. I wouldn't get use to it, I don't expect this to repeat. I entirely blame the direction this chapter took on my feverish mind (actual fever, no worries it passed. All is well).
One more comment. So, yeah. I've totally messed up their ages. So after checking Gilmore Wiki. Logan born in 1982, Rory born in 1984. I'll go back and fix it where needed. My apologies.
Keep safe.
January 2014
"Not that I'm complaining or anything. I am always enthusiastic about spending my extended lunch break shopping. But how did you score this extended lunch, and what are we shopping for?" Kate inspected a little black dress. Rory dismissed the suggested garment with a head shake; it didn't send the right message.
"Marie Claire wants to publish my comics. I have nothing to wear to the meeting next week."
"Come again?"
"Marie Claire wants to publish my comics. I ha…"
"Stop right there! That is awesome, Rory! How? When did that happen?"
Rory grinned. Finally, someone was happy about it. Just plain delighted for her. No judgment. No hidden agenda. No projecting feelings and unfounded fears on her. Kate didn't lecture her how she went all wrong about it. "I asked my old boss, Hugo, to sniff around when I was back east last Thanks Giving. I got the news on Monday."
Rory decided to leave out the details of the personal delivery.
"Is that why you weren't at work? Boy, you have no idea what you missed. Logan's dad showed up, and the golf club went through the glass wall again. I can't believe I've lost that bet."
Today, Shiri was keeping a careful eye on the contractor replacing the glass with plaster walls in Logan's office. Rory used the term very loosely. The office manager was practically leering, and Logan was quick to point it out. It certainly didn't win him his golf club back.
"So, I'm meeting the editorial team to discuss where we go from here. And I have to dress to impress. It has to say creative but professional, artistic, but savvy." Rory didn't want to dwell on the details of Mitchum Huntzberger's visit. The glass wall wasn't the only thing Mitchum's presence shattered.
"Why are we doing wasting our time in this store? Haven't you watched Project Runway? Everyone knows Nina Garcia's street brand is Banana Republic."
Xx
"I know Chip gave you this bracelet, and it's sentimental and such. But you know, this might clash with the sophisticated ensemble. Maybe you should take it off."
"Chip didn't give me the bracelet. I already told you I'm not dating Chip." Rory has lost count how many times she had said in the past few weeks. "And I'm not taking it off."
Rory stepped out of the elevator, and the Graphic designer followed, quickly blocking her way back in the office. "Okay, fine, I'll bite, who then?"
"2 o'clock." Rory hinted to her friend, her voice nearly over a whisper.
Kate glanced over her shoulder. Logan and Ben were standing side by side in Ben's door, inspecting the transformation of the CEO office. Logan is bouncing a tennis ball; they briefly make eye contact.
Kate's mouth opened and closed like a fish.
The next thing Rory knows, she and her bags are hurriedly pushed back towards the stairs.
"Logan? Rory, what is wrong with you? Logan? Oh boy, the guys were right…." Kate rested her hand over her heart, pacing the stairs, "I had my suspicions too, you know. He flirts with everyone, but you always seemed to know stuff and how to work him. And you always got way too sensitive or spaced out whenever…"
"I did not."
"Are you kidding me?" Kate spun towards her quickly, "How long?"
"I swear I didn't know he was the boss the first time. It was just a night one stand." Rory admitted uncomfortably under Kate's expecting expression. The blue-haired woman wasn't born yesterday. "Since Christmas 2011."
Kate's eyes boggled at the added timeline.
"Oh my god! Three years? We have conspired over his sex life for years, and you just sat there. You've been keeping this from me for three years?"
Framing it like that sounded completely different from the sporadic wrinkles in time they conducted.
"There was nothing to tell; it was a random, no strings thing. We weren't even doing it in Seattle." Rory can't help but get defensive. Aside from a few slips, Rory silently confessed to herself. "We were seeing other people. It's complicated."
"And now there's strings." Kate determined, shaking Rory's left wrist on which she proudly wore the string bracelet, "You're not just screwing Logan. You're dating Logan."
"Kind of. It's complicated." Was she? Rory played with her string bracelet. Ben said she should stop fight Logan on definitions and just enjoy him.
"What do you mean, 'kind of' – either you are or your not." Kate met Rory's uncertain expression, "Do you go out on the town together?"
"Sometimes, on Mondays. We mostly stay in." Rory swallowed the end of her words. He cooks her dinner. They sometimes wake up in the same bed. Lately, they weren't spending only Mondays together. They go to the supermarket. Logan dragged her to the vintage record store a few times.
"So it's just sex? or do you talk about other things other than work when you 'hang out'?"
"We don't talk about work." Kate raised her eyebrows, "It's not just sex."
Rory leaves the core details of their arrangement out.
"What's the color of his toothbrush?"
"Blue."
"Oh, honey." Kate squeezed her hand, smiling, "I hate to break it to you, the star boy is your mother-fucking boyfriend."
"You can't tell anyone." Rory gripped on her friend's hand, suddenly frightened.
"Tell what? That you're having an affair with the Boss? Rory, everyone in the office already knows they're just keeping quiet about it to keep their job."
"What? no one knows, except Ben and now you."
Kate shook her head and looked at the photographer as if she was clueless, "Oh come on everybody talks. When they hire a new guy, Keith and Dylan give him the 'Rory Gilmore is off-limits welcome tour.' They say you have a B tattoed on your forehead, and they don't mean Ben."
~w~
"Hey, what do you think of this dress? Does it look fashionable enough? Kate said it would be perfect, but now, I don't know." Rory held out the selected dress at him.
"What?" Logan briefly looked up from the book. A few days ago, he picked up the Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close book off her night-stand. He stuck to it like glue. Logan slept in her bed for the third night in a row. Actual sleeping. Not the kind that sent him to surf channel the T.V. in the other room, or back to his apartment before 4 a.m.
If Rory ignored the fact he was using the book and the sleeping pills to block any other possible intimate interaction, she couldn't help but think it was quite sexy to have a man reading in her bed.
"I'm trying to figure out what to wear to my meeting with Marie Claire."
"Ah, the comics rears its ugly head again," Logan said he was okay with the comics. More precisely, 'fine with some aspects of it.' But the truth is he wasn't. At all. Because when Logan says he's fine - he's never fine.
"I want to look professional, but not too Lois Laney, and I don't want to look too eccentric."
"You are eccentric." His sprained hand turned a page.
"Not on Monday. On Monday, I'm a state of the art content woman. And I have to look like a state of the content woman."
"It's a women magazine. You're a woman, whatever you wear will be fine." Rory watched him with interest. He had no idea how much like his father he just sounded.
"Marie Claire is a fashion magazine. Have you never watched Project Runways? Nina Garcia is fierce."
"Can't say I have. You're not meeting Nina Garcia."
"I can't walk in there looking outdated. Or unstylish. You know Ruth Gonzales, what's her style like? What's the dress code? Come on," Rory danced a little hoping to coax some details out of him, that tactic always worked for her mother, "Tell me something."
"She likes red sexy lingerie. It's the only piece of clothing that caught my attention."
A clothes hanger flew right at him. "Logan, you're not helping!"
She can't ignore the dull pang in her heart with the confirmation that he slept with Ruth Gonzales. He aimed the dagger well. She understood the logic. If she's forcing him to discuss the comics revealing her past love life, he will repay her with the same coin.
"Technically, they can't discriminate you based on your outfit. Plus, you came parachuted by Mitchum, no one wants that trouble. You can come in naked, and they'll suck up to you." Logan was definitely not okay with the comics, "What about Monday night dinner?"
"What about it?"
"You're going be in New York. Is it canceled?"
Rory blinked. She hadn't thought about that. The contract only stated the terms of play when Logan wasn't around for Monday night dinner. Not the other way around. But suddenly the bowl turned over; Logan was staying put in Seattle, and she wasn't. "Do you want it canceled?"
Logan shrugged, turning another page. There's no way he is actually reading. "It's game night. Ben and I might do something."
"Oh. Right. Can we reschedule? Wednesday?" She offers. He hums, which Rory doesn't know if to take as a yes or a no. "What chapter are you on?"
"Six."
"Did he meet the Anna character yet?"
"Are you trying to ruin the book for me?"
"You've never read it?" He got a copy signed for her and never read it himself?
"Ben said it was the best one." Logan answered dismissively, "Can I be in the room?"
"You want to go to my meeting with Marie Claire?" Rory asked, surprised, "Should I even talk to you about Marie Claire?"
"No. I don't want anything to do with that." Logan closed the book, lifted himself off the bed, and pushed past her to brush his teeth. Rory checks the time. It's sleeping pills time.
Logan was an expert on placing and blurring boundaries at the same time. One minute they are mixing, the other they are forcefully thrown apart as possible - like electrons.
Like he was testing the waters.
Logan applies the toothpaste on the blue toothbrush. His sprained wrist bothers him. After her conversation with Kate, Rory suddenly takes notice that his stuff randomly pops around. A toothbrush, a razor, deodorant. A bottle of sleeping pills.
A few floors up, she has a matching set of her own.
Rory put her dress back in the closet and leaned on the bathroom door. "Oh. So what room?"
"The room where they get you pregnant." He spits the foam, rinsing his mouth with water.
"We agreed that…" Rory watched the muscles in his back stretch elegantly under his skin. His toned back from hours of sports.
"We never agreed." Logan reached for his sleeping pills next. His bedtime routine was getting familiar. In twenty minutes, he'd be dead to the world, head buried under the pillow until morning.
"You said fine." Rory winced at her words. It was well established that when Logan said fine…
His brown eyes hardened with suppressed anger. What follows next is the rattle of pills into his hand, the glass refilling with water. Logan downs the pills and wipes his mouth with the back of his good hand.
He shakes her hand off his arm as he walks past her again. Within seconds, he is flat on his stomach, and his head finds shelter under the pillow. The covers pools at his waist. Effectively blocking any farther conversation and any reaction she may have.
Carefully she climbs on top of the covers, pressing her face into the spot between his naked shoulders blades. "I'll think about it." She whispers against his warm skin. He smells like her body wash. "Logan, are you going to be mad at me forever?"
"Goodnight."
He's in her bed. Yet, Rory can't help but feel she's in the doghouse. How very Lorelai Gilmore of him.
No one holds a grudge better than an L.
~w~
"Alison? Are they kidding me? Alison got the promotion? I've been here longer than her!" Nicole angrily spilled her make up bag in front of the washroom mirror.
"I know, honey," Shiri sympathetically offered her a make-up wipe. Nicole dubbed the wipe around her eyes, wiping off the stains of mascara. "It's truly disappointing. You deserved it."
"Right? I did. Patel said he was sure I'm going to get it." Nicole's eye watered again.
"They must have their other considerations." Shiri offered her some comfort.
"Puff, we all know what other considerations." Nicole incited with a huff. Alison never bothered to hide her interest in a particular executive. Logan infuriatingly, or maybe intentionally, never completely shut it down.
Kate popped her bubble gum, studying her nails. Rory focused washed her hands under the warm water in the sink. Then she checked her hair in the mirror.
The promotions announced in today's staff meeting went unexpectedly south for Nicole.
"How come you're fine with it?" Nicole aimed her question at Rory. To her, Rory should be fuming as well, but Rory seemed unbothered. "If not me, then it should have been you."
"Why wouldn't I be fine with it? I didn't want the promotion. Larger salary, more responsibility." Rory re-adjusted her red blouse into her black A-cut skirt, making sure the strap of her lacey red bra peeked suggestively.
She knew Logan noticed.
When the staff meeting ended, her phone beeped with a text questioning whether the lower part matched. She took immense joy watching his eyes darken at her response. Rory prided herself on chucking her embarrassment aside and giving in to the impulse to purchase her first-ever high-end lingerie set.
With a specific man in mind.
She was going to give Ruth Gonzales a run for her money.
All this pant up anger he held had to get some release. And Rory decided they are going to play ball.
"Right, who in their right mind wouldn't like a bigger salary over flexible hours to play with their pet project?" Shiri rolled her eye. Rory was already notoriously known for cutting angles.
"I do my job. There are no complaints."
Kate popped her bubble gum again. Rory sent her skeptical friend a side look. It didn't take a genius to think Kate deduced why no one called her on her flexible working hours anymore.
"So, why are you dressed to impress?" Shiri gave her appearance a once over for the second time today.
"Just felt like it." She didn't dress to impress. Rory was on a seduction mission. "Did you know that everyone in New York looks like they're always going somewhere extremely festive?"
Rory's mind was still in New York.
The meeting with Marie Claire went beyond her expectation. She even had a late-lunch with her dad. He delivered her Christmas gift, a remote shutter release for the Cannon. Rory politely asked about her mom, Christopher politely asked about Logan. They talked some about GiGi. He footed the bill, and they went their separate ways.
"Let's go out tonight. I need to get hammered and shake it off." Nicole re-applied her mascara and her eyeliners in front of the mirror.
~w~
Rory's lettuce found its way into Logan's plate. Nicole eyed her disapprovingly.
Their rescheduled dinner plans officially tanked. During lunch, Nicole's misery night out turned to a promotion celebration outing. Much to Nicole dismay. By 4:00 p.m. Logan was challenged to a dart competition by Keith and Brian.
One of Logan's character flaws is that he can never refuse a dare.
But they somehow ended up sitting side by side, which is unusual. Logan strictly practices social distancing if after-hours socializing occurs. At work, he makes sure he's at least one-seat away, and the closer to his human buffer – Ben – the better.
"What?" Rory asked, annoyed.
"I don't understand why don't you just tell them just to leave it out if you're going to toss it," Nicole commented on the green leaves. "That's food waste."
"It left its essence." Rory kept assembling her hamburger, "It's not food waste. Logan will eat it."
Logan ordered a salad. He won't notice new greens when in he'll come back from the phone call he took outside. Rory knows he did it intentionally so that she won't nip into his food in public. And she won't- because nothing on his plate looks appealing enough to steal.
Rory spread a generous coat of mayonnaise on the top bun, intentionally ignoring Nicole's cholesterol talk. She loved pubs food. Especially on happy hours. The disapproving glare didn't budge. Rory was starting to think it wasn't about the lettuce. It was about Logan.
Nicole wanted to bitch out. She couldn't bitch out with Logan around.
"He's talking to his new flavor, isn't he? I never saw anyone this excited to accept a call and dash out." As usual, Shiri was more interested in Logan's actions.
"He's talking to his sister," Rory said. She saw Honor's name flashed on his phone screen. When he left the table, his hand brushed her thigh in a suggestive manner that promised no good. Rory quickly deflected any follow-up questions that will expose the fact that she met his sister. "How come we never talk about your love life?"
"Because my love life is dry as the Sahara desert."
"What did I miss?" Logan's hands bummed off Rory's fries as he reclaims his seat.
"Shiri says her love life is dry. Hey! Mine!" She covers them protectively. Their hands brush against each other, sending electrifying sparks down her spine. "Get your own."
He grins at her smartly, "I'll keep my hands to myself if you keep your lettuce off my plate."
"My love life is is none existing." Shiri corrected.
"Didn't you come to play darts?" Nicole huffed. She definitely wanted him gone.
"Can't win on an empty stomach." Logan chewed on some other fries in response, "Oh, and by the way, I gave the contractor your personal phone number."
Shiri's cheeks went rosy as she snarled back at him. "Good, I'm gonna ask him to set your golf club into the wall with cement."
xx
"Don't start what you can't finish." Rory's eyes rolled back at the sensation of his fingers edging her matching red panties. A business phone call put the dart game into a short break, and shortly after, Rory found herself pressed against the back wall in the most darkened corner they could find.
She should have never followed him outside.
"Who says I'm not gonna finish?" His deep drawl filled her ear. Rory instinctively pressed closer; the movement helped her feel the effect she had on him.
"Take me home." She gasped, shuddering as a daring finger bypassed the thin barrier. Rory's fingers quickly unbuckled his belt. Logan hissed when her hands made contact with his skin.
"Not yet." His finger dipped into her warmth, his lips sucking her moan, "I never walk away from a winning game."
The kitchen's back door slammed shut. The tad of a garbage bag hitting the metal container nearby put an abrupt stop to their frisky third base session.
The cold January night air replaced his withdrawing fingers. Rory's head went spinning with want at the loss of the friction. He can't leave her all heated like that. "You said you're gonna finish."
"I didn't say when. I have a dart game in progress. Keep that thought; I'm not done with you. Yet." Their hips grazed once more. Logan gave her one last feverish kiss and a hungry look before he smoothed her skirt back in place. "Go back inside; I need a minute."
Rory ran her hands over her skirt, breath heaving, her mind reeling with the realization that if they weren't interrupted, they would have gone all the way. Right there in the alley. And that is something Rory Gilmore would have never thought to do before.
She's always the bravest when she's with him.
"If you touch yourself when I turn my back, game over." Rory zipped up his slacks before disappearing back inside.
xx
The skirt was the first to go. Then Logan's shirt. By the time they collapsed on the bed in the 5th-floor apartment, Rory was sporting only the skimpy underwear and her heels. Shedding the rest of his clothes, Logan balanced himself on his forearms, hovering just within reach.
His lips pressed on her heated skin, peppering light kisses down her shoulder to the swell of her red lace covered breast. When he took her nipple into his mouth, she knew he had every intention to make her beg.
His right hand finally wandered down to peel off off the lower garment. Sensing his concentration, Rory hooked her leg over his and maneuvered him swiftly inside. Logan hissed at the sudden pressure on his injured wrist cause by the sudden balance shift. His eyes fluttered shut at the sensation of becoming one. For a flicker of a second, when he realized they were going bare, he stilled.
"Condom." He breathes.
Rory framed his face quickly, staring at him, "You're in the room."
She had never seen Logan's eyes this dark. Their lips crashed roughly. The passion in his second trust made her cry out his name.
Xx
"I'm getting too old for this." Logan collapsed exhausted against her in the aftermath.
"You're only 32." Rory responses in a hoarse voice. He chuckles into the nook of her neck, starting to withdraw, "Not yet." She wasn't ready to let go of him yet. The lingering shimmers of their union are her favorite part of a wrinkle in time. The way his hands turn tender. "What do you want for your birthday?"
"Nothing."
"You must want something. What? A Lego set? Hiking gear? Elizabeth Harley tied in a bow?"
"Are you going to lend her your outfit?" Logan murmured jokingly. "Because that might sell it. You can't wear this to work again."
"Funny man. Answer the question."
"I want to be in the room."
Rory bit her lip. It's becoming clear Logan decided to be adamant about it. "Maybe I should put my feet up."
"It doesn't help you know." Logan rolled off, his head hitting the pillow. "Staying in bed for fifteen minutes does the same trick."
"You read it in the book Mr. Scholar?" Rory teased, rolling to her side and resting her head on his shoulder.
"Yeah. There's a chapter about busting myths." He answers casually twirling a lock of hair around his finger. Soon he's going to start humming. Rory hadn't figured out the song yet, but it's always the same one.
"I like this."
"What sex?"
"No. You. Me." She says quietly, tracing his collar bone, "I never know when the next wrinkle in time is going to happen. They are sporadic and far in between, yet so filled with magic.. but when they do, time just freeze, and I never want them to end. So I capture them, to re-live them, that way they last a little longer. Not just in my imagination." She glances at his profile carefully, "That's why I draw them."
"Rory." Logan tense at the mention of the comics.
"Kate says everybody knows." She's just trying to make him understand, "I don't want to keep secrets just to keep you."
"It's not a secret, it's just not advertised." Logan sighed. "What else did Kate say?"
"That you're my boyfriend."
"Baby partner trumps boyfriends." Logan always has to say the last word. They are going around in circles. She knows she should take Ben's advice and stop fighting him on this. Obviously, there's something deeper under the surface. Otherwise, Ben wouldn't have mentioned it at all.
"It's not rock, paper, scissors. You can be both." Rory argues logically. He could deny it all he wants. Rory had made her decision that he is. Logan will just have to deal.
"What's up with your other friend?" Logan dismisses yet another conversation about definitions.
"Who? Nicole?" Logan nods. "She's sore about the promotion. She thinks Alison got it because she is giving you blow jobs under the desk."
Logan chuckled amused, "Seriously, you can't wear this outfit to work again."
"You haven't seen me in the blue one yet." She eases into their comfortable banter, "Is your hand okay?"
"Throbs a little, nothing physiotherapy won't sort." He inspected it in the air, "How was New York?"
Rory broke into a smile. Happy that he mellowed and opened a crack of communication. She expected to hit a wall if New York ever came up. She never thought Logan would be the one to bring it up.
"My dad got me a remote shutter release for Christmas."
"Oh, dear lord."