AN: Thank you for the love and encouragement. Knowing you are all enjoying that I'm tackling a bit of reality is so wonderful and your support as I wade into topics like BLM has been refreshing, so thank you. Please enjoy this, it is a bit angsty, but hopefully you see that it is necessary. Now...I have to admit...I never planned a baby in this story but SO many of you seem to be wanting it. Tell me in your review your thoughts on another baby, thirteen years younger than it's brother...

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter Six - Linger Like a Tattoo Kiss

Saturday July 11, 2020

"Are you sure this was a good idea?" Rory asked as she watched the white Jaguar SUV pull away from the house. She crossed her arms across her chest and couldn't ignore the feeling in the pit of her stomach like she was doing something she shouldn't be. "We should call and tell them to come back, we shouldn't be doing this."

"Ace," Logan put his arms around Rory's waist and his head on her shoulder, smiling as he saw the tiny hairs on her neck stand up as she got goosebumps when his breath ran over her skin. "Honor, Josh and the kids haven't seen anyone in months. We haven't seen anyone in months…unless we think this virus can jump from door to door without a carrier…he's safe. He has masks, they will wash their hands and they are just staying at Josh and Honor's place. He needs this, and they will call when they get there. Not to mention they only live a few miles away and we probably could have let him walk by himself."

Rory sighed, puffing her cheeks out as she exhaled and the SUV was finally out of view. She knew he was right. Things were still bad of course, but they understood more. The fear was dissipating slowly, but remaining cautious and prudent was just as important as ever. Cases were down and that was a relief. They had on a couple of occasions discussed returning to Brooklyn for Nathan to go back to school in September but ultimately hadn't made a decision yet. She leaned her body back against him, "you're probably right."

"I would like to get that on tape," Logan laughed as he planted a wet kiss on her neck. He achieved his goal though, Rory made a face and turned around in his arms to face him. "Just you and I…does that mean that we can have a sleepover?" he smiled broadly.

"He has been gone two seconds and you're already thinking about sex?" Rory laughed. They were still doing the casual thing. Not that there was much more they could do. They weren't going to start going on dates or galavanting around town. They hadn't discussed if they wanted to be anything more, they had both just tiptoed around the subject.

"I didn't say anything about sex," Logan gave her a chaste kiss on the lips, "you did…so I guess we know what is on your mind. I was just hoping I would wake up with you in my bed."

"Full clothed, of course," Rory laughed.

"Exactly," Logan smiled broadly, "but right now," he slowly took his hands off of her waste and released her from his spell, "I am going to go for a run."

Rory made a face and then noticed that Logan was already in a t-shirt and a pair of running shorts, all he needed were his running shoes. "I don't get that, why run if no one is chasing you?" she asked him. He had taken to going on runs most mornings. On the weekend he would wait until later in the morning and run around the neighbourhood, about a 5 mile trek and then return. She would never admit it because it would go straight to his head, but it took almost everything she had not to jump him when he got back from his runs. Normally his shirt came off somewhere in the driveway and his first stop was the kitchen to drink some water and show off his tanned and well defined physique. Some days he would retreat to the shower, others he would hop in the pool, normally inviting Rory and Nathan with him.

"You don't get to look like this without putting the work in," Logan smiled as he went and retrieved his shoes and AirPods, "and I have it on good authority that you are especially interested in my body."

"Oh and what gives you that idea?" Rory blushed.

"You the other night in the wine cellar," Logan thought back to their quick rendezvous when Nathan had been playing video games on the upper level of the home and after mistakenly finding a package of lingerie that Rory had ordered, Logan just couldn't help himself. He had asked her casually to come help him pick a bottle of wine. The two of them had made quick work of their clothing and Logan was confident they had almost broken a couple of bottles of very expensive wine. "Something about a Greek god…was that it?"

"You're sleeping alone tonight," Rory rolled her eyes as Logan leaned in for a kiss, she turned her lips away so his landed on her cheek, "I'm going to write."

"Using the office?"

Rory shook her head, "my room."

"I'll see you soon."

Rory retreated upstairs where her MacBook was sitting on her bedside table. Since being let go and not being called back for any freelance work with her old paper, Rory had written a few pieces that had been picked up, but nothing major and certainly nothing consistent, so she had decided to refocus her energy and write a book. It would be autobiographical. The story of her life, of her and her mom, of her and her grandparents, her and her father, her and Dean, her and Jess, and ultimately the story of her and Logan and herself, Logan and Nathan. Her mother had taken it better than she had anticipated. She requested that certain parts be left out, mostly for the benefit of her mother. She didn't want Emily to have to really read how bad things had been sometimes. Rory had agreed to gloss over certain aspects of her early years. The time before they lived in the Crap Shack. Those were vague memories for her anyway, and she also wanted to spare her grandmother. Rory had in the last month written a rough outline and two chapters which she was now shopping around to publishers. Logan thought that was ridiculous as he was willing and able to publish her book, but Rory had told him she wanted it done the right way. She didn't want any favours. She wrapped the rose coloured cashmere duster that Nathan had given her for Mother's Day around her body and got in bed, and curling her legs underneath her, thankful that she had worn a pair of black leggings to go with the cozy garment and white tank top that she had chosen to say goodbye to Nathan for a few days in. She pulled her laptop in front of her and blinked at the open document. She had made the decision that she would jump around in her chapters, allowing her to write the parts that she was feeling passionate about in a particular moment, rather than focusing on completing the chapters in chronological order. She had finished her early years, those had been easy, she had three half finished chapters from her teenaged years in Stars Hollow and her time dating Jess and Dean, there was a chapter on the college admissions process and her ultimate decision to go to Yale and there was an almost finished chapter on the complicated reunion with her grandparents when she was sixteen and had been accepted to Chilton. Rory bit her bottom lip and began to type.

Chapter Nine - Wide Open Spaces

She deleted it as quickly as she had typed it. She wasn't sure what she should call this chapter. The one about the demise of her relationship and the subsequent joint venture into coparenting with the man who she had chosen not to marry but still loved endlessly. Even now over a decade later it was complicated at best. She hit the backspace button repeatedly until the screen was once again blank.

Chapter Nine - The Best Laid Plans

Backspace again. She knew she didn't need to have a working title when she started the chapter, but she liked to have one. She had also decided that she wanted to start with this part of her relationship because she knew it would be the most painful for her to write. This particular chapter was about losing Logan, and about finding out about Nathan…their path to coparenting, their modern family before it was cool. Talking about their decision to coparent would be easy. What she was scared to do, what she struggled to do was put on paper how she had still been madly in love with Logan Huntzberger when she found out she was pregnant. How she had been too scared to tell him, and then eventually she was too scared to mess up their new normal to admit that she loved him then. Maybe more than she was afraid to write it, she was afraid to admit it. Because if she admitted it. If she admitted that she had never truly stopped loving the man who stole her heart at twenty, she would have to admit that it was as true at that very moment as it had been when Nathan was born. The relationships, his marriage, the time, the distance, the complications…they hadn't changed that he was the person she wanted to call. She had however over the years convinced herself that she didn't deserve that kind of happiness. The only thing she deserved was the happiness of her son, the happiness of their little family, as unconventional as it may have been. Rory stared at the screen for a bit longer.

Turning down his proposal, I didn't think that I was saying no. I thought I was saying not now and I genuinely believed that he would see that. That he would pull me into his arms and hold me as he had done so many times before and promise me everything would be alright, that we would make it work. Instead I watched as the man I loved turned on his heels and said goodbye to me. Of course when he said goodbye, he didn't imagine that I would be calling him up a few weeks later to tell him that we would be intrinsically tied to each other for the rest of our lives.

Rory paused again and hit the backspace button, removing the entire paragraph and staring at the screen. It my have been a good moment to write in terms of an empty house, but apparently she wasn't in the mood to get into the nitty gritty of her relationship. She had thought other things would be harder to write. Losing her virginity to a married man, her largely absent father, but no…apparently the hardest thing to write was what Rory was in many ways most proud of. Rory looked at her watch. Evidently she had been staring at the screen for forty minutes now and had absolutely nothing to show for it.

She stood up and put the computer back on the bed before heading to the kitchen to get a coffee. She may not have understood his need for a fancy integrated coffee maker, or espresso machine as she was constantly reminded, but she loved this kitchen. The white cabinets that went to the ceiling, the gorgeous commercial stove that Logan had made them plenty of meals on, the oven that had baked cookies for Santa, the kitchen table where they had eaten many meals over the years, the place that she had sat and cried when she found out her grandfather had died. When she wasn't ready to be with her mother or grandmother and instead she had found herself going to see Nathan because he was with his father when he got the call. Beyond the breakfast nook was the entryway to the family room where over these past few months they had spent more time as a family than she ever could have dreamed of. It was a blessing that she didn't realize she had needed. To leave the fear of Brooklyn, the concern about catching the virus seemed to be everywhere, and while she still longed to see her mother and Luke, her grandmother, her father, her sister, her friends…she felt completely safe in their little compound just the three of them. Her mother had decided to re-open the inn at the end of the summer and Emily had tentatively agreed to rent a house in Hartford so that Lorelai didn't have to worry about her and Rory could help out a bit more. Emily had of course warned that she would return to Nantucket when she was good and ready and that her daughter and granddaughter would not hold her hostage. Luke had returned to Stars Hollow, needing a break from both his mother in law, and his wife but also needing a break from his mother in law and his wife as a duo and Rory and Nathan were happy staying in Hartford until there was a reason to leave. She sat with her coffee cup in the family room and turned on the news, something that she generally avoided if she could. As someone who had always enjoyed watching the news and staying up to date on current events, Rory was equally intrigued and horrified by the coverage of the election that would be occurring in November. The rage and horror over George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were still constant news items. It made her long for her job. It made her miss reporting on the news, but she also knew with everything going on, she was best off at home with Nathan. Rory exhaled and changed the channel. She needed a break. A break from the news, a break from the reality they were living. She turned on HGTV and found herself watching an old episode of Home Town and Rory felt a sense of calm as she watched something as trivial as choosing a paint colour. Just as she found herself settling into the couch, she heard the door open and close, the chirping of the alarm system notifying her that Logan was back, "in here," Rory called, she turned her head back as she heard his footsteps approaching and as usual his shirt had come off, leaving just the grey running shorts and his running shoes on. "I swear, you have aged in reverse," she smiled as Logan leaned down to greet her, giving her a quick kiss before he drank some more of his water.

"I mean, I never got to settle, I've spent a long time trying to get noticed by women," Logan joked and Rory turned her body so she was facing him. "I'm going to go shower, join me?" he gave her a mischievous grin.

Rory shook her head and licked her lips, "we shouldn't," she told him firmly.

"Right, we keep our sex to uncomfortable rooms and basement couches like we're teenagers because our son is here…so now when we're alone and free to I don't know, savour it a bit more, we shouldn't?" Logan repeated, he was confused and he was a bit angry.

Rory felt her shoulders rise and fall as she tried to choose the right words. Blurring lines. It was what they had been doing for years. "Logan we're just…we're scratching an itch. You know that. You know it gets complicated when there are sleepovers and romance…"

"I asked you to get in the shower with me Ace, I didn't propose. Lord knows I learned that lesson a long time ago," he snapped back, he turned before he could see her reaction and walked up the stairs. Rory sank back into the couch and she heard the slamming of his bedroom door. This. This was why she couldn't write her chapter. She was still in the same indecisive waltz with him that she had been for over a decade. Only she knew what he wanted, and she knew what she wanted, but she was too afraid to do anything about it.

Dinner was more awkward than she had expected. In an effort to make peace, she had made chicken souvlaki for him, following a recipe that he had made for her years earlier that she knew he liked. He had come into the kitchen a few minutes before it was ready and declared he needed to work and asked if it was alright if he took the meal to his office. She tried to keep a poker face, to not show him that it hurt. That she wanted to apologize and make things right with him, but instead she shrugged and said that was fine, she was going to call Lane that evening anyway. Lane was the only person who knew what Rory and Logan were doing, and as expected, she had told her friend that she thought they were playing with fire, and now as Rory spilled the details of their day, she had confirmed that they had now been burned.

"What do you want from him Rory?" Lane asked, Rory could hear shouting in the background, "the boys ordered some stupid Nerf Gun off Amazon and Zach thinks it's great," she lamented as she eventually moved to her bedroom. "But seriously, Rory…what did you think would come of this?"

"What do you mean?" Rory played dumb. "We were two consenting adults who had an itch they needed scratched."

"Do not act like an idiot," Lane shot back quickly, "and don't insult my intelligence. Logan has never been someone to scratch an itch for you. Logan Huntzberger has been in love with you since you were twenty years old, and he's sick of being jerked around."

"I'm not jerking him around, and he's not in love with me. He's horny."

"If he was horny he would've kept you in Brooklyn and started dating a twenty six year old yoga instructor who can do all those little bendy things I've never understood."

"I am still pretty flexible," Rory challenged.

"What I'm saying is, you are the woman he wanted to marry, you are the mother of his child, you two have fallen back into this time and time again…at what point are you going to stop fighting it? You're living together for gods sake!"

"A few months ago I was in a long term relationship with someone else."

"And why did that end? I mean, Mark was a lovely man, so what happened there?" Lane asked, she knew the answer of course but she was going to make Rory say it come hell or high water.

"He wasn't comfortable with me moving away for an indefinite amount of time."

"And…"

"And he thought that I didn't prioritize him."

"Rory…"

"Ok, fine, he thought that his needs came after Logan. Which was ridiculous and untrue. Nathan comes first, he has always come first, it just so happens that this time, what Nathan needed involved me spending more time with Logan."

"For my brilliantly smart, Ivy League educated friend, you can be incredibly dumb."

"Says the woman who thought the world had conspired to tell her sex could be enjoyable?"

"I've lived, I've learned. But that is something you should try because if you learned from anything over the last twelve years with Logan it is that he chooses you. You are it for him."

"I'm not it for him," Rory told her, "we're coparents, we are friends, and maybe that is all we are meant to be."

"And what if it isn't? What if he is just scared because the last time he tried to get you to commit, you said no. You two are just going to be two sad, old, single people in the nursing home who have secret sex until someone breaks a hip? That isn't a life…" Lane told her honestly, "and what about another baby? I know Nathan is older, but he would be a good big brother, you two could have another shot at it all, do it right this time."

"We did it right the first time," Rory told her stubbornly, she would not suggest that she had regrets about how Nathan had grown up. He had two parents who love him, he goes to good schools, he has grandparents and cousins and friends, he is a well adjusted kid! And when is everyone going to get over the fact that I wasn't ready to get married. I didn't break up with him. He broke up with me!"

"Rory your son is amazing, but I'm talking about you getting a do over. Enjoying the baby stage, seeing the man you love in a whole different light…"

"It's not like it was back then Lane. Can we please drop it?" Rory asked quietly.

Lane sighed, "fine. But are you still coming to get food from Luke's tomorrow?" she asked, Rory had said that with Nathan being gone she was going to trek to Stars Hollow for food. She had reserved one of the Town Square "bubbles" that Taylor was renting for two hour time slots, Lane had booked one six feet away and the were going to sit in folding chairs, eat lunch and chat. The rules also included the fact that unless they were actively eating they needed to wear their masks, but they were both fine with that if it meant they could eat a meal together.

"Unless you piss me off with any more of this love talk," Rory joked.

"Alright, I'm done. But I should go before Steve convinces his father to order another telescope."

Rory laughed and they said their goodbye's, she thought about what Lane had said. It wasn't the first time someone had tried to convince her that she and Logan were still in love with each other. It wasn't that she would deny it. She was in love with Logan, but she didn't think it was romantic love anymore, it was a different kind of love, a better kind of love if you could believe that. She walked down to his office with the rose coloured duster wrapped tightly around her body and leaned against the dark wood door frame as she watched him work. She smiled when she saw that he had cleared his plate and pushed it to the edge of the desk. "How much longer do you have?" Rory asked him, finally drawing attention to the fact that she was watching him.

Logan looked up at her and his eyes softened immediately, "depends," he told her. "You have something in mind?"

Rory sucked in her bottom lip and paused for a moment, thinking back to the events of the day. She licked her lips and nodded, "I guess we should probably talk?"

"I think that might be a good idea," Logan agreed. "Why don't you go downstairs and grab a bottle of wine. I just put a few bottles of Far Niente chardonnay in the fridge down there. If you pour us a glass, I will finish up this e-mail and meet you in the living room."

Rory nodded. The living room. That meant no distractions. No television, she always joked that the living room was where they would pull Nathan in if he was in trouble. It was also probably the most feminine and romantic room in the house. A beautiful fireplace, wainscotting and grass cloth covered the walls, the furniture was light coloured and there were even light pink pillows on the couch that she enjoyed sitting and read in. "Ill match the pillows," Rory joked.

"You look beautiful," Logan smiled warmly at her, "you always look beautiful."

Rory smiled back and watched as his eyes returned to the computer screen. She left the room to go get the wine and returned a moment later to the kitchen with the bottle of chardonnay. She poured them each a glass and made her way to the living room, smiling as she saw Logan had already taken a seat and was using his phone to pipe a jazz playlist through the room. "There you go," Rory handed him the glass and made the conscious decision to sit on one of the two chairs across from him.

"Don't trust yourself?" Logan raised an eyebrow as he took the glass from her.

Rory rolled her eyes, "what is going on with you? You get so… moody about all of this sometimes, and honestly, I don't know what to expect some days." Rory dove right into the topic at hand. She knew that Logan could talk her out of anything including her panties, and she felt like they needed to have this discussion before things became more complicated between them. "I don't want to do this," she gestured between the two of them, "if it's going to ruin what we have."

"And what do you think we have?" Logan asked calmly as he took a sip of his wine. "What exactly is this?"

"We're friends. We are family. You are my friend, probably my best friend…and I love you…I just…I don't know, sometimes it seems like it isn't what you want."

"Well it's hard because one day you treat me like we're…I don't know, a thing, that it's more than sex. The next you won't kiss me on the lips?" Logan gave her a look. "I don't think I've been unclear about what I want, ever."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Rory rolled her eyes, "you've never told me what you wanted. You have always been fine with just…whatever it was we were doing."

"Because I couldn't push you!" Logan shouted back, "since we were kids, it has been on your terms, what you were comfortable and…fuck, I can't believe I am about to say this…but I would take you however I could have you. So here we are again at a crossroads, only this time I'm not moving to London, or marrying someone else, and you're apparently willing to have this conversation after twelve years of avoiding it. There it is Rory. I said it. now what are you going go do with it?"