Chapter 2: Attraction

Logan sat under the shade of the umbrella, watching Jean use her telekinesis to execute a perfect somersault in midair off the diving board. Water splashed gently as she entered the water smoothly, and swam underwater to join Scott at the side of the pool.

He took another gulp of his beer. It was getting hotter, and he knew he'd have to go in for a dip soon. He finished the bottle, tossed it into the trashcan and stood up…just as a gorgeous young black-haired woman walked around the low fence surrounding the pool.

He stared, openmouthed, glad her back was toward him as she spread a deep sapphire towel out on one of the lounge chairs surrounding the Olympic-sized pool. Jean waved at her, and the girl walked over to the poolside and sat down, dangling her feet in the water. Logan almost swallowed his cigar; she had strong, tanned, slim legs and arms, and the hair that fell down her back was raven-black with almost blue highlights. Jean said something, and she laughed. The silvery sound carried across the activity in the pool, and he saw Bobby stop in mid-stroke. Bobby gave one startled gasp, went under, spluttering; then found his footing and just stared.

Remy froze, staring at the young woman too. Logan sniffed the scent that came to his nose as the slight breeze shifted, and he smelled a deliciously musky woman's scent that seemed familiar but subtly altered. Then she turned, and strolled casually back to the chair, taking off her sunglasses, and he saw who it was.

Jubilee!

He stared at the vision in front of him, shocked. He was trying to reconcile the image of the perky, vivacious youngster in the polished, mature young woman he saw now, but it was hard. So was something else.

Beside him, Remy was similarly shocked. The little firecracker they all remembered was different now. She had a woman's curves now, and he felt a surge of desire. He reached casually over to put his beer down, and stifled a grin. Logan was standing, facing that vision, and there was a very definite bulge in the swimming trunks. "Hey, homme," he snickered. "She might take offense to dat."

Logan growled and sat back down, hiding his body's reaction to Jubilee's new maturity. He sat there for a moment, trying to control himself, as she saw them and came bounding over to them. "Hey, Remy! Wolvie!" she said brightly. "I didn't see you over here!" she laughed.

Liar, Logan thought as he shifted position to hide the bulge in his shorts, and watched her eyes follow his movement. You knew damn well I was over here!

Jubilee had seen the bulge, and she knew what it meant. Her mouth curved in a smile that had little to do with the way Remy was bending himself in half over her hand. So Logan did find her attractive. The fish had seen the bait; now to get him hooked on it. As she was considering how best to go about it, she saw the glare he shot at Remy. So that was it. Jealousy. He never could stand to see anyone take something he considered his.

Her eyelashes fluttered and she smiled at Remy. "Flatterer," she grinned at him. "But I'm glad to see you anyway." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

Remy had stared as she came into the pool area too. Unlike Logan, he knew who it was almost as soon as she'd walked in. She was stunning, and he'd planned on seducing her…until he saw Logan's reaction to her. Logan hadn't even known it was Jubilee!

As she simpered for him and he felt Logan's glare, Remy caught her glance at Logan. When she knew he'd seen her gaze, she gave him one slow wink with her other eye, the one Logan couldn't see. Ah. So that was the game. The p'tite wanted Logan.

He crushed down his feeling of disappointment. After all, Jubilee wasn't really his type. And with all the time she spent hanging around him, this was inevitable. If Logan couldn't see that, then he was going to get blindsided by Jubilee's tricks. Remy didn't feel sorry for him one bit.

Jubilee grinned at him as he stood. "Feel like swimming?"

'Don' min' if I do," he said, turning slightly away from Logan and returning her wink. She smiled wider, and turned to Logan, bending over him and kissing him on the cheek. "I'll see you later, Wolvie," she said as she bounced off beside Remy.

Logan watched them go, his hand rubbing his cheek where she'd kissed him. There was something there…when her lips touched his cheek, there was almost an electric shock where her lips touched his skin. He didn't dare get up right now; her touch had only fueled the fire raging in him, and he didn't want anyone to see the reaction he'd had. She was a child!

"No she's not," said a voice, and the last person he really wanted to see at just that point slid into the chair Remy had vacated. Jean dropped Remy's empty beer bottle into the nearby trashcan with distaste and looked seriously at Logan. "She's not a child anymore, Logan. Stop kidding yourself."

"Eavesdropping on my thoughts?" he said, watching as the other X-Men crowded around Jubilee, welcoming her home. Even Xavier, who was also out here watching them play in the pool and enjoying the sunlight, went to say hello.

"It was sort of hard to miss," she said dryly, punching his arm lightly. "You were thinking so loud I could hear you even through my shields. I'm sure Charles did, too. And it was kind of hard to miss the pup tent thing happening a little further south when you stood up. Even Scott noticed that."

Logan reddened, clamping his calves together under his chair. Jean pretended she didn't see the shift and looked away. She caught Jubilee's eye and winked. The younger girl returned to her conversation with Bobby, who was hanging rather obviously on her every word.

"She's twenty-four, Logan," she said. "She's no longer a child, not under any sense of the word. And you certainly don't see her as a child, or you wouldn't be sitting here trying to convince yourself she is. You see her now as a lovely, desirable woman."

Logan snorted and took a swallow of his beer. "A' right, I admit it. She's gorgeous. But what kinda bastard would I be if I let a young thing like 'er fall in love with an ol' man like me?"

Jean spluttered for a moment, then laughed so hard she nearly fell off the chair. "Logan, whatever makes you think you're old? You may be in chronological years, but with your healing factor, it's going to be a very long time before you feel age creeping up on you. Good lord, I wake up mornings with more aches than I think you do!" she laughed again. "And you didn't 'let' her fall in love with you. She's been in love with you for a few years, since that one weekend you took her out for her twenty-first birthday and got her drunk for the first time. You of all people should know that some of the things someone says when they're drunk do come from the heart. Jubilee meant every word she said that night. You just weren't listening because you still saw her as a child."

Logan listened to this in silence. It was true, but… "How didja know?" he said. "Bout the whole birthday thing, I mean. I didn't tell anyone."

Jean grinned again. "Jubilee told me what happened in an email she sent me. She was actually asking about a hangover remedy, and she told me everything that happened." At his startled look, she held up a hand. "I didn't tell anyone else, honest. But she'd already gone and talked to Ororo about it. We're the only ones who know, and you know she wouldn't tell either."

Logan remembered the event clearly, though he'd tried to put it as far out of his mind as possible. Jubilee had been on spring break, and he'd gone up to get her, riding on his bike. They'd gone out to a local bar that he knew the college kids went to, and gotten her drunk. Jubilee had spit the stuff out, but when he challenged her, she'd risen to the challenge and downed two before he'd stopped her. She'd never drunk alcohol before, and an hour after they'd walked in she'd staggered out completely drunk. When they got back to her dorm, which was mercifully empty, she'd thrown up on her bathroom floor. He'd laughed at her and helped her down the hall to her room, but when he was about to leave, she'd grabbed his sleeve and stopped him. "Stay with me, Logan." It was the first time he'd ever heard her use his name, as though they were equals, and not Wolvie, Wolvster, or one of any other number of cutesy nicknames she'd come up with to call him over the years of hanging out with him.

So he'd stopped and turned around, and she'd sat on her bed for a long time, he in her desk chair, and talked. "You know, I've been in love with you for the longest time," she'd said. "Every time I see someone here on campus I think I might like, I find myself comparing him to you, and then he's not so good anymore. I love you, and I think I have for a long time." Shocked by that revelation and believing that she'd said it because she'd been drunk at the time, he'd ignored it and tried to put it out of his mind as soon as he left.

He'd continued to ignore the conversation, and she'd never spoken about it again, though he'd sometimes thought about it late at night when he couldn't sleep. Although it was four years ago, there'd been hints then about the devastatingly beautiful woman she'd become. He hadn't seen her much over the next few years...in fact, he hadn't seen her at all until that afternoon. Phone calls with her weren't the same.

Jean sat quietly as those thoughts ran through his mind. When Scott turned and called to her, she waved, then stood up. "Think about it, Logan," she said. "You're not making her love you. She already does. And she's not a child. Deep inside, you know that. Now come over and say hello with the rest of us." She dove back into the pool and swam around to the side Jubilee was sitting at, joining Scott and the others. Logan sat for a while, digesting Jean's words, then got up and went to sit at the edge of the pool.

Jubilee grinned at Jean as the redhead swam up. I had a little talk with Logan, Jean said. You should appreciate the results.

Sure enough, in a few moments Logan came sauntering over. Jubilee scooted over and made a place for him beside her by the pool, and after a single moment's hesitation, he sat down.

This close to her, he could breathe in her scent. She was intoxicating, like a fine heady wine, and he felt as though he were drunk sitting beside her. Her hair had grown a lot longer since that evening in her dorm room, and he had to keep himself from reaching out to touch the dark curls. "Huh? What?" he said as he belatedly realized his name had been called.

Jubilee had seen his distracted expression, and she chuckled to herself. She'd started growing out her hair, mostly because she wanted a change, and secondly because she knew he loved long hair. She slid into the pool gasping as the cool water touched her hot skin, and looked at the volleyball net set up at the midpoint of the pool. "Who's up for a game?" she said, her eyes sparkling.

Scott pulled Jean up on his shoulders as Warren did the same for Betsy. Rogue, wearing a wetsuit and water shoes, slipped on neoprene gloves and pulled herself onto Remy's shoulders. Jubilee turned to Logan. "Logan? Will you be my partner?"

"Huh?" he asked.

She repeated, "Will you be my partner? Rogue and I want to see if we can beat Jean and Betsy like we used to."

He slid into the pool and slipped under her legs, pulling down on her slim ankles and snuggling her groin against the back of his neck. As he took up position beside Remy, his mind wasn't on the game. All he could think about was those firm legs wrapped around him, and if he turned his head around at just the right angle, he could…

Then the game started, and he had to concentrate, since Jubilee's petite size put her at a disadvantage against the taller Jean and Betsy. Rogue served, Jean returned, Jubilee smacked the ball with her hand, and Betsy spiked the ball over the net. Jubilee dove for the ball, got it just in time before it hit the water, and passed it back over. Jean, in a desperate attempt to save the ball from hitting the water, caught it with her telekinesis, and Jubilee screamed with laughter. "Cheating! You cheated!"

Jean looked chagrinned and passed the ball telekinetically over the net, and Jubilee got ready to serve. As she lifted the ball, everyone suddenly yelled, and she felt the water grow freezing around her ankles. She saw Bobby with his hands in the water, freezing the water. Already Scott was shivering as ice trapped his body in place.

"Bobby!" Jubilee screamed, too upset by the ruination of her game to be amused by his prank. She leaned over and touched the water with her hands, using her power to speed up the molecules in the water until her side grew warm again. Bobby's ice warred with her warmer water before he gave up, and Scott stopped shivering as Jubilee sped up the water molecules around him to warm the water.

"That was cold!" she howled at him, and slapped her hand down on the water as she slid off Logan's shoulders. A spray of warm water splashed out of the pool and struck him. He yelped as his ice covering began to melt, and quickly built it up again. She heated the water further when she splashed him the next time, and he stared in disbelief as his ice melted quicker than the last time. Leaping to Bobby's defense, Remy ducked out from under Rogue and sent a shower of water toward Jubilee. She sent one outward toward him as well. That was all that the others needed. Soon there was a veritable orgy of splashing as everyone took sides and splashed someone else. Bobby got a great deal of water in his face and lungs, as Warren, Scott, Logan, and Remy took their revenge against him for freezing them.

The water battle didn't slow down until Ororo and Bishop came down to the pool to call everyone in to supper. Logan hoisted himself out of the pool and went to Jubilee's chair, sweeping up her blue towel and wrapping her in its capacious folds as she emerged, dripping. He tried not to stare at the swimshorts hanging so temptingly on that smooth, tanned curvy hip, at the thong bikini top and full, curving breasts…and failed. Jubilee noticed his glazed eyes, and smiled to herself as she went to change.

After a brief shower, she slipped into her room and looked through her clothes. She didn't have a lot of casual clothes, unfortunately; on her lectures she'd had more use for suits and dresses than jeans and shirts. She wriggled finally into her only pair of jeans; a worn, battered, comfortable pair that hung low on her hip and dipped low over her flat stomach, then chose a loose, comfortable tank top in a deep cranberry color. The color was becoming; and she had the pleasure of seeing Logan's eyes widen as she came down the stairs. She could almost hear him panting after her as she walked into the dining room. He took his usual seat just down from her, watching her as she helped herself to various dishes.

Dinner was delicious; Storm, Hank, Kurt, and Bishop had been working all day making all of Jubilee's favorite dishes. She savored the taste of Kurt's German potatoes, Storm's vegetable stir-fry, Bishop's roast beef. In between bites she updated them on what she had been doing, the places she'd been, the people she'd met, and the progress of her work. Hank asked her a question about the paper she just had published in a scientific journal, and in the conversation that followed Jubilee forgot to watch Logan.

He sat and picked at his food for most of the dinner, watching her when it wouldn't be obvious. Jean was giving him looks from her end of the table; Storm was doing the same, but neither one said anything. He was grateful for that.

When dinner was over and he checked the chore schedule, he was half-disappointed and half-relieved to find he was supposed to do dishes. Disappointed because he wouldn't be able to fill his eyes with her while he was in the kitchen; and relieved because he felt as though he would explode if he had to sit there and watch her any longer. She was pointedly avoiding him; aside from some small talk she hadn't said much to him. Well, he hadn't exactly been the soul of friendliness to her either, mostly because he was so wrapped up in the conflicting roil of emotions surrounding her homecoming that he hadn't really been able to speak to her, he was so tongue-tied. So he went to the kitchen with Remy and Bobby and Betsy, grimly doing dishes.

There was lots of small talk around the sink, but not much from him. Remy and Bobby had found a quick moment to brief Betsy on Logan's unusual silence, and she seemed determined to leave the subject alone.

He was thinking furiously. Jean was right; he didn't see Jubilee as a child any longer. He saw her as a beautiful, desirable woman. She was certainly mature enough to handle a physical relationship; he had received an Email from her that hinted delicately at the fact that she had pursued at least two while she was in college. She had certainly made her interest in him plain. And he had to admit, deep down inside himself, that he did love her. He was still uncertain whether that love was platonic or sexual in nature, but he was fairly certain it was the latter. Especially given his physical reaction to her mere presence earlier. He had to admit, during the time she'd been gone, he'd thought of her more often and more obsessively than he'd ever thought of anyone before. The other women that he'd loved, he still loved them, but what he felt for Jubilee was different from anything he'd felt before.

By the time the dishes were done she had finished handing out the gifts and presents for all her fellow X-Men, and complaining of tiredness, she'd gone to her room. Logan checked the small pile left on the rec room table, but the packages there were all for Remy, Betsy, or Bobby. There was none for him.

He turned away, bitter. Maybe she hadn't gotten anything for him because she was still upset with him. When he'd last seen her, on her twenty-first birthday four years before, and she had told him she loved him, he'd laughed at her.

"Yer jokin'," he'd laughed shakily at her, because he didn't want to believe it was true. She'd stared at him, hurt clouding her sapphire eyes.

"I'm not," she'd said quietly, seriously. "I've never been more serious in my life. I love you, Logan, and I think I always have. At first I thought it was just because you were like a father to me; then when I went off to the Massachusetts Academy and I found I really missed you, I began to suspect that it was something else. Now I know for certain. I love you, Logan."

"Yer drunk, Jubes," he'd told her. "Git some sleep. You'll regret whatever you said in the mornin'."

"No I won't," she struggled to sit up, but he turned and walked out of her room, cutting off whatever else she'd wanted to say. He hadn't wanted to hear whatever else she'd been about to say; he was, honestly, afraid to. So he'd walked out, without saying goodbye. He'd heard a thump of a pillow hitting the door as he closed it, but he'd thought at the time that he was doing the right thing, refusing to allow her to hang on to her fantasies, and didn't look back.

Now, as he walked up the stairs to his room, he wondered if he'd been wrong. They certainly hadn't been childish fantasies if she had hung on to them this long. Four years had gone by since she'd confessed her love to him. If she had hung on to them this long, maybe there was a chance she really did love him.

His room door was closed. He frowned; he usually left it open when he wasn't in it. He placed his hand on the knob, knowing the moment he opened it who was inside.