Chapter 7: Argument Again
Logan woke with a start as sun from the living room window touched his eyes. He cursed himself for falling asleep as he checked his watch. Seven o'clock!
He sprang up off the couch and ran up the stairs toward Jubilee's room. She probably hadn't seen him in the darkened living room last night when she came in, and had probably gone straight to her room to sleep. She had to have gotten in really late last night…or really early this morning, whichever way you chose to look at it, because he distinctly recalled the last time he'd checked his watch it had been two in the morning.
He tapped lightly on her door. "Jubes?" There was no answer. Maybe she hadn't heard him. He knew he shouldn't just walk into her room uninvited, but he really needed to talk to her, so he knocked again and said, "Jubes, I gotta talk ta ya. I'm comin' in." He pushed open her room door.
He felt a mild sense of chagrin when he realized he'd been talking to an empty room. Chagrin turned to surprise. Why wasn't she in bed? Maybe she'd gotten up already?
He turned at the sound of a footfall and saw Jean walking by the door. "Hey, Jean?"
The redhead blinked and rubbed her eyes. "Kind of early for you to be awake, isn't it?" she yawned and stretched. "Where's Jubilee?"
"That's what I wanna find out," he said. "Can ya call her, find out where she is?"
Jean's eyes went vaguely unfocused as she reached out telepathically, then her eyes widened. "She's not home."
"WHAT!?" Logan's shout woke everyone sleeping in that wing of the mansion.
"Hush," Jean said mildly, slightly annoyed. "You'll wake everyone up. I said, she's not home."
"Then where the hell is she?!" He started to pace her room floor.
Jean sighed and crossed her arms. "She went out last night with her new boyfriend, didn't she? Maybe she's not back yet."
"Then she shoulda called! I'm gonna wring her neck fer this!" He started to pace faster.
Jean started at him, puzzled. "Logan, why are you so upset?"
"SHE'S SUPPOSED TA COME HOME!"
"You don't always come home every night," Jean said, so reasonably Logan wanted to strangle her too. "Why should she? She's twenty-three now, Logan, not thirteen. She can stay out all night if she wants to."
"But she's--" Logan bit off the rest of what he was going to say. "Look, I went to Maynard's last night for a drink. Jubes came in with that fancy-pants boyfriend of hers briefly. I don't like him, Jean."
"Oh my," Jean said, clearly amused. "I think you're jealous."
"I AM NOT JEALOUS!" Logan roared. Jean watched him pace with a smile hovering around her lips. "It ain't funny, Red!"
"Yes it is," Scott said suddenly, his head appearing in the doorway beside Jean's. "She's found someone else, and you're jealous."
Logan took a deep breath, fighting down his temper. "I. Am. Not. Jealous," he said evenly, spacing his words out through gritted teeth. "The bartender at Maynard's tol' me this boy she's goin' out with has a rep for roughin' up women. I'm worried 'bout Jubes."
Jean and Scott exchanged glances, then Jean said gently, "Logan, Jubilee's a grown woman. She can handle herself. She can fight with us against the Sentinels and all the other baddies out there; some little rich boy who thinks she's a delicate little hothouse flower will get an unpleasant surprise if they try anything. Trust her. If he tries anything, she won't hang around."
They all heard the front door close hard on the heels of Jean's words. Logan didn't wait for Jean's warning hiss. He took off toward the stairs like he'd been shot from a cannon. "Where have you been!?" Scott and Jean heard Logan's bellow from halfway down the stairs.
Jean closed her eyes and hid her eyes with her hand. "Oh, boy," she said to Scott. "Do you think we should sell tickets?"
Scott shrugged, eyes twinkling. "No one would pay for them," he said, over the sound of Logan's tirade. "They can hear just fine."
Jubilee closed the front door, sighing. Bed. She wanted to go to bed, curl up and sleep for a week. She yawned. Chris was an energetic lover; she'd lost count of how many times she'd woken up last night to feel his hand on her body. It was a little annoying, but at the same time terribly flattering to know that someone wanted her so much.
She started to climb the stairs, half-asleep, running through the plans for the day to see if there was anything else she needed to do before she went to sleep. Like a Danger Room session? Try as she might, she couldn't remember Scott scheduling any such thing, and so headed up toward her room with a lighter heart.
"Where have you been!?"
The shout woke her from her half-asleep stupor. She stared stupidly up at Logan's angry expression, trying to figure out what he was yelling about. After a bit, his words started to penetrate her sleep-fogged brain.
"…and ya shouldn' be out 'till all hours like that, ya had me all worried, why didn't ya call or somethin', I been worryin' that somethin' happened ta ya, and do ya have any idea what that's like?!"
She waited for him to pause for breath, then said coolly, "As if I haven't sat awake more nights than I can count waiting for you to come home from one of your little trips! You don't call when you're staying out nights, and in case you didn't notice, Logan, I am not a little girl anymore! I don't have to tell everyone where I am at every given moment, and I don't have a curfew anymore!"
Logan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Ya may not have a curfew any more, but it's still polite ta let us know where ya are, or at least call an' tell us ya ain't comin' home! Besides, yer goin' out with some stupid git I can't stand seein' ya with! Is it any wonder I'm worried 'bout ya?"
There was a pause for a moment, then Jubilee exploded. "So that's it! You're jealous of Chris!" Her voice rose in volume. "Just because you don't want me doesn't mean others won't, Logan! Just because you can't force your stubborn thick skull to realize I'm a grown woman doesn't mean others can't see the same thing! You don't want me, so why feel bad if I find someone who does? Get over yourself, Logan!" She brushed past him and raced up the stairs. Jean and Scott barely had time to get out of her way before she hurled herself into her room and slammed the door with such force the boom echoed through the mansion.
Logan stormed to that closed door and tried the knob. It didn't open. For a moment Jean thought he might actually break the lock on the door to get to Jubilee, but he just pounded his fist on the door and yelled, "Well if that's the way ya want it, fine! I got better things ta think about than a spoiled little brat!"
"FINE!" Jubilee hollered from the other side of the door.
"FINE!" Logan hollered back. He stomped away before Jubilee could get her last word in.
Jean stared at the wall. "You think the mansion's going to survive them being angry with each other?" she asked Scott.
Scott sighed as he looked at the slammed door. "It's survived so far," he said. "If it doesn't, Charles can always rebuild it. Come on, let's get some coffee."
Logan finally paused in his workout, breathing heavily. The anger had burned off.
He could never stay mad at Jubilee, not for long. His anger toward her was hot anger, gone as soon as the air cooled, although some of the things he'd said to her wouldn't be blown away quite as easily. He shouldn't have called her a spoiled brat, because she wasn't. And he hadn't waited for her to come home all that long, if you considered how long she would wait for him to come back from Japan, or Canada, or one of any other number of places he'd vanished to over the years. One night waiting for Jubes wasn't really anything, if you considered she waited months for him sometimes. And she was grown, and she didn't have to tell him where she was all the time.
And he shouldn't have called her a spoiled little brat. Jubilee was the last person he could call spoiled.
And yes, he was jealous. It was completely irrational; he had decided they should remain friends, not her. So he shouldn't be jealous now. Still, a vision of Jubilee with that little rich git was enough to stir up some extremely unwelcome thoughts. Thoughts of her, and Chris, and what they had been doing all night…because Logan had smelled his unfamiliar male scent all over Jubilee when she had come in, and the smell of sex was strong on her body. And the smell had awakened the animal instincts he tried so hard to repress much of the time. How dare that little immature puppy presume to touch what was his?
But it wasn't presumption. She had every right to go out with, and invite to her bed, anyone she chose. He had no say in what she did or didn't do. That was probably why she had gotten mad at him, too. "I messed things up, didn't I," he said to the silent figure who had just walked into the gym.
"Indeed," came Ororo's even voice. "I suggest that when she calms down you apologize."
Logan stopped punching the bag and grabbed a towel from the gymnast's vaulting horse off to one side. "She's still mad at me?"
Ororo nodded. "Logan, can you blame her? Look at things from her point of view. She came home this morning tired and intending to go to bed, and you went and yelled in her face and woke her up. The only thing she really understood was that you were upset that you had waited up all night for her. Logan, I understand it was the first time that she has stayed out all night, but surely you couldn't have been that upset about her not having come home?"
"Jean didn't tell anyone, huh?" Ororo shook her head, and Logan sighed as he sat down on a bench. "I thought you girls told each other everything."
"I have not spoken to her yet today," Ororo said quietly.
Logan stared off into space as Ororo sat down beside him. "A girl down by Maynard's told me this Christian Daniels has a rep for roughing up women. He beat her up and raped her when she was doing 'entertainment' for a party some friend of his was throwing."
Ororo considered this silently for a while. "I see. And you are worried that Jubilee will be similarly mistreated by this young man?" Logan nodded. Ororo was silent for another moment.
"Logan, I appreciate the sentiment, and I am slightly concerned as well. But Jubilee is a grown woman, and she has faced many dangers both with us and on her own. Chris is not likely to be able to hurt her unless she allows it. And I doubt she will. Too many people have hurt her throughout her life. Of which you are one, but Jubilee realizes that although you have hurt her, you also have her best interests at heart, and she also knows that the love you offer is true, unconditional love. And having realized this, and knowing what it feels like, she will not settle for anything less from anyone she becomes involved with." Ororo let Logan digest this for a moment, then said, "Having said that, however, I suggest that you still speak to her about what you have discovered. Even if she is still too upset to forgive you for your earlier outburst, if what you said was true she will know what to look for should Chris become the violent man you have heard him accused of being."
Logan tapped on Jubilee's open doorframe, once, politely, before walking in. Jubilee was in front of the mirror, brushing out her hair. A bag sat open on her bed, stuffed with a deep sapphire beach towel, book, sunglasses, and suntan lotion. She didn't bother turning toward him when he walked in. "Not done yelling at me yet?" she said tartly.
Logan took a deep breath. "Jubes, I need ta talk to ya. Yer boyfriend, Chris…he ain't what you think." God, it was hard to think, seeing her wearing that turquoise string bikini top and cutoff shorts over her bikini bottom. "I talked to the new waitress at Maynard's yesterday after you and yer…boyfriend…had gone," and the word was forced past stiff lips; he didn't want to think of that puppy pawing over his Jubes. "and she tol' me she was doin' a party for some friend o' Chris's an' he took advantage o' her after she said no."
Jubilee turned away from the mirror so fast her hair fanned out behind her. "Oh, come on, Logan, is that the best you can do?" she spat angrily. "You don't like him, so you make up something about him to make me stop going out with him?" She shook her head. "It's not going to work, Logan. Stop it." She tossed her hairbrush into the bag and zipped it up, then grabbed the handle and headed for the door. "Come on, Logan. Stop being jealous. It's not becoming."
"I ain't jealous!" Logan protested, his temper rising again. Why couldn't she see he was being serious? "I'm just trying to…"
"I know what you're trying to do," Jubilee said angrily. "So cut it out. It's not going to do you any good. I love Chris, and he loves me, and I'm not a little girl anymore, that you can tell me what to do!" She fished her sunglasses out of the bag. "He asked me to move in with him. His parents gave him an apartment in the city, and I was considering moving in with him. You just made up my mind for me, Logan. Thanks." She started to brush past him.
Logan was alarmed at that piece of news. "Jubes, please. Please reconsider. Don't move out, not yet, not with him. Give it some more time, ya only been goin' out with him three months, an' it ain't 'nough time fer ya ta know ya wanna move in with him."
"I know," Jubilee hissed, opening her drawers and taking out a handful of her underclothes, some of her clothing, and a second pair of shoes. "Believe me, I know. He's been telling me you all are too restrictive here, and urging me to move in with him for a month now. This morning was the last straw. Bye, Logan." And she left her room, slipping past him and slamming the door as she went by.
Logan cursed as he stared at the door. What the hell was he going to do now?