Chapter 4: The Dairy Aisle Encounter & Dinner
It had been two months since Chad's funeral, and Rory was picking up some groceries after working and hour late. She was beat. She grabbed bread off the shelf and threw it on top of the Cocoa Crispies and Cinnamon Squares cereal already in her cart. Two more items on her list: milk and bananas. She rounded the corner to the dairy section and ran smack into someone.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were there. My fault," she mumbled.
"No, my fault. I shouldn't have been standing in the way," the man argued as he bent to pick up to pick up an orange that had bounced out of his handbasket in the encounter.
"Logan?" She thought she recognized him and he looked up.
"Rory!" He was surprised to see her.
"Just a second, you can't be Logan. You just accepted blame for something."
"Did I, now? Hmm. Must have been a momentary lapse of judgment. It'll never happen again. I promise," he replied smirking and cocking his head to the left.
"I see you are still as cocky as ever. What brings you to the diary aisle on this side of town?"
"My mother's lack of planning for her non-lactose-intolerant son. She forgot to tell the cook I was coming to visit and all she has in the house is Lactaid, rice milk and soy milk." He made a disgusted face and Rory laughed at him. "So I decided to rectify the situation on my way home from a meeting. And what, may I ask, are you doing here?"
"I have two six year olds at home. Must you ask?"
"Ah, yes. So they actually eat real food?" he asked in mock surprise. "It thought that with you as a mother, it would have been coffee and sweets from birth."
She resisted the urge to slap him and call him a smart ass. "Tried that. It didn't work." She feigned a pout. "And, sadly, the next thing on my list is, of all possible items on the planet, fruit!"
He laughed at her pained expression. "Well, let's go get their fruit, and I can exchange these oranges for some that haven't fallen on the floor. A bit of advice. Fruit juggling in the middle of an aisle is not a good idea when somebody can run into you with a cart."
She shook her head at him as she grabbed a gallon milk off the shelf and followed him to produce where they each attained the sought for items, Logan attempted to juggle a couple apples, which didn't turn out so well, and they headed to the checkout. Neither said anymore until they headed to the exit.
"Which one is yours?" he asked.
"Oh, I'll walk from here. It's only a few blocks."
He looked up at the sky, then back at her. "Ace, it's going to snow soon. You're not walking, especially with all those bags. I'll give you a ride." For some reason, the thought of her shivering as she made her way home appalled him. Why didn't she drive?
Rory saw no point in arguing. The look in his eyes told her it was a moot issue anyway, so she unloaded her bags into the back seat of the black sedan and got into the passenger seat herself. Rory gave him directions and a few minutes later, they pulled up in front of what looked like an apartment building.
For a second he thought he had taken a wrong turn, but Rory got out of the car and started unloading her bags. Logan followed suit and started to help her. She gave him a look that clearly said 'I can do this on my own. I don't need your help.', but he ignored it, gathered up the heaviest of the sacks, and followed her to the door of the building, which he held open for her, to her great annoyance.
Sure enough, it was an apartment building, and he decided right away that he didn't like it. It had a cheap feel to it and he got the impression it wasn't someplace you'd want to raise children if you could help it. What was she doing living here?
Logan followed her to a third floor apartment. She opened the door and was immediately accosted by her daughters screaming "Mom!" Amy attempted to hug Rory as she tried to make her way to the kitchen. Raleigh followed close behind, trying to see what goodies were in the bags on her mom's arms. The girls didn't even seem to notice the man who followed their mom into the apartment.
Rory and the girls put away the groceries as Logan glanced around the apartment. Two bedrooms at one end, separated by a small bathroom. The bedrooms looked tiny. In one, he could see bunk beds and two dressers crammed inside along with shelves of toys. The living room and kitchen took up the rest of the apartment, which wasn't much. The entire apartment was only 350 to 400 square feet. It was clean and comfortable, but he still couldn't imagine what Rory was doing living here with two girls. There just wasn't any room.
"Where is Jenny?" Rory asked the girls.
"She left around four o'clock," responded Raleigh. Rory was clearly irritated.
"Really? Then who has been watching you two?" She tried to keep the venom in her voice in check, not wanting to upset the girls.
"Mrs. Montgomery, but she had to run and check on dinner for her and Curtis and Mr. Montgomery." This time it was Amy. Mrs. Montgomery was a woman who live a few doors down with her teenage son and husband.
"I don't suppose you two have had anything to eat since lunch." Both girls shook their heads.
Logan walked over to the island counter that served as a table and on which the groceries had been unceremoniously plopped.
"Do you need any help?" he asked.
"Not unless you can produce dinner or a babysitter who won't suddenly disappear without excuse an hour into her shift." Rory glared. What did he think he was doing? She didn't need help. She had managed this long on her own, what made him think she was going to change it now?
Once again he ignored the daggers she was shooting in his direction. "I can handle dinner, and I'll work on the other one." He smirked at her and turned to the girls. "What'll it be? Pizza, Chinese, what?"
"Pizza!" shouted Amy.
"Chinese!" chimed in Raleigh.
"Both? I don't know. Let's check with Mom." He turned to Rory with another smirk. "I see they inherited your fondness for takeout."
She looked at her daughters pleading faces and glared at Logan. Suddenly she had become the bad guy in this situation. No matter what she decided, somebody was going to pout. "Burgers." It was a decision, not a suggestion. Both girls pouted, but then brightened up.
"Can we get ice cream for dessert?" asked Amy and Raleigh nodded in agreement.
"Maybe." It was all the answer they would get from her at the moment.
Logan soon found himself at a diner not far from Rory's apartment with three very hungry females. He had forgotten how much Rory could eat, and her girls were just like her. She alone had a large burger, a huge plate of cheese fries and a slice of pie. The girls didn't eat as much, but did eat an awful lot for six year olds. At length, the girls remembered Logan's offer of ice cream again and started begging him. He told them to ask their mother. She gave him the evil eye and accused him of conspiring to get the girls hopped up on sugar right before bedtime. He said he was doing no such thing, then turned the puppy face on her, begging for ice cream. She laughed and relented, but only if she got some too.
Rory couldn't believe what was going on. First, why did he insist on helping her? It was infuriating and he had no reason to want to help her and her daughters, at least none she could think of. Then here he was, eating dinner with them like it was nothing out of the ordinary. He sat there laughing and chatting with the girls through the whole meal. He even got Raleigh to open up, a tough task for even the seasoned veterans in their lives, but this was only the second time he had met her. Then the ice cream. He'd taken her conspiracy accusations and thrown them to the side with a few simple words, just like he used to back in college, then proceeded to mount a 'sad puppy face' offensive along side her daughters. But then, again, there was the way he gave the apartment a once over, like it wasn't good enough to even be around him. She didn't know what to make of this Logan quite yet.
Logan interrupted her thoughts in between spoonfuls of ice cream.
"Rory, I've got a temporary solution for your babysitter problems. I don't know if you have anybody to watch the girls for tomorrow, but if not, I'll do it, then we can work something out from there."
She was unsure what to make of this offer, but it was better than her current situation, so she accepted.