Chapter 39

November 11th, 2022

Since Rory was now trying to show herself at her best behavior at work, Logan had been faced with the opportunity to cover some of her errands for her. On that Friday night, one of them included picking up Em from her school and walking her home.

He'd been to pick her up a few times by now, so climbing up the few steps into the house that was a very typical red-brick for the neighborhood was already familiar for him.

The first time he'd come here, and been greeted with a pleasant, "You must be Emma's father, right? Nice to finally meet you. Her mother told us you'd be picking her up today," had deeply warmed his heart. Naturally they'd checked for ID too, and he was happy they had, feeling deeply protective of his daughter now that he had the chance.

"Hey!" Logan greeted the teacher's aid as he entered.

"Good evening!" he was greeted with. "Em, your dad's here. Time to get going!" she called out towards the playroom. The kids usually had a couple of classes in the mornings and the afternoon was pretty much storyhour, arts and free play or for some naptime.

While he waited, he looked over the information board casually, noting what the kids had had for menu this week. He was glad to read the place served pretty decent food, again feeling utterly lucky to have Rory as the mother of his child who'd already made a lot of choises he agreed with raising her. She really had had everything under control, hadn't she? And that almost made him feel a little redundant.

He also noticed a poster that the school was collecting donations for a non-profit group that was helping those less fortunate around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since Logan had been thinking about possibly giving something back to his new community over the holidays, feeling like he needed that extra dimension in his life. He'd gotten his second chance - now he genuinely believed he needed to repay the universe for this with something.

He snapped a photo of the poster, wanting to look the non-profit up. He had a few excess things the movers had shipped over that he didn't really need, but he also knew that if he found them trustworthy he could easily just donate them some money or see what other specific kind of help they required.

Em hopped towards him.

"Hey, Logan," Em said, not being quite ready to call him anything else.

"Hey, Em," Logan replied, happy to see her, but still a little hesitant to actually refer to her as 'kid' like it sometimes wanted to slip over his lips. He still didn't feel like he hadn't quite earned that privilege just yet. And since Em hadn't still really commented on the whole development of him suddenly turning up in their lives like this, besides showing no reluctance to spending time with him. And he wasn't exactly eager to push her by saying the wrong thing, especially not when Rory wasn't around, even if it was perhaps a little cowardice.

They made it out to the street and enjoyed the fairly pleasant late autumn weather, the sun having set about half-an-hour ago.

"So how was your day?" Logan inquired.

"Same old," Em replied, almost sounding like an old person.

"You had music class today, didn't you?" he continued.

"Yeah, I did," she replied.

"Hey, I never really asked… if you even liked the class. I guess most kids do, right?" Logan pondered.

"It's okay. But it's not so nice to do something I'm not really that good at," Em replied.

"Yeah, I know that feeling," Logan replied with a friendly chuckle. "I guess neither me or your mom had much of a musical streak either," he added.

"So you can't sing either?" Em asked, holding his hand as she struggled to walk in an ordinary fashion and mostly skipped along his side.

"Nope," Logan replied.

"I wanna hear you sing!" Em requested.

"Well I couldn't possibly - people might faint, windows might shatter," Logan explained theatrically.

He was almost expecting her to bed but that didn't happen.

"That's the house you live in, right?" Em pointed out, recognizing the house Logan lived in. They'd passed this house together a few times, but besides the first time when Rory had pointed the house out for her, she hadn't really asked about it.

"It is," Logan replied.

"I wanna see what your place looks like. Can I come for a visit? Can I go now?" Em replied.

Logan hadn't been expecting that, especially not tonight.

"I don't know… we were supposed to wait for your mom at your place. She might be ordering food for us and what if we're not there to pick it up," Logan said, mostly just not wanting to deviate from the plan he'd agreed with Rory.

He was also invited to stay for dinner later. With Christopher still traveling for business and Gigi at Yale this week was the perfect chance to spend a lot of time together - not dating per se but doing what came even more easily.

"Just call her, ask her. We could just go for a little while and then go home, she said she'd be home pretty late, didn't she?" Em made some valid points.

"You really want to?" Logan asked. He didn't really have any good reasons why not to do it - even the cleaner had just tidied his entire place up and his fridge was full of food. In theory he even considered the possibility - maybe he could cook for them tonight.

Those puppy-dog-eyes spoke for themselves and Logan reached for his phone to make the call as they stood at the corner.

"Yeah?" Rory picked up, being still at the office. She sounded tired.

"Hey. I just picked Em up from school and she sort of suggested that maybe it'd be okay for her to see where I live," Logan explained. "I said I'd ask…," he added.

"Um… sure, I guess," Rory replied, unable to think of any reason why to say no.

"Would it even be okay if maybe I cooked dinner for us here?" Logan asked.

"So you're already there?" Rory asked, for a moment getting the wrong idea.

"Just at the corner…," Logan explained.

"Okay," Rory said.

"Okay about the dinner or…?" he asked, hesitantly.

"About both," Rory replied.

"You sound kind of tired, I hope you're not cooped up there for very long…," Logan added.

"Um, yeah… I guess I'll be on my way once I wrap this one thing up," Rory exhaled.

"I'll make you a steak, how about that?" Logan tried to cheer her up. "Just text me when you leave, I'll have dinner waiting for you," he promised, quite liking this mental image of expecting her home.

"Sounds good," Rory replied, her modest smile being audible. She hadn't had a good day - the relationships at the office were strained, her workload was more than before, but mostly consisted of the stuff that didn't really make her eyes light up. She was pushing through it but it was definitely the low point of her current career. But the idea of going into her weekend to spend it with her daughter and the father of her child almost made up for all of it.

"I'll see you in a bit then," Logan said, and soon enough they ended the call.

"Alright - let's show you where I live then. Though I have to say, it's not half as nice as your place," Logan shared, took the little girl's hand again, and led her safely across the street.

Modt of the walls were white and the place had wide oak floors through the entire space. The main reason he didn't think much of it, was that it didn't exactly feel very homey yet, even adding his possessions to the shelves and sideboards hadn't made it feel entirely like his. But it was surprising, how having this 5-year-old step in and suddenly made it look alive. Em brought her energy into this place.

Em went through the place observing it with caution but also genuine curiosity. She liked the paintings, only few of them actually being something Logan had picked out himself - mostly colorful abstracts.

He offered her a glass of juice and they began to make a meal together. Em was a great help drying the vegetables, shredding the salad into bits and mixing up a dressing according to Logan's instructions using Jamie Oliver's mason jar trick. Logan seasoned a couple of steaks, letting them just take in the flavor for a bit and sliced some potatoes real thing and layered them into an oven dish with some simple oil, garlic and some seasoning, planning to roast them.

It was around then Em got visibly bored.

"You can go explore the rest of the place if you want while I finish things up here," Logan said. It was just then his phone pinged, Rory telling him she was taking a car home. Logan knew this meant that she was about 10-12 minutes out.

Logan was hopeful that once Em made it down the hall, assuming the bathroom and his bedroom would be hardly of any interest to her, Em would discover the room he'd had set up for her. The room was light pink, kind of a vintage tone, and held a large beige velvet-covered bed along with the softest knit bedcover he'd ever touched. The room was full of thousands of dollars worth of toys and books, including a giant stuffed giraffe and a unicorn shaped floor lap in another corner. One of the walls had a mural of fairytale forest. The closet, not that he had really planned on her using it anytime soon, was full of cute bedding, monogrammed pajamas and a robe, ready and waiting for when she would someday come to stay with him. Thought of course he's set it up weeks ago, thinking sharing a child with Rory was all that he could hope for - not he had much bigger dreams.

The joyous squeal that came once the girl reached her bedroom, not having been told prior that it was her room, was near-deafening, Logan for the first time hoping he didn't have any neighbors that would mind. Honestly, he'd barely seen any of them.

But still the sound made Logan smile broadly.

"You have toys!?" Em said next.

"You're welcome to play with anything you want," Logan added, currently being busy with heating up his cast iron skillet. He turned on the hood, not hearing much else through the noise for a while.

For a good ten minutes there was no word, but essentially that was the sound of a child happy with her new toys, wasn't it?

It was only as the buzzer rang, indicating Rory's arrival, Logan turned the hood on to 'medium' and went to open the door for her.

"Hey," Rory said and smiled, hopeful for the better part of her week to start.

"Just in time," Logan said, taking in the fresh breath of air that seeing her was. He just wanted to wipe her negative experiences away and replace them with everything he could offer.

What he hadn't expected, however, was Em rushing to hug her mothers hips with tears running down her cheeks as soon as she heard her.

"Hey, what's wrong, babe?" Rory sank to her level to ask, confused by this reaction. She glanced up towards Logan looking for an explanation. But all Logan had was a shrug.

"I wanna go home," Em sobbed. The sight broke Logan's heart while his mind felt utterly confused. What could've possibly have happened in the past five minutes?

"Are you hurt?" Rory asked.

Em shook her head.

"I just wanna go home," Em replied.

"Dinner is ready, don't you want to eat the salad that you made?" Logan made a fruitless attempt to make things better, but he honestly didn't have a clue what this could be.

"Logan, can you just give us a moment?" Rory asked to be left alone with her daughter. She didn't want to exclude him, but she believed there was a better chance at getting to the bottom of this alone.

"Of course..," Logan sighed, backing up towards the kitchen, seeing Rory settle down to sit on the foyer floor with the girl sitting on her thighs, facing her, and simply holding her, letting her cry.

After Logan had finished cooking and set three plates of food on the kitchen counter, hopefully that things would resolve while really fearing that he might have screwed up somehow even without his knowledge.

Feeling puzzled about the reason he headed down the hallway in search for a possible cause. Had Em stumbled upon something she shouldn't have? Were there photos of Odette in some old albums that she'd looked at? Or maybe something confusing like a bottle of lube somewhere, though on second thought he doubted someone like Em would really think anything other of it than think it was lotion. Besides he was usually pretty neat about his private things. What else could it be?

As he reached Em's room, he could see several of the toys played with, the Harry Potter lego looking like it had been one of the favorites. The bed had been sat on, clearly the soft bed cover having had a draw. But it was then he saw the closet door open. Maybe having the pajamas, robe and one other dress in there had been too much?

Logan made it back to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of red wine, and took a deep breath before taking a sip. What else was he going to do? He'd forgotten to turn off the hood earlier so he hadn't overheard anything the two had said in the foyer, and as he finally did, he could hear Rory.

"So you don't have to worry about that, okay? We'll always ask you what you want, okay?" Rory assured the little girl.

The girl still sniffled a little, and since he couldn't directly see them, he couldn't really know what her reaction was.

"What about we go have some dinner? I know I'm awfully starving right about now… can you hear my stomach?" Rory continued, looking like she'd finished with the convincing.

Logan took a breath of relief.

"Come on, let's clean your face up," Rory said, and rose from the floor, having gotten rather hot, sitting there with her fall coat still on.

Still, Logan was curious to hear the explanation, wanting to know what had gone wrong.

The two returned to the kitchen just in time as Logan finished setting them a table by the kitchen island, feeling like casual was the way to go tonight after such drama. He'd poured Rory a glass of wine and some water for Em, hoping things could just return to normal. He hoped, once he knew what the cause of this had been, he could apologize too.

Em didn't quite dare to look him in the eye, which made him a little worrisome, but once she got to eating, seemed to turn back to her usual self, even if she wasn't saying much.

Logan cast a questioning look towards Rory but it was evident she didn't want to explain it in Em's presence.

"So how was work?" Logan inquired, deciding to steer things in a more neutral direction in the meanwhile.

Yet that was another topic Rory wasn't too eager to talk about.

"The same. But I saw them opening up this new bookstore in the heart of Cambridge, it looked like they were making a very cool display window - you know, Christmas themed. We should go check it out sometime," Rory shared instead, also trying to cheer Em up.

Logan nodded, acknowledging her words.

"You?" Rory asked, wanting to engage, despite some awkwardness.

"They did this big story on Honor, which is kind of a big deal," Logan shared.

"Campaign?" Rory asked, referring to a media focus magazine she'd once written a few stories for.

"Economist," Logan replied. "They were pretty kind to her, but I think it was fair…she's made a big difference already," he added, sounding proud.

"Em, are you excited to meet Logan's sister and her kids at Thanksgiving?" Rory tried to engage Em a little.

"I guess," Em replied, without too much enthusiasm and stuck another piece of meat into her mouth.

"You know I saw this poster up at Em's school about some sort of a clothing drive coming," he said, and tried to recall its name without looking it up on his phone right away.

"Yeah, I think I've heard of them. They're pretty well known in the area. I think we took some stuff to them a few years ago," Rory shared.

"I was thinking about going through my things and maybe looking into if they need something more substantial that they're lacking. Been looking for some type of an outlet…," Logan explained his hopes to get involved.

"You know we probably have a bunch of stuff up in the addic we haven't needed in ages," Rory offered. "It might even be a good chance for you to, I don't know… see some of Em's old stuff," Rory offered.

"I don't expect you to get rid of everything," Logan replied, hoping she hadn't taken it like that.

"Oh, don't worry… I have a special box for things I have no intention of departing with," Rory replied. "But there really is a lot," Rory added. "I am actually surprised you have old things - either you go through your wardrobe really fast or have secretly gained of lost a lot of weight in the past month or so," Rory teased him in return.

Logan chuckled. "The movers just brought some unnecessary stuff… that apparently happens when one tries to handle a move from afar and give them a little too much freedom," Logan explained.

"Right," Rory reflected, being curious whether that had included perhaps also some of Odette's things.

"Just some extra suits I really have no need for," Logan clarified as if reading her mind.

"You know we really don't have much planned for Sunday and it promised a full day of rain, you could probably just come over and we could go through them," Rory suggested.

"Christopher is not back yet?" Logan inquired, recalling briefly that she'd mentioned him returning on Sunday.

"Not before late, but he wouldn't mind," Rory explained.

"Well, if Em, you, don't mind - then I'd love to," Logan said, applying the rule Rory had assured Em earlier in the foyer. Her opinion counted.

"I don't mind," Em said.

They talked a little more about Logan's activities, his swimming and about going to visit another private school next week, while slowly already slipping into discussing travel arrangements for Thanksgiving. While normally Rory would just drive over to have the use of her own car this time, considering she also needed to hop from Nantucket to Martha's Vineyard she was planning on flying and renting a car locally, knowing traveling from one island to another through the mainland would just take forever.

It wasn't before Em excused herself to the bathroom when Logan and Rory were finally left alone.

"So what was that about before?" Logan inquired in a whisper.

"She saw the robe with her name, and I guess she got worried she was going to have to stay here without me or something. Like first it was all fun and toys.. And then it just hit her, you know. That it was a room meant for her, specifically for her to stay in," Rory explained, having not even seen the room in person before. She'd just heard Logan talk about it.

Em couldn't read yet, but she could read her name.

"I'm sorry… I never meant that to be a shock… I guess I should've gone in there with her or waited to let her in there until you came… I was just cooking and she got bored…," Logan said apologetically.

"Logan, it's fine… as far as I know this is the first reaction we've gotten from her on the whole thing. It was bound to happen, and frankly I am just glad it was just something like this…," Rory said, taking his hand on the table and squeezing it.

"Still..," Logan said because he still felt bad. There was definitely again that moment, with the two staring each other in the eyes, having no barriers up anymore, that could've easily led to more, hadn't the two heard Em emerge. Rory's hand slipped down to her lap and the gaze turned into a humble smile instead.

It was then Em returned and Rory knew that they ought to head back. They were still at the stage of baby steps - all three of them.

After Em and Rory had gotten their coats on, Logan crouched down to Em's level and tried to do what he felt like doing.

"Hey, Em… I just want to say that I'm sorry you got upset earlier. I should've shown you the room, not just let you explore it yourself like that. I just made it so you'd have a place here - in case you wanted to hang out there. If you ever visited and got bored, for example. I never meant it to be something you should be scared or worried about," Logan said.

Em didn't say much, but she did what Logan hadn't expected - she stepped up to hug him, it being the first real hug he'd gotten that hadn't involved playing some game with her or carrying her to bed.

"I really like the blanket," Em said, referring to the bedspread. And as if Logan wasn't smiling broad enough, he certainly was now.

As Logan rose, Rory hugged him in goodbye just the same, whispering to his ear - "Small victories."

"See you Sunday," Logan replied, wanting already really to just kiss her, those hugs not seeming like enough.