Chapter 11: The Road to Recovery
Logan felt a little like Alice when she had stumbled through the looking glass. What the hell was he doing here in some quaint little town sitting at a table in an empty diner watching a relationship in its death throes with the mother of a girl that he had really only talked to a handful of times?
Yes, he enjoyed the lively verbal skirmishes with said girl, yes, he enjoyed baiting her and he could tell himself he had butted in to this little outing out of boredom but he would have to admit that wasn't entirely true. She interested him and he had wanted the chance to figure out what made her tick, to spend time with her outside the circus arena of the Life and Death Brigade or the watchful eyes of Hartford's elite.
Clearly, this was not the kind of time that he had been picturing.
He liked risk, liked the thrill of taking chances with life but he didn't like the odds in this kind of game, the house always won and you inevitably ended up screwed. With his usual flavor of female companion he was usually long gone before the subject of love and commitment ever came up. His specialty was seizing the moment. He did not do happy ever after.
Time seemed to have slowed to a snail's pace and he was ready to bolt. Lorelai must have sensed this because suddenly she tore her eyes away from the action...or lack thereof in the square.
"You know Logan, Rory may just want to stay here tonight. Do you have another way back to New Haven?" She was giving him an escape hatch and he leapt at it.
"Oh, sure, in fact I was just thinking that maybe that would be for the best. I'm sure Rory won't want me around anyway. I'll just call my parents and have them send the driver. It shouldn't take him long to get here this time of night." He grabbed his cell phone and stepped outside where he got a better signal to make the call.
He had the phone to his ear when he saw Rory walking towards him. Someone answered on the other end but after a brief hesitation he hit the cancel button and waited until she was in front of him.
He searched her face for a wordless beat and what he saw there surprised him. He had expected the trace of tears, the sad eyes but his limited experience with bad breakups had mostly involved angry shouts and hurtling objects and had not led him to envision the look of purpose in her eyes or the almost serene expression on her face.
He narrowed his eyes as he attempted to make sense of this strange idiosyncrasy. Maybe this was just the calm that lulled you into complacency before the storm hit. He tested the waters with a neutral statement.
He gestured to the phone "Hey, your mom thought you might want to stay here tonight so I was just going to call my parent's driver to pick me up."
"Oh, you don't need to do that, I'm still going back to Yale tonight and you are welcome to ride with me if you want. Of course after the theatrics of this bizarre night I wouldn't blame you if you ran all the way to New Haven just to get away from my crazy life. Just let me say goodbye to my mom and Luke and we can hit the road."
This was said in a very matter of fact tone. Was she really trying to pretend that the last 30 minutes had never occurred? He narrowed his eyes but played along. He tried a joking tone next.
Bowing low he said "Your wish is my command milady. Shall I wait in your royal carriage then?"
She smiled....okay now that was really odd, granted it wasn't quite at full wattage but it was a smile nonetheless. "If you aren't here when I come back out I will assume that your better sense has returned and you made a run for it."
She walked past him into the diner and he was left puzzling over the conundrum.
He watched through the window as she walked up to Lorelai who greeted her with open arms and engulfed her in a hug. Luke hung back a bit but Logan could see that he wanted to comfort her as well, or at least beat someone up to defend her honor. He wondered just for a moment what it would be like to have a family that loved you like that, unconditionally, just for being you.
Inside Luke's Rory pulled out of the hug and looked at Lorelai who brushed a piece of hair off her face.
Rory's tone was almost wistful as she said "I know I should be hurt and sad, and I am sure that all that will come later but right now I think this was what had to happen. I loved Dean but there was no way we could recapture that first love, we have both grown beyond that, we are different people and I think being with him was just a desperate attempt on my part to feel safe, comfortable, happy again. Except we weren't happy, not really, the spark was gone...am I a horrible person for feeling that way?"
Lorelai looked her daughter in the eye "No, you aren't horrible, and Dean isn't a horrible person. You are just human and humans make mistakes, it is part of our biological makeup. Trust me on this one because I have a little experience in this area, sometimes things just can't go back to the way they were no matter how much you wish they could, too much has changed.
"Thanks mom." She hugged her again and then impulsively hugged Luke who blushed slightly. She giggled a little at that, it was always funny to see the gruff diner man blush.
"I think it would be better if I went back to Yale tonight. Being here right now is just going to make things harder, I just need a little distance for a couple of days."
Lorelai wiped her hand over Rory's cheek and then forced herself to drop her hand. Rory needed her to let go, to let her get through this on her own.
"Okay, but only if you agree to one required condition. You must wallow for at least 24 hours, I will not specify whether this 24 hours must be consecutive or not but the aforementioned wallowing must involve ice cream, may include any member of the gummy class of sweets and/or members of the cream filled snack food category but must not under any circumstances be done within close proximity of a green vegetable. In addition any properly run wallowing procedure necessitates copious imbibing of caffeinated beverages while watching an unhealthy number of Gilmore approved chic flicks. Now this is something I take very seriously so I want you to raise your right hand and repeat after me... I Rory"
Rory raised her hand and tried to look solemn but couldn't quite contain the chuckle "I Rory, do solemnly swear on the Luke's coffee that I will complete the aforementioned wallowing procedure as laid out in section 7 part b of the Gilmore Girl Rule Book." Even Luke broke a smile at that one.
She lowered her hand and Lorelai gave her a last quick hug before she opened the door.
Lorelai's words folllowed her out the door " Love ya kid...but remember I will require proof of the completion of your task.....oh and say goodbye to the Big MaC for me."
She headed out to the car where she found Logan lounging against the hood. She quirked an eyebrow "I guess you really are a daredevil after all."
He shot her a cocky grin as he climbed into the passenger seat and fastened his seatbelt "In Omnia Paratus!" he said with a fake cheer. Now he just hoped she didn't have a meltdown halfway home and decide to ram them into a median or something.
Logan usually didn't stick around for the aftermath of a break up and for once he was at a loss for a suitable topic of conversation. Finally he blurted out the first thing that came to mind "Did your mother just nickname me after a fast food?"
She looked at him like perhaps he was a bit slow "What?"
"Your mother, you know crazy woman with the wild black hair, insane addiction to coffee, I would have sworn that I heard her call me a Big Mac."
"Ah.....no, well yes, it is a member of the fast food family but in this case it is also my mother's ingenious version of your self-picked title, Master and Commander...see big M A C."
"Oh. Now that is good. You guys seem to be pretty good at the art of the nickname, tell me some of your other ones, I could use a good laugh."
She looked over at Logan and realized that this was one of the first halfway normal conversations that they had ever had. There was something funny going on here...he was up to something. If there was one thing that she had learned about Logan so far it was that almost nothing he said or did was actually what it seemed.She considered him with narrowed eyes, and then it hit her.
"Logan, are you being nice to me?"
She asked it with such incredulity in her tone that he almost let out a sarcastic quip but he schooled his tongue to good behavior. "I don't know what you are talking about Ace, I'm always nice to you." He tried to look wounded.
She regarded him with a cynical eye "I'm going to have to beg to differ, you are never nice. Sarcastic, droll, witty, mocking, satirical, sardonic, funny, imperious, condescending, argumentative, cocky, pompous, narcissistic, arrogant....those are just a few of the adjectives that would describe your normal modus operandi and I can keep going if you want. You play a lot of roles in our conversations but never to my recollection have you been nice."
"Just what are you implying with all those big SAT words Ace? I think I am offended."
She laughed at him this time and then sobered "You are amusing, I will give you that, its one of the reasons I put up with your less desirable traits, that and your unpredictability. Don't ruin that now by being trite. If you really want to do something nice for me then do me a favor and stick to sarcasm Huntzberger, sweet doesn't suit you.
He could she was serious so he acquiesced.... "You win Ace, I will happily metamorphose back into my normal imperious, droll oh and you forgot charming self. Don't say that you didn't ask for it."
She smiled now with a wicked gleam in her eye. "So, you really want to hear some of our better nicknames...I mean I have a knack for it by my mother has taken it to the level of an art form. Let me think, the last blonde bad boy that crossed our path got dubbed Bible Boy or alternately Son of Satan, because he quite unoriginally named me Mary."
"You a Mary? Never would have guessed."
She shot him an arch look... "Hey mister, I am not as innocent as you think."
He raised an eyebrow "Oh really? Prove it....tell me one thing that you have done that I would find scandalous."
The light in his eyes was daring her and for one second she considered telling him THE secret. Reason quickly returned. "I kissed a girl once."
She laughed when Logan wiggled his eyebrows playfully . "Well, well Ace, you may have the heart of a rebel buried in that blue blood after all. I won't ruin your triumph by asking about the extenuating circumstances, because I am sure that would just take away from overall effect of the story."
"I won't even ask about the scandalous things that you have done because I am sure that list would probably take all night and we don't have that much time."
"You expect me to believe that you don't want to spend the rest of your Friday night having me regale you with tales of my wicked past?" he gave her a look of shock.
"You know, given the direction this night has taken it couldn't possibly make it any worse. Under different circumstances I might even take you up on the offer purely for the comedic relief. However, I have been given a very serious mission by mother which I am honor bound to fulfill....I did swear on Luke's coffee after all and that is about as sacred as it gets in our screwy world. I would like to make a little detour before we get back to campus, do you mind?"
"no problem, you know my motto. I'm in....tell me does it involve something dangerous?"
She pulled into the lot at a convenience store and climbed out of the car calling back over her shoulder "Only if you consider junk food overdosing a dangerous activity."
When he followed her inside he found her ransacking the junk food aisle "Whoa there Ace, are you preparing for an Armageddon or planning on becoming a hermit and never coming out of your room again because those are the only two reasonable explanations that I can come up with for this looting of the store, oh wait is that it?" he looked around as if looking for onlookers "are we robbing the store?"
She just thrust the basket of goodies into his hand and said "come on, I need ice cream too....it says so in the rule book."
Okay, now she wasn't making one iota of sense. "What rule book would that be Ace?" he spoke as if she were a lunatic he was trying to talk off a ledge and she decided to have a little fun with him.
"Oh, for heaven's sake Huntzberger, sometime you are so dense. It is the Gilmore Girl Rule Book, this would be the secret ritual for seduction of an unwitting member of the male sex....now if I could just find the whip cream and the hand cuffs we would be all ready to get started.....you did say you were "ready for anything" right?"
He thought that if she could see the picture that had just flashed across his mind she would probably be running very fast in the opposite direction. He quickly recovered and shot her a playful leer. "Right you are Ace, carpe diem I always say and may I voice my approval at the creative use of whipped toppings, just throw a little chocolate sauce in there and let the festivities begin."
She smacked him on the arm and glared at him but couldn't quite keep a straight face. "You really are incorrigible. I hate to ruin your little testosterone induced fantasy but these supplies are for wallowing, you know pity party, junk food, a few Meg Ryan movies....pink bunny slippers, you get the picture."
"Must be a girl thing." He said with a look of aversion.
She patted him on the shoulder in sympathy. "Come on Mac , lets go...I have a date with some Super Fudge Chunk and Ben and Jerry don't like to be kept waiting."
The parking lot was oddly quiet at night and they appeared to be the only two people around as they walked across the now dark campus that was sporadically lit by flickering lights and the pale glow of the moonlight. At the courtyard of Branford they stopped.
If she hadn't be who she was and he hadn't been who he was it might have been a romantic moment. As it was she was still dressed in her now mangled dress from the party that seemed like a lifetime ago, one arm was weighed down by a sack of junk food, she was now carrying her high heels in the other hand and she could feel her hair falling out of its french twist and across her face. She blew ineffectually at it but failed utterly as it flopped back into her eyes. She was still musing at the wreck she appeared when Logan reached out and brushed the offending hair behind her ear.
She stilled instantly. The contact was strangely gentle and felt uncomfortably sensual. She stared into Logan's eyes and noticed idly that there were golden flecks sparkling in those warm brown depths. As she watched his warm brown gaze heated liked warmed whiskey. She suddenly realized he was staring at her mouth and she didn't remember him stepping closer but his chest almost brushed the hand she had wrapped around her goody bag. She felt a little lick of panic and searched desperately for something to stop the tingly awareness that she could feel crawling up her back "So, some night, huh?" she blurted out.
"Yeah, some night indeed." He said it with a husky voice and she felt a shiver slither up her spine. He looked at her with a little lopsided grin that suddenly she didn't find nearly as annoying as she usually did. Uh oh. Warning bells went off in her head, she definitely was not ready for this. She could hold her own with Logan the debate partner, the Casanova version was way out of her league. That soft voice continued "We should do it again some time."
An incredulous laugh burst from her lips "Yeah right, which part exactly is that you would want to repeat, the part where my grandparents shanghaied me into some antiquated mating ritual, the part where you blackmailed me into pretending you were my date, or maybe the part where I broke up with my boyfriend? Gee, I don't know there are so many good options to choose from, I don't know which to pick."
He stopped her babbling with a soft finger to her lips. "This part." His voice was barely above a whisper as he closed the slight gap between them brushing his mouth over hers in a kiss as soft as a caress.
Luckily she dropped her shoe. The sharp pain of the heel hitting her foot slapped her out of the warm haze of the moment and back to cold hard reality. She backed away from him one slow step at a time, watching him like a small animal might watch a dangerous predator that they feared might pounce on them any second.
She stopped when there was about five feet separating them. She took a deep breath to calm her raging heartbeat. "Look Logan, this has been a crazy night. I am so turned around I don't even know which direction is up anymore. I appreciate everything that you have done for me and I promise to uphold my end of the bargain. But here's the deal...we aren't friends, we are barely even acquaintances. Whatever just happened was a mistake, the end result of a bizarre roller coaster of a night. I know I for one have hit my quotient of melodrama for the forseeable future." She sighed and rubbed her wrist back over her face to push the hair out of her eyes again.
His fingers itched to do it for her, to feel that cord of brown silk wrap around his hand as he tucked it behind her ear.
What the hell was wrong with him? He rarely regretted anything in his life, it was a rule he made for himself but right at that moment he regretted whatever compulsion had possessed him to kiss Rory Gilmore. His mind was whirling. He had kissed lots of girls and knew well the game of lust, the heady heat of desire. He hadn't expected the leap of fire in his belly at one chaste little touch of the lips and especially not from Rory Gilmore. There was a fire beneath that icy surface that he hadn't anticipated.
She was still talking and he forced his attention back to her words trying not to look at the sexy mouth that formed those perfect syllables.
"If we could just forget that this whole night ever happened it would really make me happy. I'll owe you one. Right now my life is enough of a mess already without adding more chaos to the mix." Her eyes were begging him to agree.
He couldn't resist "You know, you take life too seriously, don't you know that chaos is what keeps things interesting."
Her expression didn't change so he reverted to the well played Don Juan with a practiced smirk "Hey kid, your loss. You don't need to worry about me Ace, all is forgotten cross my heart." He crossed a finger over his heart.
She looked relieved which was a bit of a blow to the ego but he recovered easily and grinned at her. "Back to the status quo, happy wallowing and I expect I will see you around the newsroom, you can't miss me, I'll be the one napping."
That got a slight chuckle. "Thanks again Huntzberger, especially for not being sweet."
He sent her a toothy grin..."Any time Ace."
He let her get half way across the courtyard before he called after her. "Just remember I always collect my debts."
She didn't even turn around but he heard her chuckle and her words carried back to him. "Just put it on my tab."
