The Blue Love Monkeys were a heck of a lot smarter than the regrettable name might lead one to believe. In fact it seemed they'd nailed one of life's truisms dead on the nose:
Love IS strange.
There was the understatement of the millennium. Right up there with Hitler is just a schoolyard bully and the plague was just a little bug.
Love not only is strange but it does strange things to those it afflicts. It's deceptive in simplicity, it's pretty and shiny like the flashy lure that hides the hook so that by the time the poor little fish knows what is happening it's dangling in the air far from it's normal watery byways. It makes your insides all gooey and warm like a hot fudge brownie hot out of the oven and then turns around and scalds you just as you take that first decadent bite. It draws you in with its soft fuzziness like a bear cub and then bares a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Its the river that looks so deceptively placid and then sucks you into the current and carries you bobbing and spitting over boulders and tree limbs in all manner of heart stopping hairpin turns at breath stealing speed until suddenly you see the DANGER sign as second before you are shot over the edge in a death defying drop. Too late to do save yourself, no going back, no plan B, just you and the suddenly stifling oxygen as unwilling accomplices. There you are for a frozen moment out of time, immobilized aloft, weightless, flying on invisible wings, hanging like the cartoon coyote just waiting for the hungry pool glimmering and swirling far below your cushion of thin air to swallow you whole.
It was all a blur and then everything was still and you were left gasping and breathless and wondering if it was good luck or bad that had you surviving the fall. Bad you decide after a brief recon mission of your new surrounds, it seems the strangeness had only just begun and now you are miles from normal, somewhere over the rainbow with no secret password that would magically return you to the real world.
Feeling just like she had just taken exactly that roller coaster ride, heart still hammering somewhere in the vicinity of her throat, all feeling seeming to cease as it reached her knees and with little clue left how to control her feet Rory did the only thing she could think of... she took a deep breath... and waited. When nothing happened she tried again, sucking in the frigid winter air. Still nothing. Well third times the charm she thought. The third time she inhaled so sharply that she ended up choking on snowflakes.
Okay... so maybe the whole yogic breathing just wasn't her road to tranquility. What else... count to ten or count sheep or drinking water backwards... no wait that was for hiccups.
She grabbed a hold of herself with both mental hands and shook until the world stopped spinning. Okay, she lectured herself, no need to panic, just stick to the facts, take stock of the situation. She was in love with a boy, she had accidentally told said boy about the love thing in the middle of a snowball fight. Said gentleman friend had looked like he might be suffering a minor stroke at the revelation and she had been left twisting helplessly in the wintry wind like a bedraggled shirt forgotten and abandoned on the clothesline after the last laundry day...okay bad, but it could be worse, right?
Rory racked her brains but couldn't think of a situation in which it actually would have been worse.
Back to the deep breathing... it worked for women in labor it should work in the face of stupefaction and surely that's what this was, just a simple case of shock. Where else would you be after the kind of open-heart procedure she had just performed on herself completely without preparation or forethought? Nature had to have some sort of anesthetic for that sort of idiocy or the human race might never have survived long enough to poke its proverbial head out of that darkened cave. After all she no longer doubted that one could surely die of sheer embarrassment or in her case she figured it was horror. Surely it was horror at her own impetuous actions that stilted her movements and had her numbly trailing after her bags as the whirlwind more recently known as Logan marched purposefully before her through the newly fallen drifts of white. It had to be horror that froze her tongue to the roof of her mouth as effectively as a gulp of liquid nitrogen, horror that effectively silenced even her customary ramblings in the face of the unknown. It could only be horror that had her surroundings looking wavery and indistinct like she was watching it all through the watery looking glass of an ocean.
Funny thing was... it didn't have the cold sticky fingers that crawled up your spine, or the acrid taste and the breath-stealing grip of horror.
Anger maybe? She tried this on mentally for size, hardly noticing the gleaming flanks of the limo that rumbled quietly in front of them as it idled at the edge of the parking lot, a warm golden eyed chariot that melted all trace of chill from the air with it's gusts of steamy exhaust. Might have well been a ten speed Schwinn with a banana seat and a streamers in the spokes for all the notice she afforded it's overstated elegance. She felt strangely light and unsubstantial as she floated along in a state of distracted concentration.
She nearly ran into Logan as he stopped at the door of the car and the she could see his mouth moving, his hands gesturing in quick motions that made her dizzy. Introductions were made that registered as a dull roar in her ears. She shook hands mutely with the portly black man in the dark suit so often the uniform of priest, chauffeur or mortician.
She thought his name was Frank and to be honest he looked it... frank that is, his smile was polite but clearly unmoved by her anti-Dorothy Parker impression and his eyes under the shiny black brim of his chauffeur's cap said this wasn't the first time he'd been the captain on such a doomed vessel as theirs. It should have made her angrier still at his assumption that she was yet another foregone conclusion, a pearl on the same string as all the other shiny trophies that the young Mr. Huntzberger took on his assorted adventures. It surprised a strange half grin out of her when she felt not the expected stinging claws of fury but instead the playful tickle of laughter clamoring against her teeth at thoughts of Frank at a funeral wearing that silly chauffeur's cap.
Maybe anger wasn't quite right either. Anger wasn't habitually a close pal of irrational mirth. Anger clenched and knotted...it didn't dance silly jigs on your tongue or have you sending small conspiratorial winks at the poor man forced into audience participation in this crazy little world of theirs. She wondered idly what sort of deranged muse had overtaken her normally cooperative mind but then guessed that perhaps it was only the dregs of hysteria playing their hop scotching games with her psyche.
Frank smiled at her again, this time with something like appreciation just before the heavy door shut with the finality of a mausoleum and they were left alone in tomblike stillness. Rory wondered vaguely if this was what schizophrenia felt like. Your mind and body separate yet one and the same like you body was just along for the ride while your brain was in some other universe entirely.
Not horror, not anger, didn't have that acidic bite of regret, the finely honed talons of fear or the head spinning fell of hysteria. What was it then, this feeling the roiled and rose inside her after an unrequited I love you? Too feather light for disappointment, too sweet for sadness, too soft for guilt.
She accepted the champagne flute without conscious thought, trapped deep in her internal dissection of emotions too murky to name. Maybe she was looking on the entirely wrong spectrum. Could it be that plummeting from the edge of solid ground actually found you not splattered in a million pieces but whole and well on the other side of the looking glass? Could it be that truth really did set you free?
She contemplated her own private version of Golden Pond as the champagne pooled in the glass that had magically appeared in her hand and tiny bubbles floated lazily towards the surface. Maybe she was going about this all wrong. Trying to analyze emotions. She should start at the beginning... the words. Did she mean them?
Yes. The answer came sharply before the question had fully formed.
Okay. She was in love with Logan Huntzberger.
Now what?
The question hung suspended as if shouted into an echo chamber in her mind but no answer came. Well, then she would just wait until it did come, like a thought half remembered that suddenly appeared on the tip of your tongue when you least expect it. She had time. She would wait.
Rory Gilmore loved him.
The thought circled endlessly and with it the memory of being struck mute and dumb by panic. It felt like flying, sprinting, sailing with the wind in your hair and the tang of salt on your lips only to slam into a wall of solid granite, sink to the bottom and somehow mystically be resurrected to do it again and again, and again.
He had to make it stop.
He was a man on a mission. He was Ethan Hunt, Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker all rolled into one, unfortunately it was turning out to be a bad day for adventurer and Jedi alike. His mission had become treacherous mid-execution. The objectives had changed unbeknownst to him and suddenly he was staring down into the chasm that had suddenly opened at his feet without his handy repelling equipment, sans bullwhip and damned if his best light saber wasn't tucked away at home of little use to him in the coming fight.
All the tricks in his deep pockets suddenly seemed useless in the face of ego stripping truth and he was left feeling less like Indiana and more like Arthur Dent in designer duds. As if he'd woken up on a random Tuesday to find that the world as he knew it had disintegrated at his feet and he was left to figure out a whole new set of rules to live by.
If only the nearly nonnegotiable land of love had a Hitchiker's Guide. In lieu of that he figured he better figure out a plan of action before that slightly dazed look vanished from the Rory's deceptively docile eyes and was replaced with Logan seeking bullets.
What should he say, what could he say, what combination of words could magically erase those seconds of silence that had ticked by like the count down timer on an explosive?
Rory waited, still floating in that state of suspended animation, taking smaller more measured breaths now and allowing her eyes to wander the confines of their elegant prison. The butter soft leather slid sinuously beneath her caressing hand and the milled walnut paneling was polished to a mirror shine that reflected back the anxious postures of the car's inhabitants. The newly identified Frank, looking wavery and indistinct behind his barrier of smoky glass, put the car in gear and they slid into the gathering twilight as if the big car were riding on greased rails.
Her mind still in neutral she took a long fortifying sip of the chilled liquid and felt the bursting of tiny bubbles like the tickle of elfin fingers on her tongue as the libation slid smoothly down her throat. She idly wondered how it was that she'd come to be here, sipping expensive champagne while riding in a car more suited to Prince Charles than a small town girl from Stars Hollow with the reluctant heir to a multimillion-dollar media empire. True, stranger things had happened in her short life but this one was pretty high on the list. She decided that she felt a little like Bruce Wayne.
She twisted the stem of hand cut crystal in her hand as she contemplated the blonde boy next to her whose own hand curved so comfortably around it's delicate structure.
Logan was a blur of smiling visage and worried chocolate eyes that met hers in the dimly lit interior of the sumptuous car and then skittered away but not before Rory saw the one thing in those amber depths that suddenly had the world snapping sharply back into focus as if the gravity had just been turned back on.
She wasn't Batman...she was in love with Batman and from the look in his eyes it appeared that Batman was scared to death.
This put an entirely new spin on her inner monologue. Rory sipped contemplatively and pictured a far removed Logan Huntzberger. She was remembering the first time she'd run into him so serendipitously. She saw his teasing, taunting brown eyes, the cocky smirk that quirked the corner of what was admittedly a superior mouth, the graceful ego with which he wore the nonsensical combination of smooth designer chic and a tousle of stylishly unkempt blonde hair that said he was simply to hip to waste time on such niceties as a comb. He was beautiful and cold, polished, everything she hated about status, money, privilege and he wore the mantle of power too well to deny his rightful place as the scion of greatness. She found him condescending, irritating, infuriating and intriguing in the very first sentences uttered.
She'd wanted to dislike him, to dismiss him but at every turn he presented her with the unexpected. First the LDB event and then the suspiciously sweet yet self-serving deal wrangled at her grandparent's ill-fated party, the scavenger hunt, the nights of deep dark confessions, the whimsical moments where she saw the sensitive, smart Logan that she guessed that few others were acquainted with. With every word and nuance he was a conundrum, twisting her words and her mind into knots with effortless ease until she didn't know which way was up and she'd forgotten exactly why she'd ever thought he was the enemy. They'd danced those intricate steps, backward, forward, circling until the world outside his arms had seemed to blur into something unfathomable and the only real things were his arms, his lips, his eyes. It was surely a form of insanity so complete that now she'd gone and done the unthinkable... she'd fallen in love with the boy that she had yearned to hate.
He repelled her in the same breath that he drew her in, but draw her in he had and she remembered now suddenly how many times in the last weeks that she had been the one balking at forward motion. He had been the voice of the adventurer and she the skeptic. He had been the one pushing her one reluctant step at a time around the next corner towards the unknown. In the grand scheme he'd probably won more stages of this Tour de Feeling they were on. So, did it really matter so much that she'd burst through the ribbon at the finish line a step ahead of him? Did it really matter who stuck their neck out there first if they were out on the limb together already?
There was the answer she was waiting for, so blinding in its simplicity that Forrest Gump could have chided her for her stupidity.
No. It didn't matter even the slightest bit. Much as it might shock anyone who knew her to here her say it, in the end, words weren't all there was in life. Words could dress up to play the part but actions ruled the stage in a true love story. His words might have failed him but in all fairness she could find no fault with Logan's actions. He was here now despite her instant attempts to push him away at what she perceived as rejection. He was suffering in clear agony over how to make things right when really he hadn't done anything wrong.
Suddenly it seemed humorous, like the plot of some Chekhov play that she should even be in the role of judge and jury when she herself had so often sat at the defendants table. She should trust her heart on this one and tell her brain to shove a sock in it for once.
Logan's mind was spinning faster and faster on that edge of slipping right out of his control and running away with him. He was at war with himself and it was a battle to the death. One half said run away from the girl who threatened his sanity, his carefully built world, his heart, the other half said it was far far too late to run, that he'd been a goner from the instant they'd jumped off a six story building together, maybe sooner, that for better or worse his heart was way past the point of no return and thank god for that this braver half said, wise up it said, grab all that beautiful gleaming hope and love and hold on tight. He was caught in the crosshairs between old habits and new emotions and consequently he sat frozen to his spot and tipped his glass in some vain hope of finding the right words at the bottom of the alcoholic deluge.
He staunchly avoided Rory's eyes and drained the glass as he thought sadly of all the glib inferences of affection that had slipped so easily from his tongue when it least mattered and wondered if he'd used up his lifetime supply. He seemed to have a dearth of words now when he most desired them. He wished almost perversely for the days when Rory had considered him the enemy, across battle lines he was never at a loss for a witty repartee and there they were on equal footing. Here suddenly even surrounded as he was by reminders of his own position he was out of his element, off balance and decidedly at a disadvantage. He had a feeling she was the one who had figured out the Rubik's cube and all the answers were lined up before her in a nice color coordinated pattern while he felt a little like Lloyd Christmas suddenly caught in the hot seat for final Jeopardy.
It seemed he stood ages and ages hence and looked back at that path he had chosen, the instinct that had pushed him into new and unexplored territory and now he wondered... what he should have wondered back then...what happened once you got the Gilmore Girl? He looked up and was transfixed by the look in Rory's sea blue eyes. Logan had rather egotistically relished the role of mentor, teacher, opener of doors and illuminator of new horizons, the master to Rory's apprentice but he felt that his role had suddenly been usurped. The student had become the teacher; the ugly duckling had become the swan and sailed on into the peaceful water leaving him behind, land locked and without a clue as to how to swim in this new sea of emotion. He felt naked without words but it seemed that all the right ones had deserted him en masse and he was left with only combinations that felt all wrong.
Rory stared straight into those warm cocoa eyes and knew two things that she hadn't known mere moments before. She knew one day Logan Huntzberger would show her a part of himself that no one else had ever seen. She also knew that she did not want today to be that day. She didn't want to hear stilted words colored with self-reproach, not now, not like this after the passage of too many tension wracked minutes and the ebbing of the moment of impulsive truth into the moment of pained evident truth. It was too perfect, too unreal, too much the makings of a romance scene in a movie, the warm cozy limo, the champagne, the flurry of softly white that floated magically by outside the tempered glass panes of the black behemoth as it skimmed through the night.
She had to put a stop to this inanity before it lapsed into insanity and she took a page out of the elder Lorelai's well-researched book to do it.
Gilmore Girl rule number 25b: When faced with a crisis ramble aimlessly until you've drug them so far into the illogical maze that they have no idea where they started.
She held Logan's gaze for a long, stretching moment. Then she smiled. Just a curving of lips at first but she let it bloom like a delicate flower opening to the morning sun. It felt good. Then she said the first thing that popped into her mind and came tumbling off her agile tongue.
"Do you have a bat suit?"
Logan had been so focused on practicing his own speech that this abrupt interruption left him blinking and sputtering like a boat motor that was flooded after a too quick turn. His eyebrows drew together and he had to blink again when his perplexed eyes met Rory's intently curious expression. "A what?"
"A bat suit, you know black full body rubber get up that Batman wears." She gestured wither her hands pantomiming a body covering suit and nearly spilling her champagne in the process as he continued to give her a mystified look. She continued in a blandly conversational tone. "I always liked Batman, he was my second favorite of the superheroes, after Clark Kent the man in glasses, you see the cool thing about Batman was that he really wasn't all that super, I mean he wasn't an Incredible or a mutant or a mad scientist with super human strength or some magic talent, he was really just a normal guy who used creativity and ingenuity and well okay a lot of money to make a difference in the world." She tilted her head to one side and considered him as if mentally measuring him for the role of human bat. "You'd make a pretty good Batman actually. I mean you are no Michael Keaton but you could give Val Kilmer a run for his money."
He sputtered at this his mind finally engaging and grinding gears in an attempt to catch up with her rambling chatter "Excuse me?"
She looked askance at him with a raised eyebrow as if shocked by his interruption "If you ask me you have all the qualifications." She held up a hand and ticked off a list "You're rich, you have an unfortunate penchant for blondes, you're a master at that mysterious smile thing, you already have a limo, you are perfection in a tuxedo..." she paused an eyed him with a slight flush to her cheeks and a wicked glimmer in her eyes as if she were savoring the next words "and I'm thinking that if you wore a Bat suit I might have to take up karate to keep the competition away."
This comment wrung another shocked blink from him and he suddenly felt as if a banquet size table had just been turned and he was at a distinct disadvantage in this mysterious game they were playing. His eyebrows drew together. "I thought Gilmore Girls didn't participate in physical activity."
"Protection of property is considered an exception to the rules, that was amendment number 45." She gave him a little sidelong glance and was pleased to see that her distraction technique seemed to be working. He looked completely buffaloed as if perhaps she had just dropped out of the sky and started explaining the expanded rules of Brockian Ultra-Cricket. Her mother would be so proud.
He seemed to be struggling with this newest bit of information. "So now I get to choose between being a grown man who dresses up like a nocturnal flying rodent and is only your second favorite superhero or a time share in Maui?"
"Not what I really meant by property but for the record, I don't' like to share and I'd really prefer a Park Avenue Penthouse. Not everyone can be Superman. Besides, bats are pretty cool actually, you know you shouldn't be insulted, Despite their unfortunate association with Dracula and the strange myth that they are, well...blind as bats, they are actually quite smart, are incredible hunters, have incredible hearing and eyesight, hardly ever have rabies and I don't think they really suck people's blood... most of the time. Not that I ever want to meet a real bat up close and personal but really the whole idea of being a human version of a bat is actually quite flattering.
He gathered his now thoroughly scattered wits as he regarded her with a look that suggested that she had a few screws loose where it mattered most and cast a cursory glance at her champagne glass wondering just how much of the expensive tonic she had managed to imbibe while he was stumbling around in shocked corridors of his brain. Strangely enough her glass was still a quarter of the way full and he could have sworn it was her first. "Have you been watching National Geographic again?"
She gave him a slightly pouty look "It's not my fault. Paris is addicted... she seriously needs a twelve step program or something, the only way to avoid it would be for me to move."
He closed his eyes and allowed a grudging smile to creep over his lips as humor trickled into his voice "So...I'm Batman?"
She finished a last sip of champagne and held it out for more. "Well it was either that or a sexy bad guy but I just didn't think you had the lunacy chops to compete with Jack Nicholson as the Joker or Jim Carrey as the Riddler. Now maybe Finn could give them a run for their money but you have more of that mysterious secret identity thing going for you."
He took a deep sip of his own champagne and then shook his head in wordless chagrin "Thanks... I think. Most of that might almost be a compliment, besides the bit about the blondes which I do have to take exception to given my current company."
"Okay, I'll grant you forbearance on that one. A dispensation of sorts for past lapses in judgment." She grinned and as far as he could tell it was completely without guile, which made him even more suspicious of her motives in this wacky conversation.
After his glaring gaffe earlier he had expected anger, accusations or at the very least heavy silence wrought with unspoken hurt instead he got nonsensical amusing ramblings about movie trivia and giggling glances. If he weren't faced with one of the least scheming females in his acquaintance he would almost have sworn that she was trying to distract him from the Dumbo impersonator in the corner.
He cast a glance at her taking in the slightly wicked smile and reconsidered. Come to think of it he suspected that was exactly what she was up to. He raised his head and his eyes snapped open and then narrowed with obvious accusation. "You changed the subject."
She cocked her head in puzzlement as if he just spoken to her in some foreign language like mumbo-jumbo. "I wasn't aware there was a subject."
He sat upright and pointed his champagne glass at her sternly "Of course there was a subject, and you know exactly what that subject was." He was glaring like a prosecuting attorney with a stubborn witness on the stand now.
She shrugged her shoulders up in an innocent little gesture of helplessness. "Sorry, I thought rules of subject change only applied when one is actually having a conversation. Out loud that is. I don't think that mental arguments with yourself count."
He looked completely nonplussed at this logic but tried again with tenacity born of a guilt-ridden conscience. She had revealed her heart to him and he had dropped it flat in the snow in the worst possible way. He owed her something more than a ride in a limo and some fancy bubbly. "Rory, I..."
She gave a tiny almost imperceptible sigh before she raised her hand still chilled from grasping the icy shoulder of her glass and let it fall lightly on his lips like a butterfly lighting on a leaf. She shook her head slowly all trace of amusement wiped from her limpid eyes and sincerity rang in her tone when she spoke. "Don't Logan. Don't say something that you might regret tomorrow."
"But..." his muffled protestation whispered past her outstretched palm and tickled the sensitive skin there but she didn't laugh. This was serious stuff.
She just shook her head slowly "Trust me Logan, none of the ways that sentence could end are good. Look, what I said...that I ...love you." She nearly tripped over the words but forced them past her suddenly flummoxed tongue with determination "I meant it but it surprised me too. It just sort of slipped out and then there was no taking it back. I never meant for it to be a game of one upmanship though." She looked at him with pleading eyes and he was startled to see something almost apologetic in her sea blue gaze "I'm glad you know even though I'm not sure if you were ready to know. Sometimes it feels like I've known you forever but then I think about how much this past few months have seemed to pass in a flash. It's early still. We have fun together, we open new worlds to each other and I know you care about me. That is enough for now. I don't want you to make promises or hand me pieces of yourself that you aren't ready to let go of out of obligation or guilt. Someday when you say it I want it to be unrehearsed and completely without prompting."
He searched her eyes for doubt, blame, anger, and disappointment and saw nothing but affection. Apparently she meant it and he suddenly felt lighter and giddy with relief. He raised an eyebrow "When?"
She gave him a small smile "What can I say, I'm an eternal optimist." The smile deepened a little "Besides, I have historical precedence on my side, Gilmore's almost always get their guy."
She withdrew her hand and he felt a little clutch in the vicinity of his heart, a heart that he had no doubt in his mind belonged to her, if only he could force those heartfelt words past old barriers built of fear. He tried one last time. "Rory..."
She stopped him with a look "They are just words Logan. They don't matter. Not tonight. You're here, I'm here and we have no schoolwork breathing down our necks like an evil prison warden. We have this fancy car and this extravagant beverage just waiting to be drunk. What do you say we put away the long faces for another day and call this whole night a do over."
He shook his head in amazement and then swallowed the words that were just words but meant so much more than a mere collection of letters. He smiled finally a wry smile of acceptance and lifted the champagne bottle to refill their glasses. Her smile half relief and half triumph bloomed as he set aside the bottle and raised his glass to clink it against hers. "To do overs."
She grinned and tipped her glass before giving him a playful wink "You be Bruce Wayne, I'll be Vicky Vale and we'll pretend that you just saved me from that nasty Joker fellow."
"I think you're more of Chase Meridian type myself. Brainy girl who likes to overanalyze her potential suitors."
She bequeathed him a narrow eyed look "Be careful what you wish for bat boy."
He raised both hands in surrender "I think I'll just shut up now and kiss you."
At her inviting smile he took her now empty champagne glass and set it next to his before doing just as promised. Letting his lips slide over hers still damp with droplets of champagne and felt the weight of worry and guilt lift from his shoulders. She loved him. That realization was still roiling inside him bringing to light whole new realms of unexplored emotion but for now all he wanted was to feel her next to him. Her warmth, her love, her acceptance of him complete with insecurities and imperfections. The world outside the frost glass was forgotten as he sunk into her honey sweet mouth. "Mmmm, I could kiss you forever." His voice was thin and reedy like he'd run too far at too high an altitude.
She pulled back a hairbreadth and chuckled a little breathlessly against his lips "Hope that promise still holds after you meet the residents of the zoo I call home."
Logan just snorted, "I think you're making a big thing out of nothing. I'm with FDR when he said 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'"
Rory looked skeptical "I'm pretty sure FDR never met Miss Patty."
Logan's old smirk was firmly in place as he raised an eyebrow "We Brigadiers never run from a challenge."
Rory shook her head sadly "Said Jonah to the Whale."
"Well, I guess if I'm about to meet my maker or see the inside of a gargantuan mammal you had better at least make my last moments worth while," he gave her a suggestive wink.
"Its the least I could do for a doomed man." She leaned closer to him and set out to explore this new strange new land.
After a long moment Logan surfaced for a breath and pushed a button on the door panel. "Let's take the scenic route Frank." He turned back to Rory as he felt the car swing in a right turn. "What do you say we stay the execution for a bit."
Rory jsut nodded and looked him with a mischevious smile before she crooked her finger at him "Come here lover boy."
