AN: Thanks for all the reviews.
reply to js: it doesn't say anywhere that Logan was obnoxiously rich in himself London. I mean he was well-off, sure, probably making a very decent salary which resulted in some decent savings. Logan may or may not have owned some stock back then, but I think he just wanted to get rid of that. And as for accepting his dad's inheritance I went by what I know as in where I live you have to accept the inheritance as a whole - you can't just take the money and leave everything else, including obligations. He doesn't want the HPG and I think he's still not fully ready to accept the rest either, because he believes it is that fortune that made him that unhappy (choosing that over love). And as for divorce - he gave Odette pretty much all she wanted, more than half just to get out of it quickly. I'm not saying he's skint, but there is certainly a lot of his own savings he's already put into his company, but it's something for him and Rory to discuss in the future.
Some other have said too that Logan should just embrace the family money "he deserves" but I don't really see there being anything wrong with having less than all of that. I mean if he sells the Vineyard house he'll have plenty for a new house and more, if he can manages his money right. That's a small (big?) fortune alone (and that was a big house on the coast, despite it being old - waterfront properties of that size seem to go upwards from 3 million around there).
Chapter 77
December 10th, 2021
The week passed quickly, because Rory continued to have a lot of work to do. The final strech. She also found it to be a relief that Logan had found himself some alternate things to do to keep himself occupied. He knew all about working late, hence he was very understanding about the whole thing, but she still got the hesitation in him - he didn't really understand why she was doing it. And his hesitation made her doubt it too. But he was kind - he didn't complain or make her feel bad about working. Among other things he'd met up with Tristan again and gone to play ping pong, finally discovering something he was rather rusty in, it having been since high school since he'd played it last to kill time. She knew this because she still texted every day with him, and had added a few video calls into their routine as well.
They were definitely present in each-others lives even if not being right there at hand's reach, but they both knew that this was probably what taking things slow was like. Besides, Rory could already now, as she was hanging up her coat at her mother's house, see the minutes move towards the moment she'd have Logan for the entire weekend again. Two hours and thrity two minutes. Not a bad prospect.
She even needed to caution herself a little not to hurry the Friday Night Dinner along, as her mother could always tell, having invented the game, and she didn't want Em to feel like she was wanting to just hand her over to Jess quickly. She just needed hang in there a while longer.
Em was already off, playing with Robin, and her mother had had to make a quick hop over to Babette's to help her out with something or other. So Rory knew that this moment was probably going to be it to get Luke talking, sensing he'd been avoiding her and the sensitive topics for the past few weeks.
"So how's life been, Luke? Haven't seen you in a while," Rory asked, innocently, leaning against the doorway of her childhood bedroom.
"Ah, you know me… same old," Luke sighed, and continued to season the dish.
Rory cast a glance towards the living room, already seeing how Em had helped herself to her cartoons on TV and continued to scratch Robin's neck at the same time, cozily.
"Is that showerhead of yours still working alright?" Luke asked, casually, having changed it sometime in the September. Clearly he was struggling with the small-talk.
"Yeah, it's perfect," Rory replied, feeling thankful, reading Luke very well that he was being avoidant. "I've been actually thinking of selling the place. But definitely not because of the showerhead," Rory added, feeling like she needed to edge towards the sensitive topic somehow.
"Oh wow! Why?" Luke asked, perhaps a little naively.
"I think it's time, you know," Rory said, feeling like she was repeating this phrase in a lot of situations these days. "I just think we might something a little bigger, you know… so Logan could move in with us eventually," she replied, whispering the latter not to drop the bomb on Em like that, and also to let Luke in on the fact. She wasn't planning on outright hiding it from Em, but she hoped that Christmas holiday at Nantucket would be a good chance for Em to experience what living with Logan was like, that it was fun and nothing she needed to worry about, hopefully setting a good steady foundation into saying that that was one of the reasons they'd look for a new place soon.
"Oh..," Luke exhaled again, pretending to focus on stirring the chili, which looked done already.
"I mean... I mean not straight away, but it is what we're moving towards," she assured, wanting to make it crystal clear to Luke.
"Right...," Luke exhaled, but there was just something in the way his jaw tightened up so Rory could tell he wasn't happy about the news.
"I'm sensing you have an opinion that you've been holding in," Rory decided to ask, not liking this tip-toeing.
Luke was clearly struggling, beginning to say something and then retracting, the chili having already been stirred time and time again. Could a chili be stirred too much?
"I get that you love Jess. And I will always love him too… but it just wasn't right. We're through," Rory added, humbly, keeping her voice down.
"I just think you're making a mistake," Luke confessed with a deep exhale.
"Excuse me?" Rory responded, not having expecte him to be quite that straightforward.
"Um…," he began to explain again, choosing his words. "The lobster might look great, smell great, taste great… but it also goes bad fast. With a kid… you just can't lean on something like that," Luke explained, speaking in code.
Rory huffed, rolling her eyes. His code was rather hilarious too, but she wasn't laughing.
"He's not the same guy, Luke," Rory said, being rather sick of saying that. Sure, she would've liked not having to defend his past actions, especially because he was far from being the only one ever to made a mistake in their relationship. Hers were just hidden better. "Just like Jess today isn't the same guy he was in high school. You've seen how people change! Jess has changed. You've changed too!" Rory said, recalling the time Lorelai had told her about Luke's ramble about people not being meant to mate for life when they installed the traffic light.
Luke was stepping around frustratedly, it was clear as day.
"I'll believe it when I see it… I just don't want…," he began, but didn't finish his thought.
He didn't want to see Rory getting hurt? Jess getting hurt… Em…What?
"Well see it then, I have nothing against showing it, him, us... to you. You haven't seen him at his best always, but there's a lot you don't know about him. He hasn't had it easy these past few years," Rory continued.
"He's a man that's gotten everything handed to him. His family has treated you awfully, and as far as I've heard from your mother he never treated you right either. And now you're just falling to his lap…," Luke said, his tone rising.
"What….?" Rory replied, weakly and in disbelief. She couldn't believe her ears.
"His marriage doesn't pan out, he just swoops back into town and assumes you're just waiting for him? And you just… let him. I can't believe you're okay with being his second choice, his fall-back," Luke said, his voice raising involuntarily.
"That's not what this is!" Rory objected, shaking her head, her idea of a quiet little clearing of the air having turned into a shout-out.
Rory was just about to say something more, when she was interrupted.
"Mommy, why are you fighting?" came a weak voice from the other doorway, Rory having not realized how loud this had gotten.
"Oh, we're just debating a movie, it's okay," Rory fibbed, crouching to her level, desperately trying to hold back her tears. And they hadn't even gotten to the topic of custody yet. Rory was sure Luke had even more opinions on that matter. But right now she just wanted to get away from there. She couldn't believe Luke had said that, literally blaming her for being cheap or weak... she did't even know exactly but either way it had made her feel awful, knowing he thought that of her.
At the next moment Lorelai came through the front door, blabbering something or other about having nearly gotten sprayed by a stray cat outside.
"What's all this?" Lorelai asked, stepping into a quiet room, the awkwardness being evident.
"You know, I'm not feeling that great to be honest," Rory said. "Em do you want to stay here for dinner or do you want me to take you straight to dad's? I should just go home and lay down or something," she said, assuming that it would've been fine with Lorelai to drop Em off if it came to it.
Lorelai encouraged Em to stay, promising ice cream with chocolate syrup later on, but was definitely also giving Luke a very angry eye even without knowing what was up in detail.
Rory hugged Em in goodbye, promising to see her on Sunday, and assuring her again that everything was going to be okay, not underestimating Em's ability to read her almost tear-flooding eyes, having been unable to hold them back completely.
She made it all the way to her car, and quickly drove to the outskirts of town, before she pulled up on the side of the road and let the waterworks fall.
She knew Luke wasn't right, but seeing him so full of anger, and his insinuations that she was just being played by Logan did hurt. She knew that Logan was her weak spot and that everything had just gone so quickly. The minute he'd been there for her, saying that he was interested - she had been the one to jump, despite keeping on telling herself that they were going slow. The truth was they were moving faster than he'd even insisted, it was her hurrying things along. She was perhaps too forgiving even, but she no longer cared, perhaps she was even desperate for Logan, feeling like he was her lifeline, like after all these years she was feeling alive again. Was that really what a relationship should be built on? she briefly wondered.
But against feeling the need to simply go and wallow at home in bed, she did drive over to Logan's that evening, having become very decisive about trying to do the opposite of what she felt, as those decisions based on avoidance had never worked in the past.
"You're early!" Logan said, as he opened the door for her. He wasn't complaining, his words being just a statement.
"I had a fight with Luke, I left early," she confessed and continued to tell him what had happened. She was past the crying, but still upset.
After several minutes of unwinding in front of Logan, Logan finally felt he needed to say something.
"You know, I never came here daring to hope you'd still be up to giving us another try. I really just came to apologize," Logan said. "You know that right?" he added.
"I guess," she replied. She was no longer crying, but the traces of her earlier crying still showed on her reddened eyes.
"I'd like that uncertainty in your tone to turn into something more solid," Logan said with concern. Maybe this was something they needed to bring up in therapy?
"I know, I do know," Rory assured, just regretting her earlier choice of words.
"Just know that I am not taking you for granted. I never expected to get this chance again," Logan continued.
"I know, I know...," Rory assured, holding onto his arms as he held her. "I just felt like he was accusing me for making bad decisions, doubting my sanity, me being flaky or cheap... I don't know even. And it really hurt," Rory explained. "I get that he doesn't trust you but he also doesn't really know you and I just think he won't even give you a chance, unlike my mother who is at least humouring me," she added. "I just don't understand why he is so reluctant to see it as something bigger than just me throwing myself at you. Because that's not what I am doing, I swear," Rory added, almost beginning to sense how her early proposal might come off that way.
"Hey, even if you were - I'd embrace it," Logan said, half-jokingly, just wanting to cheer her up.
"You're just the only one who has ever made any sense to me. Jess was just like trying to patch a burst pipe with a Band-Aid and it was bound to go wrong because he wasn't you, he could never be you," she explained, having been trying to think of a good comparion for weeks now in case she ever needed to explain how it felt.
"I know just what you feel. And I know it's hard, it's hard to hear people who should have your back not support you, trust me. I've been there," he assured. And he really did. "But you have to believe that we'll get through this," he continued. "I love you, Rory. I'm not going anywhere and I will keep proving it to him and whomever else, for as long as it takes that I was the one making a mistake, how much I regretted that mistake and how I am sticking around as long as you'll have me," he said, confidently.
"You weren't the only one making the mistake, Logan," Rory argued, knowing this had been very much two-sided.
"I don't care...as long as I have you I really don't care," he added.
"I love you, Logan," Rory said, and hugged him, needing to feel him.
This was not how Rory had wanted to see this evening go. She had had this whole plan of picking up some snacks and watching a movie together, maybe even going out to the movies or something. She didn't want to start the weekend off with this type of drama, but here they were.
A few moments later Rory pulled apart, and sighed deeply, trying to move her body so that it would relax making rounds with her shoulders. She just wanted to shake the negativity off of her.
"The worst part is that Em overheard us fighting," Rory explained regretfully, being not quite through her ramble. "Not all of it, but enough to know that we had a fight. I don't think she heard anything especially to do with you. But I swear if either of them ever tells her anything bad about you... I don't even know what I'll do," Rory huffed, shifting the topic slightly.
Logan could only hope they wouldn't do that. As that really would've made things difficult for him.
"I just want someone to be on our side, you know, so I wouldn't have to keep defending us," Rory replied, feeling so tired.
"Well there is my sister... and the guys," Logan reminded her.
"I know...," Rory replied with a deep sigh. One would think that by her age, her relationships would be just her problems. God, she missed her grandma right now - even if she did have her share of opinions that she didn't agree with at least she was always the one to support Logan and her, despite everything. It was also one of the reason she wanted to got to the Sandcastle.
For the first time Rory actually considered what it would be like to live somewhere other than Hartford with Em. The whole reason to be here, in Hartford, was to be close to her family and of course Jess too. But if her mother and Luke weren't ever going to be fully on board with this did, did she really want this painful reminder so close by? She didn't want Friday night dinners to become something like her mother had experienced with her own mother. An dreadded evening, putting up appearances and small talk full of underlying dissapproval.
"Now, how about we get out of here. Let's go out on our date, you look too beautiful to just stay in," Logan suggested, wanting to end the drama for the night. She deserved a break, and just enjoy what they knew they had.
Rory chuckled lightly, realizing that she probably didn't look too pretty after her emotional outburst.
"I am pretty hungry, I never got dinner," Rory admitted, sensing her stomach growl already and ran her hands over her face.
"There is this pub just down the street that has pretty good burgers," Logan suggested, deciding to stick to something simple and casual.
Rory just hugged him once more, his determinedness to wait it out, whatever this would turn into, being the most important thing for her at this minute. He was her rock.
