Chapter 33

"Hey, there you are, Ace!" Logan greeted Rory as she returned to his dorm room that afternoon after she got back from Stars Hollow. Logan had his laptop open on his knees and as a rare sight he seemed to be working on something. Rory often wondered how he got things done, hardly ever seeing him hard at work, studying for his midterms or exams.

Rory was still a little tired from the day, the short night's sleep and the urgency of that morning which she'd pulled through on adrenaline like some emergency situation.

"Hey," Rory replied, and bent down to kiss him in greeting. Logan casually slipped his hand around her thighs as she did. "Thanks for the car. I fed Frank a nice sandwich and he's all ready to go," Rory replied, straightening her back, determined no to let Logan pull her into his life of leisure and frivolous fun right now.

"You're awfully formal tonight," Logan commented, looking up. "Everything okay with your mom?" he asked.

"Yeah. She's not so good, heartbroken. It was good that I went though. But I just think I should take a small step back and try to catch up on my studying. I have so much work to do," Rory explained, rubbing her forehead.

"Why don't you study here?" Logan suggested lightly, continuing to stroke up and down the back her thigh soothingly. His touch was so addictive.

"I have most of my books at my suite and I just…," Rory began, being very tempted to take him up on his offer, still not believing how a guy like him was not yet sick of her. "It's distracting… okay? I can't get any real work done like this when all I think about is taking that sweater off of you," Rory admitted quickly like ripping off a bandaid.

"I'm sorry?" Logan said, unsure what else to say, along with a withheld chuckle.

"You know what I mean..," Rory groaned.

"I am just going out of town tomorrow and I won't be around until this weekend… maybe even not before Sunday, I'm not sure yet," Logan explained, stopping the caressing for now.

"Oh," Rory reacted, disappointedly.

While she indeed needed to study and she was trying very hard not to take Lorelai's or even Marty's words into heart, she was trying to apply some self control and not allow this relationship to influence her person. The person who was studious, got good grades and met all her deadlines. She felt as if she couldn't give Lorelai the excuse to blame Logan for her drop in academic merits.

"Some friends of mine from Andover are coming to visit and we're meeting up in the City. I'm showing them around, giving them THE tour - I have a million things planned. We have the whole Signature Suit at The Mark, there'd be plenty of space for you to come, even if you think you could squeeze it. Colin and Finn are dropping by towards the end of the week and everything," Logan explained, almost as if now he felt he had to answer to Rory, and for that Rory was kind of grateful, even if he hadn't specified whether the friends he spoke of were just guys or also girls. While the trust she felt for him was significantly stronger than would've been assumed for a relationship as fresh as this, she still worried some girl might get ideas if she wasn't present.

"That sounds very tempting, but I don't think I can..," Rory replied reluctantly.

"You can join us any time if you change your mind," Logan encouraged.

"I have so much to do. School's hard. We can't all be naturally born geniuses like you, can we?" Rory complained, there being just a hint of criticism, or perhaps a hint of envy, of how easily things came to him.

"Yale's supposed to be hard," Logan replied. "And I'm no genius. I just don't aim so high. Mediocre suffices for me. I focus on the things that interest me and do the rest so I pass," Logan explained.

"Yeah, still…," Rory put on a cute little pout.

"I'll miss you," Logan chimed, getting up to face her. He wrapped his palm around her face and kissed her.

"You're making this really hard..," Rory mumbled at close proximity.

"I'll come see you as soon as I'm back then, okay?" Logan suggested, easing up on the seductivity, despite being tempted to tease her even more.

"You better," Rory stated, and kissed him once more, letting the open mouthed, hungry, kiss linger for a minute.

"Now you're really making it hard," Logan murmured with a smirk, definitely carrying a double meaning, as she pulled apart.

Leaving his dorm suit was one of the hardest things she'd done in a while. A week - she could hand a week, couldn't she? She certainly wasn't going to have distractions, which was kind of good. But that temptation to just turn around and tell him she'd drop everything and jump on board for another adventure with him was magnetic.

The week passed indeed productively - Rory caught up with her homework and finished a pretty big story for the paper she was actually proud of. Her mother came to visit on Friday night since Emily and Richard were both out of town for various functions, and they had dinner amongst themselves at the school cafeteria. Frankly, Rory wasn't sure she wanted to face her grandmother now considering the background story she'd heard from her mother.

Nothing much had happened dinner, except Lorelai noting how Marty passed them without so much as a hello, which Rory would much rather not explain to her because that now had not only to do with her not liking him back but also her seeing Logan. The two would have certainly been able to form a club on that.

"So what have you been doing, if you're no longer hanging out with Paris or Marty much?" Lorelai asked at dinner.

"I study, I study and then after a little study break, I study," Rory explained, not wanting to say that had it been an ordinary week she could've easily supplemented that with a - "I have sex, I have sex, and after a little fuel break, I have sex."

Logan had skillfully kept up his teasing from afar, however, naughy texting still being their favorite game whilst not around each-other.

"This bed would look a hell of a lot better with you laying there dressed in that black lacy set you know I love," Logan texted just as Rory and her mother were enjoying a scoop of ice cream. This was an era before nude selfies, but Rory could already picture Logan in the nude or half-dressed, stroking himself as he was there thinking of her in her mind instead.

Lorelai certainly noticed Rory blushing a little.

"What?" Lorelai asked.

"Oh, just Logan," she replied, trying to think of something unsexy. Her Chilton history teacher Mr. Ness plucking her chin hair. Doing dishes. Tom, the construction guy, with his butt crack showing while he was bent down. Yup, that did it.

"So how is he? What's he up to?" Lorelai tried to sound supportive. Maybe she was indeed giving him a chance?

"He's in the city this week with some friends who are visiting. He asked me to join but I had a lot to do…," Rory complained.

"Wow, he's living a pretty different life, that guy," Lorelai commented but not too condesendingly.

Rory shrugged, not wanting to get into it.

They soon made it out of there, ice creams in their hands, and realized soon enough as they got outside, that ice cream wasn't nearly as much fun when it was this cold. But overall they parted on good terms.

Rory walked her mother back to her Jeep and they said their goodbyes, leaving Rory with a pretty good feeling about it - at least she hadn't said anything too horrible about Logan this time and Rory hoped she would see that she too had some backbone, and wouldn't jump after Logan's every whim.

When she got back to her room, however, she suddenly was overcome by a sense a panic.

"Where is it?" she mumbled as she looked through one pocket after another. She found her phone, her Yale ID and a number of other things of no importance, but no key. She'd either locked herself out or she'd simply lost her key. She couldn't remember which it was - she had been a little distracted when Lorelai had come over but she usually never forgot something like that. Sure, there had been a rather distracting text from Logan around that time too - so it was entirely possibly this had been a first.

"Oh, man," Rory groaned, audibly. She began to go through her pockets one more time and in her head she began to trace her steps. Paris, as usual, was at some family event like she often was during the weekends.

"You lost your key or something?" A sudden voice asked.

Rory turned and saw Marty who'd been just coming down the stairs, possibly heading for dinner.

"I swear I had it," Rory grumbled, beginning to panic a little.

"Where did you last see it?" Marty asked.

"I might have left it inside or… I don't know… The dining hall I guess?" Rory replied.

"Come on, let's trace your steps," Marty suggested, appearing surprisingly neutral right now, almost as if nothing had ever gone wrong between them. But then again supposedly he did owe her one.

For about an hour they walked around campus, stopping briefly so Marty could grab his meal, the entire time keeping topics observatory and neutral. But there was no key in sight. They went up to Marty's room to look up the supervisor's number to call to have someone come over to open it.

"It might be a few hours," Rory commented, as she came off the phone. "I guess I better go study or something, the library is still open..," Rory shrugged, beginning to accept her homeless faith for the evening. Though it kind of sucked still, considering she had no assignments with her so she wouldn't exactly know what to study for, nor did she have anything to take notes on but she just assumed she'd find some sheet of paper and a pencil somewhere.

"Or you could just hang out here for a while," Marty suggested.

Rory didn't know what to think, say or do at that suggestion. "And it's not too against your principles to have me stay here even if I hang out with people that you don't like?" Rory replied, tentatively. She didn't want to hear another lecture about how horrible Logan or his buddies were or how many girls they'd bedded.

"I promise it's fine… we can just watch a movie or something. I have Duck Soup," Marty offered.

"I guess that'd be fine," Rory replied. Truthfully it wasn't even that big of a deal that she'd spend the evening doing something other than studying, she was well on track by now, having used the Logan-less time to put pedal to the metal on those fronts as if anticipating her time to be filled very nicely once he got back. It was just the awkwarness factor now that made her hesitate.

"I don't have many snacks right now, except for some pretzels," Marty replied apologetically as they headed upstairs.

Rory had never been to his room in this building. It was a small step upwards as now he actually had a private room, much like she did, and the interior was not so overcrowded by his room-mate's posters of pretty girls and motorcycles. Instead he had an Elvis Costello, "Confederacy of Dunces" and a "Attack of the 50th Foot Woman" poster along with a few others. He did have a collection of model cars, which was kind of boyish, but this was no news to Rory - besides she was not there with intentions of dating him.

Just like last year, they quickly fell back into a comfortable banter as they watched the movie and snacked on pretzels and a half a pack of peanuts Marty had discovered as a surprise. Rory would've gladly offered to order pizza or something but her wallet was in her room too.

Their topics remained casual, Marty telling her a little about his situation with his father, and Rory a little about the craziness of her hometown - just like they had last year. There was a moment of awkwardness when their hands touched while reaching for another pretzel, causing Marty to pull back with a jolt. So Rory was definitely a little more aware now that potentially the guy had feelings for her. She tried to watch her words and body language, not to give him any ideas.

"I guess I should probably call the super again," Rory said, yawningly, glancing at Marty's watch.

But as Rory came off the phone her mind was already thinking of plans C and D. "There is a burst pipe in another building so I'm not exactly their biggest priority right now," Rory sighed.

She thought about calling Logan, but didn't want him to start pulling all kinds of strings but enjoy time with his friends. She could well imagine him sending a car to pick her up or bribe the supervisor. She didn't have her car keys either. Another alternative would've been to call her mother, but she didn't want to be this person anymore who cried for mommy at the first sign of trouble. Besides, she still hoped that at some point the supervisor would indeed show up. She tried to think through all of her other friends in the building and consider maybe there was someone she could crash with for the night.

"Hey, if it comes to it, you can spend the night," Marty said, gesturing at the pull-out armchair he had in his room. She'd dozed off in his room before, but that was before things had gotten awkward, and already Rory wasn't quite comfortable like this, but this indeed seemed like the most convenient option.

"I really don't want to put you out," Rory said.

It was getting pretty late and Rory had been yawning for a while already, so she almost believed it'd be better just to try to get some sleep - less awkward certainly than staying up and staying clear of awkward topics. And after she made a quick trip to the bathroom, Marty loaned her one of his pillows and a comforter. She only really took off her jeans and tucked her legs quickly underneath the blanket, and snuggled into the armchair, hoping all would be solved tomorrow.

In the dark, her phone beeped, however.

"Sorry," Rory whispered, and quickly glanced at her phone in the shadow of the armchair, not wanting to bother Marty.

It was a message from Logan and his seductive one-liner - "Can't wait to be inside of you again. Your nippled between my list...,"

Rory really did not want to be getting all turned on, despite her core already beginning to tingle at the thought, while she was in Marty's room, and she shot back quickly - "Miss you too. Good night..." And she just felt relieved it was dark and the blush on her cheeks wasn't visible.

Thankfully she fell asleep pretty quickly or else the evening would've been an awkward one, spent thinking about what the other was thinking. Rory realized that had she not met Logan at spring break she might have actually considered Marty. For a split second she wondered what he'd be like in bed. It was just a thought, not something she was considering. But right now she could hardly imagine actually doign it with anyone else than Logan... even with Dean it had been such a dissapointment in comparison. She was pretty sure one couldn't fake chemistry like that... even if one was experienced. With Marty she just didn't feel that spark - there was nothing.

So in the morning Rory was utterly relieved to hear her phone ring. But instead of it being the supervisor, it was Logan.

"Yeah?" Rory picked up drowsily, glancing briefly over to Marty's bed and ajusted her volume seeing him just beginning to wake as well.

"Hey, Ace? Where are you? I'm at your door," Logan said, cheerily. Rory then noticed that it was already 10 o'clock.

"Um… I'm locked out… I'll be right down," she replied, sleepiness still evident in her tone.

"Was that the super?" Marty asked, from beneath his sheets.

"No, that was Logan..," Rory replied, hesitantly. She wasn't going to lie, was she?

"Right," Marty replied, not quite rolling his eyes but definitely with that 'Of course it is' reluctance to his tone.

"Thanks for letting me crash," Rory replied and quickly pulled her jeans up.

"Sure, no problem," Marty replied.

Rory slipped out of his room and made her way down the stairs, checking whether she had morning breath. After all she hadn't brushed her teeth neither last night or this morning. It wasn't horrible, but still she just wanted to get into her room already.

"Hey? What are you doing up there?" Logan inquired, knowing from a longtime excursion around the building for one of Finn's long lost sheila's that technically only the first floor was girls'.

"My old friend Marty let me crash on his spare… armchair or whatever…," Rory explained.

"So, what? You're locked out?" Logan inquired, giving her a kiss in greeting. "Didn't you call the supervisor?" he asked.

"I did, but they had some burst pipe last night…Maybe they came, but I was too tired…so," Rory explained with a shrug.

"I'll make a call, don't worry. You wanna head over to my place until then?" Logan set into problem solving mode and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, protectively.

"Um, sure… I just wanna go buy a toothbrush first," Rory replied, humbly.

"If that's what you want… but I can tell you I really don't care..," Logan said with a broad smirk, pulling her flush up against him, and kissed her again.