Chapter 53
"Hey, Al! Hey, Pete!" Rory greeted members of the Stamford Gazette's management, whose wings had just very recently been cut significantly by Mitchum with Rory sitting right next to him. "Hey, Lance," she added to the third guy who passed her.
Whilst she realized neither Mitchum of his assistant, a.k.a her, were not the favorite people at this newspaper office, she was determined to be nice and understanding with everyone. Mitchum might've not cared about hurting people's feelings - this was evident to Rory by now, but she was not brought up like that and being a decent human being had become part of her agenda, despite the difficult decisions she was witnessing.
"This goes to metro ASAP," Rory handed a manila envelope to one of the staff-assistants, Uma.
"Okay," Uma replied, taking the envelope from her hand.
In the total of five-six times Rory had now been here at the office she had this place down, feeling like if she didn't know everything, she at the very least knew exactly whom to ask. And her own assignments, protocolling, mail sorting, photocopying, sitting in and pitching in on meetings when she felt she could as well as anticipating needs, she handled like a breeze.
"Rory, if you see Patel, tell him I'm looking for him," Charlie, the office managers, requested.
"Got it!" Rory responded, continuing her walk down the row of cubicles.
"Need it back by 5:00, gentlemen," Rory requested from the IT guys as she stopped by their office.
"Thanks, beautiful," she heard, as she turned to leave.
"Manners, boys," Rory commented, smilingly, channeling her mother's ways.
"Rory, you got those obituaries?" Harry asked in passing.
"Yeah, just give me five minutes," Rory requested, wanting to do a quick re-read on her first actual editing assignment for the paper.
"Lot of dying today," Harry commented.
"I hear that," Rory replied to Harry, and noticed Raoul who said "Thank you," as she handed over the pile of photocopies.
Rory turned, noticing Patel and said, "Oh, Patel. Charlie wants to see you," delivering the message.
"You going by Audrey?" Patel asked.
"I can," Rory replied.
"Give her this," Patel said, and handed her a clipboard with some forms.
"Okay, will do," Rory chimed.
"Hey, Ace," Logan said, just stepping out of the elevator.
"Hey!" Rory exclaimed, happy to see him, but at the same time surprised. "You're early," she noted.
Living with Logan was something else. It was like every night they had their own little celebration of being together. Logan finally could show off his cooking skills and Rory just felt like she was in heaven. Also moving out of the constant negativity that came with Paris was surprisingly uplifting too. Now more and more things in their day to day were linked, they coordinated their plans even more so than before - dinners, parties, even dedicated studying hours as per Rory's request to which Logan complied to with mild reluctance, knowing Rory tended to make these inconveniences up for in no time, and especially in the bedroom.
Rory was still a little careful about certain sex positions, the one time it had hurt, having scared her a little. But since she had an appointment next week anyways, and really didn't seem to have the time in her schedule to spend a day at the ER getting an appointment which would just be awkward to explain, she just persuaded Logan, without actually saying there was an issue, to give her the lead on many things. So far, he really wasn't complaining, having gotten an incredible blow job that morning whilst in the shower. Life was good.
"Well, there's a first for everything. Where's the fire?" Logan asked, noting Rory's pace of walking. He loved seeing her like this - on the roll.
"Oh, just south of the 95. It's a four-alarm," Rory commented, taking it a little too literally. "We've got Kessler on it," Rory added.
"This is from Patel," Rory said to Audrey at the front desk.
"I'm not talking to him," Audrey replied grumpily in her hoarse voice.
"I'll tell him," Rory promised to Audrey and turned around, leaving Logan a little stunned as he was following her.
"How did you know about the fire?" Rory finally asked Logan.
"I didn't. I meant, where are you going in such a hurry?" Logan asked with a broad, amused, grin.
"Oh, I'm at half speed compared to this morning," Rory explained.
"Oh, no," she sighed, seeing her sorting station overtaken by new tasks.
"What?" Logan inquired, not quite following.
"I'm gone for five minutes and then this place becomes a dumping ground," Rory explained.
"I'm loving the totally non-generic feel of your space here," Logan commented, seeing she'd already put up little pictures and knick-knacks, which hadn't really fit in their new place. But this way Rory hadn't needed to get rid of anything. But truthfully, the departure hadn't been too dramatic, and had taken some sacrifices from Logan too.
"I have customized it somewhat," Rory shared proudly, pointing out the picture pinned on the cubicle.
"Eccentric uncle?" Logan asked, not recognizing the guy in the picture.
"Brian Eno," Rory replied.
"I was close. So let's go," Logan urged, taking a step closer to her, knowing how his closeness sometimes distracted her a little.
And oh, it did - she just was too much in her work mode still. "It's 4.30," Rory argued.
"So, cut out early!" Logan suggested. "There's nothing going on here," he added.
"We're doing our rough front page," Rory explained, as if not understanding how he could consider this 'nothing'. "We're picking out leads, our photos. It's our busiest part of the day," Rory replied, not finding the humor in any of this right now.
"So the people of Stamford don't get their paper tomorrow, they'll turn on the radio," Logan continued to tease.
"I can't go," Rory chimed.
"I know the boss," Logan offered.
"So do I," Rory shot back. In fact, Rory believed herself to be on quite good terms with Mitchum by now. Sure he was still an authority figure - a big shot guy. But Rory was not really afraid of him anymore, even if she wasn't quite there yet to confront him or disagree with him on his decisions.
"But I know how to work the boss. At least a little. I know he's somewhere in the vicinity," Logan continued.
"Who, your dad?" Rory asked.
"Can't you sense it? The flurr, the shuffle of sycophants…," Logan said, trying to give off a mysterious toe.
"Hey! Someone new. Have we been introduced?" Mitchum said, surprising to Rory, and offered his hand to shake with his son over the partition.
"Jose Canseco, post-steroids. Should be a warning to people," Logan said.
"Are you keeping Rory from her work?" Mitchum asked Logan.
"I was just about to call security," Rory commented, rolling her eyes playfully.
"Does everyone know about the…," Mitchum began, aiming the question towards Rory as if the ending was self-evident.
"Noon on Friday, main conference room, come with your game," Rory repeated the instructions she'd passed on to everyone relevant.
"Good," Mitchum replied, approvingly. "You call your mother about the Vineyard?" Mitchum asked.
"She's on my list," Logan replied, causing Rory to muse over how reluctant she knew Logan to be about calling her mother, especially these past few weeks.
"Push him on that, won't you?" Mitchum suggested, aiming the message to Rory. "I'm going to four if you want to catch up," he added.
"Okay," Rory agreed, and they watched Mitchum walk off, adding, "See you."
"Enjoy four," Logan replied to his father. "What's four?" Logan asked Rory.
"Fourth floor," Rory explained.
"You news people and your jargon…," Logan teased.
"We have our own language," Rory pointed out proudly.
"I am not sure I like you being in cahoots with him though…," Logan pointed out.
"Yeah, like I'm going to push you about calling your mother - please!?" Rory chuckled. "What about the Vineyard?" she inquired, feeling a little left out of the loop, by now generally knowing about the on-goings of his family as well as his plans.
"Oh, she was just wanting to know when I might be over during the summer… when we might be over, so she knows how to plan the rooms. There's not as much space over there as in Hartford, but she has a lot of visitors coming, so sometimes she has the maids convert our bedrooms into guestrooms," Logan explained, referring to himself and his sister.
"Oh..," Rory reacted. "She actually asked me to come?" she added, sounding surprised.
"Well not exactly, but I was very firm that it was either the two of us or none of us..," Logan replied.
"I guess we could go for a bit then. I don't know. I've never really been to the Vineyard," Rory shrugged. Mostly she just didn't want to be rude. She also didn't want to have Logan do things differently than he would've just because of her - he was already doing a lot.
"I don't think I could really handle them more than a couple of days, but I can find out if maybe there's some gap when they're not there or just Honor and Josh are and sort of time it accordingly," Logan continued.
"Yeah, I guess that would be good. When do you usually go?" Rory asked, already sensing like Logan was now really keeping her from her work - the fourth floor specifically.
"Around fourth of July," Logan replied.
"Okay, then let's do that..," Rory agreed. It still felt odd making plans like this with him, months in advance. But the truth was, she did feel secure… they were living together after all.
"Okay. Now I actually look forward to calling her and telling her how my girlfriend agreed on the travel dates with me," Logan chuckled.
"You're mean!" Rory shot back, hitting his shoulder with her fist.
"Also - so tomorrow? Do you need me to bring you your clothes here or do you think you have time to change at home?" Logan asked, referring to her sister's engagement party on the yacht.
"I have to drive to mom's to pick up my dress anyways," Rory explained, still having a bunch of stuff over there.
"Good thing you don't have that dinner tomorrow night so I can get you there sooner," Logan commented, Rory having been rather surprised to hear through her mother that her grandmother had said there was no dinner this Friday without elaborating on the reason.
"You're very one-note today," Rory hummed, stealing a little peck from him.
"Well, I miss you, Ace," Logan murmured to her.
"We live together, Logan," Rory reminded him, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, but guess what I actually want to see you and talk to you during the day too," Logan replied, sounding incredibly cute saying that.
"Ugh.. now you really do make me want to skip that meeting," Rory groaned, resting her hand on his forearm.
"I knew I could persuade you..," Logan teased, grinning smugly.
"I'll be done six-thirty, seven at the latest…," Rory insisted, giving him a more decisive kiss, not giving a damn if anyone at the office pieced it together. Logan wasn't that well known at this paper and everyone was too busy to really pay attention anyways. Besides, it was not like she was getting any special treatment here, she was doing the same work as any intern would be - or at least so it seemed to her.
"Ace!" Logan groaned, slipping his fingers underneath the hem of her shirt slightly.
"Six forty-five," Rory added, and added a final quick peck, already picking up her notepad and pencil to head to four.
AN: A small filler - I know... But as you may guess next time might be some bigger drama to come. Also, if there were grammar/spelling errors... super sorry. We're having a snowstorm here so computer time is a little limited right now, but I felt bad for not having posted in a while anyway.