After a late lunch at one of the places Logan frequently visited when he was at work, a Vietnamese fusion restaurant, the driver picked them up again and drove them on Logan's request to one of the older industrial neighborhoods.
"Have a good weekend, Walter," he said, waving the car off. "I figured we'd manage on our own the rest of the weekend," he commented to Rory.
"Of course, let the man have his weekend," Rory noted. "What's all this?" she asked glancing around.
"This is just something I thought you'd appreciate," Logan stated.
"What is that smell? Is that…?" Roy asked, beginning to recognize the familiar scent.
"You'll figure it out soon enough," he teased, leading her, his hand on the small of his back, into one of the old brick factory buildings.
"You brought me to a chocolate factory?" she sighed endearingly, finally figuring out the aroma with the help of the decor.
"I did, didn't I?" he stated, seeing her eyes light up just a little.
Rory browsed the chocolate museum with curiosity, tasting, smelling and feeling everything that was allowed. She went a little overboard in the gift shop later, trying to decide what to bring back home to Lorelai, and Logan hadn't helped, insisting that he pay for it.
"Do you mind if we walk?" Logan asked, after they stepped outside the building again. "The apartment really isn't far," he noted, biting onto a bit of chocolate Rory was feeding him.
"Sure, I don't mind," she mumbled, still letting a piece of chocolate melt in her mouth.
"So tell me, Ace, what's the deal with your work? Do you enjoy what you do?" he asked after a while, as they strolled over one of the canal bridges.
Rory gave it a moment's thought. "I still like writing, some stories I really do like, they take me to interesting places and to meet fascinating people, but I guess some of it has gotten a bit dull. I still have a few months with the NYT, but after that guess I am back to covering small town news and whatever anybody asks from me," she explained, unenthusiastically.
"I have no doubt that you like writing," he said, taking a moment to think. He really couldn't imagine Rory doing anything else. "But I don't know, maybe I am off base here, but I don't see that excitement in your eyes when you talk about it anymore. It made me a little worried, that's all," Logan added.
"I guess it has just become a job. I am not really sure what I expected, maybe I've just outlived that phase or something. But honestly, I really don't know what I should be doing if I wasn't doing what I am. I've even done some copywriting actually, it pays the bills. And I realize it probably isn't just about me, the whole business has changed since I started. Writing a clickbait just doesn't do it for me," she explained, unapologetically.
Logan nodded in agreement. He knew too well how the content mattered less and less these days, especially when it came to the daily papers. "Did you ever go back to school?" Logan inquired a moment later, realizing that there were still years of gap, he knew nothing about.
"No I didn't, perhaps I should've, but I wouldn't really have known what direction to take, and it's not like I am swimming in money when it comes to tuition to just go exploring randomly," she explained.
"Weren't you supposed to get your great-grandmother's inheritance at 25 or something? I thought Richard's mother had a trust fund for you? I know you're not the one to really exploit this type of thing but…," he pondered.
"God, I can't believe you remember that," she began, feeling a little self-conscious discussing her financials with Logan. "Well that sort of only bought me my apartment in Chelsea," she sighed.
"It's not a bad neighbourhood," he commented, trying to ease on the interrogation.
"I didn't like the idea of renting," she justified. After years of travelling for work, she really had felt like staying in one place for a while and New York had indeed seemed like the place with the most work for her. And there was just something about owning a piece of property - something that was hers, her fallback.
"And how does Lorelai feel about you living in New York?" he asked, seeing Rory getting a bit awkward.
"She misses having me around, but I guess in that sense we've grown apart a little. He has Luke, and he's been is really good for her. But I guess we're not really talking on daily basis, like we used to," she explained.
"Did something happen there or...?" he inquired.
"I'm not sure really. It may have been that I just wasn't able to go back to that small town life after the campaign tour. It wasn't anonymous enough. It was great for growing up in a way, being supported like that, but it felt claustrophobic after all that," she replied. "And she wasn't too keen on me splurging on my apartment either - like she didn't understand why I was so eager to use that money, and perhaps even more that I decided what I wanted to do it without her," Rory said.
"Do you miss it? The way you guys used to be," he continued. That bond that he had seen between Rory and her mother had been utterly unique to him. While his parents had barely dealt with him and Honor, leaving the actual raising to a team of nannies and tutors, what she had had with Lorelai was in a way comforting to see, to realize that there were other ways to parent than the ones he'd been exposed to.
"Sometimes," she replied, adding, "but it's not like I can't call her and talk to her about anything, it's just about being a little more independent. I don't have to run everything by her and worry all the time whether or not she'll get offended by whatever I am doing. And I think she too has learned to live a little differently."
"If you don't talk to her, who do you talk to then?" Logan asked.
"Mostly Paris, believe it or not," she laughed, knowing how unbelievable that would sound to Logan. While Paris was probably her closest friend back home, their friendship had always been in a way a love-hate relationship. Paris pushed her, critiqued her without fear of losing her, and when Rory needed it she would support and protect her whichever way she could. But Paris really wasn't someone she'd expect a lot of sympathy from or someone to talk the way she'd once done with her mother - spend hours talking alternative scenarios on the movie they just watched or listing the benefits of two competing cookie doughs. Paris was too much to the point for that, of course unless she'd been drinking, but it had been more than three years since they'd hung out like that, before Paris had her kids.
"Really?" he looked at her in disbelief.
"She's a lot mellower these days. She's got kids and everything, with Doyle. She just recently went back to work full time - she actually runs a fertility clinic," she said
"Paris, really?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. That was difficult to imagine.
"Yes, really," she frowned playfully. "Who do you talk to these days?" she asked in return.
"Honor mostly," he said, "But I do have other friends, I just don't see them very regularly. I always catch up with the guys in the States, we still like to form our own little sub-parties," he smirked knowing Rory was one of the few people who actually got what he was talking about. "And here there's a small group of expats and some English-speaking locals I like to hang around every once in awhile. I like it here because people here seem to care a lot less about who I am and what I do specifically, they just know I work in publishing. They're from various backgrounds - a couple of artists, a college lecturer, a writer and I think Anna works for some NGO. They've never bothered to even ask my last name, but I actually think it's better that way, no expectations or prejudice. Still it can be fun to go for a drink with them sometime, just talk about books, movies, life," he explained.
Rory nodded, biting onto another piece of chocolate.
"They actually invited me to join them tonight, but I don't know if we'd want to go," he added hesitantly. In a way he sensed that they had only a short timeframe to work with here, to really try to make something of them before they had to make tough decisions, which he hoped to avoid thinking about. He would've loved to just stay in bed with her, all weekend, but then again, he also wanted to show her his life, also just be around her, and for that it really didn't matter where or what they'd be doing as long as they were together.
"I think it might actually be quite fun," Rory said. "Not that I'd have anything against just spending the evening with you, but we could drop by for a few hours or something," she said, adding, "with the possibility of escaping if we feel like it?"
"Sure, we could do that," he said, pulling her close over her shoulder and kissing her temple.
Rory had truly missed the way he always did simple things like that - a simple touch, kiss or stroke, making her feel special. Special? Like stop eating the paste special? She recalled her own words from the past, making her smirk and the memory of their first talk that had been about the two of them.
"What's so funny?" Logan asked, curious to what was going on in her head.
"I just thought of our first dance and the discussion along with it," she explained.
"Ah…," he began with a sigh. "That was a great dance, the upfrontness from your side, also pretty great, the agreement we made… not such a great idea," he added regretfully with a smirk. "But that kiss, however, pretty extraordinary, almost as good as the one last night," he said, pulling her close by her waist, leaning in to kiss her deeply while standing at a random street corner. She kissed back, parting their lips even further, allowing his tongue to explore her. The butterflies in Rory's stomach were out of control, forgetting herself completely. They pulled back, both flustered, at the "ahem" let out by a grey-haired lady with her rollator trying to move past them to the newspaper box that they had been unintentionally blocking.