Chapter Twelve: "Free To Brie You and Me" Burger:

Louise never cared much for February fourteenth. She did her best to ignore the fact that it was a sappy, gushy day for people who couldn't understand how commercialism worked. When she woke up in Logan Bush's bed in the very early hours of a Monday morning and remembered what day it was, she wanted to gag.

Logan was still asleep when Louise got up. She took a shower, fed Ween, and made a Meatsiah burger that she left in Logan's fridge. She left a note with it: "Buns are on the counter. This is a NO topping burger, Fuckface."

She'd walked home and dove into the mountain of course work waiting for her.

When Logan woke up for work, he noticed the room was a little more lonely than he had been the night before.

Louise took 2.0 out for a cruise in the late morning. Other people might not have understood commercialism, but Louise had a decent grasp of how it worked, and she knew there were profits to be made. She christened the Burger of the Day: "Tell Tale Heartichoke (Comes with Artichoke)" She made extra pies and gave them stupid cute names like "My Sweetie Potato Pie" and "Apple of my Pie."

Louise made a killing and attributed it to the stupidity and giddiness over the holiday. She also upped the price of everything by a dollar, to make it up to herself for her daylight operations. She'd agreed to work mid-afternoon until close at the restaurant for the entire week, after much haggling. All of this so Zeke could take Tina out on a week of romantic dates, instead of covering down the hours that she would bail out in favor of the food truck. Bob may have also said he would let her keep all the tips if she sucked it up and took the hours.

Louise knew going into it, this meant a week of minimal sleep if she didn't want to give up food truck operations. It was worth it to be out of the house while Bob and Linda failed at another year of making their Valentine's Day special. The little bit of extra money didn't hurt, either.

Louise and Gene had debated: The week of romantic dates was probably going to lead to something big for Zena. Gene said Tina was hiding a pregnancy. Louise was dubious, but willing to bet money. Gene welched on the offer.

She'd drank half a pot of coffee before she'd parked the food truck along Front Street on the outskirts of the third annual Valentine's Heart Throb Festival. She drank another half pot in between waves of customers. Louise's week of no sleep started with just that. She'd been out until midnight, then went over to Logan's to do things that involved a bed but not sleep. She was out the door again before she'd been able to count less than three hours of shut eye.

Louise eventually bailed on the Heart Throb Festival and all it's pink, Pepto Bismol decorations, when she couldn't take the atmosphere anymore, all merchant booths and outdoor space heaters. She'd run out of burgers and buns, anyway.

The Hurt Locker was eating well that day.

Louise sat in the kitchen after she closed the restaurant for the night, with a beer in hand and her headphones on max. She listened to music to drown out the noises coming from her parent's bedroom. She blasted through coursework and cursed Valentine's Day again. If she'd been taking 2.0 out on the road at the normal time, she would not have been subjected to this personal Hell.

Hours passed. Louise kept her headphones on high and jammed out to metal playlist after playlist. She emailed her professors, emailed Harley, and ignored the texts that Logan had sent her.

Louise was forced out of her bubble when her laptop was forcibly shut by a manicured hand. She pulled down her headphones. "Kids Only Meeting," Tina said urgently

"I'm the one who calls meetings. Not you"

"Gene's on his way. I called him on my way over here."

"Um, okay. How was the Tiramisu Wearhouse?"

"How could you care about something like that at a time like this?"

"Calm down, T. Have you been drinking coffee?"

"No! Listen to me. We gotta wait in the living room."

"For what?"

"Shut up. You'll see," Tina stared at her younger sister. Louise got up and migrated to the living room. Tina followed in close succession, her pretty blue dress flowing behind her as she walked.

"So, where's Zeke?"

"He's at home."

"Solid date night?"

"Hush. No taking 'til Gene gets here."

Louise was wondering if her sister had finally snapped. She wasn't trying hard to grasp the gravity of the situation. It was difficult to forge emotional ties to the intangible. Louise pulled out her cell phone and read her texts.

Logan: You left my kitchen a mess this morning, Belcher. (Delivered at 6:02am)

Logan: This is the best burger I've ever had. (Delivered at 11:56am)

Logan: You've never made me a free burger unless you fucked up. Is this an apology or Valentine's Day gift? ;) (Delivered at 12:49pm)

Louise was about to reply with a scathing comeback to his Valentine related inquiry when the front door opened and slammed shut. There was heavy breathing and scrambling up the steps. Gene poured into the living room.

"How far along are you? Is the baby Zeke's? You need to name my baby after me!"

"It's clearly not yours," Louise said dismissively as she put her phone away. "That would just be weird."

"I got over here as fast as I could," Gene said as if he'd been traveling for hours to walk straight into an emergency.

"You live, like, an hour away," Louise scoffed.

"Exactly! Do you know how many fast food restaurants there are between Bog Harbor and here? Too many!"

"So, you're pregnant, T? I'll beat that no good son of a bitch, Zeke. I'll make that boy turn into an honest man for you," Louise said, raising her fist.

"Guys, no. I'm not pregnant."

"Then what did you call me over here for this late? I'm missing my nightly hot chocolate soak," Gene whined.

"Do I even wanna know?" Louise said, staring at her brother.

Tina pulled a small velvet box out of her clutch and opened it slowly.

Gene squawked when he saw what was in the box. He tried on the small elegant ring. Tina batted his hand away, reminding him of the water park misadventure that ensued the last time he'd tried on a ring that didn't belong to him.

"We're getting married," Tina smiled.

"Finally!" Gene said with dramatic flair. "But your wedding can't be as fabulous as mine. It's not allowed!"

"Congrats, T!" Louise said coming closer to her sister. She rolled her eyes at Gene who seemed to be forgetting that he and Alex had gotten married at City Hall and took a Honeymoon trip to see the legendary Two-Butted Goat.

Gene and Tina were both jumping up and down. Louise stood close to her sister giving her a one armed hug, post jumping session. The door to Bob and Linda's room swung open.

"What is everyone yelling about?" Bob squinted into the light of the living room. Linda squealed and ran with arms outstretched toward Tina. It hadn't taken Linda more than a few seconds to spot the small diamond, even without her glasses.

The Belchers popped some champagne and stayed up late, all circled around Tina. Hugging her and telling her how it was "about damn time." Linda made Tina describe the evening in all it's elegant detail. Bob nodded and "hmm"-ed at all the necessary parts.

"Tell me more about your new boyfriend," Gene teased his younger sister.

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Could have fooled me from what Zeke said."

"Not. My. Boyfriend."

"But he's hot enough. And he's rich! You better snatch him up before someone else does."

"He's ugly," Louise told her brother.

"Yeah, if an eleven out of ten is ugly, then he sure is ugly."

"Even if he was attractive, which he isn't, I'd never let him know that. It'd go to his egotistical head."

"So you do think he's hot?"

"No," Louise lied.

"Yeah, you do! And he is. And he's rich, rich," Gene sang.

"And egotistical and annoying."

"So, is he addictive and salty like fries?" Gene raised his eyebrows.

"You're horrible," Louise scoffed at her brother.

"I think he's good for you."

"He's only good for one thing."

"Addictive and salty," Gene sang. Louise pinched her brother hard on the arm.

Louise: Tina just got engaged. (Delivered at 11:15pm)

Logan: Poor thing, her life is already over and she doesn't even know it. (Delivered at 11:17pm)

Louise tried not to feel too guilty about the fact that she put off answering Logan all day and he had responded to her text almost immediately.

"Awe, Four Ears is scared of a little change."

"I'm happy for her."

"I know you are, but you're acting weird. I think things changing is making you nervous."

"I am so not nervous about anything," Louise said, taking a large gulp of beer.

She was sitting on Logan's white leather couch, with only a sleeping wiener dog between them. It was Tuesday night. Straight after close she'd walked right out of the restaurant. She had a backpack with her laptop, toothbrush, and change of clothes slung over her shoulder. She locked Bob's Burgers up, and kept walking until she was at Logan's door. Tonight was night two of Tina and Zeke's "special week." Zeke was taking Tina horseback riding, and she suspected her parents were getting up to something similar in the confines of the apartment. Louise was set to avoid the Belcher household at all costs.

"I could kind of get used to having you on this new schedule. It's nice to see you when I get home from work."

"Stuff it."

Logan went back to working on a project, staring down at his laptop. Louise put the finishing touches on her paper.

"How behind are you?" Logan asked.

"I'm way ahead. 'Cause I'm better than you."

Logan shut his laptop. "I'm done for tonight," he said, placing his laptop on the end table closest to him. He turned to face Louise and brought Ween up onto his lap.

Louise took another large sip of beer, "I'm going to need to get a little more drunk. Especially if I'm going to fuck you without a paperbag over your head."

"That's funny 'cause I have a paper bag for you, too." Logan took the beer out of her hand and finished it himself.

"You little cocksucker, I was drinking that," Louise was still typing away on her laptop. Logan rolled his eyes at Louise and handed her his unopened beer.

"I saw my Dad yesterday."

"I'm not nearly drunk enough to talk about this emotional stuff. With you, especially."

"I went to dinner with him and his new girlfriend."

"I love your pain. It makes me so happy. Now stop talking," Logan glowered at her for her sarcasm. She was looking at her laptop and not him.

"She's my age. It's kind of weird and I think when Dad realized that, it just made dinner awkward. Then Mom called me and kept prying about dinner because she heard from one of her friends at the community garden that I was out with my Dad and his 'lady friend.' Apparently they were at the same restaurant."

"How did it feel to meet the chick that broke up your parents' marriage?"

"Kind of skeevy. By the way, I blame my parents for breaking up their own marriage."

"So, Cynthia called you?"

"That's the first time I've heard from my mom since...well, you know."

"No, I don't know."

"Louise, stop dicking around."

"Fine, I'm glad it didn't take a hundred years for you and your Mom to start talking again. Even if she only called over something skeevy."

"Ooh, say skeevy again. It makes me so hard," Logan said sardonically.

"Did you tell your dad off, Skeevy?"

"No. It's not worth it. I thought spending more time with him might be good for the both of us, but now I think I could care less."

"Screw your dad's girlfriend. It would really teach him a lesson," Louise briefly looked at Logan and away from the laptop screen when she said this. Then she burst out laughing.

"You're the worst person I've ever met and your ideas are terrible," Logan told her, taking the beer from her. He chugged half the bottle.

Louise stole the bottle back from him, "I never said it was a good idea. I just said it was effective."

Logan looked over Louise's shoulder and at her laptop screen, "You're a horrible economics writer," he said, squinting at her paper.

"I'm a great economics writer, you're just illiterate."

"Well, then you can teach me how to read," Logan purred in her ear, closing her laptop.

Logan kissed her. She tasted like beer. They both tasted like beer. Louise sank into what Logan was offering. Letting herself forget for a little bit about how things seemed to be changing so fast. Letting herself forget about the utter lack of sleep she'd gotten over the last few days. Letting herself forget how exhausting and draining the world was.

When they were spent, Louise slept the best she had in weeks.

"So, you're sleeping with the enemy?" Scotty asked as he took a seat at the bar next to Logan.

"I'm getting laid and I have a great job making lots of money. What are you doing with your life?" Logan laughed.

"Sounds like you're a hooker."

"Yeah, well, you would know."

"What's going on between you two? First she was two inches away from ruining your life and now some of her stuff is at your place. Shacking up?"

"Shacking up implies she actually wants anything to do with me. The jury's still out on that one."

"Speaking of shacking up, I heard about your parents. Good for Tom."

"Fuck that! 'Good for Tom,' my ass. I've been waiting years for their sorry asses to get divorced. I thought it would be good for both of them, but they're still the same shitty people."

"So you don't want to talk about the divorce?"

"Fuck you, man," Logan laughed.

Logan and Scotty proceeded to get plastered and shoot pool. Logan hadn't seen Scotty since around Thanksgiving, and the end of February was closing in quickly. He realized it was okay that he needed his friends. He and Scotty made plans to shoot pool once a week. It turned out to be a good system.

"You want me to go with you? To meet your friends?" Logan asked, dipping his fry into a huge glob of ketchup. He sat at the counter of Bob's Burgers. Louise was manning the cash register and Bob was in the kitchen pretending to stay out of his youngest child's business.

Bob, after the infamous "night of yelling and crying and returning of the Ears", told Louise that he approved of Logan. In his grumbling, gripping Dad way. Louise was floored by this. She denied to her family that she had any lasting interest in Logan, but here he was, showing up on weekends and after work for the occasional burger.

And still, Louise would often disappear for the night, only to be dropped off in a shiny, dark car in the morning hours. A car that looked a lot like the one that belonged to Logan Bush.

"You're not going with me. I'm going to be there. You can show up too, if you want."

"So we're going separately, but I don't know any of these people and I'm going to stand near you the entire time, just not with you?"

"Well, it sounds really fucking stupid when you say it," Louise said flatly.

"I get it. You're scared to go alone and you want me to be there for emotional support. You need me there, actually. I'm your knight in shining armor."

"Forget I asked."

"Oh, I'm going, and I am going to make fun of you the whole time," Logan bit into the Burger of the Day, chewing loudly as was his signature move to annoy Louise.

Louise was quiet, then when Logan was about to pay his bill, she decided he was worth talking to again.

"What the hell do I get for a baby? 'My First Lockpicking Kit?' A mini flask?"

"Yeah, maybe, if you want them to grow up with Daddy issues."

"So the flask then?"

"What are you doing Saturday morning?"

"If it involves spending time with you, then I'm busy."

"I'll take you somewhere to figure out this stupid gift thing, okay."

"No."

"Good, I'll see you Saturday morning." Logan paid his bill and left. He'd also left a generous tip. Louise was going to kick his ass for it the next time she saw him.

"They make lock picking kits for kids?" Bob asked through the service window.

"Of course they do. How do you think I got started?"

"Sometimes it's hard to remember what horrible people I brought into this world."

"I offered to teach you and you said 'no,' Dad."

"Bus the tables, Louise."

When Logan Bush was in high school, he would bully other people to make himself feel important. To make people notice him. When he grew up, he realized it only forged enemies. He didn't want that for himself. He didn't know if he could change the damage he'd done when he was younger, but he decided he didn't have to be that same horrible person forever. Teenage Logan would have kicked Adult Logan in the unmentionables for the upstanding softy that he had become. Teenage Logan was unaware of how powerful your own medicine could taste.

When Logan was fifteen, no one was immune to his wrath. Not the other teenagers in his school and certainly not anyone younger and smaller than he was. He was used to kids cowering in fear. He could walk around his neighborhood and feel big, bad, and important. No one would stand up to him. So when he met a nasty little girl with pink bunny ears and she stood up to him, Logan hated the little shithead immediately.

She was mean, she was tough, and she didn't act the way he expected her to. She didn't cower. He loathed that. So he made it a personal mission to remind her that she was little and that she should be powerless.

The pink hatted kid was pure evil. Who would get a biker gang to cut someone's ears off? Who would get away with launching slobbery, nasty spitballs at him while his friends laughed about it behind his back?

She needed to be put down, and he would be the one to do it.

Then the day came when Logan Bush made Louise Belcher cry. He had chased her and her chubby brother all over the neighborhood and cornered them. The cause for all his rage may have been a moldy, fruity accident, but her tears were so worth it. He felt like a hunter that had finally shot its prey. He'd hadn't felt that vindicated before. He'd never been able to relish in that kind of cruelty before. He was finally going to get his long deserved revenge against the little runt who'd caused him so much grief.

Then her brother stepped up to take the brunt of the retribution.

Logan doled out punishment to the chubby boy, not his initial target, but better than no revenge. He was only satisfied with the consequence he wrought for a fleeting moment. As he was walking home, he felt an inexplicable jealousy consume him. His hatred for his pint-sized enemy came roaring back.

Why should someone as horrible and infuriating as Louise Belcher have a family that cared about her so much? A mother who took her side, a father that chose her happiness over his own happiness, a brother that sacrificed himself? Logan had never been able to experience half the familial love and acceptance that she had. She was horrible and devious. Why did she deserve to have so much when he couldn't have any of it?

That winter, Logan was minding his own business in the park, packing snowballs as tightly as he could for maximum pain. He and his friends had spent all morning building their forts and these kids just came sledding down the hill into his territory.

And who was the ringleader but Louise Belcher?

Logan had to chase them away, to show them he meant business. So he made icy hell reign. Then that little terror had the nerve to come back down the hill and confront him face to face. So he threw more snowballs, shooing her away like the pest she was.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the little terror came back with that jocky dweeb, "Manitary Napkin" and a full blown defense strategy that chased him away from his hill. All the manpower and force he mustered wasn't enough on his end, even though he'd used the runt's same strategy against her.

The next day he found himself surrounded by every female he'd ever bullied, snowballs in hands, ready to pelt him into another light year. Threatening to knock him so hard, he'd be shitting ice.

All of this because Louise Belcher tried to stand up to him and here were people who didn't even know the kid, trying to protect her while all his friends had run off and abandoned him out of fear. Logan would have been more jealous and furious, if he wasn't so busy cowering behind the closest object that could shelter him - Louise Belcher. The tiniest, worst choice for a human shield. He'd grabbed her up in a moment of desperate panic.

"Oh Logan, Logan, Logan, you are so screwed," the tiny terror taunted him as his classmates got into position, snowballs poised above heads and ready to be thrown.

Then he was traveling down the hill on a sled, pushed over by the tiny terror guiding him to safety.

"You saved me?" Logan asked her.

He'd never considered the possibility that Louise Belcher was a good person. It didn't seem possible. But the tiny terror had just saved his hide. And after all the horrible things he'd done to her, too.

"Oh, I didn't save you. I just kind of gave you a head start," she said.

Logan turned tail and ran as fast as he could, getting pelted with more snowballs then he was dodging. The tiny terror shouting from the distance, "Merry Christmas, Logan!"

Maybe Louise Belcher wasn't a good person after all, he'd thought, but if she wasn't a good person, she certainly was a better person to him than he had been to her.

Logan walked beside Louise through the park. She was carrying a small yellow bag in her hand, very domestic and festive and out of place anywhere near the dark clad Louise Belcher. She looked even more out of place next to the tall, professionally dressed Logan Bush in the unseasonably warm mid-March weather.

The two walked past a white wooden sign proclaiming a Baby Shower/Engagement Party for Rudy and Jessica Stieblitz. Logan found himself wondering why the last name sounded so familiar, but didn't have time to process the thought when his companion was tackled into a giant bear hug by a young woman who had materialized out of nowhere.

"Hi, Harley," Louise said with an edge of frustration in her voice.

"I, like, just knew you would show up! What did you bring? How do you feel? Are you nervous about Jessica?" Harley prattled. She stopped and looked Logan up and down, "Who is this? What's his name? Why are you with him?"

"I ask myself the same questions everytime I look at him, Harley," Louise's thinly veiled sarcasm went over her friend's head.

"My name is Logan Bush. I'm Miss Belcher's parole officer."

"He's funny," Harley decided in an approving tone.

"You like him just like that? You aren't going to drill him with a million more questions? Ask him what his favorite color is?" Louise looked at her friend, desperately fighting for a distraction from the impending party.

"I will, I will! But first I gotta see how you are. This is, like, a whole deal, there's Rudy. Plus Jessica is, like, really nervous-excited to see you," Harley said, locking her arm around Louise's.

"I don't think I need to be here," Louise said, nervousness seeping in.

"You know, Louise and Jessica have so much history," Harley wriggled her eyebrows at Logan.

"Harley, I am trying to get out of here with minimal damage. Shut up for once in your fucking life," Louise begged her best friend.

Harley flashed Louise a look that said "No way." She took the gift bag from Louise and gave it to Logan, "Here, you find out where this goes, Parole Officer Bush."

Harley swiftly pulled an objecting Louise toward the crowd and left Logan awkwardly by himself. Logan skirted around the fringes of the party until he found a gift table. He placed the bag on the table and put his hands in his pockets, scanning the crowd for a trace of Louise.

"Logan Bush? What are you doing here? Gonna steal a bunch of gifts from some little kids?" The voice was familiar, Logan hadn't heard it in years, but it made his heart stop briefly. He spun around to face his accuser.

"Manitar- uh, Mandy? How are you?"

"What are you doing at my cousin's engagement party?" Stieblitz. Mandy Stieblitz. That's why the name had sounded so familiar.

"I'm here with someone."

"Poor sap. Do they know how awful you are? " Mandy sized Logan up and down, like she was looking for a weak spot to attack.

"Yeah, he is a poor sap and stupid, too. I try not to hold it against him," Louise's voice rang. She had her arms crossed and was standing behind Logan. Logan turned around to look at her. What was it with women sneaking up on him today?

"Bunny Girl? You're one of Rudy's friends. I remember you."

"Geez, Mandy, put your glasses on." Louise smirked, "You were at my graduation."

"Christ, don't tell me you two are friends?" Logan looked uncomfortably at his companion who was too busy sizing up the situation to pay him attention.

"You brought this piece of garbage with you?" Mandy asked Louise.

"He's not garbage. Just annoying," Louise said, her arms were still crossed.

A look of dread still crossed Logan's features.

"Relax, I'm not going to try and start trouble at my cousin's engagement party. We're not all animals like you," Mandy snapped, looking at Logan as she said the last part of the sentence, encouraging his dread.

"I'll make you a deal: I'll keep him away from anywhere he could cause trouble and you can glare at him from a safe distance for the rest of the afternoon," Louise haggled.

"You drive a hard bargain, Bunny Girl," Mandy said sarcastically. "Get him out of my face."

Louise pulled Logan by his arm and down into the crowd. "What was that all about? No defending yourself? If you were any softer out there, you'd be inpotent."

"Shut up," Logan said, face heating up.

"Awe, Big Bush is all sad and embarrassed."

"Speaking of embarrassment, where is this Jessica friend of yours?" Logan gibed back.

"You want me to hurt you?" Louise threatened.

"You're all bark and no bite. I just witnessed you defending me. And you're being seen in public with me. These are both ones for the records."

"Don't test me or I will slap you into the records."

"Speaking of testing, you're testing my fucking patience. You couldn't have fucking bothered to tell me who this thing was for?" Logan whispered at her.

"I didn't fucking think about you and Mandy. It's not my fault you were such a shitty person and everyone you grew up with hates you."

"Well you would know from experience. You're a monster, too, " Logan retorted.

"I forgot you could be just as petty as I am," Louise said.

"You're the petty one."

"Look, I don't want to be here, but this is important and I - it's just important, okay?"

"Okay," Logan said, biting down on his anger. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked alongside Louise letting the fight disappear into the ether, as much as he wanted to keep the anger ongoing and tangible between them.

She had said she didn't want to be here, but she hadn't said she didn't want to be here with him. She had defended him. She had brought him out to see her friends, some of whom knew who he was and how he used to be. She was nervous about this party, even if Logan wasn't totally sure why. The rage didn't have anything to do with him. She wanted him here because she was scared. This was something very simple, but as Logan realized this, the shock was the emotional equivalent of a bucket of ice water being dumped over his head.

Louise needed the moral support that she would never admit to needing. She hid it behind mean words and threats. Logan was beginning to see through her act. She hadn't strictly brought him along for the displeasure of his company.

He would file this away and tease her mercilessly later about the fact that she was warming up to him.

She was finally beginning to see him as something other than a grown-up bully,

"Louise!" Harley shouted at her friend, jogging up to her. "You totally, like, slipped out on me, you little bitch."

"I thought I was going to get away with it," Louise muttered.

Harley put her hands on her hips and looked Louise square in the eyes,"I know this is hard for you, but I think you'll regret it if you don't try."

"You suck, you know that," Louise told Harley. Louise stood there for a few long seconds deciding what she was going to do. Deciding who she wanted to be in this situation. Louise took a deep breath and followed Harley through the crowd, letting Logan trail dumbly behind them.

Harley led them to a group of picnic tables, shaded under a pavilion. Coolers with water and sodas were set on the benches. Rudy's father was manning the grill, putting on hotdogs and burgers.

"Look who I found!" Harley squealed when she approached the family of honor.

"Louise, I haven't seen you since graduation," Rudy said, nervousness coloring his voice.

"I wonder whose fault that is," Louise challenged. She knew Jessica was there, she could see the outline of her old flame, but wouldn't look in her direction. Harley elbowed Louise hard enough that it twisted Louise's expression into a grimace. "I mean, yeah, it's been a while, huh?"

"So, who's this?" Rudy asked, gesturing at Logan.

"Logan Bush. I'm Louise's...friend," Logan held his hand out to Rudy. Rudy shook Logan's hand, looking at him like he was trying to place him.

"I'm Jessica. I was Louise's "friend," too, once upon a time," Jessica winked at Logan and shook his hand. Louise stiffened. Logan slid his arm around Louise's shoulders, a reminder that she wasn't there alone. Louise felt her Ears burning a hole in her back pocket. Why hadn't she just worn them today? Any small comfort would have been helpful.

"You're that jerk that my cousin Mandy chased away with that huge snowball fight," Rudy snapped his fingers. "You really had that one coming."

"What can I say? My reputation precedes me," Logan sighed, playing down his guilt.

Rudy started to laugh, then wheezed. He grabbed his inhaler and took a hit. "Drugs, you gotta love them," he joked, still somewhat out of breath.

Louise had been looking at Jessica since she'd shaken Logan's hand. Seeing Jessica so pregnant and glowing was surreal. She's expected to look at Jessica and feel so many things. Things Louise Belcher didn't allow herself to feel, like softness. Things Louise Belcher did allow herself to feel, like anger and betrayal. Louise looked at Jessica and felt like she was looking at a stranger. All of the bitterness she'd been holding seemed so useless and misplaced when she looked at this woman in front of her.

"You look so excited?" Louise tried.

"I am. We're having a girl and Rudy's terrified. I've been waking up at night pretending to go into labor and scaring the shit out of him. Works every time," Jessica laughed. Louise laughed too. It sounded much more like the Jessica and Rudy she knew.

"This is just so weird," Louise breathed.

"I know. I was really thinking you weren't going to show up," Jessica said.

"I wouldn't miss it," Louise fibbed.

"I can smell your lies, Belcher," Jessica said.

"Harley sort of convinced me," Louise admitted.

"I, like, really gently nudged her to a conclusion. But it was totally, like, fine." Harley waved off.

"What are you up to these days, Louise?" Rudy asked.

Logan felt Louise relax against his arm. He pulled her a little closer, expecting her to fight it. He was surprised when she didn't.

Louise could have stormed away from the park in a fit of rage. She could have given Jessica and Rudy the piece of her mind she was secretly planned on gifting them instead of the stupid, nice thing Logan picked out. Louise could have watched Rudy and Jessica crumble as she listed all of their personal indiscretions they committed against her in school and after graduation.

A younger Louise Belcher would have committed these actions, then felt guilty afterward. The older, wiser Louise Belcher that she was today felt guilty for even thinking about doing these things.

Reconnection and forgiveness were two things Louise didn't specialize in, but she could understand now why they might be necessary.

That night, curled up in a king size bed with a small dog in her lap, Louise was dozing off after a fight to keep her eyes open. Her economics test opened up on Logan's laptop.

She'd spent all afternoon being talked at by friends and acquaintances, most of which she hadn't seen in years. Then she spent all evening in the metal tank of her food truck trying to push back emotional reactions and reconsidered perspectives.

When she pulled up in front of Logan's house, she walked behind the truck and found some roses looped around the back door handle. Louise hated them as soon as she set sight on them. She pulled them off the door handle and threw them in Logan's face when he opened his front door to let her in. He admitted that as funny as her frustration was, it wasn't him who'd placed the flora. The roses found their way into the trash.

An angry Louise went up stairs and showered all the grease and emotion off of herself. Then she jumped Logan. They fooled around until she'd collapsed with exhaustion.

When Logan tried to get her to talk, she told him to shut up. So he shut up and let her borrow his laptop to do course work.

Logan looked over from his book at the sleeping Louise. He took his hand and pinched her nose shut so she could only breathe through her mouth. Her eyes flew open and she jolted forward. The first sound she heard was Logan's booming laugh. She lifted a hand to slap him and he gently knocked her hand away, still laughing.

"Are you gonna finish that test?" Logan asked after containing his laughter.

"No." Louise closed the laptop and set it on the nightstand.

She laid her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes, hoping Logan could get the damn picture and not start with his bullshit again.

"Are we gonna talk about this shit, or are you gonna fall asleep on me?"

"I don't know? Both?" Louise said, opening one eye.

"What's the deal with -"

"Jessica? We had a thing in high school."

"That wasn't what I was going to ask, but thank you for reminding me how oblivious you think I am."

"Fine. What were you going to ask?"

"You already know."

"Ugh, this is what you wanted to talk about? You sound so girly and annoying."

"You sound immature and annoying."

"There isn't anyone else, if that's what your asshair is all in a knot about. You're adequate in bed. That's mostly why I come back."

"Just adequate? That's the nicest thing you've said to me. Can I get that framed?"

"What do you want from me?"

"For you to just have a little bit of fucking emotion for like five seconds."

"I like you, you already know that. Don't ask me to say it again."

"I want exclusivity, Louise."

"I already told you there isn't anyone else. Stop being such a pussy."

"What does that make this then?"

"We're just friends, Logan. Don't try and complicate things."

"Right. Just friends."

Logan and Louise fought often. Louise loved to point out how much they didn't have in common. Logan liked to make sure she was educated on how wrong she was about that. He'd forgiven her for the awful things she'd done. He didn't take the bait as often anymore when she did try to start fights. He was there for her. She didn't know what to make of all that.

It occurred to Louise that Logan Bush might possibly be a good person. If he wasn't a good person, he certainly was a better person to her than she had been to him.