Logan Huntzberger had the perfect life until his fiancée walked out on him. When she suddenly reenters his life again, Logan and his best friend, Rory, come up with a brilliant plan. But, when the plan works better than they ever could imagine, it could mean more than they all bargained for.
OoOoO
"This really isn't necessary," she said the next afternoon wishing he had just gone into work. Somehow the prospect of having him around all day had overridden her sane side that said she should insist that he go home – even if he didn't go to work.
"The doctor said this is the best way to bring the swelling down," he said, carrying a pan of water sloshing through ice into the room and setting it at her feet.
"I think it's going down."
"Yeah, uh-huh," he said, nodding sarcastically, "and I'm the King of England."
"You could be," she called as he returned to the kitchen. "Maybe you were misplaced at birth. Wouldn't that be something."
"Irish, German and a little bit of French," he said, returning with another pan from which steam swirled with each step he took. "Trust me, no English."
He knelt down at her ankle and gently unwrapped it from the bandages, which she'd also felt were unnecessary, but she didn't have the guts to argue with the doctor. Logan, however, was a different story. "Maybe we could do this later– like tonight?"
"Like never?" he asked with a knowing smile as his hands loosened the wrappings.
"If that could be arranged," she said hopefully.
"The sooner we get this done, the sooner it's over," he said firmly. "Now, which one do you want first?"
"Neither," she said, staring at the pans filled with polar opposites of torture.
"Which."
She exhaled, wishing she could trade bodies with someone else for the next thirty minutes or so. "Cold."
Gently he lifted her foot and slowly set it into the ice cold water as she sucked in a chest-full of air. Her pain screeched across her face. "How's that?"
"Do you really want to know?" she asked as her body scrambled upward away from the constricting pain in her leg.
"Probably not." He pushed up from the couch and grabbed the remote before punching the button, not really trying to find anything more interesting than Charlie Brown's Christmas special. The concern was scrawled in huge arching letters in his eyes. "How you doing?" He laid a sympathetic hand on her thigh.
She nodded even though all she wanted to do was scream.
"Good." He sat watching her, never once turning his attention to the television screen. "You've only got two more minutes."
Her eyes closed against the pain as she fought the tears. She would not cry. Not here. Not in front of him. She would be strong. She had to.
"Okay, time to switch," he said after her teeth felt like they were going to crush each other to bits.
With strength constructed solidly over resolve, she pulled her foot out of the ice water and angled it carefully over the pan that was no longer steaming. In miniscule inches she let her foot down, but the second it touched the warm water, her body arched itself backward and a scream jumped from her core.
"It's okay," he said, and even his tone said he knew it wasn't. "Just put it in. It'll get better."
"No." In a breath tears were flowing down her cheeks although she had no idea how they had gotten there. "Please."
Linus played his toy piano on the screen as Logan rolled onto his knees. "Here, hold my hand." He stretched one hand out to her as the other guided her foot into the pan. "Squeeze if it hurts."
She told herself she was ready for the pain, but when her foot touched the water again, her knee immediately jerked it back as her hand tightened on his.
"Just put it down," he commanded, forcing her foot into the water. "Just put it down. Don't think about it."
But thinking about anything else was impossible. The prickles of ten thousand tiny pins jammed into her foot as she fought with herself to keep it in the water. Her shoulders hit the couch back as her free hand crammed itself into her eyes.
Only Charlie Brown's voice echoed through out the room as slowly her senses began to return.
"Only three more minutes," Logan said at her side, and instantly her hand tightened on his in anticipation of the coming agony. "Two more times and we're finished."
Every breath clawed its way into her lungs through the tears, searing through her chest like an out of control wildfire.
"Okay," his voice said somewhere outside her. "It's time."
If someone had said it was time to be put into the electric chair, she was sure it wouldn't have held any more fear than the idea of moving her foot into the ice.
"There you go," he said, guiding her foot to the other pan.
It touched down, sending her body reeling on the pain. The only lifeline was the hand she clutched to her.
"It's okay," he said, and she felt his free hand stroking across her arm. "It's almost over."
When he finally relented and pulled her foot out for the last time, she felt like her foot had been in water for an eternity, she was surprised when she came back to her sense and realized that Charlie Brown was still whining on the television.
"Good girl," Logan said, producing a towel and cautiously drying her foot. "I really didn't think it would be that bad."
"Yeah," she said, trying to laugh off the worst torture of her life now that it as over, "You're not the only one."
Carefully he set her foot down on the pillows on the coffee table, and he looked at her. "Can I get you something?"
"Do you know where my painkillers are?"
He smiled and pushed himself to his feet. In a heartbeat he was back, offering her a pill and water.
"Thanks," she said, accepting them.
"May I?" he asked, indicating the couch next to her.
"Sure," she said with a shrug.
Gingerly he sat down, and then he slid next to her before focusing that concerned look on her again. "You okay?"
She exhaled slowly and then nodded. "Yeah, just no more torture tonight. Okay?"
"Deal," he said, and his voice reflected her pain. "Here." He draped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her head over to his chest.
She couldn't be sure if it was the painkillers or relief from the torture session being over or his cologne or being so close to him or all of the above or none of the above, but the instant her cheek found the soft cotton of his shirt, all the pain slid away from her. Peace and safety flooded through her, and before Charlie Brown had finished his romp across her television screen, she was asleep.
OoOoOo
Logan didn't move from his spot underneath her until the band began playing on the late night talk show. Smoothly he shifted her over to the other side of the couch and stood. In the darkness with only the television screen for illumination, she looked absolutely at peace. The exact opposite of earlier. Carefully he picked up the pan of cold water, took it, and dumped it into the sink before repeating the procedure with the once hot water pan.
Just as he was about to go back in the living room, however, his gaze chanced on the phone, and his mind stumbled across Brian. In all the excitement over trying to get her taken care of, he had somehow forgotten about his roommate. Although Brian probably hadn't even noticed Logan's absence, he knew he should at least call so Brian wouldn't think he'd been hit by a truck or something.
Quietly he picked up the phone and pulled it as far into the kitchen as he could get it. The phone rang only two times.
"Hello?" Brian's voice came across the wires, not a trace of sleep anywhere in it.
"Brian, hey," Logan said, turning his back to the living room. "It's Logan."
"Logan? Where are you, man?"
"A friend of mine had a little accident. I'm kind of staying with her until she gets back on her feet again."
"Oh. This wouldn't be mystery Chinese food woman would it?" Brian asked, shifting from worry to teasing effortlessly.
"Don't worry about me," Logan said, hearing her soft moan in the living room, "I'll be home when I get there."
"Okay," Brian said, and Logan knew from his tone that Brian suspected far more than a minor accident. "Oh, and Logan, don't eat too much Chinese food."
"Yeah, whatever," Logan said in annoyance, and then signed off quickly. Even the thought that he could want more than friendship from Rory was utterly ridiculous. She wasn't his type. She had the wrong coloring and the wrong personality and the wrong interests. She came from a different world. He was from the high society set of Hartford and she was from small-town Stars Hollow. No, the only three things they had in common were they both went to Yale, Chinese food and the arbitrary fact that they both happened to work at the Hartford Courant. Besides that, there was nothing.
OoOoO
By Saturday, Rory was moving like an expert on the crutches and although Logan had assured her that he wouldn't burn her kitchen down, she insisted on watching him make dinner.
"What do you need?" she asked as he hunched over the recipe lying on her counter.
"Flour."
"Freezer, side door," she said, pointing past him.
After only the briefest of searches, he found it and set it on the counter before opening her refrigerator. He pulled out the eggs, a few carrots, and some celery as well.
"How's the chicken?"
She lifted the pot lid. "Looks ready to me. 'Course I should probably warn you that I don't cook."
Quickly he set the items on the counter, lifted the pot lid, checked the chicken himself, and nodded. "I'll do the noodles, why don't you cut the vegetables?
"You're going to trust me with a knife?" she asked with a smile.
"You can handle it," he said as he opened a drawer and handed her a dicing knife. The questions of how he knew which drawer to open crossed her mind, but then she remembered that he'd spent far more time in her kitchen in the last four days than she had.
Without even asking, he pulled the cutting board from the small cabinet to the side of her sink and set it on the counter for her. Fighting not to notice how easily he moved around her kitchen, she focused on the carrots. She had three chopped before she looked over at him. "How's this?"
He looked over and surveyed her work. "Great. Do two more."
"Okay," she said, liking the weight of his arm as he leaned across her to examine her work. If only every night could be like this one. "So, do you cook a lot?"
"Sometimes – if the moon is full and the tides are out on the East Coast." He was paying more attention to her than to the bag of flour he held over the bowel, and it suddenly decided to give way – covering him in a cloud of white dust. "Ugh!"
A laugh escaped from her throat before she had a chance to pull it back. Logan standing in her kitchen in a cloud of flour was too much. The giggles continued as she choked them back, but every time she looked at him, they attacked her again.
"Would you like a towel?" she asked, pressing her laughter behind her lips. "Or a soaker hose?"
"No, thanks." He shook his hands out as though they were dripping with water. "I'll just use you."
Before she had a chance to react, he wiped both hands down the full length of her sleeves. The giggles lodged in the electricity from his touch, and her breathing stopped.
"See, better," he said, not noticing her trip through fantasyland. "Now, where was I?" he turned back to the noodles although the white dust followed him right back to the bowel. Carefully he scraped up the excess flour from the cabinet and dumped it back into the bowel. "So, what about you. You said you don't cook?"
"Not unless I absolutely have to. My mom doesn't either, I grew up on junk food and take out."
"You never ate anything homemade?"
"Nah, we've got friends that take very good care of us. Sookie, one of my mom's best friends, taught me how to cook a few things. Mostly easy stuff." She turned back to her vegetables knowing she really shouldn't be trusted with sharp objects in this condition. Quickly she picked up the pot lid. "Hand me a plate."
Automatically, he reached in the cabinet above him and pulled out a plate.
"Nothing like this," she said casually even as she made sure their hands didn't touch in the transfer.
She pulled the chicken out of the broth and laid it on the plate before tossing the carrots into the boiling mixture. "But I am the queen of takeout, as you well know."
In a matter of minutes, the diced vegetables were in the broth. "Now what?"
"You can start on the chicken," he said with a node before he leaned down on his shoulder to brush the flour off his cheek.
"So, what do you make – on a full moon…"
"…when the tides are out on the East Coast?" he asked, amused. "This soup is one of my specialties. I make a mean shrimp spaghetti too. One of the cooks I had growing up made it for me all the time."
Her face scrunched in revulsion. "That sounds awful."
"It's really pretty good," he said as he separated the last two noodles and began placing them into the simmering pot. "You'll have to try it sometime."
"Thanks, but I think I'll pass." She laughed as she ate a piece of chicken that had stuck to her fingers. "Mmm. Pretty good."
"Told you," he said triumphantly. "Just wait, one of these days, you'll be saying that about my shrimp spaghetti."
OoOoOo
The remains of chicken noodle soup sat between them as she chanced a glance at him knowing the question in her mind had to be asked. It was wonderful having him around, but it couldn't last, and she knew it. "So, when do you think you'll be going back home? Brian probably thinks you went AWOL."
Logan sighed as he toyed with his spoon. "No, I called him the other night. He knows where I am."
"Oh?" she asked hopefully.
"Yeah, I told him I was taking care of a friend. No big deal."
Rory's gaze dropped to the table as embarrassment stung the back of her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure you can't wait to get back home and stop taking care of me, the invalid."
"No," he said, looking up quickly, and then his gaze fell again. "I mean, yeah. I mean, I didn't think I'd be staying this long."
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
The silence surrounding them grew like an elephant neither one wanted to acknowledge.
Finally Logan stood as her gaze followed him up. "I'd better get these dished cleaned up."
"Umm, you want some apple cider?"
"Sure," he said with a shrug.
He carried both steaming cups of cider into the living room and waited for her to sit down. Without touching her hand, he gave her the cup and turned to sit in the chair. The silence invaded the space as Rory fought the fatigue tugging at her eyelids.
"This is nice," Logan said, sipping and then simply letting the warmth of the cup wash everything else away. "Do you do this often?"
"A lot. Especially during the winter. It relaxes me."
"Yeah." Without putting the cup down, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
"Umm, Logan?"
"Yeah?" he asked nonchalantly.
Her gaze slid down his profile in the lamplight. "Umm, if I forget to tell you later…thanks."
For a single moment he turned his head, and his gaze locked with hers. His smile came effortlessly. "You're welcome."
OoOoOo
Tuesday morning she limped into his cubicle – her foot wrapped and her pride tucked neatly behind a wall full of cheerfulness, "Hello you."
"Well, the dead has risen," he said, leaning back in his chair happily. "How's the ankle?"
"Better." She held out her arms. "No crutches."
"Congratulations," he said with a smile. "So, I guess this means you'll take the features back."
Slowly she smiled and shook her head in mock annoyance. "Yeah, I'd hate to think how many things got messed up while I was gone."
"Hey. I did a good job. Right down to the last sentence."
"Uh-huh," she said teasingly, "We'll see."
Later as she reviewed the articles he had kept up on for her, she smiled. It was work, she reminded herself. He was supposed to do this – picking up the slack when a coworker was out. But still something in her heart said she was grateful to him for more than a trip to the doctor, a little chicken soup, and a bucket of ice water.
Somehow she would find a way to pay him back for everything he had done for her. Her gaze slid from the paperwork to the calendar on her desk. Christmas. It was only two weeks away. She would have to get him something amazing – something better than the dumb ebony statue she'd been too afraid to sign her name to the year before. Something to thank him for being the best friend she'd ever had. Something he would never forget.
A/N: I know some people are getting frustrated cause Rory & Logan aren't getting together, but it'll come. Eventually. We've got a long way to go – they still haven't come up with their plan yet (that's coming soon, I promise!). Thank you for reading!