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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.
OoOoOo
From over the kitchen cabinet where he was just finishing up, Logan heard the front door open and the voices enter the apartment.
"Make yourself at home," Brian said in the living room. "I'll just grab a quick shower and change, then we can go."
"Okay," Mandy said in that syrupy sweet voice that still crawled right under Logan's skin. "Don't keep me waiting too long."
There was a long moment of silence as faded humiliation and envy seeped into Logan's chest. It was ridiculous, but one small part of him still wished that he was the one out there with her.
"I'll be right back," Brian said, and Logan heard the low tone of desire in his voice.
Pushing back the jealousy, Logan looked out the window onto the darkening skyline. The thought of disappearing into the night seemed like a very good idea at that moment; however, that thought had barely made it all the way across his mind when he heard her footfalls on the tile floor behind him.
"Oh, hi," Mandy said, the first word registering surprise, the second, something entirely else.
"Hi." He ran the cloth over the counter, not bothering to turn enough to truly acknowledge her presence, but still he felt like an animal stalking its prey.
"It's been awhile," she said, walking right to his side and leaning against the counter, her hip only inches from his elbow.
"Yeah, it has." In one motion he flipped the rag into the sink with a sarcastic laugh. He needed to put more space between them so he stepped over to the trashcan closet and busied himself with putting the dishwashing soap away and straightening the shelves.
Mandy, however, was never one to take a hint. Slowly she sauntered over to the wall next to the closet door.
"I just wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings," she said, lowering her voice, and Logan couldn't decide if it was so Brian wouldn't hear or if the flirtatious note he heard was actually lilting around the edges of the soft words.
"Nope, no hard feelings," Logan said, backing out of the closet awkwardly and wishing his gaze didn't fall on her bare midriff learning against his counter. Quickly he went back over to the sink and washed out the rag.
"That's good," she said, and the heat in his chest told him just how closely she had followed him. "I was hoping you weren't mad."
At that moment he felt her hand on his shoulder, and then it slid slowly down his back to his waistline. How many times had this very scene played out at this sink? How many times had he turned, pinning her to the opposite counter, pressed his lips and body to hers, knowing every move she would make and that they would find themselves hours later somewhere in the apartment locked in each other's panting embrace?
"I've missed you." Her hand clasped around his waist, and he drank in a ragged breath as he felt the familiar tug of her hand.
His veins pulsed with a heat that he couldn't be sure was all anger. Uncomfortably he shrugged away from her. "Mandy."
"What?" she asked as though the preceding seven months had never happened.
"It's over. Remember?"
"It doesn't have to be." Her gaze pulled his in one link at a time.
"What?" he asked, blinking, taken totally off-guard by her forwardness. "You're going out with my roommate."
"Convenient," she said, running her hand across the middle of his back. "Don't you think?"
"Hey." In absolute disbelief he spun away from her. "Look, I don't know what kind of game you're playing here, but I'm not interested."
"No games? You don't want to have a little fun for old time's sake?" The deep brown of her eyes that Logan had fallen so deeply in love with now caused only extreme revulsion when he looked into them.
"No." He pulled both arms away from her. "I don't want to have a little fun with you. I don't want anything to do with you."
Without taking his hands down, he slid down the counter past her and escaped into the living room.
"Well, you don't have to get all weird on me," she said, sounding absurdly hurts as she followed him step-for-step into the living room.
The tone of her voice swung him around in one step, and his gaze traveled over her as the last thread of desire he'd ever felt for her snapped in two. Word he wanted to scream raced through his head, but just before the fist one jumped from his lips, motion on the stairs caught his attention.
"I'm ready," Brian said as Logan took a cautious step backward. Brian took the rest of the stairs in one continuous motion, a smile plastered across his face. "Did Logan tell you we're going into business together?"
Mandy crossed her arms in front of her as her bleach blonde mane fell across one eye. "No, he didn't mention that."
"Easton and Huntzberger Design and Landscaping," Brian said as he walked over to Mandy and draped a protective arm over her shoulder. "You'll have to see the model we did sometime."
"Yeah, I'll have to," she said, gazing at Logan with a look that made his dinner crawl up his gut.
It was obvious by the way Brian was looking at her that he didn't hear the undertone in her words or see the brown eyes still taunting Logan, teasing him, flirting with him.
"Well, we'd better get going," Brian finally said.
Instantly Mandy turned those same eyes on Brian as Logan's stomach turned over. How many times had she been flirting with someone else seconds before he'd been captivating her heart? Thinking about it made his heart pound.
The two of them walked to the door where Brian pulled his jacket off the chair. "See ya later, Logan."
"Yeah, see ya." Logan swiped a magazine off the couch and turned to the chair.
Brian opened the door, and Mandy sauntered out without so much as a glance back at Logan.
"Don't wait up," Brian said with a sly smile, and then the door closed behind them.
"Don't worry," Logan said sarcastically.
OoOoOo
"I can't believe she had the audacity to come on to you with him upstairs," Rory whisper-shrieked in horror as Logan sat across from her on Monday morning.
He was proud of himself. He hadn't called her the whole weekend. Several times the phone had been in his hand, but wit superhuman willpower, he had forced himself to stand on his won two feet and deal with his latest development – at least until the moment he had walked past Rory's desk ten minutes ago – and keeping the whole ugly scene to himself had flown away like a flock of startled birds.
Logan shook his head as the kitchen scene replayed itself in his mind. "I hate to think what she would've done if I'd said, 'Let's go.'"
Rory's face scrunched in disgust. "Oh, jeez. Let's not even go there." Then the concern slid over the revulsion. "So, what are you going to do?"
Slowly Logan shrugged. "What can I do? He's in love with her. What am I supposed to say, 'Brian, you're in love with a psychopath?'"
"It'd be the truth."
"He wouldn't listen to me," Logan said with a helpless shake of his head.
"Why not?"
In one breath his gaze caught Rory's and held. "Come on, Ace, you of all people know the answer to that question. How many times did you try to tell me the very same thing, and did I listen?"
Her mouth moved, but nothing came out.
"No," he answered for her solidly, angrily. He pushed up from the chair and stepped over to the wall. "I'm telling you, it's hopeless. He's not going to listen to me. My only hope is that he figures out what he's all about before it's too late."
Rory's gaze fell to her hands folded on her desk. "Yeah. Let's hope that happens sooner rather than later."
Logan exhaled. "No kidding."
OoOoO
The next night as they hunched over the progression of a backyard landscape model that hope evaporated.
"You can start on this side penciling in the stone walk," Brian said, laying the colored pencils next to the project.
Logan looked at them in well-disguised panic. "Which ones should I use?"
"Let's see, peach." Brian pulled a pencil out of the stack. "And pink." He pulled another one out. "And white and gray." One-by-one he lined them up on the table as Logan watched him carefully.
Slowly Logan picked up the gray pencil. "So, what are you going to do for Christmas?"
"I'm taking Mandy home with me," Brian said, and the smile shone through the words. "To meet my parents."
"To Denver?" Logan concentrated on filling in the small circles although his mind escaped into the kitchen unbidden. "Sounds serious."
"It is." Brian carefully glued the pieces of picket fence tighter. "If they like her as much as I do, I'm going to ask her to marry me on New Years."
The pencil in Logan's hand streaked across the walk. "What?"
Every corner of Brian's eyes were shining. "I bought the ring yesterday after work."
"Whoa, Brian. Are you sure?"
Brian set the picket fence off to the side and consulted the computer printout of the model. "I've never been so sure of anything in my entire life. She's it. The ying for my yang. The missing piece. The other half of my heart. The one that will complete me."
"I didn't know you weren't complete." Logan's gaze fell back to the penciled walk, and for a moment Brian came back from the fantasy he'd floated away on.
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I'm afraid I do," Logan said, hating the pitch of his voice.
"Oh, don't worry, it won't be until at least summer. Mandy says she loves summer weddings."
That much Logan already knew. He swallowed the kitchen scene under the smile he forced onto his face as he looked up. "Well, I'm happy for you."
OoOoO
"Oh Lord. Please tell me you're kidding," Rory said the next morning as Logan sat across from her, sheet-white and as tense as he'd been the morning after Bubbles had walked out on him.
"I wish," he said softly.
She watched him rubbing his hands together, and her heart fell. "So, what are you going to do?"
"I don't know, Ace," he said in utter despair. "I don't know. God this is a mess."
There was no argument from her side. It was indeed a mess. "Well, maybe he'll change his mind…" But the look on Logan's face stopped her. "Okay, it was a thought."
"I've got to do something." The chair seemed to launch him out of it. "There's got to be a way to stop him from going through with this."
Rory watched him take two steps over to the wall as wheels of her brain spun. "What if you got him to look in another direction?"
Logan's gaze sliced through her, and she ducked her head and pretended to sift through the papers on her desk.
"I'm listening."
She shrugged. "If you can get him to look at someone else, maybe you can convince him to reconsider his decision."
"And how am I supposed to do that?" Logan asked, every word butcher knife sharp.
"I don't know," Rory said as her hands continued sifting although her mind registered nothing her hands were doing. The anger and hurt crashed through her. "It was just an idea."
She wanted to help him, but she knew that nothing she ever did or came up with would be enough to make him understand how much she truly cared.
"I'm sorry," he said, sliding into the chair in front of her desk. "I didn't mean to snap at you."
The smile she forced onto her face felt more like a grimace. "I know."
"Huntzberger," Elliot said from her doorway. "It's past eight."
"Yeah," Logan said, turning instantly. Then he turned back to her, but all she saw was the blur of his pressed pale blue shirt as he stood. "I'll talk to you later?"
Wordlessly she nodded, afraid to trust her voice. Without looking up, she knew he had walked out. The weight sitting on her heart lifted, pulling the tears up with it. Slowly she slid the top drawer of her desk out and picked up the white envelope that lay there. Her fingers slipped the card out of the envelope as hot tears clouded her vision. Angrily she swiped away the only one that managed to escape.
'You are my friend
The one I laugh with,
Cry with,
Love'
Wishing her hands wouldn't betray her, she watched as they opened the card to where she had written her message the night after he had left her apartment.
'Logan,
Sometimes taking a risk with a friend is better than playing it safe with strangers, what do you think? You and me? Maybe? Sometime?
Merry Christmas.
Love always,
Rory.'
As though she was tearing her own heart in two, she turned the card to the side, and ripped it in half. Logan would never see her that way. He never would. If only she was like Mandy, tall, beautiful, blonde – forceful. But there had never been a forceful bone in Rory's body. In fact, every bone in her body seemed geared to only one thing – pain.
Slowly she pushed the envelope and card to the back corner of her desk. A gift basket would be better. Fruit or ginger ale or donuts. Something safe. Just like she was. But for one, brief moment, she wanted with every particle of her being to be something other than safe. Something other than boring Rory who sat at home every night, and had rarely been seen by anyone other than a friend. Just for one moment, and then she could go back and relieve that moment for the rest of her life, and she would be happy.
OoOoOoOoO
"I've been thinking about your plan," Logan said, rolling his orange down his arm and popping it into the air as they sat under the canopy of trees later that afternoon.
"My plan?" Rory asked, biting into a chip. "What plan?"
"You know, the one about getting Brian to look in another direction?"
"Oh? What about it?"
"Well, I think it could work if we found the right person."
Her heart jumped at the word 'we', but she beat that thought back down. "You have somebody in mind?"
"Yeah." He examined the fruit in his hands.
"Who?" she asked before taking a long drink of Sprite.
He pushed his thumbs into the center of the fruit as juice slid down the sides of his hand. "You."
The gasp that engulfed her body pulled the sticky sweet liquid down into her lungs, and she doubled over as her throat choked on the substance. The coughs racked her chest as she fought to find fresh air.
"You okay?" he asked with concern when she looked at him, the tears of being strangled by Sprite glinting in her eyes.
"Umm," she coughed again. "Yeah, I think so."
"Good," he said happily. "Now, here's what I think. We get Brian to bump into you – set it up so he does. Then after he's bumped into you a couple times, you say something like, 'This must be fate.' Then you invite him out."
The choke that jumped to her throat at that suggestion had absolutely nothing to do with Sprite. "I don't…" She coughed. "I don't think that's going to work."
"Why not?"
Her gaze registered the utter disbelief in her heart. "Umm, well for one thing, did you forget who you're talking to? This is me. Remember? Rory. I haven't been on a date in… well, that's not important. The important thing is this is not me. This is nothing I can pull off. I'm not like those girls, I don't jump at the chance of being on Elimidate."
"Why not?"
"Why don't I want to be on Elimidate? Seriously Logan..."
Logan rolled his eyes, "No Ace, why don't you think you can pull it off?"
She closed her eyes and laughed sarcastically. "Look at me. I can't compete with somebody like Mandy."
"Sure you can," he said matter-of-factly. "With the right look, you wouldn't be bad."
"Gee, thanks." She turned back to her Sprite and then thought better of that idea.
"No, I'm just saying you have potential."
She looked at him trying to figure out how to tell him where to go and how to get there. "Well, that was better."
"Come on, Ace. I'm asking you to do this as a favor to Brian."
"I don't even know Brian."
"Okay, then do it for me," Logan said, turning fully toward her. "Please. Call it an early Christmas present."
She shook her head. "You're insane."
"Yeah, but you'll do it, right?"
"I don't know. I'll have to think about it." Hesitantly she took a sip of Sprite that burned all the way down her throat.
"Well, think fast. We don't have much time."
OoOoO
"So, what did you get Mandy for Christmas?" Logan asked that night, doing some deep sea fishing for any information he could use to further the plan.
"I haven't yet, why?" Brian asked as he surveyed the bushes he had just glued to the model.
"Just trying to get some ideas," Logan said, setting up three trees and stepping back to look at it. "How's this?"
Brian leaned over and nodded. "Good."
In one swipe Logan grabbed the glue and started attaching the trees to the mat.
"So you looking for something for Chinese food girl?" Brian asked, never taking his gaze off the tiny backyard.
Logan shrugged. "I was thinking about it."
Slowly Brian spun the mat around examining every inch of it carefully. "I'd thought about going shopping at Lenox tomorrow night. Mandy's going out with some friends."
The picture that leaped into Logan's mind at that news was one he would've preferred to never have seen. "Maybe we can go together."
"Strength in numbers," Brian said with a nod. "I like that."
OoOoOoOoO
"It's all set," Logan whispered in to the phone excitedly.
"What's all set?" Rory asked apprehensively.
"The plan. It's all in place."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" she asked as anger laced through the words.
"What?"
"I haven't said, 'Yes' yet."
"Oh, yeah, but that's a minor technicality," he said, batting that small problem out of his mind. He heard her sigh. "What?"
"Maybe I'm going to say 'No'."
"Come on. You know I wouldn't ask if this wasn't important."
"Life and death?"
"As close as it comes."
He heard a second deeper sigh. "Please, Ace. Please. I'm on my knees begging here. Please."
"Fine," she finally said, still not sounding at all convinced. "So what's the plan?"
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