"Yes, I doubt you'd have drank eight of them if they weren't" Sue sighed.
"I didn't have eight, I had…" Rory tried counting clumsily on her fingers for a few seconds before giving up. She waved her hand dismissively. "I don't know but it couldn't have been eight," she mumbled.
"Believe me, it was eight and we're going to make sure we don't make it any more than eight," Sue told her friend before turning to the bartender. "Why don't you switch her over to water? Please," the red head suggested and slipped the man a bill.
"You got it," he said, pocketing the tip. "One water, coming up."
"You're right, I should have water…water is good for you, it's definitely the smarter choice. Water is healthy, it builds strong bones…" Rory muttered.
"That's milk hun," Sue reminded her.
"Whatever, the point is that water is solid…you know, for a liquid. And water fits my personality. Water makes sense." Rory nodded her head drunkenly. "So what if martinis make you fell all warm inside? You drink the martini and it tastes good but then you wake up one day and the martini is gone because it loved you too much or because Daddy martini is sending it to London and then what? Huh? Then all your left with is an eye popping head ache and a nauseous feeling in the pit of your stomach," Rory continued with her rant.
The bartender placed a large glass of water in front of Rory, shaking his head slightly. "I made it a double," he said, raising his eyes knowingly at Sue. "I think she's gonna need it."
"Thanks," Sue told the bartender before turning back to Rory. "Drink," she ordered her friend, but Rory suddenly jumped up from her barstool.
"I love this song," she said as the band began playing DHT's Listen To Your Heart
Sue sighed, maybe girl's night out was not such a good idea. "Drink the water first, then you can dance," she told her friend.
"Fine," Rory grabbed the water and chugged it, placing the glass back on the table. "Now we dance," she said gabbing her friend and pulling her to the dance floor.
"Listen to your heart, when he's calling for you, listen to your heart, there's nothing else you can do," Rory sang along to the song.
After a few minutes on the dance floor Rory felt someone come up behind her and start dancing. She turned around to face a good-looking blond man in his mid twenties.
"Hi, I'm Mark," he yelled over the music. "Wanna dance?"
"No, I don't want to dance," she said snidely. "I didn't ask you to dance with me. You think you can just come waltzing up to me and just worm your way back into my life?" she asked angrily.
"Back into your life?" he replied, clearly confused.
"You think just because your good looking and charming you can just swoop in and…and swoop me off my feet?" she continued yelling at the man, her words slurred together.
"Huh? All I wanted was a dance," he told her.
"Suuuuure, you say all you want is a dance but then a dance turns into lunch and lunch turns into dinner and then you're telling me you love me and that you shouldn't have left me. Well did you ever think that maybe it's too late? Huh? Maybe I've moved on. You can't just come here and make me fall for you. Maybe I'm engaged…" Rory held up her left hand. "You ever think of that?" she asked.
"Listen, I'm sorry about my friend she's just a little…" Sue began to cut in.
"She's just a little crazy, that's what your friend is," Mark shot back. "You can tell her fiancé he's got himself a real winner," he said as he stormed off back into the crowd.
"OK, I think we've had enough for one night," Sue said, pulling Rory off the dance floor.
"But I'm having fun," Rory protested.
"Yes, too much fun by the looks of it. I think it's time you started having less fun and more sleep." Sue grabbed Rory's coat and handed it to her.
"But I don't want to go home," Rory complained, reluctantly taking the jacket. "I want another martini."
"Yes but we decided the martini was bad, remember. You want the water now and there's water waiting for you…at home." Sue reminded her friend.
"Oh, yeah. Water." Rory mumbled unhappily as Sue led her out of the bar and flagged down a taxi.
As the door to the apartment opened, Logan felt the butterflies in his stomach turn to fire breathing dragons, sending sharp pains though his abdomen and making his blood boil.
He wasn't supposed to be the one answering the door. He wasn't supposed to be in Rory's apartment. He wasn't supposed to be in Rory's life. It was true that Logan had not asked Rory if she was seeing anyone but he though the question had been implied by simple virtue of the circumstances.
Logan realized the smile that had been on his face a moment ago had been replaced by a somewhat sinister grin; he let it remain. He wasn't going to give this jerk standing before him the satisfaction of knowing he had been caught off his guard.
"Hi…Jess is it?" He asked offering his hand and knowing full well that Jess would not shake it.
"I'm sorry, I don't remember ordering any spoiled, rich, bastards," Jess said, folding his arms across his chest and glaring and Logan.
"Oh. Well than, it must have been your girlfriend," Logan shrugged his shoulders.
"Fiancée" Jess corrected.
The dragons in Logan's stomach tripled in size and all spit fire at once. It wasn't possible. She couldn't be engaged; engagements came with rings that women wore on their left hands. Logan had definitely not seen a ring.
"Semantics," Logan replied snidely with a wave of his hand once he had recovered enough from the latest bit of news.
"What are you doing here?" Jess asked him, trying to keep his voice calm.
"I'm looking for Rory of course," Logan said mater-of-factly.
"She's not here, sorry you wasted you time," Jess unfolded his arms and brought his hand up to the door, preparing to close it on the other man.
Logan put his foot inside the threshold to stop Jess from shutting the door. He wasn't going to let him get away that easily. "That's alright," he told him, "I'll just see her at lunch next week."
Jess's stoic expression faded away to a look of shock and pain. It had only lasted a second before he had regained his composure but it had been there and Logan had seen it. Logan knew in that instant that he had caught Jess off guard and his snide grin grew a tad bit bigger. "Oh no. Did she forget to tell you that we have a lunch date next week?" he paused for a moment after the word "date" for emphasis. "I guess she also forgot to mention that we had lunch yesterday as well," he added.
"She must have repressed the memory. I hear people's brains can do that after a particularly unpleasant event," Jess bit back.
Logan ignored Jess's remark. "I suppose she also left out the part where my company is thinking of buying her newspaper," Logan informed the other man.
"You mean your father's company, the one you've done nothing to earn," Jess remarked.
"Maybe not, but I'm getting it anyway and the point is that I'll be the one overseeing the Liberty Herald. That means I'll be there everyday, working side by side with Rory, sometimes late into the night," Logan said, his voice thick with innuendo.
"Well, a job's a job but at the end of those long nights, she'll still be coming home to me," Jess retaliated. "She'll still be spending her life with me and sleeping in my bed."
"Maybe," Logan replied, being sure to say it in a way that would place serious doubt in Jess's head.
"You need to leave now. Go find some gold digging little floozy to hop into bed with because Rory is with me now. You left her, and she moved on. She's with me now and we're happy. There's nothing you can do change that," Jess growled
"Maybe I did leave her and maybe she did move on. That didn't stop her from taking you back after you left without so much as a good bye, so I'd say history is on my side," Logan replied without missing a beat.
"Good-bye Logan," Jess shot a threatening look at the blond man.
Logan shrugged his shoulders; he'd had enough of this conversation anyhow. "Tell Rory I stopped by."
"Oh, I'll be sure to do that," Jess said sarcastically as he shut the door on Logan.
Logan turned and walked back to the elevator, the anger quickly abating as the pain overtook him.