Chapter 3 – *The Song Remembers When

I was standing at the counter
I was waiting for the change
When I heard that old familiar music start
It was like a lighted match had been tossed into my soul
It was like a dam had broken in my heart
After taking every detour
Gettin' lost and losin' track
So that even if I wanted I could not find my way back
After driving out the memory
Of the way things might have been
After I'd forgotten all about us
The song remembers when

Logan stands against the glass looking in at the newborns behind them. He's watching the newest member of the Huntzberger family. Little Elias Gene Davenport, is now one day old. Logan thinks his newest nephew might be the cutest baby on the planet. He smiles softly, Josh and Honor did good but then slightly scowls to himself, because that initial thought makes him think about how they "did" good. Gross.

He stops first by the gift shop to grab some stuff to surprise Honor. He's been living full ensconced in London for a while now and he'd missed most of her pregnancy. Sure they talked on Face time several times a week, but he'd been physically away from his sister for some time and he regretted it. It felt great to be finally living back in New York City. The hum of the traffic, the lights, it felt like chaos, which meant he was finally home.

As he grabs a funny looking stuffed monkey off the shelf he hears it, the music softly playing though the sound system in the gift shop and he stops. It's been years, another lifetime maybe, since he's heard this music, the faint tones of "Moon River". He knows it shouldn't still affect him this much. Knows that he loved her enough for both of them, but his heart also knows that she said no. Twice. And yet he can move, can barely take a breath as he remember that first dance:

She in his arms, and he wants to keep his cool, keep it simple and carefree, but she looks amazing in that suit, and the look on her face tells him she's thinking something. God when isn't' this amazing woman thinking about something? "What?' He can't help himself but to pry.

"Why did you come?" She asks and he hates how he feels like he already knows this girl so well, a girl that he hasn't even kissed, and has no intention of doing so.

She's not the kind of girl you just fuck around with. That he knows with such certainly that it scares him. She's the girl you lose your heart too and he's just not ready to do that. So he tries to keep the conversation light. "Open Bar." He smiles, trying to distract her. Surely she's been witness to his carefree drinking enough to believe that.

"Quite a draw for a guy with a American Express Black card." She says and it surprises him to hear that irony in her voice and not the awe at which most girls view his relationship with money.

But then, she's not most girl. Keep it fun, Huntzberger, he says to himself again, "Live band, salad, butter pats,.."

"Logan," she interrupts but he keeps talking.

"Little bags of those Jordan almonds."

"Are you ever going to ask me out?" He smirks. She has no idea what she's asking of him. Or the fact that she's not asking is more like it. He's use to pushy girls, girls that make the first move, and girls that throw themselves at him and his status, but she's insecure. Why would someone as beautiful as her ever be unsure of a guy liking her? He has seen that damn Marty drool all over on a daily basis, and that truck driving Dean, look at her with stars in his eyes.

I guess something must have happened
And we must have said goodbye
And my heart must have been broken
Though I can't recall just why
The song remembers when

Well, for all the miles between us
And for all the time that's past
You would think I haven't gotten very far
And I hope my hasty heart
Will forgive me just this once
If I stop to wonder how on earth you are

And yet she stands here, uncertain about a rich, douche like him looking at her the right way? Its time like these he's reminded just how messed up the world is, that a girl like Rory Gilmore would think she's beneath a guy like him.

"You flirt with me, you act like you like me a little. You show up here with a friend, not a date. I mean, aren't you, ever?"

God she's not going to make this easy. He wants to laugh it off. He wants to hide the way he's thought about her. In fact he's thought he'd done a great job at hiding the fact that he wants her around, but apparently he's not done as well a job as he believed, because she's just called him out on all the things he thought he had perfectly covered up.

And yet, while he wants to say nothing, she says in a confused voice, "you do like me right?"

He's caught up in her eyes and the fact that she's the only girl ever that has already called him out on all of his BS, be it about being in the Life and Death Brigade or that he likes her, and she's done it with humor, even when he's tried to turn the tables.

"Oh, ok, umm." He hears her saying and realizes that she's beginning to back out of his arms, and that she's so unsure a guy like him could actually be looking at her like that, that's she thinks she's wrong about it all and is embarrassed.

She's attempting to move away more as she speaks, but he can't make his arms loosen their grasp on her, "Ok ,I'll just umm, let you go back to your table, and I'll start burrowing directly into the ground."

"Rory." He says her name, instead of Ace, even though it's his favorite thing to call her because he knows he's so rarely used it she'll pay attention.

"I should be in china by midnight."

"Rory," he says again pulling her back in. He can't let her think that his reluctance has anything to do with her. She's amazing.

"You called me Rory."

He knew it would work. "I want to be clear."

"Oh, good." She says and why can't this girl be quiet for just one single second and let him tell her it's all about his insufficiencies, not hers.

"I have thought about asking you out several times, I just don't think it's a good idea."

"Why not?" Damn it woman let a man speak he thinks.

"Because you're special." There I said it, are you happy? He knows he shouldn't have said it, because it makes what he thinks about her a reality and not just some mind fuck he's playing on himself.

"Special?" She questions, "Like stop eating the paste special?"

He raises his eyebrow and cocks his heard. This amazing girl really has no idea just how special she is does she. He's sure he's not the first to tell her these things, certainly won't be the last, but she needs to know them, "You are beautiful, you are intelligent, you are incredibly interesting, you are definitely girl friend material."

And now he knows he has to break the hard truth to her and himself. "However I am not boyfriend material. I can't do it. I can't do commitment, and I don't want to pretend to you that I can."

He should stop there, he knows, he should, but he also knows she needs more convincing and in truth he needs to talk himself out of kissing her right then and there, so he continues. "If I were to date you there would be no dating, it would be something right away and I'm not that guy."

"But I'm not looking for anything, something like." She says, and he almost wants to roll his eyes. Leave it to her to take it as a slam on her, instead of him slamming himself.

"Rory.."

"I'm not. I've done that. As a matter of fact I just did that and that's not what I want."

How can she not see that it's what he wants, what he KNOWS he'll want if he gets even as a taste of the woman she is underneath it all.

"I'm not saying you want that right now." He cannot believe his ears.

This woman, probably the only woman who has offered herself to him that he has ever said no to, is upset because he's telling her he can't be a one woman guy.

In reality they all find that out eventually, but it's usually once he sealed the deal and gotten all he wanted out the situation. He's never told a girl no, because he never cared what they thought about him after it was over, but already he cares what she thinks about him. The insecure part of him wonders if he's been reading the situation all wrong, and this girl doesn't see him as more then just a playboy, with a big pocket that she can use as a fling, but even as she says, "No, I don't want that at all." He knows she only saying it because all she sees is this moment, and right now that isn't what she wants.

"I'm not expecting anything. I just, I like you and I wanna spend some time with you." She's killing him. She actually seems to like spending time with him, to actually like HIM, not his money or status. "No strings attached."

He wants to laugh out loud. Did she really just say what he thought she said? "No strings attached huh?" He clarifies.

She says something about an old Cindy Lauper song, and girls just wanting to have fun, but he's torn. This girl he has tried to say away from but can't seem to make himself actually stay away from, just offered to be friends with benefits, and the guy in him wants to jump at the chance, but he's afraid of who he will become if he actually lets a girl like her, a girl of quality into his life. Maybe he should talk her out of it, "You may feel like that now." He pushes.

"I do feel like that now." She will NOT let this go.

"Ok, but… Where are we going?" he says as she pulls his hand and leads him off the dance floor.

"How should I know? What do you think I have a plan or something? Geez, live in the moment Huntzberger."

She's walking away from him, and away from the crowd with a lifted bottle of Champaign and he can't make his legs follow her, until she looks over her should at him with those amazing blue eyes and then he can't seem to stop himself.

He finds himself being led into the brides dressing area, now deserted. He doesn't remember ever being nervous with girls, he's never had a reason to be, but here, he's already nervous and it's only been words spoken between them.

When she makes the first move and kisses him, he tries to stop himself from kissing her back and tries to make a joke about feeling like he's kissing a guy because of the best man suite she's wearing, but even he can't imagine her looking sexier in anything else, except maybe just the tie around her neck, and he can't remember any other girl when she goes in for the second kiss because while he mumbles something about not knowing what he was missing, trying again to make a funny, the truth was that he's known it since she first argued with him outside her dorm room, and now that he knows that she tastes like coffee and candy, he doesn't know why he ever tried to stop this.

How can the sounds of one simple song take him back to moment from almost 13 years ago? That first dance, that first, kiss, and yes heartbreak when she said no had almost killed him. He'd been barely living in his life until she'd found her way back to him again in Hamburg, but when she'd said no, again, he had agreed to up the wedding date with Odette. No need to prolong the inevitable torture of signing over your soul to the devil. In truth though there was no soul for the devil for extract they day he signed his life away with the pre-nup Mitchum had drawn up, because he'd given it to her at her grandparent's vow renewal and there was no way he'd ever get it back.

But that's just a lot of water
Underneath a bridge I burned
And there's no use in backtracking
Around corners I have turned
Still I guess some things we buried
Are just bound to rise again
For even if the whole world has forgotten
The song remembers when

Yeah, and even if the whole world has forgotten
The song remembers when

* The Song Remembers When – Trisha Yearwood