Thanks to the reviewers:
CoCaCoLa29, fallingforGGguys, astragail, HPHGKCroar, shotswithMrsKim, LHTDfan, gilmoregirlslover81591, Hopes2High, finnlover, just hidden, melako17, Nichole Thompson, SonnyCarlyJasonCourtney, zetaphi7, ggloverforever, -alternate-universe-princess-, central-gurl101, spinaround, glamourgirl33, Britt, Peachy-Smile, leopardgirl225,
Rory walked over to Tristan and smacked him upside the head for the second time that day. "Can it Bible boy."
Logan wasn't paying any attention to what Rory and Tristan were saying, he was too busy staring at Rory. Her face was flushed and her hair was messed up, but she still looked amazing. God my girlfriend is beautiful. Logan froze, girlfriend? Is she my girlfriend, we never talked about that.
Panic started coursing through his veins, what if she doesn't think that we're dating, what if she thinks that I don't want to be her boyfriend? A thousand similar thoughts starting racing through his mind. He needed to talk to her. Soon.
Logan's convertible pulled up in front of Rory's house, Tristan was right behind him. They were stopping off so that Rory could grab the clothes and stuff that she would need while she stayed with Logan.
The trio made their way along the familiar path up to Rory's room. Like Logan, Rory and Tristan each had huge rooms, but Logan's was where they preferred to hang out because he had the door, the kitchen, and the huge guestroom.
When Tristan stepped into Rory's room the first thing he noticed was that little had changed. She still had the huge wall collage of pictures of them, her classic movie posters were still up, everything was the same.
He went over to the collage to see what pictures she had added. The first one that caught his eye was one from what he assumed was her debutante ball. She looks beautiful; I wish I could have been there. He studied the picture closely; he knew that Logan had been her escort. Logan had called Tristan to tell him that Jack, thankfully, would not be taking Rory. Neither of them were overly thrilled with Jack dating her, they didn't trust him. The picture captured everything from that moment, they were dancing. Logan had one arm around her waist and his other hand was playing with her hair; Rory's hand was on his chest next to her head, her eyes were closed. Tristan saw in that picture everything he had been seeing for the past sixteen years. I'm glad they finally got a clue.
Logan saw Tristan staring at the picture from the ball, he walked over to his cousin, "she looked gorgeous didn't she"
Tristan turned his head and smiled at Logan, "yeah man, she did."
"What's going on with you two? Did you guys finally get it together?" his voice turned dark, "And what the hell was going on today with Jack?"
Logan smirked at his cousin, nothing had changed, still as protective of Rory as ever. "Tristan, slow down. One question at a time. I honestly don't know what's going on with her and I, I think that we're dating but we never made it clear."
Tristan's head snapped around, he glared at his cousin. "Logan I swear to god if you're doing one of those stupid "no-strings" deals, I'll kill you now. I wont let you do that to her."
"I would never to that to Rory! God Tristan how could you think that, you know I love her!"
"So what the hell did you mean when you said you never made it clear?"
"Long story, part of which will require answering your last question, which can only be done with Rory present. I'll tell you the rest later, needless to say, it was a long weekend."
Tristan saw the pain in his cousin's eyes, he wanted to be with her; he put his hand on Logan's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "it'll be ok man, I promise."
After calling all their parents (it only took one phone call since they were all at the Rorye business meeting and put the kids on speaker phone) and yelling at them for not sharing that Tristan was coming home, the teens settled in to do their homework.
Logan and Tristan didn't see the need to do it since they had off for two days for some teacher conference, but Rory pointed out that if they did it now, they would have most of tonight and the next to days to do whatever they wanted. Damn her logic.
Rory caught Tristan up in their government class and Logan caught him up in physics, since the other was completely useless in the other subject (i.e. Logan is bad at gov, Rory is bad at physics).
When all their homework was done and put away, they got comfortable and starting catching up on what had been going on in their lives. Tristan regaled them with tales of military school and Logan and Rory caught him up on the goings on of Chilton.
Tristan finally decided it was time that they share what had happened over the weekend, they had been avoiding it long enough.
"Ok guys, enough skirting around the subject. You two better start telling me what happened this weekend, and I don't want bits and pieces, I want all of it."
Rory looked at Logan, she was unsure of whether or not she could do this. He saw the hesitance in her eyes; he took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "you can do it Ace, I'm here to help."
Rory's voice came out shaky and nervous as she started telling Tristan what had happened with jack. She left out all the intimate things that had occurred with Logan the night he took her home, she only said that Logan took care of her.
Logan was eternally grateful that she omitted what happened between them, he wanted to talk to her first before telling some of that to Tristan. Her voice started to break when she got to the part about the parking lot and the things that Jack had said about her. She paused to take a breath and regain control, but the tears flooded out.
Logan took her in his arms, hating that he again had to console her over this, hating that Jack had hurt her so badly. He looked over at Tristan, he knew the expression on his face. Tristan was seeing red and coming up with various ways to tear Jack apart limb by limb.
Rory had stopped crying, but Logan still held onto her, comforting her. He took over the story, making sure to emphasize how much he had beaten up Jack. The anger in Tristan's eyes lessened slightly when he heard that but, it flared up again when the full encounter at lunch was explained.
She watched her cousin's eyes as he took in everything that she and Logan had told him. The wave of emotion that coursed through him was overwhelming. Anger, protectiveness, rage, thankfulness (that Logan was there to protect her), fury. She saw it all in Tristan's eyes. She watched him clench and unclench his fists, run his hands through his hair. She knew he was going to break when he heard the full story.
When Logan finished, Tristan was silent. After a few minutes of him saying nothing, Rory whispered, "tris…"
Then she heard him mumble under his breath, "I'm gonna kill him…"
She smiled at that. He was always guarding her; she knew that she was like his little sister and that he would do anything for her.
She looked at the two guys in her life, the ones that she couldn't live without. My protectors.
After telling Tristan the story, Rory was drained. Tristan put in their favorite movie while Logan and Rory sat on the couch. Logan was laying against the back of the couch and Rory had her back against the chest, his arms were around her waist.
About halfway through the movie Logan felt her breathing slow down and even out. She was asleep. He shifted and put one of his arms under her knees and the other on her back. When her arms were around his neck, he carried her upstairs and put her in bed. He shut the door on the way out, knowing that he and Tristan would be talking for a while.
When he got back downstairs, Tristan was deep in thought. He sat back down on the couch, waiting for Tristan to come out of his trance.
Tristan finally spoke, but his voice was barely audible, "I've never been so angry in my life."
Logan nodded, "I know how you feel."
They both looked at each other, Logan knew what was coming next.
"ok cuz, I know Rory left a lot of stuff out, care to fill me in?"
Logan put his head in his hands and ran his fingers through his hair. He sighed, "where do I begin?"
"Start from when you got home from school."
So he did. "…after she kissed me I pulled away."
"why?"
"Do you remember today at lunch you asked me why she had her ring now and I told you that I did screwed up and had to prove something to her?"
"Yeah…"
"well this is the beginning of that stupid thing."
Tristan smiled at his cousin, "ah, continue then."
"I pulled away because I didn't want her to do what she was out of anger with jack, I didn't want to be the rebound guy."
He was about to continue when Tristan held up his hand, "Logan, please, tell me that you didn't say that to her."
When Logan looked away, Tristan knew that he had. "man you are stupid…"
"don't need to tell me that."
"What happened and how'd you fix it?"
"She went into ranting mode."
"semi-ranting or full on angry don't mess with me ranting?"
"don't mess with me ranting"
"uh-oh, what'd she say?"
Logan told him and Tristan smiled. "that sounds exactly like something Mary would say…you still didn't tell me how you fixed it."
Logan got up off the couch, opened the compartment, and got the cd. He put it into the stereo and let it play.
Tristan listened to the mix that Logan made. All the songs fit their relationship perfectly. This must have taken him forever. He looked over at Logan; it was obvious that he was in his own world.
"Logan that song was amazing, I bet she loved it."
"she did, she kissed me, but then she pulled away."
Before Tristan could ask why, Logan answered, "she was scared that I didn't believe her. i had to prove to her that I believed her."
"how did you—"
Tristan stopped when Logan looked him right in the eye. "I told her that I loved her."
Logan's voice was so quiet that Tristan almost didn't hear him. When Tristan finally realized what Logan had said, his jaw dropped.
"you said what…?"
This time Logan was louder, "I told her I loved her."
Logan paused, "she said that she loved me too."
Tristan heard the happiness in Logan's voice, they loved each other. He'd been waiting for them to admit for years, but they were both too damn stubborn.
"wait a second, if you both love each then why are not clear about what you are to each other? And you still haven't told me why you gave her the ring."
"I gave her the ring after she told me she loved me. I thought that she should have it, after all Christmas was when I was planning on telling her that I love her anyway. I'm unclear about what we are because we never actually said that we were dating. The rain kinda put us both to sleep and by the next morning we were dealing with jack."
Tristan frowned. The way that they were acting in school today, her sitting on Logan's lap, the way they were looking at each other, the make-out session in the hallway against the lockers…he could have sworn that they were going out.
This was too much for him, he could handle his cousins loving each other, thank god they aren't related…¸but acting like that without knowing what they were to each, that he wouldn't put up with.
"Hold on, you mean to tell me that you two were going at it in the hallway, something that Rory would never EVER do, hence her nickname, and you aren't officially dating?"
The tone of Tristan's voice told Logan he was in trouble. This is not good, I somehow managed to forget that he's her cousin too, a very protective cousin. "Tristan look, I'm going to talk to her, as a matter of fact after what happened in the hallway today I freaked. I was looking at her arguing with you and I thought to myself, 'my girlfriend is beautiful'. But then I realized, she wasn't actually my girlfriend, and I panicked. I want nothing more than to be her boyfriend and her to be my girlfriend, my only girlfriend. I wanted to talk to her tonight, but seeing as she's fast asleep right now, that isn't going to happen."
Then Tristan said something that Logan would have never expected, "so what?"
"excuse me?"
"I said, so what. So what if she's asleep, go talk to her. I think that this is more important than her sleep right now, we have off tomorrow, she can sleep till noon if she wants. She's my cousin Logan, she's like my little sister, I'd do anything for her, I'd kill for her and you know that I would. And if you think that I would hesitate to kill you if you hurt her, you're sorely mistaken. I wont say it again, go talk to her. Now."
Logan was in shock. Tristan had never spoken to him that way. To other people, yes, but never to him. He'd only ever heard him speak like that when Rory was involved. He remembered the first time he'd heard Tristan defend her with that voice, the memory still sent shivers down his spine. He had promised himself that he would never be on the receiving end of that voice. Now he was.
He didn't say anything to his cousin. He just got up and made his way up to his room.
She didn't hear him coming up the stairs but she knew the second he walked into the room. She could always sense when he was near her.
He walked across the room and sat down next to her on the bed but she kept her eyes shut. For a few minutes he just watched her sleep, he watched her chest slowly rise and fall with each breath, he just watched her.
Logan brushed a piece of hair out of her face, she turned on her side and slowly opened her eyes. Rory looked up at him.
"Hey…" her voice cracked slightly, she was still half asleep.
Logan leaned down and kissed her forehead, "wait here, I'll go get you some water."
When he came back he helped her sit up, she was beyond tired. He climbed onto the bed with her and put his arms around her. She took the water from him and leaned against his chest. He gently stroked her side. After she finished the water, Logan took the glass and placed it on the nightstand. Rory curled into him more. All Logan could think about was how good it felt, just laying here with her.
He knew he needed to talk to her about what was going on.
"Ace…?"
"yeah Logan?"
He took a deep breath, "we need to talk…"
Rory tensed up, that was the phrase that every girl never wanted to hear.
"talk?"
When Logan felt her tense up and heard her repeat "talk" the way she did, it occurred to him what he had just said to her. He pulled back and tried to look into her eyes. She wouldn't look at him.
"Ace, ace look at me!"
She hesitantly looked up at him. "Rory, I do not want to have that talk." Logan laughed, "Actually, I want to have the opposite talk."
"the opposite talk?"
Logan pulled them up and sat in front of her, taking her hands into his. "Rory, the other night, when I brought you home, a lot of stuff happened that we never talked about. We fell asleep that night and the next morning and up until now we were dealing with Jack."
"Logan, what do you mean?"
"Ace, we never talked about what we are. I never asked you the question that's been burning in my mind since you pushed me into the sandbox when I took your Popsicle."
Rory didn't say anything, she just kept her eyes on him; she knew that Logan was trying to get up the courage to ask whatever it was he was going to ask her.
He looked into her eyes and when he saw the softness in them, he found the courage he needed.
"Rory," he asked softly, "would you be my girlfriend?"
A/N: ok there wasnt much Rogan action in this chapter but, i wanted to post it. This is seriously the longest chapter ever. it was like 8 pages.
Review guys, b/c the more reviews i get the more inclined i am to post another chapter and the longer it may be...