AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was supposed to be posted on Friday, but I didn't like the way it came out, so I rewrote the entire thing! Sorry about that, but it's here now, and I hope you all enjoy! Thanks for reading and reviewing.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Logan lay flat on his back in bed. It was shaping up to be a clear, gorgeous afternoon outside, and the sun was bursting through the window with all of its golden power. Everyone at the Palm Woods was taking advantage of this beautiful day, but Logan was in his room...hoping he could fall asleep...because he knew if he didn't, he'd probably end up crying.

Did it all end that quickly? Was the dream over already?

In the back of his mind, maybe he knew that he was overreacting a little bit. It was just a little fight! That's it! After all of the wonderful moments he and Kendall had shared since finding each other, would one small disagreement really spell the end of their new relationship?

As he rolled over on his side and stared at Kendall's side of the room, he remembered fights they'd had before. Always petty little things, for the most part. Logan would want to watch Jeopardy, but Kendall would just need to see SportsCenter. Logan had wanted green paint for their room, but Kendall had wanted blue. Even back in Minnesota, most of their fights could be summed up as immature disagreements. There were those times, however, when things got a little bit more serious, and Logan would always question if those fights would be the end of their friendship.

Sometimes, he would wish they had been.

"Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Kendall asked when he barged into the men's bathroom. He found Logan leaning over the sink, spraying water into his face.

"I'm sorry, Kendall. I'm sorry..."

It seemed like they were always apologizing to each other lately.

They were on what was supposed to be a double date at a pizzeria back in Minnesota. They were sixteen years old, and this was a few months before they'd left for California. Kendall's date was Heather Roberts, one of the most popular girls in school. Head cheerleader, volleyball player, etc. An athletic masterpiece with a body that made all the boys turn their heads. Logan's date was Angel Masterson, who was no monster, either. She was a valedictorian-in-the-making, just like Logan, and so they knew each other very well as friends. The thought of them dating, though? It scared Logan shitless.

"Angel thinks she's doing something wrong," Kendall told him with no ounce of sympathy. "You have a date with a gorgeous girl who's a nerd just like you, and you know that's rare. But you're screwing it up for what?"

Logan just kept throwing the water in his face. "I'm sorry, Kendall."

"Don't apologize to me, dork," Kendall said, giving him a rough push.

Logan just wished he could shrink into a ball and disappear. He wished Kendall would leave him alone. He wished Angel and Heather didn't exist, and he wished he could spend the rest of his life in his room.

"I don't understand you," Kendall said, shaking his head. "You complain about being alone all the time, you make the rest of us miserable because you can't get a girl, and so when I go out of my way to get you one, you mess it up. This happens every freaking time, too! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Logan was getting angry. Whenever Kendall got hot under the collar and started shooting the insults out, it was like he'd become a different person. He'd get a fire in his eyes, and he'd get just downright mean. Logan didn't like it, and it made him want to be mean right back.

"Nothing's wrong with me," Logan replied. He finally turned the water off. "Maybe you're the one with the problem." Oh, that was below the belt. This whole episode took place a few weeks after the boys had spent the weekend at Kendall's grandparents' cabin - the weekend where Kendall boldly decided to sleep in Logan's arms. Logan wasn't stupid. Far from it. He knew that Kendall Knight wasn't the big, macho ladykiller that he pretended to be. He was beginning to realize the truth - Kendall liked him. Kendall fucking liked him just as much as he liked Kendall, but Kendall was too much of a freaking chicken to admit it.

"Oh, nothing's wrong with me," Kendall protested hotly. "You can believe that. I'm a normal guy. I do normal things. You're a fucking dork, and you'll always be by yourself. I've tried and tried to make you normal like me, but you don't know how to be normal. You just want to be a f-"

And he almost said it...but he knew he couldn't.

"What am I? Huh, Kendall?" Logan asked, pleased that Kendall was going to go there, because he was quite ready to go there as well.

"You're a fucking dork," Kendall grabbed at and said quickly.

Logan just shook his head and chuckled. "Right. And you're a f-...fucking idiot."

Kendall just stood there, his menacing eyes staring hard at Logan through the mirror. The second Logan caught a glimpse of those eyes, though, all of his irritability, all of his need to match Kendall's anger, dissipated. He could immediately see the hurt and confusion in Kendall's eyes...he didn't know what they meant exactly, but he could see them there, and all he wanted to do was hold Kendall and tell him that everything would be all right...that he could be "normal" if he needed to be, if that's what Kendall wanted from him.

But he knew he couldn't be "normal." Not anymore. He and Kendall had gone through too much...they'd been too close. It was too late for him to just turn his feelings for Kendall off, even though it seemed as if Kendall could just turn his feelings for Logan off. Logan just wasn't as strong...or maybe his love was too strong.

"Look," he began, hoping Kendall had calmed down enough to listen to reason. "Maybe...maybe things are just changing between the two of us."

"What do you mean?" Kendall asked, panic quickly setting into his voice.

"Maybe we can't be friends anymore."

"No," Kendall protested, and his voice got very high, as if he was trying to prevent a disaster. "No!"

"Kendall, we can't be friends if all I keep thinking about is-"

"Don't say it, Logan. We can't talk about it!"

Logan gulped and swallowed the words. "And that's why we can't be friends."

"You told me you'd never change. You said you wouldn't leave me, Logan."

Logan stared at the floor. "Sometimes people can't help the way they feel. Sometimes we can't stop ourselves from changing."

Kendall's panic turned back into anger. Who did this fucker think he was? Didn't he know that he belonged to Kendall? Didn't he know that Kendall owned him in every single way? He'd signed a verbal contract and promised to always belong to Kendall. That was the deal. And now he was walking out on him. So what if Kendall didn't want to talk about the gay feelings they obviously had for each other? So what if Kendall couldn't deal with being a fag right now? That didn't mean Logan had to leave him out in the cold to deal with it all on his own. Didn't Logan know that Kendall needed him more than he needed air to breathe?

Maybe he knew but he just didn't care, and that would make Logan just like everybody else.

"Fuck you," Kendall dismissed him rudely. "You faggot."

And Kendall stormed out of the bathroom, leaving Logan to fight back the tears that were surely going to come. He didn't want it to end this way. This wasn't their friendship...it was like something that belonged to another pair of people. He felt like an outsider watching another set of friends falling apart, because this? This wasn't him and Kendall. Those two boys were the best of friends and nothing could ever come between them...nothing. Not even each other.

But Logan didn't cry. No, he sighed in relief instead. If this was the end of their friendship, then maybe he could be happy again. Maybe what he felt for Kendall would soon disappear, and he could move on with his life once and for all.

Of course, that hadn't been the end of their friendship, and as Logan sat up in his bed, he knew that today wouldn't be the end of their relationship. That would have been a cruel, cruel joke for the fates to play, wouldn't it? For them to spend years finding their way to each other for it to blow up only weeks after they finally got to each other.

Logan got out of bed and stood in front of the mirror to make sure he looked decent. He'd gotten dressed in a nice summery little outfit, one that really fit him well. He wasn't gonna give up on Kendall this easily, and he knew Kendall wouldn't give up on him. He gave himself one last look over and prepared to head out to the one place he knew Kendall would most likely be, but just as he was about to leave, the door opened.

"Hey," Mrs. Knight said when she came into the bedroom. "I twisted the knob on the off chance that it might be unlocked today."

"Sorry about that," Logan said. Feeling the wind being taken out of his sails, he busied himself with some unalphabetized books on his shelf. "Kendall and I have been doing a lot of writing, and we didn't want any interruptions." That was the story they'd decided to tell anyone who would ask about their frequently-locked door.

"I see," said Mrs. Knight. She smoothed out the tousled sheets on Kendall's bed, which hadn't been slept in for several nights. "You guys have been doing a lot of work considering you're supposed to be on vacation, huh?"

"Oh...uh, yeah." Logan suddenly got nervous. It felt like she was trying to interrogate him or something. There was a faint smell of sex in the air, and if Mrs. Knight paid close attention, she would have noticed that two people had been sleeping in Logan's bed.

"Well, make sure you don't work too hard," she told him in a maternal tone. "I want you all to enjoy this time off. God knows what Gustavo has planned for when it's over."

"Uh...yeah," he answered, hoping she was done so that he could go find Kendall.

Mrs. Knight stopped moving for a second and just took in the room. She wasn't one of those snoopy, meddlesome mothers who could come up with about a thousand different reasons to find herself digging through her son's things. No, she'd rarely even stepped inside the boys' room without a basket of laundry under her arm or bottle of disinfectant in her hand. But when she was in the room? She did her best to read into as much of it as she could. It was less about snooping, though, and more about trying to learn more about her maturing son. He was very quickly approaching adulthood, and if she never took the time to find him out, she knew she risked not knowing him at all when he grew up.

"To tell you the truth, I've been a little worried about Kendall," she tried to say casually as she moved to straighten out the knickknacks on her son's nightstand.

Logan was puzzled as he awkwardly stood at his shelf with his back to Mrs. Knight. "Worried? I don't think there's anything to be worried about as far as Kendall is concerned."

"Well, you know how mothers are," she said with an ironic warmth. "I don't know...I feel like he's going through a lot of internal struggle now that Jo's gone back to North Carolina. He spent so much time with her and cared so much about her, and I don't know if he's ever really come to terms with what she did."

"Well..." Logan hesitated. He didn't know what to say. Tell her the truth, that Kendall was only with Jo as a way to stay away from him? Or just humor her, build up Kendall's "love" for Jo?

Before he could respond, Mrs. Knight went on. "It was never all that clear to me why he was so drawn to her, but he was."

"Really?" Logan asked, turning to face her. This was a surprise. He'd always assumed that Mrs. Knight loved Kendall and Jo's relationship.

"Yeah, I know that's horrible for me to say, but...I don't know. I always felt she was too brash for Kendall, too...hard. You know how Kendall is. He's stubborn and he's set in his ways, and once he makes a decision, he sticks with it. But then when it blows up in his face, he's very sensitive. He needs someone who gets that, someone who'll let him talk as much crap as he wants to but won't throw it all in his face and make him feel an inch tall when he realizes he's wrong."

Logan had a light bulb moment. He'd made Kendall feel about an inch tall just an hour earlier. As the words he'd said flashed through his mind, he felt horrible, and all he wanted to do was get to Kendall as soon as possible and tell him he was sorry.

"Logan, promise me something," Mrs. Knight said, approaching Logan and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Be that person for him. Try to understand him...care for him...let him know that you're there for him." Logan's overwhelmed response made her amend her plea. "I know, I know, it's weird for me to ask you to 'care' for your best guy friend, and I swear, I'm not asking you to be his stand-in girlfriend, but...make sure he knows you love him. Kendall needs to know that people love him."

Logan looked down at the floor.

"And here I am," Mrs. Knight said as she went back for the door, "creeping you out with all of these motherly thoughts. I'm sorry."

"No, Mrs. Knight, don't apologize," Logan said. "I...um...I understand what you're talking about. And I promise you that I'll do that. I'll do it for as long as Kendall needs me to."

Mrs. Knight turned back to him and smiled warmly. "Thank you, Logan. I know I can count on you."

Kendall sat on the beach and gazed out into the distant, distant ocean. So far, so wide, so big, so unknown. Just like life. Nothing was ever certain, and you couldn't trust a single thing. If you made the mistake of giving your heart away, you could end up lost in the current and washed away forever.

He knew he'd been wrong and that he needed to apologize to Logan, and he fully intended to once he got back to the apartment. He just hated the fact that he'd gotten so defensive and douchey to begin with. So what if Logan had wanted to sit down and have a mature discussion with their friends? That didn't have to be a big deal...James and Carlos weren't the type of guys to make a big deal out of anything anyway. Maybe Logan had the right idea. Just sit them down, talk to them about it, and then they could move on.

Move on to what? Kendall asked himself.

Ugh. He just wished it was easier, but that was too much to ask.

He could hear footsteps in the sand getting closer behind him, and the wind carried just enough of the cologne to his nose for him to know who was joining him.

"I was just thinking about you," he said, never turning back to face Logan, who stood with a pink smoothie in one hand and a pomegranate-and-peach in the other.

"I was just thinking about you, too," Logan said as he sat next to Kendall. "Actually, you've been on my mind all day."

"Heh. I tend to have that impression on people."

Kendall took his smoothie and they both sipped for a while.

"I guess I went and did it again," Kendall remarked serenely. "Went and tried to stop us from growing up again."

"Oh, Kendall, don't say that about yourself..."

"Well, it's true, isn't it? I was scared to tell James and Carlos, so I convinced myself that it would be okay not to."

"And there's nothing wrong with that. I shouldn't have called you a coward."

"No," Kendall protested. "You were right to. If my boyfriend can't tell me the truth when I need to hear it, who will?"

Logan didn't say anything, but hearing that word again..."boyfriend"...it made him feel so tingly inside.

"I shouldn't have called you an asshole, though," Kendall said. "That was over the line."

"Eh, well, I was being quite an ass," Logan admitted.

Kendall giggled childishly. "You have quite an ass."

"Oh, you pervert!"

They sipped in silence for another little while as the waves crashed in and the sun beat down.

"For your information," Kendall informed, "I actually had it set up in my mind that we would never tell anyone, and no one would ever find out. I figured if I brought up the idea of telling James and Carlos every now and then, you'd see that I was thinking about it, and you'd just keep putting it off and putting it off until I was ready, and then one day, you'd realize that we don't have to tell anyone."

Logan paused to digest all of this, then he took a deep breath and started shaking his head. "Kendall, it can't be like that."

"I know! I know. That's not how it works. I get that. But my mind doesn't care about logic or anything like that when I'm scared of something."

Logan wanted to put his arm on Kendall's shoulders. He wanted to rub his back and kiss his cheek, but he had to remember that they were in a public place and could be seen by anyone. He knew Kendall felt his love, though, and that was enough for him.

"You don't have to be scared, sweetheart," he whispered so gently that the words almost got carried away with the breeze. "I'm gonna be with you every step of the way. You already know that."

"I know."

Another silence.

"So I guess we're back to square one," Kendall said, tossing his empty cup to the side. "How do we tell them...when do we tell them?"

"We don't have to until you're ready," Logan said.

"Do you really want to pin it all on when I'll get the guts to tell them?" Kendall asked with a smile. "No, I'm giving it all over to you. You make the decision, and I'll live with it."

"Kendall, I don't want to force you into anything that you're not ready for. If you want to wait, we can wait. If you want them to just 'figure it out,' I guess we can do that, too."

"Nope," Kendall replied. "No. They deserve better than that. Everybody else, whatever. They can figure it out or never figure it out, I don't care. But Carlos and James...they're our friends, and we need to tell them."

Logan nodded slowly and carefully sat his cup to next to him. "What about your mom?"

Kendall made a large sigh and tucked his head between his arched knees.

"We don't have to, Kendall, but...it's gonna be awkward if everyone in the apartment knows except for her. I wouldn't feel right doing that to her."

Logan listened carefully, and he could hear that Kendall was crying. He was trying to sniff back the tears, but it wasn't working, and Logan looked around, quickly scanned the area, and moved closer to Kendall, fitting his arm around Kendall's midsection.

"Please, baby, don't cry," Logan begged. "She loves you. She would do anything in the world for you, and she just wants you to be happy."

Logan rubbed Kendall's side for a few minutes as the blond boy regained his bearings. This was just so freaking hard...all of it.

"All right," Kendall said when he popped his head back up, dried tears on his face. "All right. We tell them. We tell them all they want to know."

Logan didn't say anything, he just gave Kendall his space.

"We tell them," Kendall repeated. "Tonight."

Dinner was uncharacteristically quiet at Apartment 2J that night. Mrs. Knight had ordered Chinese takeout, and so everyone was busy picking through their food, trying to eat all of the recognizable pieces of chicken, shrimp, and rice before daring to taste some of the other items. Of course, the menu wasn't the only reason why there was such a tense silence at the counter.

Logan and Kendall kept eying each other between bites, each one waiting for the other to make the first move. Time was slipping away, though, and they both knew that once dinner was over and everyone scattered to their respective rooms, their chance would be gone. It was now or never...or, rather, now or much later. The sooner they got it done, the easier it would be.

Katie didn't know what they had planned, but she could sorta sense that something big was going to happen. James and Carlos, as ignorant of the whole truth as they were, could sense it, too. And Mrs. Knight? Well, she was just happy to see that Kendall seemed to be in a somewhat okay mood. She knew that Logan had taken her earlier request to heart, so everything was fine as far as she was concerned.

So they ate quietly. A little small talk here and there about Palm Woods happenings, but nothing major. In fact, the most stimulating conversation they'd had was all about how Guitar Dude was supposedly dating a porn star. Once that died down, though, Kendall surveyed everyone's moods...checked eyes with Logan once more. He wanted to show Logan that he was serious, that he had meant every single word he'd said about finding the strength to do this. He didn't want Logan to be the strong one all the time through this. He was going to light a fire under his own ass and force himself to take those risks. That's what being Kendall Knight was all about after all.

And so he cleared his throat. He gave Katie a look to tell her that this was going to be "it."

"Uh...so I have something to say," he began, his voice dripping with nervousness and apprehension. He didn't even look anyone in the eye...just stared at his plate. "Actually, me and Logan have something to say."

Logan held his breath and looked at Kendall...was it really about to happen?

"We...uh..." Kendall said, but then he looked at Logan for support. Logan didn't say anything, but that look in his eye...the encouraging look that he'd always had any time Kendall was nervous about a hockey play or about singing a high note in a song...it was there. "Logan and I have decided...between the two of us...that...we...uh..."

James and Carlos exchanged looks. Were they going to finally get the confirmation they'd been looking for?

"We like each other...a lot," Kendall kept on. "Like...a lot. And...we've decided...to do something about it. Uh..." But then he shook his head. "You know what? I don't even know why I'm nervous about this." He looked up at his mom, at his friends. "Me and Logan want to be together. We love each other, and we're tired of hiding it."

Logan immediately exhaled, and he couldn't have felt any prouder of Kendall. He wanted to reach out and hug him and kiss him on the cheek, but he turned to the others to gauge the reactions.

James and Carlos first looked at each other and smiled. "So we were right all along," James said when he turned back to Kendall.

Mrs. Knight's eyebrows were perked up, and she had a confused grin on her face...as if she'd been blindsided but was totally amused by it. "Wait...come again?" she asked.

"Mrs. Knight," Logan stepped up, "I love your son. In every way that you told me you wanted me to love him."

Mrs. Knight nodded as to acknowledge her and Logan's earlier conversation. "I didn't think you'd take my words so literally," she cracked. Her tone was good, and Logan figured he could start calming down.

"Wait," Kendall said, "what words?" And then he looked to Carlos and James. "And what do you mean you were right all along? Why do I feel like me and Logan aren't the only ones with secrets here?"

James and Carlos tried to decide who would speak up on their behalf, and it ended up being Carlos. "We...we, uh..."

Katie sighed. "They got suspicious of you two, but they were too chicken to just come right out and ask you!"

"Thank you," said Carlos as he let himself relax.

"We really really really didn't want to say anything because...what if we were wrong?" James explained. "And we didn't like sneaking around behind your backs."

"Wait, sneaking around?" Logan asked, caught a little off guard. "What do you mean by sneaking around? Did you go into our room?"

"Once!" James admitted. "But I promise, it wasn't to sneak around. I thought I'd left something in there, but I didn't...but I saw something that I probably shouldn't have seen."

"What did you see?" Kendall asked.

James looked down. He felt like shit, but since the truth was coming out, he had to keep it going. "Logan's journal...I thought it was mine, so I just opened it without checking to make sure..."

Kendall turned to Logan, whose face was red. "What do you have in your journal?"

"Stuff," Logan said, "...that I wrote...about you."

Kendall digested this, and it almost made him smile a little. His journal was filled with songs he'd written about Logan...it only made sense that Logan's journal would have stuff he'd written about Kendall. And because this felt so sweet as he thought about it, he didn't hate James or Carlos for snooping around and drawing conclusions. Besides, he knew he wouldn't have admitted anything had they just asked.

"All right," Kendall said, turning to the guilty parties and deciding the matter was over. "Now you know."

Carlos and James nodded. "And it changes nothing," Carlos assured as James nodded in agreement. "Everything's gonna be the way it's always been."

There was a sweet moment between the four boys that lasted for a few seconds. James and Carlos reached out with sincere eyes and honest hearts, and Logan and Kendall could feel the love.

While all this went on, Mrs. Knight just observed. The wheels in her head were turning, but she didn't want to interrupt anything. She understood how important it was for Logan and Kendall to get the approval of their friends. Plus, it gave her a chance to get all of her thoughts together, and she had a lot to think about. When the room got silent again, she suddenly felt all eyes on her, and the pressure was on for her to say something. She wanted to make it clear to everyone that she wasn't going to rage out and be "that kind" of parent, but she needed a moment with her boy first, just to make sure everything was the way it was supposed to be.

"Kendall, can I speak to you in private?" she finally asked. When her tone wasn't as light as she'd wanted it to be, she quickly added, "It'll only take a minute," with a smile.

Kendall, trained over the years to always obey his parents, immediately got up from the counter and followed his mother to her bedroom. Logan wanted to follow, but he knew it wasn't his conversation to be a part of.

"All right," Mrs. Knight said when she and Kendall sat on the edge of her bed. "All right, so all I want to know is a couple of things."

"Okay," he said. Something about the way she spoke made him feel comfortable. It reminded him of when she had sat him down to discuss the whole idea of picking up and moving to California. Was this really turning out to be all right after all?

"How long has it been going on?" she asked.

"Only a couple of weeks," Kendall answered. "I swear, we would have said something sooner, but-"

"No, no, that's all right," she stopped him. "It's fine. You guys probably needed the time to figure things out yourselves. I get that. Does Jo know?"

"Yes."

"God, Kendall...please don't tell me that what she did was because of..."

"It was."

She started massaging her temples. "That poor girl..."

"But she's better now, Mom, she's much better!" Kendall reminded her, not wanting to lose any of her respect or love. "We talked, and she talked with Logan, and she's okay with it, and she's better!"

It would take more than just "she's better" to make Mrs. Knight cool with the fact that a child she'd raised had indirectly caused another mother's child to try to kill herself, but she nodded and accepted that things were okay now for Kendall's sake. In time, she knew she would get over it.

"Does the way you feel about Logan have anything to do with Jo?" she asked.

"No!" he replied. "No! It's not like that at all, Mom, I swear! I...I started feeling this way about him way before I ever met Jo, way before we even came here."

"How long have you felt this way?" she asked, as if she was reading off of a list she had written in her mind.

"Oh, Mom..." he said, not knowing where to begin. "It's been a long time...I don't even know if I could say how long it's been."

She nodded again. Was she testing him? Was he passing? Was he failing?

"Do you love him?"

Kendall didn't answer. He turned his head away from her. For some reason, this question, more than the others, was hard to answer. It was as if this was the essay question, the one worth half the test grade. There was no right or wrong answer...he just had to say what he felt and back it up with the supporting details. If he failed this one, all of the others wouldn't have mattered.

"Please answer this for me, Kendall," she said, all of a sudden begging him. "Do you love him? Does he make you happy? I need to know."

"He does, Mom," Kendall finally confessed. "He makes me so happy...and...I love him more than words can say. And I'm done with just being friends with him. If he can make me this happy, and I know I make him happy, too, why shouldn't we be together?"

Tears starting to roll down her face, Mrs. Knight turned to her son and hugged him. She was proud. So proud. He'd finally showed her, after all this time, that he was ready to be a man.

"I love you so much, Kendall Knight," she said into his shoulder as she broke into a full-on sob. "You'll always be my baby boy."

And it slowly dawned on Kendall that all of this was going to be all right. Everything would work out. Here was his mother, now completely knowledgeable of the fact that he and Logan were in love, and she was hugging him, telling him she loved him, and the pride was pouring out of her eyes and staining his shirt. He couldn't help but feel that this was right...every last part of it was right.

"Come on," she said, sniffing back a tear and standing him up. "Let's go back to our family."

Carlos, James, and Katie all sat with baited breath to see how things had gone. Logan, though, was decidedly more mellow. He knew what he believed in his heart. He knew what Mrs. Knight wanted for Kendall. He knew that she couldn't be anything but happy for them.

When they came back from the bedroom, she approached him. "Come here," she said, taking him into a hug. "I love you," she told him. "And thank you for loving my son."

Everyone else smiled at the warm reception, even Katie, who couldn't resist the urge to bop Kendall on the head. "You should have done this years ago," she told him.

"Well..." he trailed, knowing she was right.

"Now that everyone here is on the same page," Mrs. Knight announced after hugging the life out of Logan, "let me just say that I am proud of each and every one of you. You've all matured in ways that I never thought possible, and it...well...it just makes me happy, okay?" She started crying again.

"Mrs. Knight, are you gonna be okay?" Logan asked, prepared to give her another hug, but she shooed him away.

"I'm fine, Logan, I promise. I just need a little time to compose myself," she said, reaching for a box of Kleenex on the counter top. Once her nose was blown and her eyes dried, she announced, "I feel like going out for ice cream. Anybody wanna join me?"

Everyone did, and there was a pleasant, happy excitement buzzing around the apartment as everyone got ready to go out. As the boys went to their rooms, Kendall even had the balls to kiss Logan on the lips in front of Carlos and James, who were definitely not prepared for that.

"Wow," James said in awe. "This is really real now."

"Problem, boys?" Kendall asked as he held doe-eyed Logan in his arm.

"No!" Carlos promised. "No problem. Just...a lot of adjustment."

"Well, take all the time you need," Kendall said. "Lord knows it took us a while to get used to it all."

James and Carlos went to their room while Logan and Kendall popped into theirs to straighten their hair, grab phones, etc. While Kendall combed his hair, Logan just watched him. He couldn't believe how far they'd come, but here they were. He knew Kendall would have killed him had he brought up how "dreamy" everything was, so he kept it to himself. But he was thinking it, all right. This whole thing was a dream come true.

"I can't believe you," he said when he stood next to Kendall in the mirror. They gazed at each other's eyes in the glass, and Kendall rest his hand on Logan's hip.

"Believe me," Kendall replied.

"First, you tell them, then you talk to your mother about it, then you kiss me in front of James and Carlos. Not too long ago, you were standing in that bathroom crying your eyes out because you were scared to touch me."

"Things change," Kendall said. He kissed Logan on the cheek. "People change."

"I thought you didn't like change."

"Some change is good."

Logan nodded and smirked, trying to downplay his happiness. "It only took you eleven trillion years to figure that out."

They finished gathering up their stuff, but as Kendall pulled his phone off its charger and stuffed it into his pocket, a thought crossed his mind very, very quickly, but it lingered long enough for it to give him pause.

"What's the matter?" Logan asked when he caught a glimpse of Kendall's worried expression. Kendall shook his head, but Logan knew better. "Come on, Kendall..."

"Nothing," he said. "Just...every time I think I've gotten over the biggest hurdle, I keep reminding myself that there are more hurdles to come. Being true to myself was one...being true to you was another one...talking to Jo about it was another...then everything from tonight...but it's not over yet."

Logan could feel his heart breaking for his boyfriend. "It's gonna be okay, Kenny..." He rubbed Kendall's back. "Everything's worked out better than you thought it would so far, right? There's no reason why things can't keep going that way."

"Heh. For some reason, I don't see my dad crying tears of joy like my mom did tonight."

"Well," Logan began, grasping for anything to say that would make Kendall feel more comfortable. "Maybe you can get her to talk to him about it...maybe she can make him see things her way..."

Kendall could allow himself to get bogged down by thoughts of his father again, but he knew where that would take him. Back to the cold, unfeeling place where he picked fights with Logan to stay away from him and tried to come up with any excuse to keep their relationship as cool as possible. He didn't want to go there anymore...he wanted to be with Logan, and he didn't want to worry about anything else.

"Let's not talk about that tonight," he finally decided. "Let's just be happy."

Logan replied with only a smile and a light smack on the back.

"And since when do you call me Kenny?"

Logan grinned. "I don't know. It felt right."

"I like it."

They left their bedroom to join the others. When they passed by Mrs. Knight's bedroom, though, Kendall caught a glimpse of her on the phone. She had a very alarmed expression on her face, and when she extended her finger to call him into the room, he rushed by her side. Was she really on the phone with his dad already? Was she telling him everything? How was he reacting? What was he saying?

Logan hung in the doorway, not sure if he needed to be a part of this or not. If Sean Knight was on that phone, though, and if he was ready to tear his son to pieces, then Logan knew that Kendall was going to need him. He knew Mrs. Knight would have wanted him there.

"Kendall, your father..." she began when she put the phone down.

"What does he have to say?" he asked. He didn't even think to be mad at her for calling him and telling him so quickly and without Kendall's permission and right before their supposed-to-be-joyous ice cream celebration.

All of a sudden, everyone else was in the doorway, too.

"Tell me, Mom," Kendall pressed on. "I can handle it."

But then Mrs. Knight's eyes went from Kendall to Katie.

"Your dad had a heart attack this afternoon. They're saying that...he didn't make it."

Katie was frozen for a second, but then she raced into her mother's arms, her muffled cries shakily coming out in spurts.

Kendall just stood, not looking at anything or anyone, until he was in Logan's arms, crying his own eyes out.

NOTE: So...what now? Is Kendall going to have to live with this for the rest of his life? Or will he ever find closure? Find out in the final two chapters!