Chapter 42

Hearing stories about the paranormal hi-jinks at the Omni Parker House and Ephraim Littlefield to whom bones of the dead had served as currency at one time told by a storyteller dressed as someone who'd been murdered had been interesting to put it mildly. A little funny. A little scary, especially to the girls. A little ridiculous too, considering they'd ridden around Boston in a 'Trolley of Terror'. They might just as well have stamped 'will spend money on ridiculous things' on their foreheads if they were ever caught riding that thing by someone they knew. But the occasional jump scares and the historic tales had been exactly what they'd been after, leaving their bodies tingling from laughter and excitement, both the physical kind that made them feel wide awake well past midnight, and the emotional kind. In Rory's case the latter was awakened always when presented with an opportunity to learn or understand in a deeper way how these stories had come about. After all, there were few people who could become as compelled about a story of somethign as simple as a bench than Rory. Whether that bench came with a dedication or a story about someone stalking their victims, didn't even matter much.

Corinne had insisted on staying over at grandpa's instead of going home to her dad's, even opting to share a room with Eléa upon her friend's request after the day of bonding they'd had. Rory could sense that Corinne was trying to make this friendship work, even if the girl was forcing it on occasion, being a little bit more mature about many things compared to Eléa. But the things that Eléa found exciting were still something Corinne remembered enjoying quite recently, so it wasn't a big stretch. Eléa had probably seen more life than Corinne in her 13 years, but she was embracing the chance to take a step back from having to grow up fast. Corinne was the one who wanted to experience more and felt ready for more. Especially when it had to do with guys. They weren't compatible in that sense, but they were the closest thing to a friend either had, bound by their circumstances.

"I have no idea how I'm going to get any sleep tonight," Rory exhaled with a sigh, slipping into bed, where Logan was already waiting for her.

Rory was wearing an old Harvard T-shirt, which looked so wrong on so many levels to Logan. But he let it know, knowing that it was likely just something she'd had lying around in this house. Besides, if he had anything to say about it, she'd most likely be spending the majority of the night without a trace of clothing on her.

It was closer to 2 AM, but they'd only gotten back at max, half an hour ago. Naturally, it was a little odd to share a bed with a new boyfriend in one's dad's house, but at this point it seemed Christopher accepted them as a couple and not as someone his baby girl had just started dating, trusting her age and wisdom. It just felt natural by now.

"Who says we have to sleep?" Logan hinted, a little too obviously, slipping his hand underneath the hem of her t-shirt and positioning his arm around her slim waist. It was not that he was so utterly horny that every time he touched her his brain would go to just one thing, but it was sort of the running joke - him being the cocky playboy and Rory playing her naughty librarian role as they flirted, as if that somehow made them feel younger and even more alive. That was very close to the way they would've played it had they met in college, too. They didn't take these flirty characters too seriously presently, knowing they were more than just that one depiction. It was just fun to flirt like that.

"I need my 5 hours minimum," Rory replied realistically. In collge and during her early career years, she'd gotten by with very few hours of sleep on a good amount of coffee. By now she knew her limits and her optimum. It was one thing being able to function, another to function up to personal standards, and for the latter she needed 5 hours minimum.

"I thought brunch wasn't until 12?" Logan inquired, remembering Rory explaining how they were going to meet one of Rory's friends who was in town tomorrow.

"Yeah, but I'm going to have to get Cor up by 8.30, she's going to see her grandparents with Tucker," Rory said, half-forcing a yawn, knowing how in theory that sometimes helped people in actually falling asleep.

"Is it really something they have to do at 8.30? On a Sunday?" Logan remained incredulous.

"Well, it is a little bit of a drive and it's tradition for them. Besides, his mother is very much the morning person. She'll probably have been up to walk the dogs and done 3 loads of laundry before they get there," Rory pointed out, half-jokingly.

"I take it you didn't exactly love your mother-in-law," Logan replied, making a fair guess.

"No, Barbara was fine… a little quirky but nothing compared to what my mom or grandmother put Tucker through," Rory said.

"I guess I should consider myself lucky to be spared from the inquisition then," Logan replied.

"Actually, I think my grandmother would've absolutely loved you. She would've been talking about blond-haired blue-eyed babies and a Cape Cod wedding the minute you stepped through the door," Rory replied, jokingly, stroking his evening stubble.

"I do tend to have that effect on people," Logan laughed humbly.

Rory looked at him lovingly, getting a small sense of bitter sweetness in her as she had many times before. There could really have been those blond-haired blue-eyed babies had they only met sooner. Maybe all those kids they had amongst the two would've been, in fact, theirs and had been less damaged for it. But realistically she knew it was just a sweet daydream.

"My mom, on the other hand, would not have liked you," Rory began, having briefly suggested something similar also before.

"Oh-oh," Logan chimed ominously, allowing her to continue. He figured it was mostly down to his family name, the prestige. But still, he liked to hear her speak. There was just something about her voice - gentle yet strong, hint of smokyness and yet delicate.

"But she would've given you a chance, likely made you jump through all sorts of hoops," Rory continued.

"What kind of hoops?" Logan inquired, curiously.

"Oh, just the usual… watching Pippi, Willy Wonka, The Godfather… whatever else she felt like it at the time. Eat a huge amount of junk food on one sitting, make sure you were witty and clever enough to keep up with us, see if you could get through a town event without rolling your eyes," Rory described. "Probably test how handy you were, too," she added.

"Handy?" Logan replied, kneading her skin underneath the blanket at the same time.

"Oh, you know… resourcefulness with a giant spider, stuff like that… but we both know you would've passed that," Rory replied, leaving out the 'clean the gutters' or 'change the water bottle' acts. "With Tucker… she liked... but didn't like him…," Rory added.

"How's that?" Logan encouraged her to continue.

"She loved how he was kind of like me… brought up very down to earth, but had gotten a good education, clearly. He had some connections but didn't lean on them. She liked how he'd earned everything he'd achieved in life with hard work. It was sort of her definition of real success… as if that somehow proved a person's worth," Rory said, hoping Logan wouldn't take offense.

"But she also thought he was kind of slow to catch on when she was teasing him. Like he was annoyingly punctual, and that always got in her way, or how he wanted everything to be according to 'the rules' when raising Cor… feeding or nap times, things like that. To her he was making things overly stressful, I guess. But she sort of mellowed as time went on, especially when we moved to Boston," Rory explained.

"A man who likes to be in control," Logan reflected. He wasn't much different himself, but he himself tended to appreciate a more general concept of it. If he had the major things under control - like having his money and position, being on time hardly ever seemed to matter, for example.

"You make it sound like such a horrible thing," Rory noted, going by the tone of his voice.

"I have been known to like to control myself, nothing bad about that," Logan replied. There would've been much nicer things he'd rather be doing than talking about Tucker, but he liked hearing her talk, and he did want to understand the guy better.

Rory was actually a little surprised, that hungry look in his eyes hadn't yet turned into something more carnal. She could just imagine him reaching that hand of his between her things and making her gasp at his single touch. He liked his control, alright. Her body was almost begging him to do just that.

But perhaps this was just prolonging the foreplay, and simply too much talk of Tucker which Rory could far too easily just ignore when Logan was around. Rory tried to put her mind on something else, something sexier. But the few moments it took her, Logan managed to open his mouth first.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?" Logan asked, nearly feeling like punching himself to stop himself from touching the potential landmine ahead.

"Shoot!" Rory replied, unsuspectingly.

"I get the sense that… or I don't know, maybe I'm just imagining things," Logan began, and sighed. "I feel like you're tiptoeing around your ex for some reason. And of course - I don't know how you two were or who he is in much detail, nor that I care to know to be honest, but it just seems familiar to me from someone I used to know. And in their case, it turned out to be a domestic violence case. The kind that happens behind closed doors in wealthy families where the victim feels like they're stuck in their lives. I know… you said he had a temper, and that was the extent of it but I'm just thinking what is it that you're afraid of with him? Do you think he'll want full custody or something? Because, knowing a thing or two about the odds of a dad getting full custody myself, I can say he wouldn't look too good to most family courts from what I know," Logan explained.

Rory's mouth had fallen open by now, not knowing what to say.

"If you tell me I'm off base here, I'll back off and never mention it again," he added apologetically.

Rory appreciated hearing that, but she did feel strangely defensive at the same time.

"He's never been violent with me, if that's what you mean. Nothing like that… it's just… when you're married to someone," Rory tried to explain with a deep inhale, realizing that she kept thinking of Logan as someone who hadn't had a similar experience, which of course wasn't the case. It was just that the marriages had been so different.

Logan nodded, understanding what she meant without taking offense.

"In a marriage - just all kinds of intimacy that is shared. He knows my 'deep dark secrets'," Rory added, playfully, circling around what she had in mind specifically. She just preferred not to spell every single thing out, even if there hadn't been much that she'd kept from Logan until now. Some things were just embarrassing, things she wouldn't have done, thinking back. And mixed in with the mundane and day-to-day Tucker had been around a long time, getting to see the good, the bad and the ugly. There were no literal skeletons in her closet or tax fraud, no hidden addictions, but in everyone's life there were still things that were better left private between the walls of a home, between husband and wife. This worry of hers was essentially just the sign of loss of trust between her and her ex-husband.

"So, you think he'd use whatever knowledge he has of you to your disadvantage? What, to discredit you as a parent? For what? Wouldn't he have done that by now if that was what he wanted to do?" Logan replied, thinking mostly along the custody lines because it was the most logical path for him, having just been down that road.

Rory sighed.

"I don't know… just the possibility of it," Rory said, feeling like she'd been just pushed against a wall, even if not with bad intentions.

"Or is it that he has already used it? I don't know - to blackmail you out of that apartment of yours?" Logan inquired.

"Logan, no," Rory replied. That truly had been about wanting things over and done with quickly and about Corinne maintaining her home.

"Just tell me it's all in my head then," Logan said, seeing the ambushed look on her face that he regretted causing. "I don't like him, Rory… and I know I'm not supposed to intrude but I'm concerned… that's all," he soothed in a softer tone.

Rory let out a frustrated groan. Having the people in her life worry about her was nothing new. But in this case, she hated how well Logan could just see through her.

"It's mostly in your head. It's mostly in my head too," Rory said and sighed.

"So, there is something?" Logan insisted.

"Let's just say he holds some information that… um… that I wouldn't want out there for everyone to know. He's only ever suggested that he might use it against me once… and I think that really was in the heat of the moment. It was years ago too and maybe he doesn't even remember saying it or having it. But it's just stuck in my head. And sure, I guess some things it does influence. I don't want to piss him off so he'd feel like digging something like that up again," Rory explained, hating that their discussion had taken this course, having earlier had much sexier thoughts in mind.

"I want to kill him," Logan mumbled, hating how Tucker, even if unknowingly, still had this control over her. There had been similar situations with Odette, but in the end Logan had had more information on her. He knew all about information war, and he wasn't proud of it.

Rory had expected that response and her face showed it.

"Yeah, I know…," he added, wanting to assure Rory he hadn't seriously meant that. But he did want to do something. Strangle him, at least. Hurt him.

"So that's it. I feel like if I just keep a low profile for X years it'll just be forgotten about altogether. You know, wear of technology over time and what not," Rory added.

"So, the thing that he has on you," Logan began, trying to think what it could be. "It's something he has somewhere on a hard drive. Some data?" he guessed.

"I don't know. He was never much of a believer in cloud systems but I wouldn't know what he does or doesn't do now," Rory replied.

"Is it something… you know… criminal?" Logan inquired, not wanting to push her too much.

"No, not technically," Rory mumbled, sensing him getting closer to the embarrassing stain on her past.

"So, it's just embarrassing?" Logan said.

"Considering I'm a schoolteacher and I have a 13-year-old daughter - yes," Rory admitted.