"Logan, we need to talk," Finn sighed seriously, as Logan was packing up his things for the day at the office. Colin followed into his office behind Finn, looking indeed a little grim, his hands tucked into his pockets.
Logan was quite surprised to see them back at the office, having expected them to take the afternoon off after the business lunch they'd had planned. But here they were.
Logan, however, knew this couldn't be about the company. Hence he crooked his eyebrow at them. The company was doing surprisingly well, so well, in fact, that the guys were fighting the expectation to grow their business. But it wasn't more clients that they necessarily wanted - they had no intention of bringing in more work. If anything, they wanted to focus on the quality of the work and the income it'd generate, having seen from their past lives and families how most people just kept overworking now matter how well things were going.
"About what?" Logan asked, skeptically.
"Things have escalated," Colin said, omniously.
"And which things would that be?" Logan asked, half expecting this to be about something silly. Last week a similar conversation had taken place and ended in Finn desperately needing to stock up on decent scotch for the office. Not exactly high priority for Logan these days.
"We went to La Masseria for lunch today," Finn began to explain.
"And…?" Logan stretched the word out, getting already impatient with the two.
"And remember, the last couple of times Rory's been too busy to hang out with us? Well… it looks like…," Colin began, carefully, as if being the carrier of bad news.
"We're pretty sure she was on a date," Finn finished Colin's thought.
"Yeah, there was definitely some flirting going on," Finn added, and went on to explain in a little too much detail what the body language had been like. There had been no actual touching as such, but Logan could tell from the words he used exactly how Rory had behaved. She had her go-to moves, for sure, and Logan had been in their recieving end of them plenty of times to recognize them. It was safe to say this didn't make Logan jump from joy.
"And? What do you want me to say... or do about it?" Logan exclaimed, widening his eyes. Mostly he just felt annoyed at this information - both its content and the way the guys had felt they'd needed to inform him of that. The truth was that since that cocktail party with the unfortunate incident Rory had indeed retreated to her own word again, only joining the guys once for a movie in weeks. Naturally, she was expected to live a busy life. But so far dating hadn't exactly been high on her agenda. Maybe she'd really met someone significant? It was a eerie thought, one Logan had never really dared to imagine too closely. Could he even be her friend and watch her become happy with someone else? Maybe even marry someone?
"Ah…," Finn exclaimed, groaning in frustration. "Logan, come on!" he insisted Logan knew what he meant.
"I know what we said when we first started hanging out with her. We didn't want you to get pulled into something that would, you know… get you hurt again," Colin began, adding - "but we don't like what we see either."
"Yeah!" Finn confirmed, banging his fist against a cupboard that he'd been leaning against.
"And what is it that you two see exactly?" Logan asked, showing his grumpy side.
Logan hadn't quite admitted to himself but he'd been grumpy for weeks now, ever since that regretful night of the party. Logan had just kept going it over in his head but was unable to fully understand what it meant nor why she did not simply speak to him, if there was anything to speak of. Naturally, he also knew that Rory had a life - her work, and once time when when he'd even heard her say that she had other plans on a Friday night on which he'd made the logical conclusion that it was likely a date. A part of him didn't like it, but another part told him that it really wasn't his business. He'd just put his mind on his work, and tried to push these thoughts aside. But now the guys were bringing it up again, quite against his will.
"The guy's a wuss," Finn exclaimed, putting it frankly.
"He's like a sorry version of that Marty guy she hung out with in college," Colin confirmed, hitting a sore spot for Logan. Not that Logan had ever genuinely felt threatened by him, of course, but he most certainly didn't like guys who fit that description.
"And what exactly do you base this extremely objective judgment on? Besides - you realize right, that it's none of your business? None of our business?" Logan argued, mockingly. He didn't like hearing about it, let alone picturing what the guy was like. And any mention of Marty just made him want to puke.
"He recapped the date on the phone in the bathroom like some mama's boy," Finn revealed.
"So, you followed him to the bathroom!?" Logan reflected, needing to point out how ridiculous that sounded.
"He just happened to be in the same place - what can I do? But that's not the point," Finn argued, feistily.
"The point is… He's not good enough for Rory," Colin added a valid point and sighed.
"And that's up to you - how?" Logan argued, shaking his head.
"I'm serious!" Colin insisted.
"He wears cardigans, Logan!" Finn added, as if that somehow made the guy unworthy.
Logan chuckled, finding the two hilarious and ridiculous at the same time.
"He ordered milk, for god's sake," Colin added, pointing out the most random fact to use as an argument.
"I don't believe this..," Logan replied, mostly saying this about the guys not about what they were telling him.
"Are you seriously telling us you're so indifferent to this?!" Colin didn't buy Logan's cold front.
"What choice do we, I, have? She's her own person. She can date who she likes," Logan shrugged, trying to not let on that it made his stomach turn to picture her with someone like that. Not that there was technically anything wrong with cardigans or milk-drinking, but he had a pretty good idea what the guys were going at. Rory deserved more. And Logan meant that in every sense.
"You don't mean it! We saw what you two were like when you hung out. There was definite chemistry there. We kept forgetting you two weren't together," Colin replied.
"You belong together," Finn added, romantically.
"Oh, wow!" Logan replied mockingly. "In case you forgot - she said 'no' to me. There's no point dwelling on something that clearly isn't going to happen! Clearly she wants to date whoever this guy is. And it's not our business to meddle," Logan lectured.
"Oh, jeezus," Finn exclaimed, indicating with his body language what an idiot his friend was.
"Have you two even actually talked?" Colin reminded him.
"We talk all the time," Logan replied, though he had to admit that the last few weeks the communication had been sparse. But about safe topics - work, food, reading and world events seemed to flow fine between them. Less so after the party, but still.
"But really talk? About what happened?" Colin replied, sounding unknowingly like someone else entirely.
"Since when are you two…?!" Logan shook his head, finding this very confusing to hear from these two.
"We want Rory in our lives, too," Finn added.
"Yeah," Colin chimed in.
The three became quiet, having run out of things to say. It was evident that before the two talked, really talked, nothing was going to change. It was either going to be an awkward friendship, struggling with watching the other flirt and date, always generating some type of opinion of whoever the other was with. It didn't sound terribly sustainable, did it?
"So, do I," Logan exhaled, admitting to missing her already.
AN: This was quite a short chapter, I know - but the 'talk' requires some space and distance and can't be hurried.
I was also advised, quite against my self-esteem and self-worth, that I set up a 'buymeacoffee' dot com slash 'piraaja', where under the username piraaja you can find me (can't post a link here unfortunately). Naturally, I am quite happy doing writing for free (as a hobby), but since times are a little tough, and if you feel like you want to support my writing, you're welcome to support me by 'buying me coffee' or a glass of wine :), which generally really helps the story to flow. But believe me, since I have little hope in this to begin with, I really won't have any hard feelings if all I get from you guys are your verbal encouragement. Thanks for reading!