Rory and Anna decided to meet in the middle of their states in New York. It was a two-hour drive for both of them. They were walking around Brookfield Place. "I don't get him," Rory complained about Logan. "He got so jealous when he saw me with Robert at Finn's party, that he ditched his date to be with me. Now, he hasn't called me."
"Have you tried calling him?" She looks through the sale rack.
"Yeah, I get his voicemail every time." She sighs.
"That shitty of him. Even though you guys are only casual, he could have the decency to let you know he doesn't want to see you anymore." She huffed as she put down the shirt. "I can't afford Gucci even on clearance." She walks out of the store with Rory on her tail. She was ranting while looking around. "Window shopping sounds like a good idea but it gets depressing when you can't afford what you want."
"Do you think he owes me that?" Rory ran alongside her sister.
"Owes you what?" She tilts her head.
"An explanation!" She yelled.
"I don't know the rules to a casual relationship, but I would say so, you weren't just sleeping together. You went on dates." She thought they were dating, just not exclusively, so a conversation was warranted.
"And we were friends first." Rory points out. Anna let out a hum at that. "What?"
"Jess explained to me once that he never thought of us as being friends. For him, I went from the girl he was trying to date to his girlfriend. Maybe it was the same with Logan." She explains the male mind.
"So what? I was the girl he wanted to sleep with and now I'm the girl he slept with. Oh my god, I'm another notch on his belt. I feel gross." She grimaced.
"Why do you have to be a notch on his belt, why can't he be the notch on yours?" She didn't like Rory giving him the power.
"Because I'm not sleeping around." She huffs.
"Look Rory, you're supposed to be casual dating so why aren't you?" She wonders.
"What do you mean, that's what I'm doing with Logan." She was confused by the question.
"No, he's casual dating, you are exclusively dating him." She corrected her.
"I went on a date with Robert." She shook her head.
"You went to a party with Robert. You didn't even spend an hour with him before making out with Logan in the corner." She took a deep breath before biting the bullet of telling her the harsh truth. "Maybe, you're expecting too much from him. In the term of casualness does he have to call you every week or have to let you know what he's doing?"
Rory stood there for a minute thinking about what Logan's duties to her were, she hated that she couldn't think of any. "Mom's right, I can't date casually. I don't have it in me to let it just be sex. I like commitment." She sat down on a bench to give her feet some rest. Anna sat beside her. "I hate this. I'm that dumb girl who thought the biggest player on campus was going to change for her. The dumbest part is I didn't realize I was her until this past few weeks."
"You're not stupid. You thought you could do something and you can't." She didn't see the harm in trying.
"I think I always knew. That's why I got mad when Mom was questioning me about it. I was desperate to be with Logan. When I am with him it is exciting and thrilling. He makes me feel like the only girl in the world. I can't believe I got swept up in all of it. I bet he takes every girl into the cafeteria after hours." She leaned her head back.
"We don't know that." She pats her back. "Maybe the moments between you two were different from the others."
"Maybe." She pouts.
"So, what are you going to do?" She kept her hand on her shoulder.
"If he doesn't get back to me then I'll move on." She started with the easy option.
"And if he contacts you…" She raised her eyebrow.
"Then we'll have one more night and I'll tell him that I can't do casual anymore." She knew it was going to be hard. She couldn't deal with the jealousy of wondering who he was with. She hated wondering if he liked them more than her.
"One more night? Must be good then." She playfully elbowed her sister.
"Well, he has had a lot of practice." She smiles.
"At least if nothing else you got good sex." They high-fived.
"So, what's going on with you and Jess?" Rory and Anna were eating lunch at a little cafe they found.
"Same old, same old." She shrugged.
"Is that bad?" She watched her sister's face fall.
"Not necessary, but I feel like I'm living in Groundhog Day. I go to school, work, the garden, or the publishing house, then home. The only thing that changes is the food and what's on TV." She pouts.
"Have you talked to Jess about it?" She knew her sister's boyfriend would jump if he knew Anna had a problem with their relationship.
"Jess is a homebody and an introvert. He is in his happy place. He's excited to get home and do the same thing that we've been doing for weeks on end." She sighs.
"But this is Jess if he knew you wanted a night out. He would take you on a night out." She thought it was so easy to tell him.
"Because I shouldn't have to ask. Jess doesn't ask me to make Thai food, I do it. He never asks me to bring dinner to the publishing house for him and the guys but I do. Or to help create events for his business. So, I don't think it's too much to ask for him to think of me." She was tired of having to tell Jess what to do. "Like, when he heard there was a food truck event going on in town, he could have thought Anna would like to go to that. Or, the local theater puts on a musical every two months. I want him to want to do things for me." She was cutting up her steak while she talked.
"Um… Anna, you have cut your steak enough." Rory grabbed her hand. She looks down to see she made them into small cubes. She drops the knife to take a sip of her coffee. "I understand what you're saying but Jess probably doesn't realize that you're not enjoying binging TV and eating. It is your two favorite pastimes."
"Even that can get boring when that's all you do." She ate some baked potato and steak. "I'm not asking to go out every night but once every other week would be nice."
"Jess is not a mind reader so unless you speak then have a nice night in." She rolled her eyes.
"Why are you bitter?" She narrowed her eyes.
"Sorry, I'm letting my situation affect this. I wish Logan wanted to spend every night with me." She apologized.
"You know what, we have been talking about men all day. We are more than that. We are intelligent women, let's talk about something else." She didn't want to get into an argument. They sat in silence for a few minutes. "You got anything?"
"All I can think of is Paris's boy troubles. She sulked around the dorm because Doley didn't call her back." Rory thought of the sad sack at her dorm.
"All I can think of is Lane being upset because Zac never wants to do anything with her." She also could only think of other people's relationship problems.
"Men are clueless to women's needs." Rory sighs.
"Women probably spend too much time thinking about men's needs." She was always thinking about Jess.
"I blame society." Rory was thinking about Logan too much also.
"Amen to that sister." She grabbed a menu. "You want to get dessert."
"Always." Rory had been thinking about the cheesecake since she saw it in the display window.
Anna was breaking her routine but hanging out at Jaci's apartment. She had gotten a new cat, Luna. She brought over Sasuke to meet her. "So, you and Dani have been going out for as long as Jess and I have. Well longer because you guys have been on the whole time." She watches the kitten play with Sauske's tail. He swung his tail around to keep hitting her in the face.
"Yeah. I came out sophomore year and I started going out with Dani my Junior year." She confirmed.
"Do you ever find that you guys have talked about everything and done everything, so you are doing the same thing over and over again?" She didn't know why she didn't ask Jaci first.
"Yeah, every couple goes through ruts." She opened the box to make the cat tower.
"How did you get out of it?" She grabbed the screwdriver from the toolbox.
"Dani came up with the fish bowl." She looks over the instructions.
"Fish Bowl?" She tilts her head. She watched Jaci get up and go to the entertainment center, she opened up the cabinet and took out a fishing bowl that had a bunch of papers in it.
"We write a bunch of new date ideas down and put it in the bowl. We pick from the bowl at least once a month or wherever we can't make up our minds." She shook it up.
"And this works?" She put her hand in to mix up the papers.
"It works for us." She shrugged.
"I'm willing to try." She opened one up. "Antique shopping." She looks up at the girl.
"That's mine." She grabs the paper to throw it back in the bowl. "Sometimes, you get desperate for ideas and write anything you can think of. But, even when we end up doing something we will never do it again. We get fun memories from it. Like when we went pottery making and I spun the wheel as fast as I could and got the clay everywhere."
Anna laughed. "That's Dani's favorite story to tell."
"It's how we find things to do together like tennis and hiking." She loved the fish bowl. It made them experience things they might not have otherwise.
"Well, I don't know about all that active stuff but I wouldn't mind giving this a try." She thought about going to the pet store.
"The only rule is no matter what you pick, you gotta do it." She reminds her of the consequences of this action.
"Well, the only thing we gotta do right now is build a cat tree. If all else fails then I'll send Jess over to do it because he made ours." They sat on the ground to get started.
"Jess! Come, come here." She called for him when she heard him come through the door.
"Hey, babe, what's for dinner…. Why do you have an empty fish bowl on the counter? Is this your way of telling me you want a fish because we don't need another animal?" He looks at the clear bowl.
"No, you know how we've been doing the same thing for months." She wondered if he noticed or cared.
"Yeah, nothing wrong with that. We're eating and watching different things." He shrugged.
"Well, I would like to get out of the apartment at least once a month." Rory may have been bitter but she was right. She needed to tell Jess what she wanted.
"What does that have to do with the fish bowl?" He pointed at it.
"I got the idea from Dani and Jaci, so what you do is put new date ideas in the bowl then we pick a paper out and whatever it says we do. There is no complaining or whining. We go in with an open mind and give it a good college try." She explained the concept to him.
"Once a month. Okay… fine." He grabbed a paper to write something down and put it in the bowl.
"That was fast." She was surprised.
"You think you're the only one who wants to do things but knows the other doesn't." He threw in another.
"Huh?" She uncaps the pen to write that they are going to watch a play. "Like what." She wrote down pottery making.
"You'll find out eventually." He smiles while throwing in another.
"You know this isn't something to make the other miserable, right?" She said while writing down antique shopping.
"I wouldn't dream of it." He smirks while throwing in another.
"Oh my god, you're going to make me play basketball." She gasps in betrayal.
"Who knows." He threw the next one in like he would the ball.
Anna was holding her phone up as she took pictures of herself in a padded camo outfit that was covered in different colored paint while holding a paintball gun. "Seriously?" Jess came out in his regular clothes. "You haven't changed yet?"
"I want to get a cute picture before changing." She looked through them to decide which one she would send to her family. "No one is going to believe I went paintballing if I don't have some type of proof."
"Here." He took the phone from her to take the picture so they could go eat.
"Thank you." She gave him a peck on the cheek before going to the locker room.
After she got changed, they went across the street to a sandwich shop. They got a foot-long hoagie and a bag of chips to share. They sat at a table with their drinks. "So what did you think?" Jess wonders if she liked his date idea.
"I think if I could work on my aim I would have fun. Today, I didn't come close to hitting anything." She hit everything but the opposing team. She got hit every time she moved since her stealth skill was at a negative 10.
"Really? The bruises didn't discourage you." He smiles.
"I double the padding so there is no bruising." She stuck her tongue out.
"That would explain the walk." He laughed along with her. "I'll give you credit, you gave it the college try. I was sure after getting shot the first time you would hide behind a board and cry."
"No, I wanted to hit someone at least once." She held up a finger.
"You didn't but I think you hit the pigeon." He laughed.
"I did not. Chris said he did." She refused to claim that.
"They have a part where you can do target practice." He informs her.
"Maybe the next time you and the guys come here. I can do some practice. Before you know it I'll be gunning you down." She shot him with a finger gun.
He let out a loud laugh. "I like to see that."
"So I think we can say that the fish bowl was a success." She wasn't so sure about it herself but she had a lot of fun today despite the slight humiliation at being so horrible. It helped that the other guys thought it was amazing that she was there trying.
"Yeah, I can't wait to play basketball with you." He smirks.
"I can't wait to make pottery with you." She teased.
"I don't mind doing that." He shrugged.
"Really?" She looks at him with wide eyes.
"Looks like we don't know each other as well as we thought." Despite his words, the smile didn't leave his face.
"To be fair I wouldn't think I like paintballing so I don't know myself as well as I thought either." It was a nice feeling to know that there was more to discover about the person she loved. It was exciting to think that they could discover them together.
