CHAPTER 16
M cGinty’s was steady, but Rory wouldn’t call it busy. She had been to this bar a few times, but it wasn’t a regular spot for her and her friends. They had a couple of TVs there showing the game, and even then, only a few tables were occupied right now, which made her feel better for Candace.
“They’re probably at the big chain bars,” Logan said. “Larger and more TVs there.”
“Maybe,” Rory replied as she walked out.
“So, get to my car and head to the others?”
“Do you really need me to do this recon with you?” she asked.
“Do I need you?” Logan asked back.
“You just asked me if I wanted to go, and I don’t really know why. You can tell if a bar is busy or not.”
“I just wanted to hang out with you,” Logan replied. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Is this about the hand thing a few minutes ago? I was trying to get us away from a woman who was acting weird. I–”
“Logan, the hand thing was fine.”
“Just fine ?” Logan asked. “I’ve been told I have very soft hands.”
Rory chuckled as they walked and said, “Your hand was very soft, yes.”
“Well, I moisturize after I shower most nights. Unless I’m too tired, and then I’m just crashing into bed naked, forgetting all about lotion.”
Rory cleared her throat and said, “Naked?”
“I usually sleep in a sports bra and underwear or just underwear, but when it starts getting warmer, I sleep naked. I have a wall AC unit in my place, but it only works about half the time. I sleep hot anyway, so it’s just easier.”
“Right,” Rory replied, trying not to think about Logan lying naked in bed.
“Do you sleep naked?” Logan asked.
“What? No,” she stated loudly.
Logan laughed and said, “You act like it’s the most scandalous thing in the world.”
“It’s not, obviously,” she replied. “I have pajamas.”
“Pajamas? What do they look like?”
“I have several sets.”
“You have sets of pajamas?”
“Yes.”
“Like, with a matching shirt and pants combo or something?”
“Some of them.” Rory nodded.
“Okay. I need more information. I have sweatpants and T-shirts, but no matching pajamas.”
“You don’t get them every Christmas? My mom always gives them to me.”
Logan seemed to sober then.
“Do you not celebrate Christmas?” Rory asked quickly. “Sorry. That was a big assumption on my part.”
“Uh… I used to,” Logan told her.
“Used to?”
“Yeah. I don’t really want to get into it, if that’s okay, but I don’t talk to my family anymore. We didn’t do the whole pajama thing, though.”
Rory recognized that she’d hit on something that Logan didn’t want to talk about, so she decided to change the subject because whenever they had gotten into Logan’s details, Logan had pivoted, and Rory wanted to respect that. At least, for now.
“Well, I have a set for every year. I give them away every so often because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have space for the new ones.”
“I want to come back to the pajamas in a minute, but you and your parents… You’re close?”
“I think so, yeah. I usually try to call them at least once a week, and my mom and I exchange texts every few days.”
“That’s nice,” Logan said, still appearing as if she was far away.
Rory didn’t like the lost look on Logan’s face, so she decided to change the subject altogether, hoping it would bring her back fully to their conversation.
“Hey, I got a new job.”
Logan looked over at her and said, “What? You have, like, six jobs already, and you’re in school.”
“I do not have six jobs. I have two regular nanny jobs.”
“And the bar.”
“I only help out there. I don’t have regular shifts or anything.”
“And you told me you pick up babysitting gigs on an app,” Logan said.
“When I need to, yeah,” Rory replied. “One of my regulars just hired a live-in full-timer, though. They offered me free room and board, but I can’t do that while I’m in school. Besides, I like my apartment and my freedom, and I feel like if I lived with the people I was nannying for, I’d end up losing a lot of my free time. I don’t want that. It just meant that I needed something else to replace that part of my income.”
“So, you found another family?” Logan asked as they arrived at her car.
“No, I got a job as a tour guide.”
“What?” Logan asked as she opened the passenger door for her.
Rory smiled, not sure if Logan even realized that she was doing it and how sweet it was that she had done so.
“I have a friend of a friend who manages and is about to take over a tour company in town,” she explained. “She was telling me that they’re always short-staffed this time of year, losing part-timers a lot to bar jobs. I’m no bartender, as you well know, so I thought I’d see if she needs any help. She hired me, and I start training tomorrow.”
“So, you’re a soon-to-be social worker, a nanny, a server in a bar, sometimes a cook and a bartender there, too, and now, also a tour guide, along with being a grad student?” Logan asked when she got into the car.
“I guess.” Rory shrugged a shoulder.
“When do you sleep, Rory?” Logan asked and started the car.
“I usually get six hours a night, which is good enough for me.”
“I can barely handle bartending and driving Lyft, and I control my Lyft hours.”
“I need the money. I got some small scholarships and stuff when I went to my undergrad, but I have student loans. My parents couldn’t really help me with school, and I’m on my own for pretty much everything. I have rent and bills like everyone else. What I make at my regular jobs covers that, but I take on the other things like babysitting and helping Candace when I can to get ready for those loans.”
“But you started school in the fall, so you have at least two years, right?” Logan pulled the car into traffic.
“My program is two years, yes. How did you know that?”
“I looked it up online. I was curious,” Logan replied.
“You looked up my program?”
“Candace told me where you were going. It took five minutes.”
Rory smiled and said, “I have to start paying them back six months after I graduate, so I’m trying to stockpile what I can now.”
“That’s smart,” Logan noted as she stopped them at a red light. “So, let’s get back to those pajamas.”
Rory laughed and replied, “They aren’t at all interesting, Logan. I have a few that are red-and-green, with Christmas trees all over them. Another pair is a plain green T-shirt and red shorts that have little pigs on them, for some reason.”
“Little pigs?” Logan laughed.
“Yeah. Not sure how that’s Christmas-themed, but most of the others are flannel or just plain.”
“Your parents don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Well, you said flannel… so I immediately thought of lesbians, and that reminded me that when you told me who knew that you were gay, they weren’t included.”
The light changed, and Logan drove on.
“They don’t know, no,” Rory confirmed.
“Are you worried how they’ll take it?”
“Honestly, no. I think they’ll be fine with it. They just don’t live here, and I want to tell them in person.”
“How long have you known?” Logan asked.
Rory sighed and said, “I guess since about the moment I kissed Enid Becker.”
“Really?” Logan asked as she turned right at their street.
“I think I knew before then, but it was more confusing than anything. Then, I met her, and she was nice. I knew she was gay, and I kept thinking about her.”
“Naked?” Logan asked.
“Sometimes, yeah.”
Logan seemed to suck air through her teeth, and when Rory turned to look at her, Logan’s jaw was set.
“Are you… jealous of Enid? Is that your jealous face?”
“What? No. Why would I be jealous of the woman you liked enough to kiss and you still hang out with? Tonight, in fact. She was there tonight.”
Rory hadn’t expected her to actually admit to jealousy, but it was refreshing, in a way, how Logan just said what was on her mind. She usually did the same, but it was also a little confusing because Rory still didn’t understand what Logan saw in her.
“You heard me tell you that she didn’t kiss me back, right? And the part about how I have pig pajamas, too?”
Logan laughed a little and replied, “The pajama thing is cute. And I know Enid didn’t kiss you back. She just… got to kiss you.”
They didn’t say much after that exchange because Rory didn’t think either of them knew what else to say. Logan found them parking in a nearby garage, and they walked across the street, weaving their way through the crowd until they found their first bar. They stayed just long enough to check out the crowd before they hit the next one, and they walked around until they’d hit six different bars. Then, Logan nodded back toward the parking garage.
“I should probably get back and make sure everything’s prepped for when we get hit.”
“Yeah, I think we did enough recon,” Rory replied.
They walked back to where Logan’s car was parked, and when there was a crowd passing them, going the other direction, Logan’s hand ended up on the small of Rory’s back as she kept them together. It felt so good, having Logan touch her. When she’d held her hand before, Rory hadn’t wanted to let go, but having their fingers entwined like that while they walked meant something, and she’d already told Logan that she thought they should be friends. It would’ve sent a different message had Rory continued to hold it, and she hadn’t wanted to confuse things.
“Are you going to hang at the bar when we get back?” Logan asked.
“Depends on how busy it is.”
Logan nodded a few times and proceeded to say, “You could just hang out. You don’t have to work, you know?”
“I know.”
“There are a lot of stools at the bar.”
“Yeah,” Rory said, wondering where she was going with this.
“You could sit in one, and when I’m not busy, I could talk to you. I mean, we could… talk to each other, obviously. God, I’m really bad at this…” Logan laughed and stopped walking.
Rory stopped, too, and asked, “At what?”
“Being friends. I’m trying to figure out how to do that.”
“You don’t know how to be friends with someone?”
“I have exactly one friend.” Logan held up one finger. “And she’s my ex-girlfriend.”
“Oh,” Rory let out. “I thought you didn’t do relationships.”
“We broke up a long time ago. Then, we didn’t talk for a while, and now we’re friends. We’re better as friends, but we were friends before we began dating. I don’t know how to make new ones. On top of that, you know I’m interested in something more with you, so it’s awkward sometimes. I don’t know what I’m allowed to say or what I shouldn’t say. I just had my hand on your back, and I worried you might think that meant something more than me trying to get you through the crowd. Hell, I think I opened the car door for you earlier, and I don’t usually do that for friends, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“You did. And you did it the other time, too,” Rory said with a smile. “It’s sweet, Logan. You told me that I was sweet, but you ’re sweet. You did the car door thing, you took my hand, and just now, you put your hand on my back. I know it’s not because you’re trying something.”
“Okay. Good,” Logan said. “There are things that I’m trying to figure out.” She paused and ran a hand through her dark hair. “And I’ve hurt people, Rory.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone again,” Logan added.
“I believe you,” Rory replied.
“You… want to be friends, and that’s fine. I just don’t know how to do this.”
“There’s nothing to do, Logan. We just are friends.”
“We are?”
“Yes.” Rory laughed a little and moved closer to her. “I don’t know why you want to be friends with me. I’m very lame. You know that, right?”
Logan smiled at her and said, “What makes you think I’m not?”
“You could have a new woman every night. You’re the type of woman who could just walk into any bar in this town, stand against a wall, and every eligible lesbian would walk up to you.”
“What makes you think I’d want that?”
“You don’t?”
“Not really,” Logan replied.
“But you like casual sex.”
“I have casual sex. That doesn’t mean I like it,” Logan told her.
“What? That doesn’t make any sense,” Rory pointed out. “You’re doing something you don’t like when you don’t have to? Why?”
“That’s a much longer story, and we need to get back to the bar.”
“No, don’t do that,” Rory said, deciding to not let her off the hook this time. “You can’t just say something like that and walk away.”
“I can for now. Candace is expecting me back, Rory.”
“Logan, why are you sleeping with these women if you don’t want to?”
“It’s better than being bored.” Logan shrugged. “My life isn’t exactly exciting, Rory. I have one friend. I don’t talk to my family anymore. I drove a car around the city at night to make enough money to survive, and that was it. I’ve got no hobbies. I think there are maybe three things in my fridge that aren’t frozen meals, and one of them is ketchup. My internet is slow as fuck. My AC only works when I smack the thing on the side. I have Netflix, I guess. That’s my big expense. I think I’ve watched everything on there, though, because when I can’t sleep and it’s five in the morning, I need something to do. I got this job at Candace’s, and it’s been great. It’s eight to ten hours of me having something to do, people to talk to who aren’t in the back seat of my car, and I have expectations; a schedule. It may sound weird, but I need that. Sex is just sex, Rory. When it’s with some random woman at a bar, that’s all it can be. It fills the void. It’s a distraction. It’s not something I particularly get a lot of enjoyment from. It just is.”
Rory stood there and tried to process everything Logan had just said, but there were too many words and too many things in that monologue she’d just given. That made Rory’s head spin, and she didn’t know what to say to it all.
“Okay,” she said after a moment.
“Okay?” Logan asked.
“Yeah. I’d ask you more questions, but I don’t think you want to answer them right now, so just okay.”
“Really?”
“I hope you will tell me more when you’re ready, but if you don’t, that’s okay, too.”
“Are you ready to go back to the bar?” Logan asked.
Rory nodded, and when they got back in the car, Logan put the key in the ignition and turned to her.
“Okay,” she said.
“What’s okay?” Rory asked her.
“When I’m ready, I’ll tell you.”
Rory smiled softly at her, and she really wanted to reach out and cup Logan’s cheek because it seemed like the thing she should do right now, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned back and looked out the window, waiting for Logan to take them back to the bar, where Rory had every intention of sitting on the barstool and talking to Logan for the rest of the night.