CHAPTER 31
“S he went with you?” Ava asked.
“She did. It was strange at first, but she sat there with me, holding my hand, and it was nice. I’ve never had anyone sit through a meeting with me. I didn’t share or anything. I think I needed to just be there after what happened.”
“Was she okay with it, really? I know she said she was, but do you believe her? It’s kind of awkward to be walking around New Orleans and have some woman come up to you, making things very awkward.”
“I guess time will tell. I hope it never happens again, but I work in a bar, so there’s a good chance that any of the women I’ve slept with could just walk in and order a drink before she realizes I’ve fucked her and either asks to do it again or brings it up, in the same bar Rory comes to nearly every night. The meeting where I bumped into the bathroom sex woman wasn’t my regular one, so I’m hoping not to see her again, but I’d be lying if I said that it doesn’t bug me that Rory and I could be out to dinner and just run into someone I’ve had sex with. I think it bothers me more than her, though. I’m seven years older than her. Odds are, I wouldn’t exactly have been a virgin even if I hadn’t been sleeping with a different woman every other night for the past several months. But do I think she wants to see a woman I’ve been mostly naked with on the street? No. Who would?”
“What happened after the meeting?” Ava asked.
Logan listened and shifted the phone to her other ear while she searched through her closet for something to wear.
“I took her home, kissed her goodnight, and we made plans to go out again tonight. I have the early shift since Candace’s new bartender is closing, and Rory’s only working until eight, so we’re going to grab a late dinner.”
“Are you worried?”
“No. Why?”
“Because I can hear it in your voice. You don’t sound as excited today,” Ava noted.
Logan pulled a shirt off the hanger and let the hanger swing back and forth before she grabbed the jeans right next to it and watched that hanger do the same.
“I guess I just hope that our date goes well. I feel like I’m giving her more reasons to back out of this. What if we end up becoming a couple, Ava? We’re together for a year or something, we’re walking around, and the couple I’ve had threesomes with sees us and asks for a double date that’s really just the four of us having sex?”
Ava laughed a little and asked, “Would Rory be up for that?”
“What? No! I’m not up for that. If Rory and I ever do that, and I hope we do, I don’t want anyone else doing that with us. Or, with her or with me, for that matter. I want it to be just the two of us.”
“I am so glad you are finally getting back to yourself,” Ava replied.
“What?”
“Logan, yes, you’ve been an addict since before you and I met and became friends, but I was there before it got really bad. You used to talk like this. You were a one-person person. You wanted a relationship. You wanted to marry a woman someday. It’s the reason you and I dated, to begin with. Had you been about sex and only sex, we would have just stayed friends. I’m happy to hear you finally talking like this about the things you want now. And no, some of them – or maybe all of them – won’t be easy. I suspect New Orleans seems like a big city to some, but to you and me, it’s a small town, and we run into people all the time. Odds are, you will run into someone you’ve been with, and Rory will be there if you two are still doing this thing. I hope she’s strong enough to handle that, but also that you’re strong enough to keep working on yourself how you’ve been recently.”
Logan hoped for that, too. She wasn’t worried about Rory in the same way that she wanted to be strong enough for her. Logan wanted to be the person she had planned to be before she had played that first game of poker, pulled the lever on that very first slot machine, and had sex with the first random woman in that hotel room. She wished she could go back in time and tell herself that none of that would be worth it, that it would ruin her relationship with her family, cause her to lose friends, make terrible decisions, and risk a real future with a woman she wanted more than anything.
She would have told younger Logan that she needed to keep working hard at the shop, help her dad, and take it over one day because that was what mattered. She would’ve told herself that she needed to wait a while because the woman she might be falling in love with today was a little younger than her, so she would need to be patient for Rory to get to her. If she had that time machine, she would have erased so many of her mistakes. Or, at least, she thought she would have until she sat on the edge of her bed and thought about it some more.
If she had erased those mistakes, she never would’ve ended up in the bar, looking for a job, because she would’ve been working for her dad. Sure, maybe she’d still go in for a drink, and Rory would be there, but maybe Logan would still be with Ava because she never would’ve stolen money from her to support her addiction. Everything she had done, right or wrong, had led her here, and she wasn’t sure now if that was something she wanted to change.
“Hey, listen, I need to go. I’m… Well, I have a date of my own to plan for tonight,” Ava said.
“You do?”
“Do you remember Bonnie from my office?”
“I met someone named Bonnie?”
Ava laughed and replied, “Yes, you did. It was, like, six months ago. She and I were at lunch. You ran in, picking up coffee and a sandwich.”
“Oh, Bonnie. Sure,” she said, still not remembering.
“I’ve had a crush on her for about a year.”
“A crush? What about the long-distance woman?”
“Bonnie had a girlfriend. She didn’t seem interested, so I gave up on it until yesterday.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“Well, I didn’t join you at the bar last night because I was with her.”
“ With her?” Logan asked.
“We had a rough day at work. Our boss gave us a bunch of last-minute things to do, and we were in the office late. She told me she and her girlfriend broke up about a month ago and asked if I wanted to grab a drink to help get over our bad day. One thing led to another…”
“You slept with her?” Logan said in surprise since Ava hadn’t ever been a hookup kind of woman.
“I did,” Ava admitted, sounding excited. “And, Logan, it was so fucking good. We had a couple of drinks at the bar, and she asked if I wanted to go for a walk. We did and ended up near my place. I asked her to come up, we kissed, and it was like, yes, this is what I’ve wanted for a year. She’s smart, talented, and beautiful, and we stayed up late. Yes, we had sex, but we also talked in between and–”
“In between? How many in-betweens were there?” Logan laughed.
“Several,” Ava replied, sounding as if she was thinking about them right now. “I got next to no sleep, but it was so worth it. We’re going out again tonight.”
“I’m happy for you, Ava.”
“God, me too. I’ve been staring at her from across conference rooms for a year, and I never thought she would even look at me, but last night, it was like she really saw me, and I saw her, and we liked what we saw.”
“I bet you did,” she teased.
“You know what I mean.” Ava chuckled. “But, Logan, I can’t stop thinking about her now.”
“Well, sounds like we’re both going out with some great women tonight.”
“Yeah, we are,” Ava replied. “So, I’ve got to get back to work. Bonnie and I are grabbing lunch today, too.”
“Is lunch code for more sex?”
“No, it’s lunch. We’re going to a place by the office on purpose because, yes, I want her again, and right now, so we need to be in public and surrounded by our colleagues to keep my libido in check.”
Logan laughed and replied, “Goodbye, Ava. Have good sex tonight.”
◆◆◆
“Hey,” Rory said as she walked into the bar.
“Hey. What are you doing here? I’m supposed to pick you up,” Logan replied.
“I got done early, so I thought I’d come here to pick you up and maybe get a hello kiss.”
Rory leaned over the bar.
Logan smiled and leaned over, too, connecting their lips.
“Well, this is a nice surprise. I need to do a couple of things real quick, and then we can go.”
“Okay. No hurry.”
“Want a drink? I make a mean–”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Rory chuckled. “Just a water this time, though.”
Logan smiled again and added ice to a glass before she set a bottle of sparkling water next to it on the bar and hooked a slice of lemon to the side of the glass.
“Fancy water,” Logan said. “Best I can do.”
Rory just rolled her eyes at her playfully.
When Logan finished her shift and clocked out, she grabbed her jacket from the back, said goodnight to Candace, and walked back out into the bar, where she found Rory waiting for her.
“Ready?” she asked.
They left the bar, and when they hit the sidewalk, Logan took Rory’s hand, making it clear to anyone around that they were together.
“So, I was thinking about dinner and then back to my apartment to maybe watch a movie or something,” Rory said.
“Sounds good to me,” Logan replied, looking at Rory before she returned her attention ahead and noticed someone she really didn’t want to see.
“Hi,” the woman she had fucked in her car not all that long ago said. “I’m on my way to McGinty’s, not your bar. Oh.” She looked down at their joined hands.
“Okay,” Logan said plainly.
“My husband is already there,” the woman added. “I’m not… It doesn’t matter.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Logan agreed.
“Um… Hi,” Rory said with a wave.
“Hi,” the woman replied.
“I’m Rory.”
“Okay,” the woman said. “So, I was right?” she asked Logan.
Logan didn’t know how to tell this woman that, no, she wasn’t. At the time, Logan and Rory were barely friends. But also, yes, she was right because now, they were more.
“Right about what?” Rory asked Logan.
“Us,” Logan replied.
“Oh,” Rory said and added, “I remember you from the bar. It’s okay. We don’t have to pretend like I don’t know who you are or what happened.”
“You told her?” the woman asked.
“I tell her everything,” Logan stated.
Rory squeezed her hand tightly and said, “We were just grabbing dinner. Have a good night at McGinty’s. They’re overpriced, and Mickey makes better food, but enjoy your night.”
Logan wanted to laugh, but she held it in as Rory pulled her around the woman and pressed into Logan’s side as if she needed to be even closer to her.
“Are you okay?” Rory asked her when they were out of earshot.
“Are you okay? I feel like we keep running into people I never want to see again, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“I’m fine,” Rory replied. “But what did she mean when she said she was right about us?”
“She thought we were together or dating or whatever when she came in after that first night. I told her we weren’t because we weren’t, but she didn’t take me not wanting to do what we did again well.”
“Can I ask you something?”
Logan laughed.
“What?” Rory asked.
“You always do that. You ask me if you can ask me, even though you know I’ll answer anything.”
“I guess I do. Anyway, she came back that second night, and I know what you told me before about why you didn’t, but was there more to it than that?”
“More to it?”
“Was I… at all part of that… thought process?”
Logan stopped walking and pulled Rory into her.
“Are you asking if I was thinking about you how I think about you now and didn’t have sex with her again because I was into you?”
“Yes, I’m asking that.” Rory smiled but blushed a little.
“The answer is yes, you were a big consideration.” Logan snaked a hand up Rory’s neck and cupped her cheek. “She had that phone call that wasn’t exactly part of the plan, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel something for you by then. Maybe even before that. I don’t think I knew what it was, and I wasn’t ready to admit it, but it was there. You were there.”
“Is it weird that I’m happy to know that?”
“No,” Logan said as she leaned in and kissed her. “Let’s go grab some dinner.”
“Not that I don’t want to go out with you, but maybe we should just go back to my place and order something.”
“Oh,” Logan let out. “I thought you wanted to go to that seafood place Linden recommended last night.”
“I do. Another night, though.”
“Because of what just happened?” she asked, worried now.
“A little, if I’m being honest. But mostly, it’s because I’d like to do more kissing, and we can’t do that over a table in a restaurant,” Rory replied. “I missed you today. And I am strongly considering never having children. Simon and Stacey were extra crazy tonight, and it was like pulling teeth to get them to sit still, stop arguing, and just do their homework. If I’m going to be in social work, I’ll have enough to worry about.”
“Fine by me,” Logan said.
Rory tilted her head and asked, “The dinner thing or the kids thing?”
“Both,” she replied.
“Yeah?” Rory checked.
“Honestly, all I want is you, Rory. So, I’ll have dinner wherever you want, and if we’re at that point one day where we’re ready for that other thing, if you want them, we talk. If you don’t, we don’t have them. I used to like the idea of having kids because I wanted them to take over the family business from me like I was going to do for my dad, but that’s not the right reason to have children. Now, I don’t really know. I’m thirty years old, and I haven’t felt that pull yet. It could still happen, but if it doesn’t, I know I just want to be happy. You know?”
“Then, let’s just be happy,” Rory said.
They walked toward their cars and drove separately to Rory’s apartment. Rory waited for Logan to park, and they walked to her apartment together, with Rory opening the door and closing it behind them. Logan removed her jacket and stood in the open space, not knowing what to do.
“Drink?” Rory asked.
“Whatever is fine,” Logan said. “Want me to order us something to eat?”
“Can I get us the Po-Boys from that place Melinda and Jill introduced me to? It’s really good.”
“Sure,” she said.
“You can sit down, Logan. I’ll be right there.”
“Oh, right,” she said.
Rory brought over two glasses of water and placed them on the coffee table.
“Is it cold enough for you in here? I can turn the temperature down.”
Logan laughed and said, “It’s fine.”
“Good,” Rory replied.
Then, she disappeared into her bedroom. Logan wondered what she was doing before she decided that Rory was probably just using the restroom. When Rory walked back into the living room minutes later, though, she wasn’t wearing what she had been just moments before.
“Pajamas?” Logan asked.
“With pigs on them,” Rory said and tossed something at Logan, who was surprised but caught it. “Yours.”
“My what?” she asked and looked down, realizing that Rory had tossed her pajamas, too.
“I got you shorts because my pants would be too short for you anyway.”
“You want me to put these on?” she asked.
Rory sat down on the sofa next to her and said, “I want you to stay the night, Logan. I want to fall asleep next to you. Is that okay? Can we do that tonight?”
“Even after what’s happened the past couple of days?”
“Yes,” Rory said. “I don’t care about them, Logan. I care about you. I want you to hold me tonight. Did you hold any of them?”
“What? No,” she said quickly.
“Did you kiss them how you kiss me?”
Logan shook her head.
“And did you wake up next to them how you’ll wake up next to me tomorrow?”
Logan shook her head again.
“I don’t care about them,” Rory repeated. “I just want you .”
Logan knew her eyes were welling up with tears now, but she couldn’t stop it from happening.
“You have no idea how much I needed to hear that,” she admitted.
“Want me to maybe hold you right now?” Rory asked.
Logan simply nodded, and Rory shifted until her arm was wrapped around her.