The Plan
The bar a small place that many people might consider seedy but comfortable. It was a place where the juke box was filled with blues music and old classics from the 60’s and 70’s, a place where the smoke was so thick you could slice it with your hand and people could drown their sorrows in their liquor without being disturbed. It was something different from the vibrant, lively atmosphere of The Phoenix. It was dark, dank, and everyone minded their own damn business. Just the way he liked it.
The bartender sat another beer in front of Logan, looking at him warily. Logan didn’t know how many beers he’d had since arriving at the bar, but he knew he’d been knocking them back like they were nothing. Earlier, the bartender had made the mistake of saying something about how much he was drinking. Logan told him in so many words that it wasn’t his job to worry about how much he drank. It was his job to make sure he didn’t run out of beer to drink.
Logan thumbed the mouth of the mug. He’d been coming to this place religiously since that night he walked away from Ororo about a week ago. He didn’t like sitting home alone in the dark sulking over what happened. He felt much better sulking over his problems at bar where his problems hung thick in the air with other people’s problems.
He hadn’t talked to Ororo since that night. They worked together, but it was always the same shit, different night. She avoided him, and he avoided her. They didn’t say anything to each other unless they had. Even then, they tried to avoid talking to each other, acting like a couple of kids instead of adults. They would send messages to each other through one of the other bartenders. One night, it got so bad that Remy told them to fuck and make up, then stalked away leaving a trail of French curses behind him.
Every single person that worked in that place knew about them now. He didn’t care that the others knew. He couldn’t care less what they thought of him. What bothered him about the rumor mill was the outrageous stories that he sometimes caught wind of. Didn’t they have a life of their own to speculate on? It was like their brains never ran out of new stories to tell about each other. It was either that or they really didn’t have a life to worry about. Probably both.
None of what he heard was close to the truth. In the past few days, he’d heard that he was sharing Ororo with Joaquín. He heard that he and Ororo frequented the local bondage club where he collared Ororo. Hell, he even heard that he’d collared both Ororo and Joaquin. If he found out who started that one he was going to kick some serious ass. And these people called themselves their friends.
He knew if he heard it, Ororo had heard it, too. They didn’t even make up that many stories about Jean and him. Jean was another person he’d been avoiding, but she wasn’t avoiding him. In fact, she tried to talk to him and he always found something to do, had something to do, or was doing something that needed all of his attention. He knew it wasn’t fair to avoid her. He just didn’t want to talk about any of it at that moment, but he knew he couldn’t shun her forever.
What he was trying to figure out now was where did he do now? He walked away. Was he supposed to walk away for good now? When he overheard Ororo tell Joaquín everything that happened between them, he remembered thinking that Joaquin would’ve been stupid to just let her go. Now, it looked like he was the one who giving up the fight.
What could he do? Ororo hadn’t heard a word he said, and he couldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to, despite the rumors circulating about him being the dom in the relationship. He wasn’t so sure if Ororo really knew what she wanted. She said she did, but her actions didn’t always reflect her words. She would tell him she didn’t want him, but her actions would say otherwise. Then, she would go into all out resist mode.
He knew she did it because she thought that was what was good for her. He’d hurt her, and she was trying to convince herself that that was what a lifetime would be like with him. It didn’t matter what he said or what he did to prove otherwise. She couldn’t go through life believing she’d never be hurt again. Life was full of hurts that couldn’t be avoided, but he would try his best not to hurt her again. Jean had much to do with her change in attitude, too. Ororo didn’t want to hurt Jean, but it was Jean who should be the one worrying hurting people.
He had to go home or he’d never get up in the morning. He left the bartender a generous tip and left the bar. On his way home, he stopped at a payphone. He dug some change out of his pocket and started to put it in the machine. No, he couldn’t do that. He was supposed to be letting all this go. He was supposed to be moving on.
God, she complicated him. He wished these feelings for her would just go away. He didn’t want to feel like this, anymore. He’d done everything he was supposed to do, and he still hadn’t gotten anywhere with her. Shit was getting way too complicated for him now. He just needed to put the phone down, go home, and go to sleep.
He would not call her, and he would not try to see her. The best way to get over her was to let it go. In time, his feelings for her would fade, and he would be free of her finally. All he had to do now was let it go.
He stood in the payphone just holding the receiver while the operator’s mechanical voice prompted him to deposit money into the phone. It was two in the morning. She was probably sleeping, anyway.
He didn’t care. He just had to hear her voice.
That night she had dinner with Joaquín at her house. She wasn’t on the schedule for the night. Jean still hadn’t talked to her since that day, and it was more than clear that she was trying to keep Logan and her away from each other. When they were on the schedule together, she worked the upstairs bar while Logan worked the downstairs bar or vice versa. One of them always went home early.
She wanted to tell Jean that she didn’t have to go through all that work to keep them apart. She hoped Jean didn’t really believe something like scheduling them to work different bars would really keep them apart, if they really wanted to be together. She was glad for the unexpected off day, though. It was getting hard to ignore Logan, even with Jean’s methodical planning. She still had to interact with him from time to time.
She wanted to be relieved that he seemed to finally take the hint, but she wasn’t. She thought this was what she wanted, him out of her life. She was disappointed, though. She expected him to put up a better fight than he had. Maybe, she’d taken all the fight out of him. When he asked her what she wanted, he seemed a little tired. Could she blame him for being fed up?
Maybe, she was playing her own elaborate game of hunter and prey now. Maybe, she enjoyed that he came to her. She lured him to her, allow him to get so close, and then she pushed him away, only to start the game all over again. Some might say it was sweet revenge for the way he treated her, but she didn’t want revenge on him for what happened. She just wanted something good in her life.
She heard what Logan was saying to her, but she rebelled against it. Sometimes, she just wanted to give in to him and see what happened, but her rational mind would take over, overshadowing what her heart felt, reminding her that she was tired of his games, and her mind was probably right.
Ororo turned her thoughts away from Logan. It wasn’t fair to devote all her time thinking about Logan when she was with Joaquín, and it wasn’t fair to her that she couldn’t get him off her mind. She took a bite of her food and started a new conversation with him, hoping that it would take her mind off Logan.
She told him about Joaquín decision not to sell the house. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to keep it. It was hers; she deserved it. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to leave, anymore. She believed she really wanted to leave because of Logan. Now, while things weren’t really resolved between them, she was coming to terms with everything. But if she did stay, she was definitely redecorating that bedroom. That monster of a bed was the first thing to go.
She was starting to feel better about herself, and she knew she wasn’t some kind of love pariah. It still hurt to be around Logan. She knew it would be a while before she really got over him, if she ever did get over him, but she knew now that she could only take it one day at a time.
When she got divorced, she told herself that the next time around she would take love slowly, but she found herself in an obsessive relationship with Logan. And it scared her more than she wanted to admit. It scared her to the point that she was ready to uproot her whole life to get away from him. She was doing it again. She was letting Logan rule her thoughts, but she couldn’t help it.
She spent the rest of dinner talking about anything that would eliminate the thought of Logan from her mind. She loved talking with Joaquín. He was always so attentive to what she said. He always made her feel special like she some kind of precious stone. She didn’t know why she would waste her time thinking about Logan when she was with him. Why would she think about anyone else when she was with him?
After dinner, they danced together in her living room while looking into each other’s eyes. Goddess, he has such beautiful eyes, she said to herself. She reached up and touched his hair, wanting to feel how soft it was against her fingers, again. He smiled at her and she felt her nerves tingle. She couldn’t deny that she was attracted to him.
He’d always been a perfect gentleman with her. Sometimes, she wished he would be a little more aggressive, but then, she decided that it was better that he took things slow. She’d had enough fast men in her life to last her a while. She needed to be in control of this, and he was giving her that control.
She brought her hand up to his hair, tangling both hands in his hair, pulling him closer to her. Their lips met, softly at first, and she savored the sweet taste of his mouth. Their kiss deepened, as she untangled her fingers from his hair and started to lead him away from the living room.
They continued kissing, stumbling over furniture, as they fumbled toward the stairs. She heard something go crashing to the floor. “Oops,” she said between their kisses. She helped him take his sweater off, losing it somewhere on the stairs, as they continued to the bedroom. She’d already lost her own at the bottom of the stairs.
In the bedroom, they tumbled into the bed together. The more she kissed him, the more she wanted to kiss him. She wanted nothing more than to feel his hands on every inch of her body. He hungrily pulled away the wrap skirt she wore. She slowed the pace by pushing him back on the bed, straddling his hips. She kissed his neck, running her hands over his chest and abs.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked.
She looked up at him, smiling wickedly. Her lips found his again, her hands slowly undoing the clasp of his jeans. The phone started ringing. Her first reaction was to ignore it. Who would be calling her at this time of night, anyway? Logan. Her heart skipped a beat. “The phone’s ringing,” she said as if he didn’t already know that, reaching for the phone at her bedside. She turned it on.
“Just ignore it,” he said, rolling her over in the bed. The phone went slipping from her hand, dropping to the floor. He ran his tongue over the lacy material of the bra, his thumbs hooking the straps. She moaned, and then she tilted his head towards her, regaining her wits.
“The phone is already on,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. If whoever called was still on the phone, they were getting an earful.
She raised her hand to tug at her collar until she realized she’d lost the sweater a long time ago. She hoped it really wasn’t Logan. She didn’t think he knew her phone number, though. He had never called her before. Why now? She was just being silly. She had to get Logan off the brain.
Joaquín leaned over the edge of the bed, retrieving the phone, bringing it to his ear. “Hello? Hello?” he said into the phone. Then, handed it to her. “There is no one there.”
“We probably scared them away,” she said, putting the phone back on the charger. Then, she turned back to him. “Now, where were we?”
He was still on the phone when it went dead in his ear, leaving the annoying sound of the dial tone buzzing in his ear. He gripped it in his hand for a moment. Then, without warning, he started beating the phone against the machine. The phone cracked in his hands. He stomped out of the booth and sat on his bike. He took a deep breath before he started it. He didn’t want to kill himself in anger.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know what was going on at Ororo’s place. He’d heard all he needed to hear, maybe more than he needed to hear. Now, he had images of Ororo in his head. He could see her just as she always was with him. Her skin glowing with sweat, her breath coming in short sighs, the demure lowering of her eyelids while he looked down at her. He couldn’t think about that. She wasn’t with him now.
Jean sat on the top stair of the stairs leading to the upstairs apartments when he arrived home. He groaned inwardly, pausing halfway up the stairs. “What are you doin’ here?” he asked Jean.
“I just wanted to talk to you,” she said. He walked up the rest of the stairs slowly, helping her to stand once he was standing beside her. She held on to his hand while they walked to his door.
He wasn’t really surprised that she was there. His apartment was where most of their dirty work took place. He knew she would show up there sooner or later. Truthfully, he had expected her to show up earlier than this. He’d been expecting her since the night Ororo told him that Jean knew about them.
He unlocked the door to his apartment, and they walked inside. He’d made plans to fall into the bed. He wanted to forget the night happened, or rather, he wanted to forget what knew. He kicked off his boots in the middle of the floor and went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and took out a beer. Might as well have another since he was going to be up a while.
He leaned in the kitchen doorway. Jean was sitting on the couch. She really was beautiful, and he felt those stirrings for her. He cared for her, but it wasn’t the same way he cared about Ororo. Did he love Jean? Maybe in his own way. He walked toward her and sat next to her on the couch.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“You’ve been drinking,” she said crinkling her nose.
“Yeah,” he said. What of it? he asked silently. If she came here to talk about his drinking habits, she was better off not wasting her breath.
“I’ve been waiting here for a while,” she said.
She wasn’t fooling him with that bullshit. That may work on Ororo, but it didn’t work on him. That was her clever way of trying to get him to tell her where he was. She wanted to know if he was with Ororo. He hated to disappoint her.
“I was out,” he said plainly. It wouldn’t hurt to make her sweat for a little while.
“With her?” she asked softly.
“No, not with her,” he said. He didn’t say anymore than that. He didn’t have to. She wasn’t his goddamn babysitter.
Before he could react, she was in his lap, searing him with her kisses, the kind that could make him go completely crazy. He returned her kisses just as eagerly as she gave them. Her kisses were nothing like Ororo’s, though. He stopped kissing her abruptly. Talk about a quick way to kill his mood. Besides, she was pregnant. He didn’t even know if it was okay for her to have sex.
“What?” Jean breathed into his ear.
“Is this safe with you bein’ pregnant and all?” he asked.
“Perfectly,” she said.
He didn’t know the first thing about babies and pregnant women. He didn’t really see any change in her, but he knew the kid was there. He might hurt her or he might hurt the baby. And he couldn’t get Ororo off his mind, and he just couldn’t. Now, there was first.
“I don’t think we should,” he said firmly, pushing her back to the couch gently.
Jean didn’t say anything, but her softness melted as she straightened her backbone. “All right, straight to business,” she said. She had a hard look in her eyes. She always got that look before she was about to say something spiteful. He prepared himself. Maybe, she was going to fire him for sleeping with Ororo. It wouldn’t exactly be the end of the world. “I’m going to tell Scott the baby is his.”
When she said that, it seemed as if everything got quiet. The beer he was holding slipped from his fingers, crashing to the floor. “What did you just say?” he asked, his voice lowering to a growl. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. So, the plan was to sleep with him to soften him up a bit, and then drop this news on him, except it didn’t quite turn out that way.
“I said I’m going to tell Scott this is his baby,” she said. He didn’t know how she could continue to look him in the eye after what she just said.
“You said you haven’t slept with him. How are you s’pose to make him believe that? I don’t think he’s gonna go for the divine intervention excuse. It worked for Mary, but it ain’t gonna work for you.” He said angrily.
“I got him to sleep with me. I’ll wait a few weeks, and then I’ll tell him I’m pregnant,” she said. So, these were the lengths she was willing to go to save her marriage with Scott without telling him the truth. She was more desperate than he originally thought.
“What? Now, I gotta pretend like the kid ain’t mine?” he asked. And there he was worrying that he was going to be a bad dad. The fears he had were nothing compared to the fact that the kid was going to have a conniving liar for a mother. Or the new revelation that he may not know the kid at all.
“No, I know you’ll want to be part of the baby’s life. I’ll let you see the baby, but it’ll have to be on my terms, so Scott doesn’t find out.”
On her terms? She’d rather spin an elaborate web of lies than tell the truth. He didn’t even know what to say. He didn’t want to hear anymore of that sick shit. Did she really realize what she was saying? She was playing Scott stupid, and she was asking him to go along with it. Did this just come to her? Was this some kind of punishment for Ororo? Or had this been her plan all along and she just waited until now to tell him? He never could tell with Jean. She was just that damn capricious.
“Get the fuck out,” he finally said, jerking her up from the couch. He didn’t care if he hurt her or not. He wanted her out and he wanted her out now. He opened the door and pushed her out, slamming the door in her face. He sat back down on the couch and dropped his head in his hands. Then, for the first since he was a child, he cried.
