Chapter Two
Back in the Picture
Logan didn’t know why he agreed to go to the stupid thing. He didn’t like dressing up, and he didn’t particularly like parties where rich people like to brag about who had more money. It was supposed to be for a good cause, but he believed benefits like these were really just a show for many of the people in the room. It was always a game. Who had more money? Who gave more money? It made him sick.
But when Jean asked, he felt like he had to say yes to her. As much as he’d wanted to say no, he felt obligated to accompany her to the benefit. He would tell himself that he was going to be firm with Jean, and then, he’d think about her pregnancy and lose a little nerve. It was becoming a constant losing battle with Jean.
Maybe, he’d have a little resolve if she weren’t showing. Every time he looked at her, at her belly, it made everything a little more real. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little voice would ask him what kind of man was he if he denied her. That was something he wasn’t accustomed to. He wasn’t use to second guessing himself and his decisions, but lately, that seemed to be all he ever did.
Jean had donated a large sum to the school, more than he would see in a year. She’d gone all misty-eyed when she told him about her days at the school. The school had been a stepping-stone to her “successful” life, and she wanted to give back to the people who’d helped her. When the invitation came, it was all she talked about.
He’d hoped”silently, of course”that she wouldn’t ask him to be her date. Didn’t she have other friends that enjoyed that kind of thing? His luck hadn’t been so good lately. So, after dropping numerous hints his way, she finally just flat out asked him when he pretended to be clueless. And he’d been prepared to tell her no, but then he thought about the baby and how things went down with Scott and he couldn’t say no.
Now, he was forced to drink their weak booze and listen to them go on and on about quarterly reports, and he was convinced the goddamn tie he was wearing was choking him. Jean seemed to be in her atmosphere. She mingled among the guests, speaking what he like to think of as elite speak, something totally foreign to him, while he stood by her side like some kind of obedient man-servant. He hated it.
She hadn’t said much to him all evening, except to ask him to cut down on the drinking, as “people were looking.” He didn’t care who looking, but he monitored his drinking a little closer, anyway. He couldn’t enjoy the drinking, anyway. The wine was worse than water, a real sissy drink. He had come to accept there was no way for him to enjoy the benefit, so he’d endure until Jean decided she wanted to leave.
He made his way to the closest available wall, planning to just sit back and watch everything unfold before him. If he was lucky, maybe Jean would want to leave sooner rather later since she was tired a lot these days, and he could catch the end of Rocky IV. Then, his night wouldn’t be completely ruined.
It was times like these that really made him miss Ororo. He already missed her, but this just made the pang sharper, reminding him how unimposing”how easy-going”she always was, even when he had her at her wit’s end. She never made him feel that he was obligated to do anything for her”unlike Jean.
He knew he couldn’t blame Jean for the sense of obligation he felt toward her; she hadn’t asked for this anymore than he had. She hadn’t asked him to knock her up and ruin her marriage. These were the things that they should’ve thought about, the consequences they should’ve considered, before they decided to fuck like bunnies. On second thought, it probably wouldn’t have stopped them from sleeping together.
Temptation had always been a weakness of his.
Jean had been forbidden fruit, the prim wife of an overbearing man. She made them all believe that she was the perfect wife, another man’s trophy, a temptation that he couldn’t let escape. He’d been so proud when he finally bedded her, disproving that she was perfect as some believed. But he hadn’t rubbed that fact in her face because he did care about her; he’d even led himself to believe that maybe she was the woman for him.
Ororo had been a temptation of another kind. It was just her, the different layers he saw when she thought he wasn’t looking. One minute she was so gentle, so kind, like a mother hen protecting her young. The next she was desirable, exuding the perfect amount of morality and sexuality. She was untouchable, daring him to do what others only dreamed about.
And as is the nature of the beast, when he saw something he wanted, he went after it. He never intended to get so tied up in the lives of either woman, but he had. He’d learned a lesson or two about temptation after he got Jean pregnant and basically ran Ororo away, but he was determined to make everything right in the end. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t give into temptation again.
A woman dressed in all black went stomping by him, smelling like anybody’s ashtray, muttering under her breath, and he’d watched her with relative interest, leaving his thoughts for another day. Maybe, it wouldn’t be quite as boring as he’d thought. She was dressed as nicely as the rest, but her attitude clashed. He couldn’t help but chuckle when she told some man that she didn’t give a shit about his stocks and bonds.
That made everyone chuckle nervously, and slowly, the small group she’d been talking to found other things to do. The woman didn’t seem bothered in the least by it. She just shrugged, and her eyes zoomed in on him, as if she had some kind of radar. She walked over to him, taking care to grab a glass of wine off one of the platters on her trek.
“You don’t belong here,” she said to him matter-of-factly, sipping on her wine. Her voice didn’t hold any contempt for him. It was a statement, a simple observation. She didn’t mean to offend; at least, he didn’t think she meant to offend him. One could never tell with the rich’s subtle mockery.
“Neither do you,” he said.
She laughed a little. It wasn’t some polite, womanly chuckle. It was a sarcastic sound that rumbled in her throat, but it was a laugh nonetheless. “You’re damn right I don’t belong here. Selene, owner of Slam magazine,” she said, extending her hand.
“Logan.” Lowly bartender, he thought about adding. He clasped her hand between his own, feeling a little better about the night. At least, he wasn’t the only person there who could see through the dollar bill signs, even if she was supposedly one of them.
They chatted for a while about nothing in particular. If there was ever a woman who probably had a set of balls hiding under her dress, it was Selene. She was all business, no play. He found that women liked to play coy much of the time until you really got to know them, but Selene talked to him like she’d known him for years, and he’d never heard a woman use the word “fuck” more than he did. It was almost like her mantra.
“Who forced you to come to this hellhole?” she asked, finishing the rest of her wine in one sip. She looked at him obviously expecting him to answer.
“My…” he trailed, finding himself a little uncomfortable for the first time since she’d started talking to him. What did he call Jean? His friend? His girlfriend? His baby’s mama? Did it matter? Was it any of Selene’s business, anyway? “Just someone I know who needed a date.”
“My date isn’t even here, yet. Well, she really isn’t my date as in we have something going on. She’s someone I asked to come because I didn’t want to be stuck socializing with these assholes, and she’s an okay person to be around. Oh look, there she is, finally,” she said, waving at someone behind him. “You’d think she had to be the belle of the damn ball as late as she is.”
He turned around slowly to see Selene’s date for the benefit. He half-expected her date to be some half-clad stripper, someone with a bad dye job, hooters bigger than the state of Texas, and a name like Bambi, just because Selene seemed like someone who’d bring a stripper for the shock value alone. However, that was definitely not a Bambi waving back at Selene.
“You have got to be shittin’ me,” he said.
- - -
The last person in the world Ororo expected to see was Logan. Okay, well, maybe not the last, but he was close to the last.
Ororo hadn’t really meant to be late to the benefit. She just found herself a little overwhelmed earlier in the day handling errands, not to mention she stayed on the phone a little longer than she intended with Joaquín, who she was still friends with. Then, she realized that she didn’t have a thing to wear, and that prompted a last minute shopping trip where she hated everything she put on.
She finally settled on a simple, white, backless number that she thought she looked exceptionally good in, even if it was a little tight, and of course, she couldn’t leave without a couple of other things. If she hadn’t cut her hair, she would’ve been even later trying to figure out what to do with it. She’d called Selene while trying to squeeze herself into her dress to let her know she would be late.
She didn’t see Selene when she first arrived. After a few moments, she spotted her across the room, chatting with a man who looked strangely familiar. In the back of her mind, she really knew who it was, but she’d wanted to deny it. Selene waved at her, and she waved back, as she started making her away across the room.
She stopped in her tracks when Selene’s companion turned to look at her. Logan. It really was him, and she could feel the heat starting to gloss her face. So, she did what any woman with a shred of self-respect left would do. She asked one of the servers where the nearest bathroom was, and she bolted, nearly tripping in her heels. Smooth one, Munroe, she said to herself.
Ororo pushed her way through the restroom doors. She breathed hard, putting a hand to her chest. She was hyperventilating, or maybe her dress had left her oxygen deprived. She sat at one of the vanity tables, but she didn’t primp or look at herself. There was no time for that. She had feelings to sort out.
She wasn’t prepared for the backwash of emotions that overtook her when she saw Logan. All the old feelings, the old pains, the old longings, resurfaced in seconds, and she hadn’t been ready for them. She thought that she was had settled those feelings. After so many months of not seeing him, she was confident she had conquered those feelings. Apparently, she was wrong.
She thought she would go to the benefit and have a little fun listening to Selene’s color commentary on the events of the night. She thought she would listen to a few guest speakers talk about the school and all the good it had done for the community. She even thought she might get to see some drunken debutante embarrass herself. She did not expect to see Logan. She was not ready to see Logan.
She had tried”however unsuccessful”to keep herself from thinking about Logan, telling herself things would progress with him in due time. Now, she decided, was not that “due time.” She was in no way ready to talk to him because of a chance meeting. She was too much of a mess to talk to him; she’d never be able to get a coherent sentence out of her mouth, much less discuss anything that dealt with them.
That was obvious to her from the way she’d chickened out at his door the week before. She was not ready, and there weren’t enough motivational thoughts in the world that would change that. Oh Goddess, how was she supposed to make it through the rest of the night knowing that Logan was there and that he might actually speak to her at any given moment?
Maybe, if she tried really hard, she could fool Selene into thinking she was sick, that she’d suddenly come down with some virus. She’d never be able to pull that off. It just wasn’t a talent she possessed, and she’d tried it numerous times throughout her life”mostly in college. Maybe she could avoid him. Yeah, she could do that. She was an expert in “deter and avoid” tactics.
The door to the restroom opened, and Ororo felt her throat parch.
“Why are you hiding in here? And what just happened?” Selene asked, knitting her eyebrows together. “The guy I was talking to got all weird when he saw you, and you’re in hiding in the restroom. Fill in the blank, please.”
Ororo let out a sigh of relief. She didn’t know why she thought he’d actually come in the ladies’ restroom. She just figured it wasn’t beyond him to do so, if he really wanted to. “What is he doing here? This isn’t exactly his sort thing. And you were talking to him.” Ororo said, her voice sounding almost accusatory. She knew she couldn’t blame Selene for speaking to him. It wasn’t as if she did it on purpose.
“Who is he?” Selene asked, frowning up even more.
To be such an incredibly smart woman, sometimes, Selene seemed a little clueless. “C’mon, Selene, put two and two together. It’s him. Him!” Ororo said, waving her hands about in exaggeration.
“Oh, him! How in the hell was I supposed to know that you were sleeping with that guy? It’s not like I start up my conversations with a guy by asking a guy if he’d slept with you or not.” Selene said in her own defense. “I thought he was just some guy sleeping with one of those rich bitches.”
“I can’t go back out there. He’ll want to talk.” Ororo moaned more to herself than to Selene.
Selene rolled her eyes. “Yes, that’s terrible. He’ll want to talk to you. What kind of man beast is he, wanting to talk to the woman he was fucking before she ran away to Spain? That is insane.” Selene said, dryly.
“I mean, I don’t want to talk to him. Not right now. I’m not ready.”
“Well, let me tell you something, Ororo. It doesn’t matter if you’re ready or not because it’s going to happen. Life is a bitch like that. Besides, I thought this was what you wanted, to talk to him.”
“No. I mean, yes!” she said, shaking her head. “But not now. What am I supposed to say to him?”
“Look at me.” Selene said, suddenly looking serious. Ororo turned her eyes toward the woman. Selene moved closer to Ororo, taking her hands between her own with a sincerity Ororo had never seen from her before. “You get yourself together. You walk out of this bathroom with your head held high and your shoulders back. You march right up to that man, and you look him in the eye. And you say, ‘Hey, the coat room’s unoccupied, wanna screw?’ Make sure you add a wink for effect.”
“Selene!”
“What? I’m just saying! Since you swear you don’t know what to say to him, just do him and get it over with. Everyone will go home happy, and there’ll be no need to talk.”
“You’re no help.” Ororo said.
“I think I give damn good advice, thank you very little.” Selene huffed. “You have to get back out there. All things happen for a reason. Right? There has to be a reason you two bumped into each other.”
“I’m not going back out there, and I’m not talking to him.”
“You can’t hide in here all night. You’ll have to come out eventually.”
“Want to bet?”
“This is childish, Ororo. You are capable of handling this, and you know as well as I do that you need to see this through to its end.” Selene walked toward the door, pausing before she left. “I can’t make you come out, but you can’t hide from him forever. One day, you’re going to have to talk to him. What’s wrong with now?”
Selene was out the door before Ororo could give her a million and one different reasons why now wasn’t such a good time, but Selene was right. She couldn’t keep avoiding him, and it wasn’t as if he’d come to the benefit looking for. She saw the expression on his face when he looked at her. He was just as surprised as she was. Hell, he might not even want to talk to her.
- - -
He saw her when she peeked out the restroom door, her eyes searching the room, and he’d seen her satisfied look when she finally emerged from the restroom completely. Disaster avoided, that’s what her expression said. He didn’t exactly understand why. He thought they had moved beyond all that those few days in Spain. He thought they’d come to some kind of agreement.
And when had she’d gotten back, anyway? If she was attending benefits with friends, she had to be back a considerable amount of time”enough time to try to get in contact with him. Was it all just talk to appease him? Did she really ever intend to speak to him? Had something changed since then? He hated to think about it, but it was possible.
Their eyes met by accident, crashing headlong into each other. Her relief turned to bemusement, and she stood there unmoving like a statue in a museum. He didn’t move either, as he tried to gauge his feelings on that moment.
“Logan, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. There’s somebody I want you to meet.” Jean said, pulling him in the opposite direction. He reluctantly let Jean pull him away, turning his attention away from Jean. But he had to chance one glance backward at her.
Ororo was already long gone.
- - -
She’d thought she was safe when she looked out the restroom door and didn’t see Logan. The little confidence that she mustered in the restroom had lasted less than a second. Then, she’d spotted him watching her not too far away, and her limbs froze. She tried to will herself to move, but she couldn’t.
It had taken the sight of Jean to jar her out of her stupor. When she saw a very pregnant Jean walk up to Logan and start pulling him in the other direction, she’d quickly regained her wits. Jean was another person she really wasn’t ready to face. The fact that they were together confirmed her suspicions, and she was convinced even more that they didn’t have anything to talk about.
She pushed herself through the cluster of people. She was more than ready to leave now, and she wouldn’t let Selene talk her out of doing so. When she finally found Selene, she couldn’t get a word in edgewise, as Selene went on and on about the school’s founder.
“Come on, Ororo. I want you to meet Charles Xavier, the founder of the school. He thinks I donate to his school because I like him, but he confuses respect with something more. I think you’ll like him, though.”
Ororo tried to protest as Selene led her in the direction that she’d seen Logan and Jean disappear in. Selene pointed out a man in a wheelchair who was talking to Jean. Jean looked up, and Ororo’s blood chill when Jean held her gaze a little too long. Too late to turn back now. Besides, she couldn’t escape Selene’s death grip, even if she wanted.
- - -
Author’s notes: I’d probably update much faster if I wasn’t always playing The Sims 2 during my free time.
[Reviews - 179]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story |
Has been viewed 1538 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story | - Text Size +
You must login () to review.
