Logan cursed as he closed the panel on the dryer. It was official: His machine was dead. D-E-A-D. The heating element was out and it needed a new drum. The cost of repair was more than it cost to schlep out and buy a new one.
His laundry hamper loomed tall and imposing in the corner of his room, stacked to overflowing with clothes that he’d stretched two days too long. His whites still lay dripping in the Rubbermaid laundry basket where he’d tossed them while the old Kenmore gave up its death rattle. It was Saturday.
No way was he missing the Bruins game. No freakin’ way.
He sighed and rose from his uncomfortable crouch, glancing at the basket once more before he retrieved his cap. He fetched his large black duffle from the hall closet and returned to the hamper. Logan scooped armfuls of clothes into it and zipped it shut, not without struggle since it bulged.
“Keys, keys,” he muttered to himself, patting his pockets before heading into the living room. They gleamed up at him from the coffee table. Logan seldom used the small, wooden key holder Jean brought back from their trip to Mexico, but it still hung by the patio door. Aqui Estan Tus Pinches Llaves was painted on the plaque, flanked by cactuses and tumbleweeds. It didn’t match a damned thing in the kitchen, something that still baffled Logan to that day. Jean hated things that looked out of place.
Minutes later he was balancing his basket of whites and the duffle slung over his shoulder as he pushed through the door of the Laundromat. The large bottle of red PowerAde gleamed and sloshed atop his damp, dirty socks.
He plunked his wash beside the heavy duty washer and fished in his pockets for his spare change. The laundry detergent dispenser was out of Tide; he settled for two packets of Cheer granules instead, and some of the dry bleach.
The Laundromat was nearly empty; two college-aged girls chatted over textbooks as they dried their delicates and stole looks at him, telling him he’d gotten there early enough to beat the rush of students. Weekends sucked.
An elderly woman was just folding up her belongings and tucking them into an old-fashioned wicker basket while he loaded his darks. He eyed the dryer she abandoned covetously, since it was closest to the television in the corner.
Now he could watch his game.
~0~
“I don’t wanna do laundry,” Katie complained sourly as she fiddled with one of her Barbies. The doll was had copper-colored hair and was wearing an outfit Ororo would have been sent home from high school for, back in the day. Toy companies should be ashamed of themselves…
“Gran-gran doesn’t have a machine, baby.” Ororo was reluctant to voice her real concerns out loud: She didn’t feel safe in her apartment building anymore. Her trips back to gather more clothing for herself and Katie were brief; she always fled like hounds were nipping at her heels.
Luke wasn’t answering his phone. Ironically, he’d sent half the check before she could head back to the DA. Way to cover your ass, Luke.
Ororo didn’t trust her ex as far as she could throw him, and she couldn’t budge him an inch. Her daughter had switched gears and quit grumbling in favor of singing the theme song to Hannah Montana under her breath. Her mother sighed her relief as they parked Gran-gran’s car outside and fed the meter for the full two hours.
Katie was garbed in her blue coat that she’d barely outgrown so that Ororo could wash the red one. Katie was getting Ororo’s money’s worth out of it, diligently wearing home half of the playground grunge everyday, making the fabric appear dingy and gray. She nagged Katie to hold open the swinging door for her as she balanced her laundry basket on her hip.
Two girls who looked fresh out of high school turned and shot Katie a smile. Katie glanced at them shyly and froze in her tracks for a moment, then grinned before she ran off toward the television in the back. She was such a little flirt.
“Katie! Come help me load the wash!”
“Cartoons, Mom! They’ve got cartoons!” Ororo looked in the direction her daughter had run and only saw what looked like a hockey game on the set, getting somewhat poor reception. She heard muted cursing from over the edge of the machines, seeing the top of a dark head. Great. Now Katie would learn more new words.
“You can watch it when we get home!”
“They’ll be over,” she whined back, pouting back at her from around the corner of the washing machines. Ororo’s expression was full of warning and contained no nonsense.
“Katie, what did I say about not listening the first time I ask you something?”
“Mom…”
“Come over here and help load the wash. Now.” Katie sulked, stomping her sneakers the entire way and flinging her doll onto one of the hard vinyl chairs bolted to the floor. “That’s not how we act like a big girl.”
“Don’t wanna be a big girl.”
“Acting like a little girl will get you in trouble, Katie. Straighten up and wipe that look off your face.” Ororo could picture her own mother shaking her head and grinning like the Cheshire cat, hearing those age-old words she’d bestowed upon her when she first brought Luke home: One of these days, child, you’ll have a hardheaded daughter who’s just like you. Grandmothers across the world worked their voodoo with those wicked, vengeful words, including but not limited to You want that, sweetie? You can have it, or Ororo’s favorite, Mine are grown, I get to come on over, play, and then hand her back to you.
Katie reluctantly threw herself into the task, picking up individual items like single socks, panties or Ororo’s brassieres and dropping them into the machine. Ororo scolded her on a hiss when she inadvertently dragged one of them onto the floor, out in the open. Just what she needed, with a man on the other side of the row of dryers who could come see her unmentionables out in the open. Her scrubs went in last, right after she emptied change out of the pockets. She gave Katie two quarters and sent her skipping to the soda machine to get them a Sprite.
Ororo was so absorbed in the drowsy thrum of the machines and the Terry McMillan book she brought that she didn’t notice when Katie disappeared. Her Barbie lay all on her lonesome on the chair.
~0~
Logan was stealing glances at the screen every few minutes as he folded his whites, finally dry, and searched for missing socks.
The puck fouled, costing his team a goal. “Are ya shittin’ me?” Logan griped. “No friggin’ way!”
He thought he felt eyes on him, but every time he peered around to see, there was no one there. He headed back to the heavy duty machine to remove his darks and replace them with an old blanket that had seen better days.
When he got back to the set, he was greeted by the theme song to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He made a low sound of disgust under his breath. From the back, he saw a head full of fuzzy brown curls bobbing back and forth to the tune.
As though she had forgotten something, she darted off, never seeing him. Her build and that hair were both oddly familiar, but he never saw her face.
He punched the channel to his game into the remote and went back to sorting his socks. You snooze, you lose, he reasoned.
He still felt eyes watching him, this time catching girlish sneakers disappearing around the corner of the row of washers before he could see the culprit. Stinker. Logan suppressed a grin.
Ororo looked up from her book to spy Katie peering around the corner of the machines, being entirely too quiet and pensive.
“What are you up to, Katie?” She looked impish and entirely guilty as she spun to face her mother.
“Nothing,” she chirped, running to retrieve her doll and studiously watching the white load swirl around in the machine.
“Uh-huh,” Ororo muttered, cocking an eyebrow over the edge of A Day Late and a Dollar Short. “Likely story. Be good.”
“I am!” Katie swung her legs back and forth and fiddled with the doll’s hair, rigorously abusing it with a pocket-sized comb.
She was so damned much like Luke.
One chapter of Ororo’s book later found Katie missing again.
Logan had one more rinse cycle to go and one last quarter (of his game). He drained the last swallow of PowerAde and chucked it into the garbage, gaining two points.
When he came back from the vending machine with his Coke, he was greeted by Go, Diego, Go!
“Shit!” he yelped before he could stop himself.
“Oooooooo! You said a bad word!” a childish voice informed him, nearly making him drop his soda.
Wide hazel eyes stared up at him accusingly as she stood with her arms folded, a battered Barbie clenched in her grip.
It was the troublemaker with the ball. That meant…
“KATIE! What are you doing over here?” Ororo saw the cause of her daughter’s continued absence. “You can watch that mess at Gran-gran’s, Katie. Let the nice man watch…oh. Hi.” A lecture on bothering strangers evaporated on her lips as she recognized him, taking in his Saturday rags and the well-worn Ropers on his feet. The brim of his Yankees cap was pulled low over his face; he tipped it up in greeting as she approached.
“Yer daughter here don’t much appreciate my taste in TV,” he explained with a shrug.
She looked harried and mussed, but she was still striking, even without makeup. A pair of flannel sweats just one step shy of pajama bottoms draped long, slender legs. Her sweatshirt was a faded periwinkle blue embroidered with an Old Navy logo.
Katie picked that moment to beat a hasty retreat, darting off toward her mother’s machine. Ororo’s hands rose to rest on her hips. She tsked under her breath as she faced him.
“I wondered why she was so quiet all of the sudden.”
“That’s the signal to run,” Logan drawled. “Never trust silence in any kid under the age of 18.”
“You sound like an expert.” Her error only struck her after the words were out of her mouth. His smile faltered slightly, but he recovered.
“I always considered myself a novice at that kinda thing.” They shared a long, tense look, loaded with unspoken questions. Ororo’s eyes projected an apology.
“You can put it back on whatever you were watching. Unless you were enjoying this.”
“Still better than half the crap they show on TV nowadays,” he admitted.
“You don’t worship at the shrine of ‘Survivors’ or ‘American Idol?’, then?”
“Ya’d hafta hand me a letter opener ta stab myself in the eye with before turnin’ on either of those. Thinkin’ ‘bout downgrading my cable package ta just show the stuff I’m gonna watch. I don’t need that many choices.” He didn’t add that it was because he lived alone. Instead he popped open his can of Coke and took a thirsty gulp. Ororo silently watched his throat working down the liquid. Lean cords of muscle stood out in his neck, and he was slightly stubbled. He had on his “weekend face.”
She decided she liked it.
She was stirred from her reverie when he asked “How ya holdin’ up, darlin’?”
“Excuse me?” The question momentarily confused her. “Oh. Me? I’m…okay, I guess.” She motioned to Katie, who was oblivious to the grownups’ conversation and making her doll dance to her offkey singing.
“It can be a shock, havin’ something like that happen to ya…ya said yer name was ‘Roro?” Somehow, he knew he had it wrong, but she smiled, taking several years from her face.
“Ororo,” she corrected him, but she was flattered he remembered. He catalogued it briefly as he began to fold his laundry and pile them in a huge duffle on the bench. He was meticulous, flattening each shirt and smoothing out the wrinkles before folding them in threes. Then she realized she was staring at his hands.
She reached around him to pluck the remote from atop the washer, grazing him. He stiffened, taking in the faint whiff of her scent that brief contact had given him. She flipped through the channels until she landed on his game. “That it?”
“Yup.”
“I’m in your way. I’ll let you get back to-“
“Don’t worry about it. Yer not in my way, Ororo.”
“Was my daughter in your hair?”
“Didn’t occur to me it was her til she heard me…ah, sneeze.” It was a feeble lie.
“Gesundheit,” she offered. Her lips twisted, telling him she didn’t believe him, either. “Little rabbits have big ears, too.”
“That one does,” Logan retorted, drawing her gaze back toward Katie, who was diligently studying them and kicking the leg of her seat in time with the thump of the tumbling clothes. Ororo beckoned to her to come over.
“Say hello to Mr. Howlett, Katie.”
“Hi,” she mumbled. Her hand crept into her mother’s and she swung it back and forth, a universal sign of impatience.
“Ya keepin’ yer mom busy? And are ya stayin’ on the sidewalks?”
“Yes.” Her expression was indignant this time.
“Good girl. How old are ya, Katie?”
“Ten.” She puffed up with pride.
Gayle’s age. He was right. That took him back. Way back. The memory of a slender nurse watching him from the hospital doorway, round with child, returned to him in a rush.
“Do ya still work in Pedes?” he asked. She seemed startled.
“Sometimes. I’m an ER nurse now.”
“Don’t sound like a walk in the park.”
“Neither was Pedes,” she admitted quietly. “But I still love my job.”
“At the end of the day, that’s kinda all that matters.” Katie picked that moment to intervene.
“Why do you watch hockey?”
“It’s my favorite.”
“It’s boring,” she complained.
“Why do you watch Ninja Turtles?” he challenged. He planted his hands on his hip and waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Because it’s not boring old hockey.” That’ll put you in your place. The look Ororo gave him screamed it. Katie had graduated from merely swinging Ororo’s hand to hanging on her and trying to drag her arm out of the socket.
“Katie, stop that, please.” She excused herself. “We’d better go. The natives are getting restless.” Her feet didn’t want to obey her.
He smelled good. She caught a faintly metallic scent on him, coupled with detergent and fading cologne. When she’d leaned past him earlier, she could have sworn she caught the scent of his hair.
He was handsomer than she remembered, seeming less intimidating when he wasn’t wearing his dress blues. When he raised the brim of his hat to scratch his forehead, the overhead lights shone in his eyes, not black like she’d assumed before, but a dark coffee brown with a warm amber cast. Like the Coke he was drinking, she mused, if he’d poured it into a glass. Fine lines flared out from the corners, naming him a man who knew how to laugh, despite the sadness in their depths.
Katie had already taken off again. “Mom, let’s go!” She yanked open the door to the dryer and hastily pulled items into Ororo’s basket.
“Cheemaneez!” Ororo hissed, or what sounded like it, to Logan’s ears. She hurried to rescue her delicates.
Logan enjoyed watching her move. He stole looks at both females as he finished his own chore and slung the duffle over his shoulder.
He called back to them on his way out. “See ya around, Ororo. Katie.” Ororo looked up and waved, still distracted by Katie’s attempts to gather the rest of the clothes from the machine.
“Oh. Sorry! ‘Bye, er, Logan!” She wondered why he did a double take as she waved at him.
Too late she felt the article of clothing she clutched in the hand she was waving with.
It was the same bra she’d nabbed from Katie before. She crumpled it and jerked it behind her, feeling a hot flush spreading through her cheeks. His smile widened to a grin she could only describe as…what? Amused? Smug? Full of devilment?
No. None of these.
Shit-eating.
She could have sworn his shoulders shook as he disappeared out the Laundromat door.
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