In Our Times to Come
Laughlin City, Alberta, Canada.
Six years have passed.
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No matter how long it takes, some things come back to haunt you. No matter how far you go, no matter what you do, eventually what goes around comes around. Basic rule of life.
I don’t play by the rules. I tried to, once, and I’m still not sure that was the right decision. But I also don’t look back. What I did once, in another life—that’s over. What matters is here and now. Not looking back.
You can’t go back.
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Six years.
Two countries.
Over thirty-five hundred miles, all told. I figured it out.
And it was all going to end right here, in the filthiest dive bar I’d ever seen in my life. This journey had taken me from a small town in Mississippi to a concentration camp in Pennsylvania to a stately mansion in Westchester. It was kind of fittingly anti-climactic that it should all finish in another small town, but I’d really never planned on it being a truck stop in Alberta.
Somehow, that figured.
It hadn’t been all that easy to find this place. In some ways I hadn’t even been sure I’d wanted to. There were a lot of good arguments against it, really. I’d heard them all, over the years. You don’t really know him. If he wanted to have anything to do with us, he wouldn’t have left. You’re looking for answers you aren’t going to get. You’re making things up in your head.
Yeah, yeah.
You know who finally made me make up my mind? Scott Summers. Which was kind of funny. The popular wisdom had always been that he and Logan had hated each other, had only forged an uneasy truce in order to make it through the war. That he’d been glad when Logan disappeared. Some people even thought he’d told Logan to leave.
He hadn’t. I still thought all that, though, when Scott started to ask me about my plans for a road trip. I thought he was going to try and talk me out of it. He wasn’t.
Scott just wanted to let me know where to look. And now here I was.
************************************
God fucking damn it.
Not tonight.
Not now, for chrissakes. Focus. Just forget it. There’s nothing you can do about it now.
Just fight.
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I knew he knew I was there.
I could tell, just from the way he didn’t look comfortable in that cage, where I figured he must feel as much at home as anywhere on earth. I knew he was aware of me, even in that crowd of shouting, drunken men, even in the middle of all that violence. I sat in my corner of the bar and watched as he fought one of them after another, watched as he drank and smoked as if that could help him forget.
The longer I stayed, and the longer I watched, the more I knew I’d been right. He wanted to forget, and he wanted me gone so he could keep on pretending he had. I couldn’t see much of the cage from the end of the bar, and I didn’t think I wanted to—the heavy, wet smack of flesh on flesh was more than enough for me. I stared down into my beer and felt a wave of pity go through me as I listened to the blows.
Poor baby.
I smiled—it was such an incongruous thought to attach to that scene—and when I looked up the big bartender was standing in front of me.
“You ready for another, chère?” With that form of address I suddenly realized where his accent was from, and I nodded. He put down the glass he was polishing and reached for my glass; I picked it up and tossed off the last of it before handing it back to him. He knocked the tap forward and let the amber liquid flow down the side of the glass, building up a nice head before he set the glass back in front of me with a fresh coaster under it. And that was incongruous too, his care in setting down that coaster when it was such a knockaround filthy place, and I smiled again.
“You got a real pretty smile, chère.” Barkeep picked up his dishcloth again and went back to work. “”You not from ‘round here, eh?”
“You either, sounds like.” I raised my glass in a toast of sorts.
“No indeed. Not used to this cold, I’ll tell you that. One of these days I’ll be back off home to the Bayou. Pretty soon, I think. Only came up after the big flood, you know, got to make some money ‘fore I go back home. Not much else to stick around for up here.” He leaned forward a little, putting two big, beefy hands on the bar in front of me. “Not for you either, I don’ think.”
I looked back at him calmly. “Not plannin’ on stickin’ around long, sugar.” He met my gaze for a long moment before he stood back up.
“Good. Good.” He reached for the dishrag. “You think he gon’ come with you?”
I almost choked on my beer. “Who?”
And he laughed, a big, rolling sound. “Come on, chère. Who else in here you think a pretty lady like you be comin’ for?” He turned as someone pounded on the bar demanding a refill. “”Back in a minute, sweetheart.”
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Better. Watch the uppercut, don’t get backed up against the bars. Keep watching for the opening.
Fuckin’ hell, someone’s going to pay for this.
Might as well be this asshole. For a start.
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A cheer went up and I knew another round was over. I didn’t wait for the bartender. I shoved my glass to one side, hoisted myself over the bar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses. I poured, left the bottle on the bar and after a second’s thought I shrugged out of my jacket before starting toward the cage.
Somehow the crowd parted for me. I don’t know if it was just that I was so unexpected to them, or if there was still some half-forgotten sense of chivalry amongst them. But it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought to reach the center of the room, and when I got there Logan was standing there in the cage, head down, his back to me.
As if that was going to help. I reached towards the bars and tapped one glass against them. “Hey. Congratulations to the winner.”
He didn’t turn around. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“You gonna turn around and have a drink with me, or do I have to do both these shots myself?” He still didn’t turn around. “Funny kinda déjà vu here, don’t you think?”
Logan did turn then, and he looked pissed as hell. “Get out. Now.”
“Except now I’m on this side of the bars.” Deliberately I tossed back my shot, then started to lift the other. And suddenly his hand shot out from between the bars and caught my arm. “Thirsty all of a sudden?” The whiskey had slopped over the rim of the glass and I could feel it, cold and wet, soaking through the fingers of my glove. Logan was glaring at me, but I think he was already realizing that looking at me at all was a tactical error. As long as he could hold onto that nice safe rage he could keep control of the situation, believe I could be terrified by a little gratuitous snarling and then everything would go back to the way it was. He really couldn’t believe I wasn’t scared of him.
But I wasn’t.
He didn’t quite know what to do with that. Finally he reached up with his other hand, grabbed the glass and drank off what was left in it. “There. Now get outta here.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Still a snarl, but the edge was missing.
“You’re holding onto my arm pretty hard, for a start.” He let go of me then like I was burning his fingers. But I still didn’t move away. He’d pulled me up against the bars when he’d reached for the shot glass and I kind of liked it there. I held onto the bars, and saw him swallow again, even though the whiskey was gone. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Logan. Not till we can talk. Tonight, or tomorrow, or whenever. Up to you. ‘Cause I figure the one difference between that cage and this one is you can walk out of yours any time you want.” I let go of my own shot glass, let it shatter on the concrete floor, and turned and went back to the bar. I slid back onto my barstool and forced myself to stare straight down into my beer. I saw a flash of something white in front of me and I realized the bartender was wiping down the hatchmarked wood in front of me.
“Pretty cool, you played that,” the Delta-tinged voice said. “No, don’t look up, chère. He’s watchin’.” The large hand removed my glass and set a new one, freshly filled, down its place. “Beginnin’ to think you just might walk outta here with him after all.” And he left.
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Jesus fucking christ.
What kind of game she thinks she’s playin’—this is going to stop. Right here, right now. Except there isn’t really a hell of a lot I can do about it right this second, other than shoot Toby a pretty dirty look across the bar. Sonofabitch won’t catch my eye, but he’ll watch out for her. Chivalrous bastard, no one messes with women in his place. I know that.
God damn it.
Just fight.
Or that’s what I keep telling myself. It’s a fucking miracle I don’t get laid out flat. This isn’t the Gentleman’s Boxing League, and any given night some piece of shit manages to get into the cage with brass knuckles or a sharpened belt or even a knife, especially after I’ve won a few rounds and the refs are getting worried about the odds. Most nights that just adds a little extra spice, but goddamnit, if all hell breaks loose in here tonight—
Focus. Breathe. And fight dirty.
********************************************
It was quieter later on. The bar had started to clear out and the fights had ended; I was still sitting in the same place, but it had gotten chilly with the door opening and closing and I’d put my jacket back on. The bartender was restocking, getting ready to close up, when I finally heard booted footsteps behind me. An old knapsack was flung down on the bar and someone sat down beside me and gestured to be served.
“Beer. Make it fast, Toby.” That hooded gaze moved over to me, just briefly. “I won’t be here long.”
He’d changed, or at least put on a shirt and his jacket, and as I watched out of the corner of one eye he fished around in his pocket and came up with a cigar, which he stuck between his teeth and then started searching his pockets again, obviously looking for a light.
Time to act. I’m not crazy about cigar smoke.
I swiveled my stool around and leaned my head on my hand. “So. Ready to talk?”
He stopped the searching-for-matches act. “Yeah. So you listen. I’m gonna drink my beer, and then either you haul your ass out of here or I’ll—“
“You’ll what? I’m a big girl now, Logan. You don’t get to tell me what to do any more.” I sat up and let my jacket slide down my shoulders. “Besides, I like it here.”
“Put your shirt on.”
“The hell I will.” I’d picked a pretty low-cut top, and I knew damn well he’d seen what I was still wearing around my neck. “Gets me free beers every time.”
“You—“ He still couldn’t find a match or a lighter, and he slammed the cigar down on the bar. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?” I deliberately emphasized my drawl. “I came to talk to you. Since you didn’t seem to want to stay in the same place as me long enough to have a simple conversation.”
“What do you think I have to say to you?” Logan hunched forward over his beer, and I almost felt sorry for him. I also could barely stand it, being that close to him and not touching him. I brought one hand up and put it on his arm. It was a near thing, whether he shook me off. Instead, he hunched over further, anything to keep from looking at me. “You got some stupid idea in your head about me, get over it. You don’t know me.”
“No?” I ran my hand up his arm. “I know more than you think.”
He did shake me off then. “Like hell. I’m not a nice guy, Marie.”
Marie. I closed my eyes for a second when he said that; it had been so long since I’d heard anyone call me that. I had to swallow hard before I could answer. “You—I know better, Logan. I know. I’m the one person you can’t lie to.” I brought my hands down to my lap, twisting them together. All right. No touching. I could wait.
He sucked down about half the beer before he answered. And it was icy when he did. “Why? You think you’re special? Four hundred kids, Marie. No difference.”
*********************************************
She was still sitting there when I finished. And you know, I knew she would be.
She didn’t look up as I walked across and threw my stuff down on the bar next to her. She didn’t look up when I sat down, and she didn’t look up when I ordered a drink. So I didn’t look either.
The rest of the night I’d been planning several slow ways for whoever put her on my trail to suffer before they died, and I had a pretty good idea who that had been. That could wait, though. The objective right now was just to get rid of her, and that meant obliterating any vestige of the guy she obviously wanted to see, the guy who’d given her the memento I’d already seen around her neck. That meant showing her the man who’d walked her into an execution chamber, in case she’d managed to block out that little detail.
So I ignored the way she was trying to get me to look at her, I snarled at everything she said and I paid no attention whatsoever to the fact that she obviously wanted me to touch her. Tactical error. When I wouldn’t do any of those things, she touched me, just put a hand out to rest on my arm, and I shook her off and told her she was nothing special.
That, I shouldn’t have said. Not because it was mean—hell, that was the idea. Because it was bullshit. It was so obviously not true that she was going to call me on it.
Which, being the bright kid I always knew she was, she did.
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I blinked back tears. “How many of them did you give your dogtag to?” God, I wished—“You touched me.”
“Don’t get fuckin’ dramatic on me.”
“I mean that absolutely literally, Logan. I know you put your hands on me.” I leaned forward. “When was it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Like hell.” I finally got the gloves off. “Look at me.” He didn’t move. “I said look at me.” I thrust my arms out at him. “Explain this, if you didn’t touch me.”
He turned his head, but he wouldn’t really look. “I don’t want to see that.”
“Look.” And at last he did, staring down at my arms, clearly bracing himself against what he expected. And then he didn’t move. I gave it a good thirty seconds before I spoke again. “I remember everything, Logan. I remember you bringing me into that room and I remember you strapping me down on that table, and I remember how the needle felt going into my arm.”
“Shut up.”
“I don’t remember you touching me, but I know you did. You see why?” I turned my arms over. “I woke up in that safe house with every mark on me healed and your voice in my head. You made me tell you what my mutation was. You knew. You want to explain that, if you didn’t touch me? I didn’t understand, until Jean figured it out.” It was the slightest thing, but he flinched at that, and I reached out and got my hands on him somewhere—anywhere. “Tell me when. Please. I’ve been wanting to ask you for seven years now. If I never see you again after tonight, I want to know that.” And then the breath was knocked out of me, because suddenly he had me pushed back against the wall, trapping me between his arms. And he leaned in, so I could almost feel the roughness of his beard against my face.
“I want you out of here,” he told me. “You understand?” I didn’t move—didn’t breathe, waiting for the answer. Even then, Logan hesitated before he went on. “I had to put the ID tag on you, after. That’s all.”
Oh, god. He’s such a bad liar. But I didn’t move. I could feel how badly he wanted to tell me more, and as long as I didn’t interrupt—
“I didn’t think about it. I never thought it was gonna fix that. I just—you looked like you were sleeping, and I couldn’t tell you, they had three telepaths on the staff, they would have known if you didn’t think—“ And Logan, roughened barroom brawler, soldier, warrior, had to break off so I wouldn’t hear his voice crack. “Two years I’d been in there, no one got to me like you did. I wished you could know that.”
I reached up and took hold of his collar to make sure he couldn’t move away. “I knew.” Then I kissed him.
I felt him brace himself for just a second, almost pull back. I still didn’t know what had happened to him when he touched me then, but it couldn’t have been that bad, not if he didn’t know—and then I felt the change as soon as he realized.
I don’t do that any more. Not unless I want to.
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Problem was, she surprised me. Damned if I know how, either. Doesn’t usually happen twice.
It’s not like she’d ever been exactly predictable. Truth is, that’s probably what made me notice her in the first place. She just didn’t act like any of the other kids I’d seen in that place.
That place. It used to piss me off, the way people would avoid the names of the camps like it was some kind of magic spell, like naming them would make something bad happen. I used to figure I’d seen the worst, calling it by its name seemed like the least of it. Seemed like the worst kind of denial.
It took a while. Eventually I figured it out. The problem isn’t with the word. The problem is that when anyone who wasn’t there hears you say it, they think they know exactly what you mean. Who you are. What it’s about.
And they don’t. So eventually, you just stop talking about it. Or if you have to, you talk about “that place.”
Goddamnit, I was not going to be philosophical about this. I don’t do that. I deal with reality. I understood what the reality was the second I knew she was there. She had some kind of romantic idea about me and it was my job to break her of it once and for all. Only then she showed me her arms.
I’d watched her, painfully pulling those bandages away from the open wounds. Those weren’t little scratches—those were serious cuts. Those fuckers treated her like disposable goods, ripped off her skin to run some useless experiment because she wasn’t going to need it any more. Because she was going to be dead.
She would have been. I just happened to be there and got in the way. But when she showed me her arms, when she peeled off those gloves and there was nothing—no scars, no roughened marks, just smooth white skin from her wrists to her elbows—I realized it wasn’t Verona that had taught me about that particular brand of denial.
It was enough of a shock that I forgot the main objective for a minute. Or something.
****************************************************
I don’t know what I thought he’d do, what I thought it would be like. I was ready for him to be rough, and I wouldn’t have minded, as long as—but it wasn’t like that. He brought one hand up and cupped the back of my head, and his mouth opened over mine, nudging my lips apart, and I thought I might melt right off my bar stool.
I couldn’t help running my tongue over my lips when he finally raised his head, just to taste him a second longer. But he didn’t move away.
“Pretty neat trick.” He brushed his hand down my cheek. “Finally got a handle on it, huh?”
“Sorta.” I would have explained, I really would, but that was all I could manage right then.
“Good for you.” His hand brushed over my face. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“So take me somewhere else.” Then—damn it. He remembered where he was, who I was, all the things he’d let himself forget for that one moment. His expression changed, closed down like a mask coming over his face. I tightened my hand on his arm, trying to keep him there, but it didn’t work.
“I’m not taking you anywhere. You’re going back home where you belong.” He jerked back, took a gulp of his beer and grabbed his bag. “Come on.”
I didn’t move. “No.”
“Don’t fuckin’ argue with me, Marie.” I seemed to be making the anger thing easier for him.
“I said no. I’m not leaving. And if you take me out of here and shove me on a bus, I’ll be back. I’m not through here.”
“Yeah. You are.” He grabbed my arm and hauled me off my barstool. I barely managed to adjust my jacket before we were out the door. “You got a car, or what?”
“Logan—“
“You go back to Xavier’s, and you find yourself someone else to play games with. Got it?” He was steadily dragging me forward, no matter how hard I tried to pull away. “Right now.” The cold air was making me shiver, and my boots were slipping in the snow, and Logan was leaving again, right before my eyes. All I could think was that I had make him listen, right that second.
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Yeah, it was a shock.
I really had forgotten that part, how I’d touched her. It wasn’t like I’d thought about it one way or the other. Yeah, she’d told me what her mutation was, and I knew what mine was. I just never made the connection. Mine’s just not something I talk about. It’s there and it’s kept me alive a hundred times when I should’ve been dead too. But that’s it. It’s no use to anyone except me, and frankly there are times when I think I’d be better off without it. I don’t even think about it, unless someone is pulling a knife on me.
But there it was, right in front of me. The healing factor finally had an up side. I shouldn’t have said what I did, but—I couldn’t let her keep thinking I’d done it on purpose. It wasn’t like that. If I’d thought about it—hell, if I’d been thinking at all that day I wouldn’t have done any of it. It was just that she’d been so brave, and then she looked so peaceful lying there, and it got to me.
God damn it. This hero worship bullshit had to stop. I’d still let a criminal of a doctor pump poison into her, and every single time I did that I would wonder whether this time I hadn’t calculated the dose of McCoy’s neuralyzer right, whether this time was going to be the time someone didn’t wake up. That stuff wasn’t exactly sugar water. That time, I wanted to be the one with her when she came out of it, the one to explain it to her. I wasn’t. Someone else always did that.
And now there she was telling me she’d always known more than I ever would have told her anyway. Jesus fuckin’ christ.
It was enough of a surprise that I said more than I’d meant to. But I snapped out of it when she asked me to take her somewhere else. Somewhere else was exactly where she belonged, and all I wanted to do was to get rid of her before it got to me again. So I hauled her out of there like I should have done in the first place, her fighting me every step of the way, and then the second she got outside she started talking again, fast, like she had some kind of prepared speech or something.
It didn’t make any sense for a minute. Then I realized what the speech was from.
******************************************
“ I want you to know I’m not angry with you. I want you to know I believe you’d help me if you could.” I jerked my arm away and stumbled back, almost against the wall. “I know you’ve seen this a hundred times before, but this is the only time for me, so I’m going to believe I see things clearly.”
He was still turned away from me, but now he turned back, halfway, though he didn’t look at me. “What?”
“No one knows where I am and no one cares, except you. I think you do care. So I’m only asking this. Remember me sometimes, when things are better.” I took a step toward him. “Remember me somewhere else, and I’ll be there.” I stopped. “I don’t—that’s all I remember.” I turned over my jacket and took that old envelope, creased and worn, out of the pocket. “You can read the rest for yourself.”
I held the envelope out and he recoiled from it like it was a snake. He shook his head. “I don’t want it.”
“I wrote it to you. I wanted you to read it.” Goddamnit, I’d sworn I wouldn’t cry, because I knew how much he’d hate that, but I couldn’t help the tears starting up again. “I wanted you to remember me. And you did, didn’t you?” I swiped my cheek with the back of my hand angrily. “Don’t you lie to me, Logan. You remembered me.”
He was staring at me. Not the envelope. That had to be a good thing, right? Then he took a step closer to me.
“I never lied to you.”
All I could think about, all I could see, was his eyes boring into mine. “I know,” I managed. Then I took a breath. “Please don’t start.”
For a second or two I wasn’t sure if he was going to walk away and leave me there or slap me. Then his mouth twisted in a way I wasn’t familiar with at all, and it took me a few seconds to recognize it as an expression of amusement.
“Christ.” His hand came up, hesitated, then brushed lightly across my face. “Don’t start with the tears.”
I managed a smile. “Okay.”
“What do you really think you’re doing here?” It was hard to think of a good answer, with his hand there, brushing away the moisture on my cheeks. “Come to save me from myself?” The amusement was still there, but there was grimmer edge to it. Still, it was an opening.
“You need savin’? ‘Cause I owe you one.”
Logan laughed. He laughed outright at that, and then he reached out and pulled me against his chest. As good as it had felt when he kissed me, back in the bar, this felt better, somehow. He wrapped his arms around me and rubbed my shoulders. “You cold?”
I shook my head as best I could. Hell no, I’m not cold. Not any more. I didn’t care if we stood there all night long. But Logan held me for another minute or so and then let go.
“Come on.”
“Where?” I felt him reach down and take my hand.
“Come on,” he repeated, and I just nodded and let him take the lead.
It was around back. I have no idea what I expected. It sure as hell wasn’t a wreck of a camper hitched behind an old pickup truck. There was even a trailer behind the whole thing with, if I wasn’t mistaken, a motorcyle under a tarp. I shivered a little as we walked across the parking lot. Maybe he’d take me for a ride. Later.
Logan reached the camper and opened the door. He let go of my hand to step inside and I heard a match strike; an oil lamp flickered to life and I looked inside.
Oh, my god.
Logan raised an eyebrow at me. “Rather get back on the road?”
“No!” I climbed in, hastily. “It’s nice. Cozy.” It was, actually, once I got past all the dirty dishes and laundry. It was kind of cute and retro, really.
Also, Logan was in it. Which made up for a lot.
He shut the door behind me and shoved a mess of stuff off a small counter. Then he reached out, put his hands around my waist and hoisted me up onto it. He held me there, and he leaned forward to brush his lips against my neck.
It was heaven.
“So what’d you want to talk to me about?”
Smartass. As if I could remember. I reached up and slid my arms around his neck, just in case he tried to go anywhere. “Oh…lots of things, really.” His lips found mine and it was a few minutes before I could say anything else. “Promise me you won’t make me leave.”
Logan’s mouth tightened a little, and I felt nervous again, but finally he just shook his head. “You’d just show up again in the next town, wouldn’t you?” He tried for another wry grin, and didn’t quite make it.
“Logan—“ I kissed him again, holding on as tightly as I could. “I mean it.”
His eyes were serious. “What do you want me to say?” His hands were still at my waist, holding me still. “This is what I am, darlin’. This is what I do. I can’t change that.”
“I know that. I mean, I don’t want you to—just tell me you want me to stay.” He didn’t answer for a long time. Too long. Finally he shook his head, and I tightened my arms even more around his neck. His went around my waist and he pulled me into an embrace. It should have felt good, but I was scared. I just wasn’t sure if it was his way of saying goodbye.
“I don’t want you to go,” he muttered against my ear. “But you should.” He relaxed his hold. “You should go back home.” He brought one hand up and smoothed back my hair. “You should go.”
I was still fighting tears, and they spilled over when I couldn’t keep from laughing. Because by the third time he’d repeated that, I knew. Logan looked at me like I’d gone completely insane, and I sniffled and giggled some more. “You want me to stay,” I teased. “You want me to.”
“Christ.” He was trying to keep lookng stern, but for once in his life he wasn’t completely succeeding. “You’re a piece of work.”
“You do. I know you do.” In a way, I couldn’t believe it had been this easy. “Please just tell me.”
It wasn’t easy—for him. It took him a minute. But finally he ducked his head back against my neck. I held him close and just waited.
“Stay.” It was so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it.
“Yeah.” I could feel his beard against my cheek, and I remembered how strange it had been the first time I’d seen it, that one awful day in the cemetery. Now I couldn’t imagine him without it.
Logan raised his head at last to give me another long kiss, and then he reached up to take my arms from his neck. “Come on.”
“What?”
“Come on.” He lifted me off the counter and opened the door. I shivered.
“Where’re we going?”
“Up front.” Logan tugged me forward and out of the camper.
“What? Why?” He couldn’t want to—
“Because that’s where the damn steering wheel is.” Logan opened the passenger door of the truck. “Get in.”
“Logan, it’s fine. I don’t care if—“
“Quiet.” He put a hand over my mouth. “First, I want a shower, and I want something to eat. Second, that bunk back there isn’t too comfortable. Third, it gets damned cold out here at night.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You drive here?”
I shook my head, since that was all I could do.
“So no luggage?” He dropped his hand away.
“I left it at the bus station.” He raised an eyebrow. “In a locker! What do you think, I wanted to bring it here?”
“S’all right.” He nodded to the open door. “You’re not gonna be needing any clothes for the next few days anyway.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but I really couldn’t think of anything to say. I could feel my cheeks burning, though. Logan half-smiled and then slid his hands into my hair, making me look up at him.
“Hey.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m kidding. I’ll take you to get your stuff, and then we’ll go somewhere else.” I felt his thumb brush across my cheek. “There’s no rush. No matter what you think, you don’t really know me.” He shook his head when I started to speak. “Just..let’s take this slow, okay? I don’t really know what I’m doin’ here.”
I nodded. That sounded good. Logan studied my face for a long moment.
“Come on. Get in.” I let him help me into the truck and he closed the door after me, then walked around to get into the driver’s seat. He was fishing in his pocket for the keys when I saw the big bartender at the front door of the bar, apparently locking up for the night. He turned just as Logan started up the truck, and I saw him see me through the window. He gave me a big smile and raised the hat he had on as we pulled away.
“What’s his name?" I turned back to Logan.
“Who?”
“Your friend. The bartender?”
“Toby.” Logan was concentrating on getting the whole caravan out onto the road.
“I like him.” I sat back with a happy sigh as we got out onto the main road. Logan gave a noncommital grunt. “I like you,” I added, and that got me a quick smile. I studied his face as he drove through the light snow toward the bus station. Toward a place to stay. Toward the future.
“Forget what I looked like?” he asked gruffly, and I reached out and put my hand on his arm.
“No. Never.”
He glanced over once more, and reached over to put a hand over mine. He didn’t say anything else, and I guess I always knew that would be how it would be. But it was okay.
We had all the time in the world.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Still dark. This one's in two voices; you'll figure out who is who, I'm sure.