I know, I know this is very late...again. I'm sorry. For all of you that have continued to read this story and left reviews...thank you. Please be patient with me. Finding the motivation to write these days has been difficult, not to mention the time. I'm trying and if you're patient with me I promise I'll keep getting these out to you even it is slowly. If you haven't read Facebook Friends yet...I think for this chapter you probably should go read it first. It will give this chapter a little more perspective.
anyway if you're reading this...thanks for sticking with me.
O
Five
Present
I wake up suddenly, startled. Disoriented I sit up and I look around my room, my lamp was still on but it was dark outside. My eyes immediately wander to Logan's side of the bed but a wave of sadness washes over me when I find it empty and untouched, he hasn't come yet. I look to the clock on the nightstand and am surprised to see it read 2:25 a.m.
I'm fairly certain that something had woken me up, but what? Maybe Logan came home and crashed on the couch? I listen carefully but hear nothing coming from downstairs. The apartment is completely silent. I look around and see the green light on my phone blinking. That must be it. I pick up my phone surprised to see a text alert with Logan's name on it. I hold it for a moment, unsure if I want to see what it says but after another moment I slide my phone on and touch the message app to open it up.
Logan Huntzberger: Staying with Finn tonight. I'll see you tomorrow.
Simple and no other explanations. Usually Logan's emails and texts were full of details and insights as to how he was feeling like working late – merger with Oklahoma papers is going south… Argh. Heading out for a run, movie night really killed me, etc.
This text was definitely different. It was distant, formal almost robotic. I didn't like it one bit and it had me reeling slightly leaving an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I held my phone unsure of what to do. Should I reply? The time stamp on the text was five minutes ago so he was probably still awake and would see a text if I sent it right away. I thought about going for my typical humor (ok but be sure to sleep with one eye open. You know how Finn has that little habit of cuddling in the nude with you) but I wasn't sure how he would take it especially if I wasn't his favorite person in the world right now and he was getting ready to leave me for good.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a while until I finally settled on a simple Ok. I pressed send reluctantly and another wave of sadness washed over me.
In just a few short hours my world had been turned upside down and now here I sat alone in the bed that I shared with the love of my life unsure of where we stood, if he was even going to come home. I was grateful for the fact that Finn had found him because it meant he wasn't lying unconscious in a ditch somewhere but the fact that he opted to go to Finn's place instead of the home we shared had me feeling scared and uncertain.
I picked up my cell phone from the bed and typed out another quick message to Logan and sent it before I could talk myself out of it. I miss you.
After a moment I heard the distinctive and familiar ping alerting of a new text and my heart soared a bit.
Logan Huntzberger: I miss you too. I love you Rory.
Tears immediately welled up in my eyes at Logan's simple words, but they were something good from him, promising even.
Me: I love you too. I wrote back a small smile forming on my face.
Logan Huntzberger: I'll see you tomorrow.
Me: See you tomorrow. Good night.
I put my phone back on the nightstand knowing I probably wouldn't hear anything more from him tonight and settled into bed. He still loved me. He wasn't coming home tonight but he said he missed me and he loved me. That was something right?
I looked over to my phone when another ping filled the silent room.
Finn Morgan: Don't worry I'll take care of him. He's ok.
I smiled and sent a reply. Thanks for being such a good friend Finn. Take care of him for me please.
Finn Morgan: Of course love.
I put the phone back down again and settled into bed. I wasn't sure what the morning would bring but two texts from Logan and I was suddenly feeling slightly more hopeful than I was earlier.
A few months earlier
RORY GILMORE: Anyone want to take my place picking flower arrangements and china patterns today? I don't want to. Can't they just magically appear at the wedding? Help!
With the announcement of Mitchum stepping down and Logan taking over the reins of Huntzberger Publishing Group we expected things to get crazy immediately but surprisingly there weren't too many changes. Yes Logan's schedule is busier than it used to be and maybe we texted and emailed more than we actually saw eachother, but he was still able to make it home for dinner most nights even if he had to take care of more work in his home office after. Surprisingly though it wasn't as big of a change as I had secretly feared and things seemed to be going well. Logan was determined to not become his father and so far he was succeeding, even if we were only a little over a month into the change.
The plans for the wedding were moving forward too with my mother, grandmother, Honor, and Shira's help. Apparently having Mitchum at home all day was driving Shira crazy and she didn't know what to do with herself so I relented and agreed to allow Shira to help me plan the wedding with a few caveats of course. And with Shira allowed to help my grandmother of course insisted on helping, which meant in order to keep them both in line and not turn our wedding into some large grandiose society wedding that I'm sure would rival Will and Kate's and my insanity intact I asked my mother and Honor to help. This was my wedding after all and even though this was a wedding that would merge two of Hartford's biggest families, Logan and I were adamant it would not be a huge society wedding. We were definitely not Will and Kate. Thank goodness.
"Are you sure you don't need me to come with you today?" Logan asked as he sat down on a stool at the breakfast bar with a plethora of newspapers under his arm and two cups of coffee in his hands.
"As much as I would love for you to come with me to pick out china patterns and floral arrangements, I know how busy you are and how thin you've been stretching yourself lately so I think I can handle making these decisions that neither of us really care about with the girls today." I say wrapping my arms around him from behind giving him a kiss on the cheek and taking the other cup of coffee before sitting down beside him, "but I do miss you and I wish I could just hang out with you for a day where there wasn't any wedding planning involved…which is not to say I don't enjoy planning the day where I will finally become your wife, but sometimes I feel like this wedding is taken over our lives and really all I want to do is just marry you."
"I miss you too." he says smiling, "but you know my previous offer still stands Ace. I'm more than happy to fire up the jet and head to Vegas and get married or we could keep it simple and I can call Bloomberg to marry us right now."
I laugh because this isn't the first time that Logan has mentioned this. I know he is joking but I'm sure if I said yes, he would have it done right away and the more into the wedding planning we get the more his offer is looking better and better. I mean did I really need to know all the different type of paper our wedding invitations could be printed on and what the names of the best calligraphists in the world were.
"That offer is sounding better and better Huntzberger." I say taking a large sip of my coffee. "After today, I may just take you up on it."
He smiles before pulling me into his lap, "what do you say to you and I getting out of dodge this weekend and just disappearing?"
"Mmmm me and you alone…I like the sound of that." I say and Logan pulls me in for a sweet kiss. I wrap my arms around him and I feel his hands tangle themselves in my hair and I do the same running my hands through his blond locks pulling him closer. We finally pull away after a moment, and I lay my head in the crook of his neck, "and uh where would you like to disappear to?"
"We could always go to the Vineyard or the Hamptons if you like but I was thinking more along the lines of a small bed and breakfast somewhere upstate where no one knows who we are or I could find some little beach house somewhere where no one knows who we are."
"I think I see where you're going with this." I say smiling before pressing my lips to his again.
"Well I didn't say disappear for nothing." he says and suddenly I'm lost in him until we're interrupted by his cell ringing.
"And so it begins." I say pouting before getting off his lap, but he puts his arms around my waist before I can get too far. "this weekend is just you and me ok. No cell phones, no distractions, just you and me."
"Sounds perfect….and just to make sure it's perfect and your office can't find you I'd better make sure I make all of the arrangements." I say and like clockwork his cell starts ringing again. "You'd better get that because you know they won't stop calling."
"Ugh I know." he says pouting. "Huntzberger."
After a full day looking at flower arrangements and what not, I am exhausted. I don't know how many times I had to keep reminding my grandmother and Shira that we just wanted our wedding to be simple, understated and elegant, not over the top. Apparently their ideas of simple and mine were different. At one point I was ready to grab a dictionary and show them the meaning of simple because they weren't getting it. When I told my mother this, she said it would be more fun to just throw the dictionary at them and then tell them to look it up themselves. It wasn't a bad thought but unfortunately my conscience wont out in the end and I couldn't do it.
The only saving part of the day was that with the help of my assistant Grace I was able to reserve a little beach cottage for Logan and I for the weekend in North Carolina. It was perfect and just the thought of a relaxing weekend of just Logan and I away from everything sounded perfect.
"Ace." I hear Logan call out from downstairs.
"In here." I yell out and look at the clock. 6 pm…this is early for him.
"Hey Ace." Logan says as he enters our bedroom, pulling his tie off before standing in front of me, kissing me hello. "How did the wedding planning go?"
"Ugh simply awful. My grandmother and your mother hated every decision I made. I had to keep reminding them that this was our wedding and they had to live with it." I said smiling.
"I bet they didn't go down without a fight."
"Of course not, Emily Gilmore and Shira Huntzberger do not like to be told that they are wrong although most of their choices were completely different than the others, but that didn't matter because my simple choices were just ghastly to them. I'm actually not sure what everything is going to end up looking like together because I think in the end I just started picking things because neither of them liked it, and bonus points if my mom loved it." I say smiling.
"Sounds like we're going to have an eclectic wedding." he says. "Lyn told me today that you wanted to clear my late Friday afternoon schedule because you wanted to whisk me away on a secret romantic getaway."
"Oh yeah is that ok. I figured I should plan it that way your office won't know where to find you. Pretty sneaky huh?" I say looking up at him but he doesn't look as excited about it as I am or as he did this morning actually his face looks slightly grim. "Logan is something wrong?"
"I'm not entirely sure I can get away this weekend like we wanted to." he says frowning. "I know I'm the one who suggested this weekend but some things came up at work today that I feel like I'm going to have to deal with over the weekend."
"Ok we can always reschedule for another time." I say feeling disappointed, "Is there something wrong at HPG?"
"Uh I'm not sure yet, but the lawyers want to meet to talk about a few things." he replied frowning.
"Oh. Lawyers that sounds serious. What's going on Logan?" I ask cupping his face.
"Eh I'm really not sure but I'm sure it's nothing. They're lawyers they tend to worry about everything and it usually turns out being nothing." he says before wrapping his arms around and capturing my lips with his. "I promise I'll make this weekend up to you."
"Ok stop trying to distract me with your kisses. I can see it on your face something is wrong so you might as well as tell me." I say looking at him pointedly and he sighs and runs his hand through his hair before sitting on the bed.
"A couple of weeks ago a lawsuit was filed by a former owner of a paper HPG purchased claiming he got a bad deal because the deal was made possibly at a time when my father wasn't entirely lucid. At first we thought it was nothing and that we could easily throw it out but then another former owner filed a similar suit as well as a few employees that were fired by my father. Today I learned five more suits were filed for wrongful termination."
"Oh my God." I exclaim understanding why Logan looked stressed. "So they've all filed lawsuits because of Mitchum's Alzheimer's?"
"It looks like it."
"How bad is it?" I say after studying his face for moment and seeing the stress of the situation written all over his face.
"It was one thing when it was just one lawsuit, but now that others have come out it could potentially set precedence for all of the others. The fact is my father was already diagnosed with Alzheimer's when all of these incidents occurred and while they probably can't prove that my father was under the affects at the Alzheimer's at the time, it's also hard to prove that he wasn't." he says squeezing my had, "the fact that we didn't force anyone to sell their newspapers to us works in our favor. Every paper we've purchased was because the owner wanted to sell."
"But the wrongful terminations are another thing."
"Yeah, there are even some rumblings of a few former HPG employees bringing a suit."
"Logan why haven't you told me any of this before now, obviously it's been going on for some time." I say putting my head on his shoulder.
"I don't know, it wasn't really an issue before. After the first suit came, we all just sort of dismissed it, but then another one came and another. It just hasn't been anything you needed to worry about." he says shrugging.
"Logan I don't expect to understand everything that is going on at HPG but if something is bothering you I would hope you would tell me." I say, "We're a team and maybe there is nothing I can do, but I'm here to support you."
"I know. I just know how stressed you've been at work and I've left planning the wedding all to you when I said I would help. I just didn't want to bother you with this."
"I just want you to know you can come to me with anything ok?"
"Ok." he says before kissing my forehead.
"So does Mitchum know?" I ask.
"No, not yet, but I'm going to have to tell him soon." he says wincing, "Dad is going to flip his lid. Maybe I'll get lucky and when I tell him he'll be in one of his non-lucid states."
"Logan that's horrible!" I say hitting his arm and he laughs.
"I'm kidding."
His phone beeps and he pulls it out of pocket and looks at it quickly. His mouths forms and O and he curses under his breath.
"What is it? What's wrong Logan?"
"The lawyers just sent me the names of the people filing the wrongful termination suits." he says looking at me. "One of them is your old boss from the Chicago Post Daily, Martin Lewis."
"Oh crap."
A/N: Do you remember what happened with Martin Lewis is Facebook Friends? He's back in the mix..sort of. Please review.
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