Rogue opened her eyes slowly, wincing at the gritty, swollen feeling of her eyelids. For a moment she was disoriented, wondering why her room was backwards. When she heard the rush of water into the sink in the bathroom – the bathroom that was opposite where it should be – she realized with a start that she was in Logan’s room.
Sitting up and wincing at the stiffness in her legs and hips from sleeping in her constricting jeans, she looked toward the partially open bathroom door, a sliver of light escaping into the dim bedroom.
“Logan?”
The water turned off and the door swung open. Logan stood there dressed only in jeans, a towel slung around his neck, and a toothbrush in one hand.
“Hey, kid.”
“Hey yourself,” she croaked, feeling a little awkward. She had never slept in Logan’s room before.
Seeing the discomfort on her face, Logan jerked his chin toward the door. “Go grab a shower, kid. We’re goin’ out for breakfast.”
“We are?”
“Yeah. Now scram.”
Rogue shrugged. “‘Kay. Meet you downstairs in twenty?”
Logan already had his back to her. “Yeah,” he called over his shoulder as he turned the water back on and reached for the toothpaste.
Climbing clumsily from his bed, she took a moment to twitch the covers roughly into place and pick a pillow up off the floor. Stepping out into the hall, she pulled the door gently closed behind her.
“Rogue?”
With a gasp, Rogue whirled around, her hand going to her throat in surprise.
“Storm!” she exclaimed. “Lordy, you scared me.”
Storm was standing a few doors down, her feet bare and a steaming mug held partially aloft in one hand. She tilted her head quizzically as her eyes swept over Rogue. Although she wondered about the puffiness of Rogue’s eyes, her messy hair, and the general disheveled state of her clothes, she knew that she had no right to question what she had been doing in Logan’s room. Instead she simply said, “Good morning.”
Rogue cleared her throat. “Mornin’,” she returned. “You’re up early.”
Storm smiled. “So are you. The birds woke me up,” she said, and waited for an answering explanation from Rogue.
“Oh. Yeah, they do that,” Rogue said vaguely. “I’m gonna go shower. See you later, Storm.”
Long after Rogue had walked away and disappeared into her own room, Storm stood there contemplatively sipping her tea. Something was going on with Logan and Rogue, she knew, and wondered if it was a good something or a bad something. Eventually she shrugged. Sometimes, she mused philosophically, you just had to wait and see what developed. As she turned to bring her mug back to the kitchen, Storm caught the fuzzy outline of a child’s shadow slipping down the hall. It looked like Jacie had been watching Logan in her sleep again. She wasn’t worried about what Jacie might have seen or heard between Logan and Rogue. Whatever the girl monitored in her sleep seemed like regular dreams to her, and the memories faded once she woke up. Or at least that’s what she always said.
* * *
“Feelin’ better?” Logan asked over his second cup of coffee.
Rogue shrugged and pushed the last bit of egg around her plate with her fork. “A little. I still feel sad whenever I think about it, though.”
“Then don’t think about it,” he returned easily. “I’m not.”
She looked at him skeptically. “Is it really that easy?”
Sipping at his coffee for a moment before answering, Logan raised an eyebrow. “Pretty much.”
Rogue pushed her plate away. “You know, if you’re going to be a father, you do have to consider the future a bit. You can’t just take care of a kid on a day to day basis.”
Logan frowned a bit and nodded to the waitress a few tables away when she held a carafe of coffee up in question.
“This my first lesson in parenting, kid? I have been living in a house full of rugrats the last ten years, you know.”
Rogue snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah, but they’re not our kids. There’s a difference. We’ll probably make a bumbling mess of things the first few months.”
Logan chuckled and slid his mug to the end of the table so the waitress could refill it. “So we hope the kid has a lot of patience and a hard head.”
“Logan!” she reprimanded. “The baby won’t need a hard head as long as you don’t drop him.”
A giggle spilled from the waitress’s lips. They turned to look at her. “Sorry,” she said. “First time parents?”
“Not yet,” Logan said. “Soon, though.”
She swept her eyes over Rogue’s trim figure and frowned. “You’re not even showing yet, honey.”
Rogue blinked. “I’m not pregnant.”
The waitress blinked back. “Then don’t you think you might be getting a little ahead of yourselves here?” Without waiting for a reply, she moved on to the next table.
Logan and Rogue stared at each and she snickered.
“She’s right. We have other things to think about. Like the fact that Storm saw me coming out of your room this morning.”
“Yeah?” Logan asked with interest. “What’d she say?”
Rogue lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Nothin’. I could see she was damn near dyin’ of curiosity, but she didn’t ask.”
Logan smirked. “You gonna tell her we’re gettin’ married?”
All of a sudden Rogue was uneasy. “I don’t want to tell anybody right away.”
“Why not?”
“We’re not a typical couple, Logan. As soon as they know, they’re gonna be watchin’ us.”
“So?”
“So they’re gonna expect us to be all giddy and cuddly. That’s the way it’s supposed to be when you’re engaged.”
Logan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Like you and Andy were,” he commented quietly.
Rogue swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. That’s another thing. What are they gonna think about me marryin’ you when I was engaged to Andy less than a month ago?”
He scowled. “The guy was an ass, kid. Nobody will think anythin’ bad about you for movin’ on, especially considering why he called it off.”
“I…I didn’t tell anybody why,” Rogue admitted. She fiddled with the handle of her coffee mug.
“You wanna explain that to me?” he invited.
“I just don’t want everybody pityin’ me.”
“Uh, kid,” he said, “he dumped you. I think it’s safe to assume they already pity you.”
Rogue scoffed. “You suck at pep talks.”
“Ain’t no pep talk. Just pointin’ out the facts.”
At Rogue’s mutinous expression, he continued. “I’m not sayin’ they’re right to pity you. Pity’s for messed up, useless people. And that’s not you.”
“Then why does this whole conversation sound like one big pity party?”
“Damned if I know,” Logan admitted. “Anyway, back to your original problem.”
Rogue raised an eyebrow in question.
“Giddy and cuddly,” Logan reminded her.
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah. I don’t think it’ll be an issue with us. I’m not the giddy type,” he stated flatly.
Rogue snickered. “That’s true. So we just have the cuddly part to worry about.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really want anybody knowing this is basically a marriage of convenience, Logan.”
“Then they don’t have to know.”
“They’ll figure it out,” she argued. “Normal couples don’t sit around drinking beer and eating nachos over hockey games.”
“They don’t?”
“No, they don’t,” Rogue said in exasperation. “They go out. On dates.”
“Oh hell no,” Logan protested immediately. “I’m not gonna act all sappy and get you flowers and shit.”
Rogue laughed. The thought of Logan giving her flowers and fawning over her the way Andy had was too bizarre. “That’s fine,” she said, smiling. “It should be enough to just disappear together for a while.”
“And do what?” Logan asked suspiciously.
“We’ll drink beer, eat nachos, and watch hockey,” she said brightly.
“Huh?”
“Sports bar,” Rogue elaborated with a grin.
Logan grinned in appreciation. “You know, I think I’m marryin’ the perfect girl.”
Her eyebrow lifted in wry amusement. “You’re just sayin’ that ‘cause to you, I’m basically a guy with boobs.”
Logan burst into laughter, attracting the attention of everyone in the diner. “And a cute little ass,” he added.
Rogue cleared her throat. “Seriously, though. Will that be a problem, do you think?”
Narrowing his eyes a bit, he said, “You keep questioning my manhood like that, I’m gonna end up with an inferiority complex, kid.”
“I’m not questioning your manhood,” she denied.
He snorted. “You’ve asked me twice in the last two weeks about whether I’ll be able to get it up or not.”
“No I haven’t.” Rogue blinked. “Well, maybe I have,” she admitted sheepishly. “I don’t mean anything insulting by it, Logan. It’s just that the two of us together like that is hard to imagine.” She shrugged and continued in a matter of fact tone. “I mean, I don’t have to like it for it to work, but don’t you have to actually be enjoying yourself for us to get the…the desired result?”
Logan gaped at her. Although he knew that she had asked the question in all innocence, he was wincing internally at the gaping holes she was poking in his ego. “I’ll enjoy it just fine,” he assured dryly.
“But how do you know for sure?” Rogue pressed.
“What the hell, kid, you want proof?” he snapped.
She tilted her head in consideration. “Yeah,” she said eventually. “That’s actually a good idea.”
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