Yep, I definitely should have known better. Whenever I had tried to uncomplicated things for the sake of convenience and expediency in the past, they always blew up in my face. But what can I say? My learning curve had flat-lined at the sight of Logan’s warm, tan, hallelujah-touchable skin.
Swallowing a Cheshire grin, I plucked my MR Card from his fingers and retreated to the safety of the kitchen. In a more normal voice, I continued explaining, “Really, I’m not even officially working at the White House. They bounce me between the Secret Service, who don’t trust me, and the Office of Presidential Personnel, who abuse me like an intern. To be perfectly honest, nothing I do couldn’t be done by someone already working there. Even saving President McKenna, my one shiny moment, I’m fairly certain could’ve been handled without me.”
Brow furrowed, Logan watched me put my MR Card back into my purse. “If it’s so meaningless to you, why bother?”
“I don’t think it’s meaningless. Sadly, far as day-to-day access to the President goes, there definitely aren’t very many mutants out there who have higher-ranking positions than mine. Plus, I’m not just any mutant, I’m an X-Man. Currently, the only one with a name and a face.” Grandly, I spread my hands. “I have acquired symbolic meaning.”
Logan gave me his head-tilt, lip-quirk of wry approval. “Come and get your present, kid.”
“Yay. Don’t mind if I do.” Plucking up my beer, I went around to his side of the couch. The coffee table was so close, I ended up standing between his knees, more or less.
He didn’t comment on my closeness. From his bag, he took out a slim, white envelope. He exchanged it for my beer.
Smile at full wattage, I tore the envelope open. Instead of the card I’d expected there was a folded piece of paper. I pulled it open and didn’t have to read very far before I knew exactly what was being shipped to me from Japan.
“Wha…Gah…” Unable to express the whole of my gratitude in words, I opted for strangled monosyllables. I soon gave up all dignity and resorted to jumping up and down in front of him like he was Bob Barker and I’d just won The Price is Right. Logan followed my bouncing with his eyes. I got the heady sensation he wasn’t exactly concentrating on my face.
He’d bought me a motorcycle. A Suzuki GSX-R750, mostly black with green and white stripes. I gaped at the printed-out picture. He usually just snuck me out for beers, for God’s sake. I lowered the paper, so I could focus my gape on his face.
Logan scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I figured, since I taught you to ride, you should have one,” he explained, as if that was reason enough to spend literally thousands of dollars on me.
“Shit, Logan. By your logic, Storm should’ve gotten me a jet. But thank you,” I said, everything my grandmomma’d taught me about manners packed into those last two words.
With a satisfied smirk, he handed me back my beer. “You’re welcome, kid.”
I sank into the cushion beside Logan contentedly, my back pressed against his elbow. Taking the hint, he raised his arm around my shoulders and I scooted against his side. I grinned happily at him, thinking genuinely, Everything’s going so well.
Smirk still in place, he took the last swig of his beer. His eyes strayed back to the TV, but I didn’t mind. This was like old times; he got peace, I got proximity. Plus, I got a chance to study him closely and at least semi-surreptitiously. There was a definite pinch to the corners of his eyes. He was exhausted and seemed to be holding himself with a certain amount of tension.
The past two years had been rough on him, he’d said as much in the message I still had saved on the answering machine. He’d also said the things he’d found out about his past, they weren’t pretty. “But I guess we never thought they would be,” he’d added. His use of we – meaning you and I, him and me – made my chest tighten every time I thought of it. We. He’d included me into his thought process, which gave me a place in his past, if only by way of the future.
“So, when’re you free tomorrow?” Logan inquired.
“Bobby and Jubilee and everyone have to leave in the morning, because they have, I don’t know, tests to study for and papers to write, I guess.” I snorted, remembering those days well. Suckers. Flashing him a grin, I clarified, “So I’m all yours until Monday morning.”
“Okay.” Not exactly an enthusiastic response. More apprehensive. “We can talk tomorrow, then.”
I bit back my grin and attempted to catch his eye. “Sure, if you want to. Definitely.”
Voice clipped, he replied, “Good.”
Lifting my wrist , I lightly brushed the pads of my fingertips along the dips between his knuckles. I meant it as a reassuring gesture, but his skin felt so wonderfully smooth and dry against mine I couldn’t help turning the motion into a caress. His whole hand flinched before stiffing into a poor semblance of relaxation. Evidently, he was willing to let me touch him, but not willing to let himself enjoy it. My fingertips fell away.
Attention focused on balancing my beer bottle on my knee, I said, “We can talk a little now, if you want.” Before he could flinch again, I hurriedly added, “I mean, if you’d rather talk about…what you found out…tomorrow, that’s your call, but you could give me at least some idea of what you were doing.” Looking up at him, I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice when I pointed out softly, “Two years is a long time, Logan.”
“You want to talk about Vietnam.” He said it like the thought hadn’t occurred to him.
“Well, don’t you? Your message said…”
“Oh, right. We can talk about that, too, if you want. But I was just gonna let you read my file when your computer friend gets it decrypted.”
“You mean Kitty?”
“Kitty,” he agreed.
The prospect of sitting in front of an impersonal computer screen and clicking my way through his past was not the least bit appealing. In quiet earnest, I said, “I’d rather you told me yourself.”
He shrugged, lifting his arm from around my shoulders in the same movement. “Figured it’d save some time if you just knew everything I’d done.”
I scooted sideways so I could see his face better. “Logan, that’s never mattered to me. All I care about is how it affects you now.”
“Still.” He crossed his arms over his chest, not quite looking at me. “It’s only fair. I read yours.”
For a second, I thought that he meant Stryker had had a file on me, too, but his line of sight directed me to the large binder of medical records Dr. McCoy had given me, along with a note reading, “The greatest gift is the gift of knowledge.”
I’d flipped through the binder that morning before going to work, unable to bring myself to read more than a line here and there. As far as I could tell, every visit to the med lab I’d made since the day I’d set foot in the School was accounted meticulously, sometimes to the point of what looked like full transcription. Dr. McCoy had included charts and graphs, analysis, interviews with Logan, the Professor…The thoroughness of the thing unsettled me. I could imagine how painfully detailed the records of the Warbird incident had to be; my intentionally selective memory would be fully supplemented by Dr. McCoy’s close observations and the Professor’s all-knowingness.
Shame and anxiety and pride leapt into my throat. Swallowing, I managed, “You didn’t have my permission to look at that.”
Logan shrugged again, unconvincingly this time. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Liar.”
There was anger in his eyes as they snapped onto mine. He kept his tone carefully in check, saying, “Two years is a long time, I agree. The Professor told me some of what you did, I was just playing catch-up.”
“What I did,” I echoed, bitterness getting the best of me. Not what had happened to me, what I’d done. Who I’d become – a murderer, a traitor, a sociopath – because of what I’d done. “Thanks for the compassion, Logan. You’re a real friend.”
“Rogue, don’t get self-righteous on me, you know I didn’t mean it like that. Look, maybe I shouldn’t have read your files, fine. I’m sorry. But I had to know everything before I could help you.”
“There are so many things wrong with that sentiment. First off, you didn’t even bother to ask me. Second, I don’t know what you know. I haven’t read any of that yet, I don’t know what’s in there. I don’t even know what the Professor told you. God, Logan, I don’t talk about you with the Professor behind your back. Third – Help me? You’re a day late and a dollar short, bub. I’m fine. I’ve been fine for months. And even if you had been there, what would you have been able to do for me? Nothing. It was my problem, I handled it, the end.”
“Liar.” His tone held disappointment, not incrimination.
I focused my burning eyes on the where the edge of the living room rug met wood flooring. “No. As far you’re concerned…The end.”
We were both silent for a long time. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I’d known he’d find out about Warbird. I’d even been prepared to deliver a nice little speech about how hard it had been, how much I regretted what had happened. Something so eloquent and heartbreaking that I’d come off guiltless as a saint and the subject would be dropped forever.
And, damn it, how fucking artificial could I possibly make myself? My anger turned inward and cold, winding my insides so tight I was left shaky. Pitifully, I finally asked, “What do you want from me?”
“I want – I want you to give me a chance. I know what you’re going through. I’ve had people fuck with my head, too. So give me a chance. You haven’t talked to me since – Okay, it’s your life. I get that. I’m not gonna try to tell you what to do, but this…I can help.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just – You know, I really do not want to talk about any of this. I’m being completely honest, okay? I don’t feel like I need to, so, please, can you just take what you know and…forget it?”
“Rogue, I think you’re still confusing being honest with being right.”
Wondering what he meant by that, I turned my watery gaze on him.
Logan’s eyes reflected the worst kind of hurt. I’d only seen that expression twice before; once, the morning after, when I’d accused him of breaking his promise to take care of me, and, the first time, when I’d walked out on him after he’d tried to give me advice I hadn’t wanted to hear. Now, I realized, I’d done again. Something I’d said – everything I’d said – I’d dismissed his opinion completely and cut him down.
I marveled at my own selfishness. “You know, I like to tell people you’re my best friend, but what does that even mean? We hardly ever talk about anything real, and when we do we fight. I have you in my head and you’ve saved my life so many times, but what’ve I ever done but give you grief and generally annoy you?”
“Don’t be like that, Rogue. You know just you needing me has done more for me than – ”
“Yeah, but I hate it. I absolutely hate needing you. Doesn’t that negate it somehow? Holy shit. And here I was, thinking that we could – Do you ever think about that night at all?”
“Christ.” He obviously hadn’t expected me to be that direct, and, really, neither had I. “Yeah, I think about it.”
“And?”
“And I remember you – ” He stopped himself, lips compressed into a tight line.
“What? You remember me what?”
“I remember you had your eyes closed. The whole time, your eyes were closed.”
I started to say, “That’s not true,” but trailed off, realizing that I couldn’t remember if it was or wasn’t. I started to laugh. Not a pleasant sound, even to my own ears, but it was the only release I had, so ignored Logan’s look of concern. When my cell phone began ringing in my purse, I laughed on my to answering it.
“What’s up, dude?” I greeted chirpily, knowing by the ringtone that it was Keller.
“Happy motherfucking birthday, gorgeous,” Keller responded. In the background, I could hear Jubilee, Peter, Bobby, and Kitty echoing his birthday wishes.
“Aw, thanks, guys.” Lowering the phone, I said, “Logan, I’ll be right back.” Breezy as can be, as if we’d just been discussing hockey scores or hypothesizing about why in the hell Mel Gibson felt the need to engage the bad guy in a homoerotic, shirtless mud-wresting contest at the end of Lethal Weapon – our usual brand of profound conversation. Frustrated at myself, I shut my bedroom door a little harder than necessary.
Keller didn’t notice. Enthusiastically he said, “Big two-two. How’s it fucking feel?”
“Feels fucking wonderful.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic. Well, we’re on our way. We should be there in an hour and half, but Bobby’s driving, so it’ll probably be more like three.”
Distantly, I heard Bobby return, “Oh, haha.”
Apparently close to the phone, Jubilee said clearly, “We’ll be there asap, chica. We’ve got a lot of drinking to do to make up for twenty-one in a coma.”
“For sure,” I laughed. Her references to the Warbird incident – any aspect of it – were fine by me. They turned the whole thing into a joke.
“Yeah, Rogue, listen,” Keller continued. “Cyclops gave us the number of a pizza place around you, so we’ll pick that up on our way. He said you already had alcohol at your apartment, but, at the bars, we’ve got the tab. You and me, we’ll go SoCo shot for shot, and then we’ll see how much vodka we can pour down the throat of this Russian bastard before he breaks out into his stunning rendition of ‘If I Were Rich Man’ again. I’ll never get tired of that accent.”
I might have been hearing things, but I thought that Peter’s, “Fuck off, Abdel-Haq,” sounded much less genial than it might normally have. To me, it didn’t sound like he was quite as over the break-up as Jubilee seemed to think.
“The game plan, doll-face, is for you to have a drink in hand all night. I’m going to personally make fucking sure of it.”
“Keller, that is the best game plan I have ever heard in my entire twenty-two years of living. Hurry your asses down here.”
I had just closed the phone when there was a knock at my bedroom door. Plastering a smile onto my face, I opened it for Logan. “Yep?”
“I’m gonna go,” he said, without prelude.
“Don’t,” I practically yelped.
“Just out for a while, kid,” he clarified. “I’ll be back.”
My heart pounded back into motion. “Oh, um, then I guess you should take the spare key. It’s in the bowl of change by the door.”
“Okay. You have a good time tonight, Rogue.”
“Thanks. You, too, Logan.”
This was a natural time for a hug, but we were being so forcedly polite with each other, I shifted back a step instead.
Logan cleared his throat. “Well. See ya.” And then he was across the living room, picking up his jacket; he was by the bar, adding the spare key to his key ring; he was out the door, asking himself why he even gave me the time of day.
Well, I couldn’t actually speak for him on that account, but I knew I sure was.