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She couldn’t deny it. No matter how embarrassing it was, she couldn’t deny the truth: Louise was a shameless gossip.
There was just something about knowing the ins and outs of people’s lives, especially in a small town such as Seymour’s Bay. Working as a manager for several of Fischoeder’s companies only introduced her to all the different types of people that lived in her town: the wine moms that dropped hundreds of dollars on brunch, the families that brought their kids to different arcades, the carnies that worked endlessly at the Wharf. She knew the regulars and the irregulars, and eavesdropping became collateral damage to the job. Louise had never intended to hear about everyone’s individual lives, they just happened to talk super loud. While she was nearby. Listening.
She had run into a problem at the beginning of her career, though. Louise was consuming loads and loads of delicious information, but had no one to unload it on. Gene, beautiful Gene, was over in Europe on some theater gig. He would have loved to hear all the tea if there wasn’t such a horrible time difference. Tina would listen every now and then, though her time was always taken up by her children (if Louise didn’t love her niblings so much, she would’ve been more bitter about it).
And so Louise found herself turning to a close coworker, one that she had never considered a confidant before. That is, until she dropped a huge piece of gossip and he had audibly gasped and begged for more. That’s right, folks. Logan Bush was also a shameless gossip. Emphasis on shameless.
It’s how Louise ended up at her favorite bar right on the outskirts of town, Pitcher Perfect, on a Saturday night, glancing repeatedly towards the door. She sipped at her water while absolutely killing it on a Candy Crush level. Right as Louise passed a nightmarishly hard level, someone flopped down in the seat across from her.
Louise didn’t even glance up. “Did you know that my Uncle Teddy dated a murderer?” Finally, she looked up, waiting for his reaction.
Logan’s dramatic expressions always paid off. He gaped, his eyes wide and hair ruffled in a mess. “It’s too early for this.”
“It’s ten at night.”
“Like I said, it’s too early for this.” He shook the stunned look off his face and peered curiously at Louise’s water. “You playin’ it safe tonight?”
She scoffed. “I’d never play it safe. I just wanted to be as sober as possible to see your reaction to my story tonight.”
Logan grinned as he pulled out his wallet. “Good. I want to be as drunk as possible when I hear it.”
Her hand shot out and she grabbed the wallet, pulling out his card. “Get us a couple of beers. On me.”
“This is my card.”
“And?”
Logan let out an obligatory grumble and left for the counter. Only enough time for Louise to beat one more level of Candy Crush before he returned with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
“So,” Logan poured himself a glass and swirled it around. “Your uncle dated a murderer?”
Louise tucked her phone away and splayed her hands on the table. She frowned for a moment. “Didn’t I ask for beer?”
“And I paid for whiskey.”
She rolled her eyes, yet still snatched the bottle and filled her own glass. Leaning back in her seat, Louise lifted the glass to her lips. She hesitated for a moment, a smirk ghosting the brim of the glass, and said, “When I was a kid, Teddy saw this one lady on and off. Her name was Helen, and she was a real bitch. A rich bitch, but a bitch, nonetheless.”
Logan leaned in, clearly entrapped in her story. Louise took a sip of her drink and set down the glass, elongating every single one of her motions so that he would be on the edge of his seat.
“My family met her one day when we were stuck in a storm at her beach house,” she continued. “Well, we were hanging out at her beach house while we were supposed to clean it up or something, and then there was a storm. She came back to the house and scared the living hell out of us. That’s not important, though. What’s important is that her husband had died by falling off the roof of that beach house. She had married him, gotten rich, and then he died.” Louise cocked an eyebrow, letting the silent implications settle in. “The roof balcony had broken and he slipped. Supposedly.”
Logan scoffed and leaned back with his arms crossed. “Smelcher, I’m not here for some dumb childhood memory. You’re boring me.”
Louise waved him to come closer, beckoning at him like she had a secret. Logan leaned in, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. She inhaled deeply and waited a moment before pressing a finger to his lips and loudly whispering, “SHHHHHHHHH. This needs a backstory . ”
He jerked back, grumbling something inaudible. “Fine, go on, I guess.”
“So, this Helen. I loved this Helen. She was rich, and I wanted my Uncle Teddy to be rich because I thought that somehow that would make my family rich.” Louise cocked her head to the side. “Then we thought she was a murderer, and then she proved us wrong. My dad was Helen’s number one fan, other than Teddy. Until she didn’t care if Teddy died on an elevator. That’s when we stopped liking Helen and she faded out of Teddy’s life, thus out of our own lives.”
A sly grin spread across her lips. “UNTIL TODAY! Because, dear Logan--” she earned a snort from him for that “--I found out that Helen was arrested for the murder of not one, but TWO of her deceased husbands.”
Logan’s jaw dropped. “Oh shit, she really killed that dude?”
Louise slammed her hands on the table. “Yes! They found a toolbox buried at the beach house with a hammer and a nail in it, and somehow traced it back to being one of the original nails that had been pulled out of the balcony. There were some other things that haven’t come out yet, but yes! Teddy told us everything today.”
He downed the rest of his drink and poured another. Logan shook his head, his eyes wide and wild. “That’s dope. I mean, not dope for those two dudes. But what a cool story to tell.”
Louise let out a burst of laughter. “That’s what I thought! Until she didn’t care about Teddy. I knew she was a murderer, but no one wanted to believe me.”
A dopey grin sat on Logan’s face as he watched her laugh. He leaned forward and put his chin in his hand, his gaze burning on Louise. He didn’t make any dumb retorts like he normally would have, and Louise’s smile quickly died. She cleared her throat, giving him an expectant look.
Logan tensed and his grip on his glass stiffened. “Oh, my turn. Right. That’s all you have?”
“I think it’s plenty, don’t you?”
“You disappoint me, Four Ears. But that’s fine.” He straightened, suddenly averting his eyes. On purpose. He never did that, unless Louise was embarrassing him (which she did do quite often).
“Spit it out, Bush,” Louise commanded. She finished her second glass of whiskey and started another. Her blood already began to hum throughout her body in a soothingly familiar way.
Logan rubbed the back of his neck and finally looked back up at her. “Okay, I heard this from several people this week. It was kinda weird, like they all had some meeting and heard the same piece of gossip.” He opened his mouth to continue, and then hesitated.
Louise threw her head back and groaned. Usually she could never get him to shut up, but what was with the hesitancy now? “C’monnnnnnnnn Logannnnnnn. I’m drunk and bored.”
“There’s rumors going around that we’re dating,” Logan blurted, his voice carrying a little too loudly. Okay, he was definitely tipsy, too. Logan always lost control of his volume when he--wait, what did he just say?
Louise raised her eyebrows. “Wait, there’s what? ”
He raised his hands into the air with all the drama and flair that intoxicated Logan possessed. “Yeah! People think we’re dating. One of my clients thought we were actually living together, or something. I can’t remember. He might’ve called you my wife.”
Louise covered her mouth with her hand and clutched her stomach. “God, I’m gonna throw up. Multiple people have said that to you?”
“That’s what I said, dipshit.” Logan started on his fifth glass. His words slurred together in Louise’s brain. “I have no idea why. I got, like, four comments on it this week.” He scrunched his face together and raised his voice into a maniacally high pitch. “‘ Oh! Logan! How is your wife? and I ate at your girlfriend’s restaurant yesterday! It was delicious! That kind of bullshit.”
Louise scowled as his words moved around sluggishly in her head, attempting to make sense of them. “We’re coworkers. Do people not realize that coworkers do things together? What a bunch of dumbasses.”
He grunted into his drink. “Dumbasses.”
“It’s not like gossip is ever accurate, anyway,” Louise rationalized. “It’s always wrong.”
“Right,” Logan nodded, a bit too eagerly.
A moment of silence passed between them. Then, at the same time, the pair burst out, “Fishoeder’s party!”
Their blasted boss had decided to throw an event to show “appreciation” and invited all of his tenants, which was essentially the entire town. Louise hung around her family most of the time, other than when she greeted any of her employers that had shown up. Logan appeared halfway through the night and they spent the event making snide judgments at their neighbors and complaining about working for Fishoeder. That, and watching Gene see how much fried shrimp he could stuff into his mouth.
It was absurd, that’s what it was. Absurd that people saw a man and a woman together at a party and automatically assumed that they were involved. So what, if Louise had given Logan a victory hug after Gene shoved the eleventh shrimp into his mouth? And so what, if they had drunkenly flirted a bit afterwards? Louise would have done that with anyone , even one of the Pesto kids.
Louise pushed all thoughts of the night to the back of her mind. She studied her drink while racking her brain for a response. Never in her twenty-five years of existence had she drawn a blank, until now. A weird, gross tension began to fill the conversation.
Logan seemed to be struggling just as much, his eyes hooked on the napkin dispenser sitting in the middle of the table. Then, he jolted and slammed a fist down on the table. “Did you see who Jimmy Junior showed up with at that party?”
The tension that had threatened to end the night completely dissipated. “YES. I didn’t even know Tammy was back in town???”
And so it went. They didn’t touch back on Logan’s piece of gossip and Louise wanted to keep it that way. It made her feel woozy and weird in the stomach. Instead, their conversation weaved its way around the lives of neighbors and past classmates, ultimately ending with Louise’s stomach growling a little bit too loudly.
She clutched her abdomen and groaned. “I had an early dinner and it’s coming back to haunt me. I should probably head home.”
“I have a coupon for a free Domino’s pizza we could order,” Logan offered.
Louise cocked her head to the side. That did sound like it would hit the spot. “But we can’t order it here. We’d have to pick it up and that’s so far.”
Logan rolled his eyes before grabbing his jacket. He stuffed his hands in the sleeves and shrugged it on. “We can order it to my place and eat it there. I live close by, remember?”
Ah, yes. He purposefully chose to live by Carnyopolis, purely to spite his mother. It was only a two minute walk away.
Something inside of Louise’s brain screamed that it would be best if she called it a night right then and there. But the alcohol in her blood squashed that feeling and she nodded, standing and swaying. “As long as we get those little molten lava cakes. Those are important.”
“Who do you think I am? I lava those things, of course we’re getting some.”
Louise had only been to Logan’s house a handful of times. Mostly, she’d come here to crash on his couch because driving home wasn’t a good idea and Ubers were expensive. Still, every time she saw it, it made her snicker.
The house was the size of a small apartment, basically a shoebox. The porch had several missing boards and was barely safe enough to walk on, the grass was chronically dead no matter how watered it got, and the carpet inside was a hideous bright blue. It was everything that Cynthia despised, which, Logan explained, was why he rented it.
Logan threw his coat on the ratty green couch as he stepped inside. He immediately had his phone open and slumped onto the couch next to the coat. “What kind of pizza?”
Louise took off her coat. “Combo. But no--”
“No mushrooms, yeah, I know,” he waved his hand dismissively.
She tossed her coat on top of Logan and took a seat on the armchair in the corner. Logan shrugged off the coat and sent her a glare. “Just for that, I’m adding mushrooms.”
“Bold of you to assume that I can’t just pick them off.”
He gave Louise a sly smile. “I’ll request to put them on under the cheese. ”
Her mouth dropped open. “You bastard.”
“I know.”
As Logan busied himself with ordering the pizza, Louise found herself wandering around the small living room-slash-kitchen. There wasn’t enough space for the two rooms to actually be considered separate. She made her way to his TV stand and started reading all the DVDs that filled the shelf: Inception, Interstellar, probably five different Avengers movies, etc. She snorted. It was such basic white man taste.
Except, was that Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper?
Louise pulled out the DVD and showed it to Logan, raising her eyebrows in a silent question. He covered the receiver of his phone and whispered, “Caleb introduced it to me. Don’t judge. It’s classic cinema.”
“You’re an embarrassment,” Louise whispered back.
Logan snatched the DVD out of her hands and actually snarled . He flinched and said into his phone receiver, “Sorry sorry sorry, that wasn’t, uh, for you.”
She collapsed on the ground and sat with her back against the couch, snickering. Logan finished the call and tossed his phone to the side. He leapt up off the couch and darted to the TV, sliding the Barbie DVD into his PlayStation.
Louise’s sluggish brain struggled to make sense of what he was doing until it was too late. “Wait,” she protested. The screen lit up with golden sparkles and bright music.
He sat back on the couch, cackling with his hands behind his head. “I’m gonna culturize you, Louise Smelcher.”
“That’s not a word,” she grumbled, crossing her arms. Her eyes darted around the room, attempting to catch a glimpse of an extra remote or something that could give her control. But no, it was in Logan’s grasp, and she knew he wouldn’t go down without a fight.
A moment passed while he pressed ‘play’ on the menu and a chirp female voice announced that the movie was about to begin. Logan nudged Louise with his foot. “Why are you sitting on the ground, weirdo?”
“Because it’s floor time.”
“That’s weird. Come sit up here.”
“Your face is weird.”
“YOUR face is weird.”
“No, YOUR face is weird.”
Needless to say, the only thing that got them to stop their ridiculous repetition was the doorbell. Louise jumped to her feet and dashed to the door, swinging it open. She didn’t even glance at the delivery guy’s face as she snatched the boxes out of his hands and slammed the door closed. Logan made some comment about her being feral, but honestly, she couldn’t hear him over the sound of her empty stomach.
Louise settled back down on the floor and opened the box. The warm smell of pizza wafted through the room immediately. She grabbed a slice and smirked. There were no mushrooms.
Logan lingered at a distance, watching her eat with a twisted expression on his face. Louise glared at him and asked through a mouthful of pizza, “Whaaa?”
“I’m worried about getting between you and that pizza. I might lose a hand.”
“Then go be useful and get me something to drink.”
He gave her a weird look. “I’m getting deja vu. Have you ever heard of the word ‘please’?”
“Nah.”
Despite his scowl, Logan opened the fridge and returned with a couple cans of Coke. He dropped onto the floor next to Louise and shoved her. “Scoot over, I’m hungry too.”
The next few minutes were spent in silence as they devoured the pizza and watched Barbie walk around in a princess gown. As the food settled and time passed, sobriety crept its way back in. Despite being completely aware of the situation, Louise opted to blame alcohol as to why she enjoyed the movie so much. It certainly wasn’t because of the animation, or because of the cheesy conclusion. If Louise didn’t lie to herself, she would admit that the movie was fun purely because she spent the entire time watching Logan’s reactions. He laughed at the ridiculous humor, quoted certain scenes along with the characters, and even sang along to the songs.
Louise would hold this over him for the rest of their lives.
The ending credits began to roll on the screen. Louise was laying on the ground, her legs in Logan’s lap. He tapped his fingers on her ankle along to the beat of the credits song. She kept her eyes on the screen, watching the names drift by.
Louise sat up straight, her eyes wide. “Martin Short is Preminger????”
He stared at her in disbelief. “You couldn’t recognize his voice???”
She hugged her legs while keeping them over Logan’s lap, ignoring her increasing heartbeat at the proximity. “This changes everything for me.”
Logan laid one of his lanky arms on top of Louise’s legs and a potential smile danced on his lips. “Did you know that, while voice-recording for this movie, someone tried pick-pocketing Martin Short?”
Oh no. She knew what was coming next.
He leaned in, as if they weren’t already closer than necessary. “Can you believe that someone would…”
It was so obvious and it was going to be so, so painful.
Moving closer again, just the slightest, he broke out into a full-on devilish grin. “…stoop so low?”
Louise shoved his shoulder and he immediately started howling with laughter. As she berated him for the clearly offensive short jokes, a small part of Louise realized something: Logan was her closest friend.
His fit of mirth died down and he simply stared smugly at her. Even while he had been laughing, Logan remained as close as he had been before. Louise could smell the mix of Coke and whiskey on his breath and if she even fidgeted, she’d likely end up sitting on his lap.
And somehow, despite wanting to smack the arrogant look off his face, she didn’t actually mind.
Logan’s expression disappeared before Louise could slap it away. Instead, he raised his eyebrows curiously and cleared his throat. “Can I ask you something?”
She frowned. “Sure?”
His eyes fixated on hers, and, even in the dim lighting, they flashed with something that seemed almost like thrill. “Would it be weird if I kissed you? Be honest.”
Louise had been kissed before. Her first kiss was Rudy during a game of seven minutes in heaven, she’d had a thing with this one chick in college, and she’d been out on a couple dates that led to some type of intimacy ever since then. But none of those past experiences compared to this.
Every sensation seemed heightened. The pool of warmth growing in her stomach, the delicate yet firm touch of Logan’s hand on her leg, the intense burn of his gaze, even the hum of his breath on her face. An electric chill ran through Louise. Her stomach rolled with a mixture of exhilaration and uneasiness.
It was like a rollercoaster. It looked exciting and fun and intoxicating, yet there was some fear hidden beneath it all. The closer you got to experiencing that elation, the fear only seemed to get bigger and louder. It can hold people back from feeling that crazy high.
But Louise never let anything hold her back.
“Honestly? Yes,” she responded.
Logan stiffened imperceptibly. His hand began to draw back. “Oh, uh--”
She cocked her head to the side. “But do I care? No.”
Just for the hell of it, she didn’t wait for her words to register in his small brain. Louise smashed her lips against his, shoving him against the couch. Their position was too awkward, she decided, and she moved so that she was straddling his lap.
Logan responded immediately in kind. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against his chest. Louise dug her hands in his hair and hummed, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss.
If she hadn’t sobered up, she would have blamed the alcohol for the exhilaration infused with eagerness that coursed through her body. But really, it was just him. His lips were more intoxicating than anything else she’s ever consumed.
Logan groaned into her mouth and rocked his hips against hers. She smirked against his mouth. Two can play at that game.
Louise bit his lower lip and gave a tug, eliciting him to surge forward and begin to lower her back onto the floor. He grabbed her wrists and held them down beside her head. All of his weight pressed against Louise, pinning her underneath his body.
He pulled away, eyes wild and glistening. Louise tried to pull her wrists out of his grasp, and Logan let out a low chuckle. The strum of his voice vibrated against her chest and something hot burned through her body. He leaned in, brushing his lips against Louise’s jaw just enough for her to shiver. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
She wanted to regain control of the situation, to flip Logan around and whisper sweet threats into his ear, but those words shut Louise up. Her heart thumped out of her chest. “I think I’m beginning to get one.”
Louise quit struggling against his grip and relaxed, enough that Logan loosened up. Quick as a viper, she wrapped her legs around his torso and rolled over, holding him down in the same position he had her only moments before.
She pressed a slow kiss to his neck, his jaw, his temple. Logan trembled beneath her, which only made Louise want him more. She didn’t want to admit it, but there might have been a part of her subconscious that had a thing for Logan. And now that she’d had a taste of him? Louise couldn’t get enough.
She kissed him hard on the lips and he pushed back. They broke apart, breathless. Louise’s chest heaved and she let go of Logan’s wrists. “I guess those rumors about us weren’t so far-fetched.”
His hands gripped her hips. “Apparently not.” Then Logan shifted underneath her and winced. “Okay, I’m too old to be doing this on the floor.”
Louise rolled her eyes. “You’re literally only thirty-one.”
“That’s old!” He pulled her back down for another kiss, and murmured against her lips, “Besides, do you really want to fuck to the Barbie soundtrack music?”
She glanced up, only to realize that the movie had returned to its menu and a cute song was playing. “Way to kill the mood, Bush.” But Louise still rolled off of him and stood up, helping him along the way.
They stood there for a moment. The dim light of the TV reflected off Logan’s face as he smirked down at her. His fingers found hers, intertwining together. Louise shivered at the soft touch and suddenly, she couldn’t meet his gaze.
Logan snickered. He pulled her along to his bedroom, shoving the door open and falling onto the bed, bringing Louise down along with a laugh.
And to think, the night had begun all because they were a couple of shameless gossips.
The next day, there was talk of Louise Belcher leaving Logan Bush’s house in the early hours of the morning. In fact, people even saw them together at brunch . Was she wearing one of his shirts? Some even claimed they held hands at one point.
Eh, you can’t listen to gossip. It’s usually never true.