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“So… are you practicing this for someone or something?”
“Uh…” Hesitating for a moment, Nicole shrugged at the question, strumming at the guitar as she did. She’d been thinking of Cole when she dragged the old thing out of the corner it’d been tucked away in, but… well, she didn’t really want to invite questions from the kid. Especially loverboy over here. Poor kid was wandering around practically bereft, and she’d have had to have been blind to not see how he was joined at the hip to the blonde girl he’d mentioned. Hailey, he’d said her name was. The two had come in for hot chocolates a few times, and Nicole had seen the way she looked at him when they did.
“Yeah,” she settled on, “a friend of mine.” Better to keep it simple, right? Logan nodded, brow furrowing as he stared at his hands in front of him.
“It’s a romance thing, right?” Alright, there goes that. Fantastic. Logan was fidgeting with his hands, a faraway look in his eyes, and Nicole set the guitar aside, thinking of how to approach this.
Eh, screw it.
“…Yep. Something like that.” Maybe it was a bit cavalier of her, but, well, it’s not like she was baring her soul to the kid. It was something like that, and she didn’t need to give this teenager any details about her life. She liked Cole. That’s what mattered, at least for right now. How? Why? Any other question that may have come up? That didn’t matter! Don’t worry about it!
(Okay, so maybe she was avoiding thinking about it. What of it?)
The point. Is that she didn’t need to worry about that right now, and the kid was still here, so she could ignore all of the funny complicated feelings that came up whenever she thought about the goofy little Bandcloud artist in a hoodie three sizes too big for him.
Logan was still staring down at his hands like they held all of the secrets of the universe, and when he finally spoke up, his voice was soft. Hesitant.
“…What’s that like?”
Hm.
What?
“What’s what like?” Logan glanced over at Nicole when she spoke, now tugging at the hem of his shirt, but quickly averted his eyes again.
“Y’know. That.” He waved his hands around a bit aimlessly, as if he was reaching for words just beyond his grasp. “Romance,” he settled on, a bit lamely.
“Trouble in paradise?” Nicole joked, raising an eyebrow. Logan flushed a patchy red, curling in on himself, and turned away from her even further.
“No! May-maybe? I just…” Huffing, Logan waved his hands around a bit, stammering before falling silent. Nicole pulled the guitar back into her lap, trying out a few finger positions as she waited.
Finally, Logan sighed, leaning back on his hands.
“How can you tell?” he muttered, looking up at the ceiling.
“…Gonna need a bit more than that,” Nicole said, idly strumming the chord she’d been playing around with. Logan huffed again.
“I… I like…” He paused. Seemed to think for a moment. “Hailey’s great. She’s — she’s really cool, and I really like hanging out with her, and—and she’s so pretty.” Nicole had to stop herself from rolling her eyes, the kid certainly sounded lovesick enough…
“And… and when people like each other they — they date, right? And Hailey, she… she probably does, like me, I mean, so I should just tell her, and then we date and that’s good, right?”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“I…” Logan froze, before making a nervous sort of whining noise, one hand grabbing at his hair. “I like Hailey,” he said, no hesitation this time, just a thrumming, anxious sort of frustration. “But when I — when I think about… kiss- kissing her, or — or holding hands, or any other stuff like that, I just… I get so nervous, and-and it’s weird, and I can’t say anything, and that… is that really what it’s like?”
…Alright.
That was… something.
Logan was frowning down at his hands, glancing up at Nicole every few seconds but never lingering for too long. Nicole stood up, deciding to flat out put the guitar away rather than just setting it aside, seeing as this was apparently going to be a whole thing. Laying her instrument back in its case, she sighed, opting to just lean back against the counter.
God, she could use a smoke for this.
“Okay, kid.” Logan looked up at her, eyes wide. Maybe standing up like she was going to leave wasn’t the best move after he spilled his guts like that. Whoops. “First, to answer your question… nah, that’s not always what people do when they like each other. Dating, or whatever you think that means.” God knows she’d had her fair share of unconventional relationships in the past. Or the present. “That feeling’s also not always what it’s like, but, I mean… it seems to be what it’s like for you. Yeah?”
“I-I guess?”
“Right. So… is that a bad thing?”
Logan’s face screwed up at that, confusion written plain in his expression. Man, this was turning out to be more of an ordeal than she signed up for… ah, well.
“I mean,” she continued, “if you don’t wanna do all that stuff… then don’t. You don’t have to do anything like that if it’s uncomfortable or whatever, right?”
“But…” Pausing, Logan looked downright lost, staring at nothing in particular as he thought. “But I do like Hailey.” His gaze snapped up to her, desperate, almost pleading, like he was trying to convince her, trying to convince himself. “I do .”
“Doesn’t mean you have to kiss her.” Pushing off the counter, Nicole walked back over to crouch down next to where Logan was still sitting. “You can just like people. Spending all your time worrying over what you think relationships have to be like just causes both of you more trouble in the end. Trust me.”
“…” Logan didn’t reply, eyes caught on his fidgeting hands. Nicole knew from experience how ingrained this kind of thing could get, and… well, she’d seen how head over heels Hailey was for this kid. She understood why he was so torn up about it, all things considered.
“Listen,” she finally said, falling back into a sit to save her knees the pain of crouching like she had been. “Why don’t you tell Hailey how you feel?” Logan opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off. “As it stands, you two dancing around each other like this is just gonna make you both miserable. Tell her that you ‘like’ her, but you don’t want to do all that romantic stuff. You two can figure out what you can do from there. With each other. ”
“…But she wants to do that,” Logan muttered, “all the… kissing and stuff. A-And I don’t want to just be another one of her friends… or… or nothing.”
And oh, if that wasn’t familiar as all hell. Wanting to be something with someone else, but being afraid that you won’t be enough for what they want. What they need. Nicole sighed, tightening her ponytail.
…She really should call Cole after all this.
“Logan… you can be something to her without having to do things that make you uncomfortable. Romance isn’t everything, y’know?” He still looked unconvinced, and Nicole huffed, rolling reassurances around in her head, testing them as they each fell flat one by one. Still, she had to say something, and… well, he deserved the truth, and she wouldn't want to have to sugarcoat things. Not about this.
“I… well, I can’t promise anything about how it’ll go, because I’m not her, but… chances are Hailey wouldn’t want you to push through something like that just to make her happy. People don’t like it when the ones they care about are hurting. Especially not if it’s ‘for their sake.’” She crooked her fingers as she spoke, glancing to the side. “Take it from me.”
“I… I guess you’re right,” Logan mumbled, face flushed and head ducked low. “…I’m just… scared.” His voice was practically a whisper, a breathless confession of something he’d clearly been holding onto for a while now.
“It’s fine to be scared,” Nicole shrugged. God knows that she’d been, that she still was. “But you’ll never know how things’ll go if you don’t talk to her, will you?” And she knew firsthand that the uncertainty was almost more painful than the potential rejection, and always more drawn out.
“Guess not…”
They sat there for a while, the silence heavy with unvoiced thoughts. Logan fiddling with his hands, mind running wild, and Nicole looking away, entirely unsure what else she could say.
Still, even with the uncertainty, there was something almost companionable about the quiet. A sort of solidarity, an understanding passed between the two of them.
Even with that, though, Nicole could practically hear the thunderclouds churning behind Logan’s eyes, dark and persistent. There wasn’t much more she could say to help. Although…
She’d already cleaned up for the night, but… eh, screw it.
Logan was startled out of his reverie by a small plastic package landing on the floor in front of him, wide eyes darting up to meet Nicole’s. Looking back down, he hesitantly picked up the packaged muffin.
“Eat that, we have extras.” They didn’t, but she didn’t particularly care. It was small enough to go unnoticed, and she had no love lost for this job anyways.
Peeling back the wrapper, Logan took a bite. It was dry, crumbly, and slightly stale. Nicole was fiddling with something unseen in her pocket, staring off into the distance. Thinking.
Plastic crinkling. More silence.
“…Thanks.”
“Yeah. ‘Course.”