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“Right,” Louise says as the door of the cafe closes behind them. “Let’s just go ahead and add to the list of ‘Things Logan Cannot Do Again or Louise Will Have to Bury Him In a Ditch Somewhere’ literally every single sentence you spoke to that barista.”
Logan rolls his eyes. “It’s called being friendly, Four Ears. You should try it some time.”
“It’s called BLEGH!” She retorts, gagging in an impressively believable way into one of the flower barrels on the sidewalk.
He sidesteps her performance as a young woman approaches the door of the cafe.
“I think it was the banana bread,” he discloses to her in a faux-sympathetic voice. “It’s gonna be coming out of both ends for hours. Poor girl.”
“Does she need any… help?” The woman asks anxiously, hands hovering anxiously over Louise’s bent form.
Logan shakes his head sadly. “It’s okay. This is my burden and mine alone. She’s my sister, you see. And she has serious stomach problems- it’s hard to predict what might start her off vomiting and shitting for hours. Poor, poor girl. It’s really quite a tragedy. A disgusting tragedy. But a tragedy, nonetheless.”
“Oh,” the woman turns to him, eyes soft. “You’re so selfless. This must be so hard for you.”
Logan meets Louise’s eyes where she is still bent over the barrel and winks at her before fixing his gaze back on the woman. “It really is. Sometimes I just get so lonely.”
The woman coos and leans closer, as Louise straightens back up and levels a challenging gaze at him.
“So this is your answer?” She says, tears rising in her eyes, hands going to cradle a nonexistent bump on her stomach. “You’ll flirt with another woman right in front of me? Well, fine. But I’m still keeping her. Little Cynthia and I don’t need you- we’ll figure it out on our own!”
The young woman pulls back immediately and glares at him. “Pig!”
She slips an arm around Louise’s shoulders and guides her away. “Men ain’t shit, honey. But don’t worry, I know the best gynecologist. We will get you through this.”
Louise shakes free of the woman’s arms. “It’s too late! I can’t do this. Logan Berry Bush (yes, that is his legal name) has made it clear that I am utterly alone in this world. I guess I have to go and get this child killed.”
She raises her voice to passersby on the sidewalk. “You heard me, people. A child is going to be killed today. All because of this man right here! Logan Berry Bush, ladies and gentlemen.”
With a muffled sob, Louise runs off down a nearby alley.
Suspicious stares are turned on him and he flushes. “She’s exaggerating-”
“He impregnated her and now he’s completely abandoning her!” The young woman beside him helpfully clarifies.
“Okay. Thanks for that.” Logan snaps with a withering glare at her.
“He doesn’t owe her anything,” some voice pipes out of the gathering crowd.
“Um excuse me?” Another faceless voice retorts. “He does too!”
“In the days of birth control, men are no longer responsible if women get pregnant.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is she doing it herself?”
As voices raise and attention shifts, Logan slips away from the growing din into the alley Louise had fled down. She’s waiting for him behind a dumpster a few feet down it, a smirk on her face.
He slow claps and gives her a little mock bow. “What a stunning performance.”
“I personally thought naming the baby Cynthia was inspired.”
“Naming the baby Cynthia was grotesque.”
“You’re just mad because I so obviously won that round.”
“My favourite part of the show was when you obviously panicked at the thought that woman might take you to a gynecologist and then literally ran away,” Logan retorts.
Louise waves this away dismisssively. “Part of the game is knowing when to beat a retreat. One of us left on our own terms with a believable story and one of us had to sneak away as a mob grew.”
“One of us started a literal mob!”
“Occupational hazard,” she says with another dismissive wave. “The trick is to be long gone by the time the mob has formed and before they notice you have left. Speaking of which, we should go before Miss Gullible finds you.”
Logan whips his head around to look back at the end of the alley as if the woman was bearing down on him at that very moment.
“Now, back to the list,” Louise continues. “If we’re going to continue doing this, we need to clarify what you can and can’t do.”
Logan turns back to her with a relieved sigh. “She hasn’t noticed yet- let’s go. And actually I can do whatever I want…”
His voice trails off, gaze fixed somewhere over her head at the other end of the alley. His face pales.
“You actually can’t. Because certain things get you buried- ewwww let go.”
Louise breaks off her words as Logan prises one of her hands into his. She wrenches away from him, trying to pull it back out.
“Handholding in public is on the list!” She screeches, when her efforts yield no success.
“Louise,” Logan hisses quietly. “I know that guy walking toward us- I had like, a thing with a friend of his. So can you please just be a normal girlfriend for ten minutes and then we can resume your list after and I swear I won’t even be a dick about it.”
She glowers at him. “I’m not your girlfriend. And normal is overrated.”
“Four Ears,” he pleads. “I don’t actually want you to be a normal girlfriend. I like that you’re my abnormal girlfriend- I just want you to pretend to be a normal one for ten minutes.
“I hate that word."
“Pretend to be my normal partner?”
“I prefer arch nemesis,” she sighs heavily. “But fine.”
She intertwines her fingers with his and leans into him, giggling lightly. “Oh my god, shut up,” she says in a breathy voice.
He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “You’re really good at this? I’m both terrified and into it.”
“I’m a mastermind and you should be turned on,” she mutters under her breath before shoving him back lightly and giggling harder.
“I definitely am,” Logan confesses softly. “You’re so hot when you scheme.”
“ You’re scheming, I’ve just been sucked into it.”
He opens his mouth, retort poised on his tongue, but they’ve wasted too much time and it’s too late. Dave has finally reached them.
“Logan, hi! I thought that might be you. We haven’t seen you for a while- did something happen between you and Rylan?”
“I didn’t go there for Rylan,” Logan protests, hopefully believably. “I’ve just been busier lately. I’ve got a girlfriend.”
He winces inwardly at the awkward non-sequitur which serves to confirm Dave’s suspicions rather than lessen them.
Louise squeezes his hand and leans into his side. “Who’s this, babe?”
Logan squeezes her hand back. “This is Dave. Dave, this is my girlfriend, Louise.”
Dave squints at Louise for a few seconds. Long enough that Logan’s taken a half step forward in between the two by the time Dave finally speaks.
“Louise Belcher? Is that you? You probably don’t remember me. I’m Jen’s cousin, Dave. We met at Pickles that one night? It would have been a while ago, back when I was working there- maybe seven or eight years? There was a big storm and it was icy and Jen had borrowed my truck-“
“Ohhhhh,” Louise nods her head in recognition. “Hot Cousin Dave. The pilot. Yeah, I remember. I can’t believe you remember!”
“Well, it wasn’t every night that ten year olds came into Pickles,” he chuckles.
Logan whips his head around to stare at Louise. “What the hell were you doing in Pickles?!”
After a half-second, he takes in the full meaning of Dave’s statement and adds: “AT TEN??!”
Louise starts to roll her eyes, before remembering her adopted persona. She giggles again and playfully shoves him. “If you wouldn’t interrupt, you could hear the story, silly goose.”
Logan can’t stop his nose from crinkling in disgust at this pet name and she pinches his side with her other hand.
“Fuck,” he hisses and she pinches harder while raising her voice to drown him out. “One night Dave’s cousin, Jen, was babysitting my siblings and I. We went for a ride in her ice cream truck-”
“My ice cream truck,” Dave interjects. “She borrowed it from me and really had no business joyriding it around town.”
“Wonder whose idea that was,” Logan mutters.
Louise’s shove is far less playful this time.
“Shush and listen to the story! While we were out in the truck, it got really icy and eventually we couldn’t move the truck anymore. We had no phone or Jen’s phone had died or something, I can’t remember. Rather than freeze to death, we walked to Pickles because it was nearby and Jen knew Dave was working and had a phone she could borrow.”
“Right,” Logan says flatly. “Just a normal night for a ten year old, then.”
“The Belchers weren’t normal,” Dave laughs. “Jen used to tell me the weirdest things about them. One of the kids had this comfort hat that they would never take off- like not even to sleep if Jen was in the house. Wait, wasn’t that you, Louise?”
“”Okay!” Logan says loudly. “Well, it was great to see you, Dave, but we have an appointment we have to keep so we should probably head out.”
“Oh yeah,” Dave nods. “I’m meeting someone for coffee anyway, so I should go too. You should come by the restaurant this weekend, Logan. Rylan and I are closing all three days so you know it’s gonna be fun.”
“Great,” Logan says weakly.
Louise squeezes his hand again, beaming. “That’d be fun, baby! We could go out for drinks on Saturday night- maybe even invite my weird siblings with us!”
“Sure,” Dave says hesitantly. “The more, the merrier, I guess. I’m assuming you guys don’t tip as well as Logan, though.”
“Well, how could we, being so poor and weird.” Louise nods in bright agreement with him.
“Right.” Dave nods in non-comprehension.
“We really should go,” Logan interrupts Louise’s response, tugging her away by their joined hands. “We’ll try and stop by sometime soon, Dave. See you!”
He succeeds in pulling Louise with him and they hurry down the alley away from Dave, hands still linked.
“Fucker,” Louise spits in annoyance.
“He didn’t actually call you poor,” Logan says mildly.
She huffs. “He was thinking it.”
Logan doesn’t answer her with words. Instead, he runs the tip of his pointer finger along her palm gently until he feels the tension fade from her stiff figure.
She starts speaking again once she has calmed down. “So... Rylan.”
“Rylan.”
“What’s the deal with that?”
“I told you- we had a thing.”
“Like a thing thing?”
“A thing.”
She huffs again, but she reads his uninviting tone for what it is and lets it go.
“Thank you,” Logan says awkwardly after a few moments of comfortable silence.
“For?”
“Helping with… that. I’m not sure how much was pretense and how much was genuine, but it was all helpful. I would not have been able to do that alone. I mean, I would have, but, you know.”
“It would have been a hundred times worse? Yeah, I know. You’re welcome. Thanks for stopping me from committing a homicide.”
“What else is an arch nemesis for?” he teases.
“Well, I’m not keeping you around for the sub-par sex,” she says flatly.
He grimaces. “I told you I don’t like those jokes.”
“I know. That’s why I make them. And to be clear, it was literally all a pretense. When Mama commits, she commits hard. I’m a method actor, Logan. I know no other way.”
He rolls his eyes, lips twitching. “I don’t think it was all a pretense.”
“Well, it was.”
“Right… you know you’re still holding my hand, right?” He raises their joined hands to make his point. “I thought it was on the list.”
“Ugh, shut up,” Louise snaps. “Pointing out shit to make stupid points is on the list.”
“That’s incredibly vague,” he says imperturbably. “The list needs to be more specific if I’m to avoid ditches.”
“How about you just shut up? How about that?”
He smirks but falls silent.
“Do that thing again,” Louise prompts after a bit.
“What thing?”
“That finger thing. And don’t be a douche- you know what I mean.”
“This?”
He runs his pointer finger along her palm again and she nods shortly. “Yes. And don’t be stupid about it, okay? We don’t need to talk about it. Talking about things is on the list.”
“So I should just never speak again?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
He grins. “You know, you could just make another list: a list of ‘Things Louise Wants Logan To Do and Never Acknowledge’. That could be the first.”
“We don’t need a hundred lists, Logan. God.”
“But this is on the list?”
“Of course it’s on the list, don’t be stupid.”