by Tess Adair
“Logan?”
A few tentative steps later, she found herself entering the living room, which was a little better lit thanks to the glow of the city coming in through the big sliding glass door to the balcony…which was currently wide open. A dark figure stood silhouetted against the sky.
“There you are,” she said with some relief. She kept walking toward the door and the balcony beyond, though the figure made no move to acknowledge or welcome her. Another thrill of anxiety ran through her.
You can do this. Just this once, you can be brave. She kept walking until her feet hit the concrete.
The air outside was even cooler than the breeze. Jude closed her eyes as she let the oncoming night envelop her, filling her with life. When she opened her eyes again, she was staring out at the city below, and the water just beyond that.
“It’s going to rain again,” said Logan, just to her left. Jude glanced over at her, leaning against the thick metal raining. She looked more disheveled than usual, in a wrinkled button-down shirt and damp pants. She slipped her cell phone into her back pocket.
“It rains a lot here,” said Jude limply.
“Mm. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest.” Logan smiled. “I just got Knatt’s message about your test, by the way. Congratulations. Well done.”
“Thanks,” said Jude, a little sheepishly. As much as she’d wanted to share the news with someone, she still struggled to accept unqualified compliments. “Knatt’s been feeding me way too much all day.”
“Best to just ride the wave. Makes him happy, taking care of people.” She drummed her fingers against the black metal. “Did he send you up here to check on me?”
Mad before I even had a chance.
“Not exactly,” said Jude. Then she shrugged. “Well, okay, yes. But I wanted to come.”
Logan glanced over at her, her expression unreadable.
“All right. Well.” Logan pushed off from the railing. “Should we get a drink? To celebrate, I mean.”
Jude smiled a little to herself. Wasn’t it only an hour ago that she’d felt so oppressively alone, with no one to talk to?
“Sure,” she said tentatively, remembering both the fun she’d had when Logan had taken her to a bar after a job, and the awkwardness of trying to pretend she wasn’t drunk in front of Zilla Ulric. “But, uh, maybe I should pace myself. I’m not sure I know how to, uh, hold my liquor.”
“Mm. A slow pace is a wise pace.”
With that, Logan turned away from the view in front of her and walked back inside. She took a look around her living room, then did some quick rearranging. Using one hand for each, she grabbed the backs of two stuffed chairs and flipped them around so that they faced out toward the balcony. Then she turned to her glass coffee table, which Jude now realized held a silver tray carrying a few glass tumblers, and what appeared to be a pitcher of Knatt’s homemade lemonade. She filled the tumblers with lemonade, considered them, then disappeared into her kitchen. After a moment, she came back with a tall bottle made of blue glass. She brushed it off a little before twisting off the lid.
“Lucky for us, vodka doesn’t go bad,” she said, tipping a little bit into one of the tumblers. “At least, I don’t think it does.”
With that, she handed Jude a tumbler and kept the other for herself, then plopped down in one of the chairs that now faced the balcony. As Jude seated herself in the other chair, she couldn’t help but note that the glass Logan had given herself contained no alcohol.
“I never really pictured you as a lemonade drinker,” said Jude. She took a small sip of her drink to test it out: it tasted like lemonade, with extra bite.
“Are lemonade drinkers a particular type?”
“No, not really. I think I just…I don’t know, I think I just imagined you only drank straight whisky or something.”
At that, Logan smiled.
“Want to know a secret?” she asked, her right eyebrow raised quizzically over her drink.
Jude smiled back. “Of course I do.”
“Alcohol has no effect on me.”
Jude blinked.
“Are you serious?”
“Yep. It’s a demon physiology thing. Whatever kind of demon I am, it’s got the liver of a champion.”
“Wow.” Jude thought back to their night in that bar, when she’d gotten so tipsy after only a few Mojitos. Logan, on the other hand, had actually been drinking straight whisky—and then she’d driven them home without a problem. In retrospect, Jude realized she probably should have been far warier of that, but she supposed it didn’t matter now. “I guess that makes sense. So, you can’t get drunk at all?”
Logan shook her head.
“I said alcohol has no effect on me.”
“Oh.” She paused for a moment, trying to think her way through. Then she gave up. “Okay. I don’t get it.”
Without a word, Logan lifted up her glass in salute and took a drink.
“Lemonade?” asked Jude incredulously.
“Sugar,” said Logan easily. “Can’t process it. Refined sugar, anyway. Unprocessed fruit is fine.”
“So, if you wanted to…you could, like, get drunk off a cake?”
“Can and have.”
“Wow.” Jude tried to imagine what it might be like to try eating a cake, only to slowly become more and more inebriated. It sounded a little bit like being a little kid again. “That’s kinda cool.”
“It’s equal parts convenient and inconvenient,” said Logan noncommittally. She took a drink from her cup. Taking in Logan’s somewhat disheveled appearance all over again, Jude wondered how much sugar she’d already consumed. Logan took another drink, then let out a heavy sigh.
“Everything okay?” asked Jude.
Logan shrugged, but her eyes looked troubled.
“Oh, just…ruminating on my mistakes, that’s all.”
Taken aback, Jude bit down on the inappropriate urge to laugh. She made herself take another sip of lemonade before she spoke, hoping the kick of vodka would help drown the giggles.
“What mistakes?” she asked, at last.
Logan sighed again.
“I could have been more careful. Before, with…Alexei.”
Jude wasn’t totally sure which part Logan meant, so she decided to stay on the vague side.
“Things were pretty crazy that night,” she said. “I mean, I know you’re used to fighting, but life-or-death situations can mess with anyone’s head.”
Staring out at the ever-darkening city ahead of them, Logan made a noise in the back of her throat that Jude couldn’t interpret.
“Todd Phillips would have been a good lead. If he had lived.”
Jude could almost hear the phrasing Logan didn’t use: if I hadn’t killed him. Her eyes looked vacant, as if she were looking at something that Jude couldn’t see.
“He won’t be the only lead,” said Jude carefully, hoping she sounded comforting. “We just have to keep trying.”
“Right.”
Jude said nothing, waiting to see if Logan had more to say. For several minutes, they sat in silence, drinking from their respective glasses. Before them, the final strip of orange shrank closer and closer to the skyline, bending before the oncoming midnight blue. Ominous clouds still streaked across the sky, chased northward by the winds. Despite herself, Jude twisted restlessly in her seat, feeling almost as if she were intruding on a private moment.
I probably am. It’s not like I called beforehand to ask if she wanted to hang out, is it?
Logan sighed again.
“I should have told you the whole truth,” she said quietly. “In the beginning, I mean. I should have told you the truth before I asked you to come with me. But it’s not too late for you, you know.”
Jude could feel a shift in the air.
“Not too late for what?”
Logan took another sip.
“For you to leave, of course.”
Out on the balcony, a cold wind picked up.
Chapter Fourtee
n
Confessor
Though she hadn’t even moved, Jude felt the wind knocked out of her as if she’d been struck by an unseen force. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. If she hadn’t felt the cold slap of air on her face, she might have convinced herself that she was trapped somewhere, destined to suffocate before rescue could be had.
“But—I don’t—I don’t—where would I go?”
Her voice felt small and vulnerable, liable to crack and collapse in on itself at the first sign of trouble.
At long last, Logan looked at her and held her gaze.
“You just passed the GED,” she said with a shrug, glancing back out at the world ahead of them. “You could go to college, if you want.”
Jude’s breath came slowly but steadily. Is she kicking me out? It doesn’t sound like she is, but it also doesn’t not sound like it, either.
“College—college costs money,” she said. “I don’t have the money to cover a sandwich, let alone a degree.”
Logan shook her head.
“You don’t have to worry about the money,” she said softly. “Knatt and I would cover it, no problem.” She gave Jude a sidelong glance. “No conditions. You could go to UW, if that’s what you want. Or you could apply out-of-state, if you want to try somewhere new. I just…I want you to feel like you have options. I don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped here.”
Jude realized that her face had been frozen in the same half-horrified, half-confused expression for several seconds, so she forced herself to blink. She did her best to let Logan’s words sink in, straight through her overlying sense of sudden rejection.
Logan wasn’t kicking her out. She was…offering to send her to college. For free.
Suddenly, the nice clothes hanging in her closet, the new cell phone, and the fancy sound system were all put into extreme perspective.
Against her better judgment, Jude slowly shook her head.
“I appreciate the offer,” the said carefully. “But, Logan…you gotta stop giving me stuff, man.”
Logan took a drink and chuckled.
“The speakers were too much, weren’t they?”
“They were…a lot. I mean, I appreciate it, I really do, but…I already feel like I owe you so much, and…and it’s starting to feel like I’ll never be able to pay it back, you know?”
“The whole thing about gifts is…you don’t have to pay them back.” Logan tossed her a sad smile. “But I take your point. And I’m sorry. Knatt and I…we just wanted you to feel at home. And I guess neither of us has any idea how to do that.”
At that, Jude shook her head.
“But you have made me feel at home,” she said earnestly. “The way you guys talk to me, like you actually want me around…that’s what makes me feel at home. Not the stuff you buy for me.” She took a sip of her own drink and was surprised to find that she was nearing the bottom of her glass already. “I mean, don’t get me wrong…I like the stuff.”
“Good. Wouldn’t want to damage your credibility with the capitalists.”
“Are you saying you’re not a capitalist?”
“Of course not.” Frowning slightly, Logan knocked back the rest of her drink. “I’m a revolutionary.”
Before she could stop herself, Jude let out a giggle. Logan immediately side-eyed her, so Jude rushed her glass back to her lips and pretended to drink.
“I think I’ll start on round two,” she muttered as the ice clinked awkwardly in her nearly empty glass.
“Help yourself,” said Logan casually, her eyebrow relaxing as her gaze returned to the view. The sun had completely disappeared by now, replaced by a million city lights, their reflections doubling back from the surface of the Sound.
Jude stood up and walked a short circle around her chair to the glass coffee table behind them. She wasn’t exactly sure how to measure, so she started with the bottle of vodka, and poured in what she thought was a small amount. As she picked up the glass pitcher to add lemonade, she noticed a piece of lined paper sitting on the tray. One quick glance told her it held a phone number.
Puzzled, she looked back at Logan, swirling the ice in her glass as she gazed out at the city. Her hair looked a little ruffled, almost like she’d taken a nap and failed to run a comb through it afterward.
Phone number. Wrinkled shirt. Messy hair.
“Holy shit, did you get laid?” asked Jude incredulously, still clutching the pitcher of lemonade in her shock.
“Language, Miss Li,” said Logan. She didn’t rise from her chair, or even turn around to give Jude a look. “I’ve got to at least pretend we’re raising you right.”
Jude narrowed her gaze at Logan. She quickly poured some lemonade into her glass, then walked back to her seat and flopped down sideways into it, facing bodily toward Logan.
“That’s not an answer.” She filled her gaze with as much gravitas as she could muster, hoping to compel the truth out of her counterpart.
For a moment, Logan was quiet, contemplating the view before them.
“What gave me away?”
“I knew it!” Jude exclaimed, a hair louder than she’d intended. She pulled her voice back down to a normal decibel. “I totally knew it.” She took a self-contented sip of her drink, savoring the moment of her genius. “You left a phone number on the table.”
“Ah. Indeed, I did.”
Jude nodded expectantly, waiting for Logan to tell her, if not the whole story, then at least something about it. How they met, perhaps.
Instead, Logan nodded absently, more to herself than to Jude, and hopped out of her own chair to get some more lemonade. As she sat back down, Jude huffed in frustration.
“So?”
“So…what?”
“So, are you gonna tell me about it?”
Logan’s eyebrow raised.
“You want…details?”
“Yeah! I mean, not like…sex details. Just like…who was it? Was it just a one-off, or was there…you know, potential?”
“Ah.” Logan took a slow, deliberate drink. Even though she knew it was lemonade, Jude began to think that Logan still looked like she was drinking straight whisky. “I’m not looking for potential right now.”
Jude gave an involuntary shake of her head.
“Huh?”
“I’m not, uh, in a place where I…where I want anything more than…a one-off.”
“You mean…you’re not looking for a relationship.”
“Yes, that. Not looking for one of those.”
“Oh.” Unsure of what else to say, Jude nodded and took another drink. She had had so few friends in high school that she wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to go, but the impression that she’d always gotten, from both television and her peers, was that friends were supposed to talk about their relationships with each other. It hadn’t really occurred to her that she might one day end up in the position of having a friend who wasn’t interested in relationships.
Before she could figure a way around it, Logan took it upon herself to move the conversation forward.
“What about you? Do you still talk to Amy?”
It was an evasive tactic, but it worked. At the sound of Amy’s name, Jude’s heart briefly fluttered…and then collapsed.
“Uh, yeah, well…I think we maybe just broke up, actually. For real, I mean.”
“Oh. You did?”
“Yeah. I mean…maybe not explicitly, but…she didn’t tell me she’d already left for school, and…now she’s not going to visit me at all, and it sounds like she doesn’t want me to visit her either. So…I think we’re pretty much over.”
“Ah. Sorry to hear that. Do you want to talk about it, or…?”
“Uh, I don’t know. I didn’t…I didn’t expect things to last forever, you know? Most high school couples break up when they go to college, don’t they?”
Logan shrugged.
“Wouldn’t know. Never went. But that would make sense. Your lives are…changing and expanding. Maybe going in
different directions.”
“Yeah. We’re going in different directions, all right.” She stared down into her glass. A part of her wanted to hate Amy, but another part of her just wished she could press rewind, and somehow figure out how to keep their last conversation from happening at all. And the rest of her knew that conversation had been inevitable, anyway. “I guess I just thought we’d have a little more time, that’s all.”
Logan nodded sagely.
“Sounds like we need to listen to a breakup album. Got any preferences?”
“Uh…what do you like?”
“It’s not about what I like,” said Logan, shaking her head. “This is for you.”
Jude’s cheeks flushed slightly, but she couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or something else.
“Uh, well…I like…I like Layla Stone.”
Jude braced herself for Logan’s response. Layla Stone was an indie singer-songwriter, mostly popular with young women, particularly queer ones. She figured Logan either wouldn’t know her, or worse, would write her off as silly or girly.
Instead, Logan glanced down at her own glass and smiled, like she was remembering a joke at her own expense.
“Cold as Stone, then,” she said, standing up. Walking over to the wall behind them, she located a small panel, turned it on, and pressed a few keys.
Just like that, the familiar opening notes of Cold as Stone floated through the living room.
Logan came back over and plopped down into her seat, then took her deepest drink yet from her glass. Jude knew that letting her chin hang open like that might be seen as rude, but she couldn’t seem to close it again.
“You know Layla Stone?”
“We have…mutual circles,” said Logan, in a voice that struck Jude as almost cagey.
“Wait…you know Layla Stone? Like you’ve met her?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.” Jude collapsed back into her chair, staring in disbelief. “Wow, wow. Wow.”
Her eyes remained fixed on Logan’s impassive face as she took another drink. She wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or annoyed at Logan’s casual manner as she dropped her personal familiarity with one of Jude’s idols. How could she be so cool and collected at all times, no matter the circumstances?