Page 84 of Here We Go Again

Chapter Twenty-Five

LOGAN

The thirty minutes they spend outside the Shed while waiting for their Uber driver are some of the worst moments of Logan’s life.

Rosemary sits on a stump in the parking lot, her head turned away from Logan. And Logan is kicking around gravel with the toes of her Vans like a dejected Dennis the Menace. She can’t believe they got into a fight about having sex and got shamed into leaving barbecue heaven.

She can’t believe she told Rosemary she wants totry. What does that even mean?

Her stomach twists with a feeling she can’t quite place. Dread? Fear? Beef brisket–induced indigestion? The pain only intensifies during the dark drive to Remy’s house.

Remy St. Patin lives in a squat brick house in a neighborhood filled with squat brick houses lit up with harsh streetlamps. The Uber driver pulls up to the house, and the passenger side of the car dips toward the curb. Logan carefully maneuvers herself out of the back seat, and as soon as her feet make it to the ground, her Vans squelch into mud, and her toes get wet through her socks.

“What the fuck is this? A swamp gutter?” she shouts, standingin some kind of irrigation ditch. There are no sidewalks at Remy’s house. It’s just a road, and then swamp. And the swamp is somehow Remy’s front yard?

Mississippi is a wild place.

Rosemary blazes up to the front door where Remy has left them a note and a spare key on a little café table by the door, out in the open for anyone to find. Rosemary reads the note aloud as Logan trudges along with her wet toes.

“?‘Welcome, Rosemary and Logan! Thank you so much for letting me spend some alone time with your Joe tonight. We’ve gone to bed early, but I’ve made up the guest room for you. I wasn’t sure if you ate dinner, so I put some andouille jambalaya leftovers in the fridge for you. Please help yourselves to anything else you might need. My home is now your home. See you in the morning!”

“Is this man some kind of saint?” Logan snaps.

The outside of the house isn’t much to look at, but the inside is as beautiful as his gallery. The walls are bold colors—vermillion and terra cotta and burnt orange—and they’re covered in artwork. Remy has gorgeous built-ins that are actually stuffed with books, not soulless tchotchkes from Pottery Barn. Plush rugs and eclectic furniture that all perfectly complement the space. Odie is curled up on a mustard couch, but he leaps down as soon as he sees Rosemary so he can come assault her with kisses.

They quietly make their way through the small ranch until they find the guest room, and for fuck’s sake: there’s once again only one bed.

There are also sage-green walls and white linens and a surplus of soft-looking pillows. The room smells like calming lavender, and Remy has left a stack of fresh towels on the edge of the bed with two mints on top, like a fancy hotel, and now Logan is crying. Big, embarrassing-ass tears.

Rosemary closes the door with a muted snick. “Logan, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t fucking know!” she blubbers uselessly.

Rosemary is already by her side, helping her sit down on the bed. Then she reaches for a box of tissues on the dresser and hands them to Logan.

“God, are these Puffs with lotion?” she cries into the soft tissue. “Why is this man so damn perfect?”

“A nose in need deserves Puffs indeed,” Rosemary tries awkwardly.

Logan snorts, and snot flies out of her nose. Thank God for the Puffs.

“What is your deal with Remy?”

Logan wants to be able to put it into words, but her brain feels like eight high-speed trains with no brakes all going in different directions. “He just… you didn’t see him, in the gallery, but he… he was so happy to see Joe.”

Rosemary moves uneasily in front of her. “That seems like a positive thing.”

Logan shakes her head. “He wasn’t bitter at all. He harbored no visible resentment toward Joe for leaving. He wasn’t angry or cynical. He was just… open.”

“Which is… bad?”

“Yes it’s bad! Because I could never be like that.”

Rosemary tentatively sits down next to Logan on the bed and she puts a hand on her thigh. It’s such a small gesture of comfort, but it feels enormous inside Logan’s body. And that’s the problem with her ADHD brain. If she lets it feel one thing, it will feel all the things, all the time. It doesn’t do moderation either. Every emotion is always at eleven, which is why it’s easiest not to feel anything at all.

But she already feels so much for Rosemary. She always has.

“I think you could be like that,” Rosemary says quietly, her hand so soft on Logan’s leg.