Page 27 of The Best Worst Thing

Silver Lake

Nicole asked Logan to take her to Silver Lake, and he planned the rest. And then, on Saturday evening at seven o’clock on the dot, he rang her doorbell in a blue-and-white-checked button-down and a nice pair of jeans and his hair, sadly, perfect.

He was also … holding a cactus?

“There was some confusion between me and the florist,” he said. “I told her I wanted something that wasn’t going to die, and then we started talking about xeriscaping, and I didn’t want to be late, and I didn’t want to show up empty-handed, and …”

“I love it,” Nicole said, coaxing Nero back inside, then locking her front door. “It’s very spiky.”

Logan laughed. “You, uh, look amazing, by the way.”

“Thanks,” she said, like it was nothing. Like she hadn’t spent the entire afternoon trying on every last thing she owned before settling on a white eyelet babydoll dress that was all ruffles and shoulders and legs. Especially legs.

Logan looked at her again, then nodded her toward his car.

It was a little awkward, those next ten, fifteen steps.

Was she supposed to kiss him, or wait for him to kiss her?

Were they going to hold hands? Was she allowed to wrap her fingers around his forearm?

Ask him, very nicely, to please throw her against a wall?

They’d spent the whole week texting. She’d spent the whole week waiting. But now that tonight was finally here? She didn’t know what to do. And he didn’t seem so sure either.

Logan opened the car door for her, then walked to the driver’s side and sat himself down.

He fiddled with the radio. He adjusted his rearview mirror.

He fussed with the air-conditioning. And then, when he was done fine-tuning a car he’d definitely owned for years, he turned to Nicole, who was staring at the dashboard in silence.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said.

And then she just looked at him, remembering how it felt to lock her legs around him, to pull him into her, to fall asleep wishing her hands were his—and that was when she realized she was still holding the cactus.

“I’ll, uh … I’ll be right back.”

Logan just sat there, laughing, as Nicole—cracking up too—darted out of the car, placed the little pot on her welcome mat, then hopped back in. That broke the ice.

“You’re so adorable,” he said, leaning over his center console and, finally, kissing her. “It’s ridiculous.”

Nicole shrugged, wiping her lips. “I’m sure you say that to all your cactus girls.”

“I definitely do not,” he said, rubbing little shapes onto her wrist. “And you know it.”

Nicole wrinkled her nose, then ruffled his too-tidy hair a bit, and off they went.

On a date. A real one. It wasn’t the quickest drive, because every chance he got, Logan grabbed Nicole by the neck and kissed her, but eventually, they did make it onto the freeway.

By the time the 405 had become the 105, Logan’s free hand had settled a few inches above Nicole’s knee and the evening was melting into one of those perfect summer nights.

Clouds stretched like cotton, and the sky went on forever—orange and pink and blue.

They talked about window seats and watering instructions for Nicole’s new plant and whether corn was a vegetable, and then, when some obscure Dave Matthews song came on, Nicole twisted toward Logan a little more and narrowed her eyes.

“What the hell are we listening to? Is this, like, your sex playlist?”

“My understanding is that anything can be a sex playlist, if you try hard enough.”

Nicole snickered while Logan, mouth quirking, squeezed her leg.

She twisted her fingers into his, and then, for the next half hour, they whirled through a hundred different worlds.

LA was like that—sprawling, full of hamlets.

Each mile, something new. And with every passing exit sign, downtown grew bigger and bolder.

Freeways fused, and through the haze, thick stacks of concrete and steel gripped the road—skyscrapers so close, you could reach out and touch them.

And then, like magic, the city was in the rearview.

The 101 had melted into the mountains, and they were in the hills.

Evening had turned to dusk, soft and purple, and tall and skinny palm trees formed a skyline of their own: sparse, willowy silhouettes that dotted the sweet, smoggy evening at random.

Coffee bars, record stores, and gas-stations-turned-taco-shops flanked the clogged, winding curves of Sunset Boulevard.

“You ever been here?” Logan said, parking the car on a side street where houses piled onto the hill like mismatched blocks.

“Never,” Nicole said as he opened her door. Streetlights were stapled with flyers for midnight shows, slam poetry readings, five-hundred-dollar rewards for rescue dogs that’d gone missing while hiking Griffith Park with their foster families.

“What do you think?”

“I think,” she said, looping her arms around his neck, then tugging him back toward the car, “that we’re not cool enough to be here. And that we should probably turn around.”

He laughed, kissing her for a minute, then twirling her back to his side. “You know I am one hundred percent taking you to dinner, right? That we’re going to do this one thing in order?”

“Yeah,” Nicole said. “I’ve kinda figured that out by now.”

Logan chuckled, and then off they went, holding hands, stopping from time to time to make out like idiots, until they’d reached a cute little French place where the tablecloths were checked, the walls were brick, and the art was crooked, charming, and warm.

They opted to sit outside—the night, balmy and long—and from the awning, twinkle lights and greenery and copper pots and pans hung like stars.

Everyone was chatting, drinking, in no rush at all, and Nicole just sat at their tiny table, twisting around a flickering tea candle, taking it all in.

Logan locked her bare legs between his knees.

“God, are you pretty.”

“Very original.”

“I mean it,” he said, topping off her glass of wine—some red the waiter had recommended. “I told my mom you were the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

Nicole flung a piece of bread at him. “You told your mom that? When? After you wrote down some deranged sexual fantasy of yours on a receipt for, like, Froot Loops and let me dry hump you in my driveway? At nine thirty a.m. on a Tuesday?”

Logan’s eyes lit up as his hand found her knee underneath the table. “A bit before that, actually.”

Nicole’s stomach fluttered. She took a long sip of her wine. He didn’t take his eyes off her.

“I always thought you were cute too,” she said. “I mean, for a total moron.”

This went on for a while. The teasing. The touching.

The passing back and forth of a plate of very buttery, thyme-roasted carrots.

They talked about their childhood pets and their prom dates and how, in Saint Louis, children are legitimately required to tell terrible jokes in exchange for a fistful of Halloween candy.

And then, after Nicole begrudgingly performed a half-dozen poltergeist-laden puns for a very-amused, hand-halfway-up-her-leg Logan, he tilted his head and exhaled.

“I’m sorry, Nicole, about everything that’s happened to you. I really am. But these past few weeks … I hope you’re having as much fun as I am.”

“Yeah.” She put her hand on his, helping him up another inch. “This has been really fun.”

He looked at her. Nicole looked right back.

And then, their waiter—some actor who could not read the room—stumbled over to refill their half-full water carafe.

They thanked him, and then he and Logan accidentally discussed rapidly changing bicycle culture in California for five minutes.

By the time they’d finished up that fascinating conversation, dinner had arrived.

“You’re too nice,” Nicole said, swiping a fry from his plate. “You know that, right?”

“What can I say? I’m a man of the people.”

“I feel like it’s more of a you-don’t-ever-shut-the-fuck-up situation.”

“Well,” he said, “it worked on you, didn’t it?”

Nicole scoffed, and then they laughed and ate and talked some more. The night aged. The patio buzzed. People came, people went. They barely noticed. They just kept on talking. Their gazes, fixed. Their legs, locked. Their bodies, bait.

“Do you still love your job?” Nicole said, scraping her foot around his calf.

“I love what I do, sure. But I don’t know if I love my job anymore.”

“Doesn’t it feel good, though? Doing something big? Having somewhere to be besides here?”

“Not lately,” he said. His fingers, still climbing, and firm against her goose-bumped skin. She pulled her chair in and narrowed her eyes.

“What’d you write on that sheet of paper, Logan?”

“We’re talking about my career, Nicole. How rude of you.”

“It’s butt stuff, isn’t it?”

He bumped her knee under the table. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“Sorry!” Nicole said, giggling. “I’m done now—I’m serious. Please explain to me how the captain of the Michigan debate team ended up anywhere but the state attorney’s office.”

And so Logan, after a little more knee knocking, told her everything.

She’d known bits and pieces, but now she got the entire story, start to finish.

How Quentin was the creative director at the agency where Logan worked in Boston right out of college, when he realized he had no desire to do what everyone else around him was doing: going to law school.

How he stuck around Massachusetts for a few years until he found a cool opportunity in San Diego, and then another one back in Seattle, and then for a little while, New York, until one day the phone rang and it was Quentin, asking if he’d like to head up New Business at an agency he was starting in Los Angeles.

“And then,” Logan said, “nine years went by. They just kind of flew, you know?”

Nicole nodded, taking a sip of her wine. “And you’ve never thought about leaving?”