“You’re looking well, have you finally settled down?” she asks him, assuming his apparent health to be caused by a woman.
Buddy rolls his eyes. “Women are the bane of my life,” he tells her.
“Speaking of…how is that little problem of yours?” Logan asks him, trying not to laugh.
“Please tell me that you do not have
another
infection, Buddy,” Mary-Gene scolds.
“No, Ma’am. Clean as a whistle,” he says proudly.
“Uh, could someone explain the baby…” I pipe up.
“This is Noah. My son,” Buddy explains, while Logan looks at me in surprise, evidently having thought that I already knew that.
“You have a son?” I exclaim. I study the toddler; he’s got a thick head of dark hair, plump, squeezable cheeks, an adorable toothy smile, and a stylish green outfit on.
“But…but he’s so cute, how can he be yours?” I tease Buddy and make everyone else laugh. “Who’s his mom? Is she in the industry, do I know her?” I berate him with questions before a sudden notion occurs to me. “Oh my god! Is he Amélie’s?”
This time Buddy laughs. “Not in a million fucking years. You won’t know his mom. Three years ago I referred to her as the girl in the red dress,” he tells me.
“Charming, dear,” Mary-Gene looks reproving.
“Now I call her Olivia. She’s a dancer.”
“Of the exotic kind?” I assume.
“Do I strike you as that kind of man?” Buddy asks me.
“Yes,” I say immediately. “You cruise for hookups during your lunch break,” I remind him, while everyone chuckles again.
“Oh, you’re good,” Mary-Gene beams at me. “A straight talker; I like that.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to dash your assumptions of me, Gem. Olivia works with the Paris Opera Ballet,” he informs me.
Jeez
, they’re the oldest ballet company in the world! She must be good, I note.
“Speaking of dancing,” Buddy continues, “tomorrow night I will be your chaperone to the Moulin Rouge,” he says to his pseudo-parents. “That is to say I will be escorting you there, but I cannot confirm that I will be leaving with you, if you know what I mean,” he winks at Rupert. “Now, there was something else that I had to tell you guys,” he thinks for a moment. “Oh, yes!” His face lights up in mischief. “I’ve been waiting to tell you that I caught Logan and Gemima having sex on that sofa,” he points to the offending sofa, “so stay well clear.”
I choke on air; I
actually
choke on thin air.
Buddy
,
you shit
! “That is
not—
” I splutter.
Buddy starts silently laughing, he’s gotten exactly what he wanted: me, flustered. I give him a prepare-to-die look which results in him laughing even more.
“Not true,” Logan finishes for me, looking cool, calm and collected.
“
So
not true!” I impress.
“Don’t worry,” Rupert says to me, “we take everything that he says with a grain of salt. Especially after he told us that he was going to marry this one’s mother,” he says, taking ahold of Noah’s hand and going all coochey-coo.
“I’ve never seen Buddy so pale as when he told me he was going to be a father,” Logan reminisces with a laugh. “He asked me to come over and he just sat on the couch, speechless,” he tells me. “He didn’t say a thing except,
I
’
ve just come back from the doctor
. I thought he was fucking dying!”
“I also thought a part of me would die,” Buddy says dramatically. “I thought my love-life was over, but it turns out that Noah is the best wingman I could have ever asked for. The amount of numbers that he’s gotten me is staggering.”
“You do know it’s not a competition, don’t you, Bud?” Rupert asks him.
“He’s a quintessential man-whore,” Mary-Gene tells her husband, giving Buddy a new nickname.
And with that comment, we seem to naturally separate, Logan and I finishing up dinner, while the others wander outside, catching up.
As I stand at the stove, I can feel Logan’s gaze on me. I know those pale-green eyes of his are adoring me, and sure enough, when I turn to look at him, he’s wearing a broad, dimple-inducing smile. He looks so sexy, so alluring, so in love. The sight of him distracts me completely.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I grin at him. “Otherwise I’ll drag you into your dressing room for a repeat of what we did before your parents arrived,” I threaten.
Logan raises his eyebrows at me. “That’s hardly an incentive for me to stop looking at you like this.”
True, I think. I stare at him, feeling fully affected by his strong presence, and a part of me wants very much to enact my threat. I shake my head at my own lustful thoughts.
No
,
Gem
,
not while his parents are here
. Logan continues to gaze at me.
“What’s got you so ecstatic?” I ask him.
“You, Gemima. Everything about you — the terrace; my parents love you, like I knew they would; the way you are with Buddy. Everything about you has got me ecstatic.”
“You flatter me, Mr. Leary,” I smile.
“Good, baby. Maybe later I can
flatten
you. On the bed,” he laughs, and my eyes grow wide at his pun.
“That sounds like something
I
would say!”
“You must be rubbing off on me,” he says, before we both laugh.
I say the obvious. “Maybe later, I will.”
* * *
The next hour passes in a flurry of food, good conversation, and lots of laughter.
When it’s time for cake, we migrate inside.
Buddy puts Noah to sleep on the sofa in the man’s den, where he won’t be woken by us talking. In the living room, whether consciously or not, I can’t help noticing that Buddy and Logan’s parents choose
not
to sit on the sex-sofa, leaving it free for Logan and I to snuggle up on, while the cake and a third bottle of wine sits on the coffee table in the centre of us all. Neither Logan nor I elected to tell Buddy that the chair he sat in over dinner outside was the one we had our fun in earlier this evening.
Serves him right
, I think cheekily.
I’m feeling wholly relaxed and relieved with how smoothly things have gone tonight. I come to the conclusion that, despite Buddy’s efforts to verbally trip me up, it’s impossible to feel uncomfortable around Rupert and Mary-Gene. They’re so open and accepting, so chatty and engaging, that every moment is filled with words, and each passing minute I learn more about Logan’s family and his life before me.
As we devour the cake, his parents move onto my favourite topic yet: Logan’s childhood.
“Tell me everything,” I request, merrily, washing a bite of cake down with the last gulp of my third glass. Or is it my fourth glass? “The more embarrassing, the better,” I add, teasing Logan.
“He was afraid of the dark until he was ten,” Rupert recalls.
“He had an imaginary friend ’til he was six,” Buddy offers up.
“Both true,” Logan confirms.
“I had an imaginary friend, too,” I smile at him. “She was called Fiona. What was yours called?”
“Magic Mike,” Buddy tells me hastily.
I look from him back to Logan. “
Seriously
?” I ask.
Reluctantly, and trying hard not to laugh, Logan nods.
“Uh…as in the stripper movie?” I check.
“Yes,” Mary-Gene says, adding, “Oh, that film was
most
enjoyable.”
I laugh heartily at this revelation, while simultaneously thinking that Mary-Gene and Amber would get along like a house on fire.
“You can imagine the amount of teasing that happened when the film came out,” Logan laughs.
“He’s always been a keen swimmer,” his mom then tells me. “Everyday in summer he would wade out into the ocean and swim until his front was pink from exertion and his back was pink from sunburn. And he always did like architecture,” she smiles. “Even during his wayward years.”
I smile, finding it entertaining that that period of Logan’s life now has a title. It sounds like a name of a book —
Logan Leary
:
the wayward years
.
Mary-Gene continues, “I remember hauling your ass out of the oldest police precinct in Charleston and when I asked you if you had anything to say for yourself, your eyes glazed over and you told me:
that is an attractive building,
” she says to Logan.
Logan laughs again, “I remember that night.”
“Do you remember the tantrum that you had when we got you home? I learnt the word cunt that night,” Mary-Gene says casually.
“
Mom
!” Logan scolds.
Buddy and I are lost in a fit of hysterics.
“Your children teach you so much,” his mother says, reminiscently.
“That they do,” Rupert agrees, and they both look at Logan so affectionately that I have to stop myself from calling out how cute this moment is.
“You had a good childhood, I think. Until you turned thirteen, anyway,” Rupert says.
“Those five unhappy years won’t ever detract from the thirteen brilliant years that proceeded them,” Logan tells his parents. “I lost my way for a little while, but you two helped me to get it back.”
“I can’t believe that you’re thirty-five,” Mary-Gene blurts out. “There was a time when we weren’t sure that you’d make it to your eighteenth birthday. And look at you now: beautiful woman,” she indicates me, “beautiful home, and a friendship that has lasted longer than a lot of marriages do,” she smiles, referring to Logan and Buddy. “And this weekend we get to attend an event all about how marvellous you are, darlin’. I couldn’t be prouder.” She looks at her husband, “Our baby…thirty-five, Roo.”
“I know,” Rupert sighs, and I grin at Mary-Gene’s nickname for him. “Seems like yesterday that you arrived into this world, full head of jet black hair…”
Black
? “Really?” I ask, my hand automatically going to Logan’s blonde locks.
His parents both nod at me, but Buddy steals my attention by saying, “Uh, Gemima, I don’t know what he’s told you, but Logan’s not a natural blonde. He dyes his hair.”
Logan picks up a cushion and hurls it at him.
“You lie, Buddy Jackson,” I accuse.
“
You
tell us, then…does his carpet match his curtains?” Buddy grins, enjoying the red flush that comes across my face.
“I’m not answering that,” I say in a small voice, avoiding the gaze of Logan’s parents, though I can hear Rupert educating Mary-Gene as to the meaning of Buddy’s words.
“Oh!” she exclaims in understanding, before smiling at Buddy, and saying, “My carpet has never matched my curtains.”
Buddy slams his fist on the sofa as he bursts into laughter. I stifle a laugh, very much enjoying the look on Logan’s face. He’s staring at his parents with a look of contempt. I revel in how fast the tone of our conversation changed. From sweet and endearing to pubic hair in under a minute. Again I think that Amber would feel right at home with my present company.
“TMI, mom!” Logan tells her.
“That’s something I’ve always found endearing about you, dear,” Rupert responds to his wife’s comment.
Logan quickly buries his face in his hands, and while the rest of us laugh, he mutters, “Oh my god!”
“You should be pleased that your mother and I are still sexually adventurous, Logan,” Rupert says to his son, and Logan’s head darts up to look at his father incredulously, as though he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. His eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. He is mortified, much to my amusement. My body is silently shaking next to his as laughter rolls through me.
“
Exactly
,” Mary-Gene exclaims. “It’s inspiring. And if your stamina is anything like your father’s, then I don’t mind telling you that you’ll be in for a very happy life together,” she tells us both.
“No! No!
No
!” Logan says loudly, trying to stop their words from perforating his mind.
Buddy and I are in tears.
I admit, I never expected to know Logan’s parents so intimately, but their unabashed sharing makes me like them even more. They start giggling between themselves, pleased to have fulfilled their parental duty of embarrassing their child.
“I thought I was in danger of over-sharing,” I whisper to Logan in between giggle-hiccups. “When you told me that they weren’t shy, I never expected this.”
“I never expected this either,” he says exasperatedly, and I laugh even more. “I’d forgotten how overly candid they can be when there’s wine involved. Enough with the embarrassment, OK?” Logan pleads desperately with his parents.
“OK, kid. It’s only night one, we’ll have plenty of other chances to make you blush before our week is through,” his dad taunts him playfully.
Part of me revels in the thought of more fun and revelations, while another part of me doubts that there’s anything left to reveal. After all, what’s more private than pubic hair and sex lives?
* * *
It’s past midnight by the time that Logan and I are alone in his apartment once more. We retreat to the bedroom, where I stand at the large window, looking down at the street below to watch his parents walk back to their hotel. Logan stands behind me, watching too, and once we’ve seen them enter the building he pulls me away from the window.
“Shades…” he says, causing them to spring to life, enclosing us. “Did you have a good night?” he asks me.
“I had an amazing night, Logan,” I tell him sincerely. Logan loved his present, his parents loved me, and I managed not to embarrass myself. It couldn’t have gone better, I think gratefully.
I undress slowly, letting everything fall to the ground where I stand rather than putting it away, and though I had fully intended to fool around with my delectable boyfriend, as soon as I’m naked and under the covers I groan for an entirely different reason. My god, this bed is comfortable; and I’m so fucking tired. It’s been a brilliant day, but a long one.
We both lie on our sides, facing each other, as the sweet release of sleep beckons us.
“Technically, it’s your birthday,” I say sleepily.
He grins at me, and I cannot resist inching closer to him and pressing my lips against his. A sweet, sensual, and sleepy birthday kiss. His hand rests on my ribs and then slowly moves downwards, caressing my bare skin.