What Happens In Hamburg

Chapter 1

Rory's plane had been delayed, making her skip a decent breakfast, only managing to grab a cup of vending machine coffee from the lobby of the conference hall, which already smelled horrible, but yet it was coffee. Desperate times, she thought. And if she was going to make it through a long day of plenary speakers at the annual Investigative Journalism Conference, caffeine, in any form, was what she required to survive. Normally the event would've been right up her alley, though her own writing varied these days rather from columns to features, usually not quite definable as investigative. Yet, her colleague had broken her ankle just prior to the event and she was sent in to replace her last minute. She was certainly not the one to turn down an opportunity to see the world. Somehow, Hamburg never had been on one of her bucket-lists, however, all she had heard, made it an interesting enough destination to spruce up her day to day. It was not that she had any better ideas for that particular September week. When she usually would visit one of this type of events she would go in well prepared, with the programme underlined and commented prior to the event. This time, however, she hadn't had the time, and she'd noted only a couple of presentations her boss had asked her to make summaries on. Those she had already marked down on her calendar.

She had barely settled at her seat, attempting to sip at the watery cup of coffee, when a familiar name caught her attention.

"And may I present to you out this morning's plenary speaker - Logan Huntzberger, representing the Huntzberger Publishing Group," the long-legged blonde hosting the event said.

"Well I'll be damned," Rory muttered to herself. The last she'd seen of him was at her graduation after she'd turned him down, and he'd told her he wanted all or nothing, but she hadn't been ready. It had left her devastated. The situation had been so abrupt, so raw, like her heart being torn right out of her chest unexpectedly. One day they had been fine and a few days later they'd been broken up. Thankfully, Rory had been swept up by the Obama election campaign tour which at the very least had aided her enough to take her mind off him, helping her heal.

To her surprise it was perhaps just a minute into his presentation, which she was almost unable to pay any attention to, when his eyes met hers, recognizing the familiar face, yet trying to keep the talk going. From that moment it was as if he spoke only to her in the room, as if scared if he looked away she would slip away. Each word that fell out of his mouth sounded so familiar, she'd heard them all before, even if not in the same combination, oozing confidence and making jokes to lighten the audience's mood along with his signature smirk. As his presentation ended, a loud applause followed and he returned to his seat at the front row, still glancing over to her. There were still three presentations to go according to the schedule along with a plenary discussion. Those felt like the longest two hours of her life, and she could see Logan sum up his answers neater and shorter than he probably could've at the discussion part. It was as if he too had already other things on his mind.

Another applause followed, and the crowd began to stir moving towards the exits where lunch was being served. Logan was held up near the stage by further questions, apparently he had been the main attraction in this session. She almost cursed herself for not paying better attention, for the life of her she couldn't recall what his presentation had actually been about. She looked over the programme just to make sure she knew the title, if anybody asked - "Journalistic challenges of 21st century", she read - of course, could the title be any more vague?

"Ace?" the same familiar voice appeared behind her.

"Hi," she replied, getting a mixed reaction to actually seeing him in front of her. It was as if she wanted to cry and laugh simultaneously, instead she threw her arms around him for a strong friendly hug to hide the emotions going through her mind. Oh that smell of his, still the same.