Tea Parties in Boston

1 - Unexpected understanding

September 19th, 2022, Boston

Logan felt like a creep - a pathetic, sneaky, stereotypical creep. He was kind of surprised no one was yet to call the cops on him, considering he was sitting in the parking lot of Emerson College Rotch Field in his XC60, observing a bunch of kids run back and forth the field chasing a soccer ball. They were actually pretty skillful for five- and six-year-olds. He wasn't killing time, finishing up a business call or replying to an urgent e-mail. He wasn't here to pick up his sister's kids either. The intensity of which he was studying the players, however, was definitely a little creepy.

He'd been there for 30 minutes - give or take, and during that time he'd considered just leaving about four times. Yet, there he still sat, some deeper inner need willing him to stay.

For the life of him he tried to make a distinction between the players, the ones in green shirts more specifically, more than two-thirds of the girls on the field having brown hair. The distance was only really an excuse, he wasn't really sure if he'd recognize her in person if he had been closer. Sure, he'd seen photos, but photos and reality were often quite not the same. His chest was swelling up with guilt as minutes ticked by - What right did he have to even come here, now - after all these years?

He was jolted out of his self-reflection by a sudden knock against his windshield.

"Hey! Look who it is! I thought I recognized you," Christopher Hayden, whom Logan hadn't seen since... since Rory's graduation party. Boy, that was a long time ago. So much had happened... - that was the understatement of the decade.

Logan opened the car door, feeling very surprised to get such a welcome greeting.

"Hey, Chris," he replied, and stepped out and shook his hand, getting even a friendly pat against his shoulder. He didn't look like he was about to kill him at least, which was a promising start, though he didn't dare to hope much.

"I just parked and looked over - I almost thought I was seeing things," Christopher replied, gesturing one spot over where he'd parked his by the looks of it - brand new and sleek-looking dark blue Audi A8. "You here to catch the game? You got a kid here or something?" Christopher asked in a carefree tone.

The question and the lightness of his tone suddenly made things very clear to him - he didn't know.

Now Logan only really had a choice between either proving to be the creep really did came here to watch other people's children, lying or coming out and potentially shed light on a years old secret that wasn't his to tell.

But it was his hesitance that answered the question for him, it seemed and he cast a regretful smile at Christopher, who let out an exhale - "Ah..."

"She's not here, you know," Christopher said after several seconds, after clearly having connected a few dots in his brain. "Rory, I mean," he added.

"Oh," Logan replied. That was a good thing, probably.

"You know, I suspected...," Christopher replied, nodding towards the soccer field, the ball net separating them from the field.

"Yeah, well... it wasn't my secret to tell," Logan replied, shrugging his shoulders lightly.

"So she's been keeping you updated?" he asked, making the logical assumption on how he'd known to come here.

"A little, yeah," Logan replied. Rory kept sending him lengthy updates about twice a year, adding pictures and little stories. It was all the contact he had had.

"You know I probably understand better than most people how that's not enough...," Christopher added, helpfully.

For a moment silence lingered, and Logan simply nodded. He didn't feel like going into explaining the whole arrangement and the multitude of reasons for it - it didn't feel like it was his to tell. And it was a long story.

"Which one is she?" Logan asked, narrowing his eyes as he looked at the players again, asking the question that had been most pressing for the entire time he'd been watching, but also the most embarrassing one.

"Number 6, the one with those neon pink leg warmers," Christopher replied.

"You know, I'm not here to overstep or turn her life upside down. I just...," Logan felt he needed to explain. "I just wanted to see her," he said.

"Are you going to contact Rory?" Christopher asked, after briefly glancing down at his phone, opened the photo app, and snapped a picture through the ball net of the game.

"I'm not sure how she'd take it to be honest. I don't want her to worry about my intentions...," Logan said, recalling well how one of the major worries Rory had had when she'd found out she was pregnant was that somehow her baby would be taken away from her.

"If you want - I could talk to her? Or do you just want to go see her face-to-face? She works over at the Barker Center, I'm sure you could catch her there if...," Christopher suggested, surprisingly eagerly.

"Yeah, I know," Logan replied, but remained a little unsure whether or not he should involve him. Of course he'd googled her, both of them. It felt like going behind Rory's back if he chose that route and that was really not what he wanted to do. He'd even considered going at this through lawyers to keep things by the book, after all that was what they'd always done. But right now he mostly just feared Rory would get the wrong idea and panic, these e-mails with photos and stories of this little girl's life having turned into a lifeline for him and he didn't want to risk losing them.

At the next moment the referee blew his whistle and the crowd cheered. Christopher clapped too, adding - "I got to go see her and excuse the nanny."

"I should probably go," Logan said, almost sounding like he was retreating and admitting defeat. It all just seemed too complicated. Too much time had passed. Time was ruthless like that.

"Hey.. come! Meet her - not obviously as..., but just as Logan who is an 'old friend'? Blame me if it comes to it. And even if this is all that it is... you'll at least see her," Christopher replied, making a quick decision.

"Are you sure?" Logan asked.

"Come on," he encouraged.

It actually felt like a relief that someone had taken a part of his decision out of his hands.

Logan hesitantly followed Christopher through the gate and to the bleachers, his body language being very different from how he was usually. He felt ashamed and small, like he didn't deserve to be there, his hands tucked into his pockets.

"Em, hey - you were great!" Christopher crouched down to the brown-haired girl's level to hug her in greeting.

"I didn't even hit a goal today...," the girl complained, sounding disappointed and grumpy.

"Yeah, but how you run with that ball today. Wow! I swear you are getting so fast...," Christopher encouraged her anyway.

"I was faster than Katie, that's for sure," she insisted.

"Damn straight you were," Christopher replied. "Hey, Em? I'd like you to meet someone," he then gestured towards Logan, who'd stood back humbly until now. "Em, this is Logan, he's an old friend of mine and your mom's," Christopher said.

"Hi," Logan waved his hand, hesitantly, unsure what position to really take. He at least tried to think like 'an old friend'.

"Hi," the girl with piercing blue eyes, definitely very similar to the other pair he'd once known so well, replied. "It's very nice to meet you," she added, definitely having some of that Emily-Gilmore charm-school in her, switching for a moment out of the sporty preschooler character into someone different. That shift caused Logan to invoulantarily smile at her, despite still feeling gutted about his weird position there.

And in that moment while Christopher and the woman who seemed to be the girl's nanny, packed up the little girl's things, Logan just stood there observing Em - Emma Lorelai Gilmore - while she paid almost no attention to him. And why would she? - He was just an old friend.

Despite all of the conflicting feelings he was experiencing right now it was that look in her eyes, those eyes, that hair, that porcelain skin and even those neon pink leg warmers that only added to that character that seemed to hold a little of both worlds, both deducting a glimpse of her from what he's seen here and what he knew from Rory's e-mails, his heart was flooded in an instant with a new feeling.

He had to try, didn't he?