My family loves Logan.
I think Logan loves my family, too.
I could barely even get a word in over dinner as they all talked and laughed and joked with her, and she answered everyone politely and made jokes right on back with them.
Dad and Sadie undertook their equivalent of a parent inquisition, asking Logan, by way of many humorous stories and anecdotes, about her family, interests and goals in life, some of which I already knew, and others which I didn't.
I learned that her mother is a police officer, which I'm sure made me and Sadie both cringe internally considering we weren't the biggest fan of cops—me because there was a long time when they hated me, had cautioned enough times and arrested me once for being a ratty dickhead; and Sadie because the police never did anything to help her when her drunk stepfather was beating up her mother or abusing her and her siblings every other day. Logan's mother apparently hoped that she would follow in her footsteps, but she (thankfully) had other plans, and they clashed about it often, especially now she was only a few weeks away from finishing high school and needing to decide what she was going to do next.
Logan's father, who it seemed she much preferred over her mother, was gone three out of four weeks of the month, hauling cargo between mine sites across the Nullabor and back. I could tell she missed him a lot when he was gone, and that it would have been a real help to her to have him around more to get her mum off her back considering he actually loved and respected her talent in photography, as well as her desire to work professionally with his sister-in-law.
Kendall had apparently bought Logan and Byron their own cameras for Christmas when they were ten, but Logan had taken to it a lot more than Byron ever did, the old Nikon barely leaving her hands for years afterwards until she could afford to buy her own upgrade. She helped shoot her first wedding when she was sixteen and Kendall needed an extra set of hands when her business partner fell sick the night beforehand. It was the first wedding she had ever been to herself, and she fell in love with the idea of working with her aunt and 'capturing the raw beauty of people falling in love and committing themselves to each other forever.'
Sadie's heart imploded a little at hearing that answer from Logan, and mine might not have been far off either. I always knew she had a tender heart underneath all her complicated layers of angry, and I already looked forward to the day when she would say things like this about me.
The way Logan talked about taking photos was the same way that Sadie talked about counselling kids, and that Dad talked about building houses, and that they both talked about their love for each other and their children, and that I talked about my love and admiration of them.
Logan showed us some of her work when we all begged to see them, and she scrolled through a file on her phone with a few photos she'd taken—couples smiling and crying as they said their wedding vows, people celebrating and dancing and having the time of their lives; landscapes and random things she'd loved the look of when she jumped in the truck with her dad once on school holidays and travelled with him across Australia while he worked; candids she'd snapped while riding the bus or train, and from when she would just go into the city and sit on a bench for a few hours just watching the world go by; portraits she'd taken of Madden and Darcie from Byron's party. Madden especially liked those ones, placing an order for a printed copy of his favourite and running to his money box upstairs to grab out a twenty dollar note to pay her for it, which she refused to take from him.
"But you're a professional, Logan. You charge everyone else, so I have to pay, too. It's only fair," Madden had said, trying to stuff the cash into her tote bag.
"We're friends, Madd," Logan replied with a gentle smile, and Madden stopped forcing the cash on her and just relished in Logan referring to him as a friend, and not just as my little brother, which so many other people have done in the past. He's his own little person and he likes to be treated that way, so this move by Logan has pulled at the tender heartstrings he inherited from his mother, I'm sure of it. "And besides, you were my muse that night and it was priceless to have seen my cousin having so much fun."
"But I thought I was your muse that night, Loges," I teased her, remembering back to the night of Byron's party, and to us sitting outside and talking for the first time without fear for my testicles' safety. The night everything started shifting with us. "I distinctly remember you describing me as not pretty, nor handsome, but something else entirely."
Everyone around the table laughed, and Madden piped in with his own recollections. "That's true. I was the handsome one. 'The most handsome of all Foster men.' Isn't that right, Logan?"
"Kid, you are getting a big head in your old age," said Dad, pulling him over to sit on his lap. "And besides, we both know I have that title in the bag," he chuckled, leaning in to snuggle into Madden's face with his week-long grizzle. Sadie, in all her raging hormones lately, made the mistake of mauling Dad one morning before work and telling him she liked kissing him best when he was scruffy, so he's been rocking a solid lazy man beard ever since. It does suit him, but it also means I need to sidestep their making out a little more often than usual.
"You're both dreaming. We all know I'm the most handsome of this bunch," said Sadie, winking at me playfully. "Isn't that right, Loges?"
"Absolute babe," Logan smiled at me, not Sadie, as she said it, reaching for my hand under the table and squeezing it in hers while Sadie chuckled at us both.
We returned to Logan's photos, more so I could have a distraction from the feeling of Logan's lingering hand in mine and the subsequent thoughts I was having about how her touch would feel elsewhere. It was an easy distraction too, because Logan was so talented and her passion so clearly evident that it just made me sad that her mother didn't want her to pursue something she was so clearly in love with. Even someone with no knowledge of art or photography who looked at these photos could see that she was good at what she did.
I almost didn't believe her when she said she intended on going to university to study photography next year, figuring it was pointless because she is already the best photographer I've ever known. She tried to explain all the flaws in her work and what she still needed to learn about, but I understood none of it and wouldn't back down from my belief she was the best there was; and she wouldn't stop rolling her eyes at me, or caressing my hand underneath the table, which she had just placed on her bare thigh.
I was rock hard for half an hour after she made that little move conspicuously under the table, and the blood kept creeping back to my dick every time I felt her shift slightly in her chair and was reminded exactly where my hand was. I was so grateful I'd pushed my own chair all the way in otherwise I never would have heard the end of it from everyone seated around the table besides Madden, who would have been mortified.
He was the one to ask her about her tattoos, one of which was currently hidden underneath my palm on her leg. It was a line drawing of her first camera from Kendall surrounded by peony flowers, which were her favourite. She also had a drawing by one of her favourite artists on her arm—four women with different plants for heads, each representing the four Fyre women: Logan, her mother, Kendall and Darcie. There was also a small semi-trailer, detailed with an Australian desert scene in the trailer on her other thigh, a stack of books on her forearm, a polaroid with a simple line drawing of both her and Byron's faces on the inside of her arm, and a Sherrin football behind her ear representing her uncle Carson.
It seemed like a lot, and I guess it kind of was, but each one was no bigger than ten-by-ten centimetres, except for the camera and the semi-trailer on her thighs, which were slightly bigger. The artist who did them was just really good at doing very detailed but minimalist tattoos, which was handy because anything bigger probably would have looked ridiculous on Logan's slim body.
My favourite, however—and clearly Sadie's, too—was the Persuasion quote she had written across her collarbone, which read half agony, half hope. It was the one I'd seen at Byron's party but wasn't daring enough to get close enough to read with my own eyes. She showed the table that one, at Sadie's desperate request, pulling down the collar of her tight, olive coloured t-shirt slightly to do so.
The second my eyes saw the angular shape of her neck and collarbone and the faded black ink under her skin there, my dick decided to return to its rock hard stance under the table, and I felt like a jerk for not getting up to help Sadie and Dad clear the dishes because I didn't want to risk everyone seeing the outcome of me simply looking at Logan's neck and it making me aroused.
It also created a lot of problems once dinner was over and Logan and I moved to sit out in the backyard because now every time I looked at her, all I could imagine was her pulling it back down again and me running my tongue along her queenly collarbone, neck, jaw, lips and just everywhere in general. My stupid dick just wouldn't get the message to not constantly and selfishly steal all the blood from the rest of my body, and my poor, bloodless brain was left to work at bare minimum capacity trying to remain focussed on our conversation.
Logan eventually went home once it got late, telling me that she wouldn't be able to see me for a couple weeks as she really did need to focus on studying for her final exams. And the thawing of Frozen Logan was complete when she admitted that she came over today to get some time with me because she intended on implementing a self-imposed Jet ban during her exams, restricting her contact with me so as keep focussed on studying. Apparently, I am too much of a negative—albeit enjoyable—influence on the cognitive functioning of her brain, which creates problems when the culminating grade of thirteen years of schooling is dependent on your ability to recall a lot of information under stressful, exam conditions. She even found the courage to add in that she would have missed me too much if she didn't see me today and absorb enough Jet to carry her through the stress of the next couple weeks. I think it might have actually physically pained her to admit that, but fuck it if I wasn't happy as hell gloating about having finally broken through her icy exterior.
Even if she hadn't pre-planned not to see me for a few weeks while she focussed on studying, I'm sure she would have stayed away deliberately just to spite me for referring to her as my Ice Queen when I said goodbye at her car and rubbed it in her face that she had finally admitted that she liked me enough to miss me.
"Enjoy your cold shower tonight, asshole," she said, smirking at my crotch knowingly as she backed her car away from the curb.
Oh, I plan to, my beautiful, melting Ice Queen. I plan to.