Total Knock Out / Book Two

Chapter Fifteen: Confrontations

Logan watched as Rori and Zoey played in the front yard, hair flying in the wind as they chased after each other. She was still waiting for a time to talk to her daughter about calling Stanford daddy but the house was still overrun and chaotic and that was a conversation best had in private.

She accepted the mug full of coffee that Charlie held out for her, moving over on the front steps so the other mother could sit down beside her.

"Zoey wants to have a sleepover with Rori. Movies, popcorn, ice cream. You know, all the stuff that's bad for them. I don't mind having it at my house if you're okay with that, Elijah said he would crash on the couch. Zoey gave him puppy dog eyes and he can't tell her no," Charlie laughed, setting her own mug down on the step beside her.

"She's only ever been away from me a few times in her entire life," Logan admitted, taking a sip of her coffee. "My dad took her when I was admitted to the hospital after the attack and my brother took her the few times he got to come home from deployment. But I think it would be good for her to spend time with Zoey. To have a friend."

Charlie reached over and patted her shoulder, the two of them watching their daughters in silence. She didn't ever think that the tightness in her chest when she thought about Rori being away from her would ever go away, but these wonderful people had proven time and time again they could be trusted. Anybody who dropped everything to come check on their friend after such a world shaking day like Stanford had yesterday were good people in her book.

She pulled the flannel that Stanford had tossed her earlier tighter around her body when the breeze kicked up, cool November air trying to work it's way deep inside her bones. New Orleans was unusually cold for this time of year, typically still warm and humid, and she thought it was a perfect representation of her life right now. Everything was a mess and she didn't know how to function with it.

Logan took another sip of her coffee and smiled at Ruby when she sat down on the other side of the steps, the rest of the women trailing out of the house behind her.

"That boy has been one of my babies for the last fifteen years of my life. Whatever you did last night, Elijah wouldn't tell us much, thank you. From the bottom of my heart. You might have just saved him," Ruby whispered, taking one of Logan's hands between her own and squeezing it.

Logan shook her head as Darcy and Lylah settled down around her, their small group taking up most of the porch.

"I yelled at him. He had tears running down his face and I yelled at him like some kind of monster who wanted to throw salt on his wounds. The only good I did was hold him later that night, after Rori had tried to fix him with her bandaids, and listen while he talked. Let him sleep in the same bed as me because I know what it's like to have nightmares so real you wake up screaming and clawing at your own throat, and how badly you just need someone to hold you afterwards."

Darcy and Lylah put a hand on her knees, an identical movement and perfectly timed, before shaking their heads at her. Logan let out a sigh and set her coffee mug down on the step beside her feet.

"I didn't save him. I didn't fix him. He has to do that all on his own, decide that he's worth the space that he's taking up. But I didn't shut him down or push him away and I think that helped a little. I told him that his mother was a monster and I think that helped a lot," Logan confessed, using her free hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

The sound of a terrified scream had her jerking her head up in time to see Zoey yank Rori out of the driveway just as a small, beat up car came flying into it and parking haphazardly halfway on the lawn.

Charlie reaches the girls before she did, her leg still sore and stiff from not doing her stretches as soon as she woke up; making her limp more prominent. She squatted down as best as she could in front of her daughter and checked over her small body for injuries, wiping away the tears that had rolled down her chubby cheeks once she was satisfied that Rori hadn't been hurt. Charlie shook her head when Logan raised an eyebrow at her, and it felt like she could finally draw air into her lungs when she realized neither one of the girls had been injured.