Chasing The Rogue - Chapter Four
Chapter Four: Date Night And The Morning After
Logan didn’t seem to recognize that Marie was the President’s daughter. She assumed he wasn’t overly familiar with the ‘Who’s Who’ section in the society pages of the Washington Post, and apparently he didn’t read the tabloids either.
She’d intended to part ways with him when they got closer to their destination, but had accidentally slipped and said the American Embassy when he’d asked her where they were heading. She quickly covered the mistake and told him that she worked there as a housemaid. He appeared to buy the explanation and she inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Her father’s warning about opportunists looking to sell stories to the gossip sites was ringing in her ears - and she didn’t want to give him any excuse to increase the security around her even more. If she wanted to keep her real identity a secret from Logan, she’d have to be a lot more careful.
Even though she wasn’t particularly well versed with Prague, she would’ve recognized the area immediately surrounding the Embassy - and after walking for an hour nothing looked familiar. Another half an hour passed and it seemed as if they were going in circles instead of making any progress. They’d never found anywhere to buy her more comfortable shoes, so Logan was still carrying her. He claimed he had no idea where the Embassy was located, but by this point it was obvious that they’d walked in the wrong direction. They were now hopelessly lost.
However, they did come across a park that was filled with people watching an outdoor screening of Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
“Isn’t her character basically a hooker?” Logan noted as they found a small space in the crowd and sat down on the grass.
“What if I’ve never seen this film? You should’ve said ‘spoiler alert’,” Marie joked as she gave him a playful punch on the arm.
Someone passed them a little bag of popcorn and any further conversation about the plot being ruined was quickly forgotten. By the point in the movie when Holly Golightly was planning on marrying Rusty Trawler, Logan had fallen asleep. Marie woke him up in time for him to catch the end with Holly, Paul and Cat.
Apparently, it was Audrey Hepburn evening at the outdoors amphitheatre because the next film to start playing was Roman Holiday. This time it was Marie who fell asleep during the show. Except Logan chose not to wake her. Instead he covered her with his leather jacket, then lay down and went to sleep next to her.
The next morning she was still asleep while Logan was on his cell phone - speaking in a hushed tone. He abruptly ended the call when he noticed her beginning to stir.
“Morning,” he said casually as he slipped his phone into his jeans pocket.
“Morning,” she mumbled sleepily as she sat up and stretched. Looking around, she saw that a few other movie buffs had chosen to stay in the park and spend the night under the stars.
“Who were you talking to just now?” she asked curiously - wondering if he had someone that he should’ve gone home to last night.
“Just a friend,” he replied somewhat cryptically.
As it was apparent that he wasn’t going to volunteer any information about his mystery phone call, she decided to press for more details. “Is she cute?”
“He,” Logan clarified. “And some people might think so, but I’m not one of them,” he added with a smirk.
“Well, that’s good to know,” she replied with coy smile. Good - he was straight. That answered that particular question. Although she did wonder why he hadn’t at least attempted to cop a feel during either movie.
“Do you need to call someone?” he asked as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it out to her.
Glancing around she saw a café a few hundred yards away and a payphone by the entrance. Not wanting her father to know whom she was with, she told Logan that she’d prefer to use the public phone.
“Okay, it’s your quarter,” he said with a shrug and put the phone back into his pocket.
They walked over to the café and while Logan was inside buying them some coffee and pastries, Marie called the Embassy.
“I’m fine, daddy,” she told her father - who didn’t sound nearly as frantic as she’d been anticipating.
However, when he insisted that she reveal her location so he could send Scott and Jean to collect her, that’s when she informed him that she wasn’t returning to the Embassy.
“Marie, stop this childishness - right now,” Erik demanded - finally starting to get noticeably annoyed.
“I’ll be fine - and I’ll see you and mom in a few days,” she said and then abruptly hung up.
Next she called Kitty and informed her friend that she planned to go to the Love Parade in Berlin. She then gave her a list of things she wanted thrown into a duffel bag. Kitty asked her if she wanted her cell phone back - Marie having given it to her when she jumped onto Logan’s bike the previous night.
“No,” Marie told her, “It’s got a GPS in it - and I don’t want my father or the Secret Service to be able to track me.”
They arranged to meet at the Praha Hlavni Nadrazi train station in an hour.
“Well, I’m not getting my bike back anytime soon,” Logan informed her as she joined him at the café.
“Why not?”
“The registration has expired and there’s a 1,000 Euro fine … which I don’t have,” he explained.
Marie could’ve easily covered the fine with her credit card, but she didn’t want to have to explain why she had access to that kind of money - plus she didn’t want to leave an electronic paper trail that her father could use to locate her. As far as Logan knew she was just a poor college student spending the summer working in Europe who had the next few days off. So instead she just rummaged around in her purse and produced a reasonable amount of Euros and asked if he wanted to join her pilgrimage to the Love Parade.
“Sure,” he replied casually. So that answered her lingering question about his current relationship status - nobody was waiting at home for him.
An hour later they met Kitty outside the train station. Luckily she caught on quickly when Marie introduced her as another housemaid at the Embassy and played along.
When Logan excused himself to go and get a newspaper, the girls headed into the ladies’ room so that Marie could clean up and change into more casual clothes. Kitty used the opportunity to express her opinion about the situation.
“Okay, that man is smoking hot,” she started to say - and Marie could already hear the ‘but’ coming. “But, are you crazy? He could be a serial killer.”
“He didn’t strangle me in my sleep last night, so I think I’ll be alright,” Marie replied confidently. It was true - she knew nothing about her traveling companion, but instinctively she felt that he could be trusted.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Kitty said as they walked toward the newsstand by the main entrance. “Call me every day.”
“I will. I promise,” Marie replied and hugged her friend. “I’ll see you in a few days in Berlin.”
“Guard her with your life,” Kitty instructed Logan as she climbed back onto her scooter.
“I don’t need a bodyguard,” Marie threw out as she furrowed her brow and glared at her friend.
Kitty realized that she probably shouldn’t say any more, so she just mumbled, “Sorry.” Then waved and drove off.
“I don’t need a bodyguard,” Marie repeated to Logan.
“How about we just watch out for each other?” he offered as a compromise.
“Okay, that works,” she replied - satisfied that the subject wasn’t going to be debated any further.
“But I gotta warn you,” he told her with a smile, “I tend to get into trouble rather easily.”
“Shocker,” she answered playfully - returning the smile.
They headed into the train station. Her European adventure was about to start - and thankfully, without a Secret Service agent anywhere in sight.