(Untitled)

[kitchen_maid]

Amy's smile, as she comes into the bar this evening, is radiant, but it's not directed at the bar in general. It is, instead, focused on the very small person in her arms

Comments

[obligatoryass]

Logan stops and stares.

It's a new person! A new, very small person, one he can't wait to meet.

"Hey, Amy," he says, walking over. "Who's your new friend here?"

[kitchen_maid]

Amy looks up from the baby to Logan, smile still very bright.

"Hello, Logan. This is Merriman. Merry."

The baby in her arms blinks at him.

[obligatoryass]

"Hi there," Logan says, smiling at the blinking baby. "Amy, he's - he's seriously, ridiculously cute."

[kitchen_maid]

Merry smiles back.

"He is, isn't he? He has Perry's hair."

[obligatoryass]

"Lucky boy," Logan says, grinning. "How've you been?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Good," says Amy. "Some things are still a little . . . hard, but mostly, I'm wonderful. And busy, with Merry and Susan and scheduling all sorts of things for the fall and for Christmas and so forth.

"How are you?"

[obligatoryass]

"That's a lot all at once," he notes. "How's Susan taking the new arrival.

Logan shrugs. "Pretty good," he says. "It's still summer in Neptune, so I'm just hanging out, mostly, surfing and stuff."

[kitchen_maid]

"Mostly well," says Amy. "She occasionally doesn't like having to share, but a great deal of the time she ignores him all together.

"That sounds like a restful sort of summer."

[obligatoryass]

"Probably for the best," Logan says. "He's probably not very interesting to her yet."

He nods. "It really has been. I'm feeling more OK about going back to school in the fall, and it's just been nice not to have to pay much attention to other people's schedules."

[kitchen_maid]

Merry blinks at Logan again, and burbles.

"'OK' is good, isn't it?" Amy asks.

[obligatoryass]

"Yeah," he says, making a face at Merry. "It's good."

He sounds almost...surprised. As if he's not supposed to be happy about school, but rather should be dreading it the way he had since he was a kid.

[kitchen_maid]

Merry considers the face with an oddly grave expression, then looks back up at Amy.

"Were you not expecting it to be good?" Amy asks, having caught the almost surprise.

[obligatoryass]

"I just...I never figured I was really college material," he says. "I mean, I sort of figured I'd try, because it's expected, but I didn't think I'd last the first year. And get to go back."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy frowns slightly.

"Whyever not?" she asks.

[obligatoryass]

"I never liked school. Classes, homework, whatever, it was all just boring. But college is kinda interesting."

Again with the surprise.

"I'm not stuck taking the same classes as everyone else. If I don't want to take math, I don't have to. There's stuff I have to take, right, but even in each sort of field, I get to pick from a couple of things. It's a lot less annoying."

[kitchen_maid]

"And chances are no one will make you study the harp or embroidery," Amy adds.

Silver linings you didn't even now you had.

"And how is your friend Parker?"