Twenty
“What mansion are we in again?” Logan asked. It was an honest question. Callie had already dragged him to half the mansions in Newport, and he had started to lose track of time and place. The view in each house was more or less the same, nothing but a bunch of dated interiors preserved in some kind of weird homage to a time that had long since passed, a time when titans of industry competed with each other by building bigger houses. The Rockefellers and Vanderbilts building seaside temples to their own wealth instead of trying to start nonprofits and pass laws. Whatever house they were in was particularly impressive, Logan admitted to himself. His footsteps echoed against the stone floor and walls of the hallway, and he felt a cool draft rising up one of the dozen stairwells that led to all the roped off sections of the mansion. Houses this large had their own climate. Regardless of time of year, they always had that same chill in the air.
It would have been one thing to actually explore the house, to wander from room to room, just him and Callie. Maybe alone they could have had a feel for what these houses had truly been like, but on their tour they could barely see anything past the throngs of tourists ahead of them. At least at the end of the line there was no one to push them forward.
Logan had been back from DC for two days. Since his return, he hadn’t heard a word from Jack. He hadn’t gotten the expected angry call from his father about minding his own business. Either way, he had given it a shot, and, honestly, he held a hope that the process stalled a little while longer. He could have bought himself more time by letting the bill stall out, but eventually Callie would have to leave. He knew the day would come when she got called back to DC, and he’d rather help her move forward than hold her back for his own selfish reasons.
“The Breakers. This is the second to last one on our itinerary, and the last one is really just for lunch. We started at Marble House. Then we went to Rosecliff, and now we’re here.” Callie cleared her throat. “Are you even listening? You’re the one who said it would be nice to give me the authentic Newport experience.”
“I didn’t expect the authentic experience to involve quite so much walking, waiting or stairs,” Logan said.
“Oh come on, after all we’ve done, what’s a few stairs?” Callie joked.
“You know, we have a mansion of our own to sneak around. We wouldn’t have to wait around or join a group. We could just go. I could even find some way to make the whole thing even more memorable than last time. We won’t even need the rain storm.” Logan didn’t want to tell her that he had been dragged to these houses again and again when he was younger or that his father was a large donor to the Preservation Society of Newport County, which owned the mansion they were walking through. Logan probably could have arranged a private tour of The Breakers if Callie had asked, but he didn’t want to seem like he was showing off, and he was enjoying how much she seemed to enjoy being a tourist.
Callie blushed at the mention of their first time together. “I think we’d be better off keeping ourselves in public. I wouldn’t want to have another lapse of judgment like that again.”
“If you call that a lapse in judgment, I’d hate to know what you call the rest of our time together,” Logan joked.
“Temporary insanity?” Callie said.
“Eh, if the shoe fits.” Logan said. He laughed and added, “I take exception to the temporary part, though. I guess it doesn’t matter. If we weren’t already crazy, this slow-moving tour might just do the trick.” He looked around to see if there was some way to duck away from the tour and strike out on their own.
“Hey, you’re not exactly one to judge,” Callie said. “If you were left to your own devices, I don’t think we’d ever leave bed.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Logan replied.
“You really have a one track mind, don’t you?” Callie teased. “If I weren’t here, you’d probably be trying to pick up one of these tourists.”
“Good to know we’re on the same page,” he said. The rest of the tour had started moving again. All he had to do was wait for a moment and he and Callie would be alone. He scanned the area around him to look for a good place to duck away with her for a moment.
***
“There’s only one tourist here I’m interested in, and I’m looking at her,” Logan said.
“Hey, I’m here on business, remember?” Callie said. Sometimes she felt like Logan had an invisible switch and that the tiniest thing could throw it from fun to impossible without her even noticing. She looked around. Was he really going to try this?