(fancy seeing you here. it's been a minute. hope you're ready. also; unedited. severely. please excuse mistakes, i'm super busy but i will fix them very soon. love u all tons! enjoy! -mags)

✧✧✧

MARLEY AND JESS had adopted a cat two weeks after they'd moved in.

He was an orange Tabby with white paws and freckles on his nose. He was unbelievably vocal about everything and liked to wake both of them up by jumping on their beds and making his way up to lay on their heads. He liked to watch Marley make her breakfast before class and could be found sleeping in the sun on the windowsill as Jess wrote on the weekends. He was surprisingly well behaved and had adjusted well to his new surroundings.

Despite his total aversion to the idea and hesitance when Marley brought him home, Jess had warmed up to the cat within the first two weeks (though he would never, ever, admit it). Marley had always suspected it, but it had been confirmed for her when she'd walked home from the paper one day and found him asleep on the couch with a book in his hand and the cat on his stomach.

Jess had even ended up naming the cat. After hours of going back and forth about it (Marley spent at least an hour suggesting the name Cat Stevens to no avail), Jess had found a name that they both seemed to agree on. And thus, Bowie the cat had been adopted into an apartment that was starting to feel more like home every day.

Bowie had become yet another reason that all of their friends decided to hang out at their apartment. Lauren had become Bowie's favorite person on the planet and she had a way of always finding the cat when she was drunk. Marley had found the two in her bathroom playing with a laser pointer at their pregames more than once.

Things, for the most part, were good. Really good, actually. Truncheon was doing well, as the author they signed skyrocketed their sales as they had hoped. The numbers weren't huge, but they were bigger than anything they'd seen since they started the company.

Jess was in the process of plotting a new book, something he'd been working on since they'd moved in. He'd written a rough draft (a rough, rough draft, he'd stressed when Marley had asked to look it over) of the first chapter and while it was something completely different than The Subsect and was not at all what she was expecting from Jess, Marley saw a ton of potential in it.

Marley (despite the amount of stress the Harperch internship, her schoolwork, and the paper put on her) was doing really good too. She worked at Harperch three times a week filing papers, getting coffee, and running errands. Every once and a while she got to talk to her supervisors and pitch some ideas for marketing strategies to them and even though she knew that they probably weren't even listening, it made her feel like she was actually doing something. In typical Marley fashion, she was determined to stand out in a way that wasn't overwhelming, and she was pretty sure she'd done that so far.

Also, nobody at Harperch had figured out she was Gabriel Acosta's daughter, which Marley counted as a win.

It wasn't like she was hiding it, or anything. She just didn't bring it up. She didn't want that to be the first thing that people knew about her and she certainly didn't want people to think that the reason she got this internship was because of her last name. And besides, it wasn't like anybody but her boss actually knew her name thus far. She was just an intern. So, she kept her head down on matters involving Blackwater Publishing and The Huntzberger Company and prayed nobody would give her a second look.

Keeping her head down was what she was actually doing at this moment. Marley was currently in a room with Holly and Danny, two people who worked on the floor she was assigned to, listening to them talk shit about Blackwater. Marley tried her best not to smile as she listened to them, instead focusing intently on the folders she was currently laying out for the meeting that was about to take place.

"They're having another fundraising gala in a couple of weeks," Holly said.

(Marley knew this. She'd been invited last week and Logan hadn't stopped texting her about it.)

Danny scoffed. "God, how many fundraisers do you have to have when you just went into business with the Huntzbergers? Isn't there enough money going around in there?"

"They're not even galas, they're just circlejerks for the one percent. They have one like once a month and only two of them were actually fundraisers. Like, what do they do at the others?" Holly asked.

"Coke in the bathroom?" Danny offered.

(He wasn't completely off. She and Logan had, in fact, made a game in which they had to guess which figureheads of Corporate America were drugged out in their presence.)

Holly snorted at this, thanking Marley as she handed her one of the folders she was passing out. "And that whole family dynamic is such bullshit. It's so see-through. It's just a way to cover-up the fact that Mitchum Huntzberger gave his son a job that another person could have done better."

"Who were they going to give the job to?" he asked.

"I don't know. But it probably wasn't going to be someone who's, like, twenty-two and has no experience."

"What about Gabriel Acosta?" Danny asked. Marley visibly stiffened at this, but the two of them didn't seem to notice. "He's got no family, right? What, is he going to make that secretary he married the CFO?"

Holly shook her head. "Oh, no. He's got an entire family in Connecticut he abandoned before he started Blackwater. They're getting involved now too."

Danny gaped at her. "What? How the hell do you know that?"

"My boyfriend's sister's husband does PR for Blackwater. Apparently, they've been trying to rewrite the narrative about Acosta for years and basically sweep them under the rug," she said. "But I guess Huntzberger was having none of that and didn't want any loose ends, because his kids were invited to that first party they had when they teamed up."

"Did they go?"

"I have no idea. They said they were there, but there aren't any pictures of them or anything like that. So who knows?" Holly shook her head. "Whatever they did, it's working for them. Their sales are skyrocketing and they just bought out a West Coast firm. I just feel bad for the kids. They probably have no idea who their father is or what he's asking them to get into."

Marley's jaw had involuntarily clenched itself, and she only noticed it as she tuned out of their conversation and her attention was drawn to the group of people now entering the room for the meeting. She smiled at everyone who walked past her, waiting until she was able to exit.

She exhaled shakily as she shut the door, but put on a happy face for the people around her. Marley really hoped nobody was paying attention to her enough to actually see past it. She wasn't sure why this was affecting her so much.

Marley knew that the idea of a 'family dynamic' was the reason she and Jacob had been called by her father in the first place. She wasn't an idiot. But the fact that other people could see through it and actually knew about the fact that he'd abandoned them struck a chord in her for a reason she couldn't explain.

She sighed as she reached the small desk in the corner of the room that had been given to her and withheld a groan as she saw the mound of papers that had been placed there. There was no time to think about that kind of stuff. Not here, anyway.

Marley figured that was for the best.

✧

MARLEY'S TWENTY-FIRST birthday arrived a little quicker than she was expecting. Between the schoolwork she had, the article Allison wanted her to edit, and Harperch, she honestly would have forgotten that it was her birthday if Jess hadn't left an apple cinnamon scone and a cup of coffee on the table for her when she left her room that morning. Bowie was sniffing it suspiciously when she saw it and had been batting at the note on it for the last couple of minutes.

Marley smiled at the note, taking it off the bag and putting it on the table. She glanced at the clock on the wall, seeing that she had about forty-five minutes before her first and only class of the day. Bowie followed her as she took the bag and the cup of coffee over to the kitchen and put her cup in the microwave to heat it up.

"I don't even want to know what's planned for tonight," Marley said to Bowie, pulling the corner of the scone off and putting it in her mouth. "I'm a little scared if Jess thinks it's a lot." Bowie meowed at this as if he were agreeing with her, hopping up onto the counter, despite Marley's grimace. "You know that you're not allowed up there, you little asshole."

Bowie didn't seem to pay any mind to this and only turned his head toward the microwave as it beeped. Marley grabbed her coffee quickly, hearing her phone ringing in the other room. She stuffed the bag with her scone in it into her backpack and threw it over her shoulder, grinning as she answered the phone to hear Jacob on the other line.

Marley bid goodbye to Bowie and didn't return back to the apartment until about seven-thirty, where she found all of her friends waiting for her in her living room with balloons and horns. She nearly yelped at the surprise, but soon laughed, moving to hug each of her friends who informed her that a pizza had been ordered an hour ago and still wasn't here, despite the restaurant promising that it would be delivered in about thirty minutes.

The only gifts her friends presented her with were various bottles of alcohol and a cake made by Matthew that resembled the one Hagrid had given to Harry Potter in the first movie, as each of them were struggling financially in their own way, but Marley didn't care. The best thing she happened to receive wasn't even a thing. It was Courtney Burke popping out from her bedroom, holding Bowie in her hands as she tried to force him to wear a miniature birthday hat she'd made.

Marley, of course, lost her mind, and almost began crying at the sight of her, wrapping her best friend into a hug and basically not letting go the entire night.

The night carried on as such, eating pizza and laughing into the hours of the pregame Christopher had planned. It made Marley smile to watch Courtney blend into their friend group almost seamlessly, bonding with Lauren and actually being eerily friendly with Jess. She figured she finally understood how Luke felt when she and Jess finally became friends.

As more friends of their group began to arrive to the party, Courtney pulled Marley into the bathroom before she could play another game of beer pong. Marley stumbled slightly as Courtney pushed her in, drawing her brows together in confusion. "What the hell?"

"First of all," she began, pointing at her in a way that told Marley she was a bit drunk, "who's the tall guy playing flip cup with Lauren and Chris?"

"Who? Brendan?"

"Is that his name? Can you put in a good word? He's cute as shit."

"Uh, he's Matthew's friend, so you can talk to--"

"Second of all, when did Jess start calling you his girl?"

Marley blinked at her, making sure that she heard Courtney right. "He... he what?"

Courtney pointed again, this time to the door. "He just pulled me to the side and thanked me for finding a way to come to see his girl," she said. "I know he's not, like, sober or anything right now, but I wasn't sure if living together had made this a regular thing or--"

"It's definitely not a regular thing," Marley replied. "He's never done that before. He probably just means it as, like, a friendly thing. Y'know, the way we call each other by our last names or whatever. I wouldn't read into it."

Courtney looked like she wanted to argue the point, but was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. "Whatever. You're probably right. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything," she told her. "Especially because he arranged the whole me coming here thing."

Marley couldn't help the look that came over her face. "He did?"

"Yeah. I didn't realize he had my number, but he called me and ended up paying for half of my plane ticket."

Marley didn't have time to reply to that before there was another pound against the door. "You haven't missed anything. He's just being... he's just being Jess. I know you're not used to seeing him look like he has a heart, but he does. And sometimes it's bigger than mine."

"That's impossible."

"He finds a way," Marley said, opening the door to reveal Brooks, one of the boys who lived on Marley and Lauren's floor freshman year. "I'll try to talk to him about it."

Courtney chuckled over the loud music. "Good luck with that," she yelled. "Tell him to stop playing pong too, he's annoyingly good at it. Other people want to play."

Marley smiled softly, biting the inside of her cheek as Courtney went over to join Lauren as another game started up. She could feel her chest tightening up as glanced over at Jess as she watched him grin at Courtney, teasing her about how badly she was going to lose again. She figured this feeling had something to do with the alcohol in her system, but there was something in the back of her mind that told her otherwise.

She barely had time to even consider this before Brooks exited the bathroom and put his hands on Marley's shoulders, bringing her into the kitchen to do another shot with him.

From there, Marley didn't even get to talk to Jess until about two hours later. The group had moved into their bar-hopping section of her party, and by the time they reached their third bar (which conveniently ended up being Tavern where they saw Mike The Bouncer who was less than impressed by Marley's real ID), they'd lost half their group.

Chris and Lauren were trying to pressure Bartender Ben into drinking with them, Courtney was deep into a conversation with Brendan, Matthew had been trying to call his girlfriend for the last half an hour, and Marley had found herself upstairs on the closed-off rooftop bar that was only open in the summers. Months ago, she'd bribed Bartender Ben into showing her how to get up there one night, and Marley had found a way to get up there almost every time she'd visited since then.

Marley was pretty intoxicated, but definitely not a much as she could have been. The chilly October air felt nice on her cheeks, which had turned warm and rosy from the alcohol. It was her telltale sign she was drunk, and all of her friends had found ways to make fun of her for it.

She sighed as she leaned her elbows on the railing that surrounded the bar, listening to the sound of the cars driving by mix with the music from down below. Her mind had been racing for the last couple of minutes, thinking about everything and anything, and she was so far in her own head that she didn't even hear the door open from behind her.

"I thought I'd find you out here." Marley would have jumped at the sound if she didn't automatically realize that it was Jess. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Marley turned to face him. "I'm hiding from Christopher before he tries to make me go shot for shot with him again," she said, smiling as Jess grinned at her. "I'm convinced he doesn't have a liver."

"If he does, I'm pretty sure he killed it a long time ago."

Marley snickered, turning back around to lean on the railing as Jess moved next to her and did the same. "What are you doing up here?" she asked.

"I was looking for you," he said. "You left me alone down there." There was a small pout on his lips that made Marley laugh.

"I didn't leave you alone."

"You did. And I didn't really want to watch Courtney and Matthew's friend make eyes at each other. So I came looking for you."

Marley nodded, biting the inside of her cheek. "It's crazy that she actually came to Philly, huh?"

"I know. She wasn't sure if she was going be able to pull it off."

"She told me you arranged it all?" Marley knew Jess was drunk because instead of looking away when he didn't want to admit something, he broke out into a shy smile. "And you paid for half her ticket?"

Jess waved her off. "Yeah. I talked to her about it a little when I came to Stars Hollow over the summer. I didn't think she was actually going to be able to do it when I called her, but I figured it was worth a shot," he said. "It's not a big deal. It's your birthday. I wanted you to be happy."

Marley looked over at him, smiling softly. Jess met her gaze a moment after. "Well, you pulled it off. I am happy." She nudged his shoulder with hers. "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me."

Marley gave him a look that told him that what he had said was ridiculous, to which he said nothing in return. There was a silence that settled between them, one that Marley knew was only tension-filled for her. She couldn't stop thinking about what Courtney had said to her in the bathroom and the feeling in her chest afterward. She didn't know where this all was suddenly coming from.

"Courtney, uh," Marley began, voice wavering slightly. She nearly swore as she felt herself chicken out almost automatically. "Courtney said she's going to take home Bowie."

Jess snorted. "Let her. He knocked one of your plants off the windowsill today and it shattered completely. Dirt got everywhere."

"You said you moved it so it wouldn't break when people came over," Marley gasped.

"Yeah, well, I've been known to lie."

Marley scowled, but there was still humor in her expression. "I'm gonna fight him."

She heard Jess laugh quietly from beside her. "You're going to fight the cat." His question was posed as a statement and Marley simply nodded.

"I'm gonna fight him," she repeated. "And then I'm going to fight you for lying to me about it."

"Now that's something I'd like to see."

"What? Me fighting Bowie or me fighting you?"

"Both. It'd be nice to see you lose something for once."

Marley gaped at him, stepping back. "You don't think I could take you? I know I'd lose to Bowie because he's, like, got claws and nine lives and I don't have the morality of an asshole who fights cats, but you? I think I've got you."

Jess raised a brow. "Yeah. With a step-stool."

"You think that just because you grew up in New York and have punched a couple of people you'd win?"

"No, I think I'd win because you hate fighting and would never actually follow through with it," he said. Marley narrowed her eyes at him, swaying as she attempted to crouch into a fighting stance. Jess laughed as she held her fists up. "What are you doing?"

"Put 'em up, Mariano. Let's go."

"I am not fighting you on your birthday when you're wasted."

Marley swung lazily in his direction. "You're drunk too. Anything's fair game."

"If anybody saw you right now, you'd look insane. You know that, right?"

She didn't move from her stance. "Wimp."

Marley tried swinging again, laughing to herself as Jess dodged it. He held his hands up as she continued, only responding with an amused look as she attempted to encourage him to fight back. She was about to give up on the effort when she threw her last punch, finding that Jess had actually caught her fist in his hand and had grabbed her other wrist when it came toward him out of instinct.

Marley laughed as she tried to break away, only feeling his grip get tighter. Jess was pushing her hands down despite Marley's efforts to keep them up, and she could feel her arms beginning to give out because of it. This prompted her to attempt to find a way out of this situation, to absolutely no avail.

By the time she'd yelled out 'mercy' between her laughs, she'd found that Jess had maneuvered her into a position where he was still holding her wrists, but her back was up against the railing, and she could feel the cool of the metal against her back.

As their laughter subsided, Marley suddenly became very aware of how close he was to her. His forehead was barely brushing hers and should smell the alcohol on his breath. She knew he heard her breath hitch when he released some of the pressure on her wrists, but didn't let go of them completely.

They sat there for a moment, silent before Marley swallowed harshly. "You win," she whispered.

His response came slowly. "I told you."

"I... I guess Bowie's next."

Jess didn't reply to that, but there was a smirk that came across his lips as he looked at her. It was quiet as their breath blended with the sounds of the city. Marley could feel the heat of his hands around her wrists and the goosebumps that covered her skin, which she'd convinced herself was because of the breeze. Obviously.

Before either of them could say anything, the door to the rooftop bar suddenly slammed opened, revealing a shitfaced Christopher and Lauren. Jess and Marley immediately jumped away from each other, eyes wide as they looked at their friends in the doorway.

"We're going to the next bar!" Lauren shouted. "We've been looking for you two forever! Let's go, birthday girl! We got important shit to do."

Marley nodded, forking a hand through her hair and putting it to the side. She put on the widest smile she could muster up, refusing to look at Jess who stayed behind for a moment as she walked away. She grabbed the hand Lauren was stretching out for her and let out a shuddering breath once she was inside.

Holy shit. She needed to stop drinking.

✧

MARLEY'S NO DRINKING idea didn't even last a week.

She was currently at her father's fundraising gala that she'd overheard Danny and Holly talking about back at Harperch, and she was just about to be three drinks in. Jacob and Emily had disappeared within the last ten minutes, and Marley was standing at a table and staring at her phone in her hands in an attempt to look occupied. She'd texted Logan twenty minutes ago to ask where the hell he was to which she'd received no response.

For the first time in her life, she'd been actually looking forward to one of her father's parties. Things between her and Jess, surprisingly, hadn't been weird at all since that night. Once the two of them woke up the next morning with massive hangovers, it was revealed that not much was remembered from the night before. While Marley did happen to remember most of it, there were some parts of it all that were completely fuzzy, and anything strange that had happened she just simply chalked up to the outrageous amount she'd had to drink. Jess had laughed when he agreed and said the same, and things were back to normal within no time.

Despite this, there was a slight shift in tension between the two of them. Things weren't awkward (it was never awkward between them), but they felt off. And between this, Harperch, and everything else going on in her life, Marley needed a break from everything in Philly. So, New York was a welcome change.

What was not welcome, however, was the guy who had just slid beside Marley and was currently trying to chat her up.

She'd made the mistake of saying hello to him when he'd approached her, and had made an even larger mistake by telling him her majors. As soon as he'd heard that she was a marketing major, his entire face lit up and he began telling her about his new job and the multi-million dollar company that had hired him, specifically for marketing purposes.

"But the guy I'm working with barely even understands how to price our product the correct way and I'm just like, 'buddy, we can't expect our sales to go up tenfold if we're using a penetration strategy, we either have gotta start skimming or we just gotta commit and put it at premium.'" he said, laughing to himself. "He finally came to his senses and realized that I was right, and now we're doing a whole presentation on Monday."

Marley was desperately trying to focus on what he was saying but found that she kept getting distracted by how much he looked like Pee-wee Herman. "That's so interesting. Good for you," she replied, hoping that she'd said something that made sense.

He smiled and Marley realized that she hadn't even bothered to learn his name. God, she felt like a shitty person, but at the same time, she couldn't find it in herself to care. "Do you want to hear a joke he told me the other day?" he asked.

Not at all. "Sure!"

"How did the bad marketer get a job making butter?"

Marley could feel a piece of her die inside. "How?"

Before the guy could say his punchline, he was interrupted by someone who threw an arm over Marley's shoulders. Marley watched as the boy stiffened up, a plastic smile stretching across his face, before turning to look to see that Logan was now standing beside her.

"Zack Wilder, I didn't know you were coming to this thing," Logan said, holding his hand out for him to shake. "How's the new job going?"

"It's going well," he replied. Marley had to refrain from smiling as she noticed how nervous he'd become. "And yeah, I didn't think I was coming, but my father said we got the invite, so here I am."

"Here you are," Logan said. He glanced at Marley, the grin on his face turning a bit more genuine. "You don't mind if I take Marley from you for a sec, do you? Her dad's been looking for her for a while."

Zack shook his head, vigorously. "No, not at all," he said. "It was nice to meet you."

Marley smiled at him, waving as she felt Logan begin to turn her away from him. "Nice to meet you too!" she said. As soon as they were out of earshot, Marley sighed in relief. "Thank you."

"How the hell did you get sucked into a conversation with Wilder?" Logan asked through a laugh.

"I told him I was a marketing major and suffered the consequences."

"You're lucky that I was there to save you."

Marley scoffed, removing his arm from her shoulders as they moved behind a pillar on the outskirts of the large ballroom they were currently in. "You wouldn't have to have saved me if you actually showed up these things on time," she told him.

"I've been here since the beginning, my dad just made me talk to literally everyone here that donated," he said. "You don't know how many times I had to ask people who I don't care about how their kids were doing."

"Poor rich boy having to attempt to look like he has a soul," Marley pouted, snickering as Logan rolled his eyes. "Are you good now? Are there any more rounds to make?"

Logan shook his head. "Nope," he said. "And that's why we're leaving."

Marley looked at him incredulously. "And going where?"

"A bar. Or any place that sells liquor. I need to buy you your first legal drink in New York."

She smiled at this, but then glanced down at the lavender slip dress she was wearing and the suit he was wearing. "I feel like we're a little dressed up for a bar," she said.

"Not where we're going," he replied.

Marley looked at him dubiously, but Logan had already grabbed her hand and was pulling her to the coatroom.

✧

ABOUT A HALF an hour later, after they'd been driven to the bar Logan had in mind, the first words out of Marley's mouth when she and Logan entered were, "I do not belong here."

Logan laughed at this, scrunching his brow. "What? Why not?"

"You mean besides the fact that I look like your escort?" Marley asked, making Logan snort. "Well, I'd say that it's because everyone in this room is wearing Valentino and Gucci and I'm wearing a dress I borrowed from my friend."

"You look great," he told her as they were seated at a table on the edge of the room. "And if you don't feel like you do, just act like you belong here. I bet you sixty percent of the people here are doing that too."

Marley scowled, grabbing one of the drink menus that was on the table. "Yeah, I'll also bet those sixty percent aren't phased by seeing a fifteen hundred dollar drink on the menu," she muttered, squinting at the price in disbelief. "Who the fuck would pay that much for a drink?"

"It's actually quite good."

"Jesus, you find new ways to disappoint me every day."

Logan raised his brows at her. "You want to try it?"

"And pay over a thousand dollars for something I probably won't finish? I'm good with my grocery store wine."

"It's your twenty-first, I'll pay for it."

"Absolutely not. You can buy me a reasonably priced drink and that's final."

Logan laughed at her firm tone, putting his hands up in defense. "Fine. I think I might know one you'll like," he said, turning to a waitress who had just arrived at their table and telling her he'd like two of some strange sounding drink that made Marley glare at him. "What? We're being adventurous tonight, Penn."

"I was adventurous last weekend. A little too much, I'd say," Marley said.

"Ah, the pub crawl. How'd that go?"

"It was actually really fun. I threw up twice that night, but I wasn't as bad as some of my friends."

"And you still don't have a boyfriend, right?" he asked.

Marley bit the inside of her cheek. "Nope."

"That surprises me."

"Yeah, well, unfortunately, I'm not exactly the Bachelorette. I don't have many suitors lined up outside my apartment trying to woo me."

"I could set you up with someone," Logan offered. Marley wasn't sober enough to restrain herself from laughing. "What? I know a couple of nice guys over in Philly."

Marley gave him a hesitant stare. "I'm not sure I'm any of your friends' type."

"What, they don't like a pretty girl who can wreck their self-esteem in less than five words? Because if I weren't spoken for, I'd be all over that."

"First of all, gross. Don't ever say anything like that again."

"Noted."

"Second of all," Marley continued, "I meant that I'm probably not what any of your friends are looking for."

Logan chuckled through his words when he asked, "Okay, and what exactly are they looking for?"

"They're probably looking for a housewife who comes from a drastically different socioeconomic background."

"Oh, they don't care about that," Logan said with a roll of his eyes.

"They wouldn't think of slumming with me as an adventure?" Marley asked.

Logan gave her a look. "Not all of us care about what you come from, you know."

Marley's smile told Logan that she was joking as she asked, "So, you don't think of being my friend as charity work?"

"Is that what we are now?"

"Less than an hour ago you saved me from a terrible conversation about market penetration with Pee-wee Herman. I'd hope that you did that because we're friends."

Logan grinned at her, his smile getting a bit wider as the waitress returned with their drinks and placed them down in front of them. He thanked the woman and told her to keep his tab open. Marley looked at the red-ish color drink in front of his and brought it to her nose to sniff suspiciously.

She received a scolding from Logan to just suck it up and try it, to which Marley replied with a glare. She brought it to her lips and sipped, pleasantly surprised by what was in the glass. She sighed as Logan looked at her expectantly and brought the cup back up to her lips for another drink.

Marley looked around at the bar they were in, the low-lighting only adding to her fear that she didn't belong here. It wasn't that she thought she couldn't fake it. Marley had been faking for a huge part of her life. But as she stared at the expensive liquor lining the bar and the people that filled the room, she could hear some voice in the back of her mind telling her she didn't fit in and never would.

There was a part of her that wondered if her father hadn't abandoned them, would she be used to places and people like this? Would this have been the norm for her? Would she have known people like Logan and those in his inner circle?

"Why don't you write more?" Logan asked suddenly, breaking the quiet that had settled.

Marley blinked at him, snapping out of her own head. "Excuse me?"

"I've read some of your stuff," he said. "You're pretty decent. Might even call you good. Better than some of the talent you have there."

"You read our paper?" Marley asked. Logan's lips curved upwards at her surprise.

"You're a hell of a lot better than that Allison McPhee or whoever the hell writes those bullshit articles about the made-up scandal in your dining hall."

"Her name's Allison McPeterson and you didn't answer my question."

Logan chuckled and took a sip of his drink. "I read your online stuff. I pop in once or twice a month to see if you've written anything."

Marley looked away from him to hide a smile, eyes back on the bar, and the people around them. "Oh, dear God. You do like me."

"Hey, I've gotta keep an eye out for new recruits."

"I think I literally just got a hernia at the idea of working for you."

"Why don't you write more?" he asked again. When Marley shrugged, he leaned one arm on the table and kicked his foot up to rest on his other knee. "I'm sure you're a hell of an editor, but if you wanted to, I think you could be more."

"I don't have time for it," Marley tried, shrugging again. Logan looked at her blankly, not buying anything she was saying at all. "I'm serious. Harperch is literally taking over my life. I've gotten so many paper cuts from filing that I think I could donate blood."

"I feel like I know you well enough for me to know that you'd make time for it if you wanted to. But you don't. Why is that?"

"Because it's not what I want to do."

"But editing is?"

Marley placed her drink on the table after taking a sip. "Why am I being interrogated right now? Where is this coming from?" she asked, a bit of exasperation hidden in her voice. "I joined the paper as a favor to a friend of mine and got sucked in. I don't write because I know there are a ton of people out there who can do the job better than I can, so I don't see the fun in possibly taking that away from them."

"Oh," Logan said. Marley didn't like how unfazed he seemed. It was like he knew her answer was bullshit.  "So, it's a failure thing. Interesting. I didn't think you were scared of anything."

"What are you talking about, it's not— I just told you that I don't want to—"

"Penn, you can write. I know it's easier to fix things than to create them, but I'm pretty sure you're capable of both."

Marley threw her hands up in confusion. "Why are you so concerned about my writing all of a sudden? I'm not Rory, I'm not looking to be a journalist or anything, so I don't see why this is relevant—"

"It's relevant because I hate seeing talent wasted in places that it doesn't have to be," he said. Marley paused at this, finally seeming to calm down a bit. "It pisses me off to see people like that dining hall girl doing two articles a week and not seeing your stuff in there. And now that I know the reason that you don't do it is because you're scared pisses me off even more."

"I never said—"

"I'm not saying that you gotta be George Stephanopoulos, but you should give yourself a little credit. My father's trained me pretty well to know potential when I see it."

Marley didn't have anything to say to that. Instead she just looked at him, huffed a laugh through her nose, and became very focused on her drink, trailing one finger around the rim. She watched Logan lean back in her chair from the corner of her eye, knowing that she was going to say something. It was only a bit scary how well he'd gotten to know her.

Her voice was quiet when she asked, "You think I have potential?"

Logan met her gaze, the beginnings of a smile twisting at his lips. "I do."

"To do what, exactly?"

Logan shrugged. "I don't know. But I do know that if you stopped being so terrified of failing shit and cleaned up your writing a little, you could be better than anyone on that staff."

Marley chuckled, finally becoming as relaxed as he looked. "Cleaned up my writing?" she asked, feigning offense.

"The amount of adverbs you use is out of control," he stated without any hesitation. He laughed out loud as Marley's brows shot up and her eyes widened. "Also, end a sentence every once and a while, alright? Use commas only when you really need them. It won't kill you to use a period."

"My adverb usage is not that bad."

"Bring me a copy of the Pennsylvanian with one of your pieces and I guarantee you that I'll be able to find at least fifteen in a four-hundred-word article."

"Fifteen is an exaggeration—"

"Five of them will be the word slightly."

Marley let herself laugh as she gaped at him. "You really have read my stuff, huh?"

"So you can admit it!" Logan said.

"Slightly is just such a wonderful word. It's eloquent."

Logan snorted. "It's not eloquent when you're using it every other word."

"This roast isn't exactly encouraging me to get cracking on my next piece."

"As if you can't handle the criticism."

Marley tried to hide a smile behind the rim of her glass but failed miserably. She narrowed her eyes after a moment, watching as Logan looked at her in question. "Can I ask you something?"

"Depends what it is."

"How did you know that Allison's dining hall scandal was made up?"

Logan then broke into a smile, one that would have been cocky on anyone else, but found a way to be charming on him. He looked as though he wasn't going to tell her, but then immediately went into a step-by-step breakdown of how everything about the story was too perfect and fit together way too well. No loose ends, a perfect timeline, lack of quotes. All points of which Marley had a counterargument for.

Logan expected this from her, but it only went to prove something he'd been thinking about for a long while. Harperch was really underusing their intern. They had no idea what she was capable of. But he did.

He figured he'd keep that to himself until she graduated.

✧

EXACTLY THREE WEEKS later, Marley was guiding an intoxicated Christopher up the stairs to her apartment with Lauren. She couldn't help but think about how at this time three weeks ago, she was sitting in one of the most expensive bars in New York, brushing elbows with people whose children were worth more than her entire family combined. Now she was praying that her friend didn't throw up on her stairs.

By the time they made it to the apartment, Jess and Matthew were sitting on their couch in the living room, attempting to hide the amusement on their faces as they watched Marley and Lauren. The two girls were having none of it.

"Deal with him," Lauren ordered, leaving the room immediately to find Bowie.

"He's your boyfriend," Matthew shouted to her.

They could hear Lauren laugh from Marley's bedroom. "You guys jerk each other off more than I ever could."

"She's right," Christopher sang, giggling to himself as Matthew rolled his eyes.

Jess glanced at Marley with a hint of a smirk on his lips. "What happened after we left?"

"You left, that's what happened," Marley muttered. "He decided that it was a good time to 'shooters with the girls.' He had two before we decided it was time to call it a night."

"Jess, you know who we saw?" Christopher asked. His eyes were wide and there was a huge smile on his face that read nothing but trouble. "We saw Anna."

Marley gaged Jess's reaction as he turned to Christopher. "She was there? Isn't she doing an internship in New York or something?"

"Apparently it's over. She's back until Christmas break."

Anna was a girl that Lauren had met in one of her classes. She came out with the group one night and was immediately taken with Jess. She wasn't shy about it either. It made Marley want to pull her hair out.

She was a nice enough girl, but she had absolutely nothing in common with Jess. Anna had asked Marley about him nonstop, trying to use some of the information she got from her to try and make those things a part of her personality to connect with him. It was see-through. To Marley, at least.

Jess, oblivious as ever, hadn't seemed to notice any of this. Anna was gorgeous and outgoing and while he most definitely wasn't interested in her, he'd been pressured by Christopher and Matthew to get to know her many times. He hadn't yet.

"She was asking about you," Christopher continued. "I'm going to ask you this one more time. Why, why, why haven't you called her?"

Jess rolled his eyes but failed to hold Christopher's gaze. "She's not my type, man, I told you."

"Who gives a shit if she's your type? She's hot and is super into you."

Matthew took this as an opportunity to pipe in. "And she's normal-ish. She's desperate, but that's not the worst trait to have."

Lauren came back into the room with Bowie trailing at her feet. She sat down on the floor as she asked, "Jesus, are we talking about Anna again?" she asked, smiling softly as Bowie climbed in her lap. "Can you please call her? She was being annoying at the bar."

"You guys are annoying," Jess muttered.

"Dude, Marley even said that you should call her," Lauren said. "This girl never says shit about her."

Jess met Marley's eyes immediately. "She did?"

Marley's mouth fell open slightly before she let out a breath of a laugh. "I mean yeah, but it was more of a joke than anything, I guess."

Jess didn't break their stare. He nodded slowly, not seeming to mind that he was being watched by all of his friends. "Do you think that I should call her?" he asked.

Marley's mouth went dry. Any trace of humor that was on her face was gone, replaced by a fierce blush on her cheeks. She didn't know what to say.

Her mind took her back to the night of her party. The rooftop. The way he smiled when his forehead almost touched hers. The way her heart raced as his fingers wrapped tighter around her wrists, the feeling that his was doing the same.

She could see the corner of Jess's lips move upward as he watched her hesitate. Marley's brows drew back, her expression turning blank. This motherfucker. He knew. He remembered.

Marley didn't know what it was. She didn't know what came over her. She didn't know if it was the rush of anger that came over her as Jess stared her down, she didn't know if it was the weird thing in her chest that she'd been feeling for the last couple of weeks, she didn't know if it was the slight shift between them, she didn't know.

Whatever it was made Marley shrug and smile at him. "Call her. It'd be good for you to get laid, Mariano."

Christopher and Matthew cheered at this, not noticing the way that Jess was looking at Marley. As they yelled at him to get out his phone and call Anna, Marley dropped down next to Lauren to distract herself with Bowie. The cat meowed as she sat down, crawling over into her lap and nuzzling his head on her cheek.

Whatever Marley was feeling also made her reach into her pocket to grab her own phone, fingers on autopilot as she drafted a message to Logan.

you still offering the numbers of your friends at penn?

✧✧✧

author's note: this chapter was a lot. apologies.

it's been so long! i missed u all terribly and apologize for the lack of updates. real life has gotten a little overwhelming and i kind of lost track of wp and this story in general. apologies also for how shitty this was. not my best chapter.

thank u so much for the love you've given this fic. i truly was never expecting it when i started this thing. i adore u guys more than u could ever know.

love u all tons!
-mags