Al-Anon

The nine-year old tried not to laugh but couldn't help himself. Logan stood up, saw Monica smiling then asked where he should take the pizza.

"I'll show you," Jacob said as he headed for the kitchen.

"Nicely done, sir," Monica said quietly to Logan. "He's not exactly ready for me to...."

"Have someone over who isn't female?" Logan suggested after momentarily considering saying 'dating'.

"Um...yes. That about sums it up. But he laughed, and that's a good sign."

Monica got out three plates. Logan let Jacob take as much as his mother would let him at one time, which was two slices. Logan also took two in solidarity, and Monica took one. Hers came from the smaller box with mushroom and black olives while the carnivores went for the meat.

They had a very pleasant conversation that involved Jacob who slowly warmed up to Logan's presence. It helped that Logan was interested in most of the things Jacob liked. Spiderman was one of them, and he asked if they could watch a Spiderman movie after they ate.

"Oh, I don't think Logan would...."

He looked at Monica and nodded ever so slightly."

"Would mind that," she said, a look of gratitude in her eyes.

"Can we watch Spiderman 3? Please?"

Monica had sat through all of them but still didn't know one from the other. She only knew that her son loved watching them. Okay, she knew the name of Peter Parker, but that was about it.

"Hey, that's where Spiderman battles Otto Octavius, right?" Logan asked, causing Jacob to become animated as he ran down the entire movie in about a minute.

When the finished with the pizza, Jacob told Logan they didn't have the movie on streaming.

"We have DVDs a DVD player," he explained as though Logan might want to know why they still used technology from the Dark Ages.

"That's fine. I grew up on DVDs."

"Really? You didn't have streaming?"

As he asked that his mom thought about VCR tapes and Blockbuster and the real old days but didn't say anything.

"Jacob? Why don't you get the movie started," his mom suggested to spare Logan the questions.

She was more than a little surprised when Jacob said he didn't want to sit in the middle of the couch. His mom was already on one end, and she was sure her son would want to be next to her or...keep Logan from sitting there. So when she patted the seat cushion next to her, he told her he would be able to see better if he sat on the other end.

"Oh. Okay," she said as Logan looked at her and then Jacob.

"Go ahead, Logan. You can sit in the middle," Jacob told him as though he was in charge.

"Well, if that's okay with your mom."

"She won't mind, will you Mom?"

"No. I won't mind. I'm just...a little surprised."

Logan sat down next to her with Emma on his lap. He saw Monica looking and laughed.

"Oh, okay. Now it makes sense," as he handed his daughter off to the woman who couldn't wait to hold her.

"Jacob and I are a team," she quietly replied. "And a pretty good one, I'd say."

There was a look and a moment between them as the opening music began to play. It only lasted a second or so, but it was unmistakable. Neither of them said much during the movie, but Monica did go get some soft blankets to lay Emma on beside them when she fell asleep in her arms.

Jacob did all the talking as he explained what was going on during nearly every scene. His mom kept looking at Logan to see if he was annoyed, but in every case Logan would say something like, "Oh, okay," or "ah, I get it now," which made Jacob feel important. That wasn't lost in his mother who truly appreciated the way Logan was trying to include her son as much as possible.

When the movie ended, Monica told him it was time to get ready for bed, and got an, "Ah! Do I have to? I want to show Logan my train set!"

It was about the only thing Jacob had that was his father's. He inherited it after his dad's passing, and although he didn't play with it very often, it was his sole physical connection to the man who'd brought him into the world.

"Tell you what. You brush your teeth and get ready, and if Logan wants to see it....."

"Are you kidding? I love trains!" he said to her while looking at Jacob.

The boy went skipping off to the bathroom after saying, "Yes!" to Logan's comment.

"Feel free to just take a quick look, and he'll be fine," Monica told him.

Logan did take a look, but he ended up playing with the train set for nearly half an hour. How could he stop just when the town was about to run out of diesel fuel? He had to stop the train, uncouple some cars and add in a fuel tanker to save the day!

Monica was sitting on the bed behind them, so neither of them saw her tear up when Logan did that. She knew why she shouldn't like this younger man, but she did. And now that she'd seen him interact with her son, she gave up trying to hold on to their age difference as a reason to exclude from the dating pool.

"Dating pool," she thought to herself. "How clinical can I make this?"

Jacob not only went right to bed when his mom asked him the next time, he was happier than she'd seen in several years, well before his father passed away. That warmed her heart and nearly made her cry, but she held it together.

Alone on the couch, Monica asked Logan what it was he needed to talk about.

"Face to face."

"You don't waste any time, do you?" Logan teased as his hands got clammy.

"At my age, I can't afford to," she said with a laugh, embracing the elephant in the room.

"That's what I wanted to talk about," Logan said, the smile gone after he laughed with her.

"About my age?" she teased again, unable to avoid smiling.

"Monica? I know we haven't known each other very long, and we haven't spent much time together, but I...I can't shake this feeling that fate or...destiny or...something...brought us together."

"Could it just be random chance?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe. But what are the odds that two people with such similar stories and who can talk to one another so easily would end up meeting by chance alone?"

"I'm not sure, either, Logan. But whatever the reason, I'm very glad we found each other."

He realized what that meant and took hope.

"So am I, and if it isn't obvious, what I'm saying is...I really like you, Monica."

She looked at him for several seconds and no longer saw a younger man. She saw a loving, devoted father and a man who'd lost the most important person in his life to something he couldn't control. He was hard working and conscientious, and while she'd always thought of him as good looking, he now seemed like the most handsome man she'd ever known, and she was praying he would kiss her.

"I like you, too, Logan. Very much."

He smiled then said, "Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. And now I'm wondering when you're finally going to kiss me."

He stopped her beautiful smile when he pressed his lips against hers. A short, soft kiss that began a romance that would last for the rest of their lives. A second kiss stirred passions in both of them and when their tongues touched, they knew they had to stop then and there or there would be no stopping.

"I should probably go," Logan said after forcing himself to pull away.

"Right. It's getting late, anyway," Monica said even though it was only a little after ten.

"And Emma needs to get home, so...."

Monica helped him get her up and the blankets on the couch before walking him to the door.

"I wanted you to stay so bad it hurt," she admitted.

"And I did not want to leave, but I don't want to ruin this by doing...that...too early. I meant it when I said I really like you, and if this is real...."

"That will happen," said, finishing his sentence.

"Well, goodnight."

"Goodnight, Logan. And Emma."

She kissed the sleeping girl's red cheek then kissed the younger man she was falling in love with and told him to sleep tight.

"You, too. I'll text you."

"Okay. Night," she said as she let them out.

Monica couldn't believe that she didn't have a single mixed feeling. Perhaps it was having talked with Amanda. Maybe it was the way Logan and Jacob got along. But by the time he left, she no longer cared how old he was. She only cared that she knew she had feelings for him, and nothing else mattered.

Within two weeks from pizza night, the new, unlikely couple met Nathan and then Amanda. Perhaps it was the reason behind their meeting that made their siblings so okay with their relationship, but whatever the reason, they both liked the other person from the moment they met, and when they finally met each other, both Nathan and Amanda liked each other, too.

There was a bit more concern on the part of the parents, but because their child had gone through something so horrible, and mostly because it was obvious they loved the new person in their life, the minor resistance quickly went away or was kept so well hidden that it wasn't an issue.

*****

Logan proposed on Monica's 40th birthday after a romantic dinner that included their children. Jacob was all smiles when his mother said, "YES!" to Logan's proposal as the now-26 year old man had become his new best friend who played with him and took him fishing and camping. He even got to hold Emma while his dad-to-be popped the question, something they'd planned together ahead of time.

Monica held up the sparkly ring and said, "Looks like I'll be Monica Chandler."

Logan laughed and said, "Right. A combination of Monica Geller and Chandler Bing."

When Jacob said, "Huh?" he had a confused look on his face that made the adults laugh.

"It's from a show that was way before your time," his mom explained before looking at her fiancé with a different look that caused her say, "Oops?"

"I've seen 'Friends'," he told her with feigned annoyance and a smile.

The diamond ring in place on her hand, Monica was holding the little girl she would soon adopt as her own. She was now two and beginning to talk. Her vocabulary was still small but growing every day.

Logan's eyes got misty when Monica said to Emma, "Can you say, "Mom-ma?"

She repeated it and then got a reply of, "Ma-ma!" several times in a row.

Monica not only teared up, she cried tears of joy as she held the little girl and said, "My sweet precious baby."

Everyone laughed when Emma said, "Bay-bee. Bay-bee," Logan leaned over and said, "I love you so much."

Monica blinked several times then told him she loved him, too. She was getting a handle on her emotions when Emma looked at her and again said, "Mam-ma!"

Logan was sitting next to Jacob and had his arm around his son-to-be.

"You wanna go golfing on Saturday?"

"Um...yeah!" the now 10-year old said.

They'd played putt-putt several times together and Logan had taken him golfing once, and he loved it. He loved it so much that he kept playing every opportunity that he could. He had a huge amount of natural talent, and with the help of a coach, he made the high school team his freshman year. By the time he graduated, he earned a college scholarship to play golf to Stanford University which had the #1 ranked golf team in the US.

Logan and Monica talked about having a third child, but in the end, they were content to have a boy and a girl they both dearly loved. They had each other, and that alone was more than they could have imagined when their late spouses died from the addictions they couldn't control. Having two wonderful children on top of that was truly 'icing on the cake' and all they ever needed.