Offside: Post 20

Chapter 25: You Can’t Have it Both Ways

 Please note that posts may be a bit slapdash and a bit irregular through the month of March. My sincere apologies!

Also, hey, it's my 100th post! Neatokeen!

Chapter twenty-five opens post-coitus with Billie and Logan settling in to snuggle and talk. Logan asks what Billie’s news is and when she says she’s made a decision about her future plans, he asks if it’s to be his sex slave. There’s flirting after she says no, but eventually Billie explains she’s going to open her own hockey school. She’s going to pay to get ice installed at the town’s old rink, which is expensive, but “you don’t even want to know how much parents are willing to pay to have someone with my experienced teach their kids everything I know about hockey” (415).

Yes…. Except no. First, I’m surprised that a town as small as New Waterford is described as being just happens to have an abandoned rink sitting around. (That it was just left sit and a new one built with two sheets of ice instead of being added on to.) But okay, sure.  Second, yes, I think a former Olympian would be an excellent person to teach hockey… except given the climate in the town right now about Billie—where people are vandalizing her car and couples are fighting so badly with each other that they aren’t sleeping together, and where people laughed instead of bidding even a few bucks on Billie’s offer to, well, coach hockey during a charity event—it seems like an enormous gamble.

I mean, the auctioneer even said that the coaching would be a great opportunity for people’s kids or grandkids, and everyone laughed and made slut shaming jokes. What makes Billie willing to gamble her savings on those very same people being willing to bring their children to her hockey school? The only way that this makes sense is that the book is starting to wind up (we actually have 100 ebook pages left, but we’re 415 in, to give you some idea).

Don’t get me wrong—Billie has to win over the town.  The set-up of the book practically dictates that. But the only movement we’ve had toward that so far is a) Shane and Logan’s conversation about how stupid the town is being b) the girls’ team coach admitting he was wrong and c) Billie apparently having a good time with the her teammates at the bar when Logan got back to town. That doesn’t seem like enough to risk one’s entire financial security on as Billie is evidently doing.

Logan disagrees and thinks that Billie is amazing.

He also decides that this is the time to tell Billie that he wants to go public and about Betty. Of course, it takes a while for him to quite work up the words, so she thinks he’s breaking up with her. It’s as frustrating a conversation as it sounds.

Billie apparently no longer has any of the concerns she had a few weeks ago when she asked Logan to stay quiet about their relationship. Instead she just coyly asks, “Are you asking me to go steady, Mr. Forest?” (419) and acquiesces immediately. He has to tell her to wait (for more sex) because he needs to tell her about Betty, too.

“I slept with your sister.”

Shit. He went there (421).

She buys time by asking which one and he explains that it was a long time ago and he’d been drunk, and blah blah blah.

Pain crumpled around her heart and she was surprised at how much it still hurt that he didn’t know. After all this time (423).

Really, Billie? I mean, I know we haven’t really gotten into the fact that it seems highly incredibly super-dooper unlikely that Logan, even drunk, could have sex with one sister, identical or not, and not, y’know, notice the deception. But I’ll handwave that for the sake of fiction, I guess. But I don’t know that you can have it both ways—that these sisters look that similar, even in dress and mannerisms, that Logan couldn’t tell at the time AND that he’s supposed to have magically known because Billie has a vagina of magic sexy fun times of Twoo Wuv.

Also, again, she’s upset that he couldn’t magically tell it was her, not that she did something horrifically wrong. And perpetuates that first wrongness by, in fact, not coming clean here. She admits internally that she needs to confess and now is the time to do it, but instead she just says “okay,” in response to Logan’s confession and then demands more sex.

No, Billie. No that’s not actually okay.

Offside: Post 17

Chapter 22: Sisterly Love

This chapter begins with the dreaded words “Billie, can we talk?” (362) but the text doesn’t reveal who’s requesting that for another full page. I tend to equate that phrase with relationship issues and assumed it was Logan asking, but no, it was Bobbi.

But first we’re treated to a description of Billie doing laundry (specifically attempting to get the blood out of her “protective chest gear—gear that had pretty much failed the week before” (362). I wouldn’t say it so much failed as didn’t do a job it was never meant to do in the first place. Weaponized hockey, after all, is beyond the usual specifications of ordinary hockey gear.

However, Bobbi wants to clear the air with her sister and they are back to being loving and sweet in record time. Seriously, it takes maybe five lines and a hug.

The next order of business is to cover the tragedy that is their father’s decline into dementia. This takes roughly 2 minutes as Bobbi points out that Billie needs to get herself prepared for the fact that their father is going to need to move to an assisted care facility of some kind.

Then, with whiplash speed, Bobbi changes the subject to ask what’s going on between Billie and Logan. This seems like something of an inappropriate conversational change to me. Billie at first denies that anything is happening between them, but Bobbi says she’s aware that Billie has been sneaking out every night and since she asked Shane (who denied involvement) she assumes it must be Logan. This convenient logic is enough for Billie to admit the situation but she fears that if her sister found out, then others might know.

If anyone found out she was sleeping with Logan, her already shady reputation would be mud. It would be worse than mud. It would be heading into the crud that was beneath the mud kind of territory (370).

This I don’t get. The whole town already thinks she’s sleeping with the whole team. Why would it matter if it turned out that really is dating one person? I suppose it could be seen that she’s only sleeping with the team captain so that she can be on the team, but a) the text does not bring that up and b) it’s been shown multiple times that she’s the best player on the team, so it’s not like she’s gotten a spot on the roster that she doesn’t deserve (other than, according to many, her lack of penis making her undeserving.)

Then Bobbi really makes for sisterly affection by telling Billie that Logan is out of her league. She quickly back pedals and says she only meant that Logan dates around and “he’s thirty and nowhere near close to settling down” (373) whereas Billie isn’t a player.

I was under the impression that one reason to date people is to find out if you’re compatible with them and want to spend more time with them (maybe even “settle down”), so Billie’s response that “Maybe he hasn’t met the right girl yet” (373) doesn’t seem that farfetched to me. (Granted, the fact that Logan flips out because Sabrina folded his towels and said lesbian “love”, is a better reason to think that Logan’s not ready to settle down yet. But Bobbi’s evidence is just that he’s dated a lot of women, each of them for only about six months.)

Bobbi then drops what she thinks is a bombshell—she knows (thanks to Shane, from years ago), that Logan slept with Betty. When Billie isn’t surprised, Bobbi is horrified.

“So you’re perfectly fine sleeping with a guy who’s already slept with your sister? Your identical sister to be exact? Don’t you find that creepy?” (374).

So I suppose that this is why we’re meant to agree with Logan that he has an obstacle to overcome in telling Billie about his tryst with Betty. And I guess I can kind of see it? But it seems to me that personality is so much more important than looks and (should) make up so much more than mere appearance of what a person thinks of someone else. So it never would have occurred to me that this should be creepy.

“Doesn’t it make you wonder if he’s thinking of Betty when he’s with you?” (377).

Dude, he could be thinking of a Kardashian or something when he’s with Billie. All right, I guess I kind of get this… but again, not entirely, given my point above.

So I wonder, if Logan really had slept with Betty all those years ago, does that mean that his relationship with Billie could never be real? All those speshul snowflake firsts wouldn’t mean anything because he’d slept with Billie’s identical sister first? I don’t get it.

Billie does, however, surprisingly, come clean to Bobbi about the fact that actually she was the one that Logan slept with, but that he thought it was Betty. I will not go into my opinion on that again. Unsurprisingly, Bobbi is not horrified, she’s only confused as to why Billie would have done such a thing and whether Billie thinks she’s in love with Logan now. They agree that she’ll have to tell him.

But the big concern, for both sisters, remains not that Billie broke Logan’s trust as a teen, nor that she sexually assaulted him since he did not give consent to sleep with her, but that he might still be in love with Betty.

Betty must be quite the femme fatale. It almost makes me want to read Betty’s book, but not really.

Offside: Post 16

In case you thought that now that the main couple has had sex (multiple times, with a one-eyed cat watching) readers would no longer received a running commentary on their turgidity, I’m very sorry to disappoint. Chapter twenty-one opens post-coitus, and post-breakfast, with Logan loading the dishwasher and, having caught sight of Billie wearing only his button-down shirt, gets “instantly hard. Again” (345). I’ll spare you the further adventures of Logan’s penis.

Shane interrupts the two of them as they have a make-out session in the kitchen (remember that Shane lives in the apartment above Logan’s garage. Why that requires him to wander into Logan’s kitchen, I do not know. But he sees the two of them, approves, and says he’ll tell the workers at Logan’s garage that Logan will be late.)

After Logan muses on the fact that he’s never had breakfast with any of the women he’s ever slept with (seriously??), Billie says that they have to keep their relationship secret because of the way that the whole town is already treating her. I’m surprised but pleased to report that Logan is understanding—he says he doesn’t care if people know, but if she wants it to remain clandestine, he’s fine with that.

Then there’s more sex. But it’s speshul sex ‘cause Billie says she’s on birth control and they’re both STD free, so it’s sex sans condom, which neither has eeeeeeeever done. (Well, Logan says he did once as a kid but then was given the “’don’t get anyone pregnant, don’t get a disease or your pecker will fall off[‘] speech” (352). (Yes, the text forgot to close its own quotation marks. If the author paid the person she thanked at the beginning for editing/proofreading, she didn’t get her money’s worth.)

So, let’s see. Billie is Logan’s first date at the restaurant in the city (other than his mother), first post-coital breakfast, and first unprotected sex. I understand wanting to share firsts with the person you think will be your Forever-and-Ever, but this is a strange list. The restaurant thing is seriously arbitrary. The breakfast thing just makes me think Logan is a jerk to the women he dates. And the unprotected sex thing is cliché.

Oh, and Logan’s never been late to work before (for any reason), so there’s another first. He arrives, still musing on how great sex was, particularly without a condom, then chats with Shane. Both of them commiserate over how the town is absolutely ridiculous with their hatred of Billie  (or any woman) playing hockey with the guys.

No sh*t. I kind of feel like this is a conversation that needed to happen about 325 pages ago, because one way to get over things that don’t quite make sense in a novel (or film or play) is to have characters comment on it. (Fabian, from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: “If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.”) Oh well.

One conversation leads to another and Logan is bemoaning the fact that he has to tell Billie that he slept with, and took the virginity of, Betty.

How exactly did you tell the woman you were kinda crazy about that you had sex with her sister?

…Not only had he had sex with Billie’s sister—he had taken her virginity. Complicated didn’t come close to describing his current situation (361).

Again, I’m an only child (as are, I believe, my two main readers/commenters of this blog), so I don’t know that I’m the right person to comment on this particular bit of Manufactured Drama. But… really? I mean, if he’d had sex with Betty, say, last week, that’d be one thing. But it was years ago. If Logan really had had sex with Betty (instead of with Billie, as we the readers know), would it really have been that big of a deal? And if it were, wouldn’t he assume that Betty would have told Billie, since they’re triplets and all? I mean, sure, he should probably tell her as opposed to keeping it a festering secret, but does have to be a Hyooge Big Deal? I don’t get it.

Someone with siblings wanna chime in and help a Commissioner out?