AN: This is just a quick one shot I thought of while working on my next story. Although I have the whole story planned out, I've been struggling with one of the chapters. While trying to work through it, I thought of this. I've never used tinder, but I did some reading about how it works. I hope I got it right.I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think.
"I'm so glad that you still have time for your dear old mom." Lorelai Gilmore told her daughter.
"Mom! I always have time for you. You know that." Rory smiled.
"I know, but it just feels like it's been so long since I've seen you." Lorelai told her.
"Mom, I saw you last week." Rory responded.
"Child, that was helping you move into this apartment. That does not count." Lorelai explained.
Rory laughed and threw a piece of chocolate at her mother.
"Well, regardless, I'm glad you still have time for an old fashioned Gilmore movie night." Lorelai laughed.
"Always." Rory told her.
"You know though, it is Saturday night. I'm sure you must have something better that you could be doing with your time. You know, like a date?" Lorelai grinned.
"No mom, there's nothing I'd rather do than spending time with you right now." Rory told her.
"It's been so long since I've been in one place for more than a few weeks, it's just so nice to be somewhere more permanent." she continued.
After eight years traipsing across the continental United States, following news stories all over, Rory had finally decided to settle down, and applied for a job at the New York Post. After successfully interviewing for the position, Rory decided to accept the job, to move closer to home. She felt that the time was right, after the sudden death of her Grandfather, it would be nice to know that she was no more than a few hours away from her mother and grandmother.
"Well you know child, it wouldn't kill you to have a little fun." Lorelai said.
"This is fun!" Rory responded.
"That's not the kind of fun I'm talking about dear." Lorelai told her.
"I have fun." Rory said, though not as enthusiastic this time.
"Rory, when was the last time you went on a date?" Lorelai asked.
"Uhh… I think it was about eight months ago." Rory told her.
"Eight months? Rory! Eight months? You need to get out more often." Lorelai exclaimed.
"It's no big deal mom, really." Rory told her.
"Rory, you are far too serious for someone your age. This is supposed to be the prime of your life. Instead you are sitting here with your mother on a Saturday night, eating candy and watching movies." Lorelai said.
"Mom, no. Really, I'm fine."
"Look Rory, you need to go out more and have some fun. I'm not saying go out and find a husband, just go out and have some fun. Here, I'll help you." Lorelai said as she grabbed Rory's cell phone.
"Mom? What are you doing?" Rory asked.
"Nothing, don't worry about it." Lorelai smirked.
"Mom! Come on! What are you doing?" Rory asked.
"Hold on, give me a few minutes." Lorelai told her.
"Ok, well I'm going to go get another drink. Want anything?" Rory asked.
"No that's ok hun."
Rory headed into her kitchen to grab another coke. She smiled as she looked at the photos on the fridge. Her and Lane, Kwan and Steve, Paris and Doyle and their two kids, Rory, Lorelai, and Luke celebrating the engagement of Lorelai and Luke, a photo of Rory and her grandparents taken about a year before Richard's death, and a photo of Rory, along with a few of the reporters she worked with on on the Obama campaign. She had some really great opportunities over the last few years, but she was grateful to finally be settling down roots.
Maybe her mom was right though, it had been awhile since she had dated anyone for more than a date or two. She was just too busy, living this crazy reporting lifestyle, maybe it was time to try and meet someone, this was New York though, there were lots of someones, she just needed to find the time away from the office to do so.
"Ah ha!" Lorelai laughed from the other room.
"Oh god, what has she done?" Rory muttered under her breath as she closed the fridge and headed back into the living room.
"Mom? What did you do?" Rory asked.
Lorelai just smiled at her.
"Mom?" Rory asked, starting to sound a little more antsy.
Lorelai held up the phone for Rory to see.
"Tinder?!" Rory screeched.
"You signed me up for tinder?! How do you even know about tinder?" Rory asked.
"April told me about it." Lorelai smiled.
"Mom. I don't need tinder." Rory sighed.
"Rory you haven't had a date in eight months. You need tinder." Lorelai told her.
"Mom, I can meet people without tinder, really." Rory explained.
"Just humour your old mother. Ooh. He's cute! I'm swiping right." Lorelai grinned.
"Mom! No! Really, stop! Wait. What does swiping right even mean?" Rory asked.
"Swipe right, you're interested. Swipe left, you aren't." Lorelai explained.
"Mom, how long have you been planning to do this to me?" Rory asked.
"Uh about a month." Lorelai smiled.
"Ooh, he has bad teeth. Swipe left, swipe left!" Lorelai yelled.
"Mom!" Rory groaned.
"Look Rory, I'm going to do this whether you want me to or not, you may as well be a willing participant. Maybe we can find someone for you to have fun with." Lorelai winked.
Rory huffed, and dragged herself over to the couch to sit next to her mother.
Forty five minutes later they were still sitting on the couch flipping through tinder profiles.
"Left" Rory said.
"Left? But why? He's so cute!" Lorelai asked.
"He's an investment banker. Boring." Rory said scrunching her nose.
"Ok how about James T. here?"
"Left" Rory said.
"Ooh, I like this guy" Lorelai said and swiped right before Rory could say otherwise.
"Mom, this is for me. Not you. What would Luke say?" Rory asked.
"Pish posh child. I'm just trying to do what's best for you, and he looks fun."
"Ugh, why can't I just have a normal mother?" Rory asked.
Flipping through more profiles, Lorelai kept trying to make more decisions for Rory. All of a sudden Lorelai grew very quiet.
"Mom? What's wrong?" Rory asked.
"Nothing" Lorelai said, exiting Tinder and putting down Rory's phone.
"Let's just enjoy the rest of the movie." Lorelai told her.
Rory was curious as to what the problem was so she grabbed from her phone and opened up the app again.
It was like she was hit by a ton of bricks. She now knew why her mother looked like she had seen a ghost.
"Mom? Why didn't you tell me you saw Logan on here?" Rory asked tentatively.
"Hun…" Lorelai stammered.
"Mom?" Rory asked again.
"Kid, I didn't want to bring it up. I know that it still hurts you."
"Mom, no. Really. It's been eight years. I'm a big girl. I'm over it." Rory told her, with a hint of melancholy in her voice.
"I think that it's a good time to put an end to this evening. I should be getting home." Lorelai told her.
"Mom, no. Let's finish the movie." Rory said.
They did end up finishing the movie, but both were very quiet for the rest of the evening. Lorelai headed home soon after, and left Rory to her thoughts.
Not knowing what to think, Rory decided to pull out her laptop and do a google search on how tinder works.
After some reading, Rory had discovered that like her mother said, swiping right meant you were interested, and swiping left meant you were not. If both parties chose to swipe right, you were then given the opportunity to start to chat. The one thing that really shocked Rory however was that tinder was based on gps location, which meant that Logan was in New York.
Rory found herself letting her mind drift back to memories she normally kept locked away. She had been devastated when Logan told her it had to be all or nothing, they would get engaged or he would walk away. As much as she had wanted to marry Logan, it was not something she had been ready for. Not at age 22, as she took her first unknown steps into the world.
As hurt as she has been by everything that happened, she couldn't hate him. She tried, she really did, but she couldn't.
She hadn't had any contact with him in eight years, not since her graduation for Yale. She wondered what he was like now.
Curiosity got the better of her and she decided to open up tinder again. She wanted to see his profile, get some sort of insight into what kind of man he had become in the last eight years.
He looked good, damn did he look good. Rory smiled and before she even realized what she had done, she swiped right.
"Oh my god. What did I just do?" Rory muttered in a panic.
"Oh shit. Oh god. Oh no." Rory stammered.
She quickly exited the app and threw the phone across the couch refusing to touch it, or even look at it, like it had the plague.
Quickly, she scrambled for her house phone. Shaking she dialled her mom's number.
"Fruit of my loins, you missed me so much already that you are already calling me?" Lorelai answered.
"Mom! I swiped right. Oh god what did I do?" Rory yelled in a panic.
"Ok Hun, you're gonna have to slow down and give me more info than that." Lorelai told her.
"Logan! Mom it's Logan! I swiped right!" Rory practically screeched.
"Ok hold on, let me pull over." Lorelai told her as Rory frantically paced her apartment.
"Ok. What happened? Tell me everything." Lorelai said.
"Ok, so. After you left I got curious, you know? So I opened tinder back up to see his profile. There's a few pictures on there. He looks good, God does he look good. It got me thinking about him, about us. I don't... I don't know what came over me. I just swiped right. Oh god what have I done?" Rory said panicked.
"Ok Ror, calm down. It's ok. Really, everything is going to be fine. He won't even know you swiped right, unless he swipes right too. It's going to be ok, what are the odds he's even going to see you on there. You are in New York after all, millions of people! Don't worry babe it'll be fine." Lorelai tried to console her.
"Mom! I found him! I'm sure odds are pretty good he will see me too. Oh god. What if he sees me and swipes left?" Rory asked in a panic.
"For someone who said they were completely over him, you don't sound very confident about the whole thing" Lorelai told her pausing.
"Rory, do you want me to come back?" Lorelai asked, genuinely concerned.
"No mom, it's ok. I'll be fine. I just need to go to bed I think." Rory said as she plopped down onto the couch.
"Ok sweetie. Just remember, I'm only a phone call away. Have a good night." Lorelai told her.
"You too mom, drive safe." Rory said and hung up the phone.
Rory sighed, took a quick look at her cell phone lying on the other side of the couch and decided to get up and head to bed. There was nothing she could do about this situation.
Rory quickly settled back into her routine at work on Monday and tried not to think anymore about tinder and the Logan situation from Saturday. She had thought about just deleting the app entirely but something stopped her, she wasn't entirely sure why, but she felt the need to keep it, though she hadn't used it again.
By Thursday evening, Rory had pushed the tinder situation to the back of her mind. Sitting in the office at 9 staying late to try and finish up the article she was working on, she heard a ding in her purse. She fished out her cell phone and discovered that she had a notification from tinder. She had one new message. Thinking back to the weekend, that meant someone her mom swiped right to, had swiped right to her as well. Unless, no. It couldn't be.
Her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking as she opened the app. Her eyes went wide when she saw who the message was from. It said just two words, two short but powerful words.
"Hey Ace."
Logan Huntzberger was a man short on time. Time and patience. He needed a date to some stupid benefit that his mother was hosting and he was once again being forced to go to.
Now that he was back with Huntzberger Publishing Group, he really didn't have much choice. He sighed and grabbed his cell phone and opened up tinder.
An easy way to find a date, and an easy way to keep it casual. Logan thought. Although he dated frequently, he was rarely seen with the same woman more than a few times.
There were many whispers as to why the heir of the Huntzberger fortune didn't ever seem to have a steady girlfriend. Some accused him of being gay, others said he had been burned years ago by a former girlfriend, only those close to him however knew the full story, though some had come very close to getting it right.
Logan chose to ignore all the whispers, and do what he wanted. Before her, he had always kept it casual, after her he would do the same. At least for a few more years, until he was pushed into some marriage for the sake of his family, but he really wasn't interested in that, though god knows his mother was. For now, he just wanted to have fun.
Thumbing through the profiles, many of the women appeared to be very similar, heavy makeup, specific angles, many screaming of desperation. He had to chuckle, he really had no room to talk, he needed to find someone for a Saturday benefit, and it was already Thursday. Though he found himself continuously swiping left. He knew was definitely being far too picky. After all, he just needed someone to act as his arm candy for the night, to get his mother off his back.
After a few more swipes left, and two swipes right he opened the next profile. Suddenly Logan felt like all the air had been sucked from his lungs. What was she doing on here? This wasn't like her at all. This was not her scene. Not his Ace.
Well, to be honest she wasn't his Ace. Not anymore. He still couldn't believe she was on here though, someone must have signed her up for it, the Ace he knew would rather be caught dead than on a dating site.
Slowly thumbing through her profile, Logan felt a wave of memories wash over him, a smile formed on his lips. He had known she was something special, that day with the Life and Death Brigade when he grabbed her hand on top of that tower and they took a flying leap. Thinking back to that conversation, Logan sighed.
"People can live a hundred years without living for a minute. You climb up there with me, it's one less minute you haven't lived."
"Let's go" Rory told him.
As they landed after the leap still holding hands Rory shouted "Once in a lifetime!"
"Only if you want it to be" Logan told her, nearly leaning in to kiss her before being interrupted by glasses of champagne.
Logan smiled, the three years with Rory were some of the best years of his life. He had been devastated when she told him no, he didn't know what else to do other than walk away. His heart had hardened a bit that day, he hadn't had any serious relationships since.
Looking now at her profile, she looked good, really good. She looked happy too. Clearly she was single if she was on tinder though, he was surprised, he figured that she would have settled down by now.
He sat, looking at her profile for half an hour or more. Everything in his brain was screaming swipe left, she had broken his heart. It had been eight years, he had moved on. She had moved on. She was on tinder after all. Something about her though, he wasn't sure what it was, compelled him to swipe right. Before he realized what he was doing, he had indeed swiped right.
He breathed a sigh of relief, what were the odds she would even see him on here. He could just forget about this, and go about finding a date for Saturday.
Just then, he received a notification. He had the ability to send a message to Rory. Wait. That meant she had seen his profile. That meant she had swiped right. Logan took a deep breath, feeling a little sick with nervousness, he wasn't sure what he was going to do.
Maybe... Just maybe... No. This was crazy. But? She had definitely swiped right, or he wouldn't be able to message her. He was being such a chicken, this wasn't like him at all, normally any time he had the ability to do this he jumped right in, sent a message. Ready for anything. Right? That was what he always told himself, but this wasn't just any random girl. This was Rory, this was Ace. His Ace.
He shook his head, he had done it again, called her his Ace. She wasn't his Ace. She probably wasn't interested, who knows if she was even the person who swiped right. There was no way this was her doing, she was probably mortified that she was even signed up for this.
Logan knew that this back and forth in his brain was going to drive him nuts. He had to get passed this, he needed an answer, to move on for good, or maybe. Well, let's just see what happens.
Opening up the chat window, he thought for a few minutes about what to say. He decided to keep it simple.
"Hey Ace."
Logan closed the app, that was enough tinder for one night. Later, he heard a beep from his phone. Reaching for it, he saw that he had a notification from tinder. Opening it, he could feel his heart beating in his chest.
"Hey Huntzberger. I've missed you."
Logan let go of a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. She had responded. She had missed him.
With a smile on his face he started to chat with her, which quickly escalated to a phone call, soon, a coffee date and later, a weekend away. He had a good feeling about this.