"Beautiful day, isn't it?"
"Oh, my goodness, yes! It's the perfect spring day!"
Lorelai dodged the two ladies exchanging pleasantries on the sidewalk, grateful that they hadn't asked her opinion. Although this first Saturday in May was cloudless, delightfully warm, and possibly bordering on perfect, all Lorelai could see was that the sky was the same color as the blue dress she'd been wearing exactly one year ago.
That would be the dress she ended up stuffing in the trash can a few days later because she never wanted to see it again. In fact, she'd thrown out every single item of clothing she'd worn that night. Even the shoes had gotten pitched, and she'd loved those shoes.
She jaywalked across the street in order to avoid the spot on the sidewalk where she'd given Luke the ultimatum and consequently destroyed her life. She'd never realized how superstitious she was until the first time she'd tried to cross that particular square of concrete. Goosebumps broke out on her skin and the hair on her arms stood straight up. She could feel the bad vibes pooling at her feet. No way was she chancing doing that again until a shaman came, lit fire to a bunch of sage leaves, and chanted a prayer to cleanse the area of its evil juju.
Maybe Liz knows someone. I should ask her, Lorelai thought, making a mental note.
Before entering the diner, Lorelai looked warily over her shoulder one more time. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she couldn't put her fears to rest. Thank goodness she was the only one aware of the significance of the day. Luke surely didn't have the day circled on his calendar. Besides, things were good between them now, really good. They'd started to find their way back to each other in November, after Luke had written her an honest letter, opening her eyes to the truth. By Christmas, they were a couple again.
Things between them were perfect and warm and good, just like this spring day. Perfect, except…Lorelai couldn't stop looking distrustfully back over her shoulder at the satin blue sky, and she couldn't seem to ever completely believe that Luke, without one reservation in his heart, was hers again.
She frowned at the cloudless sky and shivered. You're being silly, she scolded herself, and walked bravely into the diner.
"There you are! Finally," Luke chastised her, rushing over to meet her at the door.
"Sorry, didn't realize 'I'll see you at the diner later' had a timestamp on it." Lorelai, stewing in her private angst, spoke sharper than she meant to.
Luke looked surprised at her tone, and immediately cast aside his seeming irritation. "No, I just meant I thought you were coming in for breakfast, that's all. I thought maybe you'd changed your mind."
Lorelai took a deep breath, attempting to get a handle on her worries. "Me? Skip Saturday morning breakfast? No way!" She put her hand on his arm and smiled. "I fell asleep after you left, and when I finally woke up, it took me longer than normal to attain the level of beauty you've become accustomed to. Major bedhead day."
Luke glanced at her pretty hair and smiled too. "Well, you'd never know that now." He leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss. His arm curled around her, holding her to him. The coffee pot in his hand rested against the center of her back, making a warm spot of security there. He let his forehead touch hers for a moment. "Sorry I snapped at you. Guess I'm just on edge today."
Lorelai's heart leaped back into panic mode. "Kirk?" she suggested desperately, not wanting to veer too close to her own truth.
"Probably," Luke agreed easily. "Plus Taylor was in, too. Not my favorite way to start the day."
"Well, I'm here now. I'll distract the crazies away from you." Something pink and cuddly, appearing from behind the curtain in the back of the dining room, caught Lorelai's eye. "Ooh, baby! Baby, baby, baby!" She made a beeline to Liz and Doula.
"Speaking of crazies," she heard Luke mutter.
"Baby!" she said one more time, holding out her arms towards Doula and motioning with her fingers.
"Hi, Lorelai," Liz said, chuckling. "Did you want to hold the baby?"
"Gimme!"
"Here you go." Liz transferred the sweet little girl into her arms. "Say hi to your Auntie Lorelai!"
Doula instantly grabbed a fistful of Lorelai's hair and gazed up into her face. Lorelai cuddled her and breathed in the soothing baby smell. She always felt guilty when Liz referred to her as 'aunt,' but she never had the desire to fight it too much. She just wished it was true.
"Hi there, Do-do-doula! What are you do-do-doing today, huh?" She swayed back and forth, watching the bright baby eyes as they took in her surroundings. "Did Uncle Luke put you to work today? Did he show you how to make the coffee yet?"
"Pretty sure she needs to learn how to walk first," Luke commented, bringing over a mug of coffee for her. He placed the cup at an empty table.
"I thought I'd sit at the counter," Lorelai said.
Luke seemed momentarily flustered. "Uh, there was a guy sitting there…kept sneezing. Allergies, maybe? Anyway, I haven't had a chance to sanitize it yet. Sit at the table, OK?"
"Uh, sure. OK." Lorelai looked over at Liz. "Want to join me?"
Liz pointed at another table, full of plastic bins and notecards listing custom jewelry orders. "I'm already sprawled all over the place. Go ahead and enjoy your table for one."
"Way to rub it in," Lorelai scolded her. "You're just smug because you get to share your table with this little charmer."
Liz observed Lorelai continuing to be enthralled by her baby girl. "When are you guys going to give Doula a cousin to play with?"
Lorelai froze to the spot. "I don't think that's exactly an option right now, Liz," she said, keeping her voice low.
"It's not? Are you sure?"
She drew in a deep breath. "Oh yeah, positive. We're still…you know. Trying to figure it all out."
"Really?" Liz's tone was patronizing. "Because the way my big brother is looking at you holding the baby is telling a completely different story. Don't look!" she hissed, as Lorelai immediately began to turn around.
Lorelai held Doula to her and ducked her head down to the baby girl's. "Why? How's he looking at me?" she whispered, curious.
"Sweet. Dopey. Like he'd like to make a baby with you right now," Liz chuckled.
"Oh! Well, that might be an entirely different yearning than the desire to procreate," Lorelai pointed out, trying not to dwell on her regrets.
"Maybe. But I'm usually right about these things." Liz reached over and gently put her hand against Doula's face. "She looks ready to doze off. She had a snack and a clean diaper just before you took her, so I think I'll put her into her carrier and get to work."
Lorelai reluctantly handed the baby over. "I'll be right here if you decide you need a babysitter after all." She watched Liz tuck Doula into the baby carrier sitting on the table. Lorelai leaned over to kiss the baby-soft cheek. "Gotta keep my sugar level up, you know."
"Then you should be diabetic, as much as you smooch her," Liz said with a wink, sitting down at her work table.
With a sigh, Lorelai moved over to her lonely table and picked up the mug of coffee. "Luke!" she cried out immediately. "What's wrong with this mug?"
"There's nothing wrong with it," Luke said defensively.
"Yes, there is! It's not right!"
"What do you mean, it's not right?" he challenged her.
"It's lighter than it should be," she said, hoisting it in her hand. "And it's not…what do you call the coating? The glaze? The glaze is like, smoother than it should be." She illustrated her point by running a fingertip along the surface. "And…" she squinted at it. "The yellow's a different color. It's brighter than it should be."
Luke came to stand beside her, looking irritated. "Fine, it's a new mug," he snapped.
"Why is it a new mug?"
"What do you mean, why? I needed to replace some that broke, that's all."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why should I tell you? What, I have to get your permission first? Do you run all of the Dragonfly purchases by me?"
She grinned. She still loved getting him riled up. "No, of course not. I just thought it might be nice to order some extras to have at home, too."
"Why would you want some at home? Didn't you just say this one's not right?"
"Maybe I was too hasty, Luke. It's…different. Different doesn't always mean worse." She finally took a sip of the coffee.
Luke muttered something under his breath and began to walk away.
Lorelai continued to grin as she sipped at her mug of coffee, finally settling into her home away from home happy spot.
The door opened, and a pretty brown-haired young woman stepped inside.
"Rory? Oh, my God! Rory! What are you doing here?" Lorelai hustled over to the door to hug her daughter.
"Oh, you know, just thought I'd come home to, uh, see my mommy."
Lorelai didn't miss the fast, panicked look Rory threw Luke's way.
"What's going on?" she wanted to know, instantly somber. "Are you all right?"
"Of course. I'm fine." Rory hugged her back, doing her best to be breezy and reassuring. "I just thought I'd run home for a bit."
"But I thought you were swamped between now and graduation," Lorelai pressed on, leading Rory to her table. "You couldn't even make it to Friday night dinner last night. Now you've suddenly got time to run home for no reason?"
Rory groaned as she plopped down onto a chair. "Hey, Mom, have you ever met my roommate? Paris 'Let's Go Over This One More Time' Geller? She's driving me insane. It was either get out of the apartment or face jail time for tying her up and dumping her in the river."
Lorelai chuckled. "Paris is a little uptight?"
Rory snorted. "A little? She hasn't slept in the last five days. It's bad enough for me, but I don't know how Doyle's coping at all. He's getting the brunt of it. I just get the overflow panic."
"Why's she panicking? I thought Paris had her life planned out since she was six."
"Hey, Rory. Good to see you." Luke sat a mug of coffee in front of Rory and then briefly squeezed her shoulder.
"Thanks, Luke." She immediately picked up the mug and took a gulp of coffee.
Lorelai leaned over and felt Rory's mug. "How come she gets one of the good mugs?"
"This is a good mug?" Rory looked confused.
"Look." Lorelai put her mug next to Rory's. "See how yours is a little bit duller yellow? And here, feel." She picked up Rory's finger and had her rub against the handles of both mugs. "Feel the difference?"
"When did you get new mugs?" Rory questioned Luke.
"Don't lure her into your paranoia," Luke warned Lorelai. He turned and stomped back to the counter.
"That was fun," Lorelai said, grinning at her girl. The smile slowly faded. "If something was wrong, you'd tell me, right?"
"Yes, Mother," Rory sighed, rolling her eyes. "But everything's fine. Well, other than Logan's being a little weird."
Lorelai quirked an eyebrow. "Weird, how?"
"I don't know. Like…" Rory shrugged. "Like he's sort of unnerved by the fact that I'm graduating. It's almost as if me still being at Yale is what's been keeping him grounded. Like I'm his North Star or something, and if I'm not there he can't find his way."
"That was almost poetic."
"It doesn't feel poetic," Rory groused. "It feels like too many expectations being dumped on me."
Lorelai caught her breath. "Are you guys going to break up?"
"I don't know," Rory said, sounding cranky. "All I know is that it feels like too much, what with panicked Paris and finals and worrying about getting a job and that little detail about figuring out my whole freakin' future…" She stopped to regroup. "It's a lot of stress. That's why I thought I'd take a break and flee home to stress-free Stars Hollow."
"Got it." Lorelai raised her lightweight coffee mug and clinked it against Rory's. "Welcome home, Sweets."
"Thanks." Rory closed her eyes and relaxed her shoulders. "Good to be here."
Right then, another brown-haired girl entered the room from the kitchen.
"Wait – April! What are you doing here?" Lorelai called out in confusion.
April took several steps over to where Lorelai and Rory were sitting. "Um, my dad owns the place?"
"Ha-ha," Lorelai deadpanned. "Seriously, what are you doing back here? Why aren't you still at Kara's?"
April ignored Lorelai and instead smiled at Rory. "Hi, Rory!"
"Oh, if it isn't the little usurper who stole my room. Hi, April."
"Still waiting on an answer," Lorelai said pointedly.
April shrugged. "I got back a little early."
"Why didn't you call me? I would have come and got you."
"It was no problem. Kara's mom brought me home."
"But why didn't –"
"Rory, do you know yet if I can come to graduation?" April interrupted.
"I managed to snag an extra ticket, but you owe me big time. I had to meet a guy named Moose outside a bodega in the dead of night, and exchange a corrected APA citations page in order to score it. I felt like I should be wearing a wire."
"You're the best!" April bent down to give Rory a hug.
"Yeah, yeah." Rory's eyes shone as she hugged April back. "I'm kinda fond of you too."
"This is very heartwarming, but why are you here at the diner? Why didn't you come to the house?" Lorelai persisted, trying to figure out where and when the plans had changed without her knowledge.
"Caesar said he'd show me how to run the deep fryer. You know Dad just gets grouchy when I ask him to show me anything in the kitchen."
"Um…OK." Lorelai continued to frown at April. Although there was nothing actually wrong with her explanation, it didn't completely answer the question. Due to her own misspent youth, Lorelai always had a heightened intuition when it came to teenagers conveniently leaving out some parts of the truth.
"Since you're sort of unofficially working here today, do you think you can get us a refill?" Rory asked, tilting her mostly empty cup towards April.
"Sure!" April dashed behind the counter, grabbed the coffee pot from the warmer, and expertly poured more coffee into each of their mugs.
"April!" Luke thundered as he came out of the kitchen, just in time to see her pouring.
"Sorry," April apologized to her dad, looking stricken.
"Luke, it's not that big of a deal!" Lorelai said, coming to April's defense.
"She knows what she did," he stated sternly.
"Weird vibe in here today," Lorelai murmured to Rory.
"Lots of weirdness everywhere," Rory agreed affably. They clinked mugs again.
They continued to chat between themselves, occasionally including Liz, or April, or other diners in their conversation, all the while sipping on their coffee.
"Caesar, can you top this off?" Lorelai asked, as Luke's second-in-command made the rounds of the diner, the coffee pot in his hand.
He cringed. "Sorry, Lorelai, no can do."
"What do you mean?"
"Luke says no more coffee for you."
"What?"
"He says you gotta drink what's in your cup first," Caesar specified, looking uncomfortable.
"Are you kidding me?" she muttered. She turned in her seat, looking for Luke. "Are you kidding me?" she demanded, glaring at him.
He shrugged, refusing to look at her. "You can have all you want. Just finish what you've got first."
"Do you think I'm going to waste it, or something?" She couldn't wrap her head around what was happening. "Do I ever leave coffee in my cup? What is wrong with you today?"
"Mom, come on." Rory tugged at her elbow, getting her to turn back around. "Let Luke do his micromanaging thing for once. Come on, bottoms up!" As an example, Rory chugged down the last of her own cup of java.
"Oh, for Pete's sake," Lorelai grumbled. But she picked up her mug and took a gulp. "It's cold," she complained. "That's why I wanted it warmed up."
"Maybe if you'd drink your coffee instead of talking nonstop, it wouldn't get cold," Luke informed her.
Lorelai looked over at Liz. "So much for that sweet, dopey guy from earlier."
Liz snickered. "He's still there, most likely. This is just his controlling side coming out."
"Right." She took another sip and made a face at the temperature, then frowned into the cup. "Wait…Hey, Luke, seriously, there's something wrong with this mug." She swirled the remaining coffee from side to side, trying to see to the bottom. "It's like it's cracked, or something. Or…maybe it's coffee grounds? Is there something wrong with the machine?" She reached for several napkins and swabbed out the mug so she could see the bottom clearly.
She discovered that there were…words in her mug. Was her mug…talking to her? Maybe she'd finally reached her limit on caffeine.
WILL
YOU
MARRY
ME?
She sat motionless, staring down at those four words. She could read them. She understood what they meant. Her spinning head just couldn't quite make the connection between the words and what was going on.
Something moved by her chair. It was Luke, kneeling beside her.
He reached for her hand. "Will you?" he asked quietly.
She stared into his eyes. It seemed to take forever before she could formulate a reply.
"Of course," she said. "Yes. Of course."
Luke stood and pulled her up from the chair. He held her tightly, hugging her to his heart. He kissed her, and after a second or two, she kissed him back.
Then Rory was hugging her on one side and April on the other. Liz threw her arms around her from behind. The commotion woke Doula up and she started to wail.
Suddenly, Sookie was there, and Patty, and Babette and Morey, too. Half the town seemed to be rushing inside the diner, and everyone was talking, louder and louder, and laughing, and everyone wanted to hug her.
Her head refused to stop spinning.
"I need a private moment with my fiancée," she heard Luke say. He was smiling grimly. "I promise, I'll share her again in a minute." She welcomed his protective arm around her shoulders as he guided her through the curtain, into the back hallway.
In the dim light, in the relative quiet, she was finally able to take a deep breath.
He leaned her against the wall and looked at her frankly. "OK, what did I do wrong?"
"You didn't…You didn't do anything wrong."
"Really? Because this is not the reaction I was expecting."
"I…I just…" She rubbed at her forehead, still feeling dizzy. "Are you sure about this?"
"Am I sure?" He looked alarmed. "Lorelai, what's going on here? I thought we were on the same page. I thought we've been on the same page for quite a while now."
She looked down the hallway, to the back door, to the little bit of deep blue sky she could see through the window there. "Luke, I know you don't have any idea what day this is –"
"Of course I know what day it is."
"I don't mean Saturday, or the date. I mean –"
He cradled his hands around her face, and made her look at him. "I know," he said simply.
She sucked in a sharp breath, suddenly back in the present and in the throes of guilt again. "Oh, babe. I'm so sorry."
He nodded. "I know, and I realized, some weeks back, that it had the potential to be another sort of dark day for me. Another depressing hole in my life. I didn't want it to always be marked as the day I made the worst mistake of my life. I thought maybe the best solution would be to turn it into a good day instead. A day when things went the way they were always meant to."
"You think…" She shook her head. "You think you made the mistake?"
"I sure did. I let you go."
She blinked at him a couple of times, letting his honest, simple words settle around her heart. "Oh, Luke. Oh, my God." She wrapped her arms around him and got to her tiptoes, so that she could kiss him with everything she had. "I love you so, so much."
"OK, now this is more the reaction I was hoping for." He brought her mouth back to his and kissed her again.
She kept her eyes closed when the kiss ended. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I have to ask you again, just for my own peace of mind. This is what you want, right? Us, together…forever? That's a really long time, Luke. You're sure there are no second thoughts on your part? You're sure you can see past what happened for the rest of your life?"
He held her tightly. "I'm sorry you still need to question that. I'm so sorry that I destroyed your trust in me."
"No, no," Lorelai protested. "It's not that I don't trust you –"
"Yeah, it is – and it's OK. I get it. I hate it, but I get it." He sighed. "Here, let me ask you this. For the last – what's it been? Four, five months? Where I have been, every single night?"
Lorelai's forehead creased as she deliberated her response.
December 23rd, two days before Christmas. He had asked her to go along to the airport. He and April had both asked. April was flying out to see her mother over the holidays, and Rory was in London, with Logan. When they got back to her house, Luke reached for her in the darkened cab of the pickup, and kissed her in a way he hadn't for a long, long time. He asked if he could come into the house with her, and after being in the house for a while, he asked if he could stay. And in the morning, he asked if they could –
"It's not a trick question, Lorelai."
She abruptly came back to earth. "Well…You've been with me."
"That's right. I've been with you, in our bed, in our house, every night." He gently pushed her hair back behind her ear. "If I'd had any doubts at all – at all – there wouldn't have been even one night together, no matter how much I wanted it."
Lorelai watched his eyes. "Right," she said slowly.
"Plus, I asked you to make room for April. You know I never would have added her into the mix if anything was still troubling me."
"True," Lorelai agreed, her ongoing worry dissipating.
"So, I'm afraid you're stuck with both of us. Forever. All you have to do is put on the ring and say yes."
Lorelai snapped to attention. "There's a ring?" she demanded playfully.
"Of course there's a ring. You think I don't know how to do this?"
"My ring?" she asked wistfully.
Luke stopped in the middle of fishing the ring out of his shirt pocket. "Um, not exactly. I thought that maybe we needed something of a fresh start, but if you hate it, we can possibly go back to the old one." He held the swirl of diamonds out to her.
She gasped in pleasure, even before she'd had the chance to really take in the beauty of the ring before her eyes. "Oh, Luke, it's gorgeous!" She ran a fingertip lightly over a small curlicue of silver that ended in a sapphire dot. "It's funny, it still reminds me of the first ring, even though it's so different. And it's exactly what I would have picked out for myself. You nailed it, babe."
"I had some help," Luke said, smiling at her delight. "I had both of the girls go to the jeweler with me. Of course, Rory was invaluable in describing you, and explaining what you like. The guy had some computer program where he could sketch this up as we talked. We all thought that the end result looked just like you."
"It does, it really, really does, and I love it – I really, really love it."
"Most of the diamonds are from the other ring. I thought it would be kind of nice to still have a bridge to that one, you know? We added in a couple of the smaller ones, and the little sapphires."
"It's beautiful," she murmured, under the ring's spell.
"Should we make it official?"
She took a deep breath. "Please."
Luke took her left hand in his and looked into her face. "Lorelai, will you marry me?"
"Yes!" she responded, almost before the words were out of his mouth.
Smiling, he slipped the ring on her finger.
"Oh, wow!" She held up her hand, gazing at the shiny band. "It's even prettier on!"
"Of course it is. You make everything prettier."
She giggled at that and threw her arms around his neck. "I love you."
"I love you too."
He leaned in to kiss her, and his weight pressed her against the wall. The kiss slowed down while the intensity increased. Lorelai moaned, liking the way he felt. It reassured her, to know that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
"There's still a bed upstairs, right?" she murmured.
Luke went suddenly still. "What?"
"Upstairs. There's still…We could just disappear up there, couldn't we?"
With great reluctance, Luke pulled away. "Unfortunately, there's a whole diner full of people waiting for us out there."
Lorelai glared at him. "Well, who invited them?"
"Our daughters, I think," Luke sighed. "Definitely not my idea."
"We have to go back out?" Lorelai pouted.
"Probably. You want to show off your ring, don't you?"
"Ooh, yes!" She flashed it around again. "I forgot that part."
"Just don't forget this part." Luke pressed against her one more time, kissing her quickly. "Remember right where we were, for later."
"You mean for tonight, when you're at home, in bed with me."
"Exactly." Luke caught her hand, stopping her from leaving. "I guess there is one thing, though, that I'd like to request."
She gave him her best sexy look. "For tonight?"
He smiled, but briefly. "No, for the…Well, our wedding."
"Oh, really?" She was surprised, he'd seemed so uninvolved, the last time. "Sure, what?"
"I don't want to wait months and months before it happens. I understand, dresses and stuff – that takes a certain amount of time. But if there's any way to hurry that up, I'd be in favor."
"Like how soon are you thinking?"
"Tonight?" He smiled swiftly again, showing he was joking, but she could tell there was a certain amount of truth behind his answer. "Maybe by fall?"
"Wow, that is speedy." She stared at him for a few seconds, trying to guess what he was thinking, and then she realized that she didn't have to guess. She could just ask him, which was a lesson she'd learned over the past six months. "Is there a reason why you want to make me Mrs. Backwards Baseball Cap so fast?"
He weighed his words before he started to speak. "It seemed like last time, we got off track right away. First, you didn't want to plan anything without Rory, which I understood, but it still made it seem as if the wedding part wasn't real. Then you found a date, but by then there was April, and I'd checked out. Later, when I thought back about the mess we made, I kept thinking that if we'd settled on a date right away, and had something to work towards, maybe we wouldn't have gotten so far off the mark. We could have focused on the big picture, which was getting married. I don't want to lose sight of that again. And…Well, the sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned."
Hearing Luke speak so seriously about their future suddenly made a big, fancy wedding seem less important. "Why don't you come over to the Dragonfly with me this afternoon, and we'll look through the bookings? We'll put our names down on the first available weekend."
He looked startled. "You're willing to do that?"
She nodded emphatically. "I'm with you, the sooner the better. Are you OK with having it at the Dragonfly?"
"Well, yeah. Of course." He smirked at her. "I do have an in with the owners. Maybe they'll give us a deal."
"Then we'll find a date and the rest will fall into place. I'm confident about that." Lorelai nodded absently, already thinking about the details. "As long as you explain to my mother why it's going to be a quiet, intimate, low-key affair, I think we're good."
"Now, wait just a doggone minute –"
Lorelai cut off his protest with a kiss. A long kiss.
"OK," he agreed automatically, then sighed. "That was a dirty move, by the way."
"Not dirty yet," she told him, grinning. "That's getting saved for tonight."
Luke took her hand, kissed it, and then began to move towards the curtain separating them from the diner proper.
"Wait," Lorelai said, pulling him back. "I've got a question, too."
"About the wedding?"
"No, about the talking mug."
Luke chuckled. "The what?"
"The special mug that asked me to marry it. How did you do that? How did you even get the idea to do that?"
"I saw a picture somewhere, of some guy who proposed that way, and I kept it filed away in the back of my head, because I figured if anyone would appreciate a coffee mug proposal, it'd be you."
"You do know me," she laughed.
"And it turns out that Liz knows some guy who throws pots –"
"Of course she does."
"Yeah, go figure." Luke made a face, but at the same time he also looked slightly proud of his wacky sister. "Anyway, I took a mug from the diner to him and he was able to create a pretty good facsimile. At least, I thought he did." He looked sternly at her. "Of course, that was before you touched it and could tell instantly that it was an imposter."
"That's because I'm the expert about everything in the diner."
"Apparently so." He kissed her forehead.
"And both of us have learned to be wary of imposters," Lorelai pointed out.
"For good reason," Luke sighed. "Both of us know to watch out for the other not acting like themselves. If that ever happens again, we know to find out why, and fix it fast."
"Absolutely." She put her arms around his neck and his willingly circled her waist. "Actually, there's only one thing in the diner that I want to be the expert on. No more trying to be cool and detached in the face of true love. You are my person numero uno, and I plan on being the world's premier authority on Lucas William Danes."
"Sounds good." Luke chuckled and hugged her tightly.
"By the way, that mug is mine, now, isn't it? You're not going to keep it behind the counter and just propose to women at random, are you?"
"Darn, you're on to my plan." He shook his head. "Crazy lady," he chided her affectionately.
"Mom!" Rory yelled from the other side of the curtain. "Are you ever going to stop playing kissy-face and come out here again? People want to celebrate!"
"Celebrate good times, come on!" Lorelai yelled back, half-singing. "Ready?" she asked Luke.
"No." But he smiled and took her hand.
The dining room was packed with people. Sookie was cutting up a cake with Caesar's help. Taylor was trying to hawk individual bottles of Zima as the celebratory beverage of choice.
"Hey, Doll!" Babette shrieked from across the room. "When's the weddin'?"
Lorelai looked at Luke, and they both smiled. "We'll tell you tomorrow," she promised Luke, herself, and everyone else in the diner. She picked up her extraordinary talking coffee cup.
"Now that I've answered the mug, can I finally get a refill?"
Author's Chat: Hey! Today's my birthday! To celebrate, I wrote a happy, fluffy story that makes my heart smile. Because I'm such a nice person, I decided to share it with all of you! Enjoy, and have a piece of cake (deep-fried or not) on me!