Chapter 1: Naked Guy
In the middle of Rory's first night at Yale, she got up to go to the restroom down the hall. Throwing a light blue bathrobe over her pajama tap and drawstring pants, she padded out into the hallway in her slippers. Just then, something caught her eye.
In a doorway across the hall, a body lay prone and sprawled. A young man without a stitch of clothing on. He was even snoring. Glancing about and finding no one else, Rory tentatively approached. She reached out a hand, but drew back, studying him for a moment. She had never seen a naked man before - not even her own father, the few times he had stayed in Stars Hollow. She elected to tickle the stranger with the string of her robe to rouse him. He awoke, his eyes working hard to focus in on her.
"Hi."
"Hi," she replied, a little wary.
"I'm on the floor."
"You were sleeping."
"I have no clothes on."
"No. You don't," she shook her head tightly.
"I'm on the floor. I have no clothes on. And you're a girl. So I must be..."
"... on the wrong floor," Rory supplied.
"Oh, boy."
"What's your room?"
"I think... up?" Clearly, he had been drinking. Or gotten a nasty bump on the head. Either way - "Are we on the first floor?"
"Yes."
"Then up. Any idea how long I've been here?"
"Nope."
"So you have no idea how many people have walked by while I...?"
Rory gave a helpless shrug. "Nope. Sorry."
"Great. Now for the rest of my time at Yale, I'm gonna be The Naked Guy." At least he had a sense of humor.
"I'm sorry."
"And you know what's great? Tomorrow, when the nickname The Naked Guy starts spreading around campus like wildfire, I'm gonna be in my third hour of throwing up," he groaned.
"Well, it's been really quiet out here for a while now, so... there's a chance that no one but me has seen you yet," Rory tried to be helpful.
"Oh yeah?"
"I promise I won't say anything. And if there's a chance that you could refrain from being naked in a hallway at the next party, then... there's a chance you might get a completely different nickname like... The Never Naked Guy."
"You're a very kind person," the young man started to rise.
"Wait! Hold on!" Rory ordered before she got an eyeful of... stuff, which had thankfully up till now had been covered by the floor. "You can borrow this." Turning her back, she shook the bathrobe loose from her shoulders and felt him take it gratefully from her. She remained that way as he dressed, biting her lip awkwardly.
"Hey, weren't you in my Japanese fiction class today?" He asked her.
"Yeah, that's right."
"I thought so. Hi..." And Rory turned back to face him. "I'm... Marty."
She giggled. "Rory."
"I won't remember that tomorrow."
"That's... perfectly understandable."
"So I should probably try and find my room, and... my pants, cause that's where I kept my keys."
"So, pants first," Rory acknowledged.
Marty stumbled past her for the stairwell.
"Night," Rory called after him.
"Yup. I'm officially stupider than my brother," Marty said half to himself.
Rory did not know it then, but she had just met someone who would change her life forever.