Author's note: I was going through my tumblr and I came across this; an old literati drabble I wrote around the beginning of the year. It is a small piece of no real consequence, just a little take on Jess's behavior and his feelings for Rory before they got together set sometime after he returned to Stars Hollow and was dating (perhaps a generous term) Shane. Enjoy!
Musings
She had been sitting there for three hours already. In her pale, slender fingers perched a worn copy of Jitterbug Perfume. Her chestnut brown hair was gathered into a high ponytail, giving way to the thoughtful curve of her neck as her head bowed ever so slightly to allow for optimum reading. He hadn't so much as seen her cornflower blue eyes since she had come in; he had however, seen her turn a substantial amount of pages. She looked up neither when she brought her coffee cup to her lips nor when he refilled her cup before she could remember it was empty and pout.
Luke would have been impressed that the book Jess had been so vastly fascinated with this morning during the rush, a paperback Tom Wolfe, lay discarded on the counter in front of him. Wolfe's words could no longer pull his attention away from the only girl sitting in the diner without him. Jess tried to reason with himself that watching her wasn't for his own enjoyment. He was merely waiting for her to tilt her cup at an angle indicative of her coffee almost being done to continue the practice of running the diner in Luke's absence.
Rory was the only customer, which made keeping her supplied in coffee Jess's only job. He had, however distractedly, wiped down the counter four times in the three hour time span she had been there, taking up a four person table. Her bag sat in the seat adjacent to her, unzipped and ready to topple over as it overflowed with books, her feet, crossed over at the ankles, propped in the one opposite, her winter coat draped over the back of the last. Her subtleties to remain alone were impressive.
Her concentration was reverent, not once did she extract herself from Tom Robbins' world. In fact, Jess was sure the only thing that would pull her attention away was whatever loud and enthusiastic entrance her mother made when she arrived. This was a fact he was eternally grateful for. If Rory paid any attention to how often he looked at her she would probably have justification enough to file a restraining order against him.
Wordlessly he would bring her coffee, and when he thought it was time, a donut, fries, anything that would require the barest skills to eat without utensils, and napkins, so she could wash her hands. She placed her book down while she ate, keeping the pages open by spreading her fingers along the bottom margins. They co-existed in a silent, comfortable harmony. He leant against the bench by the coffee machine and just watched her openly.
He refused to admit, even at the mercy of Luke's ribbing, that watching her was one of the nicer ways to pass time in this town.
Jess only idly entertains the idea that watching her is unusual. For the sake of his pride (which is falling to pieces every time another thought of her passes through his mind) he tries not to dwell on it. Watching people has been construed as many things, but recently a lot of books had romanticized the idea. The cliché of not being able to take your eyes off someone aided the notion that it were a simple pleasure, to watch the person you so favored. He's not sure he believes it, but he wishes he could, so he wouldn't feel so guilty about it later.
He'd only become very nicely acquainted with guilt in the months since he had moved here, having been seduced by the doll like features of the town princess with exemplary literary tastes. In a roundabout way it's not so unusual that she would be the one to catch his eye. He had always been well established with the Shane's of the world, and never cared for them. It had always been a matter of finding Rory Gilmore, and now that he had it was his glutton for punishment that kept him in the town that he felt was constantly threatening his sanity.
She would never look at him, despite his efforts to assert her attention. Apparently the fact that they were meant to be together, as he so strongly had believed since he'd first laid eyes on her, hadn't occurred to her. He would continue to hold out hope, drop subtle not-so-subtle hints in an effort to always keep his foot in the door of her world and enlighten her to the epiphany he had come to terms with between the sight of her sky blue eyes and her book collection.