Is it only me or did the Stars Hollow townies miss a prime opportunity when Luke bought Lorelai's basket? Sure, he was pestered into buying it, but buy it he did, then he did something they all missed: He went with her to eat it. But as we all know, Luke has a remarkable sense of self preservation, so much so that he went back to the diner and made their favorites to "picnic" in the gazebo for all the world and Hello magazine to see.
Boy, Miss Patty is slipping….
Obviously this takes place during the A Tisket a Tasket episode. A lot of the dialogue was lifted from that episode for this first chapter and I've added a few things. I've taken Luke's weakness for helping Lorelai out, added Lorelai's gratitude plus a dash of mischief and mixed it all together to come up with this. Enjoy!
Her Flannel Knight
Stars Hollow's equivalent to Vanna White held up the last offering in the basket auction. She had a vapid smile plastered on her face as she let the restless audience see the basket from all angles. The basket auction had been going on for a while now, but there had been a few surprises this year: the all-out bidding war between Dean and Jess and Kirk buying Sookie's basket. Both had been shockers and had the townsfolk's tongues a-wagging.
"Next up – why, that looks like a Doose's market basket. Nice, huh?" Taylor had warmed to his role, looking around magnanimously, playing to the assembled crowd like some kind of demented game-show host. Pat Sajak, he wasn't.
"Ooh, that's mine," Lorelai said to a woman standing next to her as she took a sip of her coffee.
"I'd like to start the bidding at five dollars," Taylor launched into his practiced shtick, trying to get things started.
"I bid five dollars," an unfamiliar guy piped up.
"Whoa, that was quick," Lorelai said in surprise.
"Ten dollars." A second guy raised his hand.
"Do they know that all that's in there is two stale Pop Tarts and a Slim Jim?" Lorelai wittily commented to the same woman. The woman smirked in amusement.
"Fifteen dollars." Another stranger entered into the fray.
"He looks familiar." Lorelai narrowed her eyes, trying to place the face.
"Twenty dollars," the first guy called out.
"Twenty dollars," Taylor confirmed, getting into the swing of things.
"So does he," Lorelai frowned, a sudden sinking feeling taking hold of her.
"Twenty-five," the second guy upped his bid.
"This is going very well gentlemen, keep it up," Taylor said encouragingly.
"Oh no," Lorelai squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a moment as the realization dawned. She passed her coffee cup off to the unsuspecting woman and hurried over to where Miss Patty was sitting. "Those are the guys, aren't they?" Lorelai asked.
"Excuse me?" Miss Patty eyes went wide as she feigned innocence
"The guys whose pictures you sent me - you brought them here! You're setting me up!" Lorelai accused her.
Patty immediately dropped the pretense. "Well darling, you can't be trusted to do it yourself," she admonished her.
"Oh geez, oh geez!" Lorelai said, horrified. This was turning into a nightmare.
"Thirty-five," the second guy declared with a determined look.
"That one's a snorkeler," Patty said gleefully. The innuendo in her voice implied all things dirty.
"Ugh!" Lorelai shuddered in distaste. She took off running, no, sprinting for Luke's. There was only one person she knew who could rescue her from this hell and he had a fondness for flannel and backwards baseball caps. Lorelai burst through the door, skidding to a stop in from of Cesar.
"Luke!" She got out. "Where is he, where is he? I need him! Caesar, where is -" Her panic was nearly choking her. Cesar gestured towards the kitchen and as she looked that way, the man himself emerged. "Agh, agh, thank God. Hey, hey, you gotta come with me." She hurried to the end of the counter as he was rounding it.
"What are you doing?" Luke calmly asked, taking her present craziness in stride. As she grabbed at the plates he was holding, he became alarmed. "Hey hey, I got plates here!"
Lorelai snatched the food out of his hands and headed back behind the counter. "Put the burgers down." She unceremoniously dumped the plates on the counter as she hurried along to her goal. Luke was one step behind her, trying to shoo her out. "Cesar, you're in charge." She practically threw herself at the cash register.
"Now wait!" Luke protested. This was bizarre even for Lorelai.
Lorelai began randomly stabbing at buttons. "Do you have money? I need money! Which one opens this thing?" She worked her way across, hitting each button in turn, hoping the drawer would pop open. Her running commentary as she did so only added to her desperation. "Is it that one? Not that one…."
"Stop messing with that," Luke muttered as he tried to move her flailing hand away from the register.
Lorelai grabbed Luke's arm instead, pulling him around the counter. "Luke, you gotta come out there with me. Patty gave my picture out to all these guys because she thinks I need a man," she explained quickly. Time was of the essence.
Luke dug his heels in, not budging, patiently listening to her before agreeing. "You do, one with a nice couch and a deep knowledge of Freud."
"You have to come out and bid on my basket!" Lorelai insisted.
Luke snorted in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
"Yes!" she stated emphatically. Why was he being so difficult?
Luke headed back to the counter to retrieve the plates. "I have never in my life taken part in one of these crazy group flip outs. I'm not about to start now." He delivered the two platters and went to move away but Lorelai was blocking his path.
"But - right now - out there - the -" she sputtered.
"Just buy your own basket," Luke instructed her as if that would solve the problem.
"I cannot buy my own basket," she declared.
"Why not?"
"Because that is pathetic!"
"And chasing me around my diner begging me to buy your basket?" He quirked an eyebrow at her.
"Also pathetic!" she agreed. "But that is a pathetic I can live with, where that pathetic," she flung her arm out on the direction of the town square, "is a truly pathetic-pathetic, and only you can save me from the double pathetic! Please!" She was frantic now.
Luke, worn down by her non-existent logic, slammed down his order pad and pen. "I can't believe I'm doing this." He headed towards the door and grabbed his coat.
"Ha, ha!" Lorelai smiled triumphant, knowing she was saved.
Luke paused, hand on the doorknob, as if screwing up his courage. Did he really want to do this? He vowed never to get caught up in the town lunacy and never had up until this point. Add to that, he would be buying Lorelai's basket. As if he didn't have enough to deal with the never-ending idle speculation about the two of them, now he would be giving the town busybodies fodder for even more gossip. But Lorelai needed his help and he couldn't turn her down.
Lorelai bounced on her feet impatiently, urging him out the door. "Hurry up. Hurry up!" She pushed him out as he opened the door and closed it behind them.
Lorelai scurried over to the gazebo where, thankfully, the bidding was still going on. "Forty-five fifty," the first guy said.
"Forty-six," guy number two countered.
"Forty-six fifty," the third guy chimed in.
"Forty-seven." The first guy was hanging tough.
Lorelai gesticulated madly for Luke to catch up and enter the bidding. "Go, go on."
"Forty-seven dollars, are you kidding?" Luke asked incredulously.
"Luke!"
"Forty-seven fifty!" guy number two added.
"For what?" Luke asked logically. "Two stale Pop Tarts and a Slim Jim?" She had to be kidding him.
"Okay, you're not getting the whole saving me here thing, are you?" Lorelai snapped in irritation.
"Fine," Luke conceded, holding up one hand to stop her spate of nonsense. "Forty-eight."
"Forty-eight fifty," guy number one immediately countered.
"Forty-nine," Luke said reluctantly, digging in his back pocket for his wallet.
"Forty-nine fifty," guy number two shouted out.
"Uh," Luke hemmed, checking to see how much cash he had on him, "fifty-two fifty."
"What? We're just supposed to go to fifty," the first guy protested. He seemed to be at a loss as to what to do now that the dollar amount was in uncharted territory.
"I have a life," Luke replied holding up his money, his tone clearly stating they didn't.
"Fifty-two fifty going once!" Lorelai cried out, desperately trying to bring this fiasco to an end.
Now it was Taylor's turn to protest. "Hey, hey, that's my job! Fifty-two fifty going once, fifty-two fifty going twice . . . ." The cadence of his voice was slow and measured.
"Oh, please God," Lorelai prayed fervently that no one else would counter while Taylor took his sweet time ending the bidding.
Taylor finally banged the gavel. "Sold for fifty-two fifty!"
"Yes!" Lorelai grabbed Luke's elbow and urged him forward to collect her basket. "Ha, ha, sorry guys, don't feel bad," she commiserated at the crestfallen faces of her unwanted suitors. "I'm totally into Dungeons and Dragons. You've skated."
Taylor wrapped things up. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the basket bidding for today!
Victors come claim your prizes and your dates! Let the lunching begin!"
"You rock!" Lorelai crowed as Luke took possession of her basket.
"Thank you," he replied, dazed.
"You're welcome," she replied seriously.
"So what do we do now?" Luke queried.
In her frantic rush to prevent a dating catastrophe, she realized she hadn't thought the whole thing through. Now that it was over, it dawned on her that she was going to have a private lunch. Alone. With Luke. Belatedly, she wondered if coercing him into buying her basket was such a good idea. It was these little scenarios where they were thrown together that always seemed to lead to some weird, uncomfortable moment. Well, not really uncomfortable, she corrected herself. More like unsettling. Like there was something else going on that she wasn't aware of. Or maybe she was aware of and she was uncertain where it was going. Or where she wanted it to go. Or more importantly, where Luke wanted it to go.
Things about them had been quiet in the rumor mill lately. She was afraid that with this little picnic, that blessed respite was about to come to an end. "I guess we eat," Lorelai said resignedly.
"This?" Luke held the basket out gingerly, as if it were a bomb.
"Yeah."
"First I have to buy it then I have to eat it?" He sounded like it would end up being his last meal.
Relieved, Lorelai realized that with the attitude he was displaying, she had nothing to worry about. "Hey, the basket of botulism does come with my company," she offered, trying to make their picnic more enticing. Just not too enticing.
"Huh." Luke pondered. "You don't eat with your mouth open do you?"
Oh yeah, they would be just fine, she decided. "Women don't eat at all," she explained flippantly. "We just look at food and jump on the treadmill."
"All right," he agreed, "let's go."
The purchased baskets had been cleared out of the gazebo in record time and before anyone else could claim it, Luke headed up the steps and sat down on a bench. Lorelai followed and he set the basket between them.
"We're supposed to be eating on the ground," Lorelai complained.
"Says who?" Luke inquired.
"Every picture you've ever seen of a picnic shows people eating on the ground," Lorelai insisted.
"Yes, and every time I have seen a picture of people eating on the ground I've thought, what the hell are you people doing sitting on the ground? Spring for some beach chairs, you cheapskates." Luke got his rant in about picnics in just two sentences. That had to be a new record for him.
Before they could get started, Lane interrupted to ask for Lorelai's cell phone. Luke peeked into the basket as Lorelai stepped aside to talk to Lane. He shuddered. The sight of the contents was enough to turn his stomach. As Lane ran off with Lorelai's cell phone, Luke stood up and walked past Lorelai to leave as well.
"Hey, where are you going?" she demanded. This was going to be the shortest picnic on record.
He turned back to her. "I am going to the diner," he stated. "I am going to get us some edible food and I'm gonna bring it back here for us to eat."
"That is so not the point of today," Lorelai said indignantly. She pointed to her basket, the other hand on her hip. "I made this. I am insulted. I will now proceed to pout."
"I'll bring back some brownies," Luke bargained. He wisely knew that if he upped ante, Lorelai would come around.
Lorelai's mouth curved into an appreciative smile, totally placated. "Ooh, the pouting has left the building."
Luke threw one arm as if to say, "There you go" and left for the diner. Pleased that she would be getting some decent food, and Luke's food to boot, Lorelai sat back down to wait for him.
He was back less than fifteen minutes later carrying two large take out bags. Without a word, he handed her take out boxes filled with a cheeseburger and fries for her and a salad and vegetables for himself. He had her requisite coffee and his cup of tea. And, as promised, a container with no less than five brownies. They ate, enjoying the day and the food in quiet camaraderie.
"You know, your burgers actually taste better outside," she noted.
"Good," Luke quipped. "Next time the roof in the diner's leaking, I'll just rip the stupid thing off."
Lorelai gave a little chuckle. She leaned back, completely relaxed. She was enjoying having lunch with Luke. This picnic lunch turned out better than she'd hoped. For the most part, they'd eaten in companionable silence, occasionally making a comment or observation. "So this is nice, huh?" she questioned him. "Come on, admit it."
"Never," Luke vowed.
"What? Admit it, you would much rather be sitting out here than inside working," she wheedled.
"The diner's probably on fire by now," he mused darkly.
"You are stubborn," she observed.
"I'm stubborn?" Luke repeated incredulously
"Yeah, you're stubborn," Lorelai affirmed.
"You're Miss Flexibility over here?" Luke pointed out.
"Hey, I can be flexible," she maintained.
"Please." Luke rolled his eyes.
"I can. As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I'm totally flexible," she qualified.
Luke nodded his head. "Ah, well, my mistake," he teased. He picked up a carrot stick.
"Do you want a fry?" Lorelai asked impulsively.
"You want a carrot?" Luke immediately shot back, offering the one in his hand.
"Impossible," she declared.
"Right back at ya," he agreed, stuffing the carrot stick in his mouth. He chewed, and then paused uncertainly. "So let me ask you something," he began leadingly.
"Napkin, please."
He handed one over. "Who did you want to get your basket?"
"What?" Lorelai was suddenly at a loss.
"I mean, before you knew Patty was gonna put you on the Dating Game, you did pack this disgusting lunch and bring it out here," Luke pointed out. "So who did you want to get it?" Luke wondered if the reason she was so panicked about some strange guy buying her basket was that she was already seeing someone. Even though he really didn't want to know if she was, he couldn't help but ask.
"Well, last year Roy Wilkins bought it and I got my sprinklers fixed for half price," Lorelai explained.
"Uh huh," Luke said noncommittally.
Lorelai went on. "And this year my rain gutters are completely clogged, and I thought if I could get the Collins kid to bite, I'd get that taken care of."
"Very practical," Luke said, amused.
"I thought so," she said blithely.
"So the participation in this thing was purely for home improvement reasons?" He wasn't sure why he was driving that point home, covering his relief.
"Yes," Lorelai nodded, then grudgingly added, "and I don't know, it's a nice concept."
Luke's antennae went up. "What is?"
"Just having someone who you love or have some kind of crazy crush on bid on your basket and then share a romantic lunch, it's a nice concept," Lorelai said wistfully.
Luke chose his next words carefully. "Well, I'm sure someday you'll manage to find the right guy and drag him out to this thing and make him buy your stupid basket and then you'll be sitting out here with him."
"Yeah, someday." Lorelai replied absently, realizing she'd already done just what he said. Luke could easily fall into the category of "the right guy". She was keenly aware of him sitting next to her. She looked over at him then averted her eyes nervously. She felt a little flutter, like she always did when they strayed into the something more category and right now she was definitely feeling something more. Maybe she should have been worried about having lunch with him alone after all.
"You know what?" Luke asked, breaking into her thoughts. He leaned a little closer.
"What?" Lorelai's gaze flew up to his and her breath caught. She wondered if he'd drawn the same conclusion she had and where it might lead.
"This is nice." He nodded his head in acknowledgment and leaned back.
Relieved, Lorelai rolled her eyes at him, but was unable to stop the look of pleasure that bloomed on her face. The warm feelings seemed to flow between them and suddenly she was confused again, unsettled. And she couldn't tear her gaze away from Luke.
It was almost a relief when Dean showed up wanting to talk about Rory. The moment passed and she gave Luke a look of regret. "I'll be right back."
Luke nodded and quietly blew out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he watched her walk away. Mentally he shook himself. The intensity of the last few minutes and their conversation left him wondering, speculating once again over the crazy state of affairs between the two of them. Lately all interaction between them seemed to have some sort of an undercurrent, even this seemingly innocent conversation about the latest town event. He acknowledged to himself that something was there, but being as attuned to Lorelai's flighty nature, he knew it scared her and knowing that, he always backed off. Although he knew she trusted him, that trust only went so far. He knew that if he pushed her, she would flee. He needed to wait until he felt she was ready for something else. Something more.
"Gah!" Lorelai huffed as she plopped herself back down next to Luke. She picked up her burger and took a huge bite.
"What's wrong?" Luke asked.
"Dean is worried about Rory being with Jess," she explained, once she swallowed her food. She took a swig of coffee.
"Huh?" Luke asked, confused. "Rory is with Jess?"
"Oh yeah, that's right, you missed that part of the auction," Lorelai replied. "Jess started a bidding war with Dean over Rory's basket and won."
"Jess bid on Rory's basket?" Luke repeated, shocked.
"And won," Lorelai confirmed.
"Wow." Luke was surprised then suddenly he wasn't. He'd seen Jess disdain every thing and every person in Stars Hollow. Everyone but Rory. He wondered, fleetingly, if Jess did have a crush on her. Not that Jess would admit it to anyone, least of all Luke. He could see how this unexpected development was affecting both Dean and Lorelai. Dean, he could care less about. He always felt Rory was too good for him. But Lorelai—well, Luke didn't like to see anything mar her sunny disposition or spirit.
"I wouldn't worry about it," Luke fumbled for something to say to calm her. "It's probably just Jess getting into his usual mischief. At least this time he isn't making chalk outlines." When Lorelai looked at him searchingly, he felt compelled to add. "It's probably a completely innocent lunch, like ours is, right?" He peered at her questioningly.
Lorelai stared at Luke, reviewing the back and forth of their picnic, not so sure this was just an innocent picnic. She wasn't sure she liked the comparison. If Rory had been going through the same see-sawing feelings, there could be trouble.
"Probably," she mumbled.
tbc