This was intended to be a one-shot, but real life got in the way. So, this is an advent fic written for #agilmorechristmas at Al's Pancake World on Tumblr that will just keep giving, at least for another chapter. The prompt I selected was: "AU where Lorelai doesn't miss her paint date with Luke or they kiss behind the counter"
Her life was a terrific, unqualified mess.
Lorelai stared into the squat mug of coffee she held, swirling around the dredges she had downed like the martinis she consumed just a couple hours earlier. Her heels were kicked somewhere under the table, her feet actively hating her. Who loathed her more, her feet or Straub Hayden? She couldn't quite decide. She decided on Straub. Her feet would eventually get over what she did to them. Straub hadn't even begun to let go of a 17-year grudge.
She took measured breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. If she concentrated on breathing, she wouldn't start crying. She already looked out of place in the coffee shop with her in Friday Night Dinner clothes, limping in the door because she had the bright idea to walk a mile in 3-inch heels. Breathe in, breathe out. In and out. If she concentrated on breathing, she wouldn't reflect on her father reminding her of all her faults, of Chris doing his very best to recreate the night of Rory's conception, of Straub's insults, of her own of President Bush. Well … that one she didn't really regret. Still.
In. Out.
Lorelai felt the gush of wind as the door open, and seconds later, a chair was pulled out across from her. She didn't bother to look up. She knew who it was.
In. Out.
"Are you OK?" Luke's voice was soft and concerned, and it was the last thing she needed. Why couldn't he simply yell at her for dragging him away from the diner, for making him come to Hartford to rescue her? Hell, why had she called him in the first place? Why didn't she call Sookie or even Babette?
"Lorelai." His voice was a bit harsher, and it forced her back into the present. "Are you OK?" he repeated.
"You have the pleasure of sitting across from Connecticut's biggest disappointment." She downed the rest of the coffee. "I would say the country or in history, but then I remember that The Phantom Menace exists, and there's not a bigger disappointment than that."
"You are not a disappointment," Luke said immediately, and the show of loyalty undid her more than the choicest insults from Straub Hayden's mouth.
"Maybe you should go to my parents' house and remind them of that." Lorelai shook her head before he could reply, because he would do it. "No, don't. I'm a rat for making you do this." She leaped to her feet, forgetting that they were staging a rebellion and immediately stumbled. Her hand slipped, knocking the coffee mug over. "Damn it."
"I've got it." Luke grabbed napkins from a dispenser and quickly mopped up the mess with the ease of years of expertise. He frowned at her feet. "Where's your shoes?"
Reluctantly, she slid them back on and tried that whole business of standing again. When he stepped toward her, she shook her head. She had to get outside on her own two feet. Throwing her shoulders back, she walked slowly to the door and the truck that waited outside to take them home.
"Hi, it's me. Lorelai. Your budding Michaelangelo, destined to paint murals on your ceiling. Hey, listen …"
"Something's come up."
"Yes. Well, no. But, yes. It's just … can you pick me up, please?"
"Are you OK? Where are you?"
"This coffee shop about a mile from my parents' house. I'll give you the address."
"Where's Rory?"
"Oh, with her dad. They're probably back in Stars Hollow already."
"I'll be there in 30 minutes."
Interstate signs, Lorelai thought, were funny. They went by with swoops, counting down miles to the nearest exit like you were approaching some sort of deadline. Berlin Road exit, one mile. Ooh, there was a McDonald's there and a Burger King. Maybe she could persuade Luke to stop for a milkshake … and there it went, swooping by, next exit in the distance. Country Club Road. Park and Ride and a state police post. Boring.
"How far did you walk in those?"
The question was casual, but she could hear the concern in it. It was the same tone of voice he had on the phone, when he rescued her from the coffee shop, when his lips had covered her and he had lowered her to the aged floor of the diner that had been his father's hardware shop. When his hands slipped beneath her shirt and his kiss, soft and heated, made her realize that nothing she had shared with any man before was like this. It was like every other man she kissed in her life had been store-brand ice cream, and Luke was Ben & Jerry's. And now she wanted ice cream in addition to the milkshake.
"Lorelai." This was with a hint of annoyance now, more familiar territory. She battled back her craving for ice cream and more kisses.
"You know, I thought it was time to break the Guiness record of long-distance walking in heels." She shot him the ghost of a sunny smile, and it was returned with a stone-faced glare. He most certainly wasn't being the Ben & Jerry of guys now.
Luke didn't press further, and before Lorelai realized it, the truck was idling outside of the house. The Jeep sat out front, the lights blazing from the living room. She gripped the handle, but the door refused to open. It wasn't that the door itself was broken, just her ability to open doors - especially when it meant walking into her house and once again facing the disaster that had been her entire night. Rory would want to talk, and Chris would want to talk, and for the first time in her life, Lorelai didn't want to talk.
So she shot her most winning smile at Luke. "Hey, don't welch out on the painting night, mister! We've gotta get it done before Taylor hires half of Martha Stewart Living and lays siege to the diner."
"You can't paint like that. Geez, Lorelai, you can barely walk." Luke started to throw the gearshift into park, but she quickly covered his hand. The touch of his skin, roughened knuckles from years of manual labor, felt like an electric shock.
"Can we just go to the diner? Please?" Her voice was quiet, without the extra dose of wheedling she liked to insert when she felt like she was about to get her way with Luke. She stared at her hand atop his, absently comparing the skin tones. "We don't have to paint. Just … I don't want to go home right now."
He didn't say anything, just stared at her for a long few seconds before shifting the truck back into drive and easing away from the curb.
Their friendship, which always seemed to be teetering on the edge of 'what if,' was filled with so many near misses that Lorelai wasn't surprised that she and Luke were kissing. It was the fact that he had been the one to cross that hurdle, to shyly press his lips to hers, that shocked her to the core. He was sweetly hesitant, like the very first kiss she ever had. But she quickly made it clear that not only did she want his kiss, she craved it.
She would be content to never stop kissing him, but there was the whole fact that Rory was at home and Taylor was pounding on the window. She almost wish Taylor could see them, the way Luke was ranged on top of her, arms braced against the floor as the kiss went from hesitant-sweet to all-consuming heat. Lorelai thought she had experienced passion with Max, when she had broken her extremely long drought with him a few months earlier. This was entirely in a different orbit.
It felt like coming home.
They argued over him carrying her up the stairs, but he finally let her go ahead of him, his hand at the small of her back to both guide and steady her when she stumbled. She started toward the couch, but he gently steered her toward the shelving unit and the bed that lay behind it. The duvet and the pillows were well-worn, the quilt ancient and hand-made.
"Whoa, we've gone from zero to home run in less than 24 hours," Lorelai joked.
Luke scowled at her and pointed to the bed. "Shoes off and lie down. It'll be easier this way."
"I take it you're not about to ravish me."
He rolled his eyes and disappeared into the bathroom as she toed off the heels once more. She winced at the blisters on the balls of her feet and her ankles. The next few days were going to be miserable.
Luke came back out with medicine and bandages, setting them on the nightstand before jerking his head at the bathroom. "I don't want to treat these and you suddenly need to pee, then we have to do it all over again. Go now."
This time, Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Yes, dad," she said sarcastically, but took the advice. She took an extra couple of minutes to scrub her makeup off, stuck using the bar soap he had next to the sink. She groaned at the tear tracks her mascara had made and was extra ruthless with her cheeks. She could already feel the pull of dry skin from the lack of moisturizer, but there was nothing she could do about it.
"This man was at Rory's birthday party, he came to the hospital with you, he's the male lead in every story you tell, you go to the diner every single day. I've seen the way he looks at you, the way you look at him. I'm not a fool."
They had kissed eight days earlier. They had kissed the living daylights out of each other, and a good bit of the nightlights as well. They hadn't spoken about it since. They alluded to it somewhat. Lorelai tried to pressure Luke into admitting he thought she had summoned him for a booty call, which had been at the forefront of her mind she wasn't going to lie, but instead they had gone Stella-hunting. They didn't speak about it when buying paint a few days ago.
But Lorelai thought about it. She thought about it all the time. It haunted every spare second she had to think, invaded her dreams every night. Rory's father was sleeping on the couch, and she was upstairs having torrid dreams about her closest male friend.
Luke snagged the other pillow from next to Lorelai and used it to prop up her feet. He covered one foot with a wet washcloth, then lightly rubbed a dry one over it. Carefully, he dabbed Neosporin over one of the blisters, then reached for a roll of moleskin and a bandage. She watched as he cut off a piece, then cut a hole into the middle.
"So, indulging in your inner Mark Greene?" she teased.
"I'm not gonna pretend to know which show you're talking about."
"Everyone's seen ER." When he sent an arched eyebrow in her direction, she huffed. "Everyone except TV-adverse diner owners."
He finished laying the moleskin over the blister, then carefully applied a bandage, tenting the middle to allow air. "I ran track in high school. The coach drilled it into our heads, said he refused to have us out of a meet because we were stupid and brought on an infection from a popped blister."
Intrigued, Lorelai pushed herself onto her elbows. If her mental image of Luke in short shorts was anything like the reality, then it was utterly delicious. "No way! I want to see you in track shorts."
"No," he said shortly.
"Fine. Let me know when the stick that's crawled up your ass is dislodged."
"I have a right to have that stick jammed up my ass when I find out you walked a mile in those damn heels." Luke tossed down the scissors after cutting more moleskin into place. "You're upset, you're hurt, you were crying, and it's taking everything in me not to go over to your house and punch that guy."
"Punch that … Chris?"
He pushed to his feet and began to pace the space in front of the bed. "Who else did this to you?"
"It was a potent combination of him, his dad, and my dad. Though out of the three, Chris was the least offensive." Lorelai worried her lip and blurted. "He did kiss me. He kissed me and he tried to get me to recreate Rory's conception on the balcony. Do you want to know why I didn't?"
Luke had drawn to a halt next to the shelf divider. "It's none of my business who you choose to be with."
"Is that why you didn't bring up the kiss when we were buying paint?" When he didn't respond, her voice dropped to a whisper. "God, I'm so stupid."
Stupid, stupid Lorelai, thinking that there had been something in that kiss, that maybe they were finally going to explore whatever this thing was that lay between them. She thought there was something there, something between them, but clearly it was all one-sided. Tears burned, and she looked out the window. They had been somewhat shy and hesitant around each other during their paint-buying expedition, but when the kiss hadn't been brought up, she didn't push it. Then Chris had shown up and everything had gone straight to hell.
Lorelai never knew how badly she wanted Luke to want her back until that very instance.
She heard a swear that caused her head to snap around and she realize two things at the exact same time: the first was that her inner monologue had at some point become an outer one, and her thoughts had spilled from her in a rambling, incoherent mess, blaming the entire situation on herself.
The second was that Luke very much did want her, because he had stormed back to the bed, had pulled her into his arms, and was kissing her as if his next breath, his very existence, his utter sanity depended on the connection between them.