Rory still hasn't told Jess where she went after Gypsy's last night, but he stops caring about it when she shows up at Luke's after dinner with a gust of the November cold, the color in her face highlighting all the places he wants to kiss her.
"Hey, there's a B movie starting at Black & White & Read in a half hour. You wanna go?"
She spends the walk over going through their best seating options. There seems to be a hard balance to strike between unobstructed viewing and minimal Kirk disruptions, but she finds them two good spots by the biographies. Even if sitting next to Rory in a dark theater had been one of his particular fantasies in months past, he never would have picked the place with all of the local color whispering distance away.
When she takes off her coat and elbows him by mistake, she goes, "Oh God, sorry," and puts a hand to his shirt. Feeling the cotton brush his skin suddenly makes him appreciate the rickety folding chairs and Taylor cordoning off entire rows of seats. He doesn't have to wish she would touch him, now that she's finally his. Reality wins, for once. With Robot Monster starting in a couple minutes he presses a kiss into her hair and puts his arm around her. So what if Kirk shows up and it blocks his view. Screw him.
Rory takes one look at his hand on her shoulder and hits him with those blue eyes. They're a little wider than usual, if that's even possible. "This is kind of weird, right?"
"Hey, if any of my moves don't suit you, just say the word. This one's kind of a standard, though."
"No, I think this is our first date. Finally, after everything."
He chews his lip while he tries to remember. "I'd say it's more like our third."
"I don't think you watching me cry on the bridge at six in the morning really counts. Or the five minutes at Gypsy's last night."
"That time I brought you food from Luke's when your mom was gone?"
"I was dating Dean. And Paris was there." Her eyebrows twinge, like she wants to hold onto her truth but still hear his version.
"Just 'cause we had a third wheel doesn't mean I was puttin' in any less effort."
"Rory, dear." Miss Patty and her waft of spicy perfume come up from the row behind them. "Tell your city boy it's not a date until he spends money on you."
She nods once. "I'll keep that in mind."
"Well by that logic, bringin' take-out to your house definitely qualifies." He runs his thumb over the curve of her shoulder.
"Oh really."
"Yes, really." The lights dim.
She lowers her voice. "Tell me exactly how that went, again?"
There was pounding and drilling on what sounded like every flat surface above the diner, and the entire place was being treated to echoing shouts about drywall and stud placement. Jess was behind the counter, spinning a coffee creamer on its tilted edge and thinking about Rory, while Luke was trying to wrangle the check away from some out-of-towners.
"If ya eat the food, I get some of your money. It's this whole exchange process." Whoops. They'd let Luke get past his point of no return, which meant he was about to start gesticulating at their plates and ranting about supply and demand. "If things are different where you're from, my condolences for the culture shock."
"We haven't been able to hear ourselves think for this entire meal," said the guy.
"How do you expect to maintain your clientele in this environment?" His wife had quite the mouth on her.
Jess cupped his hand near the spinning creamer so it wouldn't fall. So Rory was home alone tonight. Doing what? Reading seemed like the natural choice. Or homework. Once it hit three o'clock (on the days he made it that far), he didn't give school so much as a passing thought before he had to go back. There was something fascinating about the fact that she tried so hard. She'd actually shushed him once, when he'd tried to interrupt her American history homework.
"What's got you grinnin' like a possum, Fonzie?" Babette and that guy in the sunglasses were standing on the other side of the counter.
He got rid of the smile. The creamer toppled to its side and rolled off the counter onto the floor by his feet. "Did you want somethin', or...?"
"Gimme a coffee ta go. Morey's parents are makin' us sit through a chamber orchestra and if I don't get a jolt soon, you're gonna hafta pry my face offa this nice Formica." She tapped the counter with her palm.
The guy raised a couple of fingers. "Make it two."
After he poured the coffee and they left, he got thinking about his Friday nights in New York. He used to wander, mostly: eat from whatever food cart was in the park and read Howl while there was still daylight; walk around the Village in the winter until his knuckles and the tip of his nose went numb from the cold, and then walk some more. Sometimes if his mom was in a mood he'd stay out past three or four in the morning, counting on the smoke from his cigarettes to get in his eyes and keep him awake. But at least it was quiet.
"Comin' through!" One of the hard hats nearly took Jess' head off with whatever kind of pipe he was balancing on his shoulder. Alright, it was long past time to get out of here. Maybe he could convince Rory to put her book down for a while. Plus, at her house there'd be fewer sights of guys scratching their armpits, unless Dean was there.
But... wait. He couldn't ring the doorbell and expect her to let him in, no questions asked. It would look like he just wanted to hang out, like they were friends. There had to be a reason. Something that made seeing her an unavoidable consequence, instead of the whole point.
He checked the clock. It was late enough to be dinnertime. He'd have to work fast, but he could get a bunch of food together for her and give Luke the credit. Rory was a lot of things, but he pictured her trying to get by in a kitchen where the plastic Hello Kitty cups outnumbered actual ingredients.
"I can give ya 20 percent off. That's it." Luke manhandled the check and slashed across it with his pen.
"Well, it'll have to do. Dennis, give him your card and let's get out of here."
Jess took an order pad from the stack by the register and wrote down some stuff he'd seen Rory eat before: a couple burgers, fries, some mac and cheese. Then he switched the two burgers for four, in case she got hungry tomorrow. If her mom was gone for the weekend, he didn't want her eating stale cereal. And he should probably throw in a salad. Not that he wanted to torture her, but better to keep up the charade at this point.
"We got a delivery," he told Caesar, tearing off the ticket and clipping it to the rack above the grill.
"You heard the phone over all this?" Caesar swirled a finger in the air.
Jess set his jaw. "Yep." Whatever. He'd pay Luke for the food later.
Caesar shook his head and grabbed the ticket to take to the fridge. "Go ahead and get me a box from storage."
The box sat heavy in his hands on the walk over, but the fries gave a satisfying warmth to his right palm through the cardboard. He pictured Rory curled up on her couch, reading a textbook in sweatpants and some of those fuzzy socks.
Or did she even own sweatpants? What did she sleep in? That was definitely a thought worth revisiting, once he had a free hand. And not that he didn't owe the people behind the Chilton dress code his undying gratitude, but a casual Rory would be something to see.
So: he'd surprise her with food, make her get all flustered and do that thing where she started more words than she finished, and then invite himself in. He balanced the box in the crook of his elbow and hit the doorbell with his free hand.
Or he'd just drop it and go, if she was in the middle of something. But if she wasn't...
She opened the door. No sweatpants. Still beautiful.
Showtime.
The bedsheet hanging between the Romance and Spirituality sections flickers to life.
"It went something like: I brought food, we ate it, I showed remarkable restraint by not kissing you when Paris left to go check for hives, and then your boyfriend showed up and it was curtains for me."
"I had to practically shove you out the door to get you to leave." She leans her head in close and tries to fight off the slightest of smiles. It feels like they're rehearsing for dozens of future retellings, and he hopes she makes this face for every last one of them.
"That's right, you got handsy with me." This could lead to a bigger smile or a shove, but he's open to either.
Instead she leans back in her folding chair and crosses her arms. "It's too bad you don't fish. I think you'd have a real knack for the storytelling."
"Just sayin'. When can I expect more of that?"
"Me shoving you out the door?"
"Your hands on me. I'm not picky about the circumstances."
She turns toward the screen. The old-fashioned projector throws hazy flickers of light across her face. "This ends at nine, but I don't have to be home until ten."
"You don't say." He finds the elastic at the end of the little braid in her hair and rolls it between his fingers. "How are we s'posed to keep you out of trouble for a whole hour?"
"I'm sure you'll come up with something in time for the credits."
He'd found a city on that smirk, if he could.