He watched her...
God, he watched her so much he didn't even know how he managed to pass the subjects that they had together. Even the ones he didn't have with her were only manageable because she ran through his head all day. And even yet, Tristan DuGrey found it hard to admit to himself that he really liked her. Because Rory Gilmore was different. She wasn't supposed to be his style, his type at all. So why couldn't he stop looking at her, even just to listen to the fundamentals of the next major exam which he could not afford to come as close to flunking as he had last time.

"Get over it DuGrey," he told himself, "you're just coming down with something."

But even his powers of denial could not fight the evidence that this "something" had been coming down from as long ago as Rory's grand entrance to Chilton.
Yep, Tristan had it bad but he wasn't about to believe it just yet... he continued to think that he only wanted the conquest. And it suited him fine that the rest of the world would see it that way too until he decided otherwise.

His thoughts collided with the sudden harshness of a bell tolling the end of period. A slight panic set in when he realised that another fourty minutes had gone over his head and with it, the passing grade on the upcoming exam. He mentally hit himself. He'd just borrow someone's notes and get down to business tonight... 20 chapters weren't too much to catch up on by next week if you had the DuGrey determination he concluded... trailing off to watch Rory finish getting her books together. Amazingly she turned to him before she exited.

"You don't look so great, do you want me to walk you to the nurse or something?"

"uh, no. Thanks Rory. I'm cool, just all of the test stuff that went over my head was a little..."

She looked at him strangely and he realised too late that he was being...nice. He immediately resumed a more Tristan-like stance while gathering his stuff together.

"overwhelming. You know, the way you feel about me and all Mary." He breathed an inward sigh of relief as she rolled her eyes.

"...and nice to see you're feeling better." she said over her shoulder as she joined the stream of students in the hallway. Tristan hastened to join the crowd before he was late for gym, to be stopped by Paris who handed him a thick sheaf of papers. He looked at her in query.

"Notes DuGrey...the things that you sort of forgot to take in your endless endeavours of staring at a certain someone." Her dry voice didn't allow for any of the denials that he would make to anyone else.

"uh thanks Paris, I'll-"

"Save it. I'll get them off you tomorrow."

"Right. thanks again then. Any particular reason for the sudden burst of sharing fun?"

She avoided his eyes along with his questioning as they left the room... Love triangles were so confusing.