A/N: I had this story up a while ago, but accidentally deleted it...
Takes place after "Teach Me Tonight", but Jess never left town.
"Ooh, ooh! I hear beeping! Time for popcorn!" Lorelai said enthusiastically, skipping into the kitchen, empty bowl in hand.
"You guys sure can make a bowl of popcorn disappear quick." Dean pointed out.
"It takes years of training, and many nights where we learned how much is too much." Laughing, Rory moved over to where Dean was standing.
Lorelai walked by them, saying that she couldn't find and M&M's to mix with the popcorn, so she had to go to Doose's. The door opened and shut, then there was an awkward silence between Rory and Dean.
"So, what did you do today?" Dean asked, curious of why she wasn't home when he came by earlier.
"Oh…I just…um, went to the bookstore then read the rest of the day…"
"By yourself? I could've went with you after my basketball game."
"It's ok. I know you don't like those kinds of things."
"It's better than thinking that you had to spend a beautiful Saturday all by yourself." Dean told Rory, trying to act like he would've had fun at a bookstore.
Rory squirmed, "I wasn't exactly by myself. I was with…Jess." she whispered the last word, knowing it would upset Dean, yet not knowing how to avoid telling him.
"Jess?! You spent the day with him, instead of me?!" Dean yelled, outraged.
"You were gone playing basketball with your friends all day!" Rory tried to make him understand.
"Not all day! I stopped by here at 3 to see if you wanted to come watch me play, but you weren't home!"
"Did you notice that it's still about basketball? That's all you do or talk about! Sports this, sports that! And what's so wrong about me hanging out with Jess? He's my friend and you don't have a say over who I'm friends with!" Rory screamed, getting angry about how self-centered Dean was.
"You know I don't like that guy, Rory. He's bad news. And he doesn't think of you as a friend. He's trying to manipulate you! Don't you see it? He wants you, Rory!" Dean is now pacing back and forth between the living room and the kitchen, his face beet red from yelling.
"You don't know if any of that is true! We're friends, Dean, and he doesn't 'want me' as you say he does!"
"Have you seen the way he looks at you!? Wait, no, you don't because you're busy looking at him with those same puppy dog eyes! He's going to be the reason of our breakup if you keep being friends with him." Starting to calm down, Dean ends the conversation. "I can't handle this right now. We'll work it out tomorrow."
Rory agrees, and walks Dean towards the door. Just as they are a few feet away, someone knocks. Rory opens the door as they come upon it.
"Jess." Rory says, noting that this was the worst possible time for him to show up. As she's wondering why he's here, she sees the tool bag in his hand and remembers he was supposed to come fix the toaster.
"Unbelievable…unbelievable." Dean mutters, walking out the door. "Rory, we're over. Have him, see if I care."
Rory stares after Dean, then breaks down and starts crying. She leaves the door open while running off to her room. Jess watches her as he stands outside, unsure of whether to come in or not. He makes his decision and comes in. Shutting the door behind him, Jess makes his way to the kitchen. Jess sets his bag on the table and walks over to Rory's room. The door is partially open, and he can see Rory lying on her bed, her head in her hands. He supposes that she's crying, and his stony exterior softens as he shows a hint of concern. Jess covers that up quickly, and clearing his throat says, "Can I come in?"
Rory sits up and nods. When Jess enters she scoots over to make room for him next to her on the bed. He sits down, legs hanging over the edge of her small bed.
"What happened?" Jess asks, keeping sarcasm out of his voice, he's actually being sincere.
"Dean broke up with me." A few tears drip out of the corners of Rory's eyes as she tells him this. "He thinks that we want to be together. He gets so jealous over the littlest things."
"Huh." Jess tries to suppress a smirk, happy that he ticked Dean off. The smirk automatically stops forming as he realizes this means he is the cause of Rory's hurt. "I'm sorry." This was out before he remembered that it's not something "Jess-like" to say, and that Rory was going to tease him about it forever.
"Softie." Rory smiles through her tears. "Who ever knew you cared so much about my feelings?" Rory blushed when she noticed how that sentence sounded. "I…I didn't mean anything…it's just you never say things like that, and I was taking advantage of the situation, I didn't mean to imply that you would care about me…"
Jess smirked as Rory rambled on, which she always does when she gets embarrassed. She sees his smirk and blushes deeper. "What's so funny?" she pouted. "I just made an idiot of myself."
"And it was funny." Jess said, still smirking. She looked so cute when she tried to make him feel sorry for her. Jess hopped off the bed, saying he had to fix the toaster. Rory followed, and sat at the table to watch.
Lorelai walked in, apologizing while heading to the kitchen. "Sorry, I was on my way home from Doose's with the M&M's when I walked by Luke's and just had to stop for coffee. It was calling me 'Lorelai, Lorelai, come drink me…', and I couldn't ignore it." Lorelai stops, sees Jess and Rory at the table and looks around for Dean. She then notices Rory's red eyes, like she'd been crying. "What happened, honey?"
"Dean broke up with me." Taking note of Lorelai's surprised expression, she continues with more details. "He started yelling about me hanging out with Jess, and how Jess liked me, and then he decided to leave and we'd work it out tomorrow. Then as Dean was leaving, Jess showed up at the door to fix the toaster. So, Dean said it was over."
Lorelai pointed at Jess, "Bad timing."
"Luke sent me. It's technically his fault." Jess defended himself. He started cleaning up his tools, and moved the toaster back into it's proper spot.
"Done?" Lorelai asked. Jess nodded. "Good. Now go away, it's time for a girl talk."
"You're so polite." Jess said sarcastically as he walked out the back door.
Rory walked into the living room and sat on the couch. Lorelai copied her movement. "Okay, so let me get this straight - Dean broke up with you because you and Jess are friends and he thought you guys wanted more than that?"
"Correct."
"Is he right?" Lorelai wondered aloud, hoping it wouldn't upset Rory.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want Jess as more than a friend?"
"I'm not sure right now. I'm still trying to recover from Dean's blow-up. Can we talk about this later?"
"Of course, sweetie, I understand." Lorelai comforted Rory by putting her arm around her. "Let's just forget about everything for now and start our movie night."
A/N: So what did you think?