By the time they'd reached Luke's, their hands were already roaming more freely than they ever had before tonight. Rory gasped against his mouth when one of his hands stroked the underside of her breast, and she pulled away a bit, looking around to make sure no one was around.

"What's wrong?" he asked her, running a hand through her hair, the other was tenderly running down her cheek.

"I-I think I need to go," Rory stammered, the full weight of what just happened hitting her hard.

"Why?" he asked, hurt obvious on his face.

"No, don't do that," she requested, kissing him soundly and pulling him against her. His hands fell to her waist and travelled up her back, underneath her shirt. "Jess, stop."

He pulled away from her completely, walking behind the counter and glaring at her angrily. His hair was a mess, his eyes were dangerous and his shirt was on backwards. Despite it all, she couldn't help but smile at him and laugh a little bit. At first he looked confused, and then he shook his head, sighing.

"What?" she asked him between the laughter, and sat down at a table a few meters away.

"I'm flunking out of high school, and you're laughing at me," he said solemnly, and she stopped laughing abruptly.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, offended that he would even think that.

"I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know what I'm going to do, or how I'm supposed to feel. I don't want to go back, Rory. I don't want to have to deal with all that shit anymore. It's stupid. Everything that they teach, I can learn on my own. I don't need to take some stupid tests to tell me that I know what I know," he shouted, pointing at the school building across the square.

Normally Rory might have been scared by the outburst, but she knew that it wasn't meant for her. He wasn't shouting because he was blaming her, or even because of her in general. He was shouting because he was confused and disappointed. Again, the desperate need to make that 'look' disappear from her face curled in her stomach.

"Then don't," she said simply, not really believing the words, even as she said them. Was she really telling Jess to drop out of school?

"What?" he asked, obviously as confused as she was.

"Don't go back to high school," she repeated, a solid thought finally forming in her mind.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked her, scoffing slightly and staring at her like she was pod-Rory.

"Just get your GED at college next year," she told him, moving towards him. She knelt on one of the stools in front of the counter and leaned over so that she was just inches from him. "Take awhile to just… think."

"But Rory, you're going to 'Yale'. What am I supposed to do? Sit here and twiddle my thumbs while my genius girlfriend does amazing things. Hell, you'll probably find Mr. Right there. You know, rich, smart, privileged. Someone who can give you what you deserve," he ranted, and she saw the fear in his eyes for the first time.

Shaking her head in disgust at his words, she almost felt like smacking him. Why was he being so totally irrational? She wasn't like that.

"I don't want some jerk in a Porsche, Jess… I want you," she told him angrily.

"Why? God, why me?" he finally demanded, jerking backwards, away from her.

"I love you," she bit out, and got off the stool. She walked behind the counter while he stared at her like she was some sort of scary monster.

"But why?" he asked again, and his voice almost broke. He looked away from her, his jaw clenching in an attempt to keep back whatever he was feeling.

"Stop it, Jess, stop hiding," she shouted, and he turned to face her, not used to being yelled at.

"I'm not hiding," he told her, and the mask was in place again.

Before she knew what she was doing, her hand reached up and smacked him across the face, hard. They both froze after realizing what she'd done, but Rory recovered first. Tears in her eyes, she turned around and marched out of Luke's. As she was storming down the road, she heard the jingle of Luke's bell, and a few seconds later, felt warm hands encircle her waist.

"Don't, don't leave. Luke's at Nicole's tonight. Stay with me," he begged her from behind. His lips caressed her neck softly and she had to bite back more tears.

"Why can't you just accept me?" she asked him, still not turning around to face him. Her hands, on their own violation, crawled onto his as they pulled her to him.

"Because you're perfect, you're not supposed to love someone like me," he told her honestly, stopping his kissing for a minute.

"I'm not perfect," she whispered, but felt shattered at how much self-loathing her boyfriend was harboring.

"You're perfect to me," Jess admitted honestly, and Rory felt her heart break more for him.

"Okay," she agreed, nodding her head slightly.

"You'll stay?" he asked hopefully, and she turned in his arms.

"I'll stay," she confirmed, and they kissed again, once more stumbling into Luke's diner.

The second that they were behind the curtain, their clothes started to fall off again, only this time, Rory wasn't letting him be the one with the last scrap of clothing on.

gGg

Morning rose, but the two lovers in Luke's diner did not. Rory felt something warm lying across her back, and squirmed slightly. Frowning, she sat up, not recognizing her surroundings for a minute, before realizing that she was lying in Jess's bed… with Jess. Mumbling to herself, she stumbled out of the bed and made a rather loud 'crash' as she landed.

"What the hell?" Jess exclaimed as he jerked up in the bed, shocked awake by the noise. When he realized that it was Rory who'd caused the noise, he leaned over the bed to look at her on the ground. One part of his hair was sticking out to the side, the rest was just mauled. That probably had a lot to do with their activities from the previous night. Nevertheless, he was still drop-dead sexy, and she suddenly felt her will to leave the room compromised. When he smirked, she was positive that she would do almost anything he asked her to. "Going somewhere?"

"It's seven o'clock, Luke will be home soon, and you were probably supposed to open," Rory pointed out, remembering why she had to leave. "And my mom's going to notice that I'm not home, and I'm then she's going to realize what's happened, and that means that I can't tell her, and she's going to be so mad at me." She continued rambling on, grabbing what few clothes she could find around the bed. Unfortunately, not many of them were hers.

"So you're leaving then?" Jess asked with an over-dramatic sigh.

"Yes," Rory grumbled at him, but smiled when she saw him watching her every move. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?" he asked, and jumped out of the bed. Despite having done… things with him the previous night, seeing him naked and in the sunlight was a different matter. The clothes in her hands were numbly dropped to the ground, and he smirked at her. Realizing what she'd done, she averted her eyes, blushing, and grabbed the clothing back up again. The effort was futile, however, as his hands were soon encircling her waist, and his lips were claiming hers again.

"Luke's going to come home," Rory warned half-heartedly.

"I don't care," Jess told her, throwing what little caution he had to the wind and pulling them back onto the bed. During their rather passionate make-out session, the sound of a slamming door echoed through the house from downstairs. Much like the time Luke had caught them during their first kiss, Rory leapt away from him and Jess looked at the door in annoyance.

"Oh my God," Rory panicked, grabbing her clothes and forcing whatever she could find onto her body. In the end, she had to make due with the t-shirt that he'd worn the night previously, and no bra. As the footsteps ascended the stairs, hesitating once or twice, the panic continued to rise. When they stopped on the landing, she looked over at Jess, who was now fully clothed, looking casual and reading a book on his bed, to the door again. She got the message and crawled under his bed. Sure, the closet would be more comfortable, but something told her that was a bad idea.

"Jess!" Luke bellowed as he opened the door, and she cringed.

"What?" Jess snarled back.

"Why is there a… why was this in the hallway?" Luke asked, and although she didn't know for sure, she could take a safe bet and say that it was a soft-pink bra. To be more specific, it was the one that she couldn't find upstairs.

"It liked the view?" Jess suggested nonchalantly.

"Is this Rory's?" Luke demanded, but Jess didn't answer. She flinched when she heard something smash against the wall.

"Woah, what the hell?" Jess shouted, and she felt his weight lift from the bed. A few seconds later, another slam echoed through the room.

"Is she in a closet again? Like what's her name? I thought that you actually cared for Rory!" Luke fumed, opening the doors of the apartment in a rage.

"Calm down!" Jess yelled at him, but Luke was obviously not hearing any of it.

"First you flunk out of school, now you're… doing things with Rory that you shouldn't be doing, but you know what our agreement is, Jess. You're going back next year, and you're going to finish school, and we're going to go to Lorelai's right now and tell her what's going on," Luke directed.

"No, I'm not. I'm not going back to high school… Rory and I talked about it, I'm going to take my GED at college," Jess muttered. She had to listen very hard to make out what he was saying. It wasn't like him to be quiet, but she knew that this was a tender subject.

"She knows?" Luke asked, he sounded genuinely shocked.

"Yeah, she knows," Jess answered angrily.

Shifting slightly, she pushed the blanket away from the end of the bed, so she could see them. They were standing nose-to-nose, puffed chest to puffed chest, red face to red face. If it weren't for the fact that she was too scared to move, she might have laughed. They looked more like father and son than uncle and nephew.

"Get ready, we're going to Lorelai's," Luke finally shouted, then slammed out of the apartment again.

Jess sighed, hooking his thumbs in his pants and giving a sideways glance down at the bed. "Well, that was fun," he cracked.

"Does this happen all the time?" Rory asked as she squirmed out from beneath the bed.

"The shouting? Yeah," he replied with a shrug, and offered her a hand up.

"Thank you," she said as they were inches apart again.

"For what?" he asked against her lips.

"For covering for me," she whispered, and then kissed him softly. When they heard footsteps on the stairs again, Rory was about to leap under the bed, but he hauled her into the washroom with him.

"Jess!" Luke howled again, throwing open the apartment door with enough force to make Rory cringe again.

"What?" Jess hollered back through the door.

"Lorelai is downstairs. She says that Rory didn't come home last night," Luke informed him, slamming his fist against the door. "Is she in there?"

Jess hesitated, looking back at Rory. She deflated, placing her head in her hands and nodding to him.

"Yeah, she's here," Jess finally admitted, and opened the door to reveal both of them.

Luke froze, staring at them, and then opened his mouth to say something before closing it rapidly again. He did the same motion twice before turning around and marching back down the stairs.

"Huh," Jess muttered as he turned around to look at her. "Well… better now than never?"

"She's going to kill us," Rory moaned, standing up to lean against him, hiding her face in his chest. "Not that I regret it, but I probably should have gone home last night."

"Nah, at least we can both be here to face her," he commented, and grabbed her hand firmly in his. "Let's go?"

Rory hesitated, not wanting to leave the protective circle of his arms, not wanting to have to live up to the responsibility that last night put on her, and most definitely not wanting to have to face her mother. Taking a deep breath, she nodded, and they started towards the stairs.