A/N: Oh my! Nineteen reviews on the first chapter of this fic? You guys are awesome! Thank you so much :) For those that asked, Jess is still Luke's nephew, but obviously he was never sent to live with him, and so Rory never met him. That may be a factor later ;) Now, onto the next chapter...

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 2

"So how're things in the Big Apple?"

"Mom, I told you, nobody from New York actually calls it that," Rory smiled as she sat down on the end of the bed and let herself fall backwards against the comforter.

"Well, I'm not from there, so I can call it whatever I please," said Lorelai.

Rory just knew she was poking out her tongue too, even though she couldn't actually see. They just knew each other that well, as mother and daughter should really. They had always been more best friends than anything else, and the only thing that came hard for Rory about growing up and getting on so well in her journalistic career was having to be away from her home town and her mom. Stars Hollow wasn't so very far away when Rory was in New York, but she had to go to plenty of other places too, for interviews and investigations. This was the longest she had been so close to her home town for a while actually, and still she hadn't the time to make it back into Connecticut for a visit. Hopefully soon, but for now, the telephone would just have to do.

"Everything's fine with me, I'm more worried about you," Rory told her mother. "You must be so lonely with Luke away."

"It's not so much fun," she sighed in reply. "But it is important for him to spend time with April, and I just couldn't take the week to go with him right now. Things are crazy with the inn, and the wedding plans, and all of the kids with the chicken pox..."

"Aaw, how is Sookie doing with that?" Rory checked worriedly.

It was tough on her friend at the best of times, having three young children to cope with, but having them all catch the chicken pox at the same time, alongside their father, Jackson, who could be the biggest baby of all, Rory knew Sookie had to be struggling. She also knew that had a knock-on effect on her mother because it left her kind of high and dry at the inn.

"She's okay. Coping, kind of," explained Lorelai. "Hate to be selfish here, but the bigger problem is the chefs we've had temping at the inn. Seriously, we're on the fourth one now."

"Fourth?" checked Rory. "Okay, I know the first objected to your coffee habit to the extreme, and the second one was Michel's fault, but what happened to the third?"

"There was an incident which I'm pretty sure I can't get into for legal reasons," Lorelai joked. "But it concerned a spatula, a pot of molasses, and a distinct lack of clothing."

"Oh, yikes!" Rory exclaimed, feeling a little grossed out. "Well, I hope things settle down soon. I wish I was there to help you out actually."

"Well, it won't be long now, sweets. Vacation is planned for, what? Four weeks' time?"

"Three weeks and six and a half days!" said Rory with a grin. "Not that I'm counting. Seriously, Mom, you know how much I love my job, but I am sooooo tired. It'll just be nice to sleep in the same bed every night for a week."

"Dirty!" her mother quipped, making them both laugh. "So today was the interview with the famous author type, right? How'd that go?"

"Really well," said Rory with a grin that came so naturally to her face at the very mention of this morning's interview. "He was a really nice guy. I'm not sure I was expecting that. Y'know authors can be real head-cases, or a lot meaner than they seem on the page anyway. Jess Mariano is... He's nice."

"Nice? Like nice manners or nice to stare at?" asked Lorelai curiously.

"Both actually," admitted Rory with a girlish giggle that she hadn't been expecting from her own throat. "I can't imagine why or how his picture has never been published anywhere."

"Ooh, very nice," her mother smiled then. "You think you're gonna see him again?"

Rory rolled her eyes, even though it was pointless when she couldn't be seen.

"Mom, it was an interview, not a first date."

"Well, yeah, but if you like him... it's been a while, sweets."

Her mom had a point and Rory knew it. Dating had become scarce in her life, and she blamed her job for that. The truth was, it wasn't just how busy she had become or how often she was travelling that she avoided going out with guys. Logan was a factor still, coming on for two years since she saw him last. He proposed on the day she graduated Yale, and Rory had refused him, knowing in her heart that being the little wife was never going to satisfy her. He was never quite the right guy for her, though he was very different to her first boyfriend. Dean was so solid, dependable, sweet, and yet he had become a little controlling and jealous as they got older. When he asked Rory to marry him, she already knew their relationship wasn't going to last. At the time of Dean's proposal, Rory had already met Logan who had shown her that settling down wasn't something she was ready for. The promise of a career and adventures of her own made her refuse that second proposal too. Since then she had been alone for the most part, and though it didn't make her sad most of the time, there were occasions when she wished she was part of a pair rather than all by herself.

"You still there, hon?" asked Lorelai after too long of a silence.

Rory snapped out of her daze and refocused on the conversation at hand.

"Yeah, I was just... I'm sorry," she apologised. "Um, so does Luke call much?"

"Every day," her mother told her, going on to elaborate on how things were with him.

Still, Lorelai was thinking about Rory's own dating situation or lack of same. She did understand that it was tough for her baby girl with her job the way it was. She travelled a lot, for interviews and stories. Though she was supposed to be based more in New York than anywhere else, she didn't seem to be there much sometimes. Trying to make a relationship with a person was always going to be tough, but Lorelai knew that Rory hadn't exactly made an effort, not since college.

Logan made her wary, even more so than Dean ever had. They were both nice guys in their own ways, but Lorelai knew that Rory hadn't seen a future with either of them, not seriously. She had career dreams that neither guy seemed to fully understand. As much as she loved them, and Lorelai was sure her daughter did, Rory never seemed head over heels in love with Dean or Logan, not in a real, serious way, not like Lorelai was in love with Luke.

She wished her daughter could find that, the all-consuming, head-over-heels, lost-to-the-feeling type of love that came along maybe once in a lifetime. Even if she couldn't have that, Lorelai at least wanted Rory to experience all aspects of life, including going out and having fun with a guy. He didn't have to be 'the one' to take you to a movie or out to dinner, he just had to be a nice person that you could stand to spend an evening with. No matter how many times Lorelai tried to encourage Rory, her baby just made excuses and got all awkward, until her mom felt bad for being pushy.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rory yawned terribly. "Mom, I really have to go. It's getting late and I have an early alarm tomorrow."

"Okay, honey," said Lorelai with a smile. "Three weeks, six and a half days!" she reminded her, and Rory giggled.

"I'll see you soon, Mom. Love you."

"Love you too, sweets. Stay safe!"

They both rang off and Rory tossed her cell phone onto the nightstand. Crawling under the covers she settled down to sleep, and yet her brain was still wide awake somehow. She thought of her interview with Jess, how easily they fell into conversation about books and movies, how sweet and funny and interesting he was. It certainly didn't hurt that he was easy on the eyes either. Maybe it wasn't so crazy that her mom had encouraged her to see him again, but Rory knew she couldn't do that. Jess Mariano wouldn't be interested in her anyway. That was crazy talk.

Jess finished off the chapter he had been working on and sat back heavily in the chair. He stretched out his aching fingers until the knuckles cracked then took one last drag from his cigarette before it was spent. Stubbing it out in the ashtray he blew the smoke up towards the ceiling and leaned back so far the chair almost started tipping. He hadn't intended to start a third book so soon. He wasn't obliged to or anything and Jess had thought it might be nice to take a little break. He ought to have known he couldn't bear to stop writing.

She certainly had been inspiring. There was a vague idea in Jess' brain before today, but meeting Rory Gilmore sure had kick-started something in his head, amongst other places, he recalled as he reached for his coffee off the desk. It was cold by now, but in his mind he saw Rory sipping her steaming hot java, moaning with pleasure at the sensation. She was his kind of crazy, that was for sure, and much smarter than he had expected. Of course, in the first place he had expected Rory to be a guy, but even when he realised his mistake, he never thought for a second she would be as knowledgeable as she was, or as big a fan as she turned out to be. Jess supposed a person had to be reasonably intelligent to be a journalist, but he'd come across plenty that weren't half as smart as Rory, and it wasn't just book learning and the stuff schools taught that lived in her brain. She knew books, better than most librarians could boast. All the obscure movie references, classic rock songs and everything, Jess usually found the way he talked went over most people's heads, but Rory caught everything. It was one of those situations that Jess could only describe as feeling like he had known her his whole life, in spite of the fact he and Rory met for the very first time today.

The heroine in his latest novel took shape as he thought of the journalist that had interviewed him today. She wouldn't be a carbon copy, but Rory was inspiring a great deal about her. The baby blue eyes that a guy could drown in, the laugh that was so very infectious, the confidence mixed with a weird kind of innocence, the like of which Jess had never seen in a real live person before. She was the kind of woman Jess would love to write about for months, and given how much she was already inspiring him, he probably would too.

It wasn't that it didn't occur to him that if he liked her so much maybe he should see her again. Jess wasn't dumb, of course it crossed his mind to ask Rory out, but he wouldn't do it. Dating was just something he didn't really do anymore. Jess had reasons, or excuses as his friends would call them. He'd been hurt before, and he'd done some hurting that he wasn't particularly proud of.

The one true reason Jess always came back to when it came to dating was that no woman had never inspired him to want to try to make it work. One or two evenings in each other's company, a night or two in bed, that he could handle, but then he was bored or just over it. Rory could be different, he supposed, but considering it was just crazy. She was a journalist, she travelled around a lot, and probably wasn't even in New York that much. Jess himself bounced between here and Philly on a fairly regular basis, and that wasn't a great way to keep a relationship going.

"Not even worth thinking about," he muttered to himself, getting up from his chair to take his coffee mug to the kitchen sink.

The clock told him it was almost one a.m. Jess wasn't surprised. Some of his best writing happened at stupid o'clock at night, and since he was mostly his own boss, he didn't have to care. Taking himself off to bed, Jess tried to put Rory Gilmore out of his head, at least long enough to get to sleep. That didn't stop her from invading his dreams, of course, and there she was the moment his sub-conscious took over. Jess was doomed.

To Be Continued...