A/N- Aren't I awesome? Four updates in four days. It's some kind of insane record for me! Though I'm sure my (extremely tiny) group of loyal fans over in the Heroes fandom are feeling the heat of my distraction... Anyway, this picks up again the morning after last chapter. It's a bit shorter, but oh well. You will have to deal with that.

"Hey Rory?" Lorelai asked cautiously from the doorway, worried that Rory might be engaged in some well-earned wallowing. "I'm going to the diner for lunch. Coming?"

The younger Gilmore glanced at the clock on her desk. "Mom, isn't it a little early for lunch?"

Lorelai gasped. "Blasphemy!"

"It's ten o'clock in the morning."

"It's never too early for lunch!"

"And it's never too late to compromise and have pancakes for lunch."

Lorelai grinned proudly. "I have taught you well, girl-child. Now are you coming?"

Rory shook her head. "No, Paris just called with a crisis that needs my immediate attention."

"Aw, my baby's abandoning me for work! I feel unloved."

"And the abandoner could care less," Rory said with a teasing grin. "Now go! I really have to get some work done or I'm going to lose my position." Lorelai gave her one last pout and disappeared from the doorway.

Rory waited until she heard the front door bang shut and the telltale rumble of the Jeep in the driveway. Then she pushed away her schoolwork and her things for the paper and dropped onto the bed, pulling out her cell phone as she did so. She wasn't sure why she was being so secretive about this. After all, this was just a phone call between friends trying to reconnect. But she knew that her mother would be all over it if she were to overhear, and Rory just wasn't ready to deal with a level of probing that would make alien abductees flinch.

Before she could completely lose her nerve, she dialed...

❤ * ❤ * ❤

The atmosphere in Truncheon Books was tense. The typical lighthearted banter that was the modus operandi was still in effect, but the occupants of the room could feel that it was forced. The entirety of the small room, up to and including inanimate objects, seemed to be focused on the tight little ball of unstable energy that was Jess Mariano.

He had been wound since the open house, and neither Chris nor Matthew needed any hints as to why. Whatever had transpired between him and the elusive Rory Gilmore, it had clearly done a number on Jess. He wasn't particularly snappish, but his usual enthusiasm was missing and he responded instead with terse, too-polite replies that just barely escaped being sneering. A kind of nervous electricity seemed to be running through him, causing him to drum his fingers on desktops and tap his toes incessantly, much to the irritation of his office-mates.

When the phone rang, it was a welcome distraction from the tip-tap of his pen against the desk. Matthew lunged for the receiver, answering with a professional, if out-of-breath, "Truncheon Books." For a few seconds, he listened to the caller, then looked up and nodded to Jess. "It's for you, man." Jess's eyebrows contracted as he took the cordless from Matt's hand.

As he took in the voice on the line, his eyes widened slightly. Immediately he pushed back from his desk and walked deliberately over to the stairs, taking them two at a time to the upstairs apartment. The door thunked shut behind him.

"Who was that?" Chris asked curiously.

Matt shrugged. "I dunno. Some chick."

The wheels in Chris's head turned, and he grinned. "I bet you thirty bucks it was that Rory girl."

"You don't have thirty bucks."

"Then I'll give you an IOU."

Matt rolled his eyes and returned to his attempt to wade through the editing job on his poet's latest submission.

❤ * ❤ * ❤

"Rory?" Jess demanded as he leaned heavily against the door he'd put between himself and his colleagues.

"Hi," she said, sounding very small. "I know what we said about being friends the other day, but I wasn't sure you would actually want to hear from me so I kept putting off calling and then this morning I realized I was being idiotic. So... hi. I already said that."

Despite himself, he smiled. "Yeah, you did. So why exactly did you call?"

He could almost hear the shrug in her voice when she replied; he wasn't sure if he liked that or not. "I thought it would be good to just talk. Not about anything really important. We need to get used to each other again, I guess."

Crossing the apartment to flop down on the ratty sofa, Jess grinned again. It had been so long since he'd just had a conversation with Rory. Over the past couple of years, it seemed like every time they encountered each other they'd felt compelled to discuss Big Weighty Matters. The closest they'd come to one of their legendary discussions/debates/analyses had been at the open house not even a week before, and even that had been continually interrupted by the other attendees. "Okay," he replied emphatically.

After the ensuing silence that issued from the receiver, he added, "You know, you have to actually say something to have a conversation."

Rory laughed nervously. "Yes, I know. I was just... trying to think of something to say. Well, there were a few really obvious things that came to mind, but I thought they were all a little cliché for us, and that's not a good way to turn over a fresh leaf, so..."

"I personally think the old standbys are probably the safest territory right now," Jess said carefully. "And in that spirit... read any good books lately?"

"Not as many as I'd like," she said with a laugh. "The library at Yale is running low on things I haven't read already. Yesterday I managed to wrap up Shanghai Girls before Paris started bugging me."

"Shanghai Girls..." Jess murmured, running through his mental card catalogue, trying to pinpoint the novel in question and coming up empty. "I don't think I've read that one. Who's it by?"

"Lisa See. It's her latest. It's not as good as Peony in Love, but I think it might be better than Snow Flower and the Secret Fan."

As the information filed itself away in the back of his mind, Jess scoffed. "You can't have it both ways, Rory! Snow Flower is infinitely better than Peony any day."

"Firstly, you could not be more wrong. Secondly, I figured you'd read Snow Flower, but I didn't think you'd go for Peony in Love. It's too much of a chick book."

"Hey, you're talking to the guy who freely and of his own volition admitted that "Almost Famous" is his favorite movie."

"Touché," Rory laughed. "So whatever happened to you that you've so sadly misjudged Snow Flower? It's an excellent book, but in no way is it comparable to Peony. All the stuff about the foot-binding is so... ugh! I can't imagine it."

"Yes you can."

"You're right, I can. And that's the problem. I can imagine it far too vividly. I'll stick with my tennis shoes, thank you! That is, if Paul Anka hasn't eaten them..."

Jess raised an eyebrow. "Am I missing something?"

Rory laughed. "Oh, not the real Paul Anka. My mom named her dog Paul Anka, and every so often he goes crazy and starts messing with shoes."

"Only someone living in Stars Hollow would think Paul Anka of all things is an appropriate name for a dog," Jess commented, shaking his head. "So how are things in the Nuthouse?"

"Excellent," Rory said. "I've been in town for a couple of days, and I'm beginning to regret moving so far away!"

"You're only twenty miles away!" Jess exclaimed. "You can drive that in less than half an hour!"

For the briefest of moments his tongue had stumbled over the word "twenty." He had been very sorely tempted to say "22.8," but that memory was a painful one, though not nearly as painful as it used to be. Still, this conversation was going unexpectedly well; they had fallen into the easy rhythm of talking as if they did this every day, instead of just beginning to speak again after going on three years of separation. There was no need to make things awkward by reminding them both of things past.

"True," Rory continued while his thoughts rambled. "But I still miss things when I'm not here. Kirk, for instance."

Jess let out an incredulous snort. "Wait, did you just say that you miss Kirk Gleason?"

"Not miss as in "oh, I wish Kirk were here,"" she clarified. "More like I miss hearing my mom or Luke or Miss Patty or someone saying "oh, did you hear what Kirk did this morning?" You must admit, the man is an excellent source of entertainment."

"A valid point."

"You know, I bet he's probably still afraid of you."

"What did I ever do to him?"

"Not much of anything, but I think a large portion of Stars Hollow was just inclined to despise you, which of course makes no sense."

Jess didn't stop to think before saying, "I think it was a combination of the fake murder and the fact that they were all very concerned about their town princess being tainted by the urban outcast." It came out more bitterly than he'd intended. There was a sudden strained silence, and Jess mentally kicked himself. "Sorry, I--"

"No," Rory said hurriedly. "Don't worry about it. We knew there were going to be things to put behind us. We're good, though, right?"

"Yeah," he said uncomfortably.

After a few more seconds of silence, Rory blurted out, "Lane's getting married on Friday."

"Really?" Jess asked. "Who's the lucky guy? Dave?"

"Nope. Zach."

"Huh."

"I know. It's not a couple I would have expected either."

"Tell me about it. So how's the terrifying Mama Kim reacting to the event?"

Rory grinned. "Well, once she and Zach wrote a hit song, she was really okay with it."

"I don't think I want to know the story."

"Probably not. Ooh, but you'll get a kick out of what happened to Taylor last week..."

❤ * ❤ * ❤

Some twenty minutes later, Jess returned to the main floor of Truncheon. The tightly-wound spring inside him seemed to have uncoiled somewhat, and there was a hint of a smile on his face.

"Hey, welcome back to the land of the working!" Matt announced churlishly. "That guy with the UFO book called on the other line while you were up chatting with your girlfriend."

Jess gave him a basilisk-like glare, and muttered, "She's not my girlfriend, okay? Go be an asshole somewhere else, huh?"

"Now now boys, play nice!" Chris interjected.

After treating Chris to the same withering look he'd given their neurotic coworker, Jess sat back down at his desk. For several minutes, he sat there, staring at his hands and occasionally fiddling with his stapler. At last, he looked up. "Hey guys," he said. "You think I could get away with taking Friday off...?"

TBC...
And is it really weird that I definitely can see Jess reading Lisa See, but not Rory?