"Okay so now I really feel bad. You girls were trying to escape from your parents for one day and we've ruined that. I know how hard it is to escape from parents. I feel really bad."

Stephanie hadn't stopped rambling on about how badly she felt since they decided to walk back to the girls' house and plan their day from there. Rory was definitely amused. She figured that Steph must be freaking out about running into John Halpin again and she could definitely tell that John Halpin was. She had made about 10 phone calls to their friends apologizing and telling everyone that the four of them would not be meeting up with their friends for the parade. She was hanging up with someone and dialing her mom's phone number when she heard Kinley ask the group where they were from. She hung back a little bit so she could hear her mom over their conversation but heard Stephanie grab on to that new topic and begin to ramble about wherever they live. She was waiting on her mom to pick up the phone when she heard John Halpin call out to her.

"Hey Ror"

"Hm?"

"You heard where they're from?"

"No, where?" By this time she had ended the call with her mom resigned that she'd have to wait to tell her the change of plans.

"Hartford. As in Connecticut."

"I'm sorry, love, but is there a reason why everyone finds it funny we live in Hartford?" Finn interrupted the conversation.

"Hartford, huh? That's interesting," Rory answered John Halpin while ignoring Finn's question.

No one else said anything as the four Yalies kept looking back and Rory who was trying to get her mom on the phone again. She was not paying attention to anything besides her phone and almost walked into numerous people.

"So what's the big deal with you and Hartford," Logan finally asked, laughing, he put his arm around her waist when he saw her jump at his sudden proximity. "You're just in your own little world, aren't you?"

Rory felt herself blushing at his smirk and then realized he had his arm around her. It didn't feel weird, she realized. That was weird. Shouldn't she be uncomfortable with some guy she just met putting his arm around her waist? 'He's just being nice, just nice,' she was telling herself, 'I probably would have fallen if it weren't for his arm. Hm, he's still looking at me. That smirk of his is getting bigger. What does he want. Crap. He asked me a question.'

"Oh," she tried to start and had to clear her throat, "my grandparents live in Hartford. We go up there for Christmas every other year."

"You hear that guys, Rory here has spent quality time in Hartford," Logan called to his three friends who were walking up the stairs into the girls' house. None of them turned around and he figured that one of the girls had filled them in on the information. He went to ask her who exactly her grandparents were, but when he looked down, she was on her phone again. Sighing, he dropped his arm and took the phone out of her hands, ending her call.

"Hey!" she protested, trying to grab the phone, "Give that back."

"I think I'll hold onto it. I'm just trying to have a conversation with you about my little town of Hartford Connecticut. From what I've been told, your mom is awesome and is not going to have a problem with us occupying four empty seats, calm down."

"Who told you--," She just shook her head and looked around for the culprit. Doing this, she realized that they were the only two still on the porch and everyone else had gone inside. "Well come on, let's go see if Steph wants to wear a dress we have."

She looked back at him as he stood there. She was waiting for him to climb up the four steps into the house, but he wasn't moving. He was irritating her, but he wasn't moving. "Are you coming?" She finally asked. She heard his low laugh and he nodded and began walking up the steps.

"Kinley?" She yelled out once she was inside, waiting for a response so she would know which bedroom the group had migrated into. When she got no answer, just rustling above her head, she knew exactly where they were.

"Come on, looks like they decided to go through my closet first," she told him and she started towards the stairs.

"Wow. I've known you a few hours and already have an invitation to your bedroom. That's good even for me," he responded and couldn't help but laugh at the look of horror on her face when she turned around. She just shook her head walked up the stairs so he followed her.

He had been shocked when he walked into their house. First of all, they were three 20 year old girls living in a house, but more so because their house truly felt like a home. He saw notes on a corkboard in the hallway, blankets that hadn't been picked up on the sofa, and a book that lay open on the coffee table. Their house looked very lived in and comfortable, like they didn't mind just hanging out around the house if they were bored. Their house was messy, but clean. It was apparent that they used the things in this house. This wasn't how his friend's apartments were. His friends' apartments were clean, almost sterile. The maid service came two or three times a week. His friends and him barely ever spent time in their apartments, using it only as a place to sleep or bring dates. They never spent time hanging out in their apartments, they were always off doing something, and it seemed that these girls couldn't be more different. He liked it, he liked that they had a reason to come home at the end of the day instead of just the location of their bed. He followed Rory up the stairs and was almost knocked off his feet when he entered her room.

He was in awe, there was no other word. The first thing that hit him was the mirror. Half of the wall next to her close was a mirror, a floor to ceiling mirror, but that wasn't the strange part. The amusing part of the mirror was the notes that were written on one side of it in dry erase marker. He had never seen anyone write on a mirror like that. The next thing that got him, the most important thing, were the pictures. She had pictures everywhere—all over her desk, her walls, her window sill. He had never seen so many pictures in a small space. It looked like she had pictures of everyone she knew. She had pictures in front of the Christmas tree and she had pictures at the lunch table from high school. He looked more intently at the pictures from their high school days and realized that there was not one guy in any of the pictures. He thought this was odd. The most intriguing thing about her room, though, was the scent. There was a smell of flowers. It was a subtle scent, not overwhelming at all. It was just enough to make you wonder where the smell is coming from and how is it present. At that thought, he looked around to check, but there weren't any. He had noticed that she had smelled like flowers and vanilla when he was walking next to her and had assumed it was her hair, but everything in her room smelled like flowers. It was amazing. When he looked up, he caught Addie watching him.

"You can sit down, you know" Addie told him.

He looked around and noticed that everyone else was sitting either on her bed or in the chairs she had in the room. He walked over to sit next to her on the bed and picked up the book that was lying on the nightstand.

"1 Dead in Attic?" He asked her, quirking an eyebrow.

"It's a hurricane book, it's awesome. Chris Rose writes for the Times-Picayune. Basically it's a collection of all of his articles from the days after the hurricane to a year and a half later. Rory likes to read certain articles every now and then," Addie explained.

This caught his attention. "Newspaper articles? She likes to read newspaper articles? That's not usually a favorite genre."

He definitely knew that. If there was one thing he could recite, was people's dwindling interest in newspaper articles. He had gotten so many speeches on it over the years, he felt that it was practically his fault that his entire generation did not enjoy newspapers. Here was a girl who bought a book of newspaper articles and read them often, not for a class she took one semester. She was something else. And her family was from Hartford. He had to find out more. His head snapped up in shock when he heard Addie answer his questions.

"She wants to be a journalist," she explained as she shrugged, "I don't know really. You would need to ask her why she reads it. It is a great book, though."

Well this was even better. A journalist! How perfect. He could definitely hold a conversation about journalism with someone who enjoyed the business, especially if they didn't know his connection to it. He was about to ask another question when he heard Finn gasp and Colin let out a low whistle. He turned to see what the commotion was about when Steph declare she found a dress. He had to agree with his friends, Steph was gorgeous, she always has been.

Colin heard one of the girls tell her they'd 'swing back' and pick it up before making their way to the hotel to get ready as he watched the other guy stare at Stephanie. It was different from the looks we usually saw guys give Steph, more respectful. As much as it killed him, he appreciated this guy.

"She's real pretty, isn't she," Colin said as he walked over to John Halpin.

"Beautiful," he replied as he visibly snapped out of a thought, "she's very beautiful. She's going to fit in perfectly with the other three, probably have the guys drooling over them and think it's funny."

"Yea, that does sound like Stephanie. So where are we going to get these tuxes?" He asked, directing the conversation away from Steph.

"Well there's a place on Carrolton that I go to from time to time. It's only 1:30 so knowing those three girls, we're not going straight to get our tuxes. Rory mentioned the other day that she was craving food from this place and her cravings are pretty strong, so we'll probably end up there first."

The mention of food brought the other two guys to the hallway where John Halpin and Colin were talking.

"What's this I hear? Food? From where?" Finn asked.

"Camellia Grill. Have yall been there yet?" John Halpin answered.

"No," Logan shook his head, "we're not too sure about the food you guys eat down here, we've been sticking with restaurant chains that we know of."

"Well this place definitely isn't a chain and it isn't a bit normal. But it's one of the best places you'll find."

"What place?" Addie asked walking out of Rory's room.

"Camellia Grill. We have to go down Carrolton anyway so I thought—"

"OH! Can we go?! Please!"- Rory interrupted him before he finished, just like he knew she would.

"Let's go," he told them, and lead the way out of the house.

"Oh! Can we go to Swiss after? Or Angelo Brocato? Oh! What about Gumbo Shop?"

"Rory. I know you can eat, but why don't you just order chili cheese fries at Camellia Grill instead of us going to a bakery and to get ice cream or gumbo. I don't even know what made you think of Gumbo Shop. Anyway, we need to get our tuxes and get back to the hotel." John Halpin told her.

"Fine, but I'm really hungry. We waited way too long to go to lunch."

"And I'm sure that you'll eat more than me and Addie combined," Kinley interjected.

"It's a gift that the Gilmore girls possess."

"I thought you said her last name was Hayden?" Logan directed the question at Kinley.

"Oh, sorry. I am. My mom's maiden name is Gilmore. Me and her were the Gilmore girls before her and my daddy got married," Rory explained to him.

They all heard a gasp and looked back at Steph who was walking next to John Halpin, in silence.

"What, Steph?" Colin asked.

"Richard and Emily, right? You said your grandparents lived in Hartford. They're Richard and Emily. They talk about their granddaughter in New Orleans all the time. I don't know how I could have missed it," Steph explained.

"Yea…um…well, that's me," Rory answered her, clearly uncomfortable.

They had stopped on the sidewalk and the four Yalies were watching Rory. Logan could tell how much she disliked that the information came out about who her grandparents were. He didn't really understand why. He had only met Richard and Emily in passing—they were his dad's friends—but they seemed like good people. But here she was, shifting back and forth on her feet and biting her lip. All because they knew her grandparents. Finn, of course, was the first one to interrupt the heavy silence.

"We love Richard and Emily! Richard has excellent taste in scotch. Very good taste indeed. Why do you look like you don't want us to know who your grandparents are, love?"

"People tend to treat me differently once they find out. But I guess not yall. If yall know them, then I guess out of everyone we could have befriended, we picked a group of society kids. How 'bout that, yall? The kind of people we try to run away from is who we run to," she said, directing the last part of her answer at her friends.

"As long as they're not New Orleans society, it's fine with me," Kinley said. "I've had enough of those people. We needed some newbies. Let's go, I'm starving."

They walked the rest of the way chatting about what the four of them had done since they got to New Orleans. Logan watched Rory the entire time. She seemed genuinely uneasy with her grandparents being important people in society and she honestly did not want to be treated differently because of it. Sure, him and his friends would like people to overlook their parents and their bank accounts, but they knew it was not a practical wish. That's why they stayed amongst themselves, never letting new people into their group of friends. He had barely had a conversation with her and he knew that he liked the way she thought about things. She didn't want special treatment and she wanted to be a journalist. This girl seemed like everything any of them had looked for, someone who would call them out on their indiscretions and didn't want them solely for their money. She had a passion that she was not above working for. Walking down the street, he realized that he needed to talk to her more. He was going to make a point of getting to know her and finding out what makes her tick. He wanted to know about her life and why her parents left Hartford. He wanted to be in some of the pictures in her room. He wanted her to know him, and that scared him. She was beautiful, interesting, obviously caring, among other things. He acknowledged that this girl definitely had all the qualities to bring one of them down and out of their playboy lifestyles. And he surely hadn't noticed Finn or Colin taking a special interest in her.