"Make the call," I said once I realized Lorelai was doing some sort of crazy bit. Although I wasn't surprised by her antics, she still never failed to catch me off-guard once in a while.

"I see dead people," Lorelai responded in a creepy voice. She was really taking crazy to a whole new level.

"Make the call." I watched as she begrudgingly flipped open her cellphone. After checking on a couple of people, I came back behind the counter where she still sat with a pout on her face. I reached for a mug, filled it with coffee, and slid it in front of her. "So?"

She exhaled dramatically before taking a sip of coffee, eyeing me over the rim of the mug. "We had a good run. How long was it? About a month?"

"Lorelai…"

"Surprisingly not my shortest relationship but the first to end over dinner with my mother."

"Would you stop?"

She lifted up her thin blue scarf and handed me the end of it. Confused, I let it sit in the palm of my hand as I waited for her to tell me what I was supposed to do. "Give it a good tug."

I dropped the end of the scarf as if it had burned me. "That's not funny. It's just one dinner, why are you acting so crazy about this?"

Lorelai scoffed. "Luke, how many times have you witnessed the aftermath of what my mother is capable of invoking? What makes you think she'll spare you? I know exactly how the evening is gonna play out, my friend. She'll be Jessica Lange in Hush. You'll think Emily's all sweet and loving and then boom! She's putting drugs in your dessert and forcing you to give birth in a bed with no pain medicine."

"Okay, you've officially gone off the deep end."

"All I'm saying is don't let her fool you. Behind that thin, almost microscopic sweet exterior lies a piranha waiting to tear you to shreds."

I couldn't help but grin at her dramatic embellishments. "When does this death by piranha take place?"

"Tomorrow night. I figured the sooner the better, and if you're not completely mangled afterward, we can catch a late movie or go get a drink. I might prefer the latter."

I told her that that sounded fine and then asked about Rory. She perked up a bit as she filled me in on the last conversation they had about school and the newspaper. Talking about Rory always seemed to make Lorelai forget her troubles. Unless the trouble involved Rory in which case I would turn the focus onto something else. I've stored backup conversational topics over the years and can pull them out when necessary. This drama over dinner, however, would be a tough topic to brush aside.

Later on that night I was folding the small amount of laundry I had when the phone rang. "Hello?"

"Okay, so my mother just called to tell me that the dress code for dinner is casual. As a matter of fact, she insisted."

I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I started to place the folded laundry back into the basket to pick up later. "Well casual to me doesn't mean the same thing as casual to your mother, I'm sure." I opened my closet door and rummaged through my shirts hanging inside. My collection consisted of mainly plaid and flannel with the occasional solid-colored dress shirt.

Lorelai sighed. "I guess date-night casual, but no plaid and no hat. And maybe your leather jacket?"

"It's at the cleaners, remember?"

"Oh, right. The chili-cheese-nachos incident. Well, your black jacket'll be fine. It's not like you'll wear it at the dinner table."

"What are you wearing?"

Without missing a beat—and in this husky voice she knew drove me crazy—Lorelai said, "Those lacy boyshort panties you've become so fond of."

I chuckled softly. "I meant to dinner. What are you wearing to dinner?"

"Oh, I have to be dressed in my Friday-night-dinner best. She wants you to be comfortable. She already knows I won't be."

As it turned out, comfortable was not how I would describe our dinner the next night. Emily's snide comments were so ingratiating in delivery that I didn't realize until afterward that they were insults. From my failed marriage to the simple cloth of my black jacket. And Lorelai knew how the evening would unfold. I'm sure no one would blame me for thinking her stories were a bit exaggerated at times, but I saw first hand exactly what she dealt with on a weekly basis. Only, this was dialed down to about a five. I didn't want to think about what an evening with Emily Gilmore felt like when it was turned up to a ten.

Off of the highway, we stopped at this little dive bar that had a motel attached to it. Not exactly a place I imagined Lorelai frequenting, but it was cleaner on the inside than the outside would lead you to believe. It was a Sunday night so the bar was pretty empty except for a table of guys in the corner watching a Jets game. We opted to sit at the bar.

"What'll it be?" asked the bartender as he placed a bowl of peanuts and two napkins down in front of us. Lorelai ordered a Manhattan with extra cherries, which I made a mental note of, and I ordered a pint of whatever they had on tap. He delivered our drinks and asked, "Anything else?" We told him no and he moved down to the end of the bar to take a drink order. Lorelai turned on her stool to face me and held up her drink.

"Cheers," she said as she clinked her glass to mine.

I watched as she gulped her drink, capturing a cherry in the process. She chewed it thoughtfully, and I could tell her mind was processing the evening we both incurred. I've dealt with people like the Gilmores before but on more of a business level. Never have I dated someone from that world, and honestly, I can see why. Living a life based on how much money a person had or how they appeared on the outside to the people around them seemed exhausting. But Lorelai wasn't like them, and I see it now more than ever. Her capability of being independent, her good business sense, even her preferred choices in cuisine proved that she was her own person.

I got in a few sips of beer before she was already finished with her drink. She flagged down the bartender and pointed to her empty glass. He snatched it up and refilled it with round number two. I placed my hand on her knee and gave it a squeeze. "You okay?"

She looked over at me and smiled. Her glassy eyes told me that she was already buzzed. "I'm great. It's over and done with, and I don't have to worry about it anymore. The weird part is that I can't really tell how she felt about you. I mean, I don't care what she thinks. You know that, but I hate that I couldn't get a read on her." She blew out her cheeks. "You did great, by the way."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. She tried so hard to bait you, but you never lost your cool." She pointed her finger at me, pistol-style. "You know how to kill 'em with kindness. All I do is annoy them with sarcasm."

"If it's possible, I don't think she dislikes me any more than she already did."

"Hear, hear," said Lorelai as she raised her half-empty glass to meet my almost empty one. She giggled softly. "You want to hear something funny? The first time my mother met you she thought we were dating."

My eyebrows furrowed as I tried to think back to the first time I met the Gilmores. "When was that?"

"Rory's birthday party? Sweet sixteen? She said you looked at me like I was about to give you a lap dance."

I choked on my last gulp of beer and started coughing, eyes watering. "What?"

Lorelai patted my back until the coughing subsided. "To this day, I'm not sure if that was a dig or not. I mean, she basically called me a stripper."

We both broke into a fit of laughter; the kind that hurts your stomach and causes tears to form in your eyes. It had been a while since I laughed like that. The fact that it was Emily Gilmore-induced made it all the funnier.

I grabbed a handful of peanuts and popped a couple into my mouth. "So what did you tell her?"

"Told who what?" She pinched a cherry between her thumb and forefinger, lifting it out of the glass.

"Your mother when she asked if we were dating then."

"That we were friends, which we were. God forbid two people show affection without sleeping together, right?"

A beat of silence passed between us, and I couldn't help but ask the question that had been on my mind for eight years. "Did you ever think about it?"

Her eyes searched mine as she chewed on her mouthful of cherries. She knew what I was asking without me having to clarify it. Her focus turned to her glass which had about two fingers left of amber liquid inside of it. "Probably more times than you think."

Considering I was thinking "none" would be her response, this confession was not what I was expecting. There were many times over the years when I thought things would happen a lot sooner than they did, but it usually felt one-sided or the timing was off. Never would I have thought she was thinking about me in a sexual way. "Really?" I said with what I knew was a smug grin.

Lorelai grinned. "Oh, look at you, Mr. Cocky."

"I'm not being cocky. I'm genuinely surprised is all." The bartender came back to check on us, and I told him we were done while placing a twenty down on the bar top.

"Why does that surprise you?" Lorelai asked after the bartender walked away. "I'm not exactly a prude."

Smiling, I exhaled sharply. "I never once thought you were a prude. You just…"

"Never made it seem like I would have thought of you like that?"

"Sometimes, yes."

"Well it may also surprise you to know that I always thought I repulsed you. Not physically but with my coffee and eating habits." We stood and made our way outside.

"It does repulse me," I said which earned me a playful swat on the arm as we walked over to my truck. Before opening her door, I turned her around and pressed myself into her. "But there are many, many good things about you that make me forget those disgusting habits."

She wrapped her arms around my neck. "Oh, yeah? Like what?"

I dipped my head and touched my lips to hers. The taste of cherries and whiskey filled my mouth as her tongue slid inside. We broke apart at the sound of the bar door opening and a couple of guys walking out, cackling to each other. I pushed a loose curl behind her ear and said, "Let's get outta here."


I've never felt as less of a man as I did while attempting to play golf with Richard Gilmore. Golf isn't necessarily a manly sport by any means, but when you're trying to impress your girlfriend's father, golf might as well be up there with rugby. Baseball was more my element, and I'd be willing to bet that Richard has never picked up a baseball bat or played catch in his entire life. Nor did he understand that there were more important things in life than fancy art and becoming a millionaire business owner. He didn't know me or my history. The fact that I built my business basically from the ground up on my own was irrelevant to him. And I knew a thing or two about finances. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made the decision to keep that building Taylor pays me good money to rent. I believe, in the financial world, that's called an investment. Big-city folk always tend to underestimate us small-city guys.

I kept that thought in mind as I made my way to the valet at the front of the country club. The valet guy exchanged my truck keys for the little ticket I pulled out of my jacket pocket. Lorelai had suggested I get coffee but I'd rather spend six more hours practicing my swing at the driving range than put that caffeinated poison into my body. I rummaged around in my glove box and found a power bar. After about ten minutes, the effect of the whiskey lessened enough for me to see straight. There was a gas station not far from the club, so I stopped in to grab a bottle of water and a bag of plain potato chips. It would be enough to hold me over until I got home.

A couple of hours later Lorelai came over to try and salvage what was left of me emotionally now that the whiskey had worn off. It had been an odd couple of days, and I needed her to keep me grounded which was weird considering I'm usually the one doing that for her. The initial plan was for us to go out, but as soon as she entered my apartment, I had to have her. I wanted to forget everything that had happened and how unimportant her parents made me feel. I wanted her to never forget how much I cared for her despite what her parents thought about me.

It was a little rough—which I knew she didn't mind. Afterward, I couldn't help but pile on the sweetness. I ran my fingers through her loose curls and kissed her bare shoulder. Her back was to my front, so I couldn't read her expression when she asked if I was okay.

"I'm fine, why? I didn't hurt you, did I?"

She quickly turned over. "No, no." She smiled as she smoothed a hand down my cheek. Richard's remark about having me shaved surfaced, but I pushed the thought away. "You know I like the occasional roughness. It's just that I know this week has been a little daunting, and I want make sure you're okay."

I kissed her softly, rubbing my thumb along her jaw. "I know it doesn't really matter in the long run, but I guess sometimes…" I took a deep breath and exhaled. "I wish they thought a little more of me."

"You're right, it doesn't matter. You're amazing. They'll never know you like I know you, Luke. Or how Rory knows you or this town. That's all that should matter."

She was right, but deep down, it had to matter a little bit. Without their approval, it meant there would most likely be conflict at some point and that was something I wasn't used to. I cared deeply for Lorelai. I loved her. But having people interfere with our relationship? It seemed petty and toxic and like a complete waste of energy. As time goes on, we'll see what happens. Until then, I'm keeping a low profile from the Gilmores.


A/N: It has bugged me for years that Luke wore jeans to that first dinner with Emily. I had to rectify it & decided to put the blame on her hehe. It's the only way to explain it! Thanks again for continuing to read these random scenes :)