Get out of town
Lorelai walked into the diner, and sat at her favorite stool at the counter. "Morning," she called to Luke. He walked over to her and gave her a kiss, then poured her coffee. "I have gossip."
Luke gave her a sidelong glance. "Seriously? Do I look like East Side Tillie?"
"Well..." she appraised him, "you're a lot hotter..."
He rolled his eyes. "Fine. What's your important gossip that I desperately want to know?"
"It's a secret," she told him, and leaned closer so she could whisper. "I'm not telling you which one, but one of your employees is pregnant." She grinned.
Luke looked at her, and shook his head. "You do realize that Lane is my only female employee, don't you. Your Secret Squirrel act kinda back-fired. Hang on! Lane and Zach have only been married for like, five minutes. That was fast."
Lorelai shrugged. "Meh! I wouldn't have kept it secret from you for long anyway. Zach's quite proud of himself, saying he got her on the first try." She pointed at her already empty coffee cup.
Luke sighed, and refilled it. "That's your last one this morning."
Lorelai gasped. "You're cutting me off? Your best customer?"
Luke laughed at her. "Customer? Customer infers that I receive money. I don't remember the last time you paid for anything in here."
"Whatever, Judge Judy. Anyway... do you have any plans for this weekend?"
"This?" He gestured around the diner. "But nothing out of the ordinary."
"Great. Well, we don't have too much going on at the inn, so I was thinking we could go away somewhere," she suggested, raising her eyebrows at him.
"Ah... yeah, sure. I can probably get Lane and Caesar to look after this place. Shouldn't be a problem."
"Great." She grinned at him, almost bouncing in her obvious excitement. "I'll organize everything. See you late, babe."
"Are you going to tell me where we're going yet?" Luke asked as he was loading her luggage into his truck on Saturday morning.
"Nope," she grinned.
"Do you see any problem with this plan?" he asked her as he secured the last of their stuff. "I need to know where to drive. And you're not exactly the most reliable navigator."
He had got her there. She considered her options, and gave in. "Okay, smarty-pants. Take the I-84 north. Is that enough for now?"
"Yes. Perfect. Thank you." He put his arms around her waist as they went back inside to say goodbye to Rory.
Lorelai sat on the bed in their hotel room in Boston. "Right, first things first," she told Luke. "How do you feel about shopping?"
"Not great, really."
"That's what I thought." She looked devious. "That's why I was thinking that after spending an hour shopping, we could do whatever you wanted for the rest of the night. Considering you still haven't managed to get over your fear of having sex with Rory in the house, I think I can work out what that might be." She gave him an evil smile.
He looked sheepish. "Not necessarily. There's also a Red Sox game on later. We're playing Chicago, and I think we have a pretty good chance."
Even though she could tell he was teasing, her eyes still glazed over at the thought of baseball. Her eyes roamed around the room, and settled on a lamp on the nightstand. "Ooh! Sparkly. Pretty lamp."
Luke sighed. "One hour of shopping, and then you're all mine, Gilmore," he called as he walked into the bathroom.
"I've always been yours, Danes," she called back seductively, and giggled at her own frankness.
"Can we hurry it up, Lorelai?" Luke called into the dressing room. "I really don't feel comfortable in here." He looked around at the other customers in Victoria's Secret, well aware that he was the only guy in the store.
"Patience, hon," Lorelai answered. "Trust me, you will be very appreciative of this shopping trip later on."
"I'm sure I will, but right now, I wish that I had some sort of Michael J. Fox time machine so I could skip this particular experience."
"Ooo, good reference. I'm really rubbing off on you," Lorelai giggled. "Speaking of which, come here. What do you think of this?"
He peeked through the curtain and saw what she was wearing. For a minute, he seemed to lose all ability to speak. Once he regained use of his voice, he sounded impatient. "Forget about the game. Get changed, we are paying for this 'outfit', and going back to the hotel."
She grinned at his reaction. "You're the boss," she smiled sweetly at him.
A couple of hours later, as they waited for their room service to arrive, Lorelai switched the TV on to reveal the baseball game. She looked at it for a few seconds, then turned towards Luke. "So, which one is the team you like?" she asked him.
"Well, the ones batting are ours – the Boston Red Sox," he explained, pointing to the batter.
"Hey! We're in Boston!" she exclaimed.
Luke shook his head and laughed. "Your powers of observation astound me."
"You should have said something," she said snuggling in closer to him. "We could have gone to the game."
Luke laughed. "That would have been great, but there is one flaw in your otherwise perfect plan."
"What?" she had a mixture of confusion and disappointment on her face.
"They're playing in Chicago," he explained.
"Oh..." she sighed. "So, are you going to explain how this thing works?"
"Sure," he said smiling, happy that she was at least pretending to be interested in something he liked.
As they lay in bed that night on the verge of sleep, Lorelai turned back towards Luke. "Are you scared at all?" she asked him.
"What?" he asked her groggily.
"Well, it's only two months until we get married. It's coming up fast. And the closer it gets, the faster the time is going to go. In no time at all, I'm going to be Mrs Danes," she grinned at the thought.
He opened his eyes, and smiled. "That sounds really nice, Mrs Danes. Not scared at all. You?"
"Excited more, I guess. Kinda the way I felt when I was waiting for Charlie's Angels 2 to come out on video."
"Glad to know that I rate right up there with Cameron Diaz."
She rolled onto her back, half-heartedly hitting him at the same time. "Don't really think I'd want to do all these dirty things with her. And it's like the whole wedding thing is just not a big deal. Like it seems so natural to be marrying you, that there's nothing to be scared about."
Luke threaded his fingers through hers, and kissed the back of her hand. "Most natural thing in the world," he whispered, and closed his eyes again, slowly drifting off to sleep.
"Come on Luke. 'C'."
"Lorelai, I am not playing 'I Spy' with you."
"But it's a road trip. You have to play car games," she pouted. She poked him in the side, causing him to squirm, and the car swerved just a tiny amount.
"Lorelai!" he yelled.
"Fine. I'll be good," she continued to pout. "And it was 'Cow', by the way." She slunk down in her seat.
He reached over, and took her hand. "Sorry. I didn't mean to yell. It's been a really nice weekend. Thank you for organizing it."
She squeezed his hand in reply. Eventually she spoke. "Anytime. I just like spending time just the two of us, you know." She looked out the window for a bit longer. "And don't feel bad about telling me that I'm being annoying. Sometimes I forget that not everybody likes to play the little games and stuff that Rory and I like. But tell me, honestly. Otherwise we'll have the situation we had before, where we don't talk to each other."
He let out a chuckle. "Sure. I will never stop telling you that you're a pain in the backside. For the rest of our lives."
