A/N: I reallyyyy dropped the ball there for a while. The TL;DR version is my computer broke and I had to borrow my mom's, I was sick, there were holidays and I had 2/3 of this chapter written and somehow managed to lose it in the computer kerfuffle. It was a whole big thing. I hope to start 2015 strong though! To make up for all the nonsense of not posting a chapter for like a month.
"I haven't heard of half these CDs," Rory commented, flipping through a stack of discs. "What genre are these ones in?"
Jess looked over at her from where he was sitting on the couch, flipping through the television channels. True to his word, he had pointed her toward his CD collection once they got upstairs and busied himself with finding something to watch. "Miscellaneous," he said with a shrug. "It's not a fool-proof system."
"I can see that," Rory said. "My CDs aren't as organized as my books are. I've tried to keep them organized, but it's impossible with my mom around. She'll borrow them and leave them laying around the house or just stick them back wherever she can find room. Lane's collection is ridiculously organized, though." Every so often, usually when her mother was out of town, Lane would announce that she needed Rory's help reorganizing her collection based on whatever new system that she could think of. The last time they had rearranged things she'd had categories for "bands that sounded better when two bandmates broke up" and "bands that sounded worse when two bandmates broke up". They were very small categories, but Lane had decided her old categories weren't specific enough. Rory was pretty sure she had just been insanely bored since all the movie channels were blocked at her house. She could appreciate organization, but she had questioned the necessity of what they were doing several times that afternoon. She liked that Jess' system was a little bit looser.
"I'm not like anal about keeping them organized or anything," Jess said. "It just makes it easier to find them."
Rory nodded, looking through a new stack. "You don't have the new Eminem?" she asked, frowning at him. He stared back at her blankly. "I was just kidding," she assured him.
"I'm a little concerned that you knew there was a new Eminem CD out," Jess said.
"I like to keep updated on current events good and bad," Rory said. "You don't have a lot of bands with female singers," she noted. "You should get The Velvet Underground & Nico. It's The Velvet Underground, but they collaborated with—"
"Nico?" Jess guessed. Rory nodded. "She's that scary German woman, right? I don't know about that one."
Rory wasn't the biggest Nico fan herself, so she could sympathize. "How about Rilo Kiley?"
Jess shook his head. "I listened to the album that came out last year, but it was just okay."
"You should listen to their newest one," Rory insisted. "It's a lot better. Their second album had kind of a weird electronica thing going on that I didn't love, but I really liked their new album. What about Yo La Tengo then? Or The Breeders?"
"I've listened to them," Jess said. "I don't have their albums or anything, but I've heard songs here and there. There was a record store in New York that I liked that was pretty good about letting you sample albums before you bought them."
Whenever Rory and her mom had gone into the city it was usually to go shopping or see some kind of show, so she hadn't poked around cool record stores there before. She and Lane sometimes went to a record shop in Hartford, but they were pretty run-of-the-mill and stocked mostly popular new albums, with just a small section of funky used albums. "Don't most stores let you preview albums?" she asked, feeling like she really needed to expand her musical horizons even further.
"Depends on the store," Jess said. "There was a pretty cool store near our apartment, but the guy who owned it was a total elitist. He didn't let you preview anything or return things if they sucked, and he always talked everything up so you'd end up buying an album and finding out later that it was all weird European electronic music."
"Like grab bag night at Al's!" Rory said excitedly. "That sounds like fun."
"We should go someday," Jess said. "You've got a car, right? Just pick a Saturday and we'll go."
Rory almost agreed, but she hesitated. "I don't think that's going to work," she said, once again thinking about Dean. "Despite your very inappropriate suggestion that I just break up with Dean, I'm not going to. And I don't think—"
"Yeah, Dean wouldn't like it," Jess finished for it. "Come on, I'll buy you a hot dog. I'll even buy one for you to take back to him. Everyone likes hot dogs."
"Maybe he could come with us," Rory suggested, just so she could see the look on Jess' face. His pained grimace was worth it. "I was just kidding. Can I ask you something seriously, though?"
"If I say no will that affect your decision in any way?" Jess asked.
Rory ignored him. "What's your deal?"
"My deal?"
She paused for a minute, trying to work out what exactly it was that she wanted to say. Even though she was good with writing, it didn't always translate into speech. Maybe if Stars Hollow High had a debate team she would be better at it. "You don't strike me as the type of person who's particularly self-important," she said at last. "And yet you waltz into Stars Hollow thinking you can just kiss me and tell me to break up with my boyfriend so you and I can hook up instead. So what's up with that?" She almost added something about how there were dozens of other girls in Stars Hollow that were prettier than she was and also single, but she didn't think Jess would respond well to self-deprecation.
"Who said anything about hooking up?" Jess said, sounding genuinely confused. "I didn't say anything about it."
"But…" Rory trailed off, thinking back to their conversation. "You said I should break up with Dean so we could do whatever we wanted," she said. Given their past dalliances, she had assumed he'd meant more similar episodes. She flushed, embarrassed at the possibility that she had taken things the wrong way. What did it say about her that her mind automatically went to "hooking up"?
Jess started looking through a stack of DVDs, even though he had to start working soon. "I just meant that we could be friends," he said. "Everyone in this town except you hates me, and you can't even hang out with me because of Dean. It kind of sucks."
Rory was surprised to hear Jess speak so candidly. He gave off the vibe that he didn't really care what other people thought. Whenever she saw him hanging out outside before school started or just around town, he was always alone. Everyone else seemed to think it was because he was a troublemaker and Rory had never really believed that, but she hadn't considered that maybe he was just looking for some friends. He hadn't seemed like the type of person who would care. "You have a very strange way of trying to make friends if it includes telling people to break up their relationships," Rory said. "I could be your friend, you know. But you'll have to stop complaining about my boyfriend."
"Then your boyfriend will have to stop being so obsessed with you," Jess countered. "It's going to be pretty hard to hang out if we're only allowed when Dean's out of town."
"He is not obsessed with me," Rory said automatically. Yes, they hung out a lot and he liked when she called him every night, but that was hardly an obsession. That was just part of being in a relationship. "Look, I'll make it work," Rory said. "We can be friends."
"So then we can go to the record store in the city," Jess said. "Since we're friends."
"Maybe," Rory said, thinking that even if she somehow worked that out with Dean, her mom would never let her go. "You did promise me a hot dog, though. You better not go back on that."
Jess mimed crossing his heart. "I would never go back on the promise of hot dogs," he said.
Before Rory could tell him that she wanted a hot dog with everything on it, Luke walked through the door. "You've got two minutes to get downstairs," he said to Jess. "We're swamped down there." Jess opened his mouth like he wanted to complain, but Luke just grabbed a spatula from the kitchen and headed back downstairs.
"Does this somehow violate child labor laws?" Jess asked Rory, pulling off the hoodie that he was wearing. "I'm not supposed to start working for twenty minutes."
"I don't think so," Rory said sympathetically. "But hey, at least there's no commute."
"Yeah, that makes up for delivering burgers for hours," Jess said. "So, I guess I'll see you on Monday, then?"
For a second Rory thought about suggesting that they do something tomorrow, but she held off. She knew Dean would want to hang out, since he'd been out of town. "Monday," she agreed, pulling her coat on.
"Maybe I'll sit with Dean and his buddies at lunch then," Jess suggested. "We can talk things out. I bet by the end of the period we'll all be the three musketeers."
Rory rolled her eyes. "That would just be so fun," she said. "Leave Dean to me though, please?"
Jess nodded and held the door open for her as they walked downstairs. "You're the boss," he said. "You got your notebook?"
Rory patted the pocket of her coat. Grabbing her notebook was the first thing she'd done when she had got to Luke's. She hadn't wanted to manufacture any more reasons for Jess to get her to come over. Of course, now they were friends. "I'm all good," she said.
"You need any donuts for the road?" Jess asked, pointing at the donut display. Rory shook her head, but then changed her mind and grabbed a sprinkled one.
"Thanks," she said. Luke was too busy in the kitchen to notice Jess giving her free food, but he wasn't too busy to noticed that he wasn't working. "Oh, and a double bacon cheeseburger, with extra bacon," she added, remembering what her mom had requested.
"Jess!" Luke called. "I've got four plates waiting for you back here. What are you doing?"
"Nothing," Jess said, grabbing two plates from him. "Got another order for you. Double cheeseburger with extra bacon."
Rory took a seat at the counter and munched on her donut while she waited for her mom's burger. When Jess brought it to her he started to say something, but Rory shook her head. "Go work," she said, not wanting him to get yelled at by Luke again. "See you on Monday." As she headed out of the diner she waved at him, and smiled when he waved back.
On the way home, she felt pretty good. She had managed to hang out with Jess without doing anything that would jeopardize her relationship with Dean, and they were officially friends. It had almost seemed too easy, but Rory didn't want to question it. She had felt thoroughly confused since Jess had got to town, and things felt calm. She wanted to revel in that for a little while.
It didn't last long. "Dean called," Lorelai said when Rory walked in the living room. "A couple of times. Six times, actually," she said, pulling her cheeseburger from the Luke's bag Rory handed her. "Did he think you guys had plans today or something?"
"No, he's been busy all day," Rory said. She left out the part where she and Dean were technically in a fight still. Maybe him calling half a dozen times meant he was over it. "He probably wants to set something up for tomorrow."
"You're in heavy demand lately," Lorelai commented, pulling a strip of crispy bacon off her burger.
Rory's guard went up immediately. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked. She didn't think there was a way her mom could know about what had happened with her and Jess, but nothing was impossible in Stars Hollow.
Her mom looked at her strangely. "Your grandmother called earlier, too. She wants us to come over for Thanksgiving. She didn't ask a thing about me, but was very firm on the fact that you were to be there. There's nothing quite like spending a day when you're supposed to be giving thanks being judged by your estranged mother."
"Grandma is not estranged," Rory said, although it was true that they didn't see Lorelai's parents very often. They always went to their annual Christmas party and occasionally saw them for Easter, but they rarely had Thanksgiving with them. "It'll be nice," she said, even though Lorelai didn't look convinced. "I'm going to call Dean back." As she walked out of the room she could have sworn she heard her mom say something less than wholesome about her grandma, but she ignored it. It was always a little awkward when they went to her grandparents' house, but it was never unbearable. At least this year Rory had a boyfriend to talk about if her grandparents asked.
Dean answered the phone after one ring, which made Rory think he'd been waiting by the phone for her to call. He had probably just happened to walk past it. "Where were you?" Dean asked after he said hello. "I thought we could go out for dinner once I got home, but your mom said you weren't home."
"I was at Luke's," Rory said, deciding to be truthful. If she and Jess were going to be friends, Dean would just have to accept that. "Why did you want to go out to dinner anyway?" she couldn't help but ask. "I thought you were mad at me."
"I thought we could talk and clear the air," Dean said. "Things got kind of heated yesterday."
"They did," Rory said. Had their fight really just been the day before? She felt exhausted thinking about it. "I have to say, I wasn't a fan."
"I know," Dean said apologetically. "I think I might have overreacted. But things are good now, right?"
Rory sighed. Were things good? She'd had a nice time hanging out with Jess and that was good for her, but she knew Dean wouldn't feel that way. "I guess so," she said. "But I meant what I said, you know. Jess is a good person, and we're friends now. I really hope that's not going to be a problem." She said it firmly, hopefully indicating to Dean that she didn't want to argue about it. She knew it was going to be a problem, but it felt ridiculous and she didn't want to discuss it for a second day in a row.
"You're friends now?" Dean asked incredulously. "How did that happen?"
"We hung out at the diner today," she said. "I didn't have any other plans, and I left my notebook there when I was studying last night so I had to go by and get it anyway." She backtracked, not liking that she was making excuses for hanging out with a friend. "And I like talking to Jess. We talked about books for a while. It was nice."
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. Dean exhaled sharply, sounding a bit like a dragon. "Well, I'm glad you had a nice time," he said sarcastically.
"I don't want to argue about this," Rory said flatly. "I know you're my boyfriend, but you're not allowed to tell me who I can and can't be friends with." It was rare that she stood up to Dean, although it was true that he rarely gave her reason to. Up until Jess had showed up, Dean had been incredibly easygoing. Actually arguing with him was a foreign feeling for Rory, but it did feel good to speak her mind. She had never been one to stand up and speak her mind in tough situations, and breaking out of that box was kind of exhilarating.
Dean was quiet for a minute. "What's going on with you?" he asked. "First you start hanging out with Jess and now you're yelling at me."
"Nothing is going on with me, and I wasn't yelling at you," Rory said. "I just don't want to argue about Jess anymore."
He sighed. "Fine," Dean said, sounding as tired of the conversation as Rory felt. "Well, I called to see if you wanted to go to dinner, but also to tell you that my parents asked me to invite you and your mom over for Thanksgiving if you don't already have plans."
"We're going to my grandparents," Rory said. Even though it was completely true, it would probably sound like an excuse to Dean, since he knew that she very rarely visited her grandparents. "They called earlier," she added. "I bet my mom will use this as a bargaining tool when she doesn't want to go to their Christmas party next month."
Dean let out a small laugh. "Yeah, probably. So, do you want to do dinner tomorrow or something?"
"Maybe," Rory said noncommittally. She didn't have any plans for the next day, but she wasn't sure she wanted to spend her entire evening with Dean. Whenever they went out to dinner they always ended up back at her house or his house until it got late and they had to be home. Normally she enjoyed it, but it just sounded kind of exhausting. She had already spent Friday evening and most of the afternoon at Luke's and it would be nice to have some downtime. "I'll call you tomorrow."
After she and Dean hung up, Rory wondered how exactly she was going to balance being with Dean and being friends with Jess. She was determined to make it work, but she wasn't sure how. She suspected the fact that she was obviously attracted to Jess would make things a bit harder, but she felt like she had something to prove now. She could make her own choices, and she was choosing a new friend.
