Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter Ten: The Moving Day
"So can you stay for dinner?" Rory asked as they put the last boxes on the floor in her room.
"Hon, I can stay all night."
"No, you can't do that."
"Why not?" Lorelai asked, surprised.
"Because then I'm the pathetic person who needs her mother to stay all night and everyone here will see and know that."
"Okay, so I won't spend the night."
"No, stay the night," Rory replied, hugging her mother. Even though they had spent the last four years apart, it still hurt her to leave her mother again.
In the last few weeks Rory and Lorelai had made up for their time apart, while enjoying a nice family vacation in their home on Martha's Vineyard. They had both agreed that Rory would come home at least one weekend a month, after their regular Friday night dinners with the grandparents. Rory didn't want to miss out on getting to know her brother and had vowed to her mother and to herself that she would be as involved as possible in his life, after not being involved for the first four years.
"When will Steph get here? And Rose?"
"They'll get here later; we didn't plan for a certain time."
"Then let's start unpacking your things and then when they get here we can order some food and whatnot."
Three hours later, all of Rory's boxes had been unpacked and the other girl's stuff had arrived. Both Rose and Steph had been pleased to see Lorelai there, knowing that she would make their first night as unforgettable as possible. Lorelai herself had been looking forward to spending some quality girl time with her daughter and her friends.
"We ordered too much food."
"Hello, the point. We need a wide cross section for our local takeout test," Lorelai observed.
"Steph, Rose, we'll be eating leftovers for more than a week."
"Just call Finn; he'll eat it for us," Rose laughed.
"What is this? You've eaten Indian food, yet I see nothing about Indian food on the chart."
"We'll get to it," Steph replied, already taking a box of Indian food and the pen.
"The whole point of getting everything within delivery distance is so we can judge the quality of food, speed of service, cuteness of delivery guys on a scale of one to ten. We cannot work from memory on this," Lorelai rambled, but was cut off by the phone ringing.
"Where's the phone?" Rory asked, while moving boxes of food, searching for the phone.
"Uh, under Mexico," Rose answered before taking another bite of the Indian food.
"I bet it's the pizza. Come help," Lorelai said, standing up.
As they were making their way back to her dorm, with seven pizzas, Rory turned to her mother, "We're four people and we ordered for like four hundred."
"So, what you're saying is you want to crank it up? You want to set it off? You want to put a match to the keg and burn this mofo down?" Lorelai asked.
"I'm just saying it's a lot of food."
"Attention, Durfee girls!" Lorelai yelled.
"Mom!" Rory exclaimed, embarrassed.
"Food and tons of it in suite five. Bring your appetites, bring your opinions, and, uh, hey, someone bring some music, but if it's Evanescence, you will be severely mocked. Enter, rejoice and come in," Lorelai said to the girls in the hall.
For years to come, all girls in the Durfee building would talk about this night. A night full with laughter, girl-talks, hot delivery guys, junk food, cool music and most of all bonding time. It would even become a tradition in the building, named 'The Lorelai Night'
The first few days in Yale had flown by and now it was time for the girls to start their classes and start their college careers.
"It's shopping week," Rory said on the phone, while grabbing her bags.
"Isn't it always?" Her mother asked.
"The first week of school is called shopping week. You get to try out as many classes as you want before you pick the ones you want to stick with for the semester. I picked over fifty classes I'm going to try out, plus another ten I'm going to squeeze in if I have the time. They all sound completely amazing. I stayed up all night reading the class subscriptions over and over."
"You do know that if you weren't so pretty, you would've gotten the crap kicked out of you every day of your life," Lorelai responded with a laugh. It still amazed her how her daughter had turned out. She was the perfect mixture of herself and Christopher, with some added bonuses, like the good grades.
"Yes mother, I know. But I've got to go, classes wait for no man!" Rory hurriedly hung up and ran out the door, she wanted to get a coffee from her favorite stand and still be on time for her Russian literature seminar.
She had been distracted, with putting her cellphone back in her bag and walking at the same time, that she never saw someone approaching her, until said person collided with her.
"Hey Ace, slow down," Logan smirked.
"Logan!" she exclaimed surprised, "Hi! What are you doing here?"
"You said you were taking Russian lit and then we agreed that I'd pick you up, remember?"
"No, I really don't. But let's go then; I need coffee before we get there."
"Afraid you won't stay awake otherwise?" he laughed, "Or haven't you met your quota for today yet?"
"You are the one who's going to have trouble staying awake" she laughed.
"We'll see," he said as they were making their way to the next coffee stand.
As they walked together, they discussed other classes that they were interested in taking and agreed to go together to as much as possible, seeing as how their major was the same and most of their classes were also the same. As Rory had suspected, Logan fell asleep during the seminar. After the seminar they went their separate ways, but before they made plans to meet up in the pub with all their friends later in the day, to grab a bite to eat and catch up on each other's lives.
Later that night the group had gathered in the pub in a booth in the back, waiting for Steph to show up, who was as always running late.
"College is breaking my spirit. Even on the first day, it's telling me things I don't know. It's already making me feel stupid," Steph said as she sat down. Everyone burst out laughing at her statement; they knew that she, as well as Finn, didn't enjoy classes as much as the rest of their group. She was only going to go to the classes her parents forced her to attend.
"Steph, calm down, it's only your first day," Rose said, trying to be supportive. She was looking forward to her classes.
"Easy for you to say, you actually like the family business, I don't", Steph answered, exasperated. "Why can't I just marry a guy that will take over the family business?"
"Come on Steph, we all know you would hate that. As much as you hate to admit it, you want to take over," Rory commented.
"What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?" Steph asked, trying to change the subject.
"Love, I'll be right back. Anybody want anything else?" Finn asked his friends as he was standing up.
"We're good," was the consensus.
"I'll be back in a flash," he said before making his way towards the bar.
"That is, if there's no redhead at the bar," Colin joked.
"It's kind of impressive if you think about it," Rose pointed out.
"What is?" Logan asked
"In all the years we've known him, he's always had a thing for redheads. You and Colin have dated all sorts of women, but Finn stuck to redheads. Kinda makes you wonder why," Rose elaborated. The girls nodded their agreement, whereas the guys only laughed.
"We should ask him," Rory suggested, just as Finn was coming back with his and Steph's drinks.
"Ask whom what?" Finn asked, clearly not knowing what they were talking about.
"You, about your love for redheads," Steph answered, "You've never told us why you only go for redheads."
"Well loves, it's quite simple actually," Finn smirked, "I'm just trying to figure out, if James Joyce was right."
"You took his quote from Ulysses literally?" Rory asked, perplexed.
"Of course I did love," he replied nonchalantly.
"Could someone please explain?" Steph asked.
"According to James Joyce, redheaded women buck like goats," Colin said laughing.
"And once again I ask, can someone please explain?"
"James Joyce meant to say that redheaded women are hot-tempered, hot and tempting, quick to anger and quick to bed, quirky and queenly, rare and russet, redheads are the stuff of fantasy and nightmare," Rory explained.
"You sure know quite a lot about it, Ace," Logan teased.
"I did a project on the book and as you all know, I almost always remember everything I read," she rebutted, indignantly, while narrowing her eyes at him.
"No need to get defensive, love. Huntz here is just trying to hide the fact, that he knew that too," Finn remarked, "But enough about this serious stuff. How about we play a round of I never?"
Even though they all had classes they wanted to go to in the morning, they ended up agreeing to play a round, knowing Finn wouldn't have stopped begging until they had. They ordered six rounds of tequila for everyone and settled in.
"Who will begin?" Rose asked, eager to get this over with. She had an Economy class in the morning that she wanted to go to and wanted to be well rested. The professor was an old friend of her fathers and would report back to him, to keep him informed about his baby girl.
"I will," Steph said, "I never stayed up all night studying for a test," she knew it was a lame one, but at least it got Colin, Rose, Logan and Rory to drink.
"Booooooring," Finn pouted, "I never stole a friend's yacht," he said while smirking at the girls, who all had to take a shot.
"Way to easy Finn, I expected more from you," Rose pointed out while rolling her eyes, "All right, let's see… I never went skinny dipping at school," the boys and Steph had to take a shot for that one, remembering their night a couple of weeks before graduation.
The boys had wanted to do a big stunt before leaving school but after much convincing from the girls, they had decided that something smaller would do as well. After bribing the janitor for the keys to the pool, the group had gotten in. Logan, Finn, Colin and Steph had all stripped to their underwear and jumped in the water, while Rory and Rose were playing look out. It wouldn't do them any good to get caught weeks before graduation and it excused the more reserved girls from stripping in front of the guys.
"We should do it again," Logan suggested, "I never have been called fruit of my loin," he stated while looking directly at Rory, who drank the shot and glared at him.
"If you want to get me drunk Huntz, just say so, no need for such a lame I never," Rory playfully said, "I never lied to a girl to get in her pants."
"Of course you didn't Gilmore," Colin said while rolling his eyes and taking his shot, "I never spent two hours getting ready for a date," the girls and Finn had to take a shot.
"What can I say? You can't rush beauty," Finn elaborated after seeing the confused look on his friends' faces.
"I'm going to take off now; I'll see you all for lunch tomorrow?" Rose asked as she was standing up.
"Wait up Rose, I'll come with you," Rory said as she was getting her wallet out of her purse.
"Ace, go, we've got it. Our treat," Logan smirked.
"All right, thanks guys! Steph, you coming or are you staying?" Before answering, Steph looked at Colin, who smiled at her.
"I'm staying, see you girls tomorrow," she replied
"Don't do anything that Lorelai wouldn't do," Rory teased.
That Friday Rory had gone to Hartford, to her weekly family dinners with the Gilmore's, who wanted to be as involved as possible in their granddaughters' life. They had asked how Yale was treating her, if she was enjoying it as much as she had hoped, how her friends were, what classes she was taking. Nothing concerning Rory had been off-limit during the cocktail hour before dinner.
The maid stood awkwardly in front of the dining room and said, "Dinner is served, Ms. Gilmore."
Emily dismissed her with a wave of her hand and said, "Yes, thank you Leisel."
"Leisel?" Lorelai repeated incredulously. "Gee Mom, are you getting them straight from the Sound of Music now?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Lorelai."
Lorelai fell into step beside her daughter and murmured under her breath, "You got it, right?" Rory could only laugh and nod her head, not wanting to anger her grandmother, for going along with Lorelai's humor.
Author's Note: Thank you everyone for your support. I'm currently fighting with writers block in chapter 11, so any ideas will be greatly appreciated. And thank you for all the reviews.