The phone calls had stopped for a while, after she'd told her mother in no uncertain terms that she should stay out of their lives.
She got the impression that Emily had been making Rory feel guilty about the gulf between them, but Rory didn't complain, so she wasn't entirely sure.
The phone calls had probably started again now that her parents were aware that Rory was seeing Logan Huntzberger. Still, Lorelai reasoned, that was Rory's deal, not hers. With a heavy sigh, she collapsed into the chair behind her desk and tossed the pink scraps of paper containing Emily's messages into the wastebasket at her feet.
Her office phone rang and she glared at it suspiciously for a moment before picking it up.
"Hello?" she asked cautiously.
"Hi." His voice instantly made her smile.
"Hi," she breathed.
"Who were you expecting to call?" he laughed, detecting the relief in her voice.
Lorelai shook her head. "Nobody," she told him.
"Is Michel there?" Luke asked.
"Yes. He's lucky!"
Luke laughed.
"Well, I have bad news. Cesar seems to have caught whatever it was that Michel had and I'm going to have to close the diner tonight."
"Oh Luke, no," Lorelai moaned.
"I'm sorry. Why don't you come by when you're done there? I can feed you at least."
"I can feed myself," Lorelai declared.
Luke snorted. "Poptarts?"
"My specialty," Lorelai chuckled.
"I'm going to have to teach you how to cook sometime," Luke threatened her.
"Why?" Lorelai asked. "That's what I have you for."
"That's all I'm good for?" he challenged her.
"Well, maybe not all." Lorelai dropped her voice to a whisper, even though she was alone.
"Alright," Luke said. "I'll see you later. Is there anything special that you want?"
"Dinner upstairs? You serving me with your 'Kiss the cook' apron, and nothing else?"
"I don't have a 'Kiss the cook' apron," Luke said dryly.
"Exactly," Lorelai chuckled.
"Bye," Luke said.
"Bye."
The diner was nearly empty when Lorelai arrived later that evening, prompting her to beg him to close early.
"I opened late," he reminded her.
"For a good reason. And you'll be closing early for a good reason, too."
Luke hid a smile. "Lorelai, as much as I'd love to spend every waking minute with you, I have a business to run and so do you."
Lorelai pouted.
"If it stays quiet for another hour, I'll close," he sighed.
"Half an hour," Lorelai bargained.
"Fine. But don't sit there looking at me with your puppy dog eyes."
"How about my bedroom eyes?" she teased him.
"Lorelai!"
"Okay, okay," she laughed.
When Kirk neared the door, Lorelai glared at him from the spot where she sat at the counter and he turned pink and backed away from the door.
"Lorelai," Luke barked. "Kirk was going to come in."
"It's Kirk," she reasoned. "Do you really want him pestering you?"
"Was he going to pay me?" Luke retorted.
Lorelai shrugged. "Probably."
"Then I probably wanted him pestering me."
She looked at him in disbelief until he caved.
"Okay, maybe not. But you can't sit there and glare at anybody who wants to come in."
"But we'll be able to go home," Lorelai whined.
"Okay, upstairs."
"Ooh!"
"No, you're going to wait for me there while I finish up here." He untwisted the cap on a sugar dispenser and filled it.
"I'll be good," Lorelai promised gravely. "I actually wanted to talk to you about something."
"You mean you'll talk, I'll listen?"
"Well, yes," Lorelai laughed.
"Okay."
Lorelai took a breath, searching for the words. Luke glanced at her with concern when she didn't start rambling immediately.
"My mom has been leaving me messages," Lorelai confessed. "It had stopped for awhile, after she came to the diner that day, but now…"
Luke didn't say anything, but she noticed that his shoulders tensed and he was concentrating on the sugar.
"Do you want to call her?" he finally asked.
She caught his gaze and held it.
"No. I want her to understand that I'm serious about everything that I said to her. You and I are a non-negotiable, Luke."
"I know that," he told her softly.
She sighed. "I'm just tired of the phone calls."
"So talk to her."
"I don't have anything to say to her."
Luke caught her hands and squeezed them.
"Lorelai, you have a million things to say to your mother."
"Nothing that she wants to hear," she said bitterly.
"Which is exactly why you have to say them."
"I don't even know if she knows that we've moved in together."
"She knows."
"Rory?" Lorelai guessed.
"She called the other day," Luke told her. "Before you got home."
Lorelai's eyes locked on his.
"You didn't say anything," she said non-accusingly.
"I thought it might upset you. I figured she'd been calling you at the inn, but she seemed surprised when I answered the phone."
"It's none of their business, Luke. That's why I didn't tell them."
"Okay." His voice was quiet and even.
"You think I should have told them?"
"I think this is your decision. I'll support you, you know that."
"But you think that I should have told them," Lorelai repeated, her voice flat.
"I think it put both of us in an uncomfortable position," Luke said. He sighed. "Lorelai, I know how upset and angry you are right now, but I know that you love them and --."
"That doesn't matter," she cut him off.
"Of course it matters."
"No, Luke." She shook her head. "It mattered to you. It mattered in your family. It's the last consideration in mine."
She gathered her bag and started towards the door.
"Hey, I'm almost done," he told her.
"I'll meet you at home," she said, and was gone.