Author's Note: I've had this chapter done for awhile, but I can't quite work it out to where I like it. This is what I ended up with, though, and I hope that it's a good follow up. Thank you very much for all the reviews (all of them went something like, "WHAT?! SHE WALKED OUT?!") and keep them coming :)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There was no where to go and she had no car. Those were the facts she had to work around.
Crowds of people, hundreds of people, maybe thousands of people were clogging the sidewalks, pressing in on her, and she gratefully dissolved into them. She became a nameless face in a sea of countless others, and for a second, her problems shrank with her. There was the hard, cold concrete, the thin lampposts and towering steel buildings, the glass windows and old brick houses smashed against one another. It was an external chaos that half rivaled her internal chaos. It was comforting.
That lasted for about the first fifteen minutes.
Oh God, what had she done? What had they done? The very thing she had fought against, the one thing that could be her downfall, was back all over again. It would never be over. Never, never, never, no matter how she stifled it or tried to stamp it out or suffocated it. It was there like kryptonite.
And even amidst all this turmoil inside of her, she could not ignore that one, small little flame of absolute ecstasy that was dancing in her soul. How long she had waited for those few seconds! It had been sheer want, sheer desire that finally won over ever practical bone in her body. She, the princess of common sense, had let go for a moment and it was miraculous. Maybe it had been the book, or just the overwhelming physical attraction, but maybe it was something deeper. He definitely was still the same in that area. His kiss, as tempered as it had been by the surrounding circumstances, absolutely sealed her in fog, left her stumbling, reeling, staggering. He was, she thought to herself, blushing, the absolute best kisser she had ever known.
The look in his eyes when he broke away had been tender. It melted her. It was something vaguely familiar, the same glowing beauty she'd seen under the tree at Sookie's wedding, at the gas pump, on the street during the carnival when he had thrown his love to her and then took off, as if it were a burden he could not stand to take away with him and had to deposit in Stars Hollow.
Who was she to assume he still felt the same way? Honestly, after she had denied him without explaining why, who was she to dare to think he'd continue to hold onto her?
This dark, terrible, beautiful, craggy thing was building up in her again, stronger, undefined, stormy, demanding. It was worse than want and need. It was a mix of the two, a terrifying reliance on someone who had proved over and over again that he was unreliable.
"You can count on me. I know you couldn't before, but you can now!"
She was standing on the edge of a precipice, with her foot dangling into the depths she could not see, a monster chasing her and uncertainty waiting in the abyss. What would she find at the bottom? She had absolutely no idea.
"That's the fun part, isn't it?"
But how much longer could she stand there, honestly? There was no way she could back away; she'd tried that a million times and it hadn't worked. This edge was tantalizing to her, mesmerizing, captivating, a porthole into a world she didn't even know existed, just like when she was seventeen.
We'll always be seventeen.
She couldn't pretend anymore. She couldn't do it alone. It was absolute stupidity to ignore something that fed on her like that, drew her blood, intermixed with her until she couldn't separate herself from it. Yes, maybe it was another huge mistake. Maybe it was simply yet another repeat of a scene they'd already filmed a dozen times, another fracture in a bone they'd already shattered.
But perhaps, just perhaps, this was the real thing. The honest-to-God thing. Standing there in jeans and a leather jacket, the same as he always had, just a little bit more grown up now. She couldn't live with herself if she missed it. Not again.
She needed coffee, and no, she wasn't going to be too particularly choosy. Selecting the first stand she came to, she bought the biggest coffee they had and drank it while the orderless order of the city trampled around her.
"Take thy sorrow to heart, and make it a part of thee, and it shall nourish thee till thou art strong again."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jess wasn't a huge fan of Hamburger Helper, but neither was he equipped with a culinary haven to work with, so it was going to have to do. He ripped open the box and started to boil the water, moving silently and numbly around the kitchen.
She didn't run very often. That was more or less his department. But what he'd learned over the course of their relationship was that when she did run, he had to let her go. There was nothing worse than holding onto a bird when it was trying to fly away. Maybe by accident your fingers would crush it in its delicacy, or you would break its wings. So he stood there like an idiot over the stove, every nerve in his entire body telling him to go after her, but not moving toward the door.
If she didn't come back, she didn't come back. Damn him for thinking that way, but what else was there that he could do? It was one-thirty on a weekday, and even in Philadelphia one-thirty on a weekday wasn't too bad. She'd be fine. The idea of her still being around, alone, at night, was what made his skin crawl.
He knew he shouldn't have done it. He knew she was overloaded with shit right now, with the accident, with her recent break up, with Yale. But, honestly, how was he supposed to resist that draw, that magnetism, which always seemed to triumph in the end? She had been sitting there, her eyes glassy with tears, and for the first time in a long time he'd read in her what had once been radiating from every pore of her body: she had to have him. It was a deep, hard, fast physical need, gritty and painful, but it was also denser than that, almost spiritual. And, of course, he'd never stopped needing her. So what was there to do? She was beautiful, so beautiful, and she'd been beckoning to him.
He was so tired of this game that they were playing. He couldn't do it forever, could he? This coming together and ripping apart, this fatally flawed, deadly desire that led them to each other only to make them turn around and tear at one another. It drained on him, exhausted him.
But could he completely let go? Could he avoid the pain, but avoid all of the dangerous beauty, too? He wasn't sure.
If she had stayed long enough, he would've told her it wouldn't be like last time. That he needed her, that he could not lose her again, and that she wouldn't have to carry the burden alone. Or maybe he wouldn't have told her, but he would have showed her, and she'd have understood. They were just like that. Always had been.
But she'd left, and here he was, with Hamburger Helper.
Can it be different?
Jess Mariano didn't live in a world of second chances, and third and fourth chances might as well go to hell. Come on, he'd seen someone killed when he was twelve. He winced and unconsciously fingered the scar on his shoulder blade, remembering. If he was cynical, the world had brought it up in him. He didn't postulate or guess or bet anything on a wishful fantasy. Matter of fact, he despised even having wishful fantasies. So it hurt him a little to hope on this one, but God, what else was there for him to do? He wanted this more than anything he'd ever wanted in his life. He wanted her. He almost couldn't remember any time in his life not wanting her.
Leo, who, of course, had witnessed the whole gut-rattling sequence of events, was leaning on a nearby counter, looking at Jess' pack of cigarettes that lay on the kitchen table and, Jess had a feeling, thinking of stealing one. Out of the corner of his eye, Jess saw him moving minutely in the cigarette direction.
"Remember what happened to Harry Morgan? Worse. Much worse," Jess said lowly, never taking his stare off of the boiling water. He doubted Leo had even read To Have and Have Not, but his currently swamped mind absolutely could not think of another allusion that was closer to Leo's taste.
He looked up out the window for the tenth time during the last two minutes, but she was not there. He could tell that Leo wanted to ask about Rory. Fortunately, he felt no inkling of conscience that told him he should explain, so he didn't.
Leo, however, apparently had no inkling of conscience as well. Either that or he was just really, really stupid. "So are you that bad of a kisser? Seriously, man, she was out of here like plastic on Joan Rivers."
After getting over the initial "that makes no sense" reaction, Jess' fingers tightened around the spoon he was holding, his knuckles turning white. He said nothing. It was too difficult to get into, too sore, too recent, and damn Leo if he thought he was going to open up like this was a damn Dr. Phil marathon and start blubbering all over their damn Great Value napkins.
He felt her come in more than he heard it, but he heard it, too. She'd never been as quiet as he was. Maybe it was the way her heels made a soft clacking noise on the carpet, or how her clothes rustled when she walked. He could almost smell her. That's when he knew he was getting to be ridiculous.
She stood in the doorway and he did not turn around. Leo, sensing something that could perhaps be dangerous to his physical wellbeing, skirted around her and out the doorway. The water began to boil, a deep, rolling boil, and Jess poured the uncooked noodles into it.
He was afraid of what she would say, of what she would tell him to do. There was no way in hell he could ever forget what she felt like against him, the way she kissed, the way she tasted, so she better not ask him to. It wasn't even a question of what he wanted. He just couldn't do it.
What would it be like to have all this behind them? To be able to hold her again, to touch her, to kiss her without caring about what anyone else thought?
"The coffee in Philly is amazing," she said softly, although her tone said something else. He almost burned himself on the electric panel he was cooking on, but pulled his finger away just in time.
"You're generous. It's pretty gross."
Her voice wavered. "I actually don't think I tasted it when I drank it."
He didn't know what to say to that. There was a lump in his throat. What was she trying to tell him? He was so, so sick of dancing on the edges of their relationship, of refusing to get into what was really going on between them, of avoiding the sticky spots in hope that they would clean themselves up, and then when they finally got the courage to glance at the mess they'd made, one of them bolted. He refused to do that anymore.
Turning around, he saw her standing there, her peach-colored sweater complimenting her eyes and her complexion and her figure, her hair laying on her shoulders, her fingers clutched around a Styrofoam coffee cup. She was magnificent, like Mona Lisa or the Taj Mahal or Angel Falls.
"You . . . kissed me," she whispered. His breathing became shallow. He nodded.
She hated how she couldn't tell what he was thinking, and he was just reading her like an open book. There was a solemnity on his face, maybe even a little uneasiness, but nothing else. It was like that night on the bridge after the dance marathon. She didn't know if he was doing it on purpose or if he just automatically hid everything, but she wanted it to be the latter.
Her legs trembled as she continued to step into new territory for them, or at least territory they hadn't been in for a very, very long time. "I wanted you to."
The wary look in his eyes shifted for just a moment, something more relieved and disbelieving taking its place instead. Then he looked down at the floor and leaned against the counter, a bitter smirk on his face. "Most people would see running away as kind of an antitheses to that statement," he said huskily, in the deep way he had from smoking too much.
"I . . . I . . . I was scared."
He gazed at her again, unreadable. "Of me?"
Yes. "No. At least . . . Jess . . . of us, of what always happens. Not of you. Of what . . ." She broke off, turning to glance out the window, listening to the soft bubbling sound of the boiling water, wishing she was far away from here and yet dying inside at the though of leaving. "Of what you do to me."
She was infinitely grateful that he didn't ask her what she meant, because it would have killed her to say it. He understood. His leather jacket was off now. He didn't wear T-shirts very often, but today he was. It was black, just plain black, which didn't surprise her very much. She watched as his hands found their way into his jean pockets.
"I don't want it to be like that again," she went on, nervously, afraid that she misunderstood him and that he didn't want anything to do with her, afraid that he was going to leave her cold and naked and alone, because he could do that.
"Okay," he said simply, studying the linoleum.
She understood what he meant because she recognized the word, but she wanted to cry. She wanted him to say what he felt, to come out with it again, to become vulnerable like she was, because her head was most certainly on the chopping block. But that was against his nature. He'd done it once, back last winter, with three words, and he wasn't going to do it again. At least that's what she comprehended.
Wordlessly, she moved next to him and opened the nearest cupboard, looking for bowls. There were none, but she saw a stack of paper plates on top of the refrigerator and stood up on her tip toes to reach them. He was surprised to see the lone tear that dripped down her eye and splashed on the counter, but he didn't ask about it. His hands cautiously brushed hers. When she didn't move away, he closed his fingers around her wrists and gently, slowly, carefully as though she was made of glass, pulled her toward him. She closed the last foot in between their bodies on her own, her eyes not meeting his but fixed on the muscles of his neck. What this meant for them, neither could have said. It was confusing and they weren't going to sort it out, not now, not yet.
"It won't be like that again, okay?" He said softly, ducking his head so she was forced to make eye contact with him. Their foreheads brushed together. Her perfume was the most wonderful scent he'd ever smelled in his whole life.
She looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't. He waited. "Don't break me," she finally murmured very quietly, so quietly that it hardly stirred the air around them. He swallowed heavily. His skin was on fire. He hated himself for making her so afraid of what could happen between them.
Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.
"Okay," he said again. He dipped his head and met her feverish lips, blindly falling into that place that had burned them before but was welcoming them now, sweetly sealing a promise he should have made a long time ago. There was ice and flame and satisfaction and craving and the need for more, always the need for more, more, more, more.
She was shaking when she pulled away, and he brushed his lips against her forehead. She looked up at him and smiled, the first smile since whatever had just happened had happened, and he felt the stormy clouds that suffocated them dispersing.
"I wanted to go with you," she said quietly, glancing down at their hands, mesmerized by how small and slender hers looked next to his, running her finger over his knuckles and calluses, like she was attempting to read Braille. "I . . . I wanted . . . I wanted to go with you to . . . to New York."
He felt his insides give a vicious twist when he remembered that night after Yale, sitting in his apartment, a drag on a cigarette and a book, alcohol, all that alcohol. That was when he hit bottom. Rock-solid, honest bottom. Or at least that was when he opened his eyes and realized he had been there for a long time. "Why didn't you?"
She looked at him like he was asking why it rained or why people couldn't breathe underwater or why one plus one equaled two. "You didn't have room for me."
He knew what she was talking about, and it had nothing to do with the pathetically small apartment that he had shared with four other guys or how the backseat of his car probably wouldn't have been able to fit all of her boxes. "You could've pushed and shoved and made room. I think I would've let you."
"No," she said, turning away to look out the window. "That's what you've always done, the pushing and shoving. Not me." She wasn't accusing him, just stating the truth. He wondered if it would be okay to touch her again.
Sometimes I need the damn pushing and shoving, though. I'm not strong enough to do it all on my own.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The note had been simple, Lorelai reflected as she crossed the street. Gut-wrenching in its simplicity, completely un-Rory-like, short. Since when had Rory ever been short? She wrote a book on paragraph assignments, completely used all their printer paper in two weeks, and even filled out a journal that she only remembered to write in maybe twice a year. The word "short" wasn't even in her vocabulary unless she was discussing Tom Cruise!
Mom,
I'm going off for the day. Just to burn some stress. I'm fine. Be back soon. Don't worry. Call my cell if you need me –
Rory
Uh huh. Right. Don't worry. That was like telling a priest not to pray or something. Completely oxymoronic. And "just to burn off some stress?" The last time Rory had randomly disappeared for a whole day without giving any valid reason at all had been –
Well, yeah, that made sense. Same guy.
It wouldn't be so hard, so bad, if Lorelai didn't know where her daughter had gone. Or who she went there with, more precisely. Her mind automatically conjured images of Rory sitting with him at some truck stop, clad in black leather and smoking a cigarette. It was like Grease. She shivered. It wasn't normal for Rory to take off with her friend Lane condemned to lie in bed for another week or two at least, even if she was in stable condition. It wasn't like Rory at all.
He had always managed to bring out that side of her, hadn't he?
She was angry. When she told him to make sure he let Rory know before he left, she didn't mean this. There was, in her mind, no other explanation for where Rory could have gone. But at the same time . . . the fact of the matter was, Jess hadn't begged. She knew very little about him, but she knew enough to deduce that. So, by process of elimination, Rory had wanted to go. She wasn't sure how she felt about this. All she knew was that she had to get more information.
Yes, she would be the first to admit that she'd been avoiding Luke's like a plague. It had about killed her, living without his fantastic coffee and hamburgers, and living without something else that she wasn't quite prepared to label at the moment. That was nothing new. She hadn't been prepared to label it for years. But there was only one place to go, one link between herself and what had happened that morning, and it was symbolized by the corner diner with a sign hanging out front and old blinds covering its windows.
She wasn't really that nervous when she went inside. Well, no, she was nervous, but her mission was more important and seriously downplayed the anxiety. She had no time for herself or for her own feelings when Rory was in the mix.
He was standing behind the counter, and the way he looked up quite obviously told her that she was the last person he expected to walk in through that door. He dropped the pencil he'd been scratching at a piece of paper with and gripped the coffeepot nearest him. "Lorelai . . ."
"Luke," she said gently, awkwardly, but then rocketed past whatever it was with the word 'daughter' flashing in her head. "So, how was Rory feeling this morning?"
His look of apprehension turned to one of absolute confusion, which momentarily broke the façade of gentlemanliness he had been attempting over the past few days. "How the hell should I know?"
God, if Luke wasn't up . . . what time did they leave this morning? "Jess is gone?"
He shrugged, grabbed the coffeepot, and poured her a cup without her having to ask. That gesture, in its comfortable routineness, made her feel a little bit calmer. She noticed he had shaved. "Jess is gone."
"Ah." Right. Now would be the time to find a delicate way to phrase this, but alas, there was none. "He took someone with her. She's about five-foot-seven, brown hair, blue eyes . . . That is, if he didn't convince her to just dye her hair green while she's at it, or maybe –"
"Jeez. He took Rory?" Luke interrupted, his face wearing an expression of mortal shock. Poor, naïve Luke. He could never see these things coming, these highly inevitable things that had been as audible as a train for the past two years. She sighed heavily.
"Or Rory took him. Something like that." She drank the coffee slowly, like it was an elixir, and allowed it to settle hot and steaming in her stomach. Kirk was sitting at a table nearby, deftly picking egg whites out of his eggs, which he had probably been doing for the past hour or two. She watched him for a moment, transfixed.
"I'm gonna kill him," Luke hissed, throwing the rag he had been using onto the counter and flexing his fingers like he physically needed to hit something. "He told me . . . he said he hadn't come back for . . . to . . . and I believed him. What a jerk!"
It had been the first time he met his nephew, Luke remembered now, as Jess climbed off the bus. It was in that second. The look in his eyes, the wary suspicion around his mouth, maybe even the damn "go to hell" way he held his shoulders, had all told him what he was being painfully reminded of now, like a particularly unfriendly blow to the stomach: you could not trust him. No matter how much he seemed to have changed, here he was caring about no one but himself again, grabbing that innocent girl again, throwing her on a whirlwind ride all damn over again –
"I don't think so. Well, no, he is a jerk," Lorelai added thoughtfully, as if it was the best compliment she could dig out of herself, "but this time I think . . . Rory is the . . . initiator." By the way she stared down at the counter he knew it was hard for her to say. It was even harder for him to believe.
"She was over him the second he left town," he argued, his arms folded across his chest, trying to keep this from getting too sentimental and personal, because he didn't do so well with that crap. Especially around Lorelai, although she was the only one he made the effort for. "Sometimes, I think she was over him even before he left town."
"That's your right, I guess." Kirk was still picking his egg whites out. She wondered how many combined hours of his life he had wasted on egg whites. "You can think whatever you want. But Luke," she said, a suddenly serious note in her voice, turning to look at him with impaling navy eyes, "I'm telling you, she never let herself get over him."
"Aw, jeez," Luke said, waving her words away. He hated the thought that what she said could possibly be true. He hated it because he remembered how hard Jess had fallen, how hurt he had been, no matter how he well he'd hid it. The idea that Rory had secretly been in love with him, too, made him physically ill, because he knew as well as anyone that nothing could persuade either to stop the rehearsed I-don't-care act they were so prone to. If it were true, if they were both still hung up on each other, they were stuck on some sort of helpless circle that he couldn't get them off of.
No, it was much easier to believe that Jess had once again grabbed the foot of the princess-like Rory in his trap. Much easier.
"They haven't been together for two years," he emphasized, going through a stack of receipts beside him just so he would look like he was doing something. It was strange how he and Lorelai could just fall back into this pattern. Strange, but sad.
"But he keeps showing up, right before the last cut he made heals," she explained softly, in her womanly way, as if she were discussing with a kindergartener when it came to emotions. That probably wasn't too far from the truth.
"So you're tellin' me that she can't . . . let go," – here he paused, hating how corny that sounded – "of him. That, with her best friend in the hospital, she looked up and all of the sudden saw him as the knight in shining armor he never was, and then she decided to . . . to run off with him to God knows where?"
The ridiculous spin he attempted to put on the situation did not disturb Lorelai in the least. "Maybe. I think so." She rested her head in her hands, looking quite weary without warning, tired from trying to protect her daughter from something that always got to her anyway. "It's just . . ."
Luke looked at her with eyes that told her he understood, and she sighed, the only thing to stop her from caving in to the sudden desire she had to cry.
"He really has changed, Lorelai," Luke muttered. Even he didn't want to admit it, even he didn't want to allow himself to think that maybe the once-street-punk had another chance with the girl he'd almost come to regard as a daughter, but it came in a sudden flash of comprehension: he was different. Yeah, that over-confident, nonchalant, I-don't-give-a-damn smirk was still ever-present on his face, and he was rude, and sarcastic, and infuriatingly calm, but . . . it was in the way he held Rory when she was at the hospital, or how his eyes softened when she glanced over at him, or how he did everything humanly possible to keep her from crying, even in how he had come back to Luke's and helped him close up the day after the accident without being asked. That wasn't old Jess, or maybe it was old Jess and Luke had just never seen it.
"I saw," she answered, half-laughing at the absurdity, the improbability, of it all. "I saw how he's changed."
"He . . . you know . . . he changed because of her," he went on, shifting uncomfortably on his feet, his palms sweating, but knowing that what needed to be said needed to be said and he was going to say it, dammit.
"I guessed something kind of along those lines," she stated flatly, staring at the remaining coffee in her cup. Jess. Jess. Jess and Rory. How long had she thought she'd be able to prevent it, anyway? It wasn't like she hadn't felt it, that pulling, that yanking, despite how her daughter fought it, and then didn't fight it, and then fought it again. It was the kind of love story that didn't have an ending, just several hashed and messed up plot points.
She still didn't like him. Old feelings ran hard and deep. But then again, it wasn't really her decision, was it?
"Call her," Luke demanded suddenly, unable to bear watching her sit there in despair anymore. He took a sharp inhale when her sparkling azure eyes, sparkling maybe because of unshed tears, met his.
"What?"
"Call her."
"But what about the . . . the no phones in . . . you know?" She asked, motioning vaguely toward the infamous sign that hung behind him with the big red cross over the image of a cell phone.
Like it caused him mortal pain, he ground out, "Just this once."
The disbelief she gazed at him with made him wonder if perhaps he was a little crazy for being so strict on the phone thing, but he caught himself. Thinking like that was dangerous. Allowing her to penetrate his thoughts was dangerous. Before he knew it, he'd be eating six thousand calories a day and refusing to shovel snow. He wouldn't be able to cook, which would be absolutely –
"Really?"
"Just this once."
"Maybe I should document –"
"You know what? Forget it," he said angrily, turning back to his dishrag, thoughts of Rory and Jess and their demented relationship as far away as his patience.
"No, no, I'm sorry. Thank you." He didn't turn around to acknowledge that he'd heard her, but inwardly groaned at the sound of digital buttons being jabbed in his diner.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
They were finishing their meager lunch when Rory's phone rang. Her head, filled with heavier, harder thoughts than when she had read Plato's The Republic or overloaded herself her freshman year at Yale, did not immediately register the sound of her phone coming from her pocket. When it finally clicked, she started, and hurriedly glanced up to find Jess looking at her with amusement etched all over his face.
"It's my mom," she explained, embarrassed to be caught in such a reverie.
The smirk on his lips only deepened as he nodded and glanced back down at his paper plate. What was there to say to that? Oh great, tell her hi for me, and by the way, ask her not to kill me, please? He watched her hesitate to answer it or not as the annoying jangling continued to jangle. Finally, looking at him apologetically for some reason, she punched the green button.
"Hello?" There was a long, long interlude. Jess idly thought that perhaps he could fit half of a Beethoven symphony into it. Well, maybe only a quarter. Yes, he had actually listened to a whole Beethoven symphony before. Call it a guilty pleasure. It at least gave him more self respect than Backstreet Boys or Britney Spears. How they even were allowed admittance into the music industry, the same one that The Clash had –
"Yes. Yes."
He raised his eyebrows, she rolled her eyes, and he tried not to laugh. Out of all the awkward situations . . . Honestly, he somewhat enjoyed making Stars Hollow have one collective heart attack when they realized their enthroned Rory was missing, but . . . for some reason, he didn't want to anger Lorelai.
"I'm at his publishing house, in Philadelphia . . . Of course he works there, what else would he do? . . . Very funny." She motioned to Jess that she wanted to see his wristwatch, but he shook his head just to be annoying. Of course, she couldn't say anything, so she simply glared, and he refocused on the last of his Hamburger Helper, grinning.
"I . . . I just wanted to . . . No, he didn't . . . I'm the one who asked him . . . He rooms with a couple other guys. I've only met one . . . of course . . . you know Jess wouldn't let . . . Mom, he's . . . Okay." After the reception of whatever tirade her mother had been giving, Rory's eyes softened. "Yes. I know. I'm sorry . . . I'll be back tonight or tomorrow. Mom. Please trust me . . . He's not going to . . . Yeah."
There was a pause and he was stunned to see tears thickening on her eyelashes. None fell. "A really long time," she whispered, glancing up at him as if to reassure herself that he did not know what she was talking about. He had a pretty good guess, but it didn't show on his face. "I'm not . . . it's too . . . I'll talk to you later . . . I love you. I know. Thank you, mom." A bittersweet smile pulled at her lips and she hung up softly.
Determined to keep her from being too uncomfortable, he allowed the silence to ease her for a moment before asking, only half-jokingly, "Has she decided what she wants to do with my skin when she removes it from my body?"
"She's been wanting a new throw rug for the family room for awhile now," she answered, playing with the flip cover of her phone.
His eyes turned serious on her, peeling away at her dermal membranes, melting her heart, and she had a sudden urge to reach out and cover his hand with her own. Was that okay? "Rory," he prodded, wanting the truth now.
"She was pretty mad. But . . . it was me, not you."
He laughed at that, leaning back in his chair and spreading his legs out in front of him in that boyish, broken posture she'd always adored about him. "Yeah. Right. Ever since we were seventeen it's never been you."
"It's about time, then," she said, smiling, talking about something else that made his stomach flutter a little, the Hamburger Helper taking the place of butterflies.
"Yeah," he said quietly, and he was the one who reached out for her hand, pressing his palm against hers, looking at how delicate her fingers were compared to his. "It's about damn time."
He leaned across the table like he once had across a counter, recognizing the look of surrender that flashed through her crystalline eyes and the way her mouth widened to form a little "o" of surprise and anticipation and desire. It made his blood pound against the walls of his veins with the force of a sledgehammer.
He ran his hands through her hair, feeling the way each glossy strand clung to his knuckles, grazing the base of her neck. She leaned her head into the cup of his palm, letting him caress her like he once had, falling back into the realm of a perfection they never could quite control.
"What are we doing?" She asked confusedly, almost desperately, closing her eyes as he stroked her cheek. It was the temptation she could never resist, not even now, not after everything had happened, and she wanted reassurance. She wanted him to say that they were following some kind of carefully structured plan, that he had it all figured out, that all she had to do was follow him and they'd be fine.
But of course, Jess wasn't that kind of guy. He and structure and plan didn't even belong in the same universe. And, when it all came down to it, that was one of the magnets that forcefully yanked her to him.
"Huh. I don't know," he answered, the rare smile making him a million times more beautiful than any other man she had ever seen, making his eyes like liquid pools of gold-flecked chocolate. She shivered. "I think I was about to kiss you."
The table was suddenly a hindrance. The very air in between them was a hindrance. The two long, lonely years were a hindrance. She started to scoot her chair closer to him, but then gave up and stood. For a second they merely examined each other, daring each other, testing each other, and then she leaned down closer to him, her hair brushing the tip of his nose. It was almost like a movie, except in a movie he wouldn't have to bend in a position that left his neck at a one-eighty angle and his legs cramped up.
"Jess! Man, we've got people asking questions out here! About your book! Where are you?" This time it was Matthew, less annoying than Leo on a typical day but extremely irritating at the moment. He clenched his fists and barely restrained from growling while Rory blushed and moved back to give him some space. I don't need any more freaking space.
"Jess! Get your ass out here!"
Jess stood up and stalked over to the doorway. Rory couldn't see exactly what he was glaring at, but the next moment she heard the unfamiliar voice mutter a small "Please" and then rigorously began discussing the benefits of mid-Eastern literature with another person in the next room. She smiled despite herself.
He turned and looked at her with sincere regret written all over his face, which made her feel a little better. "I . . . I've got to . . ."
"You've got to go talk about your book."
He rolled his eyes. "Goody." His return to his monosyllabic order explained that he was preparing to go deal with people other than her. She remembered this.
There was a long pause, and suddenly the monosyllabic order flew out the window to be replaced by a whole sentence. "I'm glad you came, Rory," he said huskily, suddenly, without dressing it up at all, and it was the sincerest thing she had heard him say maybe for all the time she had known him. He looked like Apollo to her in that second, an intricately jagged sanctuary, the release from the vapid coldness of her loneliness, a screen outside of herself that led to her soul
"I am, too," she whispered. He silently nodded, watching her in the noon sunlight streaming through the window like gossamer dew, and then, mentally beating himself up for being so poetic, turned around to go out to the customers, telling himself that she would still be there when he came back.
It was strange how a moment he had been rehearsing for years could happen so suddenly in the midst of fading linoleum and synthetic noodles, but then again, that was the infamous Jess and Rory way.
He needed to think this out some more. He needed a blank notebook to scribble in, a fresh cigarette pack, maybe a good Sex Pistols album. Unfortunately, none were available to him at the moment. Except he thought maybe he had a fresh cigarette pack hidden behind the couch. He'd have to check that.
"Uh, Jess –"
"Jeez! I'm coming!"
"How does a newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings?"