A/N Thank you to those who read and review. Hope you are continuing to enjoy the story. If you know French, be forewarned you might be offended.
I own nothing
Ch 36 Jess
Luke got home early on Friday and swung by the inn before he reached the diner. He went into the lobby and there at his post was Michele.
"Is Lorelai in her office?" Luke inquired.
Michel barely looked up and said, "No."
Luke waited for more but Michel had gone back to his computer. "Michel, is Lorelai in the building?"
"Perhaps, I really don' know." Michel kept working on the computer and Luke was quickly losing his patience.
"Michel, if you don't give me a straight answer as to where Lorelai is I swear you'll come out of work one day to find your Peugeot broken into and all your CD's of a certain Canadian singer removed." Luke was not in the mood to go ten rounds with this French putz.
"Trou de cul!" But Michel wasn't prepared to take the chance that Luke was not making idle threats.
"The last of her I saw she was in with the stinky animals."
"In the stables?"
"That is what I said."
"Fine. Thanks." Luke took out the door towards the stables.
Michel muttered, "Tu as une plus petit noeud!"
Lorelai who had quietly walked up behind him saw that Luke had just taken off and heard Michel's last insult. "No, I can tell you from personal experience that that is so far from true Michel it would be blasphemous."
Michel gasped and said, "Parlez-vous français ?"
Lorelai got a huge grin on her face and said, "Oh, yeah! Good news for you is that I'm gonna go find out what my fiancée wanted so if you tell me where you sent him I might let this one slide."
Michel looked defeated and said, "He went to the stinky animals."
"The stables?"
"YES! THAT IS WHAT I KEEP SAYING!"
"Watch it Michel or I'll tell Luke that you insulted the size of his manhood." Lorelai grinned.
"Mon dieu!"
"Yep, that's usually what I say," Lorelai giggled. "Whoops, really dirty."
Lorelai took off to the stables to find Luke who was just about to walk out the door when she got there. She dragged him back into the stall without a greeting and kissed him passionately. As the session started heating up she could feel Luke's desire growing and she broke away to laugh out loud. Luke tilted his head towards her.
"I know that laugh well enough to know that I really don't want to know what's behind it."
Lorelai grinned, "You are soooo right babe. If you knew then I'd need a new concierge and believe it or not Michel's one of the best."
Luke raised an eyebrow but decided his time was better spent in other ways. He drew her towards him and held her tightly, breathing in the scent of her. His body physically ached for her. "Hey." Luke smiled into her eyes.
"Hey."
"So, you're having a busy day? All rooms filled with no room at the inn?"
Lorelai giggled. "Is this your not so subtle way of telling me you missed me and how's about a private meeting in one of our rooms upstairs?"
Luke grinned widely, "Yep."
"I might be able to wrangle an hour or two for a meeting with you Mr. Danes. Shall I book a room for us upstairs?"
"I'm thinking that it might be good to see if there's one away from anyone else so you won't disturb people when you get exuberant." Luke chuckled.
Lorelai drew in a quick breath, "Soooo, exuberant eh? How exuberant are we talking? New Year's Eve?"
"Since we have plans this evening, I don't think quite that exuberant, however I haven't seen you in two days, so I will want to reacquaint myself with every aspect of your being" Luke grinned wantonly.
"I think it's best if I deal with Michel right now, so I'll let him know that I need to inspect one of the empty rooms in the back of the inn." Lorelai's grin matched Luke's.
Later that night the foursome got through Friday night dinner without any major mishaps and the weekend was amazing. Luke and Lorelai were able to spend a lot of Saturday together 'fixing' the guest house while Jess and Rory were studying at the main house.
Sunday Luke had to open the diner. He woke up early and watched Lorelai sleeping. The last thing he wanted to do was to leave her and their warm bed, since tomorrow he'd be waking up here alone. Remembering last Saturday where his desire caused her to wake up and mindful that he didn't have that kind of time available this morning, he eased himself out of bed to take a shower.
He was sitting in one of her overstuffed chairs tying his left shoe when he heard movement from the bed and a mass of brown curls turned towards him framing one eye that peered out beneath it. He walked over and kneeled by the side of the bed and gently brushed the hair out of her eyes.
"Where you goin'?" Lorelai mumbled.
"I have to open this morning," he whispered. "You and Rory come by later for breakfast, OK?"
"What about Jess?"
"He's getting his first early morning shift. I don't want him to work during the week because of school, but he's going to work one shift a weekend. It'll be good for him, he'll learn the value of hard work and eventually how to cook."
Luke smiled gently at her. "I've got to go. Don't sleep in too late, I'd like to see you again before lunch."
"Uh huh." Lorelai was already on her way back to sleep. Luke smiled as he left her clutching his pillow in her arms.
He walked into Jess' room half expecting to have to wake him, but Jess was already awake and dressed. They drove to the diner in the silence of the early morning. Luke opened the door, turned on the lights and went to flip on the coffee makers.
"Start taking the chairs down," was all he said to Jess. They worked in silence with Luke giving a short directive to Jess every once in a while. At six o'clock Kirk showed up and shortly after all the crazies of the town followed as well.
Around ten o'clock Jess noticed that Luke kept looking at the door each time someone walked in. But at a quarter to eleven the door jingled and Jess saw Luke smile, but not look up. Jess glanced at the door and sure enough there stood both Gilmore's; at that moment he saw what had attracted Luke to Lorelai.
Up until they stepped into the diner, the morning had a certain rhythm, when they entered you could feel the energy shift. It reminded him of his physics class and what happened to the atomic cloud when they introduced intensified light. The light excited the atoms of the cloud to produce photons every so often. How could you not be drawn into their world?
Luke actually sent him to wait on them, Jess knew how much Luke had wanted to see his fiancée, but he still sent Jess. He set the coffee down in front of them and asked, "So, pancakes today?"
"Hey Jess, yep, and eggs with bacon and sausage," Lorelai replied.
"I think I'll have the French toast special," Rory said.
"Changin' it up a bit huh?" Jess said deadpan.
"Gotta keep you guessin'," Rory grinned back.
Jess winked. "That you do, that you do." He left to place their orders.
Lorelai made a big show of looking around, to Rory she said, "You know rumor has it that I have a fiancé around here somewhere. Do you think he might actually come over and kiss his fiancée good morning since he didn't before he left?"
"I don't know mom." Rory played along, "Seems like a good fiancé would make sure you were taken care of. Maybe you only imagined a fiancé?"
"Well if anyone could it'd be your mother," Luke finally strolled over to the table with their breakfasts, leaned down and gently kissed Lorelai.
"Good morning. I didn't want to risk awakening all your appetites this morning since I didn't have time to satisfy you," Luke whispered into her ear wickedly. Lorelai giggled and Rory rolled her eyes.
"Thank you for lowering your voice Luke, whatever you said to mom was not something I ever want to know. I've heard that giggle too many times and it is always information a daughter doesn't want to have," she said to Lorelai pointedly.
"Mean to mommy. You should be glad mommy's happy, that makes life much easier for all involved."
"Ain't it the truth," Jess said under his breath but loud enough for them all to hear. Luke and Rory laughed as Lorelai huffed.
"Fine, see how much help I give you the next time you want Luke to do something!"
"Oh, Lorelai, I'm just kidding," Jess is laughing so hard he is having trouble keeping it together.
Lorelai gave Jess an evil look, took a bite of her pancakes and pouted.
Jess was thinking of his shift later that week. He had been studying until midnight on Tuesday for a history test on Wednesday. After that he'd gotten engrossed in a book he'd read at Harrington, Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek by Annie Dillard. As he was reading a movement in the hallway caught his eye. Luke was walking down the stairs and Jess heard him walk through the kitchen and out the back door. Jess looked at the time, it was three in the morning and Luke walked out like it was the most normal thing to do.
Jess got up and put on his shoes and coat and hurried out the back door as well. He couldn't see Luke but there was a light coming from the stables so Jess walked towards it. Inside he could see Luke using a dremel tool on the wood they had purchased a week ago Saturday. Laying on the floor next to him was one pole that looked completed. Jess eased the door open and stood until Luke noticed him.
Luke looked up, saw Jess, looked down at his project and said, "Hey."
Jess was always amazed at his uncle's ability of understatement. So Jess replied, "Hey. You do know it's three in the morning?"
"Yep, can't sleep."
"Huh, how long have you been not sleeping, cause from what I see here, it's been a while."
"Couple weeks."
Jess walked over to the makeshift workbench and picked up some small sandpaper and the pole on the ground. He inclined his head to Luke who gave him a sharp nod. Jess started to sand the finished pole as Luke picked the dremel to work on the unfinished pole. For a few minutes there was just the noise of the drill chipping away the wood. Jess was concentrating on smoothing out the wood when the drill stopped. He looked up, but Luke was still looking at the ground.
Luke said quietly, "I did something unforgivable to Lorelai."
Jess' eyes got huge and he wasn't sure what to say, "Did you cheat on her?"
"God, no!" Luke's head shot up and his eyes are blazing.
"Come on Luke, give me something to go on, you say you did something unforgivable to Lorelai and since you guys have been together ever since I got here I have to wonder if she knows about it, so what else could it be?"
"Well not that! I'm not that sort of man!"
Luke snorted, "Like what I did was less offensive."
Jess sat and waited.
"What I did was to take what we have and treat it callously. Treated Lorelai callously. God I'm such a shit." Luke ended up his conversation by looking at the ground again.
Jess wasn't sure where to go with this, he'd never had a grown up conversation with a grown-up before. Luke really was letting him in on a part of his life he probably only shared with Lorelai. He also had seen them interact for the two weeks he'd lived there. He was having a hard time understanding it all, so he went for clarification.
"Does Lorelai know about this?"
Luke snorted, "Yeah, she was there."
"Did you talk it out?'
"Yeah."
"Didn't she forgive you?" Jess knew Lorelai to be only loving towards Luke in the weeks he'd known her. Surely she couldn't be so two-faced that Jess couldn't see through it. He had developed his ability to see through people very early and both Luke and Lorelai struck him as very genuine.
Luke sighed, "Yes, she forgave me. She shouldn't have though."
"Weren't you sorry?"
"God, yes! It never should've happened, I should've saved her from it, from me."
Jess picked up the sandpaper again and started back to work. He knew his uncle was an honorable man and something had happened to make him act in a way that wasn't honorable. Luke picked up the drill and continued to work on his project.
After a while Jess put his sandpaper down and looked at Luke. Within seconds Luke cut the drill and without looking up at Jess put the drill and the wood on the ground and waited.
Jess took a breath and started, "This book I'm rereading, we talked about it in class. This woman goes for a walk everyday by a creek and she makes these amazing observations about ordinary things. Our teacher discussed how everyday we're given an enormous amount of gifts. Small things we don't even notice, but they're there. But a gift is only halfway there if no one accepts it. The difference between this woman and any of us is that she saw the gifts of wonder in the everyday, and she received these gifts as well. If we're given something but we don't really receive it, then it might as well not have been given."
Luke sat there thinking about what Jess had said and a light switch went on for him. Even though Lorelai had forgiven him, until he allowed himself to be forgiven it was as though she hadn't. He smiled a bit, Jess, who knew. Luke looked up at Jess.
"We need to get to bed. Long day tomorrow, you have a test right?"
Jess nodded, he wasn't sure if Luke was calling this to a close because he understood or if Jess overstepped boundaries. Well, he may never know. They went back to the house and Jess went into his room and without even changing fell asleep.
The next morning he heard Luke call for him to get up or he'd be late for school. Jess groaned and went out to face his oatmeal, again. When he got to the kitchen there was bacon and eggs waiting for him with Luke's coffee. He looked up in shock at Luke who sat with his own oatmeal acting as if this wasn't unusual. Jess and Luke ate in silence.
As Jess was leaving to get his books Luke said, "Good luck with your test today."
"Thanks."
"Hey Jess?" Jess looked at Luke who continued to eat. "Thanks.'
"Sure." Jess smiled and Luke gave him a sharp nod. "And Luke, you might want to work on your communication skills. While Lorelai talks enough for both of you women like to hear more than monosyllables in a conversation."
Luke smiled secretively, "Thanks, I'll keep it in mind."
Jess nodded and took off.
Later that day Luke and Lorelai enjoyed a mid morning lull and afterwards were cuddled together in bed. Lorelai looked at Luke and said, "What changed?"
Luke looked a little shocked and said, "What do you mean?"
"Well, for a while now when we make love you seem like you're on guard, almost hyper attentive. But today it was more like when we first got together, a little less reserved and more, I guess physical. You know?"
Luke smiled, "Yeah, well, I guess you might say that I finally got around to opening a gift you gave me a while ago."
Lorelai looked at him expectantly, "Is that all you're going to tell me?"
"Yep," Luke smiled.
"You're not going to tell me what gift I gave you that caused this change?"
"Nope," Luke grinned. "But, if you ever need it as well, I'll promise you I'll give it back." Luke leaned over her and kissed her deeply, arousing passion in both of them.
After their second round that morning Luke held Lorelai to him and whispered, "Do you have any meetings today?"
Lorelai giggled, "Noooo, why?"
"Stay here with me. I'll call Caesar and tell him I won't be back until dinner and you and I can have four glorious hours alone before the kids get back"
"Michel will be soooo angry." Lorelai started to laugh and she gasped, "I'll just tell him I was gathering research!"
Luke just shook his head and grinned, "I'm really sure I don't want to know. Go call and I'll go to the kitchen and bring back some lunch for us."
"Ohhh, you mean we're eating in bed? Cool!"
Luke smiled and whispered, "Dirty"
"I cannot believe you said that and I didn't mean it that way! I'm so off my game!" Lorelai laughed, "I'll have to take the rest of the day off!"
"Wise decision." Luke kissed her and got up to put on sweats and a t-shirt. "I'll bring lunch up shortly."