Chapter Fifteen

"Have you told your mother" Emily asked. She and Rory had been holed up in Richard's office for about twenty minutes, the Thanksgiving dinner party going on outside the door without them. It had taken Rory about that long to calm down her grandmother. Part of that process had been admitting to her that Ricky was, in fact, Logan's son. Emily had taken it surprisingly well, though Rory was sure that had something to do with the fact that she'd always wanted a Huntzberger grandchild and she had just found out that she'd had one. For the past ten years, at that.

"No. I haven't told anyone. Not mom. Not Logan. Not even Lane or Paris. When I found out, I went to go tell Logan and I found out he'd moved on already. At that moment, I didn't want him to know, didn't want him to feel like he was trapped with me because of Ricky. So, I figured that if no one knew who Ricky's father was, it couldn't ever get back to Logan. Then, ten years had passed, and it was far too late to tell anyone, even after Logan and I started up again." Rory explained. She knew it was justification, that she should really stop explaining it away and just own up to her stupid decision, but she still felt like she needed to explain herself.

A small smile of satisfaction crossed Emily's face, most likely at the fact that she was privy to some part of Rory's life while Lorelai wasn't. "You should probably tell your mother. And, for that matter, you should probably tell Logan. It won't be easy, coming clean after all these years, but it's the right thing to do."

Rory let out a sigh. "You're right, grandma. It's time to come clean. I've kept this secret for far too long." Rory then stood from her seat. "We should get back to the party before people start to miss us. Especially since this is your party." Emily nodded and then stood and returned to the dinner. She melded back into the groups of people as if she hadn't just confronted her granddaughter about a major part of her life. Rory envied her grandmother her emotional control.

"There you are! I've been here almost thirty minutes without a sighting of you. I was worried you weren't coming but then I saw Ricky. So, I knew you had to be here somewhere," Lorelai spoke, sidling up to her daughter, a half full martini clutched in her hand.

"Grandma cornered me," Rory explained, motioning to the retreating figure of Emily. She was going to tell her mom about Ricky, but her grandparents' Thanksgiving dinner party was not the location she wanted to do it.

"Say no more," Lorelai explained. "I hadn't noticed Logan either." Rory turned to her mom, a little surprised.

"He came here with me. Drove up Ricky and me. I was talking to him just before grandma pulled me away. Maybe he's found a corner," Rory spoke, "Where's Luke?"

"He's at the bar. We hadn't been here five minutes before your grandpa cornered him and started talking about the diner and expansions again. I figured he needed a reprieve." Lorelai motioned in the direction of the bar.

"Well, this is turning out to be a classic Gilmore Thanksgiving," Rory commented, looking out at the crowd of people. "I should go find Ricky, make sure he's okay. And I should try and track down Logan. Hopefully he hasn't pulled some sort of vanishing act because otherwise I'm stranded." Rory moved towards the crowd.

"You're always welcome to stay with Luke and I if you did get ditched," Lorelai called after her daughter. Rory waved at her mom, acknowledging her words.

Rory quickly found Ricky, sitting on the couch where she had left him. She smiled at her son, wrapped up in a book. Her smile widened when she saw her grandfather sitting in a chair next to him. She had named her son after her grandfather. Aside from Luke, he was the only real father figure she'd ever known. Her mother's relationship with her father may have been strained at times, and Rory's relationship with her grandmother was similar, but Rory had always been able to count on Richard Gilmore. There hadn't been anyone else she'd thought of when she learned she was having a son.

"Everything okay, Ricky? You need something? Are you hungry?" Rory asked, sitting down next to her young son and rubbing soothing circles on his leg.

"I'm fine mom," Ricky responded, not looking up from his book.

"Dinner should be served in a few minutes," Richard Gilmore spoke at the same time, likewise not looking up from his book. Rory smiled at the pair before standing up. She'd located her son, checked in with him to make sure he was okay; she'd done her motherly duties for the moment and now she could go in search of her date.

She looked through every room in the large Gilmore mansion; she even looked in the bedrooms and bathrooms up the stairs. Years of experience of Gilmore shindigs had taught Rory that her grandmother kept the upstairs strictly off limits. This was a welcome fact as there had been several occasions throughout the year where Rory, or her mom, or sometimes the two of them together, had sought refuge in one of the vacant rooms. As she looked in each of the rooms, pausing briefly at the room she had stayed in as a teenager and young adult, Rory wondered if Logan had likewise desired respite.

The people downstairs were more Logan's crowd than they had ever been Rory's. he had grown up with those people, with these kinds of parties. Rory had spent her youth and many of her teen years not seeing her grandparents except for intimate family holiday dinners. Lorelai would never have brought Rory to a party like this before Rory got into Chilton. Logan should have been more comfortable than Rory, but that still didn't mean that one of her grandmother's friends hadn't managed to say just the wrong thing to Logan and send him looking for peace and quiet.

However, Rory had no success. She returned back to the party and tried to scope out the crowd without signalling someone else that she wanted to talk with them. It was a process that involved a lot of quick glances so as to not establish a prolonged moment of eye contact.

"You okay?" a slightly gruff voice asked. Instantly, Rory recognized it as belonging to her one constant father figure, Luke.

"I've lost my date. Grandma pulled me away from him to discuss something and he has since vanished. You haven't happened to see him, have you?" Rory asked, turning away from the crowd and towards Luke. Rory hadn't explicitly told Luke that she was dating Logan again, but she was 99% sure that her mother had filled him in.

"I saw him at the bar about twenty minutes ago. He seemed upset about something and ordered a scotch on the rocks." Rory turned to head to the bar before Luke spoke again. "He downed it in one gulp and then left the bar. Not sure where he got up to after that." Rory thanked her step-father-to-be and headed back into the crowd. She was getting a little frustrated at this hide-and-seek game.

Rory only became more frustrated and infuriated once dinner was served. Logan didn't show up to eat, clearly indicating that he had already left the party, leaving Rory and Ricky stranded at her grandparents' house. Rory sent Logan several texts and even called him a few times over the rest of the evening, but she didn't hear a peep from him.

"Maybe he got a call about some sort of business emergency and had to leave. Luke said he did look upset," Lorelai hedged. Rory was a little surprised to hear her mom defending Logan; Lorelai had never been his biggest fan.

"He should have come and found me if he had to leave. A heads up is all I want. I'm not upset that he left, just that he pulled a Houdini," Rory explained. She slumped down a little childishly in the passenger seat of Lorelai's jeep. With some sort of strange foresight (or maybe just the fact that Luke had to work late at the diner) Lorelai and Luke had taken separate cars to the Gilmore's. Luke and Ricky were in Luke's truck a few yards in front of them.

"You can talk to him in the morning. Straighten everything out," Lorelai said, chuckling at her daughter's childish antics. Rory turned to look out the window, not wanting to discuss the matter further. She'd had enough drama for one night. All Rory wanted at that moment was to crawl into bed, the same bed she'd slept in as a teen, and forget her life for a few hours.

"So, what did your grandma want to talk about anyway?" Lorelai asked. She hated sitting in the car in silence.

"It was nothing," Rory mumbled. She would have to tell her mom eventually, but right now, in the car after a truly terrible evening, just didn't seem like the right time.

"It's never nothing with Emily," Lorelai prodded. Rory sighed and sat up a little straighter. Apparently, she wasn't going to be offered a good time to tell this. Not if Lorelai had anything to say about it.

"Mom, before I tell you this, I don't want you to freak out. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, keeping it a secret, but it has caused so many headaches and so much stress. And, Grandma found out so know I sort have to tell you or she certainly will." Rory rambled. She really had no idea how to break her secret, one that she'd kept for over a decade. It wasn't something you could easily just blurt out. Lorelai glanced at her daughter, a look of concern on her face. Rory took a deep breath. It was now or never.

"It's about Ricky's dad. I told you that he was basically a stranger but that wasn't really the truth. I've known who Ricky's father was the whole time, but I didn't want to tell anyone. It was a sticky, crazy situation and I thought that by saying I didn't know who it was, it wouldn't mess up the situation anymore." Rory took another steadying breath.

"Logan." Lorelai spoke before Rory could. She was a little taken aback by her mother's guess.

"How – how – how?" Rory couldn't even form the rest of her question. She'd been so careful! She'd kept everything to herself. She hadn't dropped so much as a hint. Her grandmother had only put it together when she saw Ricky and Logan standing right next to each other. How could her mother have known? How could her mother have kept the fact that she'd known about Logan from Rory for so long?

"It was pretty obvious Rory. Beside the fact that Ricky looks just like him, I know you. You are a relationship girl. I have never known you to do anything casual; hell, your relationship started out casual with Logan but that only lasted a few weeks. I knew as soon as you told me that you didn't really know who Ricky's father was that it was a lie. After that it was all just pretty simple math." Lorelai shrugged nonchalantly.

Rory couldn't believe that her mother seemed so indifferent about it all. This secret had been such a big concern for Rory over the past decade, one she had stressed over until she was nearly sick. And come to find out that her mother had known all along! Rory couldn't believe it. She slumped back down in her seat, not wanting to talk anymore. Here she'd been all worried about upsetting her mother and it was her mother who'd ended up upsetting her.