Hey everyone! I'm back for just a one-shot missing scene(s) story. This idea originated with my previous story, although it has no connection to it at all. This story follows Luke's POV and goes through a possible what might have happened scenario during season 4.
The whole friendship will they/won't they has always fascinated me and I wanted to get us into Luke's head a bit.
"Hey, Nicole, I'm home!" I call out while closing the large, wooden door to the darkness of night behind me.
I'm warmly greeted by a mouth-watering aroma wafting from the kitchen through the living room and into the foyer. Making my way through the lamp lit townhouse, I find Nicole standing in the kitchen, unaware of my presence with her petite back to me.
With practiced ease, she pulls out a pan of juicy baked chicken and vegetables from the oven with her phone trapped between her ear and shoulder. That stupid thing is always attached to her ear like a ball and chain. When she turns and finds me in the room, she forces a tight smile in my direction. I wince instantly. She must have had another hard day which is disappointing considering the fact that this is the first time I've seen her in a seven days as she spent the previous week in Boston for work. I had hoped for a nice, relaxing evening together.
That tight smile says otherwise.
Seeing that dinner is done and ready, I step into the kitchen, collect two plates, eating utensils, and a couple of napkins before making my way into the dining room, setting the table, and looking around wearily as Nicole continue on with her phone conversation.
Never in a million years would I ever imagine myself living in a townhouse in Litchfield. In fact, though I act as though Stars Hollow is the most asinine corner of the world, and trust me - it is, I've never imagined myself living outside of said corner. It's like taking Ted Williams off a baseball field, unnatural and nearly impossible to think about.
But with Nicole's firm located here and her long work days, it made the most sense for me to move. And seriously, what do I care if this house is a bit high-end for my personal tastes or if I find it a bit cold? I love spending time with Nicole, I really do, so surely I can adapt. The woman is technically my wife, even though we've simply agreed to date and live together as though we aren't husband and wife as the divorce is still on hold, and she loves this house.
"Yes, Derek, I know the protocol. Inform Mr. Harris that he must show up and participate in the deposition. His testimony is crucial for this case. Yes, yes, I know," Nicole drops her shoulders in exasperation and tosses the oven mitt on the counter before looking to me. "Listen, I have to go. You and I can talk circles around this topic, but I'm not interested in spending my evening that way. Do what you need to do and I'll do what's needed on my end," she pauses to hear his response. "Great. I'll see you in the morning. Bye."
"That sounded intense," I comment stepping forward and kissing her. "Hey, welcome home."
"Thanks. Yeah," she sighs pulling back and leaning against the counter. Her hands sneak out of her black long sleeve shirt and fist the material in her hands. "I have had many intense situations to work through since returning home last night. That was nothing compared to what I'm trying to understand and work through in my head."
Frowning, I shove my hands into my back jean pockets. There's something about the way she pronounces the word 'situations' that isn't settling well. One thing I absolutely despise about Nicole's personality is that she often doesn't simply share what's bothering her. It's a freakin' game. It's a mind-numbing, self-flagellating, exhausting game. I hate it. Encouraging her to just let out her feelings? That does nothing. Ignoring them in the hopes that she'd simply tell me how she's feeling when she's ready? Nope. That, my friends, makes it worse.
Coaxing works.
And guess what? I despise coaxing. It's not all that different than begging. It makes me want to poke out my own eyeballs with a hot dog roasting stick and roast them over a huge, blazing bonfire. The pained be damned!
"Oh yeah?" I ask rolling my neck a few times and looking to the dinner on the stove. It smells delicious and I'm starving. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to get to eating anytime soon.
"I got a call this morning," Nicole says lightly, her lips pursing in disapproval. "From Tim."
"I thought Tim was gone on a family vacation?" I ask in confusion remembering how our mutual friends Tim, Sarah, and their crazy hyper kids had plans to visit Hawaii.
"No, no, not that Tim," Nicole laughs sarcastically, her short blonde hair swaying with the motion. "Tim our banker."
In a moment of understanding, my blood turns to ice. Shit. There's no way that she can know, is there? Really, I don't have anything to hide, I just… well, I just wanted to tell her myself. Yet if she does know, well that would completely explain this whole conversation and her terse demeanor.
Tim the banker isn't just anyone. In fact, I'm not certain as to why Nicole would even refer to him as 'Tim our banker'. First and foremost, he's been Nicole's best friend since preschool. Sure, when I transferred my money from Margery at the Stars Hollow Bank to the more prestigious bank located here in Litchfield, Tim became my banker too. Nicole and I aren't sharing our money or opening joint accounts as we're just 'two people who love to be together'. Instead, we're keeping separate accounts while splitting the responsibility of the bills. He would have no right to tell Nicole anything about any of my accounts or how I may be spending my money.
"It seems as though a substantial check was cashed a few days ago," she goes on, her eyes now focused and drilling into me. "He wanted to make sure it was legitimate considering the fact that you aren't a spender or rash with your money."
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Certainly this is not legal! There's no reason why Tim would need to be concerned about my account and call Nicole! Unless… unless my gut feeling about the bachelor is correct and he truly does have romantic feelings for Nicole and this is his way to try to come between the two of us.
Lorelai's words from a few days ago come crashing to the forefront of my brain. I can vividly see her loopy handwriting on the napkin asking about Nicole. The question had annoyed me at the time. If I wanted to loan her thirty thousand dollars, so what? What did Nicole have to do with that decision? It's my own hard earned money! Of course, Lorelai was looking out for me, but I was too pigheaded to consider how Nicole would react to me helping out my friend and now I have to deal with the fallout.
"Oh?" I ask casually, shrugging and walking over to the fridge to grab a beer. "Yeah, I invested in The Dragonfly. It's no big deal."
"You invested in The Dragonfly?"
With a twist and pop of the beer cap, I nod, raise the bubbling beer to my lips and allow the chilled liquid to run down the back of my throat as I try to decide how to smooth this over.
Here's the thing, Nicole does not like Lorelai at all. Not a smidgen. Not an iota. And when it's just the two of us, Nicole does nothing to hide her feelings about the bubbly, pop-cultured woman. It's easy to say that Lorelai has been nothing but a sore spot between the two of us. It's been hard on me considering the fact that Lorelai is one of my closest friends and a large part of my life.
Needless to say, Nicole's interest in this topic irritates me.
"Is it a debt or equity investment?" she asks in a calculated manner.
My palms begin to sweat and in the brief moment that our eyes meet over the bottle to my lips, I come to see that Nicole isn't asking me this as a 'wife' but is instead lawyering me, leading the defendant so to speak.
It isn't the first time. It's character trait number two about her that I can't say I find to be overly endearing.
"Debt investment."
It's not a complete lie. I'll get some interest from the loan, Lorelai had insisted, but it's not enough to make it much of a debt investment.
Chuckling coldly, Nicole leans forward before before asking, "Then why was the check written to Lorelai Gilmore and not The Dragonfly? Are you telling me that The Dragonfly, just a few months from opening, doesn't have its own business bank account?"
"It was for The Dragonfly and Lorelai is paying the bills so I just wrote it to her," I explain calmly as an unseen current of anger wells up within me. Reaching up, I adjust my hat, hoping the brief action will help me to calm my frustration. Truthfully, the thought of writing the check out to The Dragonfly never even occurred to me.
"And you have a legal contract?" she asks with raised eyebrows, never missing a beat.
Images of an inked napkin with no signatures and crossed out numbers with my overly generous corrections come to mind. It's no legal contract. Though it's enough for me, I know it won't be for Nicole. She'll read too much into it.
"Lorelai and I have an agreement, we're good. Don't worry about it. Why are you making this such a big deal?" The moment the curt words escape my lips in exasperation, I know I've made a mess of this conversation. "Is it even legal for Tim to tell you what's going on with my money? Nicole, I'm not so certain he isn't trying to-"
I stop talking when her eyes darken, her shoulders tense, and all the air is sucked out of the room as though through a vacuum. The air is so tense and so dense that the room is left in dreadful anticipation. So much for a nice evening together. "You told me that whatever had happened between the two of you was over!"
Groaning in exasperation, I shake my head forcefully. "I never said that! I told you, Lorelai and I were never together. There's nothing to be over between the two of us!"
"You're lying!"
"I'm not! You have to get over this made up belief that there's something between me and Lorelai. We're friends, that's it!" I wave my arms open in front of myself, one hand over the other to make my point. "That's all we've ever been! That's all we ever will be!"
"Right, sure," Nicole laughs mockingly as she turns, grabs our dinner from the stove top, and carries it into the dining room before turning back to me. "That's why the woman looked like her heart had been snatched out of her chest, squeezed in a vise grip, thrown violently to the ground, and stomped on by a parade of elephants when she discovered me in the diner when you and I got back together. She was a mess, Luke!"
Needing a moment to think of how to respond, I look down at the table. I can't argue with her point. There's no denying that Lorelai had been a mess. She had stalked and followed me around the diner later that night, annoying me to no end, demanding answers as though they were her damn birthright.
It wasn't the last or only time.
She was also a mess when I didn't tell her about moving into this house with Nicole. Snippets of our private disagreement in the dark church come to mind. I've successfully blocked that night from my mind, knowing a part of me would obsess and ruminate over what she might have said to me had Reverend Skinner not shown up and interrupted our conversation. Her eyes had been so open and vibrantly blue and her words at the end of our argument had been insanely soft and quiet. She had been so vulnerable, and perhaps even slightly hurt.
I've seen her hurt multiple times in the past, that was nothing new, but this was entirely different. It was… intimate. And confusing.
"Lorelai doesn't know boundaries," I respond irritably, hoping that by showing my own annoyance with Lorelai that it will cause Nicole to drop the subject. I follow her to the table. "She believes she has a right to know everything about everyone. It's annoying! Plus I think she has a new boyfriend so I'm not sure why you're thinking there's something between the two of us when we're both in relationships."
"What makes you think she has a boyfriend?" she asks curiously, turning from the table to look at me. It seems as though my words are effective in soothing her doubt and insecurity.
"I saw some guy with her the other morning in her Jeep," I admit and leave out the part about how she's unquestionably been dressing for someone. That would only further feed Nicole's suspicious thoughts. Never mind the fact that I have eyes and can't help but notice. I see the woman every single day, so of course I notice when she changes her dressing habits.
"So you're both seeing someone but neither one of you thought to share the news with the other?" Nicole asks with a cynical laugh as I shrug a noncommittal shoulder. "You're insanely dense, Luke. Maybe it's the classic you can't see the forest for the trees," she pauses, lifts her chin and watches me closely as I take a pull of my beer before saying, "Luke, Lorelai is into you."
Those are words I never thought I'd hear.
I start choking on the beer in my throat and raise my hand to my mouth and cough in an attempt to clear my windpipe without spewing the contents in my mouth all over the room like a sprinkler.
"That's insane!" I cough and turn away when I feel my face start to warm and see her ever studious eyes still laser focused on me. "Lorelai is not into," I pause and swallow the gathering saliva in my mouth, unable to not stumble over the words, my heart, for some unknown reason, beginning to crash against my chest as violently as a surging ocean wave crashing against a rocky shore. "Me."
Pulling out a chair, I take a seat at the table, and lean back.
"Why didn't you tell her we're back together?" she asks as she rests her small hands around the the back of the chair in front of her, looking down on me.
Swallowing, I shift in my chair, and then shrug a shoulder uncomfortably. "You know I'm a private man. There wasn't a reason why I didn't tell her per say, I was just waiting," I pause again, confusion as to why I didn't tell her sweeping through me. "I was just waiting until a natural time to tell the town came up."
"The town?" She rolls her eyes. Me changing the subject from 'Lorelai' to 'town' seems to have agitated her to no end. "Luke, I'm tired of being the other woman."
"Ah jeez," Annoyed with her insecurity, I stand from my chair, put my beer down, and walk over to her. While placing my hands on her shoulders, I bend my knees slightly so we're standing eye-to-eye. Slowly, I rub my thumbs over her shoulders as she looks up at me. Her eyes soften and she leans into my touch. "I don't know how many times I have to tell you that there's nothing going on between us. I'm with you, Nicole. I married you. You don't need to worry. Listen, this really is simple, Lorelai is my friend, she needed a little extra money to finish The Dragonfly and I had the money to help, so of course I helped."
"It's not normal to give someone thirty thousand dollars," she responds while her eyes search mine before adding, "And not tell your wife."
Jeez!
"I thought we were just dating as though we weren't wife and husband?" I ask unable to hide the irritation in my voice.
"Well, you certainly are living that way!" she barks back. "I thought we were supposed to be moving forward? I thought that's why you wanted us to move in together?"
I jerk my head back in surprise. Talk about turning the conversation in a totally completely different direction!
"What's that supposed to mean? It was your idea for me to move in!"
"You moved in here, and yet you're hardly here, Luke. I came home last night after being away for a week and you couldn't be bothered to make the drive home to be with me. That's not normal! Why in the world did you move your few minuscule items if you're going to spend the majority of your nights in Stars Hollow?"
"I do live here, but I had an early delivery this morning so it made sense for me to stay in my apartment!"
She huffs and pulls away from my touch. "Your things may live here, but you don't live here."
The words are almost identical to Lorelai's and cause me to freeze. Is there truth to these words? Staring down at her, I try to figure out what she wants from me and why the hell Lorelai keeps popping into my head even when she's not the topic.
"Luke," she sighs despondently after a few silent seconds. In a moment of decisiveness, she reaches forward and takes a hold of my hands in her own while looking up at me pleadingly. "Why don't you open a diner here in Litchfield?"
I inhale sharply at the suggestion.
"It would make this whole thing easier between the two of us," she goes on quietly and tenderly. "I love you, I really do, and I think you love me too," she pauses and looks for affirmation. Weary with the direction of this conversation, I nod slowly in confirmation. I do. I love her. I think. Honestly? In this moment I'm not so certain.
"When we're together things are great. It's when we're apart that things get complicated. So why not just close the diner in Stars Hollow and move here officially? That tiny town drives you crazy anyway. There's that commercial space available right around the corner. You're always saying it has so much potential, so why not turn it into your diner? You wouldn't have to stay in your apartment when you had early deliveries and the whole commute issue would be resolved, you could walk there! Plus Litchfield is a bigger town and you would make more money here. We could be together all the time," she goes on while wrapping her arms around my waist and kissing my neck gently, boy does that feel good. Stretching up on her tip-toes, she whispers in my ear, "And then we could begin talking about starting our own family."
Without conscious decision, my lips fall open and I stare wide-eyed over her head into the fancy kitchen. This is a lot to take in. She wants me to close my diner, an homage to my deceased father, move away from Stars Hollow and all the people I've known for the entirety of my life, open up a new diner here and and start a family with her? As in start having… kids?! I hate kids! I can't even begin to imagine having kids. Never mind the occasional dreams about the little dark haired kids with playful blue eyes who don't even begin to bare resemblance to the woman I'm married to legally. I have a tendency to wake up before discovering who their mom is in my dreams. Dreams mean nothing, right?! What sane grown man, who really doesn't even care for kids, dreams of having his own?
She can't be serious! Can she?
"Just think about it, ok?" she asks softly when I don't respond. Stepping back from me, she rubs her hands up and down my arms slowly and affectionately.
One thing I will give Nicole is that she's very respectful of my need to think things through.
"Yeah, ok," I exhale in a rush, overwhelmed and thoroughly numbed by her suggestion.
Leaving me to stand alone in confusion, Nicole turns away and dashes to her office only to return a few moments later with a crisp, white piece of paper extended toward me. "I know you trust Lorelai and honestly, despite how I'm not her biggest fan, she does seem like a person of integrity. But just do me this one favor and fill this contract out and have her sign it? I'd prefer you get it notarized, but this will do. It's from my law firm and I'd be more comfortable knowing that you're financially safe. At the very least, if her business fails, at least you won't be out thirty thousand dollars."
In a surprised effort of control, I manage to keep a straight face. The implication that Lorelai might fail, forms a sliver of resentment and protectiveness to run through me.
Lorelai will not fail.
Taking the extended paper, I glance down at the hefty legal jargon on the contract and the blank spaces left for me to fill in. I exhale and nod. Lorelai herself had insisted on a legal binding agreement, didn't she? We've talked about 'dotting the i's and crossing 't's' at another time. Surely she will understand and won't mind signing this contract, right? An added bonus is that Nicole will be happy. But truthfully? I don't need this. I trust Lorelai one hundred percent.
"And there's nothing between the two of you?" Nicole asks softly causing me to look back up at her.
She's studying me, her eyes watching my every move.
Her sincerity in the question causes my heart to pound vigorously against my ribcage causing my blood to skyrocket through my veins at a dizzy speed. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still smell Lorelai's perfume and feel her soft frame against my side as I comforted her the other night on the bench when she cried, overwhelmed with doubt and the possibility of failure.
I wanted nothing more than to assure her and help her to understand that her doubts were out of place. I can't say I feel the same about Nicole and her doubts tonight.
I shake my head no, my attention leaving hers and going to the condensation that form against my fingers on my bottle of beer, for some unknown reason unable to answer her question verbally.
When I glance back up, Nicole nods once and smiles faintly, the smile never quite reaching the corners of her mouth.
Stepping quietly into Miss Patty's I scan the entire place and frown. Nearly every seat in the place is filled. Noticing a vacant seat next to Lorelai toward the middle right, I hunch my shoulders down slightly before making my way down the aisle without being spotted and chastised by Taylor.
"Luke? What are you doing here?" Lorelai whispers in surprise, shock written all over her face.
Sookie leans over from beside Lorelai and looks just as dumbfounded to see me.
"What are you doing here? The last time you attending a town meeting you said 'that was it and that you would never been seen caught dead at another meeting!'" Sookie jumps in, her voice dropping several octaves as she does her best impression of me.
"Yeah, well, I overheard Taylor talking about a large Soda Shoppe event that would close down the street in front of the diner. When I asked him about it, he went on and on about how I'd 'just have to show up to tonight's meeting to find out about the event just like everyone else'."
"Aren't you his landlord?" Lorelai asks while glancing at Taylor and then back at me with a perplexed expression. "Doesn't he technically have to tell you if you ask?"
"I don't know that he does legally. I tried making the same point, but he ignored me."
"He's such a tyrant, always having to be in total control. It makes me wonder about his childhood," Sookie adds in looking to me and Lorelai. "Like seriously, did he grow up with siblings who bossed him around extensively?"
"Or maybe he did all the bossing," Lorelai says with a shrug.
"Oh my god!" Babette chips in with her raspy voice causing all three of us to jump in our seats. The woman twists in her seat in front of us to look at us before saying, "Imagine a little mini-Taylor."
The girls chuckle while I wince and Babette turns forward in her seat, pleased to get in her bit.
"I'm just glad he didn't reproduce," I comment leaning back toward the woman next to me. "But seriously, he could have just told me, but no, so here I am. I thought someone should be here to stop Taylor from placing all of Stars Hollow into a time machine and taking us back thirty years."
"It's very noble of you to try to stop Doc Brown," Lorelai comments lightly as her attention drifts back to the stage. "Although I'd love a ride in the DeLorean."
I laugh through my nose at the comment and shake my head as I tune in to Taylor only to find him rambling on and on about town matters that have absolutely nothing to do with the crowd.
Spontaneously, the entire room zones out as all of our thoughts go to our to-do and want-to-do lists. I know this because Miss Patty's eyes are directed down to her hands in her lap, Kirk is staring at the ceiling with a hand rubbing his chin, and Morey is wearing his sunglasses inside at night which he normally does if he wants to sneak a discreet nap.
After a few more minutes of Taylor droning on with no end in sight, Lorelai leans her shoulder against mine and whispers quietly, "I'm glad you're here. You and I have some unfinished business."
I pull my eyes away from the stage, thankful for a distraction. I watch as she begins to dig through the mammoth purse on her lap. I half expect her to pull out a lamp, a plant, and a hat rack with how large it is and how many random items I spot in her so called purse.
"Here," she whispers while smoothing out a couple pieces of paper and extending them toward me.
Taking the papers, I glance down, allowing my eyes to scan the top paper and come to the realization that it's a simple contract for the loan I gave her. What's with everyone trying to get me to sign a contract at the same exact time? Did Nicole contact Lorelai directly? No way. Lorelai would have told me as she's not exactly known for keeping quiet. There's no question at all as to what's going through Lorelai's mind. I glance at the second paper to see it's an exact copy of the first. A copy for her and a copy for me. Both already signed by the woman next to me.
The corners of my lips dip down, but she doesn't seem to care.
"Seriously?"
A gavel bangs on the podium and a few audience members, including Sookie, raise their voices in protest, but I don't look up or try to hear what the commotion may be about. Instead, my focus is on Lorelai and the papers in my hands.
"You said we could dot and cross later," she explains as she crosses one leg over the other, ending up closer to me. "I don't know if you know it, but considering that conversation happened last week, today is later! Of course by definition a minute after the conversation would have been later so today really is later, later. I fully intend to pay you back penny for penny and it's important that we legally get it down on pap-"
"Yeah, I meant at your house or at my place after hours not at a town meeting," I explain cutting her off and give her an incredulous look. "How in the world do you consider this to be the right moment?"
More ruckus arises around us, several citizens of the town speaking up. Most likely, I'd be joining the crowd, but I don't pay it any attention as I'm focused on the woman next to me. The rest of the town disappearing from both of our consciousnesses.
"I'm bored, you're bored, and these are the terms we've already agreed upon," she motions at the papers between the two of us while shrugging the shoulder closest to me. "It's not a big deal, you just need to sign them. It's no different than the paper napkin we used the other day. Just tidier."
I roll my eyes, annoyed by her unconventional ways, and glance up at the stage. The room has gone quiet again and Taylor's still rambling and mimics the teacher in Charlie Brown perfectly, the topic of the Soda Shoppe event, still not brought up.
I turn to find Lorelai watching me, a little smile forming on her lips when I frown back at her amusement at my discomfort. Somehow, I'm not sure how, we end up in an unspoken staring contest. She expects me to the be the first to back down, after all, most of the time when we find ourselves staring at each other, I'm almost always the first to look away by feigning the need to wipe down a counter or the need to go take someone's order.
But we're not in the diner. There's no counter to wipe down or customer order to jot down.
So I do something I never do, I continue to watch her.
Our faces are close. Really close. After all, all the chairs in this place are jammed into the room as tightly as possible and our shoulders brush gently against each other with every movement. And though I know her thoughts are on the contract and the loan that she's silently begging me to just sign, I can't help but allow my eyes to roam her face. It's not often that I'm this close to her. I thumb the papers in my hand nervously as I notice the way her perfume surrounds my senses; sweet and alluring. Completely her. Eyes the color of the crystal clear waters found in the Caribbean, gaze back at me boldly with dark blue specks dancing around her pupils. Her long, wavy hair pleads with me to run and tangle my fingers through its long tendrils. A tiny amused lift is found at each corner of her mouth.
My heart flip-flops in my chest like a fish on dry land as I've realized what I've allowed to happen. It's been so long. So damn long since I've allowed my thoughts to think of the woman before me romantically. But with Nicole's interrogation last night and the serious consideration of leaving town… I can't help but allow myself one last time to consider what it would be like to be in an actual romantic relationship with Lorelai.
If I'm one hundred percent real with you, I've wanted more with Lorelai before. Before Nicole. Before Rachel made her last return and was the first person in my life to vocalize my secret. I've wanted the woman since the first day she stormed into my diner all those years ago, demanding coffee. Did I want the crazed young woman right then and there? No. It was later that night, when I was all alone in my apartment, staring at the writing on a tiny torn piece of paper that I allowed myself to really think about her. I was lying on my couch, a baseball game on in the background, one arm bent behind my head. It was innocent. In that moment, I decided I was just physically attracted to her, because after all, I was (or rather still am) a man and she was gorgeous (and she most definitely still is). It would have been impossible not to be attracted to her.
But with time it became apparent that it was more than just physical attraction.
Despite how hard I tried to dig in my heels and resist, I became taken by her. And deep down, in the deepest abyss of my being, I know a part of me is still taken by her. A part of me always will be. She's wild. She's free. And she brings a lightness out in me that no one else can begin to bring out. She's so insanely beautiful physically and internally. Don't get me wrong, the woman has many flaws and drives me batty on a regular basis, like at this very moment, but damn, she's so vibrantly alive in a way that so many people fail to be in this world. That along with her sharp, witty intelligence and tendency to be caring and loving toward the people around her, sane and insane, makes it hard to not be drawn to her like a doomed moth drawn to a flame flickering in the darkness.
Yet I have to admit, I find Nicole's whole idea of Lorelai being into me to be nonsensical and ludicrous. Lorelai would never want me that way. We're friends. Really, really, really good friends. That's why I went after Nicole in the first place. I was genuinely attracted to Nicole and found her interesting and sitting around for a woman I can never have made me feel like an idiot. Forget the fact that Lorelai and I have had many small, intimate moments where our eyes meet and we both seem to be asking for… for what exactly? I don't know. Perhaps more. It's in those moments that I used to wonder if maybe it would have been possible for her to be interested in having more with me. But no, I decided that couldn't be. She's out of my league. Way out of my league; she's the sun and I'm Pluto. She's the top of Everest and I'm the deepest part of The Mariana Trench.
We're complete polar opposites.
We could never work.
Plus we're really great friends and I'd never want anything to jeopardize that.
Have you ever had people in your life that you've known would always be in your life? People who become family though they share no blood relation to you? Those relationships that warm you from the inside out? That's what it's like between the two of us. We have a deep connection that silently communicates to the other that we'll never be completely alone in this world because we have one another and we'd do anything for the other.
Like loan the other thirty thousand dollars without blinking an eye just to make sure their dream doesn't go up in flames. Or care if your 'wife' has a problem with it.
Maybe Nicole has a right to be upset.
I blink at the thought, breaking my gaze with Lorelai and let out a deep breath before reading the papers in my hand more carefully. They're the conditions we agreed upon the other morning. This really is no big deal, I just have to sign the paper. I have a quick moment where I wonder if I shouldn't wait and insist on us using Nicole's contract, but I decide against it. This legal agreement should suffice and if Nicole's annoyed, well then, what's new?
Reaching into my shirt pocket, I pull out a pen, quickly sign the bottom line below her signature of one page, and then the other and hand the second copy back to Lorelai next to me.
"Thank you, Luke," she says quietly, uncharacteristically solemn as she folds her copy in half and places it into her purse before looking back at me and going on, "Sookie and I wouldn't have been able to finish the Dragonfly without you. We would have failed before we even got the business up and going. Granted, there's still a large chance that it may still fail but-"
"You're not going to fail," I interrupt confidently. Closing my hand into a loose fist, I bump her knee in what I hope comes across as an encouraging gesture. "You can do this, Lorelai."
She looks down at where my fist touched her and then back up at me. "Thank you. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"I'll always be here," I whisper, the words tumbling out of my mouth without hesitation.
A slow, small, affectionate smile fills her face.
And just like that, I know I won't be closing the diner and moving fully to Litchfield.
Not when I'm needed here.
Nicole is just going to have to understand that.
The loud crash of a gavel crashes through our moment, almost violent in the way we're both brought back to the present. We both look away and I shift in my seat before looking up to the front of the room as Taylor leans forward to speak into the microphone, "Alright folks, as we've already gone half an hour late, you are adjourned!"
I struggle to return to the present moment, but I'm fairly confident that Taylor didn't even talk about the Soda Shoppe event. I don't think. There's no way I would have missed the conversation. Yes, Lorelai and I were lost in own world for a little bit, but even though those moments seem to slow and last for minutes, they're only seconds.
"Taylor!" I stand to my feet quickly and weave my way through the masses to the front of the room.
Heming-and-hawing, Taylor frowns as I approach. We stand together chatting for a few minutes. No, he did not bring up the event and I'll have to wait until next week's meeting.
When I glance to the back of the room, I spot Lorelai standing with Sookie and Jackson, her eyes and attention focused only on me. It's not the first time I've caught her eyes on me. It seems to be happening more and more often, often in the diner. I've ignored it, not sure what to make of it. With a quick smile, she looks away from me, her arms crossing over her chest as she leans into the conversation with Sookie and Jackson.
But now I wonder if Nicole might be right.
Maybe I can't see the forest for the trees.