Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls and am not making any profit from this except a little writing practice. It's been a long time since I last wrote for this fandom. I'm talking Wattpad days.
This was really just for practice writing dialogue, which I both hate to read and to write.
The plan had been to go get a slice of pizza. That's what Rory had agreed to.
Jess was still fairly new to Stars Hollow and Rory had offered to show him Antonioli's, the pizza place. Kirk worked there during the lunch shift after two and while the place did have a dine-in option, Rory thought it would be best if they took their pizza to go. Just in case. That way, if anyone asked, the pizza had been packed as part of her picnic plans. Rory felt a little guilty that she planned on ordering take away so that none of the townsfolk gossiped about her friendship with Jess, but she couldn't help herself, not after the way Dean had blown up at her about sharing a meaningless meal with Jess.
And that was before she found herself thoroughly enjoying the boy's company. Rory didn't want to imagine Dean's reaction to that.
Or her mother's.
The pair of them had been walking past a row of picket-fenced houses, using the back streets to avoid walking through the main square on their way to find edible food when they'd walked past Andrew's book store.
Andrew was standing at the entrance trying to open the door with a hefty-looking box balanced against his thigh. A box like that could only mean one thing: a shipment of new books! Maybe even that one she ordered for her birthday that hadn't been delivered yet.
Rory hid her excitement by biting down an excited shriek and balling her fingers in a tight fist in her jacket pockets. She pushed her shoulders forward until she could feel her knuckles touching each other, the fabric of her jacket and its zipper between them.
She'd learnt a little while ago how to walk past the bookshop without getting distracted. Growing up they hadn't had the sort of money for frivolous purchases like books, something Rory hadn't been aware of until she hit middle school. But she also hadn't realised that most of the books Gyspy sold once a month were massively discounted second-hand versions of the ones in Andrew's shop and the ones that Lorelai bought for her. Only with months of saved-up pocket money did she venture into Andrew's book store. Or with Lane for a quiet, Mrs Kim approved leisure time, where they gossiped about music and boys without the fear of being overheard. Or with Lane to look for new books that she wanted desperately to read.
Her mother didn't understand Rory's love of books, but Rory also knew Lorelai would barter and banter and work her butt off to afford the tomes if Rory expressed an interest when they passed. And Dean, well, her boyfriend claimed that her focus on fiction endeared her to him but Rory suspected he meant to tag that sentence with "initially" because often her nose being stuck in a book distracted her from time with him. There was also the major issue with Dean happy to offer to purchase her things that Rory refused to allow past him paying for food and movies on dates. She didn't want to take his financial offerings for granted and didn't want to take them for granted either. For both Lorelai and Dean's sakes, Rory had learnt to keep herself in check whenever they passed a bookstore. She didn't think they'd caught on yet.
"You want to go in." Jess drawled beside her, but it didn't sound like a question. His elbow nudged hers and the basket she'd packed for herself and Dean brushed against her denim-clad thigh with the movement.
Rory squinted at Luke's nephew. His eyes were firmly gazing forward, his chin indicating toward the bookstore, and he wasn't waiting for her confirmation but heading toward the storefront with or without her.
She liked that. Dean came into bookstores with her, he seemed to like it well enough. But she could always feel him counting how long they spend in the store, trying to ensure they spent an equal amount of time doing the things he liked.
Rory knew instinctively that Jess wasn't going to do that, that doing something she liked wasn't going to mean she owed him anything.
In fact, Rory knew strolling down the stocky aisles was going to be more fun with Jess, just like doing the same thing in a record store with Lane without the threat of Mrs Kim. She could ask his opinion on titles and authors and listen to his quirky biases, the ranting about adaptations and analysis of context. As much as Rory liked to be the one to teach Dean and her mother about titles, she was looking forward to picking his brain and maybe even learning something from him.
She was hit with a waft of paper and leather and a sprinkling of dust when she walked in. It smelt like her room at one in the morning when she was reading by torchlight, her nose shoved against a page. It smelt like Lane's cello resin in and the graphite from the pencil Miss Patty kept on the very last key of the piano in her dance studio, the one she wrote with when she was teaching Rory piano all those years ago, pencilling in the letters beneath the black notes of Rory's piano book as though they meant anything to her.
"It smells like that Maroon 5 album," Jess stated, which could have meant even less than Miss Patty's scrawl of CDE.
Except Rory knew exactly what Jess meant and she let him know with a smile. He was
right too, "Like easy Sundays and staying in bed when it's raining and standing in the middle of a street and words that mean nothing and everything and last thousands of years."
"And leaving everything behind." Like everything Jess said, it was soft, whispered and yelled at the same time, angry and subdued simultaneously, his words making you mean in so you could hear them but sucker punching you when you did.
"I did not peg you for having listened to Songs About Jane."
Jess shrugged but didn't elaborate.
"Hey, Rory," Andrew greeted when she walked in.
The owner was the sort of man Rory had always associated with passivity and calm, so she wasn't surprised that he greeted Jess with a nod. Except for the fact, the nod was accompanied with a smile that appeared to be more a wince than anything, and even if they hadn't been introduced formally, Rory was certain everyone knew Jess' name by now.
"Just got a new shipment in. I should have opened it Friday but I had the day off," Andrew said. "Your book might be in."
Rory nodded at the grey-haired man who was busy bent over the register, pushing her fists together. He didn't seem to be expecting an answer from her anyway, but Rory didn't feel like giving him one if he was going to ignore Jess.
"I like to start at the back," Rory said over her shoulder, heading towards the back of the store. "Pick up everything I want and then whittle it down by the time I get to the front."
Somewhere behind her, Jess snorted. "Wrong."
"What?" Rory turned around, facing Jess and stepping backwards. He was very good at avoiding things he didn't want to discuss but she'd found that keeping eye contact with him was a good way to persuade Jess into finishing a story.
He smirked crookedly at her, a brown curl falling over his temple like a Victorian duke. Jess even had her little picnic basket clasped in both his hands behind his back and was taking swaying, locked-knee steps that should have amused Rory instead of endearing her.
"You start in your favourite section. Fiction," he wasn't meeting her eyes, instead reading the printed labels above the aisles and following them towards the left of the store. "You pick up everything that catches your eye as you walk around the first time. And the second time around you put everything you absolutely can't live without back. If it's one of those big chain bookstores, you sit in the corner or at the tables and you read everything you can't afford or borrow."
"That's pretty good, actually," Rory pulled her fists out of her pockets to run a finger along the spines of a few street directories. "But I find that if I have it in my hand, I get attached and I buy it."
Jess hummed. "It's also a good way to get accused of shoplifting. Maybe I should stop doing that."
Rory chuckled. Then wondered if she should have. Her own mother had pigeonholed Jess as a bad boy without knowing anything about him. So had Babette. Mrs Kim hadn't, but Rory suspected that was only because they hadn't met, and Morey was quiet but willing to give Jess a chance. It was fairly well-articulated that Jess was a danger to their sleepy town. Plus, Rory didn't think it was much of a joke. Self-deprecating, like a lot of Jess' other witty comments, sarcastic and defensive. But not blithesome.
Rather than asking what Jess meant by that, or how many times that had happened to him, Rory focussed on something else Jess had said. "So you only buy books you absolutely can't live without? I sort of expected that you'd have a wall of books back in New York, lots of them collected over the years."
"I brought everything I own with me," Jess shook his head, his voice barely above a whisper. Rory wondered if he'd ever trusted anyone to talk about his home life before. He was fairly closed off and quite happily avoided the conversation about his past, according to a frustrated Luke.
Rory felt her cheeks dimple and blood rise to her face. She couldn't understand what made this mysterious, cultured boy share with her but she had to admit it made her feel special somehow. Important. Rory had never felt like that before except like her opinion might matter outside the border of Stars Hollow. Like she might be important away from a biased town that saw her as the golden child. That feeling was accompanied by another feeling that Rory hadn't felt before, a tingling in her chest and an itch in her fingers. Sometimes she even wondered if her favourite jeans were flattering enough to walk about town in and she definitely tried to be awake, alert and sleep-crust-free when she went into Luke's, worrying someone would see her when she wasn't looking her best. Jess made her feel that quite a bit.
Rory hoped Jess would elaborate, reading her silence as encouragement. She knew teenagers, being one herself, and she knew that the more someone poked and prodded the less likely they were to open up. Paris was like that. So was Luke. And Jess was oddly a little bit like both of them.
So, Rory schooled her expression into a passive mask and waited.
And waited.
In their comfortable silences, Rory picked up a volume and inspected it.
"That's really good," Jess' voice emanated from somewhere entirely too close to her, his breath whispering over the shell of her ear.
"Is it?" Rory faced him. She liked that Jess was only a little taller than her. She could see his eyes without straining. That is, until he looked away and shrugged.
"I have a copy you can borrow."
Rory nodded. It must have been good then, if Jess had purchased it outright. Unless he hadn't.
That was mean, she thought. That was how everybody else viewed him and Rory vowed she was going to lead by example and give the boy a chance. After all, he was only a boy. One who, from the sounds of things, acted out for attention or got in with the wrong crowd. From what Luke used to say about his sister, Rory imagined a lot of Jess'faults and shortcomings weren't really his fault at all.
"If you head over to the classic section," Rory extended a finger to point towards the back of the store. "I'm pretty sure I have a copy of everything in here, not that I bought them from here. But you're welcome to borrow them, if you like."
It wasn't just a reciprocal gesture, either. Rory quite liked the notes Jess had left in the margin of the last book he'd taken from her. She liked them and his steady-handed cursive, messy but sure. Rory wished she could write in her books, but she respected the pristine pages too much. Secretly, she looked forward to reading more of Jess' thoughts. Not that she'd ever tell her mother.
"Don't let him hear you say that," Jess chuckled, jutting his chin towards the other side of the store. Rory figured he meant Andrew. "Where'd you outsource from? It'd be weird for a small town to have two book shops."
She liked that Jess didn't assume her hoard of books were gifts. Most people found out about her lineage and thought they were, presents and rewards. Some of them were. Some of them were bought as congratulations for doing well at school. But most of them were a carefully selected collection she'd created herself.
"Gypsy's got like a market thing going. She was left a lot of things by a relative, most of them books and she sold them under the gazebo instead of out of her garage once. It turned into a thing. Taylor's made it a big tourist to-do. Miss Patty's got an in with the schools and the libraries donate their old stuff. Most of my books come from that."
"You thrift for your books?"
Rory furrowed her brow. Her voice was curt, her temper short. "Yes."
Jess nodded but Rory squinted at him suspiciously.
"What?"
"I don't know," he shrugged again but wouldn't meet her eyes. "The private school, the buying of breakfast every morning. It's a pretty well-off town, overall."
Rory almost laughed. At Chilton, she had to fight for every scrap of respect from the other students and a lot of that came with keeping quiet about coupon clipping and the hand-me-downs. She'd never had to defend her poverty before, it was always something swept under the rug.
Rory clenched her jaw, anger swelling in her chest. Then she rubbed her lips together. It was a conscious effort on her part, but a necessary one. Her mother grit her teeth and shouted defensively at the slightest barb. She loved Lorelai and her protective streak, but Rory had vowed a long time ago that she wouldn't follow in her footsteps and only get aggressive when the slight was intentional.
She took a deep breath.
But it turned out, she didn't need to. Whether Jess recognised her rising rage, or he was completely asympathetic to the social faux pas he'd just made, the boy continued conversing.
"Is there anything better than a second-hand book?"
Rory cocked her head at him. She quite disliked second-hand books. They were great financially, and she could be more relaxed about how she carted them about, less worried about spilling coffee over their pages. But there was something about a brand new book. Maybe it was the status of it. Or the smell of the untouched pages.
Then again, new books were a lot of work. They had to be kept out of the sun lest the paper discolour. She had to carry them against her chest or else the paperbacks would bend in her backpack. She couldn't read them in the bath, or while she was eating Luke's brownies. Or anywhere near Kirk.
"I am less uptight about my second-hand books," Rory admitted.
Jess chuckled. Rory pulled a book from the shelf and flipped it open as though she was reading the blub on the inside of the dust jacket, but her eyes flicked upwards and she couldn't look away from what she saw.
Jess put her basket on a table of coffee table books beside him. His fingers were thick and nimble and tugged at his jacket collar, pulling apart the metalic buttons with sharp snaps. His shoulders came out of the off-white fabric first and Rory had to force herself to look away. His shoulders were wide, arms thick beneath the green fabric of his shirt, and it was pulled tight over his chest.
She kept her eyes firmly on the white font, unseeing, until she heard the rustle of Jess folding his jacket over the basket and saw him reach out toward the self in her peripheral vision. Rory found her lips quirking into a smile. He had his long sleeved pulled over the heels of his hands.
"I can't believe I don't have my notepad on me," Jess lamented. "Some of these titles are great."
Rory blinked. She had a so many questions she desperately wanted to ask in response to that half whispered comment of his. Did he always carry a notebook on him? What kind of notebook? Did he write in black or blue pen? Was it specifically for books and things he wanted but couldn't afford? Or did he write his ideas down too? Maybe little notes about his day? The people he met and things that happened? Rory had read Jess' notes in her books, he had a very analytical mind, but also a flowery way with words. As though he'd be good at writing prose. He certainly read enough to suggest he'd be good at writing too.
He must have felt her eyes on him, her questions boring into the back of his head because he turned to face her. "I lost the books I want to read so that I know what I'm looking for when I got to second hand shops or the library. Bookstores like this are good for finding mainstream stuff you might like, but the real stories get told at garage sales."
"What do you mean?" she asked. Rory figured she knew what Jess was getting at, something he'd been saying implicitly since they'd walked in, but she liked hearing him talk. He was still insufferable and incorrigible and an annoying teenage boy, but his superiority complex came fr actually being superior. He was far more intelligent than he let on, but the moment he opened his mouth and. spoke more than one syllable, he was unable to hide the breadth of his knowledge.
He had a unique way of talking too. It was as though he was telling a story, constantly, being entertaining and informative and fully aware of the bent point of view it came from, like he was aware that he had all the facts but was pretending to be an unreliable narrator, or he was unreliable and was doing a brilliant job of pretending he wasn't, she couldn't quite tell.
"There's nothing better than secondhand stuff," he told her. "Books where the spines so cracked you can't see the title and you know it's because it's been reread so often, pages covered in cake crumbs and coffee stains that tell a story in themselves. You can but the trashiest teen science fiction romance but it's inherently interesting because you can't figure out if this page is dog-eared in lieu of a bookmark or because the precious owner thought something profound happened. Or because you can't image the sweet old woman who sold it to you would read unbelievably gory crime books."
"You mentioned borrowing books before." Rory loved that Jess was just as curious about a books shelflife alongside it's plot and context. She'd never even thought about the prior owners of the books she bought secondhand. At least, never beyond thinking it was infuriating that this stain covered the entire top of the book, or that she couldn't believe someone was giving away the collectors edition of a the book she'd been hunting for years. "Do you go to the library a lot?"
"I did. Back in the city."
The way he answered was taut, his tone blistering and cold. The matter was closed and Rory wasn't allowed to inquired further.
She didn't need to.
Luke had mentioned a couple of times about Liz and the men age dated, the substances he suspected she took. She suspected a neutral space was a good way to avoid that without too many questions. Besides, Rory had once been a student at a public school. She supposed it would be no different only a few miles across the map and that teachers elsewhere let fitted kids fall to the wayside while they were focussing on correcting misbehavior and helping the kids who needed support. She certainly for bored back when she went to the local high school and she loved finding ways to do her own research or reading.
"What's your opinion on library books?" she asked instead of laying a hand on his forearm and telling him she understood just a little, that he could talk to her and she wouldn't judge. "Do you like the temporality or do you prefer the investment of buying books? Because I hate not having my books like a war prize, a trophy for an achievement but I like being able to deny the fact that I read certain things because I don't own them."
Jess chuckled and swapped the book in his hands for another. He kept his eyes on the volume to read the blurb as though he was expecting Rory had answered her own question and he had nothing to add.
Rory frowned. She wished she knew how to coax conversation from the boy. With Dean it was so easy, he just talked, it didn't matter what it was about - football, school, work, Lord of the Rings. Jess kept everything under lock and key but a few times she'd accidentally found the right combination, only she couldn't quite remember what it was and it was frustratingly challenging to try and remember.
"I just mean," she continued. "You like writing in the margins. You can't do that with library books."
"Can't you?" he smirked over his shoulder as he out the book back on the shelf.
"No." That wasn't your property, it was public property. Then Rory remembered that hadn't stopped Jess from writing in her book. Why had he done that again? Did Jess think she'd appreciate his thoughts? Was he reaching out to a like-minded peer? Was he trying to impress her? Was he too shy to sit down and discuss the book and found this mode to be the best form of communicating that he was both an academic and well-read? "Can you?"
"I do," he said easily, turning the corner into the next aisle.
Rory skipped to gain a little momentum and followed him eagerly.
"Not enough that the librarians consider replacing the book," he punctuated his words with a signature shrug. "But little things. In the kids stuff mostly. I pick out the most popular kids books or the ones I liked as a kid and give a few insights. The smart kids might get it or realise reading can be a sport not just a hobby or a chore. But I also like putting in a couple of recommendations - other books like this, you'll find similar characters in this, this scene is an appropriation of this text. That sort of stuff. I get bored and the writing helps, but it also means someone else might find a book they love or through this book take reading more seriously."
Rory blinked at him. "You do."
Jess pressed his pink lips together into an infuriatingly tight line but there was a hint of a smirk tugging at his mouth as he turned away from her.
Rory followed Jess down to the next shelf. She wanted to hear more about him, how much time he spent in libraries, if he ever saw the fruits of his labours, and why he did it in the first place. Is that how he found his favourite book and he was just passing the favour on? Did he wish someone had told him similar titles to the ones he liked and that's why he did it?
But Jess' face had returned to his emotionless mask, serious eyes cast downwards to skim across the spines on the shelf. She genuinely considered putting herself between him and the shelf, leaning her back against the books and blocking his access to them, forcing Jess to continue talking to her in that soft, gravelly voice that paired well with the type of person he pretended to be but didn't match his actual behaviour.
If he was Lane or Dean or even Paris, Rory might have done just that. But she wanted Jess to trust her without being pressured. She was the one person, for whatever reason, that he seemed to trust in Stars Hollow and Rory wasn't going to jeopardise that by being selfish. So, she turned her attention to the titles on the shelf and the two of them continued picking up books and reading the blurbs in relative silence.
Just two people trawling the shelves of books they couldn't afford.
"You'd like that," Jess claimed, handing her a hardcover. Rory wondered what made him think he could make that sort of assumption but she recognised the author from her list of people she wanted to read. He was right. Somehow.
"I would, actually," Rory complimented his selection as perfectly to her taste. "You should get a job here. Andrew's always looking for someone else to do the heavy lifting and write the recommendations."
"I don't think anyone would buy a book from me," he chuckled as though he wasn't hurt by the idea. Rory didn't understand that. No one in the town liked Jess, but none of them had ever bothered to get to know him. She wanted to inquire if it hurt him the way the idea hurt her but didn't think he'd be open to talking about it. "Which isn't even a comment on my lack of salesmanship. I don't think many people around here read all that much."
"I would," she shrugged, ignoring his slight against the town. "Lane would."
"Who's Lane?"
Rory baulked. "Oh, my god, you would love Lane. How have you not met Lane?"
Another shrug. "Wait. Lane," Jess squinted at Rory and she suspected he wasn't really looking at her but trying to remember something. "Short, glasses, used the diner to change from an AC/DC shirt to beige jumpers."
Rory laughed. "That'd be Lane. Her mum's strict. Religious."
"But you think we'd get along anyway?"
It was Rory's turn to shrug and turn down the next aisle.
"Why?" she heard Jess' footsteps canter as he chased her for an answer. it was probably just because of his momentum of turning the corner, but Rory thought it was a little weird to see Jess, the town bad boy and snarky teenager, swinging around a little wicker basket with a lavender ribbon and a daisy, from his fingers.
She shrugged again but couldn't fight her growing grin as she looked away from him. She could see why Jess did it so often, it was kind of thrilling to have the sort of power over someone that made them follow you curiously. "You and I have books in common. But you and Lane have the same taste in music, from what you've said."
"And you don't think I'd offend her sensibilities?" Jess asked. He sounded genuinely curious and concerned, as though he was actually considering talking to Lane and befriended her, which didn't equate with everything else Rory knew about Jess. He didn't take advice or handouts from anyone.
"Lane is nothing like Mrs Kim," Rory snorted at the idea. "She's strong-willed, sneaky. I'll introduce you next time we're in the diner." Then, just to make sure it didn't sound like she was gifting him anything he didn't feel he deserved, or suggesting anything he could decline, Rory added; "She's sick of me not understanding all her references. She'll love finally having someone to talk to. Of course, you'll have to learn how to keep quiet around Mrs Kim."
Jess chuckled. "I think I'll manage."
Rory laughed.
"Rory?" Andrew's voice echoed in the store. "Your book is here, if you want it."
Rory nodded but she didn't shout back anything to the store owner. Jess raised his eyebrows in question at her.
"I don't have enough money on me," she told him. "Not if we want pizza. It's fine. I'll get it next time."
Something akin to grief passed over Jess' face. "I'm paying for pizza. But I've got a tenner you can borrow. Except that's about all i've got in my wallet."
Rory shook her head, flattening her palm in the air between them as she signalled for Jess to stop mid-sentence. "I can't ask you to do that. I'll just get it next time."
"You didn't ask."
"No, Jess," she shook her head more vigorously. "I couldn't."
"You can." He shook his head, holding his eyes wide in disagreement as he did so. "And you will when we work our way to the counter."
Rory started to disagree with him again but Jess held up his forefinger to stop her.
"On one condition," he warned. "You write in the margins and you let me read it afterwards."
Rory pressed her lips together to hide her smile. "That's two conditions."
Jess smiled widely, pearly teeth showing and eyes squinting happily. She found herself reciprocating the expression and a warmth spreading in her chest, that feeling tingling in her fingers again, like she wanted to reach out.
"Deal."
"What is the book anyway?"
Rory barked out a laugh. She couldn't remember having this much fun in a bookstore, or someone buying her a book without inquiring why she needed it, or how much it cost.
"Because if I find something better," he was entirely too close again, their shoulders knocking as they walked down the aisle. "We're buying that instead."