A/N: Oh. My. God/dess! Okay, people reading GG fics are officially the best reviewers on FF.Net. Thank you all so much for your feedback. I love it, I thrive on it, give me more! Okay, there's going to be L/L in this story as well as R/J, which I didn't get to in the last chapter. See, this is where reviewing gets you! Thank you all so much again and again! Standard Disclaimers I own nothing, don't sue, I've got nothing, blah, blah, blah….
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The next morning they awoke around noon. Actually, Rory was up before then, but she made coffee and then went back to bed to read one of her favorite books Catch 22 for the millionth time. She was just hitting page two hundred when she heard her mother shuffling into the kitchen to get coffee. She stood and opened her door.
"Jess!" she said, surprised.
"Hey, Rory," he said.
"What are you doing here?"
"Your mom called sometime yesterday afternoon begging one of us to come and look at your toaster. She said it's burning one side of the bread and leaving the other side raw."
"It's always done that," Rory told him. "I don't know why she's complaining about it now."
"She probably just wanted Luke to come over so they could flirt some more."
"Huh." Rory said. "You've noticed that?"
"It's kind of hard to miss," Jess said, unplugging the toaster and sitting it down on the table. Then he sat down and opened it. "Arg!" he said, watching a disgusting mass of burned stuff fall out. "Don't you guys ever clean this thing out?"
Rory made a wordless gesture around her, indicating the house in its entirety. "We don't even clean the stuff we can see. You think we're going to go digging around the innards of a toaster?"
"Well, no. But you should." He dumped the mess onto a paper towel, and that paper towel into the garbage. Rory refilled her mug with coffee, then made one up for Lorelai. She crept up the stairs and opened her mother's door. Her mother was sprawled over her bed, barely covered by a blanket. She shook her head, thankful to have inherited her father's sleeping habits.
"Mom," she said in a sing-songey voice. "Hey, mom!" she set the mugs down on the dresser and sat on the bed next to Lorelai. She shook her, and Lorelai made a noise. "Ah," Rory murmured, "progress!" She shook Lorelai harder, until Lorelai almost flopped off the bed in her attempt to get away.
"Evil child," she intoned. "You better have something very good to save your life at this moment."
"Coffee," her daughter replied and handed her mother the mug.
"I have taught you well, grasshopper." Lorelai gulped greedily. "Hmm," she said. "It's not Luke's, but it'll hold me over."
"Gee, thanks," Rory said. "I made that myself."
"Well, I would say it's better thank Luke's, but that would be blasphemy, and a lie and you know it."
Rory nodded sagely. "Anyway, it's noon. I think we've had enough time to laze about in bed. How about we laze about on the couch and watch movies we can boo and make fun of?"
"Such as?"
"'Romey and Michelle's High School Reunion.' 'Can't Hardly Wait,' or, for that matter, anything with Jennifer Love Hewitt in it."
"Sounds good to me. Shall we go behind the Rory curtain, or just see what they've got in the actual store area."
"Kirk totally misunderstood what I was trying to say," Rory said, blushing. "Hey, there's a great Dane downstairs fixing our toaster."
"Really?" Lorelai perked right up. "Maybe I'll just go say hi to him." Lorelai unconsciously smoothed her hair and checked her teeth with her tongue. "Well, after I brush my teeth. Yuck, what was that Mom served us last night?"
"I think it had calamari in it."
"Isn't that—"
"Yup," Rory said, and had the satisfaction of hearing her mother's squeal of disgust, followed by her mad dash to the bathroom. Her work done for the morning, Rory went back downstairs to root through their cabinets and make a list of what they needed for a pig-out session.
Jess watched her dart around the kitchen in fascination. She apparently didn't know what a tempting picture she made in skimpy sleep clothes. But he definitely liked the shorts-and-tank-top combo she had on.
"So, you doing anything with Bag Boy today?" he asked in what he hoped was a casual manner.
Rory froze, and looked at him. "You mean it's not all over town?"
"What's not all over town?"
"Dean and I broke up yesterday," Rory explained while opening another cabinet. She didn't see the mix of emotions cross Jess' face.
Jess felt elation, fear, anger, and relief swamp him all at once. If Dean had hurt Rory…well, Jess didn't care how Frankenstein-ish Dean was, he'd kick his ass, that's all there was to it.
"So," he said, still trying to play it cool. "How do you feel about that?"
Rory shrugged. "Fine. We really aren't that suited to each other. He's a little too possessive for my tastes. Plus, he doesn't even know who Ayn Rand is, much less have a reason for disliking her work. And he calls Bjork 'That chick with the weird name.' I don't know why I stayed with him as long as I did."
Jess was full on grinning when Lorelai entered the kitchen. "Oh," she said, surprised to see Jess in her kitchen. "Hi." She glared at her daughter, who just gave a small smile in return.
Jess grunted in reply. "Jess was just telling me what's wrong with our toaster," Rory said promptingly.
"Uh," Jess said, "Yeah. Your heat control is off. It actually needs a replacement part. I'll just go and check with Luke. He might have a toaster not in use that I can take the part from. I'll be back." With that he left the house by the kitchen door, leaving the toaster in pieces on the table.
"Wow. He's chatty this morning."
"Yeah. And apparently the whole town doesn't know about Dean and I."
"Really? Thought for sure Luke would have him in a headlock by now."
"So how did Jess react when you told him you and Dean were over?"
"He just asked how I was about it, and then you came in. Beyond that, I didn't get a response."
Lorelai wasn't going to be the one to tell Rory about Jess' record-breaking grin. "You played a mean trick."
"How was I to know you'd assume it was Luke?" Rory pasted her best innocent expression on her face, hoping she wouldn't break down and laugh hysterically.
"You knew I'd assume it was Luke. You were counting on the fact that I would assume it was Luke. You assumed that I would assume it was Luke and get all pretty and come down to weasel coffee out of him."
"You have coffee in your hand," Rory pointed out.
"Yes, but not quite Heaven in a Mug. It's close, but—"
"It's not quite there, yes, I know. Hey! Why don't we call the diner and ask Luke to send coffee back with Jess when he comes back to finish the toaster?"
Lorelai nodded. "Sounds like a plan. I'll go get the movies, you phone Jess."
"Or, we could have him pick up the movies," Rory said.
"My, my, my," Lorelai said grandly. "Aren't we the haute couture today? We have servants now, do we?"
"Uh-huh, Miss 'Put the Pom Poms On the Skates' Gilmore."
"Hmm, touché."
"Studying for the big French test next week?"
Lorelai aimed a sour look at her daughter and said, "Well, since the toaster's broken, what are we going to do for breakfast?"
"Oh, yeah." Rory tossed the pop tarts back into the cabinet. "I think we actually have to leave the house."
"The horror," Lorelai gasped.
"Well, let's go." She stopped and looked at her mother, waiting for her to move. "I know you're slow to get moving in the morning, Mom, but you've had a least a little coffee."
"You do realize you're not dressed, right? Personally, if I was going out in my PJs I'd prefer one of those long-sleeved patterned dealies. But, hey, if you want to walk around Star's Hollow like that—"
"You mean I was dressed like this when Jess was here?" Rory's face flamed red, and she ran into her room, frantically searching for something clean to wear. "Argh! I can't believe I was that stupid! Of course I was still wearing my PJs. I woke up, got coffee, read, and then opened the door when I thought I heard you walking around but it was Jess! I am so…argh!"
"Why the flip-out, daughter mine?" Lorelai asked. "Could it be because you like Jess and wanted to look good for him?"
"They're my sleeping clothes," Rory shouted. "They're private. They're for sleeping in only, not for entertaining my friends." She threw her hands in up surrender. "Fine! Jeans and a T-shirt it is, then.
"Oh," Lorelai cooed. "But don't you want to look pretty for Jess-y-poo?"
Rather than dignify the disgusting comment with a reply, Rory sent her mother a withering look, pushed her back towards the kitchen and slammed her door to change. She really needed something to eat.
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A/N2: Okay, another suckey place to end. But I promise there'll be more coming, just as soon as I decide which way to go with this, not wanting to copy any of the remarkable other J/R fics I've read here lately. Thanks forever for the reviews.