Did I mention that I love reviews?
Christine: More banter coming your way :)
Dodgerluv: You thought that scene was steamy? You ain't seen nothing yet. Read on :)
Nik: Thank you so much for commenting on the dialogue! That's what I work the hardest on to try to get things to seem realistic.
Ggirl: I plan on continuing for several more chapters :) Thanks for the encouragement!
Elizabeth: Thank you! I love the writing style on GG. I've started to talk like Lorelai, much to my father's chagrin
Singcraz: LOL! Was this quick enough for you? It's nice to feel wanted. Thanks ;)
Anonymous person: Thanks! All capitals and everything!
Anonymousthinker: Here's your winking and nudging ;)
Trace: Thank ya! Rory/Jess dialogue is fun to write :)
M: Ahhhh! I did! Thanks :)
Swim6516: All I can say is thank you ;)
Rgilmore03: Wow, thanks! Personally I like the L/L parts better, but I got you covered :)
Tara: The dying is a good thing, right ;) Glad you liked it.
Holly: Oh my God woman! Thank you so much! I couldn't ask for a better reviewer!
Night Angel: lol! HERE IT IS!!
Jewls13: Glad it got the heart pounding! And you're right. I'm going to have to get the notes from a friend, because I am *so* lost now. And Israel eh? I was supposed to go to Israel too! Are you Jewish? I am, and my synagogue sponsored the trip.
And sorry to angellove who I forgot to thank in the last chapter. You were my very first reviewer! Thankee!
Wow. That was a whole bunch of smiley faces. What can I say, you guys make me smile!
A/N: I think all you R/J fans will like this chapter. I personally like Dean, but I do see how Jess and Rory is more exciting than R/D. There's still some L/L stuff, but nothing too drastic yet. Wait for the chapter after next ;) And I tried to change the rating to PG-13, but I don't know if it worked.
"What?! My daughter is in a car with Jess right now?"
'No way would Rory just hop back into a car with Jess,' Lorelai thought to herself. More like hoped to herself. She knew Luke wouldn't make this up.
"I assumed that she told you."
"Well you assumed wrong mister!"
"Lorelai, I'm sure they're fine."
Lorelai looked angrily up at Luke.
"Just like how they were fine last time?"
"Don't bring this up again. Come on, calm down," Luke said, resting his hands on her shoulders.
Lorelai shrugged his hand off and began to rummage through her purse.
"What are you doing," Luke asked.
"Looking for my phone. I have to talk to Rory."
"Lorelai," Luke began. "They'll be fine. You know as well as I do that the accident wasn't preventable. Jess is a good driver. He's just taking her to Chilton and back."
Luke pushed Lorelai's hands away from her purse and snatched it away from her. He moved it behind the counter.
"Give me back my purse Luke. Rory isn't your daughter, she's mine."
"And I think of her like a daughter. You know that. I wouldn't be so calm if I thought she was in any danger."
Lorelai glared at him. He put his hand on her shoulder again.
"Come on Lorelai, they'll be fine. I think they're friends again."
"You don't devil-egg a friend's car," Lorelai muttered, but she didn't shrug off Luke's hand again.
"That was you?"
Lorelai's eyes widened. "Um… no?"
Luke stared at her.
"I have an alibi!" Lorelai shouted.
"And who can give me that alibi?"
"Rory!"
Luke laughed. "Oh my God, I can't believe it was you... Actually, I can."
"Well I had anger issues."
"Apparently so. Did you actually manage to cook those eggs yourself?"
"What? Are you insane?"
"Says the woman who devil-egged a boy's car."
"Oh yeah. But no, I did not prepare the eggs myself. A pregnant woman who needs her medicine cabinet destroyed made them."
"What?"
"Nevermind. Can I have my purse back?"
"Are you going to call Rory and freak out?"
Lorelai sighed. "No. But so help me God, if she comes home with so much as a papercut—"
Luke handed her the purse. "Don't worry, if he hurts her, I'll kill him."
"Oh come on, as the mother of the injured child, I should get first dibs in the killing."
"We'll share," Luke said, smiling.
"Okay." Lorelai started to gather up the boxes of strudel.
"Wait, I'll help you afterall."
"But the diner—"
"I'll just close up for a few minutes. It's not a big deal."
"Are you sure?" Lorelai asked, a little surprised.
"I'm sure."
"Okay, thanks." Lorelai smiled at Luke and they gathered up the strudel.
Rory was still walking quickly. She hadn't broken her pace since running out of Jess' car. She didn't know how she was going to sit in that car with him again. She grabbed her notes out of her locker, which took her three tries to open ('Stupid combination lock!') and started to return to the parking lot. Rory was so distracted that she didn't see the another person coming in the opposite direction before they crashed into each other.
"Ah! Jeez, I'm sorry," Rory said, looking up. "Max?"
"Oh, Rory hi! What are you doing here?" Max said, brushing himself off.
"I left my history notes here," she said, holding her binder up for him to see. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine. What's a concussion really?"
"Sorry!"
"Rory, I'm kidding," he said, smiling. "So did your mom tell you the big news?"
A look of confusion came over Rory's face. "Um… no."
"That's weird. She seemed so excited about it."
"What is it?" Rory asked.
"Well, you're under very close consideration for the top Chilton scholarship."
"Oh my God! Really?!" Rory squealed.
Max laughed. "Well, nothing is definite yet, but it's looking pretty good for you Rory."
"Wow, this is so great!"
"Yeah, that's sort of why I'm surprised your mom forgot to mention it."
Max looked somewhat upset.
"Oh, don't worry about it. I came home and I was all 'ack!' because I forgot my stuff. My bad mood probably made her forget."
"Sure," Max said distractedly.
"Okay, well I'm going to head back home."
"What? Oh, okay. Bye."
"Bye Max."
Rory walked away and took out her cell phone, dialing quickly.
Lorelai's cell phone began to ring. Lorelai froze. She had pastries in her arms and couldn't reach her phone.
"Here, hand them over," Luke said.
Lorelai piled her boxes on top of Lukes and flipped open her cell phone.
"Hello?"
"Mom!"
"Rory! Are you okay?! Oh my God, what happened?"
"What? I'm fine? Why would you ask that?"
"Oh I don't know, maybe because I know who your driver is."
Rory winced. "Oh."
"Hey, it's fine," Lorelai lied. "What's up?"
"Well, I ran into Max, and he told me."
"Told you what?… oh! Oh honey, I totally forgot to tell you!"
"It's okay. This is so exciting!"
"I know!"
"Okay, we'll talk later. I just wanted to tell you that I found out."
"Okay hun."
Both girls hung up. Luke raised an eyebrow.
"Um, a little help here?" He looked like he was about to tip over.
"Oh! Sorry!" Lorelai took back her boxes and they continued walking.
"So what did Rory have to say."
Lorelai began telling Luke about the scholarship.
"Oh, so that's what Max was telling you in the diner today."
"Yup. What did you think he was telling me?"
"I don't know. You looked really excited. I thought maybe you were planning another engagement or something."
Lorelai looked back up at Luke.
"You're kidding."
"Hey, I didn't exactly find out right away last time you know."
"You sound like my mother."
"Thanks."
"Forget it."
Lorelai thought back to what Sookie was saying earlier.
"Why do you care so much about my romantic life anyway?"
Luke stopped walking. He looked at her, which was hard because her face was nearly hidden behind the pile of pastry boxes. His eyes softened and he started to speak, flustered.
"I… I just… Lorelai, it's… You know what? I said 'forget it' so why don't you just forget it?"
"Fine," Lorelai snapped back at him.
They continued to walk in silence.
Jess was surprised when he saw Rory coming out of the school. She looked really happy. His heart jumped a little. Maybe she was thinking about him and the almost-kiss. Maybe?
Rory opened the passenger side door and hopped into the car.
"Guess what?"
"What?"
"I might get a great big scholarship!"
"Oh. Great." Jess said with a touch of disappointment in his voice.
"Wow. You sound so excited for me," Rory said sarcastically.
"No, I mean it. That's great."
"You could get scholarships too, you know. You just need to apply yourself."
"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" Jess asked, smiling at her.
Rory rolled her eyes. Jess pulled out of the parking lot and started off to Stars Hollow.
~~A little while later~~~
"Traffic." Jess said. "When is there ever traffic going *into* Stars Hollow?"
"Um… when there's an absurdly large retirement party being held at the Independence Inn?" Rory said.
"Lovely. Well, we're still a little ways away from town, and it looks like there could be a fifteen or twenty minute wait. Might as well just stop the car." He pulled the key out of the ignition.
"Now there's no radio," Rory said, pouting.
"Hey, gas is expensive," Jess stated matter-of-factly.
"Fine."
"You might as well start studying now. I can help. What's the subject?"
"History," Rory said glumly.
"European?"
"American. Specifically on federalism and all of its components: types of grants, Supreme Court cases, the works."
"Sounds like a whole lot of fun," Jess said dryly.
"Here, you can start by quizzing me on the grants, and then we can worry about delegated versus residual powers."
Jess sighed and took the paper Rory was holding out to him. He started the quizzing.
It had only been ten minutes and they were already fighting, albeit not seriously.
"You're crazy!" Rory giggled.
"Oh am I?"
"Yes! Schecter Poultry versus the U.S. is *not* the most important Supreme Court case in American history, Jess. It's nicknamed 'The Sick Chicken Case.'"
"Well I bet the chickens appreciated that case," Jess said, mock-offended. "Especially the sick ones."
"The chickens were already dead, Jess. The objection was to the sanitary conditions of their slaughter and preparation. There are other more important cases that served to make the same point about federal jurisdiction."
"I think you owe the chickens an apology. You're belittling their problems."
"Shut up," Rory said, smiling.
"Insulting poultry is just cruel. I think you need to pay," he said dangerously.
Before she could react, Jess snatched Rory's notebook and held it out of the open car window.
"Jess! Don't drop that! It was raining earlier and it's still wet outside. My notes will be ruined," Rory pleaded.
"Maybe you should have thought about that earlier. The chickens are upset."
He allowed the notebook to slip further from his grasp.
"Jess!" Rory squealed.
She unbuckled herself and tried to reach over Jess' head to get the notebook, but couldn't. She settled for reaching her arms around him in an attempt to wrestle his arm away from the window.
Jess turned to face her and brought his legs up onto the seat to block her. Rory climbed on top of Jess' legs and reached for the notebook. They struggled for a few minutes, Jess' arms getting a few scratches in the process. Jess tried to lengthen himself out, bringing the notebook out of Rory's reach and causing her to slide down on him.
Suddenly their faces were inches apart. Rory was now very aware of her position. She was lying fully on top of Jess, one of his hands tangled in her hair, the other still dangling the notebook out the window.
She started to pull away, but Jess moved his hand from her hair to her face, tracing her lips with his fingers. Rory paused. She closed her eyes for a second. She gently pushed his fingers aside and leaned in closer. She looked into his eyes and pressed her lips to his.
At first the kiss was soft, uncertain. But with the passing seconds it grew more intense to the point where Jess dropped the forgotten notebook and used both of his hands to run his fingers through Rory's hair. The kiss went on for several more minutes before—
BEEP!!
Rory's head shot up and she was brought immediately back to reality.
"Traffic is moving," she said bluntly before pulling herself off of Jess and smoothing her shirt and hair.
Jess started to sit up and was about to put the car back in drive when Rory became panicked.
"My notebook! Where is it?!"
Jess looked confused for a second, but then his eyes widened and he looked out the window onto the road below.
"Shit!"
"Oh my God!" Rory groaned, running out of the car and around to Jess' side.
"I'm so sorry," Jess said, looking at the now almost transparent papers with smeared ink peeking out from Rory's notebook.
The car behind them honked again.
"Get back in. I'll take you home."
Rory gathered up the remains of her notebook and stood up.
"Go ahead, I'll walk."
"What? It's an hour long walk! Just let me drive you."
The car beeped again.
"Just go. It'll give the pages a chance to dry."
"Rory, I'm sorry," Jess repeated, but Rory was already walking away.
The person behind Jess was not leaning on his horn.
"Okay!" Jess yelled at the man. He put the car in drive and sped away.
You like? Want more? You gotta review. It's what I thrive on. That and coffee. *runs off to get copious amounts of coffee*