Chapter 4
Rory awoke the next morning still in a happy mood from the night before. She sat up in bed, letting the brilliant sunlight kiss her features, and reached up with her fingers to trace her lips. She could almost still feel the rough, yet gently texture of Jess's lips upon hers, almost still see the smoldering look of passion in his eyes, almost still feel his loving embrace . . . Rory sighed at her own thoughts. She was acting like a girl in love . . . but she wasn't in love . . . was she? No, No it was way too soon. It had taken her forever to decide she was in love with Dean, and she and Jess had only been dating for a month. Besides, she was almost sure that Jess didn't love her (at least not yet anyway) and there was no sense turning into a lovesick fool. Still, she was definitely a girl in like, and she just couldn't wait to see that sexy young man who could always turn her thoughts into mush.
She quickly climbed out of bed and dug through a pile of clothes looking for her uniform. It was only a few days until Christmas break, and Rory only had one more midterm left to take. It was her English lit exam, and as that was her best subject, she wasn't too worried. She found she was incredibly anxious for school to let out, and she knew the reason was that she wanted to spend more time with Jess, who was already out on Christmas break.
Rory entered her living room to find her mother rushing around, apparently looking for something. "Looking for something, Mom?" she asked.
"Yeah, have you seen my blue coat? It was on my desk chair yesterday." She said with feigned innocence.
"Oh, I think I know which coat your talking about, the one that looks exactly like mine!" Rory said, playing along.
"Yeah, that's the one!"
"Well I'm not sure where yours is, but mine is hanging up nice and neat in my closet, and since you asked permission and all, I'm sure it would be no big deal if you borrowed it."
"Thanks sweets," Lorelai said, rushing towards Rory's room.
"Umm, Mom? How long before you think you'll be ready to go?" Rory called.
"Er, 15 mintutes?"
"So in about 25, then? Listen Mom, I'm uh really hungry this morning, think I could just meet you there?"
"Sounds good hun, I expect a hot mug of coffee to be waiting on me!"
After yelling good-bye to her mother, Rory quickly made her way out of the house and towards the diner. She resisted the urge to pat her hair, and fix her jacket before going inside, because there was no need for her to primp, after all. Jess liked her just the way she was. And, Lord, how she liked this exciting feeling she got in her stomach at the thought of seeing him. Taking a deep breath she swung open the diner door and headed inside.
Jess stopped what he was doing when he heard the swish of the door opening, instinctively knowing it was her. He wasn't disappointed, either. She looked really pretty that morning too. Her hair was all wind blown, and her cheeks were all rosy from the cold. Her blue eyes were open wide and were swimming with emotion when they locked onto his, excitement, nervousness, laughter, exhilaration . . . love? Probably just wishful thinking on his part. He smiled at her, hoping that was good enough to show how happy he was to see her. He never really was one of those ideal romantic kinda guys, after all.
Rory thought Jess looked unusually good that morning. He was wearing a black thermal under a snug gray t-shirt, and jeans that hung low on his waist, and fit him just a little too well. She returned his smile and made her way over to the bar. She slipped behind the counter and quickly kissed him good morning. "Hey," she whispered.
"Hey yourself," He whispered back, leaning down to kiss her longer and more suitably. He eventually broke the kiss, gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, and turned to pour some coffee into some costumer's cup who looked like they were fixing to get pissy. He didn't waste any time turning back to Rory, who in the mean time had helped herself to a bowl of coffee.
"You seem like your in a good mood this morning," He said, amusement laced in his husky voice.
"Mmm . . just one of those girl things, you wouldn't understand."
" I've been known to get in touch with my feminine side on occasion."
"Really? The next time I see a really gorgeous guy then, I'll make sure to call you up and dish out all the juicy details." Jess frowned at this comment, and Rory laughed and quickly reached over and squeezed his hand affectionately. Jess squeezed back in return.
"So last day of finals?"
"Yeah, I have English Lit today . . . I hope I do okay."
"You have reasonable doubt that you won't" Jess asked with a skeptical raised eyebrow.
"You never know, I could fail."
Jess laughed at this remark, "This from the girl who hasn't gotten lower than an A in her entire academic career?"
Rory smiled at Jess and was about to retort with a smart-ass reply when the tinkering of bells caught her attention. Expecting to see her mother walk through the door into the diner, Rory was given quite a shock when she saw her ex-boyfriend, Dean, and some girl come sauntering inside. The girl had medium length brown hair, given to soft curl, with blonde highlights that glistened when the sun hit them. She had almond eyes the color of dark chocolate (or mud, Rory thought, depending on how you looked at it), and long, thick lashes. She had a straight nose, high cheekbones, and a honey clear complexion. Her face was devoid of all makeup, save for a thin layer of gloss on her full lips. She was wearing indecently tight low-rise jeans and a snug red turtleneck that accented her slender and curvy figure. She was beautiful.
Rory felt heat rise in her cheeks as a spurt of jealousy hit her out nowhere. This confused her, because she really didn't care who Dean saw or dated or whatever . . . did she? No, of course not, but still. Then she started to get angry. Just what the hell was Dean doing bringing his new bouncy boobed girlfriend in the diner to rub in Rory's face. Did Rory drag Jess into Doose's mart and make out with him right under Dean's nose? No, she most certainly did not. She had some class, after all. God, that girl was pretty. The kind of natural, stunning pretty that every girl wished she had. The kind of pretty Rory knew she could never compare to.
"Rory?" Jess said, breaking into her rambling thoughts.
"Huh? Yeah?"
"Are you okay? You look like you just ate something your mother cooked," Jess said. He wasn't laughing though. He knew exactly why his girlfriend looked like she was about to either scream or faint, or both. Damn Dean, anyway. He had noticed Dean hanging around that girl at school lately. Her name was Bambi, or Candi or something silly like that. He hadn't really known if they were dating or not, he hadn't exactly cared enough to find out. Things had been going so great between him and Rory lately, he figured she wouldn't care that Dean was seeing somebody new. Apparently he had been wrong.
"What, no. I'm fine." Rory answered Jess, sounding a bit dazed. To Rory's astonishment Dean and his new prize walked right up to the counter, directly in front of her and Jess.
"Um, Hey Rory . . . Jess," Dean added after a bit, "Listen Rory I wanted to introduce you to my friend Mandi. Mandi, this is Rory."
"Rory, it's so nice to meet you, I've heard a lot about you." Mandi replied much too sweetly. She sounded incredibly young to Rory, who was still reeling over the fact that Dean had the gall to introduce his new girlfriend to her.
Even Jess had to admit this was a little much. He could tell this was hard on Rory, judging by the strained sound of her voice. "Can we help you with something, Dean?" Jess resisted the urge to refer to him as Bag Boy.
"No thanks, Jess. I came to talk to Rory," he emphasized Rory's name. Jess bit his lip and turned to get some bread out of the toaster, afraid he was going to say something he would later regret.
"Well actually, Dean, I really do need to get to school."
"Yeah, I figured, that's sort of why I stopped by. Mandi's going to be a sophomore at Chilton next year. I thought maybe you might could get to know her, help her out a bit."
Okay back it up a minute, Rory thought, unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable! First, he's dating a freshman?! Second he now wants me to become best friends with his stupid air heady new girlfriend? How'd a flake like her make it into Chilton, anyway? Okay maybe she was being a little harsh with the first impressions, but she didn't really care. She felt like she was going to throw up. Her first instinct was to say no, she was too busy. But there was Mandi, looking up at her with those pretty Bambi eyes, like Rory was suddenly her new role model. And after all, Rory did know how scary Chilton could be at first. . .
Rory sighed, "Sure why not," silently cursing herself for being so nice.
"Oh that's great!" Mandi excaimed, "Thank you so, so much! I'll call you tonight and maybe we can figure out a time to get together or something!" After giving Rory what had to be the biggest fakest smile in the history of the world, she grabbed Dean by the arm and pulled him out of the diner.
Rory turned to Jess with a sour look on her face. Jess had a frown of his own on his face. He was more than just a little concerned with his girlfriends jealous reaction to Mandi. Plus he didn't exactly like the idea of Rory spending a lot of time with this girl for several reasons. One, he knew it would be hard on Rory, and he didn't want that. Second, what if this was just one of Dean's schemes to get back into Rory's life?
Rory, suddenly feeling ridiculously insecure, blurted out the first thing that came to her mind, "Did you think she was pretty?" She said it like an accusation.
Great, Jess thought, No matter what I say, I'm screw this one up. If I say yes she'll definitely be mad, and if I say no she'll accuse me of lying. He decided to go with the truth, "I guess, not really my type of pretty though." There, now that was a good answer.
Rory didn't agree, "She looked like a super model Jess, she's every boy's kind of pretty!" With that Rory grabbed her bag and stormed out the door, slamming the door behind her, and leaving Jess with a sinking feeling in his heart.
Well what do you guys think? Good or Bad, I'd love to know, sorry to leave you here, but it's late and I need to go to Bed!