Picks up right after the smooches that came after the lake dunkings.
mmm…dunkings.
Dunking…..dunkin'….DONUTS
Hee…there's my foray into stream of consciousness writing!
* * *
Ch. 15: Invasion of the Coffee Snatchers
* * *
"God is punishing me," Lorelai sniveled, wiping her nose for the fiftieth time. She tossed the tissue into the pile that had accumulated next to her bed.
Rory put the cup of coffee on Lorelai's nightstand. "Coffee cures all," she said, then looked at the mound of tissues. "I'll get rid of Mt. Saint Kleenex for you."
"You can be even more useful if you get take this cold from me."
"No way. I have three more days of winter vacation and I'm not wasting them by being sick." Rory scooped the tissues into a bag. "I'll call the HazMat team to dispose of these."
"Ask them to stop by the diner on the way over here and bring me some food."
"And while I'm at it, get the dirt on Luke, right?" Lorelai had told Rory about her Luke-encounter.
Lorelai shrugged. "I just want to know if he's mad or angry or…" she trailed off.
"Single," Rory suggested.
Lorelai groaned and pulled the covers up to her chin. "I'm a horrible person."
Rory patted her mother on the head. "I'll refrain from passing judgment. Now, what do you want?"
"A margarita and chili-fries."
"Yuck."
"I know, but that's what I feel like having."
"I'll get you soup."
"Fine," Lorelai dejectedly said. She began coughing, and Rory knew that the fit could last a while.
"I'll just be going now."
Lorelai coughed in response.
After picking up some more medicine and Kleenex at the market, Rory went to Luke's.
"Got any soup today?" she asked him.
He looked up and saw Rory, noting that Lorelai wasn't with her. "Yeah, chicken noodle."
"Can I get a bunch of it to go?"
Luke put down the order pad he was holding and told Rory to follow him. He stopped at the foot of the stairs, where they were hidden from the nosy patrons. "Did your mom tell you anything?" he vaguely asked.
"She did tell me to always use a condom and when possible, hold out for dinner first," Rory joked, not sure if Luke was supposed to know that she knew.
Luke looked disappointed, and Rory realized that he knew that she knew. "She's avoiding me, isn't she?"
Rory decided to just be honest. "Yes, but not purposely. She has a cold."
"Oh." He wanted to say more, but it wasn't Rory he wanted to say it to. So he settled for, "I'll go get you the soup."
"Thanks," Rory said, but he'd already walked away.
* * *
The next day, there was a timid knock on Lorelai's bedroom door. Since when did Rory knock?
"Come in," she called out, and her question was answered when Jay, not Rory, entered. "Um, hi," Lorelai greeted.
"Hey. Rory let me in. How're you feeling?"
Guilty, Lorelai answered in her mind, but out loud she said, "Mostly better."
Jay put a plastic container on Lorelai's nightstand. "I brought you some soup; actually, Sookie made it, so any 'oohs' and 'yums' are to her credit."
Lorelai wanted to ask Jay why she was delivering it instead of Sookie, but was afraid Jay would answer her by smothering her with a pillow. So instead she said, "Thanks."
"She wanted to bring it to you herself but she screwed up the first batch, something about the pepper grinder falling into the pot, so she was already late to work as it was. She dropped it off at the diner, but she said to tell you that she'll bring you more when she gets off."
Lorelai could have sworn Jay was babbling. Why was she babbling? Lorelai was getting more paranoid by the second; she was trying to find something to say when Jay spoke up again.
"Can I ask you a favor?"
"Sure," Lorelai said, hoping her favor wouldn't be 'stop making out with my boyfriend.'
"Since I decided to take the permanent position they offered me, I'd like to start looking for a house. Luke's busy on weekends with the diner, so I didn't want to ask him to take off work, and you're always so honest in your opinions I thought you'd be good to go house hunting with."
Lorelai's continuing paranoia latched on to the word 'honest' and she immediately assumed that Jay knew all about her indiscretion with Luke. What other explanation could there be when she picked a word like 'honest' out of all the words in the English language? It could have been coincidence, though Lorelai wouldn't have bet the farm on that. Not that she had a farm to bet, anyhow. But as she looked at the other woman's face, all she could see was a hopeful expression.
"Sure," Lorelai agreed. Jay grinned. It was after all, the least Lorelai could do after snogging with her boyfriend, right? Also, Jay looking for her own house meant she wasn't considering moving in with Luke any time soon, and that was definitely of the good. "Is tomorrow okay with you?"
"But you're sick."
"I should be better by tomorrow. Plus, I'm really bored. I even made sock puppets to pass the time, but then I was afraid I might get committed to the madhouse, so I stopped playing with them."
"Are you serious?"
"Look on the other nightstand."
Jay looked, and saw two socks lying there. She picked them up.
"That one's Frenchie," Lorelai informed her of the white sock with the little felt beret and a little felt mustache. "You put him on your hand and stick a candy cigarette in his mouth."
Jay grinned. "And this one?" she asked about the green sock.
"That's Maglar, the alien. His planet's reserves of coffee had run out, so he comes to Earth and tries to steal tons of French Roast beans."
"So Frenchie's trying to stop him?"
"You catch on quick."
"Maybe we'll end up sharing a room at the madhouse."
Lorelai smiled, trying not to think of the other thing they had shared.
* * *
"That was the most disgusting house I've ever seen," Jay fiercely whispered as they walked away from the offensive structure.
"I thought I was going blind when I walked into that kitchen. It's like a time capsule from 1972," Lorelai agreed.
"Orange countertops? They must have been on drugs."
"The house is probably on the market because the owners killed themselves. Mustard shag carpet is so depressing."
They got into Lorelai's jeep. As Lorelai started it, she asked, "Wanna get ice cream before we see the rest?" She felt much better today, physically at least, but a healthy dose of Rocky Road would boost her immune system.
"Sounds good to me."
In minutes they were at the ice cream shop. When they walked in, Lorelai saw Kirk behind the counter.
"Since when do you work here?" she asked him.
"Does it matter?" he asked back.
"No, but I'm curious like the monkey."
"Curiosity killed the monkey," Kirk morosely told her.
"No, it killed the cat. It made the monkey rich, famous, and with a successful franchise of books and merchandise," Lorelai corrected him.
Kirk glared at her. "Fine. But I'm the one holding the ice cream scooper, which means I wield the power in here. And you shouldn't argue with He Who Wields the Power. Unless you don't want your double scoop of Rocky Road."
"You can't threaten me!"
He waved the scooper in the air. "Can't I?"
Jay stepped up to the counter. "Kirk, you'll let Lorelai get her ice cream, right?" She gave him a big smile. Kirk smiled back before scooping Lorelai's ice cream and handing her the cone.
As they walked out, Lorelai with her ice cream, and Jay with her far more disgusting Toffutti, Lorelai remarked, "Wow, that's the first time I've seen him smile since…actually I don't think I've ever seen him smile."
Jay looked a little puzzled. "He smiles all the time."
"Maybe you only see Bizarro Kirk, and we see Real Kirk."
Jay shrugged. "He's like a nut."
Lorelai snorted. "He is a nut!"
"No. Well, yeah, but that's not what I meant. He's got a hard, impenetrable exterior but once you figure out how to crack it, the inside's much more enjoyable."
Lorelai kind of lost her appetite for the ice cream. "No more talk of Kirk's nuts."
* * *
Fortunately for Jay, she found a place that she absolutely loved. Unfortunately for Lorelai, it was only a block away from her house. Also unfortunately for Lorelai, Jay wanted to celebrate by eating at Luke's.
Lorelai tried to think of a valid excuse not to go to Luke's, but she was, after all, Lorelai Gilmore, and there was no valid excuse for passing up one of Luke's hamburgers and a cup of coffee. So she told herself to be strong, suck it up, and go in.
"Uh, Lorelai?"
"Yeah, Jay?"
"I think the people at this table here are getting a little pissed that I've been holding the door open for thirty seconds."
"We are," the woman at the table said.
The man with her decided to throw in his two cents. "I think I've got frostbite."
Lorelai shot him a dirty look because he was an exaggerating scumbag but stepped into the diner anyhow. "Sorry," she told Jay, "I uh, blanked out there for a moment."
"No biggie. Sometimes I do that too. Were you thinking about Alexei Nemov doing his ring routine? That always makes me space out. Those arms, wow."
Jay headed for the counter as she spoke, but Lorelai made a quick grab at an empty table. "Hey, let's sit here instead of up there. It's quieter," she lied. There was no way she'd sit at the counter and be two feet from Luke every second.
Jay shrugged, and they sat down, Lorelai keenly keeping an eye out for Luke. She told herself his initial reaction to seeing her would be important. From there she could gauge how he was feeling.
Her nose itched, and she quickly grabbed a napkin off the table just in time to catch her sneeze. Damn cold. She wiped her nose and lowered the napkin. Luke was there, standing at their table.
"Son of a bitch," Lorelai mumbled; she'd missed his initial reaction.
"Now there's the friendliest greeting I've ever gotten," Luke sarcastically said.
Lorelai cringed. He sounded mad. Well, he actually sounded sarcastic, but that was only a step away from mad, right?
"No, not you. The old guy with the frostbite," Lorelai covered.
"Who?"
Jay shook her head. "Long story."
Lorelai took the momentary distraction as Luke looked at Jay to look at Luke.
Jay must have ordered, because she excused herself and went to the restroom. Luke turned back to Lorelai and said something.
"What?" she asked.
"I said, 'what do you want?'"
"Now there's a question with more than one implication." Ha, frivolity, therein lay the key to getting through this situation.
"What do you want to eat?" Luke clarified.
Lorelai couldn't even think about food at this point. Was it just her imagination, or did Luke say that with some snippyness in his voice. Was snippyness a word? Maybe Luke was just snippity. Or was snippity not a word either?
She was busy thinking, so she said, "I'll have what she's having," because that's what she said most of the time when she ate at Luke's with Rory.
Luke tapped his pencil against the pad. Why did he even need to write down the orders? They were super easy to remember. Damn it, she was drifting again. Focus on Luke. He didn't look angry, really. He looked a little confused. A little pained, a little exasperated, and a little nervous. Basically, he looked constipated.
"You want what Jay wants," Luke tried to confirm, and Lorelai wondered if he'd intended the double meaning.
"Uh," Lorelai tried to stall for thinking time. "Maybe?" was all she could come up with.
Luke tapped his pencil again. "Veggie burger with celery sticks? And a decaf coffee? Don't worry about the side of skepticism though, that's on the house."
Lorelai winced. "Okay, then no, I don't want what she wants," Lorelai quickly said. "To eat," she then added.
"The usual suspects then?"
She nodded. "Yup. Kaiser-bun Soze me, big guy." Jeez, even her cleverness was ditching her.
Luke left with their order, and Lorelai breathed a quiet sigh of relief. That went….well, it went.
-end ch. 15-
A/N: I apologize for my tardiness in posting- half of it's my fault, as I thought I'd sent it to my beta reader but I didn't. Actually, 3/4ths is my fault cause it also took me forever to write. The other ¼ is her fault though, because once I really did send it to her, she was busy and couldn't read it right away. And I'm glad I waited for it, because she always catches the weird crap I don't even realize I write. As she says, I have Phrase Dyslexia. So a very big thank you to Rebecca.
And an even bigger thank you to everyone who's enjoyed this story and reviewed and sent me emails. (I forgot that my email addy listed is my secondary one, and I hadn't checked it in like two months, so I apologize if you've sent me an email and I never replied. I'm getting around to it, I promise). You guys really do make writing all this worth it!
And on a final note- I only have one more chapter to write, I think. I've already finished the last 2 chapters so there should be 3 more coming, and SOON, I promise!!