*Disclaimer: I don't own the series Gilmore Girls or the characters. All I
own is my imagination and the plot.
*A/N: Hey!!! :-) Happy Belated New Year!!! I hope everyone had fun, cause I sorta did. Anyway, school starts in two days (!), so this is the last update you're going to get until next week. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter, cause I personally think that this is the best one so far. :-)
*~*~*:-)*~*~*Bye, smile :-)
Rory opened her eyes to a somber shade of black that reminded her of a starless night. But as she became more aware of her surroundings, she realized that she was lying on her bed, wearing a dress that was simply black. At first the confusion started to play its mind games, refusing her access to her memories. However, when she saw her heels sprawled lonely on the floor, she found the scantily evident string that triggered her memory.
At first she could only remember a few certain images; the basketball court, Jess' hieroglyphic eyes, that denied her the entrance she so desperately wanted right at that specific moment. As she closed her eyes, the images got more vivid and hazily real. Soon she could feel her senses kicking in, making it seem as if she was reliving last night's event. She could hear Jess' few, but meaningful words brushing against her ears, before protectively wrapping around her in an unsurely matter. Rory had to admit that she liked how he had pulled her towards him, mimicking the meaning of his words. It hadn't seemed like a tender gesture at the moment, because of her hesitant feelings towards him, but right now.......it made her more nervous than she had ever been, making her uncertain about every word she had uttered to him. Especially about the way she refused to believe his harshly worded warning, that ended up being true.
Rory opened her eyes again, because she got the urge to cry again, but she didn't let more than one tear spill, before realizing that crying over what had happened wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't turn back time. And if it miraculously could be done, she wouldn't have said yes to Dean's offer to go out on a date. After all history could be repeated, but not if she didn't make the same mistake again.
She slowly got up out of bed and took the couple of steps to her mirror. She studied her reflection; her hair was messily framing her face, her dress was wrinkled, she had dried up mascara on her cheeks......... And still Rory smiled at herself. Jess had never once given her a weird look or called her normal. For he caught a glimpse of what she really was, and normal wasn't a big enough of a word.
*~*~*
Rory took a deep breath, before opening the door and stepping into Luke's diner. Luke's always made her feel comfortable and more confident of herself, probably because no one judged one and other in this diner. To the many eyes of Stars Hollow it didn't matter if you wore flannel shirts or a business suit. The truth was no one cared and it sometimes made Rory wonder why she was even concerned about other people's opinions. As long as she was accepted by the people that surrounded her, she would always wear an inner smile.
She met her mom's worried, yet pleasant gaze, as she looked around the diner. When she found her mom, which wasn't that hard since there were only a few people scattered around the diner, she let her inner smile shine through on her face and walked over to Lorelai's table.
''Hey mom,'' she said, as she sat down, dropping her bag on the floor as she did this.
''Morning, sweets. So, did you get my note this morning.''
Rory nodded.
''Good, cause I know that sometimes it's hard to find my notes, that's why I put this one on your bag. And I wrote with a neon colored pen this time, just in case,'' Lorelai said, as she took a sip of her coffee, making it seem as if she was casually conversing with her daughter, but Rory already knew the point that lay behind her mom's sentence.
''I'm sorry I didn't come to Luke's last night.''
''Why didn't you ?'' Lorelai asked, putting down her coffee and looking at Rory.
''Homework.''
''Homework ? Sweetie, have you ever heard of the saying liar liar pants on fire ? Unless you take it literally there's an actual point behind it,'' Lorelai calmly said.
Rory lowered her eyes. ''I didn't come to Luke's, cause I was somewhere else.''
''Well, of course I hadn't figured that out yet.''
Just as Rory was about to start her sentence, footsteps that seemed so loud in this early morning, disturbed the daily morning routines around her and lead her attention towards the counter. She wasn't a least bit surprised when she found Jess' figure with her searching and curious eyes, wondering if he woke up as confused as she did this morning. Rory moved her eyes up to his face, but quickly retreated when she discovered his gaze resting upon hers. When she returned her attention to her mom, Lorelai had a suspicious gleam in her eyes.
''What happened ?''
Rory sighed. ''I lied about my date. It wasn't okay. I had a horrible time.''
''I told you the arcade wasn't the place for a great-ish kinda date.''
Rory shook her head. ''It wasn't that. I had fun the first hour with Mr. Ring Ring.''
''Please tell me that that's a nickname you came up with for Dean,'' Lorelai interrupted.
Rory faintly smiled. ''Mr. Ring Ring was the pinball machine I played with almost the entire night. See, Dean and I didn't spend any time together that night.''
Lorelai let out a relieved sigh. ''Good, cause I was thinking about asking you that, but it didn't seem appropriate since it was your first date and all, but eventually I was going to bring it up. Which is now, but I didn't really bring it up, so I guess it doesn't count.''
''We were on separate sides of the room the entire night,'' Rory continued. ''And then when it was time to go home I found him talking to this other girl.''
''Rory..........''
''And after he walked me home, he hugged me. Like I was his teddy bear or something.''
Lorelai couldn't stop herself from softly laughing at her daughter's choice of words. ''His teddy bear ?''
''Yeah, a big soft one that you only hug, because of that.''
''That explains..........well nothing, cause I thought everything went fine between you and Dean. But what I'm curious about is that little look you and Jess just shared.''
''That was.......I don't know. All I do know for sure is that last night, I put on one of your dresses and headed over to the basketball court.........,'' Rory started.
''To impress him ?''
''No.'' Rory shook her head. ''I was confused, cause after I saw Dean with that girl I thought he liked girls who dressed up better.''
''So, you went to the basketball court to play basketball with Jess ?''
Rory shrugged. ''I don't really know why I went there, but it was.........nice.''
Lorelai raised her eyebrow. ''You two didn't take the one on one thing literally, did you ?''
Rory grimaced. ''Mom, of course not. He was just........really nice to me and after that we played basketball.''
''You wore your sneakers underneath a dress ?''
''I wore heels,'' Rory replied.
''I'm surprised you didn't tip over or something.''
Rory softly laughed, as the humor of the situation finally became clear to her. All of a sudden she stopped laughing, letting it fade quickly, as she listened to the pair of familiar footsteps as they came closer. As soon as the door of the diner closed behind him, she got up too.
''I have to get to school too,'' she said, adding the last word to distract her mom's attention from the fact that she got up as soon as Jess left.
Lorelai nodded. ''Are you sure you're okay ?''
''Yeah, I'll see you later.''
''Bye hon.''
''Bye,'' Rory quickly said, before following Jess' footsteps and leaving the diner.
*~*~*
Once Rory was outside, she found herself easily catching up with Jess. It was as if he had sensed that she wanted to speak to him privately and Rory was glad that he seemed to read her so effortlessly. As she fell in pace with him, she glanced at him, noticing the cigarette that he held between his fingers, unlit. This was one of those things that reminded her of the fact that she would never figure him out completely. Every word he said, every look he gave her, weren't just random words or looks, every single one of them meant something. They all were a clue though she knew she would never want to unravel his mystery.
Jess looked at his cigarette once more, before putting it back into his pocket, followed by his hands.
''So, how are you ?'' he asked, without even so much as a warning, keeping his eyes straight forward.
''I have an inner smile,'' Rory said thoughtlessly, remembering too late that it wasn't her mother she was talking too.
Jess raised an eyebrow and couldn't help but look at her. ''What ?''
Rory softly smiled at his understandable confusion. ''I'm good.''
Jess nodded, as he let his eyes wander over her face once more, before returning them to the school in front of them. Honestly, he hadn't thought about what happened last night at the basketball court once. He just brushed it off, pretending that it was nothing. That way he would be sure that he would be in control of a situation like this one.
As they reached the school, Rory stopped walking. ''Jess ?''
He turned around to look at her, ignoring a few guys that were calling his name.
''Yeah ?''
''I wanted to apologize and thank you for last night. Me showing up in a dress must have seemed weird and then I did the whole crying thing and..........''
Jess shrugged. ''It's alright. Look, I have to go. Talk to you later, okay ?''
He met her eyes, as he waited for her response. Rory smiled and nodded. ''Okay.''
And with that they went their separate ways. He headed for the group of guys that had hollered his name earlier and she disappeared inside the building, thinking that maybe those guys weren't as bad as they seemed. Jess had ended up surprising her and having a different side to him, so why couldn't they.
*~*~*
On her way to the cafeteria, Rory caught herself feeling a pleasant kind of nervous. As if someone was softly brushing her stomach, tickling her. She smiled at someone she vaguely knew as she entered the cafeteria, but the person didn't smile back. They were too preoccupied with something else. As she let her gaze go around the diner, she saw that everyone's head was turned in the same direction. She instantly broke the weird daze she had been in ever since this morning and forced herself to focus on her surrounding, immediately hearing the screams that always accompanied a fight.
''Rory !''
Rory turned her head in the direction the voice had come from and saw Lane quickly coming her way.
''Hey, what's going on ?''
Lane shrugged. ''All I know is that there are two guys fighting, but I didn't get close enough to see their faces yet.''
''Who do you think they are ?''
Lane shrugged again. ''Don't know. Let's check it out.''
Before Rory could say anything Lane was already pushing passed people to make her way to the front of the crowd. And Rory just sighed and followed, admitting to herself that she was a little curious. When she reached the front of the crowd, she couldn't believe her eyes. Right in front of her, Dean and Jess were fighting. And neither one of them seemed aware of her presence. As Jess returned Dean's punch, Rory automatically took a step forwards. Though she didn't like it when people fought, she normally never got in between, but this time was an exception.
As she got closer, she got the chance to examine the damage they had done to each other. Luckily she couldn't spot anything except for a couple of cuts and bruises.
''Dean,'' she said, purposely choosing to say his name instead of Jess'.
Both Dean and Jess' head shot up to look at her. Rory didn't look at Jess though, she focused her faze upon Dean's hard expression.
''Can we talk ?''
Dean looked from Jess to Rory and sighed. He turned around without a word and headed for the exit. Rory followed, avoiding Jess' amazed eyes as she did this.
*~*~*
Dean crossed his arms, as Rory joined him in the hallway.
''Before you say anything, he came up to me and punched me without giving me a reason,'' Dean said, keeping his eyes on the wall behind Rory.
Rory wasn't surprised by his words, though she didn't know Jess that well she had expected him to do something like this. Though the reason for his actions remained unclear to her.
''I'm sorry. I would have stopped him if I knew that he was going to start a fight during our lunch period.......... Are you okay ?''
Dean brought his eyes down to Rory, as he nodded. ''Yeah, it was pretty innocent.''
''Yeah, I can tell by the cuts and bruises.''
Dean shrugged. ''He has them too.''
''I saw...........,'' Rory said, feeling guilty for not going over to Jess to see how he was doing. ''Dean, we need to talk.''
Dean nodded, as he ran one of his hands through his hair. ''I figured that. I think I also owe you an apology for ruining our date.''
''Our date,'' Rory repeated his words.
''You're really nice, but not exactly my type.''
''And Christy is ?''
Dean smiled and shook his head. ''That was bad judgement. She thought 'Lord of the Rings' was a jewelry store.''
Rory softly laughed. ''Really ?''
Dean nodded. ''Yeah..........I'm sorry. I would just like a girl who had more things in common with me........and who couldn't beat me in basketball.''
Rory smiled, taking that as a compliment. After all, a guy who didn't appreciate her talents wasn't worth it anyway. And Dean was right, it was nice to have things in common with the person you dated. It made things just a little easier.....
*~*~*
After school Rory headed over to the diner, desperately needing a cup of coffee and a little bit of luck. As she saw down at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee, she marked the fact that Jess wasn't here. Before she could help herself, she opened her mouth, letting a question escape that she would find herself asking frequently in the near future.
''Luke, is Jess upstairs ?''
Luke nodded, as he poured her coffee. Rory looked at the curtain that hid the stairs from the customers in the diner and asked another soon to be normal question.
''Would you mind if I went up there to talk to him ?''
Luke looked up at Rory. ''You actually wanna talk to him ?''
''Yeah, I promise I won't be long.''
Luke shrugged. ''There's one door, you can't miss it.''
''Thanks,'' Rory said, as she took the coffee and vanished behind the curtain.
She made her way up the stairs, her footsteps sounding almost as loud as the beating of her heart. She took a deep breath, before knocking on the door of the apartment.
''Do you need instructions on turning the knob ?!'' Jess' voice came from behind the door.
Rory slowly opened the door and stepped into the apartment, quickly closing the door, stopping herself from turning around and leaving. Rory forced herself to walk over to Jess, who was sitting on the couch, with his back facing her.
''Uhm........hey.''
Jess slowly brought his eyes up. ''Rory, hey.''
''I need to talk to you.''
Jess nodded, closing his book and watching her as she carefully sat down next to him.
''I wanted to apologize for what happened at school. You know, not asking if you were okay,'' she said, scanning his face with her eyes, relieved that he only had a cut in his lip. ''So, are you ?''
Jess subconsciously licked his lips, before answering. ''I can handle a little pain.''
Rory nodded. ''Still, I'm really sorry. I just had to talk to Dean..........about our date.''
''And...............?''
Rory shrugged. ''I'm not his type......and neither his Christy,'' she said, a smile appearing on her face as she said the last part.
Jess snorted. ''I don't think Christy's anybody's type, she though 'The Sun Also Rises' was an expression that we just randomly used in our English Literature class.''
''At least I'm smarter than her.''
''You know, I haven't known you for a long time, but I do know that you underestimate yourself often.''
''That's called being modest,'' Rory said, as she looked around the apartment, letting her eyes linger on Jess' collection of books.
''Yes, I have an impressive book collection.''
Rory returned her eyes to Jess. ''And obviously you don't possess that quality.''
''But I do possess some first editions.''
''Really ?'' Rory asked, her eyes gleaming with interest and hunger.
Jess nodded, as he opened his book again.
''Jess, would you mind if I stayed here for a while ?''
Jess smirked as he shook his head, knowing that she was already on her way to his bookcases. This was just another thing that they had in common.....
*R*E*V*I*E*W*! Please ? :-) So........I'm pretty happy with this chapter, but maybe you guys have other opinions, so let me know. Thanks for the amazing reviews. I know I don't thank each person separately like some authors do, but I do appreciate every single review I get. So THANKS!!! :-)
*A/N: Hey!!! :-) Happy Belated New Year!!! I hope everyone had fun, cause I sorta did. Anyway, school starts in two days (!), so this is the last update you're going to get until next week. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter, cause I personally think that this is the best one so far. :-)
*~*~*:-)*~*~*Bye, smile :-)
Rory opened her eyes to a somber shade of black that reminded her of a starless night. But as she became more aware of her surroundings, she realized that she was lying on her bed, wearing a dress that was simply black. At first the confusion started to play its mind games, refusing her access to her memories. However, when she saw her heels sprawled lonely on the floor, she found the scantily evident string that triggered her memory.
At first she could only remember a few certain images; the basketball court, Jess' hieroglyphic eyes, that denied her the entrance she so desperately wanted right at that specific moment. As she closed her eyes, the images got more vivid and hazily real. Soon she could feel her senses kicking in, making it seem as if she was reliving last night's event. She could hear Jess' few, but meaningful words brushing against her ears, before protectively wrapping around her in an unsurely matter. Rory had to admit that she liked how he had pulled her towards him, mimicking the meaning of his words. It hadn't seemed like a tender gesture at the moment, because of her hesitant feelings towards him, but right now.......it made her more nervous than she had ever been, making her uncertain about every word she had uttered to him. Especially about the way she refused to believe his harshly worded warning, that ended up being true.
Rory opened her eyes again, because she got the urge to cry again, but she didn't let more than one tear spill, before realizing that crying over what had happened wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't turn back time. And if it miraculously could be done, she wouldn't have said yes to Dean's offer to go out on a date. After all history could be repeated, but not if she didn't make the same mistake again.
She slowly got up out of bed and took the couple of steps to her mirror. She studied her reflection; her hair was messily framing her face, her dress was wrinkled, she had dried up mascara on her cheeks......... And still Rory smiled at herself. Jess had never once given her a weird look or called her normal. For he caught a glimpse of what she really was, and normal wasn't a big enough of a word.
*~*~*
Rory took a deep breath, before opening the door and stepping into Luke's diner. Luke's always made her feel comfortable and more confident of herself, probably because no one judged one and other in this diner. To the many eyes of Stars Hollow it didn't matter if you wore flannel shirts or a business suit. The truth was no one cared and it sometimes made Rory wonder why she was even concerned about other people's opinions. As long as she was accepted by the people that surrounded her, she would always wear an inner smile.
She met her mom's worried, yet pleasant gaze, as she looked around the diner. When she found her mom, which wasn't that hard since there were only a few people scattered around the diner, she let her inner smile shine through on her face and walked over to Lorelai's table.
''Hey mom,'' she said, as she sat down, dropping her bag on the floor as she did this.
''Morning, sweets. So, did you get my note this morning.''
Rory nodded.
''Good, cause I know that sometimes it's hard to find my notes, that's why I put this one on your bag. And I wrote with a neon colored pen this time, just in case,'' Lorelai said, as she took a sip of her coffee, making it seem as if she was casually conversing with her daughter, but Rory already knew the point that lay behind her mom's sentence.
''I'm sorry I didn't come to Luke's last night.''
''Why didn't you ?'' Lorelai asked, putting down her coffee and looking at Rory.
''Homework.''
''Homework ? Sweetie, have you ever heard of the saying liar liar pants on fire ? Unless you take it literally there's an actual point behind it,'' Lorelai calmly said.
Rory lowered her eyes. ''I didn't come to Luke's, cause I was somewhere else.''
''Well, of course I hadn't figured that out yet.''
Just as Rory was about to start her sentence, footsteps that seemed so loud in this early morning, disturbed the daily morning routines around her and lead her attention towards the counter. She wasn't a least bit surprised when she found Jess' figure with her searching and curious eyes, wondering if he woke up as confused as she did this morning. Rory moved her eyes up to his face, but quickly retreated when she discovered his gaze resting upon hers. When she returned her attention to her mom, Lorelai had a suspicious gleam in her eyes.
''What happened ?''
Rory sighed. ''I lied about my date. It wasn't okay. I had a horrible time.''
''I told you the arcade wasn't the place for a great-ish kinda date.''
Rory shook her head. ''It wasn't that. I had fun the first hour with Mr. Ring Ring.''
''Please tell me that that's a nickname you came up with for Dean,'' Lorelai interrupted.
Rory faintly smiled. ''Mr. Ring Ring was the pinball machine I played with almost the entire night. See, Dean and I didn't spend any time together that night.''
Lorelai let out a relieved sigh. ''Good, cause I was thinking about asking you that, but it didn't seem appropriate since it was your first date and all, but eventually I was going to bring it up. Which is now, but I didn't really bring it up, so I guess it doesn't count.''
''We were on separate sides of the room the entire night,'' Rory continued. ''And then when it was time to go home I found him talking to this other girl.''
''Rory..........''
''And after he walked me home, he hugged me. Like I was his teddy bear or something.''
Lorelai couldn't stop herself from softly laughing at her daughter's choice of words. ''His teddy bear ?''
''Yeah, a big soft one that you only hug, because of that.''
''That explains..........well nothing, cause I thought everything went fine between you and Dean. But what I'm curious about is that little look you and Jess just shared.''
''That was.......I don't know. All I do know for sure is that last night, I put on one of your dresses and headed over to the basketball court.........,'' Rory started.
''To impress him ?''
''No.'' Rory shook her head. ''I was confused, cause after I saw Dean with that girl I thought he liked girls who dressed up better.''
''So, you went to the basketball court to play basketball with Jess ?''
Rory shrugged. ''I don't really know why I went there, but it was.........nice.''
Lorelai raised her eyebrow. ''You two didn't take the one on one thing literally, did you ?''
Rory grimaced. ''Mom, of course not. He was just........really nice to me and after that we played basketball.''
''You wore your sneakers underneath a dress ?''
''I wore heels,'' Rory replied.
''I'm surprised you didn't tip over or something.''
Rory softly laughed, as the humor of the situation finally became clear to her. All of a sudden she stopped laughing, letting it fade quickly, as she listened to the pair of familiar footsteps as they came closer. As soon as the door of the diner closed behind him, she got up too.
''I have to get to school too,'' she said, adding the last word to distract her mom's attention from the fact that she got up as soon as Jess left.
Lorelai nodded. ''Are you sure you're okay ?''
''Yeah, I'll see you later.''
''Bye hon.''
''Bye,'' Rory quickly said, before following Jess' footsteps and leaving the diner.
*~*~*
Once Rory was outside, she found herself easily catching up with Jess. It was as if he had sensed that she wanted to speak to him privately and Rory was glad that he seemed to read her so effortlessly. As she fell in pace with him, she glanced at him, noticing the cigarette that he held between his fingers, unlit. This was one of those things that reminded her of the fact that she would never figure him out completely. Every word he said, every look he gave her, weren't just random words or looks, every single one of them meant something. They all were a clue though she knew she would never want to unravel his mystery.
Jess looked at his cigarette once more, before putting it back into his pocket, followed by his hands.
''So, how are you ?'' he asked, without even so much as a warning, keeping his eyes straight forward.
''I have an inner smile,'' Rory said thoughtlessly, remembering too late that it wasn't her mother she was talking too.
Jess raised an eyebrow and couldn't help but look at her. ''What ?''
Rory softly smiled at his understandable confusion. ''I'm good.''
Jess nodded, as he let his eyes wander over her face once more, before returning them to the school in front of them. Honestly, he hadn't thought about what happened last night at the basketball court once. He just brushed it off, pretending that it was nothing. That way he would be sure that he would be in control of a situation like this one.
As they reached the school, Rory stopped walking. ''Jess ?''
He turned around to look at her, ignoring a few guys that were calling his name.
''Yeah ?''
''I wanted to apologize and thank you for last night. Me showing up in a dress must have seemed weird and then I did the whole crying thing and..........''
Jess shrugged. ''It's alright. Look, I have to go. Talk to you later, okay ?''
He met her eyes, as he waited for her response. Rory smiled and nodded. ''Okay.''
And with that they went their separate ways. He headed for the group of guys that had hollered his name earlier and she disappeared inside the building, thinking that maybe those guys weren't as bad as they seemed. Jess had ended up surprising her and having a different side to him, so why couldn't they.
*~*~*
On her way to the cafeteria, Rory caught herself feeling a pleasant kind of nervous. As if someone was softly brushing her stomach, tickling her. She smiled at someone she vaguely knew as she entered the cafeteria, but the person didn't smile back. They were too preoccupied with something else. As she let her gaze go around the diner, she saw that everyone's head was turned in the same direction. She instantly broke the weird daze she had been in ever since this morning and forced herself to focus on her surrounding, immediately hearing the screams that always accompanied a fight.
''Rory !''
Rory turned her head in the direction the voice had come from and saw Lane quickly coming her way.
''Hey, what's going on ?''
Lane shrugged. ''All I know is that there are two guys fighting, but I didn't get close enough to see their faces yet.''
''Who do you think they are ?''
Lane shrugged again. ''Don't know. Let's check it out.''
Before Rory could say anything Lane was already pushing passed people to make her way to the front of the crowd. And Rory just sighed and followed, admitting to herself that she was a little curious. When she reached the front of the crowd, she couldn't believe her eyes. Right in front of her, Dean and Jess were fighting. And neither one of them seemed aware of her presence. As Jess returned Dean's punch, Rory automatically took a step forwards. Though she didn't like it when people fought, she normally never got in between, but this time was an exception.
As she got closer, she got the chance to examine the damage they had done to each other. Luckily she couldn't spot anything except for a couple of cuts and bruises.
''Dean,'' she said, purposely choosing to say his name instead of Jess'.
Both Dean and Jess' head shot up to look at her. Rory didn't look at Jess though, she focused her faze upon Dean's hard expression.
''Can we talk ?''
Dean looked from Jess to Rory and sighed. He turned around without a word and headed for the exit. Rory followed, avoiding Jess' amazed eyes as she did this.
*~*~*
Dean crossed his arms, as Rory joined him in the hallway.
''Before you say anything, he came up to me and punched me without giving me a reason,'' Dean said, keeping his eyes on the wall behind Rory.
Rory wasn't surprised by his words, though she didn't know Jess that well she had expected him to do something like this. Though the reason for his actions remained unclear to her.
''I'm sorry. I would have stopped him if I knew that he was going to start a fight during our lunch period.......... Are you okay ?''
Dean brought his eyes down to Rory, as he nodded. ''Yeah, it was pretty innocent.''
''Yeah, I can tell by the cuts and bruises.''
Dean shrugged. ''He has them too.''
''I saw...........,'' Rory said, feeling guilty for not going over to Jess to see how he was doing. ''Dean, we need to talk.''
Dean nodded, as he ran one of his hands through his hair. ''I figured that. I think I also owe you an apology for ruining our date.''
''Our date,'' Rory repeated his words.
''You're really nice, but not exactly my type.''
''And Christy is ?''
Dean smiled and shook his head. ''That was bad judgement. She thought 'Lord of the Rings' was a jewelry store.''
Rory softly laughed. ''Really ?''
Dean nodded. ''Yeah..........I'm sorry. I would just like a girl who had more things in common with me........and who couldn't beat me in basketball.''
Rory smiled, taking that as a compliment. After all, a guy who didn't appreciate her talents wasn't worth it anyway. And Dean was right, it was nice to have things in common with the person you dated. It made things just a little easier.....
*~*~*
After school Rory headed over to the diner, desperately needing a cup of coffee and a little bit of luck. As she saw down at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee, she marked the fact that Jess wasn't here. Before she could help herself, she opened her mouth, letting a question escape that she would find herself asking frequently in the near future.
''Luke, is Jess upstairs ?''
Luke nodded, as he poured her coffee. Rory looked at the curtain that hid the stairs from the customers in the diner and asked another soon to be normal question.
''Would you mind if I went up there to talk to him ?''
Luke looked up at Rory. ''You actually wanna talk to him ?''
''Yeah, I promise I won't be long.''
Luke shrugged. ''There's one door, you can't miss it.''
''Thanks,'' Rory said, as she took the coffee and vanished behind the curtain.
She made her way up the stairs, her footsteps sounding almost as loud as the beating of her heart. She took a deep breath, before knocking on the door of the apartment.
''Do you need instructions on turning the knob ?!'' Jess' voice came from behind the door.
Rory slowly opened the door and stepped into the apartment, quickly closing the door, stopping herself from turning around and leaving. Rory forced herself to walk over to Jess, who was sitting on the couch, with his back facing her.
''Uhm........hey.''
Jess slowly brought his eyes up. ''Rory, hey.''
''I need to talk to you.''
Jess nodded, closing his book and watching her as she carefully sat down next to him.
''I wanted to apologize for what happened at school. You know, not asking if you were okay,'' she said, scanning his face with her eyes, relieved that he only had a cut in his lip. ''So, are you ?''
Jess subconsciously licked his lips, before answering. ''I can handle a little pain.''
Rory nodded. ''Still, I'm really sorry. I just had to talk to Dean..........about our date.''
''And...............?''
Rory shrugged. ''I'm not his type......and neither his Christy,'' she said, a smile appearing on her face as she said the last part.
Jess snorted. ''I don't think Christy's anybody's type, she though 'The Sun Also Rises' was an expression that we just randomly used in our English Literature class.''
''At least I'm smarter than her.''
''You know, I haven't known you for a long time, but I do know that you underestimate yourself often.''
''That's called being modest,'' Rory said, as she looked around the apartment, letting her eyes linger on Jess' collection of books.
''Yes, I have an impressive book collection.''
Rory returned her eyes to Jess. ''And obviously you don't possess that quality.''
''But I do possess some first editions.''
''Really ?'' Rory asked, her eyes gleaming with interest and hunger.
Jess nodded, as he opened his book again.
''Jess, would you mind if I stayed here for a while ?''
Jess smirked as he shook his head, knowing that she was already on her way to his bookcases. This was just another thing that they had in common.....
*R*E*V*I*E*W*! Please ? :-) So........I'm pretty happy with this chapter, but maybe you guys have other opinions, so let me know. Thanks for the amazing reviews. I know I don't thank each person separately like some authors do, but I do appreciate every single review I get. So THANKS!!! :-)
