"So, Tristan, your boyfriend…is taking some chick
to a party?"
"Yes."
"Where's he's been asked to 'entertain' her."
"Yes."
"And you haven't asked to borrow my mountain climbing equipment to scale the mansion and wind up in his room?"
"No."
A pause.
"Do we own mountain climbing equipment?"
"Remember my whole fishing thing? See, the guy at the little outdoorsy supply store had this really great butt-"
"That's enough of that."
Rory laid her head down on the counter and sighed. It'd been a long day, especially with Tristan calling at four in the morning to inform her (albeit nervously) that he would be escorting a Miss Kylie Adams to his family's party, and would she possibly be able to refrain from castrating him until he had the chance to buy her a dozen roses and make it up to her? She had said that it was fine, have fun, eat a stuffed mushroom in her honor. She had heard his sigh of relief through the phone, and she herself had sighed after he hurriedly told her he had to be fitted for a tux and that he would talk to her later. Upon hearing the account of the phone call, Lorelai had offered to send out formal invitations to Tristan's ceremonial decapitation and/or castration. Rory had said it was unnecessary, but after thinking about Tristan's previous playboy status, asked her mom if she could send those invitations before the next day. Maybe add a mauve bow.
Possibly with a glossy finish.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"So Rory's boyfriend is going on a date with someone else? I knew he was no good, with that stupid spiky
hair-"
"Lucas, calm down. It was forced by his parents. Plus, it's not so much a date-date as a quasi-date. Just a fancy-shmancy get-together of sorts involving little crust-less sandwiches and inebriating liquid refreshment."
"Sounds
classy."
"Doesn't it though? Anyway, I need coffee."
"You
have coffee."
"…Yes. But I want more coffee. This cup is like what squirrels drink out of. Seriously, taking tips from the Hungry Diner?"
"The coffee bowls are getting washed as we speak. Well, as you speak. As you ramble. Whatever. Ah, hold on."
The phone in the diner was ringing, and Luke turned around long enough to answer the phone, unknowingly giving Lorelai a chance to steal the coffee pot. No big surprises here. While sipping languidly, Lorelai listened to Luke's side of the apparently-heated conversation. It went a little something as follows:
"Hi Liz.
"No Liz. "
"I know, Liz."
" But no. "
"Liz, I can't-"
"Liz, he can't-"
"Fine. Goodbye."
Lorelai looked up from her mug as he slammed the phone down and turned around.
"Well that was a fascinating conversation."
"'Luke', she says, 'I'm in trouble. Help me out', she says.' It'll be simple', she says.' Just take him for a couple months', she says…" Luke grumbled as he picked up the coffee pot and hurried off to fill Babette's cup. Lorelai, unsurprisingly, followed.
"So who said all that? Because I'm sort of inclined to believe it was someone named Liz, correct me if I'm wrong here, and she wants you to do something for a couple months. And it didn't really sound like you wanted to do this for a few months-"
Luke spun around, knocking over Kirk's tomato juice and ignoring his squeals of annoyance.
"Liz, " he seethed, "is my kid sister. My kid sister who, oddly enough, has a kid, A kid which she is sending. Here. To live here. With me."
"Huh." Lorelai looked contemplative for a moment, then smiled. "So, it should be fun! We can have a big 'Welcome to Stars Hollow, I bet you hate it' party, and I'll get to see how cute and flustered you are when…um, what's it's name?"
"Jess."
"Ooo a little girl!"
"No. No, a rather big boy. Seventeen, I think."
"Ah,
Rory's age. Cool. See? See this is good. He'll have a friend."
"Rumor has it Jess is slightly antisocial."
"Who
can be antisocial around me?"
"I'm not sure. Possibly a deaf-mute."
"Exactly.
I'm sure Jess will fit in great. No worries. Besides, everyone will love him.
Everyone around here loves everybody."
"Except Taylor. Did I tell you that last summer he tried to plant gardenias
near the dumpster to 'brighten it up'?"
"You know what gardenias are?"
"I
stomped them all out."
"Yes, but the fact remains…you can identify plants by their names. I am much
amused."
"Shut up."
"As
if I could. But there's no reason to be worried. I'm sure he's a great, sweet
little guy. How could he not be? He's related to you."
Lorelai smiled affectionately at Luke, kissed him on the cheek, and went back to her coffee. Luke smiled. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Rory
let out another sigh, and flipped the page in the book she was trying to
concentrate on while she curled up on one of the benches near the bus
stop. Stupid Tristan. Stupid Kylie.
Stupid snobby party. It was, let's see…she checked her watch and bit her lip.
Eight o'clock. She still had forever to go until the party would even begin
to wind down. What on earth was she supposed to do then? Pay attention to her
book? Hah. Not likely. Her thoughts, however, were suddenly interrupted with
the arrival of the eight o'clock bus pulling up. A few people trickled out,
looking tired and worn down, dragging their suitcases along and letting them
hit the pavement with a satisfying ker-plunk. One person in particular
caught her eye. He seemed about her age, dark hair, dark eyes, dark attitude.
He heaved a bag over his shoulder and walked over to the bench where Rory was
sitting and flopped down, casting a quick glance at her. She thought he might
be checking her out, but he turned his eyes away too soon to tell. Being the
ever-freakishly-polite person that she was, she smiled shyly and said, "Hi, I'm
Rory. Did you just move here?"
He looked at her again almost quizzically, and she immediately wished she could take back the question. Then, luckily he responded in the most bored voice she believed she had ever heard.
"I'm Jess, and yeah."
That was the extent of his response, and he pulled out a little sheet of paper, glanced at it, looked around, glanced at it again, scanned the crowd, then shoved it back in his pocket. Rory was intriqued.
"Are you meeting someone? I pretty much know everyone here, I could probably help you find them." She offered with a smile. Again, greeted with a quizzical look, like he honestly couldn't believe she was being so polite, then, without moving his eyes from hers, reached again into the pocket and let his eyes drop to it as he read off it, in precise tones.
"Lucas Danes."
Her eyes lit up with recognition. "Oh, Luke!" Then, surprise. "You're moving in with Luke?"
He nodded, with a slight smirk on his face, like he was in on some joke.
"Wow.
I didn't even know. Well, if you want, I can take you to the diner."
A raised eyebrow.
"Luke lives at this diner, well, not really in the diner, but in the apartment above it which is I guess where you'll be staying."
A nod, but he only leaned further back into the bench.
"I think I'll just wait here. Long ride."
She nodded politely, and watched as he pulled a book from his bag.
"Jitterbug Perfume!"
His eyes flew to hers.
"You've
read it?"
"Only about a million times!" She laughed, and he seemed a little more interested. "I love the whole past/present idea, the three character storylines…and Wiggs. I love Wiggs Dannyboy."
"The epitome of eccentric, wealthy nut cases."
"Mm hmm. I adore Tom Robbins. Have you read his other stuff?"
"Just Skinny Legs and All and Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas."
"He's brilliant."
He nodded, and gazed at her for a moment.
"You read a lot?" He asked. She nodded.
"Tons. My room is a library, I swear."
He let out a light chuckle, and smiled a crooked smile. She loved it instantly.
"Ever read any Hemmingway?"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Ah, God, Taylor! I told you, I'm not going to put holly everywhere! No means no!"
"Dirty."
Luke pointed a threatening finger at Lorelai. "Don't you get into this."
"But Luke…" Taylor whined, tightening his bow tie, "It's the holiday season…Christmas is just around the corner-"
"Oh, crap." Luke had glanced at the clock and realized that Jess's bus must have arrived at least a half an hour ago.
"What's wrong?" Lorelai asked, disappointed that the argument over holly had come to such an abrupt end.
"Jess! I totally forgot about Jess! Damn you, Taylor!"
"Don't worry, how late do you think you are?"
"I don't know…half an hour? Geez, this is great. Just great. Half an hour, just great. A whole half hour..."
"Calm down, Rainman. I'm sure he's fine. I'll bet he-"
Something outside the window caught her eye. "Hey, who's that walking with Rory?"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Seriously? Ten?"
"Well, I reread it again when I was fifteen…I couldn't understand half of it before. Then I went on a little Stephen King kick, don't ask."
"Nothing quite compares with The Tommyknockers."
"You've read it?"
"Once or twice. What about The Girl who loved Tom Gordon?"
"It was interesting…dragged though. I swear, fifteen pages dedicated to how a tree looks or how the vines curl isn't exactly my cup of tea. But it was different."
"Yeah. Different." He looked at her when he said that, and studied her eyes. He hadn't noticed them before and they were very, very blue. Cerulean, he thought.
"'There was an odd girl, so beautiful she was ordinary, and her eyes smiled at me when she frowned.'"
Charmed, she asked, "What's that from?"
"Can't remember." He smiled at her. "Reminds me of you, though."
She blushed lightly. "Seeing how well you know me, right?"
He chuckled. "Seems like you. The smiling eyes, and you seem-"
"Odd?" She laughed.
"Definitely that. But beautiful."
Her cheeks blushed even darker, and she ducked her eyes to her shoes. He smirked, and she felt it without even seeing it. Thankfully, her mom and Luke hurried out of the diner, saving her from responding to the compliment.
"Rory!"
"Hey, mom. Oh, Luke. This is Jess. I'm just going to take a wild guess and say you were expecting him."
"Right, right." Luke nodded sporadically and rubbed the back of his neck before pointing towards the diner. "That's uh, that's where I live, upstairs. You can take your bag and uh, let's see, got a mattress set up for you-"
"Super." Jess deadpanned, and turned to Rory. "See you tomorrow?" He asked, raised eyebrow in place, no smile but kind eyes. Kinder than he'd shown to Lorelai or Luke.
"Actually, " Lorelai cut in, "my little oompa loompa has yet to eat, so you can go put your stuff up and we'll be downstairs. You know, being all welcome-y and whatnot." She smiled and held her hand out for Jess. "Hi. Lorelai Gilmore. I'm Rory's mom."
Jess looked at the hand, looked at her, then back to Rory.
"I'll be back down in a bit, then." And with that he sauntered into the diner, leaving Lorelai looking a tad ridiculous with her hand out.
"Polite little thing, isn't he?" Lorelai joked, then turned to Rory. "You guys seemed to be getting along well."
"He loves books! Almost as much as I do! We had this amazing discussion about Bukowski and Kerouac and the Bronte sisters which have nothing to do with one another but segue isn't really our thing so it didn't matter in the first place. But it's great! I have someone to talk about literature with! He even said he'd let me borrow Franny and Zooey since I lost my copy, and-"
"Sounds great, hon." Lorelai was a taken aback by how excited Rory was about Jess's arrival, even more surprised that the broody little New Yorker was as big a book-lover as Rory.
"We should probably get inside to eat. I'm starving." Rory grinned and turned to Luke, saying, "I'm really glad your nephew came." Then, with one more smile, she hurried into the diner. Luke and Lorelai looked at eachother.
"That was…"
"Weird? Creepy? Definitely top contender for freakiest moment of my life? How could those two possibly get along? I talked to Jess for all of two seconds and I'm already annoyed by him!"
"Hey, hey. He's my nephew. He was probably just a little freaked out about how perky you are, because really...who isn't? I'm glad he and Rory are getting along. Now I don't have to worry. He found a friend." Luke smiled a little proudly, and walked into the diner; Lorelai followed suit.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It was pretty late when Tristan drove into Stars Hollow. He'd come from the party mostly unscathed, except for when Kylie got a little tipsy and attempted to seduce him, which was actually pretty funny. He would have even told Rory about the whole thing except he doubted his girlfriend would want to hear about some other chick hitting on him. He smiled though; he knew Rory would be pretty surprised to see him so late. Maybe it'd even earn him a few brownie points. Turning down the street, he noticed Rory's outline in Luke's window. Smiling, he parked in front of the diner and was about to get out when he saw she was talking excitedly to someone. Some…guy. The guy was smirking and would occasionally point to a book resting on the counter and say something, eyebrows raised, that made Rory laugh. Tristan could feel his jaw clench. It was probably nothing. Probably nothing at all, just some new guy who is funny. Funny guy. Like Newman on Seinfeld, or the drunk guy on The Simpsons. Whatever. It was nothing, he told himself.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
It was probably nothing.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AN: Yes, I'm back after a rather long hiatus. But ah well. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter and you like the addition of Jess (mmm.). On a sidenote:
Indigo-chica: Thank you tons for your review! I had been sitting out in my little cave with my laptop, confused that no one so far had mentioned how completely cliché this story was, and I was thinking "huh. Maybe they don't mind.". Thankfully, someone (read: you) brought it to my attention that yes, it was obvious that this story had been done a million times. It also occurred to me that everything I'd written so far was pretty much the same. Ugh, right? So I changed it around in this chapter; I'm afraid someone else is doing the whole Rory/Tristan dating, Jess comes along thing, but I have some ideas in mind that will keep it fresh, new, whatnot. I'm glad you like it so far, unoriginal or not. Also, just wanted to say I'm a big fan of yours!
Thanks to everyone for their reviews, for without them I would be very sad. (applause for my limited vocabulary). Sorry it took so long for an update! Hope you guys are still reading….
**little thing: the whole "there was an odd girl, so beautiful she was ordinary" quote in there I read in someone else's fic and it didn't say who said it and I cant remember (ugh) whose fic it was. I know that it was one of those freakishly good authors, like Holly Gilmore or something. Anyway, if someone could please tell me whose fic that is and/or who said it, I would love to give credit where the credit is due. Thanks!
