Luke's Apartment- Morning
I open my eyes. It's light out. That means I should probably be in the diner, but my alarm hasn't gone off yet. I strain my neck to see my alarm clock. 8:23. Seven minutes until my alarm goes off, but not enough time to fall back asleep. Ugh. Stupid internal alarm. I pull the covers over my head and lay in the silence and the isolation of my bed until the inevitable buzzing of the little box that runs my life.
Just as I begin to doze off, beep beep, beep beep. Alright, I'm up. I slap my clock and make my way out of bed and into the bathroom. I turn on the water and get in the shower. Quick shampoo and rinse, I grab my towel and get ready for the day.
I make my way down the steps to the already crowded diner trying to make a quick decision as far as what needs to be done first. I spot Rory and Lorelai without coffee in front of them. I can take care of that. I pull out two of the largest mugs we have, because the more they have in front of them means less work for me. I then put these mugs away and instead decide on relatively small mugs. After all, Dean is over there, and the more chances I have to go over there, the more chances I have to make Dean's face turn all red and his head to explode.
After delivering them coffee and clearing tables, I walk into the back and scribble a note on the inner fold of a napkin, and grab some extra napkins and pick up the two plates that had syrup on the food, and each with two sides of syrup, they can only be for two people I know.
I deliver the food and napkins, then I remember Dean. He probably ordered food too. Huh. This place is called "Luke's," that's not me. He can deal with it.
I lean on the counter and pull the book out of my back pocket.
"Jess," Luke interrupts my train of thought; he is the master at that.
"Yes?"
"Whose omelet is this?"
I shrug.
"Well, help me out, did you deliver Rory and Lorelai their food?"
"Yes."
"Did you take some food to Dean?"
I pretend to think real hard about it.
"Well did you or didn't you?"
"Huh. Guess not."
"Were you going to take it to him?" Luke asks.
"I thought you said you were going to."
"Why would I say that?"
"Why would you lie about it? That's the real question." I state calmly.
"I never lied about it. I never said that!" Luke exclaims.
"Tell it to the judge, Uncle Luke. Right now don't you think you should take out the food that you said you would?"
"I didn't say that. What am I supposed to tell Dean?"
"Tell him the toaster broke."
"Because he has toast with his omelet."
"Yeah… that would hold the fib together."
"You should stop lying."
"Will do, Uncle Luke. You should take that food out."
"Fine, do some dishes."
Dishes? Yeah… that'll happen.
I watch Luke deliver the food to Rory's table. As always, seeing her creates little scenarios in my head, all for my benefit. When is she going to act out my fantasies and break up with Dean, and run over and hug me for support, and allow me to kiss her tear stained face. When can I make out with her? When will she realize that she wants to be with me? Or, when will she be able to tell people that this is what she truly what she wants. Only time can tell. In my fantasies, this is happening right now.
I miss Rory reading the note on the napkin, but know when she has read it because she watches me and avoids eye contact. As if when she's looking at the side of my face, I can't tell that she's looking at me.
I watch her as I leave the diner. I raise my eyebrows to let her know that I am leaving and to silently request for her to come and find me.
I sit down on the bridge with my legs dangling over the side just staring in the clear, placid water of the Stars Hollow Lake.
I hear soft footsteps of little dainty feet attached to the thin figure of the only person in this town worth going out of my way to talk to.
"Hey," I greet her as she continues walking towards me.
"Hey Jess," she responds and takes a seat next to me. Not that I mind, but she is so close to me that I can feel the warmth from her body, and when the wind picks up, her hair blows onto the collar of my jacket. I can't help but enjoy the feeling of anything of hers touching my body.
We sit in a comfortable silence, I wonder whether she came just to get her book back or if she wants to talk about other things. I'll just follow suit.
"I'm glad you invited me out here," Rory starts.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?"
"Well, not only is it a beautiful day, and besides the fact that I love the bridge… well… I'm glad that you're here too."
She wants to be here with me. "Any reason?" I prod her for more information about her desire to be with me on the bridge, alone.
"Actually, I have a favor, well, it's more of a question to ask you that you are totally free to say no to."
"Don't worry about it, just go ahead and ask. I've never had problems saying no to people."
"Well, I have this English project to do, I have to make a video with Paris for English and we need a boy to be in our video and I told her that I would supply the male since I have a boyfriend."
"Good and logical plan. Only one hole, I'm not your boyfriend."
"No you're not."
"So you're asking me instead of him?"
"Well, he's not really a big fan of Paris and would rather avoid her if he can," Rory explains.
I don't like talking about Dean.
"So what would I need to do in this video?"
"Well, we need to take two characters from books we have read this year and create a script and show their interactions and how we think they would get along and what they would say and talk about. You would help us with everything, script, acting, and video taping."
"That sounds like a lot of fun," conversations with intelligent people about books, and time with Rory, what could be better.
"So, you'll do it?"
"Yeah. I'll do it. But you know, maybe we should run the script by Dean before we begin acting it out. I bet he'd have a lot of insight on any characters we choose. I hear he's read almost everything known to man." I see Rory trying to hide a smirk and do her best to glare at me, but that's never stopped me before. I've gotten used to the taste of my foot. "Actually, I have a list of books I need to buy, you know, the revised list after you lent me that stack, but now I just feel silly going out and buying them before I talk to Dean. I know that you and I both don't have them, but there's a pretty good chance that Dean will. Don't you think? Can you call him up? Get out your phone, Ror, I'll find my list." I stick my hand in my pocket and start digging around. By the end of my speech, Rory's glare has transformed completely into a genuine grin accompanied by her cute laugh. She begins lightly slapping me on my arm to get me to stop.
"How do you keep a straight face?"
"It's a gift."
"Yeah it is." I love when I can make Rory laugh when she is trying to keep herself from laughing, this generally means that I am talking about Dean and she doesn't want to laugh at her boyfriend. These laughs aren't from pity, or fueled by intimidation or popularity, but real and true, genuine smiles and laughs.
"Rory, I'm really sorry, but I should probably get back to the diner, my break's almost over. Thanks for spending it with me."
"Anytime, thanks for the invitation."
"Call me tomorrow about the English video."
"See you then, Jess," Rory stands up and watches me and waits for me to stand up.
"Oh yeah, here's your book," I pull out John Sheppard's Small Town Punk: a novel from my back pocket.
Rory opens it to a random page and sees the notes in the margin, she reads one and I see her smile again. I love to see this joy in her eyes that I helped create.
"Thanks Jess. I'll walk you back to work."
-The end-
Thanks for reading my story! Please review. I would love to hear what you have to say about this story as a whole. Kind of a different idea, but there it is.