Chapter Ten

Jess

I was in the midst of opening the fridge as the news reached me. God, Paris was just like one hit after the other:

"Go out with me."

"Kiss me and I'll pay you."

"He proposed."

"I'm actually a creature not so distantly related to George Lucas's E.T. and I'm here to eat your heart out."

Admittedly, the weight of her situation and what she had just said was rather a shock, but it wasn't in my character to react openly at something so huge. I wasn't Lorelai Gilmore, for God's sake. Instead, I took out two Coronas and ambled over to the seat adjacent to Paris.

"This has got to be one of the stupidest ideas I've heard of, Paris. And considering I've actually lived in Stars Hollow, this thing is pretty high up my list," I said as I handed her one of the beers.

Paris rubbed her face with her hands in frustration, "Look, Captain, I don't want to particularly know what you think right now because honestly, I hate this idea as much as the next person. Only it's getting harder to control and—Goddammit, Mariano, this is all your fault!"

I snorted, "Huh, excuse me?" I asked incredulously.

She pointed her index finger at me maniacally, "You should have stopped me! You know as well as I do that when it comes to boys, I suck!" She panted and focused her wide eyes at me, and to be frank, it was creeping me out.

"I'm not your keeper!"

"Well you should be!"

"You can't be serious."

"You know perfectly well I am. I'm Paris Goddamn Gellar, for God's sake!"

She crossed her arms in front of her and gave me a death glare. Now she's mad at me for something that was entirely her fault to begin with. This was absolutely ridiculous. Suddenly Paris switched modes and calmly spoke to me, "Okay, I can get out of this jam. I can. I can!"

I shifted heavy lids to her general direction, "Keep saying that, and we can sell you off as the next Tim Robbins."

***

The restaurant was a spacious and swanky with just a touch of barbaric arrogance. It was the kind of place Brad and Jennifer would go to eat a bite of a whole suckling pig and leave. Calculating the cost of a single glass of tap water, I turned to Paris, "I just want to restate that you, Paris, are going to pay for my dinner."

She looked like she wanted to kill me with the butter knife beside her. "Get me through and out of this, and I'll--," but she was stopped as the server came up to take our orders.

"Order cheap," she said simply, with another one of those death glares.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and nodded at the server, "You heard the lady. You guys got burgers in here?"

The man merely looked at me and raised a curlicue moustache.

"Hotdogs? Fish and chips?"

Before I could ask for popcorn, I received a swift kick to the shin. "Gah. That's gonna leave a mark."

"It better," she said gravely at me, and to the server, "We'll just have some shrimp appetizers first, thank you."

The server smiled at Paris, "Very good, ma'am," he said, and then tossed me a pretentious growl.

"Nachos?" I called after him. The table quickly shifted for a second as her pointy heel-y things dug into my foot.

***

"So, I thought Jaime was coming," I asked simply as I took a bite of my cheap pasta. "Speaking of the devil…" I nodded to the front door, where the dude was shrugging his coat off. He oozed Princeton Ivy League. Yech. Paris turned, and I could have sworn she was blushing. I squinted an eye at her and put my fork down, "Do you want to marry him?"

She looked up at me like I was about to run her over with a steamroller.

I sighed, "Great. This is just… the bomb!"

"Shut up, he's coming, dammit!" she whispered hoarsely and then gave out the most God-awful, hair raising haughty laugh, "Oh, Jess!" And then she swatted my arm. God, what a weirdo.

I looked at Jaime from the corner of my eye and true to my hunch; he looked like he was about to throw a dinner table at me.

Once he was within earshot, I returned her scary laugh with my own rendition of a pompous laugh, "I knew you'd like that."

Jaime suddenly came up behind Paris and put a gentle hand on the small of her back, leaning down, "Hello, Paris."

The girl looked like she was about to pass out. "Jaime," she offered with cold civility.

"Jess," he said, with practically the same enthusiasm.

"Hey, man," I said with ease.

Just like that, his attention was nowhere near my radar. He turned and softly said to my date, "Paris, may I talk to you for a second?"

Paris herself looked like she was about to implode. She was frozen to the spot, not talking to Jaime or me. I leaned over and waved a hand in front of her face, "Paris?"

"I do want to marry you."

This wasn't part of the plan… again, with me now, 'Noooot part of the plaaaaaaaaan.'

Rory

The restaurant was a spacious and swanky little thing with just a touch of barbaric arrogance. It was the kind of place Michael Jackson would go to eat a bite of a whole thirteen-pound turkey and leave. I was about to comment on the place when Joe spoke and broke my train of thought.

"So, we're going to act all buddy-buddy at first, and then I'll propose and you blow up at me. Okay?"

I looked up at him with an expression of small hope, "Can I throw my drink at you?"

He pondered that for a moment, "If the time calls for it, maybe. But not wine, okay? That's a bitch to get out."

I nodded at him, somewhat excited for my performance. It seems that he told his parents that he had found the perfect girl for him, one that actually had a relative in the DAR, just to get them off his back, but they suddenly came over for a visit, and Joe finalized that he was doomed. Until he saw me.

God, it was like a crappy sitcom. I half expected Raymond to pop by in a stripper costume and tassels.

But I didn't care. This was one of the first fun Yale things I've done, and nobody was going to take that away from me. I was going to act like a bitch with someone's approval and with actual reason. Half my purpose in this life was suddenly complete. Now, if could punch someone real hard and knock him out, I could very well die happy.

But of course he had to ruin things.

As Joe led me to his parents' table, of course, he and Paris were sitting right behind us. This was fabulous. This was amazing. This was GREAT.

Oh, and look at that, Jaime's here, too. I inwardly made a lasso up and around my head in deadpan excitement. Yippee.

Maybe the guy I knock out could be Jess and then I can already die right after.