Disclaimer: What, me copyright-infringe?
A/N: Thanks, as usual, for all the positive responses! I've been having so much fun doing this!
To all of those you who want Jason dead or otherwise disposed of (and you who you are), take heart. He's not going to be around much longer. I have to say, though, that I have mixed feelings about him. I've loved Chris Eigeman for years, and I think he and LG have wonderful chemistry. If Luke didn't exist, I could see them together. [Ducking the flames I know my fellow Java Junkies are sending my way]. But Luke is definitely the one for Lorelai—in this fic, and (AS-P willing) on the show.
gluglug: Maybe it's the baseball thing, but yeah, I do kinda think SP looks like Kevin Costner—something in the eyes and in the lips. (Lorelai's bit on her KC fascination is basically from my life—except for the three-year-old-kid part—so SP's resemblance to a Bull Durham-era KC isn't a bad thing in my book.) I first really noticed it in "Dear Richard and Emily," when Luke's getting ready to go out on his date with Nicole. And yeah, I'd read that SP is an Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam fan. But I dunno, Luke just seems more like a Springsteen type to me.
And now back to our regularly scheduled program . . .
***************
The next morning, Lorelai headed to the diner to meet Rory. Her heart was pounding and her palms were sweating and all those other cheesy clichés, and she didn't want to go. But Rory, ungrateful offspring that she was, had again forgotten her role as her mother's emotional life raft and rudely neglected to answer her cell phone when Lorelai had tried to call and change their plans. It was dumb to meet at the diner instead of the house in the first place, but Lorelai had had another ridiculously early appointment scheduled at the Dragonfly, and Rory was just popping over for a couple of hours to eat breakfast with Lorelai and visit Lane. At the time meeting at the diner had seemed reasonable. Of course, any plan that involved pancakes and coffee first thing in the morning would always seem reasonable to the Lorelais.
She kept telling herself that she had no reason to be nervous. After all, it's not like anything had happened. She and Luke had just hung out watching movies and eating, like friends. Like the friends they were. Nothing had happened; they hadn't even touched each other. Okay, except for that one time when Luke's arm had brushed her leg and she'd felt that shiver down her spine and that tingling in her . . . Her breath caught a little when she remembered what that millisecond of contact had done to her body. And then there was bizarre moment when she'd been temporarily possessed by a sex demon and she'd made that "carnal passions" comment and used her Sexy Lorelai voice and . . . She didn't even want to think about what might have happened if Jason hadn't shown up when he did.
At the thought of Jason, she drew a deep sigh. Last night she'd truly believed she was doing the right thing by keeping Jason in her life. He really was a great guy—and a lot of fun—and things would be so simple if she could just be with him and be happy. But then he'd started kissing her and running his hands under the hem of her shirt, and she wasn't sure she could go through with it. Luckily, his cell phone rang before things could go too far, and he had to go back to his office to take care of some crisis with the British wool manufacturers. She knew the fact that she was relieved about not having to sleep with her own boyfriend was a big, blinking neon warning sign, but she couldn't deal with that right now. I'll think about that tomorrow, she told herself in her best Scarlett O'Hara voice.
As she walked into the diner, she decided that her first plan of attack would be to put the best face on things and pretend like nothing was wrong. Rory was already waiting for her, and she enveloped her in a hug. "Good morning, my beautiful, charming Yale-educated kid!" She sat down at the table, and noticed that Luke was standing behind the counter watching them. She avoided his gaze and turned her full attention to Rory. "So, tell me, daughter-of-mine, when you've got your fancy-schmancy Ivy League degree, will you be too cool to hang out and mock Gwyneth Paltrow with your poor, decrepit, state-school-educated mother?"
Rory patted her hand. "Aw, mom, don't worry. We'll always have A View from the Top. It's just that now I'll just have a better vocabulary with which to snark. And more sophisticated cultural references."
"Yeah, well, the minute you start throwing around words like 'ontological' and 'subjectivity' you're officially out of the Gilmore Junk Food Club and Pop Culture Mocking Society."
"Duly noted. I hereby swear to limit my snark to words of three syllables or less." They both giggled, and Lorelai felt a small wave of relief. She could do this. She could.
On the other side of the counter, Luke was getting angrier by the minute. He knew that he hadn't imagined what had happened last night. He was sure there had been something there, something in her eyes and in her voice, that hadn't been there before. But then That Guy showed up talking about . . .Oh, god. The thought of Lorelai doing stuff like that with That Guy made him feel sick to his stomach and made him want to put someone's head through a wall all at the same time. He would not go there. And now here she was, acting as if nothing had happened. As he stood there watching her laughing and joking with Rory, he couldn't help thinking that she'd used him somehow. Well, that was a thought that, in his more resentful moments, he could acknowledge he was really familiar with. But before she'd only used him to fix stuff or to get free coffee or take part in one of her nutty schemes. This time she'd used his feelings. Used him. And that? Pissed him off. He walked over to their table, determined not to let her joke or pout or cute herself out of this one—no matter how good she looked in that stupid pink coat she was wearing. "What're you gonna have?" he asked brusquely.
Lorelai had hoped that Luke would automatically join her in an impromptu performance of Nothing Happened Between Us and We're Totally Fine, but the coldness in his voice told her he obviously hadn't read the script. She decided to try Plan B: Joking it Off. She patted Rory's hand. "It's okay, honey. Deep down, Luke's really glad to see you. He's just holding himself back for our safety. See, if he ever lets himself express positive emotions he's liable to go berserk and just tear the place apart from sheer happiness. Kinda like when you feed Gremlins after midnight."
The sharp, angry look Luke gave her nearly knocked the breath out of her. Okay, joking about it definitely not a good plan. To her relief, Luke's expression softened when he turned to Rory.
"So, how's school?" he asked. He may have been mad at Lorelai, but he'd wasn't about to take whatever was going on between them out on Rory.
"Well, let's see. I'm living with the cast of The Real World: The PMS Season, the editor of my school paper is a Ben Bradley wannabe with a Napoleon complex, and I can't get any studying done because this nutjob from Stars Hollow keeps calling me and going 'you're fired!'."
"Luke, would you please tell Miss I Don't Do Reality TV Now That I'm a Yalie that The Apprentice is a brilliant discourse on the intersection of capitalism and celebrity culture at the turn of the millennium?"
"Hey!" Rory cried in pretend outrage. "I thought we weren't mocking with the big words!"
"They're not my big words. I heard some guy use them on Larry King Live."
Luke looked at Lorelai, his face cold and impenetrable. "Pancakes and coffee?"
Lorelai was shaken. Luke hadn't looked at her like that since The Great Go to Hell/Back at Ya Crisis of 2002. "Um . . .Yeah. With whipped cream. On the pancakes, not on the coffee. Although, come to think of it, that could be pretty good. I'll have to try it sometime. But not now. So, yeah. Pancakes and coffee." She looked at Rory, who nodded. "For both of us."
Luke turned without a word and went to place their orders.
Rory gave him a sympathetic look as he walked off. "Boy, I guess this whole Nicole thing must still be pretty rough on him. He's grumpier than usual this morning."
"Yeah, I'm sure it is." She shrugged, trying to keep the topic from veering into dangerous territory. "Although, if you ask me, we're just talking about a difference in degrees of grumpiness. You know Luke—every morning's a bad morning."
"And what about you?
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. You're being weirder than normal this morning."
"I think I resent that remark."
"Mom . . ."
Lorelai decided it was time to move on to Plan C: Exaggerate and Evade. "Well, if you must know, my day has gotten off to a really crappy start. First, I turn on the Today show, and no Matt Lauer. He's 'on assignment.' What does that even mean? 'On assignment?' Just say 'he didn't feel like coming in today' and be done with it."
"So, no Matt. That is tragic."
"Hey! Mock not the woman who birthed you, babe. It's not nice."
"Sorry. Carry on."
"So, anyway, then I ran out of hot water halfway through my shower. Again."
"Again? I thought you were going to get Luke to take a look at that"
"Get Luke to take a look at what?" Luke had come back to the table and was setting their coffee front of them.
"Mom says the hot water heater's acting up."
"Rory, I really don't think--"
"I'll take a look at it."
"Really, it's fine. I'll just—"
"I said I'll take a look at it. Tonight okay?" Lorelai just nodded, and Luke walked away without another word.
Rory raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I think his grumpiness dial just went to eleven."
"Ya think?" Lorelai was too distracted to even pick up on the reference. She took a long sip of her coffee and tried not to think about what had really made Luke so cranky. She knew she tended to be a little self-absorbed, but all the choruses of "It's Not Always About You, Lorelai" she'd heard over the years couldn't erase the sneaking suspicion that this one really was all about her.
A few minutes later, Ceasar brought their breakfasts and they dug in. After all, even the Volkswagen-sized knot in her stomach couldn't keep Lorelai from enjoying Luke's pancakes. After they finished eating, Rory headed off to see Lane's new apartment and Lorelai sat finishing her coffee. Luke had disappeared soon after taking their orders, and she was pretty sure he was avoiding her. She knew if they didn't talk soon they'd be heading perilously close to Luke and Lorelai after Rory's Car Accident territory, and she couldn't go through that again. She got up and walked over to the counter. As if reading her thoughts, Ceasar nodded his head toward the storeroom. Lorelai took a deep breath and walked back.
When she got to the storeroom door, Luke was busily opening boxes of paper products. "You're not supposed to be back here," he said without looking up.
"Why, what have you got going on back here? Don't tell me—are you manufacturing French Fries of Mass Destruction? Wait, wait, I know! You've stolen the Colonel's secret recipe and you're gonna start selling KFC right here in the diner."
Luke didn't say anything. He just reached over and opened another box.
Okay, this whole keeping-things-normal thing isn't going to be as easy as I thought. "Look, I just wanted to . . . I just wanted to apologize for last night. I mean, about Jason showing up and all."
Luke just kept opening boxes, so Lorelai just kept talking.
"I didn't know he was coming over."
"I didn't know he existed. At least, not from you."
"Yeah, I know. He's my dad's business partner, and we've been . . . seeing each other for a few months." She drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I should have told you."
Luke shrugged. "No law that says you have to tell me about who you date. No law that says we have to tell each other anything."
Stung by his remark, Lorelai just stood there for a minute. This was not how this was supposed to go down. The whole point was to keep Luke in her life, not to lose him completely. "I know we don't have to, but we're friends . . . right?"
At the mention of that word, Luke started getting ticked all over again. "Yes, Lorelai, we are friends. And right now this friend has a diner full of hungry people to feed and really needs to get back to work. Do you still want me to come by tonight?"
"Yeah . . . sure."
"Fine." Luke picked up a package of napkins and walked out of the storeroom without a backward glance.
*******************
Apparently, a long day's work at the diner was not exactly the recipe for improving Luke's mood. When he arrived at Lorelai's that night, Bert in hand, he barely returned her greeting as he walked through the door. Lorelai, still unsure of how to get things back to normal, followed him into the hall and did what came naturally when she was nervous or confused. She babbled.
"So, listen, I've been thinking, and we really need to get Bert a girlfriend. I mean, if you two keep hanging around together like this people are gonna start talking. Seriously, look what happened to that other Bert and Ernie. Or Matt and Ben. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. It's just that I've always thought Bert—your Bert, I mean—gives off a definite 'I dig chicks' vibe."
Luke just kept fiddling with the water heater.
"Anyway, I know this cute little sewing box we could hook him up with. Her name is Susie. Nice lid, full of thread. The rumor is that she used to have something going with the silverware drawer, but I don't think it was anything serious. Oh, but Susie and Bert? Would be such a great couple. They could get married and have lots of cute little useful babies.
Luke stood up, still ignoring her monologue. "Okay, that's done. Need anything else?"
"That's it? Already?"
"Yep. Thermostat just needed adjusting."
"Oh, good. At least it wasn't . . ." She trailed off. For what she was sure was the first time in her life, she had run out of inane babble.
"So, we're done here." It was a statement, not a question. Luke picked up Bert and headed back toward the front door.
"Yeah, I guess . . . I mean . . . No, wait." She stopped him just as he reached for the doorknob. "Luke, look. Are you still mad about last night?"
"Well, since I was never mad about last night, it would be impossible for me to still be mad about last night. I'm fine."
"Yeah, well, you could've fooled me. I mean, you've said fewer words to me in the last twenty-four hours than Arnold did in the first Conan movie. Okay, so that's nothing unusual for you. But you didn't even smirk when I talked about getting Bert a girl, and you always at least smirk at my little jokes." She lifted her hands helplessly. "Look, if you're mad about something, please just tell me so we can get back to normal."
All the anger and frustration and hurt feelings Luke had pent up for years came rushing to the surface. He set Bert down on the floor with a thud, and gave Lorelai a sarcastic smile. "You know what? Maybe things aren't normal, and maybe I am a little pissed off. But don't you worry about it one little bit. I'm sure that by tomorrow I'll be completely back to normal. I'll pour your coffee and bitch about your eating habits and smirk at your jokes and fix your plumbing and watch you go through Max, and Alex, and this new guy, and oh, what the hell, one more round of Christopher and Lorelai: The Extended Dance Mix, and I'll just stand behind that damned counter for another ten years waiting for you to see . . ." Luke seemed to have run out of rant, and he trailed off.
Lorelai was stunned, and not just because that was the most she'd ever heard him say in one breath. "See what?"
Luke opened his mouth as if to resume his rant, but he just shrugged. Got nothing to lose now. Might as well go all the way. "Me," he said simply.
Lorelai began to panic. This was The Talk, the conversation she'd been running away from for years. Now that it was here, she wasn't quite sure what to do. She decided to go with Exaggerate and Evade Level 5. "What are you talking about? Of course I see you. You're standing right in front of me. Tall guy. Flannel shirt. Baseball cap, always worn backward."
Luke wasn't about to be put off. He knew her tactics way too well, and he'd come too far to give in to them now. "Oh, come on. You've never seen what's right in front of you. When you look at me you see a coffeepot, and a toolbox, and occasionally a shoulder to cry on, but you don't see me. You never have. And you know what? It's getting really old, and I'm over it."
Lorelai was stung by the resentment in his voice. He'd never talked to her like that before, even during that horrible summer. "Luke, that's not true. I don't just see all that stuff. I see you."
"Oh, you do?" He took a step toward her.
"Yeah, of course I do," she replied. But it came out barely above a whisper
"You sure about that?"
Luke continued closing the distance between them. There was an intensity in his eyes and in his voice that frightened her, even as it sent an involuntary thrill through her. But before she could think of what to say or do next, Luke took her face in both of his hands and pulled her to him in a demanding, passionate kiss. She just stood there, frozen. A second later, Luke broke away. He looked into her shocked eyes and a sad half-smile crossed his face.
"That's what I thought." He picked up Bert and walked out the door.
*********************
Lorelai stood rooted to the spot where Luke had kissed her for what seemed like an eternity. A million thoughts were racing through her head, which was nothing new for her. What was unusual was that for the first time all of these thoughts were consciously about Luke, and she had no clue what to do about them.
The kiss had taken her by complete surprise. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't so much the fact that he had kissed her that had shocked her—if she were being really honest with herself, she knew that it had probably been coming for a while. No, what had almost literally knocked her off her feet was the way he had kissed her. She could still feel his mouth on hers. It was if he knew exactly how to stimulate every nerve ending in her lips. He'd kissed her as if he knew every part of her mouth intimately. No one had ever kissed her like that. Not Max or Alex, and certainly not Jason. Even Christopher had never kissed her as if it was the one thing in the universe he'd been created to do. No, that had been Luke.
Luke! Luke? Luke. Luke, who'd been one of her best friends and a surrogate dad to Rory for forever. Luke, who kept her fed and coffee'd and fixed her broken shoe at the dance marathon. Luke, who all of a sudden was saying he had been harboring some sort of feelings for her for . . .well, for years, if she'd understood what he'd been telling her. Feelings he'd never told her about, even when he had watched her get her hopes up and then fail in relationship after relationship. Even when he sat and watched her get upset over the thought that she'd never have 'it,' the whole package. Even when he had been with Rachel, or Nicole. The shock Lorelai had been feeling slowly gave way to anger, and she began pacing around the living room as her anger continued to build. He'd been sitting there feeling all of this stuff, but instead of telling her about it or doing anything about it he'd just let her stay lonely and confused, feeling like she'd never find real love and happiness. And now he was mad at her? Suddenly, she stopped pacing and grabbed her keys and jacket from the couch where she'd dropped them on hours earlier.
" 'Don't see you' my ass," she muttered aloud as she walked out the door.
*********************
Luke sat at a table in the darkened diner, his head resting in his hands. He'd meant to do what he always did at moments of extreme emotional stress—go up to the apartment and have a beer and a nice, long brood. Somehow, though, the adrenaline that had begun to surge during his confrontation with Lorelai had deserted him as soon as he walked into the diner. He'd sunk into the nearest chair, flashes of the past half-hour running in his mind. He kept seeing Lorelai's startled blue eyes when he all but told her he'd been in love with her for a decade. He remembered the way his heart pounded as he had approached her. He thought about the way her lips had felt under his. Oh man, those lips! He'd fought the urge to kiss those lips for years, but now that he had actually done it he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to stop wanting to do it again.
Well, big guy, you made your move. What now? That was the $64,000 question—or the million-dollar question on that game show with that guy from that morning program. He wondered what was going through Lorelai's mind at that moment. Did she hate him? Was she disgusted? Was she talking to Sookie—or, God forbid, Rory—at this very minute, laughing about how big, dumb Luke had tried to put the moves on her? He tried to fight the small hope that he'd seen some sort of flicker of, well, something behind the surprise in her eyes, and that maybe—maybe—she had been about to respond to the kiss when he pulled away.
When Lorelai burst into the diner a few minutes later, Luke realized the real reason he hadn't gone upstairs was because—as usual—he'd been waiting for her. Hell, he hadn't even locked the door behind him.
"You!" she yelled as she came through the door. "You are a hit and run kisser. No, wait, you're a drive-by kisser. Yeah, that's it. You're Luke N the Hood. Now all you need is a record deal with Dr. Dre and a video—"
"Lorelai, I don't want to do this right now."
" 'I don't want to do this right now,'" she said, mimicking his tone. "Oh, so you get to come into my house, yell at me about how you've been waiting ten years for me to—what was it you said? to 'see you?'—kiss me, and walk out without a word, but I'm not supposed to have a reaction?
"Are you saying you do have a reaction?"
"Well, of course I have a reaction!" She faltered. "I just don't know what it is."
"There's a shock."
"Oh, Luke, come on. Be fair. I just found out less than an hour ago that for practically the entire run of Friends one of my best friends has supposedly had all these feelings for me that I didn't know anything about. I need some time to process this."
"How could you not know? Everybody in this whole stupid town knows it. Hell, I think Patty and Babette even have a pool going. You can't tell me you couldn't see it too."
He was right, but at the moment Lorelai wasn't about being fair. "Okay, first of all, everyone in this town? Is nuts. You know that. They were gonna change the signs at the town limits to say 'Welcome to Cuckoo's Nest,' but Taylor thought that would scare away the tourists." She shifted into her last and most desperate option when dealing with anything that confused or frightened her—Dig Up Stuff to Get Mad About. "And riddle me this, Batman. When exactly was I supposed to pick up on all these feelings you supposedly have for me? Hmmm, lemme think. Was it when you were living with Rachel? Ooh, ooh! Wait, I know! Alex, I'll take 'When Luke Went Off and Got Married on a Cruise Ship' for 200!"
Luke looked as if Lorelai had physically slapped him, but she was on a roll. At the thought of Luke marrying Nicole, something broke inside her, and she began to uncover long-buried pain she didn't even know she'd been feeling. "Did you ever think that it might have hurt me to realize that you'd run out and marry some woman you'd only known for, like, five minutes—some woman you weren't even really in love with—but that you'd never even take me seriously enough to ask me out on a date? But you know what? Why should you? 'Oh, that's just Lorelai. She's flaky and scattered and, to tell ya the truth, just a little bit trampy. I mean, she did get knocked up at sixteen, and then there's that poor schmuck she practically left at the altar a couple of years ago. Oh, yeah, she's lots of fun and she's nice to look at, but stay away from her if you want anything substantial.'"
There were real tears in Lorelai's eyes now. Luke opened his mouth as if to say something, but she just shook her head and held up her hand to stop him. "The thing is, Luke, you never really wanted me. Not really. " She was speaking more calmly now, and the anger in her voice had been replaced by a deeper, older sadness that was only partly about Luke. "I mean, yeah, we're great friends, and we flirt, and maybe you even get a little jealous of they guys I go out with." She shook her head. "But the reason you didn't do anything all these years isn't because you were afraid of rejection, or because I didn't 'see' you. It's because you've spent ten years watching Tropical Storm Lorelai wreak havoc on every male she comes across, and your self-preservation instincts are just too strong for you to ever want to put yourself in the path of the storm. And who can blame you? You're much better off this way."
As she turned to walk out of the diner, Luke stood up and put a hand on her arm to stop her. "Lorelai, I—"
She shrugged his hand off, her face still tuned away from him. "I'm gonna go. I'll see ya later."
***************
A/N: Aw, jeez, it's always two steps forward, three steps back with those two crazy kids, isn't it? But take heart, little campers. It's always angstiest just before the (eventual—I'm getting there!) happy ending.
I have to say that this chapter turned out to be a bit longer than I'd intended. I'd thought about cutting it off at the kiss, but I didn't want to break the emotional momentum of the whole confrontation. To me, the kiss is only part of what's going on with these two.
Up Next: Thirteen (okay, maybe not thirteen) conversations about one thing.