The Date

The next evening Luke knocked on the door to Lorelai's house. Rory answered the door. She looked fine, although more shy than usual. "She's still upstairs," she practically whispered. "I'll get her if you want."

Luke nodded and took the liberty of sitting down in the kitchen. Lorelai suddenly bustled into the kitchen, her hair still in curlers. "Hey," She gasped as she opened the refrigerator and groaned. "Do you mind stopping to eat? I fell asleep and now I'm starving." Luke surveyed Lorelai's outfit—a light blue tank top and black skirt that fell just above her knees.

"Sure," he shrugged. She kissed his forehead. He smiled slightly, oddly aware of how comfortable he was around her already, like they had been doing this for years.

"Thank you, you're amazing. I'll be right back." She ran back up the stairs and Rory entered the room. Luke could tell she was going to disappear into her room so he turned and spoke to her.

"Here, these are for you." He held out the bag.

"For me?" She looked surprised, peeking inside. "Ooh, thank you, Luke. I'll eat these later."

"Save one for your mom." She smiled and nodded. "So, any plans for the evening?"

"I'm going over to Lane's in a little while I think. We challenged the guys to a video game battle of the sexes."

Luke chuckled. "When did you get into video games?"

Rory shrugged as she took a small bite of brownie. "I'm not very good. Lane and I will probably get creamed." Lorelai smiled at the two of them as she appeared, her hair bouncing in her face.

"Brownies! Mmm," she started to reach for one but Luke grabbed her hand.

"No ruining your dinner," he smirked at her.

She pouted. "Oh alright. Rory, we'll see you later?"

"Yeah, have fun!" She made eye contact with Luke as they left the room.

"So where are we going to eat?" Luke asked her. He stopped suddenly, almost running into Lorelai who had frozen on her porch. "What is it?" He said but she shushed him. He craned his neck to see what he was looking at.

"Alright," she took his hand and they walked to his truck.

"Lorelai," he said simply as they got in. "What was that?"

"Oh nothing. I just thought I heard something strange and I didn't want to leave Rory alone if there were prowlers around." She fought the urge to make sure Babette wasn't watching them from next door.

"Prowlers? What are we in a 1950s horror flick?" He said, irritated.

"Heeeey, good reference! I'm proud of you!" She patted him on the arm as he started the ignition and pulled out onto the road. He dropped the incident, wanting to have a nice evening for once. Going out with Nicole had always seemed a chore. They had to stretch for things to talk about since Luke didn't enjoy listening about her lawsuits and there wasn't much to say about the diner. And sports only took them so far.

Lorelai interrupted his thoughts. "Ok, I know this isn't very romantic, but there's this great taco place at the next exit. Do you mind?"

"Whatever you want." Lorelai sighed audibly and he glanced over at her. "What?"

She shook her head. "You're so good to me." Luke felt himself blushing under her gaze and concentrated hard on turning off at the right exit. A few minutes later they had their tacos and were romantically eating off their laps in the truck.

"We could have gotten a table." He insisted again.

"No way, this is more fun. So how have you been?" She asked awkwardly, anything to take away from the silence that was suddenly invading her ears.

"Oh, nothing new. Liz called to say they'd gotten back from their honeymoon okay."

"Where'd they go?" She questioned, licking sour cream off her fingers.

"Arizona, I think. To some spa or something," Luke rolled his eyes. Lorelai nodded and opened her mouth like she was going to say something but closed it again. "What were you going to say?"

She shook her head as she munched on her taco. He wasn't sure how anyone could make eating a messy taco look sexy, but Lorelai could. She licked her lips. Yeah, he was sweating. "It's just something she said to me at the wedding. I think I just got it."

"So?"

"When I went to help her with her dress she said something about how I would make a great wife someday and a great sister-in-law to a very lucky girl." She looked at Luke. "I think she was hinting at something, don't you?" Luke didn't say anything for a second. Lorelai almost choked on her taco. "Oh, no! Not that I'm—I mean that's—we just started--"

"No, it's fine, I'm just a little surprised. She said that to you?"

Lorelai nodded. "Yeah and she was always talking about good guys and how you were so great and," she laughed at Luke's face. "Don't be embarrassed, she just wants you to be happy."

Luke agreed. "Yeah and I hope you don't mind, but I told her we were going to the movies." He added awkwardly.

"Aww, really? I don't mind at all. What did she say?"

"She said she hoped everything worked out." Luke watched Lorelai smile and go back to her food. They were both quiet for a minute. Luke caught Lorelai's chin and kissed her. She tasted like diet coke and taco and maybe a hint of flavored lip gloss. She smiled shyly as they broke apart and wiped her hands on her napkin. "You ready?" Luke asked and she just nodded. They drove down the highway a little farther to Hartford. "We're going to the theater by the mall, right?"

"Yeah. Are you sure you want to let me pick the movie? I already picked where to eat."

"I don't mind." Luke hummed as they pulled into the parking lot. Lorelai got out of the truck, rubbing her arms in the cool air. "Hey, hold on." He pulled out his fishing jacket from behind the seat. Lorelai laughed. "You're cold, take it."

"Luke, it's your fishing jacket."

"It's clean." He said defensively.

"Oh! I'm sure it is, I just meant--I wasn't sure I was allowed to touch it." She folded it over her arms, still hugging herself. Luke locked the truck and taking her hand they walked toward the box office where they got two tickets for Coffee and Cigarettes.

They were in line to get their tickets torn when Lorelai suddenly whipped back around to face Luke and whispered, "Don't look now, but Dean and Lindsey are over by the concessions." Of course Luke's gaze immediately snapped to the line for popcorn behind them. "Don't look," Lorelai gritted her teeth, grabbing his shoulder so he would look down at her. But they made it to their theater safely, where Lorelai wrapped herself in Luke's jacket, giggling because the sleeves were so long. As the theater darkened and the previews started, she snuggled closer, her hand in his, the jacket smelling strongly of his cologne. Part of her brain screamed, Wait a minute, this is Luke and the other part said This is Luke.