Author's Note: Making up for the slowness of the last update by coming
back with a fairly quick one, though it is a bit shorter than the last few
chapters. Still, I'm pleased with how well and how quickly this one came
together. For those of you who have said you like Lily, she's back again
to keep Jess on his toes. I hope she continues to be a favorite.
Disclaimer: I own nothing other than the plot and a few original characters. All events through the end of Season 3 have occurred, but the only thing I'm borrowing from Season 4 is Rory's haircut. Any other similarities are purely coincidence. Chapter titles come from various Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers songs. I do not own those either.
**********
Chapter Fourteen: The Blacktop Stretches Out For Days
November 2004
It was mercifully quiet in the house. Lily was locked away in her room working on some crazy science experiment that involved reading different types of literature to plants. All Jess knew was that he was surprised that the bean plant she was forcing to listen to the exploits of Robinson Crusoe hadn't died from boredom. Of course even reading that book had to be better than the excruciatingly dull textbook in front of him. Maybe he hadn't given going back to school enough thought. Surely it wasn't meant to make his brain feel like it was atrophying and withering inside his skull.
Sighing, he picked up his pen and stared back down at his notes. As bored as he was, he wasn't going to quit this time. There were too many people who were proud of him for going back, who were expecting him to do well. He'd failed two of those people once before by not finishing school, and Jess wasn't going to let them, or himself, down again.
Just as he was finally getting into something of a rhythm of answering the questions he'd been assigned a raucous barking broke out in the yard followed by the affronted yowling of a cat. Jess threw his pen back down and stormed to the door.
"Legolas! Leave the damn cats alone and shut up!" The offending dog seemed to have the decency to look apologetically at Jess and slunk off to the opposite edge of the yard from the cats he'd been terrorizing.
"Damn dog," Jess snarled and slammed the door. He turned around and almost threw up his heart. "Jeez, Lily," he snapped out at the little girl in the kitchen doorway, "don't creep up like that."
Lily shrugged and took a seat at the table. "Why are you so cranky all the time?" she asked instead of apologizing for nearly giving Jess a heart attack.
"I'm not cranky," he snapped again, leaning back against the door and crossing his arms.
"Yes, you are. You were sort of sad after Rory was here, but for the last month you've been nine different kinds of grumpy."
"I have not."
Arching an eyebrow, something she'd picked up from him, Lily scoffed at Jess. "Have too."
"Have . . . oh, man, I'm not starting this kind of fight with you." He shook his head and managed a small smile, "You'll go for hours if I let you pull me in."
"Yes, I will," Lily quipped smartly. "Why doesn't Rory call here anymore?"
The question came out of nowhere and sent Jess reeling. He stumbled for an answer. "She . . . I . . . it's not . . ." Lily clearly wasn't going to buy any of the answers he was fumbling to come up with, he could see it in her eyes, and Jess slumped against the door. "Well, hell."
Lily giggled, "Mom doesn't like it when you swear in the house. You've done it three times now."
"I know." Jess pushed away from the door and shoved a hand through his hair. "Come with me," he told Lily, nodding toward the living room. He waited until she passed him and then sat on the couch next to her after she'd settled in.
She looked over at him expectantly, "So?"
"Okay, Lil, here's the thing . . . you're nine years old," Jess held up a hand when he saw her gearing up to argue with him, "but you don't act or think like you're nine, so I'm not going to tell you that you're too young to understand what's going on. I'll just explain it the best I can."
"Thank you," she beamed up at him.
Jess chuckled softly, "You're welcome. Now, I know that you and Rory write letters about school and stuff, but I also know that she hasn't explained to you why she hasn't called here or why I haven't been calling her."
Lily shook her head. "No. I tell her stuff about you sometimes, but she never even asks about you. Did you guys have a fight?"
"Not exactly. Rory and I care a lot about each other, but we live on opposite sides of the country. That makes it complicated."
"Why?"
"I getting to that," Jess told her, "don't interrupt. We're at different places in our lives right now, Rory and I. We want and need different things. That's not unusual; you'll learn that when you get older. You'll have friends that you'll find yourself growing apart from. It happens to everyone."
"Then why . . ." Lily trailed off after a look from Jess. "Sorry, I'm interrupting again. You're getting there."
He threw an arm around her and pulled her close to his side. "I am. It's complicated because Rory and I . . . even though we need to be in different places right now, we still love each other."
"I know I'm not supposed to interrupt," Lily said after twisting her head up to look at Jess's face, "but if you love each other, shouldn't that make it easier?"
"In a perfect world, Lilliput, it would. But, and you'll learn this someday too, love can make things even more complicated. See, when you love someone but you can't be with them it can make you angry with them. It can hurt to talk to them when you know you can't see them." Jess heard the girl sigh and glanced down at the top of her head. "What now?"
"Well, that explains why you were so sad after Rory left and why you don't want to talk to her," Lily reasoned, "but why have you been so grouchy lately?"
Jess cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I didn't know I was acting that way. I'm sorry if I've snapped at you or hurt your feelings."
Lily shrugged. "It's all right. But why?"
"Why, why, why," Jess chuckled. "You're like one of the dogs when it gets hold of a bone." He blinked and nodded when Lily shot him an impatient look. "Okay, okay. No more stalling. A few weeks ago, Rory called me. We talked for a little while; we're trying to be friends. But like I just told you, it's hard to be friends with someone when you'd rather be in love with them."
"But you were friends before, and you loved her," Lily said. "I know you did."
"I did, but it's different this time, Lily."
"How is it different?"
He didn't want to give the main reason, but there was another reason he could share with Lily without embarrassing either one of them too much. "Because before I didn't think I'd see Rory again, at least not for a long time. Not before she'd met somebody else and gotten over me at any rate." Jess shifted his arm as Lily twisted against him, her chin digging into his side as she stared up at him. "You've got that look on your face, the one you get when you've been mooning over your fairy tales again," he told her.
"It's sort of like a fairy tale," Lily giggled. "Two people in love, separated by time and distance. It's all very romantic."
Jess snorted. "Then I haven't been explaining it right."
Lily jabbed him in the ribs. "Yes, you have. I bet you and Rory find your way back to each other and live happily ever after. You just have to; that's the way the story has to end."
"Remind me to read you 'Romeo and Juliet.'"
"You're being grumpy again." Lily sulked, a pout appearing on her formerly grinning face. "Are you going to talk to Rory again?" she asked.
"Not every week like before. I agreed to try talking once a month for a while. We'll see how that goes."
The little blonde head bobbed against his shoulder. "Are you still trading off on who makes the call?"
"Mmmhmm," Jess mumbled, wary of the glint that was forming in Lily's eyes. "Why?"
Lily's smile returned with a positively evil slowness. "You've been an ogre for almost a month. And Rory called you last month, so it's your turn." She bounced to her feet and tugged at Jess's hand. "Go call her!"
Jess tried to twist his wrist from the surprisingly strong grip it was in. "Lily, I don't think that's such a good idea."
"Then don't think about it," she said, pulling harder at him. "Just do it!" Lily braced her feet against the floor and heaved the young man she'd come to think of as a brother to his feet. Ignoring his protests, she hauled him toward the kitchen.
Jess knew he could get away from her if he wanted to. The fact that he hadn't only proved that on some level he wanted to call Rory; he just had to let himself believe he'd been forced to do it and not desperate to hear her voice. He winced as Lily shoved the phone handset into his chest.
"Call her," she insisted. "Right now."
"Where did you learn to be so bossy?" he wondered even as he dialed.
"From watching Mom and Jimmy." Lily smiled as she watched Jess finish dialing. "I want to talk to her before you hang up, but I'll go and give you some privacy for now," she said conspiratorially, giving him a pat on the arm.
"You're too young to know that tone of voice!" he called after her as she disappeared from the room.
"Excuse me?" The question pierced sharply through his ear.
Jess groaned silently. "Hello, Paris. Is Rory there?"
"She is," Paris said succinctly.
"Can I talk to her?" Jess sighed.
The answer was smug. "I don't know, can you?"
"Paris, just give her the damn phone," he growled.
"Fine." She took the phone from her ear but obviously didn't cover the mouthpiece. "Rory! Rebel without a clue is on the phone!"
Rory's voice came lilting over the line. "Hello?"
Jess swallowed thickly before being able to answer. "Hi."
"Hey. I wasn't expecting you to call." She sounded pleased that he had.
"Well, we never really agreed on a when, and . . ." Jess trailed off, the rest of his sentence sounding stupid before he could even get it out.
"And what?" Rory prompted.
"And I was explaining to Lily why I've been what she called 'cranky' lately. For some reason you and I strike her as being like one of the fantasy stories she's so fond of, and she's taken it upon herself to play fairy godmother."
Rory laughed softly. "It's not really that simple."
"According to Lily, it is," Jess sighed. "I don't think she's willing to see it any other way. She's too young to remember her parents splitting up. The only relationship she's really seen is Sasha and Jimmy's. They aren't the most ideal couple, but they're pretty stable. She's got no other frame of reference that would suggest things don't always work themselves out."
"Lily's growing up," Rory said, "and she'll learn otherwise."
Jess agreed, "That's what I told her."
The content of their conversation seemed to hit them both at the same time, and they both became quiet, just breathing into the phone. Rory sighed heavily, and Jess cleared his throat to edge off the embarrassment he was feeling. He'd agreed to this phone call thing reluctantly because he was afraid this would happen, but he had no idea how uncomfortable it would be in reality.
"So," he said in a effort to salvage things before the went completely sour, "how are you?"
"All right. Busy," Rory laughed, "just like I always am when you call. You're actually giving me a break from studying that I would've felt guilty taking otherwise."
"Happy to be of service," Jess said gallantly. "And you've got a few days off for Thanksgiving next week, right?"
"Yeah." Rory sighed again, "Wow, it's Thanksgiving again."
Jess agreed, "It is. I promise there are no surprises in the mail for you this year."
"I appreciate that. Though it turned out not to be a bad surprise when it was all said and done."
He hummed in response, neither agreeing or disagreeing with Rory.
She didn't ignore his lack of an answer and called him on it. "You don't think it's turned out okay?"
Jess wandered in circles around the kitchen, kicking occasionally at the cabinets while he thought out his answer. "I don't know. I didn't actually expect it to turn out any way. Never thought you'd respond much less want to be . . . whatever it is that we are."
"Whatever it is we are," Rory told him, "I'm glad we have it. And we wouldn't if you hadn't written to me. I missed you . . . still miss you."
She'd gone breathy on that last statement, and Jess felt his stomach flip a little. "Rory, I miss you too, but we can't start talking like this again. It's just going to make us both miserable."
"I'm already miserable," she protested. "The only way it could get any worse is if my grandmother goes through with her idea to set me up with one of the sons or grandsons of one of Grandpa's business partners."
Jess stopped short in his revolutions around the table and held his breath. He absolutely hated the idea of Rory with someone else, but . . . "Maybe you should let her."
Rory sucked in a breath. "What?"
"I'm just trying to be realistic. We can't be together, Rory. It'll make it easier to accept if we're seeing other people."
"Are you dating?" she wanted to know, voice shaking.
"I've gotten a few numbers slipped to me at work, at school," Jess revealed. Granted he hadn't called any of them, but Rory didn't need to know that.
Raw pain bled across the phone lines. "Oh. Well, that's . . . no, that hurts, Jess."
"I'm not going to apologize for that. We had an agreement," he reminded her, "that we wouldn't get mad at each other for dating. If it's going to be too hard for you to do that, we can cut this off right now."
Rory sniffled. "No, I'll be okay. It's just hard to hear for the first time."
"I guess it might be," Jess said coolly.
"Are you trying to tell me that it's not going to hurt if I tell you that I've started seeing someone, that someday I might have a new boyfriend?"
"I didn't say that, but I'll deal with it when it happens. I'm not going to make myself sick wondering about it."
"You're being awfully callous," Rory accused.
Jess blew out his breath, agitated. "No, I'm being honest. Us being friends isn't going to work if you can't move on. It's not easy, it's not easy for me, but you have to do it. And we can't keep having this same conversation every month. It's already starting to get tiresome."
"I'm sorry you find me tiresome," she snapped sarcastically.
"I didn't say you were tiresome," he groaned. "I said this conversation was tiresome. God, this is why I didn't want to do this. This is a shitty situation, but it's where we're at. I'm not going to keep making you feel better over something that is half your fault."
Rory sputtered. "Excuse me? You're the one who took off in the middle of the night without telling anyone!"
"You're the one who wanted to have sex and then flipped out about it!" Jess countered.
"You didn't exactly push me away!"
"I know very few straight men who will turn down a half naked woman, especially when her hand is down his pants!"
She shrieked in outrage. "You complete bastard! I hate you!"
Jess would have responded, but she hung up on him. He stood there listening to the droning of the dial tone. "Shit."
"Jess!"
His back was to the living room entry way, and he answered without turning. "How long you been standing there, Lil?"
Lily answered on the verge of tears. "Why did you say those things to Rory? Why are you so mean?"
Turning, Jess started to try to explain to the girl, but he never got the chance to. He could only watch helplessly as Lily gave a wrenching sob and fled to her room. The bedroom door slammed a few seconds later.
The phone landed with a clunk on the table, and the chair he kicked out from the table scratched along the floor. Jess slouched down, the back of the chair digging into his neck, and covered his eyes with a hand. He slammed his other fist against the tabletop.
"Don't beat up my furniture," Sasha warned, coming through the kitchen door with her arms full of one of the cats from the yard.
"Sorry," he muttered. "You wanna yell at me too?"
"Did you do anything that I need to yell at you for?"
Bitter laughter spilled from his throat. "If I haven't I'm sure I will if you hang around for a few more minutes. I seem to be real good a pissing off women today."
"What happened?" Sasha asked, dumping the cat on the floor. She took a seat across from him at the table and regarded him seriously.
Jess dropped his hand from his eyes and looked at her. "You really want to know? You're not just asking because you feel like you have to?"
She shook her head. "I would really like to know, if you want to tell me. Believe it or not, I do care about you and how you're doing, Jess."
"Huh." He watched her carefully for a moment, but Sasha was only looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to answer without pushing or blaming him right away. It occurred to him at that moment that Sasha was what he'd wished his own mother was like when he was growing up. Sasha wasn't his friend, but he didn't want her to be. She was there to listen to him, give him advice when she thought it was warranted, but she didn't get upset with him if he didn't take it. And she didn't automatically assume the worst of him. There had been very few people in his life who had treated him that way, and in the last twenty minutes he'd managed to upset two of them . . . here was to hoping it wouldn't be three before the day was out.
"I should start by telling you that I swore in front of Lily a few times tonight," Jess said honestly. "I know you don't like that. I'm sorry."
"Okay," Sasha nodded, "start small. Thank you for apologizing, and just try to watch your language in front of her. What else?"
Jess blinked at her in surprise for a moment. "Uh . . . I called Rory, we got in a fight, Lily heard some stuff she shouldn't have, and she ran off to her room in tears."
"I'm guessing that's the short version," Sasha said calmly. "You want to expand?"
He shrugged. "Lily wanted to know why I was in a bad mood lately. I tried to explain to her that my relationship with Rory is really confusing right now, but Lily doesn't seem to see it that way. She sort of goaded me into calling Rory. Rory'd called me last month, and tonight we got into an argument over what we'd talked about then. She misunderstood some things I said, snapped at me, I snapped back and said something hurtful. Lily heard my side of that part of the call, and she took off before I could explain it to her."
"She probably wouldn't have listened anyway or understood if she had," Sasha told Jess. "I was real careful with dating after I got divorced and before I met Jimmy. I didn't bring dates around the house, especially if I didn't think the relationship was going to go anywhere. Lily doesn't really understand how complicated things can get yet. Sure, she reads a lot, but books usually paint things a lot cleaner than life does."
"No kidding." Jess closed his eyes and laid his head on the table.
Sasha pushed away from the table and stood, moving to stand behind Jess. "I'll talk to Lily. She'll come around. Why don't you go home, okay? Give yourself and Rory a little time to calm down, and then maybe give her another call in a few days."
"I don't think that'll make much of a difference," Jess said morosely, his voice muffled by the table.
"Sure it will. Look, I know what happened when Rory was here, and it's going to be hard to adjust. The fighting is inevitable, but it will pass and things will fall into a more normal pattern." Tentatively, Sasha reached out and rubbed Jess's back.
He stiffened momentarily but didn't pull away or shrug the hand off. "You'll have to forgive me if I'm not that optimistic." Sitting up, Jess turned to face Sasha, letting her hand stay on his back. "Thanks, though."
"Sure. You still coming for dinner on Sunday?"
"Yeah, I'll be around." Standing, he surprised himself by giving Sasha a brief hug. "See you later."
Sasha nodded and affectionately ruffled Jess's hair. He gave her a small smile as he pulled the kitchen door closed behind him. Stopping briefly in the yard to pat a few of the dogs on their heads, Jess slowly made his way home with his conversation with Rory replaying in his head. All the things he wished he would have said were being inserted instead of the things he did say. Idly, he wondered if he'd get a chance to make things right.
**********
The wondering didn't last long. Jess was jerked awake by the ringing of the phone early the next morning. Tripping over the clothes he'd pulled off and let fall the night before, he managed to get to the phone without doing too much harm to himself.
"Hello?" he grumbled, not fully awake.
"I don't hate you."
"Rory," Jess sighed, "I'm so sorry for what I said last night, but do you think you could not hate me in a few hours when it's not five thirty in the morning?"
"What?" Rory sounded confused until she registered the time change. "Oh, crap. It's early there. I totally forgot."
He crawled back into bed with the phone. "It's okay; don't worry about it. And I really am sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean say those things like that."
"I may have taken some of them the wrong way," she admitted. "I overreacted a little bit."
"We both made mistakes. Let's just say that or we'll being going back and forth blaming ourselves all day."
"And that would probably start another fight."
"Probably," Jess agreed.
Rory took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Why can't we get along anymore?"
"I told Lily last night that when you love someone but you can't have them sometimes all you're able to do is be angry with them," he explained. "I think that's our problem."
"Passion has to go somewhere."
"Exactly. That's why I think it will make things easier if we see other people."
"Maybe, but the idea of you with someone else is . . . I don't even know the right words for it, Jess."
He knew exactly how she felt and told her so. "Yeah, well, the thought of some other guy putting his hands on you makes my stomach churn, but there aren't a lot of other options."
"You could come back here," Rory suggested hopefully.
Jess groaned and curled tightly around one of the bed pillows. "No, Rory. I just . . . no."
"I know, I know," she sighed. "You don't want to do that. It was just a suggestion."
"One I'm as receptive to as you would be if I suggested that you transfer to a school out here." He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. "You worked very hard to get to Yale, and I am working very hard to get what I have out here. Neither one of us is ready to give that up."
Rory had no choice but to agree with him. "Sometimes I wish life were easier. No surprises or unexpected problems."
Jess chuckled in amusement at her naïve wish. "Rory, if that were the way life went you and I never would have gotten together."
"Good point," she conceded. "Forget that idea then."
"What idea?" he teased.
She giggled. "I have no clue what you're talking about."
"Okay," Jess said, changing the subject, "then could I ask you to do a favor for me?"
"Depends on what it is," Rory said slyly.
"I need you to write Lily a letter."
A surprised squeak issued from Rory's throat. "Okay, not what I was expecting. Why . . . what do you want me to write to Lily?"
"She heard part of my side of our conversation last night. Could you just try to explain to her that we had an argument, and you and I are both sorry that it happened?" Jess asked. "I'm going to tell her the same thing this weekend, but I think it will help her believe it more if she hears it from you too."
Rory hummed agreeably. "Sure, I can do that. Um . . . how much did she hear?"
Jess sighed grimly. "I'm not completely sure, but I know she heard the crack about you being naked and probably a little bit before that."
"So she knows that we had sex?"
"It's a safe assumption."
"Well, that's just . . . that's . . ." Rory stammered and trailed off. "Are you going to have to explain it to her?"
"I don't know," Jess said, silently praying that he wouldn't have to do just that. "Sasha came home not too long after you hung up on me. I'm sure she took care of any questions, whatever they might have been."
"Lily's not stupid," Rory rationalized. "I'm sure she knows what sex is, doesn't she?"
"Probably . . . more than likely, yeah." He hated thinking that someone as young as Lily would know those things, but he did at her age. He wasn't going to be stupid about it. "That doesn't mean I want to talk to her about it."
"No. I don't think I would either."
"You might have to. She can ask you just as easily about it in a letter," Jess reminded Rory.
"I was trying to ignore that possibility, thank you," Rory told him.
"Was it working?"
"No, just like it didn't work when I tried to ignore the fact that I told my mom we slept together."
Jess choked and shot upright on the bed. "You did WHAT?"
She meekly repeated herself. "I told my mom."
"WHY?"
"Calm down. Stop yelling," Rory begged. "You're gonna give me hearing damage."
"I think my continuing to live is more important than your ear right now." Jess started surveying the room, looking for necessities that could be easily crammed into his duffel in case he had to make a quick getaway. "Lorelai is going to kill me."
"I think she would have done it already if she was planning that," Rory said reasonably. "I told her last month."
Jess calmed down marginally but his heart was still beating too rapidly for him to relax. "Or she's planning it when I least expect it. She's not planning a vacation anytime soon is she, hasn't been disappearing for long periods of time?"
"No, Captain Paranoid. You're safe, trust me."
"I'm blaming you if I wind up dead," he said dryly.
"I'll keep that in mind." Rory suddenly broke into giggles.
"Are you laughing at me?" Jess asked, offended and slightly concerned for Rory's mental health as her laughter escalated.
"I was just thinking about how strange it is that us sleeping together is what put this awkward wedge between us, but now it's like the only thing we've been able to talk about without ending up in a screaming fight."
"Huh. Hadn't noticed that," Jess said quietly. He wondered what that meant, if sex was the only thing they were going to have in common, but he couldn't voice that out loud. Not to Rory.
She mimicked his soft tone. "Yeah. And not that I've brought it to our attention, I've killed it."
"Nah," Jess told her, "maybe it's just time for this conversation to end. I'm sure you've got a class or something you have to get to soon."
"And you could probably use a few more hours of sleep. I'm sorry I woke you up so early," Rory apologized again.
"It's okay. Just don't do it next time."
"Deal." Rory stalled for a moment and cleared her throat. "Well . . . I'll call you in a few weeks then?"
"I'll be around," Jess said. "Bye, Rory."
"Bye, Jess." She made a noise like she was going to say something else but quickly hung up instead.
He turned off the phone and tossed it off the side of the bed an onto the floor, wondering what she might have wanted to say. Jess decided immediately not to worry about it. This time instead of tying his heart into knots, talking to Rory had left him with a pleasant warm feeling that he hadn't felt in a long time. It was nice to have it back, and he didn't want to lose it by worrying about her right now. But the skeptical part of his brain couldn't help asking how long their renewing ease with each other would last.
Disclaimer: I own nothing other than the plot and a few original characters. All events through the end of Season 3 have occurred, but the only thing I'm borrowing from Season 4 is Rory's haircut. Any other similarities are purely coincidence. Chapter titles come from various Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers songs. I do not own those either.
**********
Chapter Fourteen: The Blacktop Stretches Out For Days
November 2004
It was mercifully quiet in the house. Lily was locked away in her room working on some crazy science experiment that involved reading different types of literature to plants. All Jess knew was that he was surprised that the bean plant she was forcing to listen to the exploits of Robinson Crusoe hadn't died from boredom. Of course even reading that book had to be better than the excruciatingly dull textbook in front of him. Maybe he hadn't given going back to school enough thought. Surely it wasn't meant to make his brain feel like it was atrophying and withering inside his skull.
Sighing, he picked up his pen and stared back down at his notes. As bored as he was, he wasn't going to quit this time. There were too many people who were proud of him for going back, who were expecting him to do well. He'd failed two of those people once before by not finishing school, and Jess wasn't going to let them, or himself, down again.
Just as he was finally getting into something of a rhythm of answering the questions he'd been assigned a raucous barking broke out in the yard followed by the affronted yowling of a cat. Jess threw his pen back down and stormed to the door.
"Legolas! Leave the damn cats alone and shut up!" The offending dog seemed to have the decency to look apologetically at Jess and slunk off to the opposite edge of the yard from the cats he'd been terrorizing.
"Damn dog," Jess snarled and slammed the door. He turned around and almost threw up his heart. "Jeez, Lily," he snapped out at the little girl in the kitchen doorway, "don't creep up like that."
Lily shrugged and took a seat at the table. "Why are you so cranky all the time?" she asked instead of apologizing for nearly giving Jess a heart attack.
"I'm not cranky," he snapped again, leaning back against the door and crossing his arms.
"Yes, you are. You were sort of sad after Rory was here, but for the last month you've been nine different kinds of grumpy."
"I have not."
Arching an eyebrow, something she'd picked up from him, Lily scoffed at Jess. "Have too."
"Have . . . oh, man, I'm not starting this kind of fight with you." He shook his head and managed a small smile, "You'll go for hours if I let you pull me in."
"Yes, I will," Lily quipped smartly. "Why doesn't Rory call here anymore?"
The question came out of nowhere and sent Jess reeling. He stumbled for an answer. "She . . . I . . . it's not . . ." Lily clearly wasn't going to buy any of the answers he was fumbling to come up with, he could see it in her eyes, and Jess slumped against the door. "Well, hell."
Lily giggled, "Mom doesn't like it when you swear in the house. You've done it three times now."
"I know." Jess pushed away from the door and shoved a hand through his hair. "Come with me," he told Lily, nodding toward the living room. He waited until she passed him and then sat on the couch next to her after she'd settled in.
She looked over at him expectantly, "So?"
"Okay, Lil, here's the thing . . . you're nine years old," Jess held up a hand when he saw her gearing up to argue with him, "but you don't act or think like you're nine, so I'm not going to tell you that you're too young to understand what's going on. I'll just explain it the best I can."
"Thank you," she beamed up at him.
Jess chuckled softly, "You're welcome. Now, I know that you and Rory write letters about school and stuff, but I also know that she hasn't explained to you why she hasn't called here or why I haven't been calling her."
Lily shook her head. "No. I tell her stuff about you sometimes, but she never even asks about you. Did you guys have a fight?"
"Not exactly. Rory and I care a lot about each other, but we live on opposite sides of the country. That makes it complicated."
"Why?"
"I getting to that," Jess told her, "don't interrupt. We're at different places in our lives right now, Rory and I. We want and need different things. That's not unusual; you'll learn that when you get older. You'll have friends that you'll find yourself growing apart from. It happens to everyone."
"Then why . . ." Lily trailed off after a look from Jess. "Sorry, I'm interrupting again. You're getting there."
He threw an arm around her and pulled her close to his side. "I am. It's complicated because Rory and I . . . even though we need to be in different places right now, we still love each other."
"I know I'm not supposed to interrupt," Lily said after twisting her head up to look at Jess's face, "but if you love each other, shouldn't that make it easier?"
"In a perfect world, Lilliput, it would. But, and you'll learn this someday too, love can make things even more complicated. See, when you love someone but you can't be with them it can make you angry with them. It can hurt to talk to them when you know you can't see them." Jess heard the girl sigh and glanced down at the top of her head. "What now?"
"Well, that explains why you were so sad after Rory left and why you don't want to talk to her," Lily reasoned, "but why have you been so grouchy lately?"
Jess cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I didn't know I was acting that way. I'm sorry if I've snapped at you or hurt your feelings."
Lily shrugged. "It's all right. But why?"
"Why, why, why," Jess chuckled. "You're like one of the dogs when it gets hold of a bone." He blinked and nodded when Lily shot him an impatient look. "Okay, okay. No more stalling. A few weeks ago, Rory called me. We talked for a little while; we're trying to be friends. But like I just told you, it's hard to be friends with someone when you'd rather be in love with them."
"But you were friends before, and you loved her," Lily said. "I know you did."
"I did, but it's different this time, Lily."
"How is it different?"
He didn't want to give the main reason, but there was another reason he could share with Lily without embarrassing either one of them too much. "Because before I didn't think I'd see Rory again, at least not for a long time. Not before she'd met somebody else and gotten over me at any rate." Jess shifted his arm as Lily twisted against him, her chin digging into his side as she stared up at him. "You've got that look on your face, the one you get when you've been mooning over your fairy tales again," he told her.
"It's sort of like a fairy tale," Lily giggled. "Two people in love, separated by time and distance. It's all very romantic."
Jess snorted. "Then I haven't been explaining it right."
Lily jabbed him in the ribs. "Yes, you have. I bet you and Rory find your way back to each other and live happily ever after. You just have to; that's the way the story has to end."
"Remind me to read you 'Romeo and Juliet.'"
"You're being grumpy again." Lily sulked, a pout appearing on her formerly grinning face. "Are you going to talk to Rory again?" she asked.
"Not every week like before. I agreed to try talking once a month for a while. We'll see how that goes."
The little blonde head bobbed against his shoulder. "Are you still trading off on who makes the call?"
"Mmmhmm," Jess mumbled, wary of the glint that was forming in Lily's eyes. "Why?"
Lily's smile returned with a positively evil slowness. "You've been an ogre for almost a month. And Rory called you last month, so it's your turn." She bounced to her feet and tugged at Jess's hand. "Go call her!"
Jess tried to twist his wrist from the surprisingly strong grip it was in. "Lily, I don't think that's such a good idea."
"Then don't think about it," she said, pulling harder at him. "Just do it!" Lily braced her feet against the floor and heaved the young man she'd come to think of as a brother to his feet. Ignoring his protests, she hauled him toward the kitchen.
Jess knew he could get away from her if he wanted to. The fact that he hadn't only proved that on some level he wanted to call Rory; he just had to let himself believe he'd been forced to do it and not desperate to hear her voice. He winced as Lily shoved the phone handset into his chest.
"Call her," she insisted. "Right now."
"Where did you learn to be so bossy?" he wondered even as he dialed.
"From watching Mom and Jimmy." Lily smiled as she watched Jess finish dialing. "I want to talk to her before you hang up, but I'll go and give you some privacy for now," she said conspiratorially, giving him a pat on the arm.
"You're too young to know that tone of voice!" he called after her as she disappeared from the room.
"Excuse me?" The question pierced sharply through his ear.
Jess groaned silently. "Hello, Paris. Is Rory there?"
"She is," Paris said succinctly.
"Can I talk to her?" Jess sighed.
The answer was smug. "I don't know, can you?"
"Paris, just give her the damn phone," he growled.
"Fine." She took the phone from her ear but obviously didn't cover the mouthpiece. "Rory! Rebel without a clue is on the phone!"
Rory's voice came lilting over the line. "Hello?"
Jess swallowed thickly before being able to answer. "Hi."
"Hey. I wasn't expecting you to call." She sounded pleased that he had.
"Well, we never really agreed on a when, and . . ." Jess trailed off, the rest of his sentence sounding stupid before he could even get it out.
"And what?" Rory prompted.
"And I was explaining to Lily why I've been what she called 'cranky' lately. For some reason you and I strike her as being like one of the fantasy stories she's so fond of, and she's taken it upon herself to play fairy godmother."
Rory laughed softly. "It's not really that simple."
"According to Lily, it is," Jess sighed. "I don't think she's willing to see it any other way. She's too young to remember her parents splitting up. The only relationship she's really seen is Sasha and Jimmy's. They aren't the most ideal couple, but they're pretty stable. She's got no other frame of reference that would suggest things don't always work themselves out."
"Lily's growing up," Rory said, "and she'll learn otherwise."
Jess agreed, "That's what I told her."
The content of their conversation seemed to hit them both at the same time, and they both became quiet, just breathing into the phone. Rory sighed heavily, and Jess cleared his throat to edge off the embarrassment he was feeling. He'd agreed to this phone call thing reluctantly because he was afraid this would happen, but he had no idea how uncomfortable it would be in reality.
"So," he said in a effort to salvage things before the went completely sour, "how are you?"
"All right. Busy," Rory laughed, "just like I always am when you call. You're actually giving me a break from studying that I would've felt guilty taking otherwise."
"Happy to be of service," Jess said gallantly. "And you've got a few days off for Thanksgiving next week, right?"
"Yeah." Rory sighed again, "Wow, it's Thanksgiving again."
Jess agreed, "It is. I promise there are no surprises in the mail for you this year."
"I appreciate that. Though it turned out not to be a bad surprise when it was all said and done."
He hummed in response, neither agreeing or disagreeing with Rory.
She didn't ignore his lack of an answer and called him on it. "You don't think it's turned out okay?"
Jess wandered in circles around the kitchen, kicking occasionally at the cabinets while he thought out his answer. "I don't know. I didn't actually expect it to turn out any way. Never thought you'd respond much less want to be . . . whatever it is that we are."
"Whatever it is we are," Rory told him, "I'm glad we have it. And we wouldn't if you hadn't written to me. I missed you . . . still miss you."
She'd gone breathy on that last statement, and Jess felt his stomach flip a little. "Rory, I miss you too, but we can't start talking like this again. It's just going to make us both miserable."
"I'm already miserable," she protested. "The only way it could get any worse is if my grandmother goes through with her idea to set me up with one of the sons or grandsons of one of Grandpa's business partners."
Jess stopped short in his revolutions around the table and held his breath. He absolutely hated the idea of Rory with someone else, but . . . "Maybe you should let her."
Rory sucked in a breath. "What?"
"I'm just trying to be realistic. We can't be together, Rory. It'll make it easier to accept if we're seeing other people."
"Are you dating?" she wanted to know, voice shaking.
"I've gotten a few numbers slipped to me at work, at school," Jess revealed. Granted he hadn't called any of them, but Rory didn't need to know that.
Raw pain bled across the phone lines. "Oh. Well, that's . . . no, that hurts, Jess."
"I'm not going to apologize for that. We had an agreement," he reminded her, "that we wouldn't get mad at each other for dating. If it's going to be too hard for you to do that, we can cut this off right now."
Rory sniffled. "No, I'll be okay. It's just hard to hear for the first time."
"I guess it might be," Jess said coolly.
"Are you trying to tell me that it's not going to hurt if I tell you that I've started seeing someone, that someday I might have a new boyfriend?"
"I didn't say that, but I'll deal with it when it happens. I'm not going to make myself sick wondering about it."
"You're being awfully callous," Rory accused.
Jess blew out his breath, agitated. "No, I'm being honest. Us being friends isn't going to work if you can't move on. It's not easy, it's not easy for me, but you have to do it. And we can't keep having this same conversation every month. It's already starting to get tiresome."
"I'm sorry you find me tiresome," she snapped sarcastically.
"I didn't say you were tiresome," he groaned. "I said this conversation was tiresome. God, this is why I didn't want to do this. This is a shitty situation, but it's where we're at. I'm not going to keep making you feel better over something that is half your fault."
Rory sputtered. "Excuse me? You're the one who took off in the middle of the night without telling anyone!"
"You're the one who wanted to have sex and then flipped out about it!" Jess countered.
"You didn't exactly push me away!"
"I know very few straight men who will turn down a half naked woman, especially when her hand is down his pants!"
She shrieked in outrage. "You complete bastard! I hate you!"
Jess would have responded, but she hung up on him. He stood there listening to the droning of the dial tone. "Shit."
"Jess!"
His back was to the living room entry way, and he answered without turning. "How long you been standing there, Lil?"
Lily answered on the verge of tears. "Why did you say those things to Rory? Why are you so mean?"
Turning, Jess started to try to explain to the girl, but he never got the chance to. He could only watch helplessly as Lily gave a wrenching sob and fled to her room. The bedroom door slammed a few seconds later.
The phone landed with a clunk on the table, and the chair he kicked out from the table scratched along the floor. Jess slouched down, the back of the chair digging into his neck, and covered his eyes with a hand. He slammed his other fist against the tabletop.
"Don't beat up my furniture," Sasha warned, coming through the kitchen door with her arms full of one of the cats from the yard.
"Sorry," he muttered. "You wanna yell at me too?"
"Did you do anything that I need to yell at you for?"
Bitter laughter spilled from his throat. "If I haven't I'm sure I will if you hang around for a few more minutes. I seem to be real good a pissing off women today."
"What happened?" Sasha asked, dumping the cat on the floor. She took a seat across from him at the table and regarded him seriously.
Jess dropped his hand from his eyes and looked at her. "You really want to know? You're not just asking because you feel like you have to?"
She shook her head. "I would really like to know, if you want to tell me. Believe it or not, I do care about you and how you're doing, Jess."
"Huh." He watched her carefully for a moment, but Sasha was only looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to answer without pushing or blaming him right away. It occurred to him at that moment that Sasha was what he'd wished his own mother was like when he was growing up. Sasha wasn't his friend, but he didn't want her to be. She was there to listen to him, give him advice when she thought it was warranted, but she didn't get upset with him if he didn't take it. And she didn't automatically assume the worst of him. There had been very few people in his life who had treated him that way, and in the last twenty minutes he'd managed to upset two of them . . . here was to hoping it wouldn't be three before the day was out.
"I should start by telling you that I swore in front of Lily a few times tonight," Jess said honestly. "I know you don't like that. I'm sorry."
"Okay," Sasha nodded, "start small. Thank you for apologizing, and just try to watch your language in front of her. What else?"
Jess blinked at her in surprise for a moment. "Uh . . . I called Rory, we got in a fight, Lily heard some stuff she shouldn't have, and she ran off to her room in tears."
"I'm guessing that's the short version," Sasha said calmly. "You want to expand?"
He shrugged. "Lily wanted to know why I was in a bad mood lately. I tried to explain to her that my relationship with Rory is really confusing right now, but Lily doesn't seem to see it that way. She sort of goaded me into calling Rory. Rory'd called me last month, and tonight we got into an argument over what we'd talked about then. She misunderstood some things I said, snapped at me, I snapped back and said something hurtful. Lily heard my side of that part of the call, and she took off before I could explain it to her."
"She probably wouldn't have listened anyway or understood if she had," Sasha told Jess. "I was real careful with dating after I got divorced and before I met Jimmy. I didn't bring dates around the house, especially if I didn't think the relationship was going to go anywhere. Lily doesn't really understand how complicated things can get yet. Sure, she reads a lot, but books usually paint things a lot cleaner than life does."
"No kidding." Jess closed his eyes and laid his head on the table.
Sasha pushed away from the table and stood, moving to stand behind Jess. "I'll talk to Lily. She'll come around. Why don't you go home, okay? Give yourself and Rory a little time to calm down, and then maybe give her another call in a few days."
"I don't think that'll make much of a difference," Jess said morosely, his voice muffled by the table.
"Sure it will. Look, I know what happened when Rory was here, and it's going to be hard to adjust. The fighting is inevitable, but it will pass and things will fall into a more normal pattern." Tentatively, Sasha reached out and rubbed Jess's back.
He stiffened momentarily but didn't pull away or shrug the hand off. "You'll have to forgive me if I'm not that optimistic." Sitting up, Jess turned to face Sasha, letting her hand stay on his back. "Thanks, though."
"Sure. You still coming for dinner on Sunday?"
"Yeah, I'll be around." Standing, he surprised himself by giving Sasha a brief hug. "See you later."
Sasha nodded and affectionately ruffled Jess's hair. He gave her a small smile as he pulled the kitchen door closed behind him. Stopping briefly in the yard to pat a few of the dogs on their heads, Jess slowly made his way home with his conversation with Rory replaying in his head. All the things he wished he would have said were being inserted instead of the things he did say. Idly, he wondered if he'd get a chance to make things right.
**********
The wondering didn't last long. Jess was jerked awake by the ringing of the phone early the next morning. Tripping over the clothes he'd pulled off and let fall the night before, he managed to get to the phone without doing too much harm to himself.
"Hello?" he grumbled, not fully awake.
"I don't hate you."
"Rory," Jess sighed, "I'm so sorry for what I said last night, but do you think you could not hate me in a few hours when it's not five thirty in the morning?"
"What?" Rory sounded confused until she registered the time change. "Oh, crap. It's early there. I totally forgot."
He crawled back into bed with the phone. "It's okay; don't worry about it. And I really am sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean say those things like that."
"I may have taken some of them the wrong way," she admitted. "I overreacted a little bit."
"We both made mistakes. Let's just say that or we'll being going back and forth blaming ourselves all day."
"And that would probably start another fight."
"Probably," Jess agreed.
Rory took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Why can't we get along anymore?"
"I told Lily last night that when you love someone but you can't have them sometimes all you're able to do is be angry with them," he explained. "I think that's our problem."
"Passion has to go somewhere."
"Exactly. That's why I think it will make things easier if we see other people."
"Maybe, but the idea of you with someone else is . . . I don't even know the right words for it, Jess."
He knew exactly how she felt and told her so. "Yeah, well, the thought of some other guy putting his hands on you makes my stomach churn, but there aren't a lot of other options."
"You could come back here," Rory suggested hopefully.
Jess groaned and curled tightly around one of the bed pillows. "No, Rory. I just . . . no."
"I know, I know," she sighed. "You don't want to do that. It was just a suggestion."
"One I'm as receptive to as you would be if I suggested that you transfer to a school out here." He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. "You worked very hard to get to Yale, and I am working very hard to get what I have out here. Neither one of us is ready to give that up."
Rory had no choice but to agree with him. "Sometimes I wish life were easier. No surprises or unexpected problems."
Jess chuckled in amusement at her naïve wish. "Rory, if that were the way life went you and I never would have gotten together."
"Good point," she conceded. "Forget that idea then."
"What idea?" he teased.
She giggled. "I have no clue what you're talking about."
"Okay," Jess said, changing the subject, "then could I ask you to do a favor for me?"
"Depends on what it is," Rory said slyly.
"I need you to write Lily a letter."
A surprised squeak issued from Rory's throat. "Okay, not what I was expecting. Why . . . what do you want me to write to Lily?"
"She heard part of my side of our conversation last night. Could you just try to explain to her that we had an argument, and you and I are both sorry that it happened?" Jess asked. "I'm going to tell her the same thing this weekend, but I think it will help her believe it more if she hears it from you too."
Rory hummed agreeably. "Sure, I can do that. Um . . . how much did she hear?"
Jess sighed grimly. "I'm not completely sure, but I know she heard the crack about you being naked and probably a little bit before that."
"So she knows that we had sex?"
"It's a safe assumption."
"Well, that's just . . . that's . . ." Rory stammered and trailed off. "Are you going to have to explain it to her?"
"I don't know," Jess said, silently praying that he wouldn't have to do just that. "Sasha came home not too long after you hung up on me. I'm sure she took care of any questions, whatever they might have been."
"Lily's not stupid," Rory rationalized. "I'm sure she knows what sex is, doesn't she?"
"Probably . . . more than likely, yeah." He hated thinking that someone as young as Lily would know those things, but he did at her age. He wasn't going to be stupid about it. "That doesn't mean I want to talk to her about it."
"No. I don't think I would either."
"You might have to. She can ask you just as easily about it in a letter," Jess reminded Rory.
"I was trying to ignore that possibility, thank you," Rory told him.
"Was it working?"
"No, just like it didn't work when I tried to ignore the fact that I told my mom we slept together."
Jess choked and shot upright on the bed. "You did WHAT?"
She meekly repeated herself. "I told my mom."
"WHY?"
"Calm down. Stop yelling," Rory begged. "You're gonna give me hearing damage."
"I think my continuing to live is more important than your ear right now." Jess started surveying the room, looking for necessities that could be easily crammed into his duffel in case he had to make a quick getaway. "Lorelai is going to kill me."
"I think she would have done it already if she was planning that," Rory said reasonably. "I told her last month."
Jess calmed down marginally but his heart was still beating too rapidly for him to relax. "Or she's planning it when I least expect it. She's not planning a vacation anytime soon is she, hasn't been disappearing for long periods of time?"
"No, Captain Paranoid. You're safe, trust me."
"I'm blaming you if I wind up dead," he said dryly.
"I'll keep that in mind." Rory suddenly broke into giggles.
"Are you laughing at me?" Jess asked, offended and slightly concerned for Rory's mental health as her laughter escalated.
"I was just thinking about how strange it is that us sleeping together is what put this awkward wedge between us, but now it's like the only thing we've been able to talk about without ending up in a screaming fight."
"Huh. Hadn't noticed that," Jess said quietly. He wondered what that meant, if sex was the only thing they were going to have in common, but he couldn't voice that out loud. Not to Rory.
She mimicked his soft tone. "Yeah. And not that I've brought it to our attention, I've killed it."
"Nah," Jess told her, "maybe it's just time for this conversation to end. I'm sure you've got a class or something you have to get to soon."
"And you could probably use a few more hours of sleep. I'm sorry I woke you up so early," Rory apologized again.
"It's okay. Just don't do it next time."
"Deal." Rory stalled for a moment and cleared her throat. "Well . . . I'll call you in a few weeks then?"
"I'll be around," Jess said. "Bye, Rory."
"Bye, Jess." She made a noise like she was going to say something else but quickly hung up instead.
He turned off the phone and tossed it off the side of the bed an onto the floor, wondering what she might have wanted to say. Jess decided immediately not to worry about it. This time instead of tying his heart into knots, talking to Rory had left him with a pleasant warm feeling that he hadn't felt in a long time. It was nice to have it back, and he didn't want to lose it by worrying about her right now. But the skeptical part of his brain couldn't help asking how long their renewing ease with each other would last.