Lightning
A/N: Just so you know, I am aware of he end quotation marks issue. It's like this in all my stories and for the life of me I cannot figure out how to keep my quotation marks from disappearing in the uploading process. I apologize. Also, I am making up the country of which Tade is prince because I read something about not being able to use real people in these fanfics, which I completely understand, but I see no harm in making up entire countries, so that's exactly what I did.
Chapter Four: Perfect
After floating back to her room, Rory sat down to write a paper about the imagery of hands used throughout Toni Morrison's Beloved for her American Literature class. All she could think about, however, was the feel of Tade's hand brushing across her cheek and their strong, yet delicate, artistic, grace. They were like snowflakes made of steel. Rory, that doesn't make any sense! Stop being poetic and start being analytical! You are not allowed to think about him until you write at least 500 words. She mentally yelled at herself. She could be so cruel sometimes. After writing her name, the name of her professor, and the date the paper was due in the top, right corner, her mind began to drift again. He smelled really good too. Like freshly cut grass and feathers. Ugh! She was never going to get any work done.
After Tade went back to his room, he attempted to unpack some more of his things from the number of boxes that cluttered his room. His eyes drifted to the ten digits of Rory's cell phone number. She had beautiful handwriting. Of course she would have beautiful handwriting; she had beautiful hands. They were precise and feminine. He longed to hold her hand again. Unconsciously he took the pen out of his pocket and began to draw her hand from his memory on the side of the box that held her number. So much for unpacking.
Rory was still staring at her unwritten paper when her cell phone started to play the tune of the Ghost Busters theme song. She grabbed it with more speed than she knew she possessed.
"Hello?" she answered in her most unaffected tone.
"So tell me about this prince." Her mother said with anticipation.
"Oh, it's you." Rory mumbled, slightly disappointed that it wasn't Tade, but still glad that she could now discuss him with her mother.
"Be careful there. I don't want you to get too excited. You could pull a muscle or chip a nail or something." Lorelai sarcastically replied.
"Sorry, I was hoping it was Tade." Rory apologized.
"Is Tade the prince?" her mother asked, forgetting about the previous moment.
"Yes." Rory answered with an inward smile at the thought of her prince.
"So you weren't joking? Are you sure he wasn't joking? This all seems a little too Disney to me." Lorelai let this all out in one breath.
"I thought he was joking at first too, but he seemed really serious. And it's funny you should mention Disney because we actually watched Aladdin together and he owns every Disney film I have ever heard of." She spouted.
"Honey, that's great, but I'm still stuck on this prince thing. What country is he the prince of?" Her mother asked.
"It's called Sable D'Or. (A/N: Sand of Gold) I had never heard of it before, but I just Googled it and low and behold it is actually there, sandwiched between Nigeria and Benin (A/N: No. It's not really there)." She released returning to the same fascination she had felt while studying the online map.
"Huh." Her mother paused for a moment. "Is he black?" she asked bluntly.
"Yeah." Rory replied.
"Huh.
"Again with the Ôhuh'. What are you huhing?" She asked slightly perturbed.
"Nothing. You just don't get a lot of black people in Stars Hollow. I was just thinking about that. It's weird. The town will find this interesting. Oh man, my mother will pee herself." Lorelai laughed.
"Why? Why is this so unheard of?" Rory asked slightly more annoyed.
"Well I think it's great that you've found someone you like, but everyone else is just going to focus on the fact that white, little Rory has found herself a black man." Her mother explained.
"I didn't think of that. Of course, it totally doesn't matter what they think, but when I met him I just completely didn't notice the whole black factor. I mean, I obviously saw it, but I didn't see it. You know?" She asked without expecting an answer. "I was just so caught up in the sight of this beautiful man, with the most amazing smile dancing through the rain as though he didn't have a care in the world. It was entrancing." She sighed.
"That sounds so romantic." Lorelai said dreamily. "Meeting in the rain. What happened next?" She asked, snapping back into curiosity.
"Well, the rain stopped after a bit more dancing, and he invited me back to his room do dry offÉ" her words drifted off as she adjusted her seating position so that her legs were dangling over the arm of her desk chair.
"Wait. You went back to his room? What happened then? I'm having a heart attack." Her mother's words were frantic.
"Why are you freaking out?" Rory was entirely confused.
"The way you just let your sentence drift off, was that an innuendo of some sort? You're killing your mother here." Lorelai was hyperventilating at this point.
"What? No! I was just trying to get more comfortable in my chair. I didn't sleep with him! I just met him!" she shouted.
"Sorry. Sorry. Just a little freak out. Nothing new. Please continue. He invited you back to his roomÉ" She said, now calming down.
"Anyway," she said rolling her eyes, "I agreed to go back to his dorm to dry off, you caught that right? That's not an innuendo for sex. Ok?" She teased.
"Alright. Alright. Get on with the story and make fun of me later. I'm on the edge of my seat here." Lorelai said with her own eyes rolling now.
"So, we're walking back to his room, and of course, in true Rory fashion, I'm wearing the wrong kind of shoes for a romantic dance in the rain.
"Well, how is anyone suppose to prepare for one of the those?" her mother asked rhetorically.
"I know! So I'm sliding all around in my flip-flops, trying desperately not to fall over, because that is not the way to make a good first impression." She explained.
"No. Not at all. Good call.
"Right, so I'm trying not to fall, but I'm trying to be discreet about my struggling, because that's the ladylike thing to do.
"Of course." Her mother interjected.
"Suddenly, in the midst of my struggles I realize that Tade has stopped walking and he is crouching expectantly at my side." Rory dispensed.
"What the hell for?" her mother asked getting into the story.
"That's what I was thinking! And then, get this, he says Ôclimb on'." She said with wide eyes.
"Dirty!
"Hey! Hey! Out of the gutter, mother. He told me that he noticed my flip-flop issues and he didn't want me to hurt myself so he told me to get on his back so that he could carry me safely back to his dorm." She said with a smile, as she relived the moment in her mind.
"Oh man, I'm swooning over here." Lorelai said with a sigh.
"And he's a prince!" Rory exclaimed more to herself than to her mother.
"I need my smelling salts." Her mother said while mock fanning herself until she remembered that Rory couldn't see her.
"Ok. Now you're completely caught up with where I am right now. So I have to go pretend to write a paper but actually think about his beautiful face, and eyes, and hands, andÉ smell." She sighed.
"Oh, my baby caught herself a real live prince. I taught you well. Call me when you get any updates on the prince situation. Bye sweets." Lorelai said with embellished pride.
"I will. Bye mom." Rory flipped her cell phone closed and sighed to herself again as she turned back to her computer screen.
By this point, Tade had already moved form drawing Rory's hands to drawing her lips and on to painting her eyes. They were disconnected images on the box, just as they were in his mind. Floating around like cotton candy in his brain. He couldn't take it anymore. He had to call her. He took out his cell phone and dialed the number he had already memorized.
"Hello?" She picked up in the middle of the first ring and he smiled to himself.
"Sweet bumpkin dear, it is my royal request that you join me for dinner tomorrow evening." He said through an expanding grin.
"Well, lordy, ah'd just love to eat with a real live prince. It's always been mah dream ever since ah was a little girl playin' in the dirt with Billy-Jo and Mary-Jo." She said trying to sound like a hillbilly.
"Well, I only want to make your dreams come true." He said sincerely as his grin had grown to almost unmanageable proportions.
"Thank you. Seriously, I would very much enjoy having dinner with you tomorrow." She said with a growing smile of her own.
"Then it's a date. I'll pick you up at seven." He said trying to control the giddy feeling in his stomach. "Where's your dorm?" he asked after he suddenly remembered he didn't know.
"Oh, I'm in Durfee, first suit on the left on the first floor." She replied.
"Durfee. Oh man, now that's embarrassing." He joked.
"Yes. Yes it is." She agreed although she did not feel embarrassed at all. She felt like there was no room in her body for any emotion besides pure bliss.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Rory." He let her name roll of his tongue and he realized that it was the first time he had said it out loud and he had to restrain himself from saying it over and over again.
"See you then. Bye Tade." She almost whispered through her happiness as she hung up. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes to picture his face again. Perfect, she thought to herself.
He felt as though rainbows and sunshine would shoot out of his fingertips if he didn't hold his hands together that was how happy he was. He clasped his hands behind his head and lay back on his wooden floors gazing into his memory at the image he held of her. Perfect,