A character for everybody. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls. Just like I do not own Adam Brody.
13 - What Just Happened?
It was raining.
The heavy rain pelted harshly against the window, somewhat matching her melancholy mood. The weather had been like this for most of the day. She knew for the sake of her mental stability, she should get out of her house and just do something. But she hated going out in this kind of rain. Her hair would clump together and her soaked shoes would create that irritating squishy sound. So she remained indoors.
She sighed. On the pseudo-bright side, at least she found something to do. She finally found the time to edit Paris's thesis.
She normally would catch a movie with Tristan or go to his place for dinner on a Saturday night like this one. But tonight ... well, they hadn't talked to each other for a week and whenever she thought of calling him, she would be reminded of his irrational accusations. No way in hell was she going to make the first move when he was acting like the arrogant prick that he was.
So she waited.
She was going to replace her usual routine and take her mind off of him by inviting Paris over for daiquiris and a therapeutic junk food binge. But Paris said it all depended if she could worm away from some boring date. That guy that she went on a blind date with weeks ago actually asked her out again ... despite the fact that neither of them had had a good time. Paris suspected that both her mother and his mother were behind this.
She was growing frustrated.
The editing itself wasn't the source of the problem. The problem was that it was taking up too much time. Aside from it being excruciatingly long, Tolstoy long, her scattered concentration could be attributed to her slow burning frustration. She would work long enough to underline the awkward phrasings or circle out some careless typo. But soon enough, she would find herself unwittingly engaged in a one-sided staring contest with the phone.
Maybe she was waiting for the phone to ring. Maybe she kept contemplating calling him. Whatever the reason might be, she sure spent a lot of time staring at her phone.
She stuck out her tongue at the phone. Really, it's getting extremely pathetic. More so than David Spade's "career."
She finally had enough of it and threw down her pen. She was obviously not getting any work done. She tried to call Paris and see if she was going to come or not. But all she got was a prerecorded message telling her that she was unavailable. Oh well, she was probably not going to come. Paris always switched off her phone during dinner dates.
She didn't want to stay in this apartment. She needed some sort of human interaction and she sure as hell wasn't getting any from her electric pencil sharpener.
There was only one place to go.
Stars Hollow.
Christian had to wander around his Grandfather's property for 5 minutes until he finally found Tristan. His mountain bike was propped up against a tree and he was sitting on the ground next to it. Beads of sweat stuck to his face and trickled down his nose in an entirely unflattering manner. But that didn't seem to bother Tristan much. Instead, what bothered him was a rather large and fresh wound on his elbow. Tristan was busy cleaning it up when his brother approached him.
"Hey, Grandpa said I might find you here. How are you?"
Tristan stop prodding his elbow and shrugged, "I've been better."
"Trouble?" Although it was meant as a question, Christian said it as if he knew the answers already.
"I'm fine," he replied tersely.
"Yeah right. And Dubya found WMD in Iraq."
Tristan took off his helmet and tossed it at the general direction of the bike. "How do you know?"
"It's the twin psychic connection thing. Also, you only do intense mountain biking when you're really stressed." He pointed out his freshly acquired scar. "And when you bike under stress, you do stupid things and get yourself hurt. It's all elementary, my dear Watson."
"Hey, this is how I deal with it. Just like you play the piano, a tad too angrily if I may add, when you're stressed." He lay flat on the grass.
"To each their own." Christian took up the spot next to him and sat down. "You want to talk about it?"
He shrugged once more. "No. Not really." He pulled up a blade of grass and toyed with it.
"Well, I have something to tell you then." He launched into his story while ignoring the obvious disinterest of Tristan. "Guess who I met yesterday. Marci Beaumont." That name had an immediate effect on Tristan. Even though he attempted to hide it, Christian saw the minute movement that showed he got Tristan's full attention. "I was having lunch at The Sugarbowl when she came up to me, apologized about the bad date 'we' had and wondering if 'we' could give it a second chance.
"At first, I thought, hmm, I have absolutely no recollection of this person before me. But that's not entirely unusual for me to forget a girl's name. Sometimes I have trouble keeping track of them all. So, we exchanged our numbers and now I have a hot date for tomorrow night. Oh, and here's the good part. After she left, I gave her much more thought and an idea occurred on me. She didn't go on a date with me. She went on a date with you.
"And now, my question is, what the hell were you thinking when you went on a date with her?" His last sentence was akin to a slap to the back of his brother's head.
"I didn't realize it was a 'date" until I thought about it later. I just saw it as two people having dinner together when I first agreed to it." To his credit, he did say that with a smidge of remorse.
"You're being stupid. I thought you're way past dating 5 different girls at once." He admonished, "Rory is a good girl. She deserves better treatment. You know, you can be such a dick sometimes." He knew he was being harsh, but Tristan deserved it. Besides, he had grown attached to Rory and felt like standing up for her.
"Thanks. I think I can come to that conclusion on my own," he replied sarcastically. There was something fiercely ironic about the way his brother, of all people, was preaching to him the virtues of monogamy. But he knew Chris was right, so he didn't bother to come up with a smartass rebuttal.
"I'm guessing that Rory wasn't too happy with this new development in your relationship."
"We had a fight. Full scale yelling, car door smashing kind of fight."
"Ouch."
"You want to hear the ironic part." Tristan allowed himself a sardonic laugh. "Our fight wasn't about Beaumont. I got pissed because I saw her interviewing Blair McCain over dinner and I jumped to the wrong conclusions. I don't think she even knew about Marci Beaumont."
"Once more, you're a dick."
"You need to come up with a new adjective," he agreed exasperatedly.
"Don't worry, I'm sure Rory has numerous creative adjectives for you right now." He too lay down, mimicking his brother's pose.
"I'm so scared of losing her that I didn't even see my own double standards."
"Okay, so you obviously know the root of your problem and obviously admit to being wrong. Why don't you just call her, apologize, and go back to sucking each other's faces ... or whatever you do when the two of you are together."
"Because it's not that simple. She said something and I said something and now it's just a huge mess." He threw away the piece of grass and ran his fingers through his hair. "It's kinda hard to explain this to a man who never had a long term relationship."
"You don't need to explain to me. You just need to talk about it out loud with somebody and luckily, I'm all ears."
"This fight, it gave me some time and distance to think about us. I notice things about Rory that I've overlooked during these past months and I don't know what to make of it. She seems to be ... different." He thought for a while before coming up with a word that loosely described his findings.
"Elaborate on 'different?'"
"It's just, aside from being a New York Times writer, she's not what I imagined. She isn't deadly addicted to coffee like some sort of demented junkie, her hair doesn't smell like strawberries or vanilla, and she actually had a debut, complete with the skirts and gloves." Oh and the sex was mind-blowing, but he wasn't going to tell his brother that. "I feel like I'm dating this person, who is, by the way, awesome and nice and charming on her own account, but it felt different than the Rory Gilmore that I had in mind. What happened to Mary?"
Christian, in a surprising move, actually knew the answer to that. "First of all, it's about time you drop that highly inappropriate and immature nickname. It's not endearing, and it's not supposed to be. And second, I got a new adjective for you; you're a delusional moron. What prompted you to believe that a girl will remain the same as she did back when she was 16? A lot of things can happen in 10 years. Heck, you don't have to look further than the two of us to see that.
"But –"
"I have yet to finish. Also, personally, I think you've been thinking about Rory so much that you have subconsciously assigned her these traits and characteristics that aren't necessarily her. I know you've liked Rory since the Chilton days, and I don't blame you for carrying this image of her in your head. That's all you had before you met her. But now's the time for you to snap out of it and stop trying to fit her into this mould that you've created. The Rory that you know right now, that's real. Try to see her as who she is, not who she should be."
Tristan chewed on his brother's words carefully and found that it made sense. "Just for the record, you're doing a lot more than listening." Not that he was being unappreciative. But if he remembered correctly, this was the first time he received anything that remotely resembled relationship advice from his elder brother.
"It's for your own good."
"When did you go Oprah all of a sudden?"
"I did grow up with mom, remember. I picked up things." He shrugged. "So you feel better now?"
"Yeah." They stood up and they both tried to swipe away the pieces of grass stuck to their backs. "Maybe I'll call her after dinner. Thanks Christian." He reluctantly, yet sincerely, thanked this unlikely counselor.
"Don't mention it. Now can we go back to the house? I'm starving and I think Marguerite is making crab fritters. My favourite!" He proclaimed enthusiastically.
Lorelai surveyed her surroundings before going over to answer the door. Candles, check. Music, check. She was even wearing this really, really nice nightie that she got yesterday. She flipped her hair and made sure that she hadn't accidentally sprayed on too much perfume. The last time she did that, Luke wouldn't stop sneezing for the rest of the night.
Luke looked a little worn out lately between the baby scare and his new incompetent waiter ("The boy can't even make toast! I wish I can fire him, but I promised his mother that I'll give him another week."). That's why Lorelai suggested that the two of them should go away for the weekend. Unfortunately, Derek, the new waiter, managed to break the deep fryer, effectively throwing a wrench to their plans. So instead of a relaxing getaway, Luke spent his Saturday waiting for the obscenely tardy technician to come and fix a kitchen appliance.
That's why Lorelai came up with this. Luke would get a nice weekend no matter what.
But right now, he was the furthest thing from her mind.
"Hi sweetie." Lorelai stammered, fully in panic mode once she realized that it was Rory, and not Luke, knocking on her door. If she knew that, she would have answered the door wearing something more appropriated than skimpy black lingerie.
"Hey Mom. I forgot to bring my key and I can't find the one underneath the turtle. Did you move it? Can I come in?" She seemed to not notice Lorelai's attire. She also seemed to be a tad too chipper under these circumstances.
"Su ... Sure." Lorelai hastily grabbed a coat and put it on, not caring that it was a heavy winter coat and it was 90 degrees out there. Damn it, she was doing that blinking, words-can't-come-out-of-her-mouth thing. She only did that when she was nervous, and nothing made her more nervous than conversing with her daughter looking like a Victoria's Secret model.
"Good! Because I got ice cream, twizzlers, funions, and family size sour skittles. But I ate half of that on my way here, so there's only enough for a married couple without kids." She offered Lorelai her half empty bag of candy as she entered the house. "Hey, you want to eat the ice cream first? Either that or we'll have to stick it into the freezer."
"Umm, sure." She stared at Rory as if she was possessed by aliens. "Are you ... am ... am I ... expecting you?"
"No. Not really. I hope I'm not interrupting anything." She said as her false enthusiasm slowly faded away and she tiredly flopped down on the sofa. Rory was far too absorbed in her own drama to notice all the scented candles around her.
"Umm, no ... well ... yes ... NO!" She nervously lied. "You're not interrupting anything. I'm just trying out my Heidi Klum impression. Pretty good huh."
After not getting any response from her daughter, she sat down beside her. "Sweetie, is something wrong?"
"Well-" Rory was going to launch into her relationship woes when the two of them heard the backdoor opening and Luke called out to Lorelai.
"Hey, I brought us something to eat. By the way, the store didn't have the ones I usually get, so I though we can try out this ribbed-"
"Turtleneck sweater!" Lorelai yelled, stopping Luke before this situation could deteriorate any further. God, she was feeling light headed. She was having trouble breathing. Maybe she should put her head between her legs. But that would be a bad idea because she would came face to face with the skimpy panties that she bought to match her nightie.
This is horrible! What had she done to deserve this! Damn it, now she sounded like Emily!
"What the hell are you talking about?" A puzzled Luke walked into the living room after setting down the bag on the dining table. He knew he should try harder to convince Lorelai not to drink coffee after 3 p.m. But when he entered the living room, he saw Rory lying face down on the sofa. He promptly went through 40 shades of red. "Oh. Hi Rory." He barely squeaked out, absolutely mortified.
Fortunately for the two adults, Rory was so absorbed by Tristan that she barely noticed Luke's slip of tongue or Lorelai's clumsy interference. Rory gave him a halfhearted wave, "Hey Luke." and went back to sulking.
Luke, feeling that this had to be one of the most embarrassing experiences in his life, smiled nervously. He went over to Lorelai and dragged her to the dining room.
"Rory's here? Why is she here?"
"I don't know. She didn't tell me. I think she had a fight with Tristan."
"Tristan, her boyfriend, Tristan?"
"No, we're talking about the Wagnerian opera. Of course I'm talking about her boyfriend. How many Tristan's do you know?" Lorelai suddenly caught herself at the edge of a temper tantrum and sighed. "I'm sorry about that. It's just ... this weekend is not supposed to go like this."
"It's okay, I understand." He took a peek at Rory. She was still lying on the couch in the same position. "Maybe I should go and let the two of you have a mother-daughter talk."
"Thanks, I think she needs one. I'm sorry that this weekend turned out to be a huge disaster."
"That's okay, it happens. See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
They shared a halfhearted smile. Luke pulled her into his arms and gave her a warm hug. He was going to lean in for a kiss, but this one last romantic moment of theirs was interrupted by the high pitched ringing of Rory's cell phone. Lorelai's curiosity got the better of her and she detangled herself from Luke so she could eavesdrop on the conversation.
Despite her efforts, she could only pick up bits and pieces of it. All she heard was, "No, I'm at Stars Hollow," "I guess," "Do you seriously think you'll miss the gazebo? It's big, it's in the middle of the town, and they just painted it pink," and "I'll see you in 20 minutes." Lorelai heard her hang up and immediately straightened herself. She pretended to take something out of the fridge.
Luke watched Lorelai's charade with amusement. Must be a woman thing.
Rory entered the kitchen and handed her the ice cream, "Mom, I have to go. You probably should put this in the freezer." A figment of the old levelheaded and responsible Rory seemed to have reappeared, "Bye Luke." She waved and left through the front door as abruptly as she appeared there.
After they heard the door bang shut, Luke thought out loud, "Ummm ..."
"That was weird."
"Yeah."
Lorelai shrugged and grabbed a spoon from the drawer. "Ice cream?"
"Fuck you Gilmore!"
That was Paris's explosive reply after she flipped her phone shut. She was wet, she was miserable and she knew she was going to catch a cold if she didn't get into some dry clothes fast. She was quickly forgetting why she braved this weather without an umbrella. Even more so, she was quickly forgetting why she decided to come here in the first place.
Oh, right, you always showed up when your best friend needed you. Come hell or high water.
She called Rory after ringing her doorbell for 5 minutes with no avail. By the time she tracked her down, she learned that Rory was currently in Stars Hollow and she was not going to come home tonight. She revealed, predictably, that the key was underneath the rug and Paris could spend her night there. Oh and by the way, she got most of her thesis done and it was sitting on her desk if she wanted to take a look at it.
Paris futilely wringed her long hair dry. The two-block walk between the subway station and Rory's house had rendered her completely soaked. Her hair was a mess and her wet shirt clang uncomfortably to her like a second skin. Her toes felt totally gross wearing shoes that were completely soaked. She couldn't believe she blew off a dinner date at Le Cirque for this.
She opened the door to Rory's apartment still muttering creative curses at her best friend. Well, she was here, might as well take advantage of Rory's offer. It was simply raining too hard for her to catch a ride home.
Also, she could really use some dry clothes.
"Who's that?"
"Paris. We were supposed to have daiquiris and bitch about boys. But I thought she wasn't able to come, so I came over here." Rory replied as she threw her phone into her purse.
Stars Hollow was experiencing the death throes of Indian summer. Indian summer ... is that even politically correct? She shrugged. Everything seems to be politically incorrect right now. For one, there's the much-anticipated appearance of the gazebo. Did all romantic interactions have to happen in a gazebo?
Heck, they were only one song and dance away from a Sound of Music reenactment.
But to say that would imply the two of them were in a lighter mood. It was the exact opposite. They had been doing this for the past 15 minutes. Him standing; her sitting. Silence, averted glances, general avoidance of the elephant in the room, each waiting for the other to start. Quiet tension ran between them. Who knew that Paris's well-timed phone call could break them out of their reverie.
"Would that boy be me?"
"Most certainly." She gave him a wry smile. It was the first time she smiled ever since he got here.
"So, do you spend a lot of time here?" He asked, still not ready to approach the inevitable topic. But the fact that they were talking again gave him the courage to build up to that slowly. He had time, she had time, there was no need to rush.
"You mean Stars Hollow? Yeah, I try to come home every so often." She pointed out the fringe festival banner above them, "I try to make it to most of the festivals. Something outrageous always happens and I wouldn't want to miss it for the world. But lately I have spent less and less time around here." She said that with a touch of regret.
What with her having to split her time between her job in New York, her Grandparents' place in Hartford and now, Tristan, she was finding less and less time for Stars Hollow. Besides, now that Lorelai and Luke were dating, it became mighty inconvenient for the three of them whenever she needed to stay overnight.
That just showed how they had all moved on.
"Look, Rory. I'm sorry about last Friday." There, it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. "I don't know why I did it. But I promise you it'll never happen again."
Actually, Rory knew why he overreacted and on some level, she was deeply touched by it. In a morbid sort of way of course.
"Tristan, I need you to know that you can trust me no matter what, okay? I do not go around kissing other guys while I'm still dating you." Thank god she had rid herself of that bad habit by now.
"I know that. It's just, sometimes I see things and I stop thinking straight. I know I should be more mature than that. Trust me, I know! But ... it's really hard to explain." He admitted in defeat.
"I understand."
She had been thinking. Would she act out the same way if she saw Tristan having dinner with another woman? The answer was an obvious and resounding yes. "It's okay as long as it never happens again." She smiled at him radiantly. "Come'ere." She patted the spot next to her. He sat beside her and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her deeply and something in her heart sighed—this was how it was supposed to feel.
It felt good to do this again. Guess things were back to normal now.
When they broke apart, he smiled. A much more relaxed smile. "So you want to tell me what this fringe festival is about?"
Paris pulled out the frozen pizza from the freezer. God forbid Rory Gilmore have anything more edible than this. The only non-perishables in this house were a can of cheese-wiz and an obscenely large jar of jellybeans. There was also a tub of yogurt. But it seems the yogurt had been harboring an alternate life form for god knows how long. Paris took matters in her own hands and threw that away.
She read the instructions on the box carefully. Either because she always read the instructions carefully or that she had never reheat a frozen pizza before.
She had taken a hot shower and threw her own clothes into the dryer. Her wet hair was encased in a towel and was neatly knotted on top of her head. She dug around the kitchen to find something to place the pizza on as she reheated it. She finally set her sights on a cookie sheet tucked to the bottom of the cupboard. The fact that Rory owned a cookie sheet was enough of a miracle.
She tried to pull the cookie sheet out. All of this made so much noise that she didn't notice somebody creeping towards the kitchen. When she finally pulled it out, she was able to sense the presence of another person in the room. She whipped her head around and was accosted with the sight of a man with a baseball bat.
Paris did what her instincts told her to do.
She let out a bloodcurdling scream – that is, until the man slapped a hand over her mouth and stopped her.
Now that her fight or flight instincts had subsided, she was able to see the person's face more clearly. She instantly recognized him as Jess, Rory's infamous roomate.
"Jesus fucking Christ!" Jess muttered as took his hand of her mouth and tugged his ear, "You sound like a mandrake."
He remembered Paris. He occasionally caught a glimpse of her whenever Rory dragged her to Stars Hollow for the holidays or the myriad of festivals in town. But the last time he actually talked to her dated back to their heated debate over the validity of the beat generation. That felt like ages ago.
"Why are you here?" They both asked simultaneously.
"You first?" They both answered simultaneously.
"I live here." He stated the obvious.
"I know that. But I thought you're in Chile, and you won't be back for a while."
"I was supposed to come home on Monday. But we wrapped up early so I caught an earlier flight home." He was going to continue justifying his presence when he realized he shouldn't be the one doing the explaining. "Why are you here? And is that my shirt?"
"My clothes were soaked and I need to put them in the dryer. Since I can't fit into anything that Twiggy has in her closet, I took your shirt. I hope you don't mind."
Even if Jess minded, there was not much that he could do about it. "Okay, we got that part cleared up. But you still have yet to tell me why you are here."
"Oh, Rory had a fight with Tristan. We're supposed to get drunk and bitch about our boyfriends. By the way, I use the term 'boyfriend' loosely since all I'm going to complain about is the man that my mom forced me to date. Not exactly a 'boyfriend,' but, close enough."
"She had a fight with Tristan?"
"Had. Past tense. I just called her and Tristan is there with her in Stars Hollow. It seems she isn't planning on coming back into town tonight." Paris was oblivious to the change in Jess's voice as she shoved the pizza into the oven.
"Oh."
"Here, why don't you go take a shower. The pizza should be ready in–" She held up the box and read the fine print, "35 minutes. Now, do you know where Rory keeps her blow dryer?"
"Here's Miss Patty's. When I was a kid, for reason that's still unknown, mom made me take lessons here. I'll let you know that I'm the worst baton-twirler in the tri-state area. My head took a lot of hits back in those days."
"I'm glad that didn't affect your brain. What about that?"
"That's the diner, the only place where Kirk was never employed. Luke said Kirk was like that sick puppy that you want to put to death."
"What a ... charming ... man. And he's dating your mom?" He asked incredulously.
"Oh don't let that fool you. He's a big softie inside."
They continued to stroll around the town with her introducing him to the various sights and the stories that came with them. She told him about Babette's gnomes and Taylor's totalitarian take on town politics.
"I hate to interrupt this tour. But I'm wondering, where is the end of this?"
"What?"
"Well, we've decided it was too late to drive back to New York and you said we can't stay at your mom's place. So where are we going to spend the night? Are we going back to gramp's place?" He admitted that it wasn't one of his best ideas.
Rory's wasn't too hot on that idea either. It was one thing to stay over after dinner. But it was another thing to drop in unannounced on Tristan's grandfather. She mulled over it a bit and found a solution, "I know, we can stay at the inn!"
"Dirty! I like!" He wriggled his eyebrows mischievously.
"Oh stop it. It's an inn, not a motel off the Las Vegas strip." She lightly chided. "We can check and see if they have any openings. I'm sure I can bribe Michel into letting us stay there for free."
"Sure, I won't mind that." His stomach suddenly interrupted their conversation with a loud grumble. Now that the most urgent thing on his mind was lifted, he remembered that he had hardly eaten any of his dinner.
She giggled at that. "I'm hungry too. I have yet to have dinner." She pointed to the restaurant across the street. "How about Thai food? Do you like Thai food?"
"But it says Al's Pancakes."
"Oh you'll see."
"Why are you picking out the pineapples? They are the best part of a Hawaiian pizza!" He took the pineapple chunks off Paris's plate and placed it on his own slice.
"They're fruit. And I don't like fruit in my pizza."
"Tomato is a fruit is well. Don't see you picking those off your pizza."
"That's different." She mock huffed.
"You want some more wine?" Jess offered.
There was something remarkably strange here. They hadn't seen or talked to each other for years, and back then when they did talk, it was about something as neutral as books. Yet, now, they had developed some sort of familiarity and compatibility between them. In the past hour, they have touched upon nearly every subject possible.
Or maybe it's the alcohol talking.
"Yes please." She took a sip from her glass. "This wine is good. I'm surprised. I never pegged you as a wine person."
"I'm not. My crew and I stayed with a family in Chile. They have this big-ass vineyard and when we left, the host gave each of us a bottle. You want that?" He gestured to the last slice.
"No. I'm stuffed."
"So tell me about your boy ... excuse me, 'non'-boyfriend."
"What? I can't tell you that!"
"Why not?"
"Because you're a ... guy!"
"Well, didn't you come over to bitch about guys? Doesn't mean Rory has to be present for that." He rationalized. "I'm a surprisingly good listener sometimes."
Paris was barely convinced. But nonetheless, she slowly opened up to him about her disastrous date with Wilbur and all his unintended humor. "Once, I was telling him about this exhibition that I saw in Brussels and halfway through, he asked me if Man Ray is some sort of aquatic animal."
"You're shitting me. He really said that?" He asked in disbelief.
"Verbatim." Paris finished her glass of wine.
"Man, he would be a perfect match for Deanna." Jess reached over to fill up her glass only to realize that they had polished off the whole bottle. At Paris's puzzled look, he added, "I dated this girl who couldn't tell the difference between Dennis Miller and Glen Miller."
"People can be so stupid sometimes." She furrowed her brows and frowned. "The sad part is, Wilbur and I might end up together someday." If her mother and his mother have their way with it.
She just sat there, engulfed in deep thoughts and troubled by her current predicament. And all Jess could think of was how mesmerizing she looked.
A feeling overcame him. Perhaps it was the alcohol. Perhaps her presence was filling some sort of void in him. And perhaps, a big perhaps, he genuinely wanted to do that. Whatever the reason may be, he found himself leaning in. She sensed that and she inched her chin up higher and looked him in the eyes with anticipation.
Then they kissed.
It was soft at first. His lips barely grazing hers. The second time they kissed, she kissed him back with a fervent urgency that she had never experienced before and he responded readily. His hands rested on that spot behind her neck and beneath her hair. She melted at his touch and her hands closed around the front of his shirt.
As cliché as it sounded, there was an undeniable connection between them.
It was quiet.
Well, not totally. She could still hear the traffic outside. She could hear his rhythmic breathing. But aside from that, she felt quiet. A type of quiet and peacefulness that could only come after prolonged excitement.
And that damn sure was a prolonged excitement.
It had stopped raining, and at some time, she forgot when, the windows were open. She twisted her head slightly to observe him. He looked relaxed in his sleep. The bed sheets entwined his body the same way it entwined hers. But it offered no coverage though. A cool breeze sneaked through the open windows and it tickled her moist skin. Skin damp with perspiration.
His arm slung lightly over her stomach. It looked as if it was most natural thing in the world. As if his arms would be stretched out like that regardless of her presence.
Paris waited longer until she could hear him snore. She lightly pushed his arm away and got out of bed. She sneaked out of the room and found her clothes in the dryer, just where they should be. She hastily put them on and called a cab.
It was best for her to leave right now and spare them the embarrassment. She could wake up and find Rory here. Worse yet, she could wake up and find him there. Because then, she wouldn't know what to say to him. She couldn't face him until she had enough time to analyse what just happened.
Before she left, she took a peek at him and the can of worms that they had opened.