Rory Gilmore had always come off shy to everyone. The background sort of a girl. She sometimes agreed with this clear cut picture of herself. Other times, when she was more cynical and honest, she saw that she wasn't shy. She was stubborn. Stubborn like her mother except Rory had always masked her stubbornness behind subtly, sometimes mistaken for timidity.

Sometimes it was easier to think she was shy. To explain to her mother why she chose to eat lunch alone.

"Well, I'm a little shy…" she could say and trail off without further interrogation. And oh, Lorelai Gilmore was the grand master of interrogation. To try and explain, to convey her deep feelings on the matter, that she ate lunch by herself not because she was shy, that she didn't mingle at gatherings and packed her own books to read at the few parties she attended because she genuinely enjoyed all of those things, was to own up to quite a bit of oddness. People couldn't understand that Rory didn't do things not because she was shy, but because she simply liked it better her way.

So the reason Rory had been standing outside her room's door for over 30 minutes, dreading walking in, dreading seeing Tristan was not because she was shy. It was because she would have liked so much better to not like Tristan or if he appeared to like her. But Rory was a bit too stubborn to admit that as of now, so here she was. Waiting outside her room, hoping all these fluttery feelings would just dissipate.

It was as if fate had decided it was sick of waiting outside in January's bitter cold, for just that moment Tristan Dugrey swung open the room's door.

"Rory?" he quirked his brow, "Why are you standing outside in the cold?"

Rory was to distracted to answer for she was stubbornly running over the scientific method in her head. Problem: Tristan Dugrey had the bluest eyes she had ever seen. Hypothesis: If Tristan comes to the door and doesn't notice the fact that I might possibly potentially be completely infatuated with him then I will go crazy.

Tristan cleared his throat, jarring her from her thought process.

"Ohh." She said as she scuttled by him, into the room.

"Ohh?" He answered, slightly mocking her guttural tone.

Rory took a deep breathe and felt the room's warm air flood her face. She had stubbornly refused to enter the room when the numbing first set in and was now paying all the appropriate consequences.

Rory looked into Tristan's ice blue eyes and managed to spit out one word, "Cold."

Tristan chuckled at the sight of her. Chattering her teeth and circling her hands over an imaginary fire.

"beach…sun…beach"

"Rory what are you doing?"

Rory didn't crack an eye open to answer this. She said quickly, "Visualizing."

Tristan guffawed, "Why?"

Rory's blue eyes opened crossly.

"I am persuading my subconscious that I am in warmer weather which will then trick my body's temperature into rising."

"You really think that will work…I mean the way you are doing it?"

"Why do you mean the way I'm doing it?"

Tristan leaned against the wall knowingly.

"Well it seems like the key to this visualization thing is persuasion …I don't know what does it for your body temperature but I'm not sure you muttering words like, 'beach' is really going to trick your subconscious. I mean you look like you are voodooing someone, not experiencing a tropical island."

Rory sighed impatiently, "Well Tristan if you know so much you about this why don't you show us your god given persuasion skills.

Tristan smiled with delight. He had always been known for his persuasion skills.

Rory instantly regretted saying anything when she felt Tristan walk closer to her.

"..Wha..What you are doing?" She said edgily as he walked closer and closer.

"Sshh. Close your eyes. You have to visualize."

Rory felt his words hit her softly and the air tickled the back of her next. She prayed she wasn't bright red.

Tristan whispered softly in her ear, "You can feel the sound of waves crashing on the beach and you are running fine white sand through your fingers not to mention staring at my gorgeous half-naked body…" he finished jokingly.

Rory blanched as that image flooded her mind and willed herself to keep her eyes closed.

She felt rustling and the next thing she knew Tristan was pulling his sweatshirt over his arms, revealing a quick flash of a toned six pack, and putting it in her crossed arms.

Well of course she was peeking.

Rory smiled at him gratefully and put on the sweatshirt, which despite Tristan's lean frame, was still immensely big on her.

"Warm?" He asked and she breathed his smell coming off the sweatshirt.

Indeed.