Author's note: This is my first Gilmore Girls fanfic. Let me know what you think. (Thanks Tresjolie9 for beta and encouragement services!)
Five days without Luke. Five days without Luke's coffee. Five days without Luke's kisses. Five days without seeing his blue eyes light up when she walked into the diner. Five days since she told him that she was all in and he said he was out. Lorelai's eyes were glazed over with memories as she stood near the computer at the front desk of the Dragonfly.
"Lorelai...are you there? Mr. and Mrs. Fitzsimmons placed a reservation with you two days ago," whined Michel. His accent grated on her in a way that it never had before. "Lorelai? Where did you want to put them? The only free room is the bungalow."
She sighed, "Then put them in the bungalow, Michel. Someone deserves to have a romantic weekend."
"I'll have you know, Lorelai, that I plan to have a very romantic weekend," said Michel.
"I know - you and your two mutts."
"They are not mutts," he huffed at her, "They are rare purebreed Chow puppies. And they are beautiful."
"Paw-Paw and Chin Chin are the closest thing you've had to romance in the last five years, Michel."
Sookie came out of the kitchen with a travel mug full of fresh coffee and a small bag of cookies, "Lorelai, hon', you aren't scheduled to work this afternoon. Why don't you call Rory up and meet her at the mall in Hartford?"
Lorelai stared blankly at her for a second before she realized that she had been tormenting Michel again about his lack of a love life.
"Rory, right?" she started to open her phone, then remembered that Rory planned to study all weekend. But she faked a quick conversation as she ran out of the Dragonfly and to her SUV. She took a small sip of coffee and glanced in the bag - peanut butter kisses - her favorite, but Lorelai couldn't think about food now. She had some retail therapy to indulge in. She quickly pulled out of the parking lot and drove through the light mid-afternoon traffic, ignoring the coffee, cookies, and the truck drivers that still honked at her when she was alone in the car. She turned the radio off when the DJ introduced an insipid Elton John song.
A half an hour later, she pulled into a parking spot a few miles away from the mall and began walking, cursing herself for wearing the most uncomfortable shoes in her closet.
She limped inside and was almost happy that she never brought Luke here. Not only would he have hated it, but she would have been remembering Luke complaining about the eighty dollar flannel shirts and two hundred dollar shoes instead of window shopping and trying out Mac eye shadows with Rory.
"Lorelai! Lorelai Gilmore!" called a male voice.
She glanced around looking for the source of the voice, hoping that Luke had magically followed her here. But instead she saw a familiar face.
"Remember me? Max. Max Medina." His voice seemed to be booming and his white teeth flashed, blinding her, as he smiled at her. It made her head hurt just to look at him.
She forced herself to smile at her ex-lover, as she said, "Hi Max. How are you?"
"I'm great. I finished grading all of my papers for the weekend and all I have to do is work on research for my dissertation," he tapped the messenger bag hanging at his side with a sigh of contentment.
"That sounds...lovely," she tried to sound interested, but it took too much effort when all she wanted to do was drive home and curl up in her bed.
"What's wrong, Lorelai? Didn't you have any coffee today?" he asked. His smile was replaced by a look of concern.
"No, I just needed to pick up some new makeup."
"Why don't you let me buy you a cup of coffee first? They just opened a new place -"
"The Daily Grind, right? Rory and I tried it a couple of weeks ago. They were giving out free samples."
"Let's get caught up on things. I hear you purchased an inn - congratulations!" he put his right arm over her shoulder and turned her towards the coffee shop. She didn't have the energy to object to him. A cup of coffee, even second-rate coffee seemed like a good idea.
As they went inside, Lorelai remembered why she didn't like The Daily Grind. It was decorated in the Euro Industrial Tacky style with black walls and oversized silver espresso machines. And it wasn't Luke's. She sighed as Max pointed her to an uncomfortable-looking booth and she slumped against the shiny black vinyl seatback, slipping her shoes off and letting them drop onto the floor. She watched him order two coffees, add milk and sugar to his own, and carry them back to their table.
"Thank you, Max. You've been..." she hesitated while remembering how badly she had treated him and quickly said, "wonderful."
"I just wanted to hear about the guy who made you look this way," he said softly. "He must be pretty special."
A smile spread across her face as she remembered Luke curling up against her breast listening to her heart beat as she watched The Daily Show.
"There's the Lorelai I remember," said Max. "Now, tell me what happened." He took a sip of coffee and waited while Lorelai collected her thoughts.
"I screwed up, Max," she said softly. "I didn't give him enough time and he can't give me a second chance and I don't blame him." The words all flew out in a rush and she looked embarrassed. "Is this how you felt when..." her voice trailed off.
"When you jilted me at the altar? Yes. Probably a bit worse considering that my family thought I was making a brilliant match. But I'm over it," he said and raised his eyebrows. "Mostly."
"I feel
like an idiot. I'm crying over one ex-boyfriend on the shoulder of
another ex-boyfriend."
"Don't beat yourself up, Lorelai.
You messed up. But so did he by letting you slip through his
fingertips. If I were in his shoes, I'd hold onto you forever."
"Oh, Max. I don't feel..."
He continued, "But I'm not the man you love. So you need to remind him that he loves you."
"He kept a horoscope that I wrote on for eight years," she said with a smile.
"See, he loves you. He's probably loved you since then and he'll keep loving you until the day they put him in the grave. I'm almost jealous."
"Almost? Have you found someone new?"
"No, I'm taking a break. I ended a relationship with yet another woman who thought it would be wonderful if I quit my teaching job and joined her daddy's firm. She just didn't understand that I enjoy teaching, even if working at Chilton will never make me rich." He shrugged. "I'll find someone, someday."
"Max? How do I get him back?" she asked softly. Staring into the depths of her half-empty coffee cup.
"Give him time. But tell him that he can come back to you."
"He won't," she whimpered then softly said, "He won't talk to me right now."
Max nodded knowingly, "Needs time to think, right?"
"Yes. Exactly. And I interrupted him and now we're not together anymore and I want a middle."
He looked confused, "A middle? Ooh, you saw that Katie Couric thing too, didn't you?"
"Sookie told me about it." Lorelai flounced in her seat with a pout on her face. "She's evil."
"Well, that's an extreme solution and I know - Lorelai look at me - I know that's not what Luke wants."
"How can you possibly know that? You're nothing like him. You're nice - and forgiving."
"Trust me, Lorelai. In a few hours - or maybe a few days, if he's really stubborn, he's going to be kicking himself and wishing that he never tried to end his relationship with you. Do you want my advice?"
She glared at him for a second, because she didn't want to ask for help. Then she said, "Yes."
"Write him an email. Tell him that you're giving him time to think, but you want him to know
"Luke hates computers. He thinks the Internet is evil."
"No wonder he loved you for so long. He didn't have access to free porn." Max looked thoughtfully into his mug, and then said, "Why don't you write him a letter?"
"A letter? No one writes letters nowadays," Lorelai said in surprise. "That's a great idea. I can tell him how I fell - I can tell him everything."
Max held up his hand, "No no no! Trust me. Keep it short. Less than one page. What you want is for him to read this and realize that he needs to talk to you."
"So I tell him that I have pictures of him in a Star Trek uniform and I'm going to show them to everyone at the next town meeting?"
"No, that would be blackmail. Besides, doesn't he know where you hide your key? He could just come in and steal them."
"That assumes I really have the pictures, doesn't it?"
"You do, though, don't you?"
"Yeah," she said as an evil grin spread across her face. "So do you keep any paper in that bag of yours?"
He handed her a small stack of lined paper and she pulled a purple glitter gel pen out of her purse. A few minutes passed while Lorelai stared at the piece of paper and Max watched her.
"So, I should start with Dear Luke," she said carefully writing the words on the piece of paper. Then, she balled it up and tossed it on the table. "I can't do this. I don't want to manipulate him anymore."
She started to cry again before Max grabbed her hand and said, "He needs to know that you love him. He doesn't know and you have to tell him."
The two of them spent the next hour carefully honing her letter. When Lorelai thought it was perfect, Max pointed out a spelling mistake as she remembered why she didn't like dating English teachers.
"Okay, it's perfect," he finally said. "Recopy it and I'll play the postman."
"What? You don't have to do that," she objected.
"Because you aren't planning on throwing it out as soon as I walk away from you? I know you better than that."
Lorelai sighed heavily and pouted. Max used to love her pout. Luke did too.
"Just go home and put something sexy on. I predict Luke will be driving up within the hour."
"You predict?"
"Trust me, Lorelai. Your glitter pen will charm Luke straight to your home."
"I see why my kid liked you so much, Max."
"Rory's a good girl. I was glad to see her attending my alma mater." He quickly plucked the letter from her hand, glanced it over, and folded it into thirds. He pulled her up from the booth and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
"Now go home and leave everything else to me."
Lorelai smiled to herself as he walked away. Sometimes she thought that her life would be easier if she fell in love with Max, but then she thought of Luke and her heart started beating faster and jumped into her throat. He was the only man for her and she couldn't wait to prove it to him.