CHAPTER 7: Big Dates...

Later that night, around 6.55pm Lorelai was running around trying to get ready for her date with Luke, she had put on her new black dress, it accentuated her figure nicely as it showed all her curves to perfection, her hair was straight and she was just finishing her make-up when the doorbell rang. "Dammit for being on time, don't you know that 7pm really means 7.10 at least?" she said out loud.

"I'll be right there" she shouted down the stairs loud enough so that he heard it. Two minutes later she opened the door breathless as she had run down the stairs, almost tripping on the last stair. She looked out at Luke, he was wearing black trousers with a tight black sweater covered with a black jacket. He had also shaved and had combed his hair, 'he must like me if he gets dressed up like this' she said to herself.

"Hi" she said nervously as she smiled and welcomed him into the house.

"Hey" he said grinning. He looked her up and down as he smiled, 'She sure has made an effort' he thought, she looked really beautiful...as always' he thought.

"Well aren't we very G Q tonight" she said raising an eyebrow.

"You look great Lorelai"

"Thanks" she said smiling at him.

"Ok let me grab my bag and then I'm ready to go" she said.

"Ok" he said as he stood in the hall while she grabbed her bag. She walked back out to him a few seconds later with her bag.

"Ready?" she asked

"Yup's let's go" she said as she headed out behind Luke to his car. 'God this was so weird' she thought, for the first time she didn't know what to say to him.

"So where are we going?" she asked a few minutes later when they were in the car.

"It's a surprise" he said

"Biker Bar?"

"Nope"

"Theme park?"

Nope

"Oh I got it – starbucks!"

"Um let me think – no!"

"Give me a clue!"

"Can't you just wait?" Luke said as he rolled his eyes.

"No, so at least give me a clue" Lorelai said smiling at him.

"Ok the clue is...you'll like it"

"Well duh I would hope that for our date you would bring me someplace I liked!"

They drove along for a while in silence, they were obviously both nervous, in the diner they were comfortable talking to each other, but here it was out of their usual environment. Twenty minutes Luke pulled up to an Italian restaurant in Hartford.

"Ooh nice"

"Yes well it has healthy food as well as some of that junk crap you eat so I thought it would be suitable" he said gruffly.

"Aw Luke you're so romantic" she said in a mocking voice as she rolled her eyes. She linked her arm through his as they walked into the restaurant.

Half an hour later they were eating their main course. She was eating spaghetti Bolognese, with a side order of fries and he was eating a pasta dish with a side order of salad, of course. The conversation was going smoothly as they just talked like they normally would do, she looked really good in that dress he kept thinking, occasionally he let his gaze drift to her low-cut neckline.

"You wanna try some of mine? We could totally do that thing with the spaghetti that the two dogs do in Lady and the Tramp and meet in the middle of eating the same spaghetti string... except not pushing the meatball with the nose, because this is a fancy place... and I don't wanna get anything on my dress – c'mon it'll be fun" Lorelai said as she held out her fork in his direction.

"Um no thanks that's fine I'll pass" Luke said rolling his eyes.

"Ook, but you're missing out" '

"I'm sure I will live" Luke said.

They finished their main course about twenty minutes later.

"You want dessert?" she said

"Well actually I kinda have another surprise for you after this so don't have any dessert" he said with a small nervous grin on his face.

"Ooh I'm intrigued – Give me a clue" she asked a wicked grin on her face.

"Lorelai, the whole meaning behind surprise is that you don't know about it" he said sternly.

"Fine" she pouted. "I gotta go to the ladies room be right back"

As Lorelai went to the bathroom Luke paid the bill and waited for her at the front. He was looking forward to the second part of the date most, he hoped that she would like it too. She emerged a few minutes later and they left in the car, about ten minutes later after a whole ten minutes of Lorelai waffling on about why he should tell her where they were going they arrived at their destination.

"Oh my god Luke this is so cool" she screamed as she looked out. There were at a drive in movie of Charlie and the Chocolate factory, it was due to start in five minutes as he checked his watch.

"I knew you wouldn't be full from dinner so I brought you some stuff to rot your insides with" he said as he lifted a paper bag out of the back seat and grinned at her. She turned to him and smiled widely, god he was so amazing, she never knew he would go to all this trouble for her, but she loved that he had put effort into their date. The movie started a few minutes later, they both sat there watching it, they were both waiting for the other to make the first move.

"This is so great Luke, thanks" she said genuinely as she turned to him and smiled.

"You're worth it" he said as he fiddled with his shirt, showing he was nervous. A few minutes later he put his arm around the back of her seat, as he did she moved closer to him so that her head was leaning on his shoulder. He let his arm hang over her shoulder, inching it closer to her until he had his arm behind her head with one hand on her shoulder. He gently started to run his fingers up and down her arm softly, she loved him doing it and feeling him touch her so gently, 'Who would have thought Mr Macho could be so gentle?' she thought.

"You want one?" Lorelai said as she ate a red vine and held one up to Luke's face.

"No, do you know what the companies put in that stuff?" he said sternly.

"They are really good though so who cares" she said with wide eyes and a smile as she looked at the bag of red vines she had sitting on her lap.

"Well that's why I got them for you and not me"

"It should be a crime to watch 'Charlie and the chocolate factory' and not eat junk food" she said indignantly.

"Yes well in the insane world of you maybe it is but here in the real world, you may have visited once or twice that would be a stupid law" he said.

"Don't mock" she shot back as she put her head on his shoulder and turned back to watch the film. She took his hand and laced her fingers of her hand round his and he squeezed her hand gently. About an hour later the film ended, they knew they should leave but they were both so comfortable sitting there together.

"So I was thinking, maybe we should keep this between us for a while, you know what people in Stars Hollow are like with gossip...I think there would be town banners put up with this kind of news...maybe even a festival dedicated to it – how cool would that be though!" Lorelai said to Luke.

"Yea...crazy fools... I think that would be best though, none of their business anyway"

"Hehe....so we will we having an secret illicit affair" she said wearing her wicked grin.

"Yea I guess so" he said grinning.

"Well you know I live next door to Babette and if she sees you kiss me goodnight I think that will be the end of the whole 'secret' affair thing so I don't think we can do that"

"Ok" he said in a casual voice.

"Oh so you're not even disappointed then? Well Mister you're missing out, ask Big Frank he'll tell ya" Lorelai said still smiling.

"God not him again" Luke said rolling his eyes, he turned to Lorelai and used his arm that was around her to put his hand on her neck and pull her in as he kissed her passionately on the lips and pulled back and grinned at her.

"Wow where did that come from?"

"Well didn't want Babette to ruin that part of the night for me" he said grinning.

"You are full of surprises tonight burger boy" she said, he turned his head away from her and rolled his eyes. She moved her hand and turned his face back towards hers and kissed him softly on the lips before he used his hand to pull her in again. He moved his other hand down to her waist as he tried to pull her body closer to his, he slipped his tongue into her mouth gently caressing her tongue, she let out a tiny moan.

"Damn gearstick" Luke said, which was in the way of him getting closer to Lorelai.

"Oh Dirty"

"I knew you were going to say that" he said grinning.

"Oh so you're on to my wicked ways?" she said smiling wickedly. "Well it's getting pretty late so maybe we should head back anyway – it could be Gearo's way of telling us" she said, not really wanting to end such a good night but she didn't really trust herself to stay there with him.

"Who is Gearo or do I even want to know?" he said gruffly as he rolled his eyes.

"The gearstick – duh Luke"

"Yeah of course it is – what a stupid question to ask" he said sarcastically as he put on his seatbelt.

"Luke?" He turned around to look at her when she put her hands on his face and leaned in and kissed him softly before pulling back to smile at him.

"What was that for?" he asked grinning. 'She looks amazing, tonight has been great and apart from the initial nervousness everything had been comfortable between us, not to mention how great a kisser she is' he thought to himself.

"For taking me out on such a great date" Lorelai said, she really didn't think that Luke had it in him, 'Well I suppose I didn't know he could Waltz either but he's great at that...mm wonder what other surprises I have in store with him' she thought to herself.

"So you would wanna go out again then maybe?"

"I'm sure you could twist my arm" she said as he started the car. They drove for a while talking, often there would be comfortable silences between them, 'I have never been on such a good first date before' they both thought.

"So I was thinking..." Lorelai said

"Uh-Oh" Luke said gruffly.

"Shush...so since we are having this big secret affair, which by the way if I haven't told you is so fun... we should have code names. I was thinking I could be Pink Panther and you could be Daffy Duck... oh no I got it, I could be Wonder Woman and you could be spiderman, or superman. Personally I think Superman is sexier but whatever you like, that way in case anyone intercepts our phone calls they won't find out about us!" Lorelai said, clearly excited by the prospect of code names.

Luke rolled his eyes, "Yes because in Stars Hollow the interceptions of phone calls are so common"

"Well you can never be too careful burger boy" Lorelai said grinning.

"Stop calling me that – I think we should just stick with Luke & Lorelai don't you?".

"Fine Mr. Boring" she said and then grinned, "Luke & Lorelai, kinda has a nice ring to it".

"Yea it does" he said as he grinned at her.

A short while later they reached Stars Hollow...

"So how should we do this?" Luke asked.

"Dirty" she said as she watched him roll his eyes, I wonder how many times he rolls his eyes at me a day... a lot I think she thought.

"I meant will I leave you home because you know what Babette is like"

"No it's pretty later, she'll be in bed by this time anyway"

"Good so I'll drive you then" he said, he wanted to be able to leave her at her house, walk her to the door and do all the usual guy stuff.

"Cool because walking is so not an option in these shoes, any slightly long distance could cause internal damage – I tell ya, you sure gotta pay a price for fashion these days"

"Well why would you buy shoes that you can't walk in? Oh and I wouldn't worry about the internal damage, I think the amount of coffee you drink and crap you eat has already done more damage than walking from here to Mexico wearing those shoes!" he said in his usual tone that he spoke in when he mocked her.

"Aw well there's the Luke I'm used to" she said as they pulled up to her house.

"What the hell?" Lorelai said loudly, she jumped out of Luke's car and walked quickly across the lawn towards the Volvo parked in the driveway.

"Christopher are you okay? Is Rory okay?" Lorelai asked in a concerned tone with a worried and confused impression on her face.

"Yes don't worry everyone's fine... I just needed to talk to you" he said as he looked her and admired how great she looked in that dress.

"How long have you been waiting?

"Just over an hour or so. I got us some pizza but when you didn't turn up after half an hour I got hungry".

"Well c'mon tell me what's up, it must be pretty important for you to drive all the way back out here to tell me. Oh my god, you're not dying are you?" she said still with a concerned look on her face and confused about what he wanted to tell her.

"No Lor I'm not dying. Can we go inside and talk about this?" he asked. He really didn't want to be outside when he told her and he could feel Luke boring a hole into his head.

"Um okay sure, you can't drive all the way home tonight anyway, you go inside, I'll be right there" she said as she turned round and made her way back to Luke's truck. It was annoying her wondering what Chris wanted to tell her, she didn't know what to tell Luke, she knew that Chris made Luke insecure.

"Is everything okay?" Luke asked.

"Yea, Chris just really needs to talk to me about something, dunno what yet" she said frowning, "Sorry but thanks for tonight, I had a really good time" she said as she put her hand on his before saying goodnight and walking into the house.

Luke watched her walk back up to the house and sat for a minute in the car, 'What was that about?' he thought as so many questions entered his mind and scenarios to why Chris might be here. He saw the way he looked at her when they were talking and he could think of only one, there's was a certain way guys look at women when they're in love and he could see it in Chris's eyes.

Luke picked up all the sweet papers from the front seat of the car that Lorelai had been eating and put them back in the paper bag, then he started to reverse the truck, just before driving off he glanced back through the mirror, he did a double take as he saw the two figures in the living room. He saw Chris and Lorelai standing by the window and suddenly Chris grabbed Lorelai and kissed her hard on the lips.

"What the hell?" Luke said angrily as he gripped the steering wheel and turned away from what he had just seen, 'Chris is only there for two minutes and they're already kissing' he said out loud as he revved up the engine and sped off down the street...