CHAPTER 9: Make or Break

Sookie sat inside the diner waiting for Lorelai to finish on the phone, she saw her excited face so she assumed she was speaking to Rory. Luke made his way over to the table, seeing that Lorelai wasn't there took his opportunity to check they didn't want anything else, he didn't want anymore awkward moments with her.

You done here?" Luke asked looking at Sookie.

"Well I think if you two don't get your act together this will be over before it has even started" Sookie said quietly as she looked at Luke.

"I meant about the food" he said gruffly.

"Fine Luke, if you wanna throw something away you have waited years for that's up to you, but I gotta tell you that you hurt her Luke" Sookie said looking at him with a serious face on, he was pretending not to be listening but she saw his face when she spoke, he wanted things to be right again he just didn't know what to do. "Just talk to her, you're both fools if you let this go, she picked you Luke" Sookie said raising her eyebrow.

"I can deal with this myself Sookie" Luke said in a short tone while picking up some dishes and walking back to the counter as she sighed and rolled her eyes, "Both as stubborn as each other" she mumbled to herself. Lorelai came back in the diner a few minutes later smiling, she walked over and sat at the table.

"Was that Rory?" Sookie asked.

"Yea it was, ah I miss her, can't wait till she gets back – hopefully Emily hasn't brainwashed her or warped her into something evil by the time she gets back"

"Yes because she is the devil Lorelai" Sookie said sarcastically.

"Maybe or just a close friend of the prince of darkness! Wouldn't surprise me, the only good thing about Rory being away is that I don't have to go through the hell of anymore Friday night dinners"

"So is she having a good time?" Sookie said before looking at her watch.

"Yea she is" Lorelai said smiling which turned to a frown before she said "mm... she's with Emily Gilmore and she's having a good time, yes there must be brainwashing going on"

"Aw hon I gotta go, I'm late for getting Davie off Jackson before I go to the Inn – Jackson will be mad, he has to go and play some music to his cabbages at exactly 11 and it's past then, he told me not to be late." Sookie said in a concerned voice.

"Sookie, you're always late, I'm sure if you go now it'll be fine, Jackson knows you by now and that means add another half an hour after the time you tell him you'll be there. Trust me it'll be fine, I'm sure the cabbages will survive".

"Am I that bad?"

"We all still love ya hon"

"Sheesh... I should really try and get better at that, it's just with cooking I never put a watch on so I don't know the time or I get distracted ya know when someone starts to mess up my pastries or when they add too much..." she said before Lorelai interrupted her.

"Sookie...Jackson" she said laughing.

"Oh yeah, bye see you at the Inn" Sookie said as she ran out the door of the diner leaving Lorelai sitting there drinking her now warmish coffee, she saw Luke come out of the kitchen as she turned to see Sookie leave, they looked at each other for a few seconds before Lorelai turned her head back. Luke walked in her direction, she thought he was finally coming over to talk to her, but when he reached her table he kept walking and went upstairs to his apartment. Angry that he was being so petty she gulped down the rest of her coffee and left the diner quickly, not giving him another chance to ignore her when he came back down.

Luke had been walking over to talk to Lorelai when he had suddenly chickened out and walked up to his apartment instead, he needed to decide what he was going to say to her first. He had acted like a bit of a jerk since the whole Chris thing but he couldn't seem to get past it, Chris would always be in her life, as Rory's father and her first love and he didn't know how to compete with that. She had chosen him though, why couldn't he have seen that two weeks ago? He decided what he was going to say to her and walked down to the diner, only to find that she had left. He was angry that he had missed another chance, who knows when she would next come into the diner he thought bitterly.

"Oh Luke just who I was looking for" Taylor said cheerily as he entered the diner.

"Get out Taylor!" Luke said loudly, not in the mood for Taylor and whatever crazy ideas he had planned for his stupid soda store.

"You don't even know what I'm going to say yet?" Taylor said in annoyance.

"It's all the same crap to me Taylor" Luke said huffily as he opened the door to usher Taylor out.

"This is no way to treat customers Luke, I will be bringing this up at the next town meeting" Taylor said as he walked out of the diner.

"Whatever Taylor" Luke said as he shut the door.

After that the day went slowly for both Luke and Lorelai, Luke continued in his bad mood and Lorelai just wasn't her usual self, since her fall out with Luke her caffeine intake had dramatically fallen which meant she was in a whole different mood all together. Why couldn't Sookie make coffee as good as Luke's?

The next night Lorelai was sitting at home watching TV when she heard a knock at the door, that must be the pizza she thought, 'Thank god I'm starved, thought I was going to die on this couch' she muttered as she ran to get her purse. She opened the door, still looking in her purse she heard what she had been wanting to hear for two weeks.

"Hi" Luke said nervously as he stood on her porch, he was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, not his usual flannel. Lorelai jumped as she heard his voice.

"You're not Joe? Unless you invested in a lot of plastic surgery since last night"

"Can I come in?" he said as he stood awkwardly in her doorway.

"Um yea sure come in" she said, she was pleased he had finally come to talk but she was still annoyed that it had taken so long.

"I brought you some dinner, I didn't want you to starve" he said, he needed to say something, there was so much tension between them, he handed her the brown diner bag containing burger, fries and coffee and the hands touched briefly as Lorelai shivered just by the feeling she got when she touched him.

"Thanks" she said smiling slightly, there was an awkward silence for a few moments before she said, "So...I know you didn't just come here to bring me food, or are you starting a new psychic delivery service so that when you know I'm hungry you bring me food? Which I wouldn't turn down, it could be very handy actually... though you would probably have to stop working at the diner 'cos I'm almost always hungry" she rambled. She was still nervous around him, she didn't know what he was going to say or even what she would say back.

"No... I didn't... I'm not really good at this stuff but... I just wanna say I'm sorry about how I have treated you these past few weeks" he said looking down at his shoes.

"Ok thanks" she said, colder than she had meant it to be, she didn't know what to say so she just said the first thing that came to mind.

"So...what now?" he said, slightly taken back by her response.

"I dunno Luke, I mean we haven't been together for long or whatever it is we are... and already we're fighting, we've been friends for years ... and I'm not sure I wanna lose that, if this thing didn't work out I would hate to lose a boyfriend and best friend at the same time... not to mention a great coffee supplier" she said, smiling slightly at the last part before she went back to her frown.

"I know, neither do I, but we could give it another shot, I was just annoyed about Chris... he's just kinda hard to compete with" Luke said as he looked down at his feet, he didn't like to admit that he was jealous to her relationship with him, he was Rory's dad after all.

"It's not a competition... Luke I told him it was over for good, he's always going to be in my life but I didn't think I had to choose between you"

"You don't, I trust that it's over it's just hard for me to see you with him... it's like you're a family"

"I'm sorry if it looks that way but we are just friends. Luke can you just give me some time ... I just need to think okay?" Lorelai said confused, it was strange to hear Luke saying this to her, he seemed so vulnerable now which was so unlike him. She really needed to think this over and not rush into anything, it was complicated to move from friendship to something more.

"Ok...well I'll leave you to it" he said, hurt that it seemed all she wanted from him now was friendship too.

"I'll talk to you soon" she said as she closed the door behind her. She put her hands over her face and sighed loudly as she leaned against the door. This was all so much more complicated than she had ever imagined ... but it was so much better as well. Why was she trying to fight this? She thought. She really liked Luke, she had felt something with him that hadn't happened before, could she walk away from that? She imagined that it had been Rachel or Nicole that had come back and kissed Luke instead of Chris coming back, the thought of her made Lorelai feel... jealous. 'Wow' she thought, she knew then that she wanted more than friendship from Luke, she knew couldn't let this go. She turned around and flung open the front door which she had been leaning against and saw that Luke had already left.

"Dammit" she said out loud.

She stood for a few minutes on her porch deciding whether to just wait until tomorrow to see him but she knew she couldn't wait, she didn't realise just how much she had missed him during their brief time apart. She ran back inside and grabbed her keys and black jacket, she got in her car and made her way to Luke's.

It was closed as she had expected. She knocked the door but got no answer, his truck was outside so she knew he had come back, she threw a few small pebbles at his window. A face suddenly appeared at the window with an annoyed look on their face, Luke looked down and saw Lorelai standing looking up at him, she saw his face soften. He opened the window to her, she had another brief moment of Deja-Vu as she remembered the night she had stayed at Luke's after the Inn had burnt down.

"Oh ... hey" he said when he opened the window he said with a confused look on his facee.

"Let me in the back way" she shouted up to him.

"Oh... okay I'll be right down", he said confused at why she was here, he thought maybe she was just coming to check that they were still friends again. He walked down his apartment steps, into the kitchen and through to the store room, he walked to the back door which led to an alley around the back of the diner. He wasn't sure why she had wanted in the back way but he was too surprised by her visit to argue with her, not that it usually did much good anyway. He unlocked the two locks on the door and opened it to see Lorelai standing in the doorway.

"Hi" he said raising an eyebrow as he looked at her, waiting for her to tell him what this was all about.

"So... I was thinking" she said as she smiled at him, he was so cute when he looked confused she thought to herself.

"Oh what the hell" she said out loud as she stepped forward and grabbed Luke's shirt as she pulled him closer to her and pressed her lips up hard against his. It took a few seconds for Luke to get over the surprise, he pulled her close as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. She liked that he wasn't objecting and gently used her tongue to separate his lips as she placed one hand on his face. He opened his mouth widely which sent tingles up Lorelai's spine, as their tongues touched for the first time there was a mutual feeling of electricity which pulsed through them. He responded by tightening his grip around her waist and lifting her slowly into the store room, not letting his lips leave hers and closed the door with his foot as he turned and set her on top of the table in the small store room. They engaged in a heated open-mouthed kiss for a few minutes when Luke pulled back and looked at her. Lorelai smiled as she looked at Luke who was smiling the largest smile that she had ever seen grace his chiselled face.

"So... we're back on?" he said not able to keep a straight face.

"Well I dunno, how would you feel about being my boyfriend?" she said fiddling with the collar of his t-shirt.

"Pretty good ... so you wanna be my girlfriend then?" he said slightly embarrassed at what he just said, it sounded like they were back in high school again.

"Aw does big Butch Danes want me to be his girlfriend? I feel so privileged. We can meet behind the bleachers at lunchtime my little hunny wunny." Lorelai said in a mocking tone, as she smiled flirtatiously and grossly exaggerated blowing Luke a kiss.

"Well not if you do that" he said gruffly.

She kissed him softly on the lips and pulled back, she looked into his eyes with her wicked grin on and asked "How about now?"

"Yea I could handle that" he said grinning before he pulled her face back in for a kiss.

They stood in the store room kissing passionately for a few minutes before they both pulled back so that they could catch their breath. They both wanted to go upstairs but they didn't want to move too fast, Lorelai wanted to take things slow, she finally felt like this was right and didn't want to rush things between them. Luke however knew that Lorelai had the tendency to freak out whenever things got too serious too fast, he wanted to wait until the right time for her. He had been ready to go there with her for a long time and was willing to wait. Lorelai sat on the table with her legs around Luke as he stood opposite her, they were looking at each other smiling, 'God this is so cheesy' they both thought as they just stared at each other. She still couldn't believe how natural this felt, shouldn't this be weird? She thought.

"So just so I know we're an 'us' now?" he asked.

"Yea the illicit affair is back on superman" she whispered.

"Ok, so that's why you wanted in the back way?"

"Exactly, see the way I'm wearing black, that's not coincidence, I was going to wear a black hat as well but Rory took it with her, grr! And I don't seem to have a balaclava at home" Lorelai said, they were back to their normal meaningless banter again.

"I was so close to putting some mud on my face and holding a tree up and moving across the road, but there were no trees just lying about and Taylor would probably have me arrested anyway so I just stuck with the black skirt and top and yuck I didn't want mud on my face ... no offence Xena!" she said pulling a face.

"Who?" he asked confused.

"Xena Warrior Princess, duh!"

"Stupid question" he said rolling his eyes.

"So do you think Caesar will say anything... haha you don't honestly think he believed our little story do you?"

"No he wouldn't, he sent me to wash my face after so I'm pretty sure he saw through our 'sink' cover up"

"Oh did I get some of my Vicious Trollop on you?" she said giggling.

"You're what?"

"It's the name of my lipstick"

"Obviously" he said rolling his eyes at her again.

"I had to lie to Babette after our sexy store room rendezvous too" Lorelai said smiling mischievously.

"Why? Did she see us? Damn this town" Luke said getting frustrated that he was the talk of the town, he hated to be any part of town gossip, especially this crazy town.

"Take a chill pill Luke, she just saw the rash around my mouth and I told her it was allergies, so you gotta shave daily now that you're my fella"

"Aw jeez"

"I know the things you gotta go through to be with me, pure torture I tell ya, no wonder it has taken me so long to get a man" she said in a mocking tone as he just stared at her.

"Well I'm sure there's some perks to the job too" he said as he leaned forward and kissed her softly, she put one hand on his cheek and the other she ran through his hair before she pulled back and grinned.

"Well another thing in the job description is coffee, can I have a mug?"

"Do you know what time it is? You'll never get to sleep if you have coffee at this time!" he said looking at her sternly.

"Hey, if I don't have coffee I will likely keel over and die within 48 hours so I think that is a worse alternative to not sleeping, I will start to get the shakes and be up all night sitting in a corner swaying from side to side saying coffee over and over again if I don't get any soon" she said in a serious tone like this was a life or death situation.

"Ah so either way you'll be up all night" he said, he knew she would get coffee anyway, he didn't even know why he had tried to say no, it had never worked before anyway.

"Dirty" she said with a wicked grin on, he just rolled his eyes at her.

"Ok come on in and I'll get you a cup of coffee" he said lifting her off the table, as he entwined his fingers with hers and lead her into the diner.