love.com

Prologue

Rory Gilmore paced around her small New York apartment, fuming over the nights events. She and her boyfriend of three months had just broken up. Why? Because he had 'issues' about commitment. Walking over to the soft couch, she plopped down. Turning her head, she looked at the phone, and then picked it up, dialing a familiar number.

"Hello?"

"It happened again."

"Oh, Rory."

"I mean, am I really that horrible? Every guy that I date breaks up with me."

"Babe, it hasn't been that many."

"Mom. There've been five guys this year. And on New Years, I was breaking up with said number five."

"Uh Oh."

"What?"

"Well.." Lorelai trailed off uncertainly, "You know what they say about new years."

"Uhh. . . No, I don't know." Rory frowned, wondering what her mother was talking about.

"Well, they say that… The way that you spend New Year will dictate how you spend the rest of the year." Rory's groan came through the phone lines quite clearly, and Lorelai hastened to assure her, "I'm sure that that's just a myth, hunny."

"No, you're probably right. I'll spend this year breaking up with guy after guy that can't commit. … I'm doomed."

"No, what you need to do Ror is just settle down, and stop looking for a guy… let the right guy come to you."

"That's the whole point, Mom. Every guy that'll come to me this year is going to be a total commitment-phobe. I'm cursed."

"Well…" Lorelai paused, "You could always make this a man-free year?"

Rory closed her eyes, and grabbed a nearby throw pillow. Bringing it to her face, she screamed. A few seconds later, she replied, "I can't. . . I'm twenty seven now. I want to be married and have a kid, or at least one on the way by the time that I'm thirty. What I need is a guy with a guarantee that he won't tuck-tail and sprint in the opposite direction when things get serious."

"Well, I don't think that you're going to get that. Unless of course you get a Mail order husband. You know, one of those foreign guys that are so desperate to get into the US that they'd get married."

"Hm." Rory narrowed her eyes, thinking.

At her daughters pause, Lorelai's eyes widened, "I was joking about that mail order man thing, you know that, right?"

"What? Oh, yea, I know Mom. But… I think that I have the next best thing. I'll talk to you later. Love you, and hug Luke for me. Bye." Rory hung up the phone, leaving a speechless Lorelai on the other end.

Walking towards her laptop, she smiled. "Yea. The next best thing."

*~**~*~**~*

"Nobody gets it Curtis, I'm telling ya'." Tristan DuGrey ranted as he paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in his trendy upscale New York apartment. His dog, the dark chocolate lab that he was directing all of his thoughts to, was lounging on the black leather sofa, his coat blending with the dark leather. Curtis yawned, and dropped his head back onto his paws, wearily watching his master as he continued on his track, back and forth.

"My mother tells me that I have to get married so I'll continue the family name with the offspring that she's expecting my future wife to drop like cattle. My father, he says that if I hope to be made a partner before I'm in my fifties I should get married, settle down, and show a little restraint in chasing skirts. Ha! Like he's one to talk." Tristan paused to look out the floor to ceiling window, hardly seeing the lit up skyline at all.

"And the partners themselves," He ran his hands through his tousled hair, one of his rebellions that he had kept since he was a teenager, "Either they're throwing their eligible daughters, or in some cases, Granddaughters at me, or they make comments like 'It'd be good to see you settle down, be happy.'

"And it's not that I don't want to settle down, have a wife, and maybe even a child, because I do, Curtis, I really do. It's just that everybody I meet… they know who I am. They know, 'there's that DuGrey boy, he's young, eligible and loaded.'" He mocked the jeweled matrons that had been whispering about him behind his back for years,

"I swear, after I had that stupid article written about me in that…magazine, the vultures have been hunting. I'm one of New York's most Eligible Bachelors Under Thirty, you know. Granted, I was number thirty five, but apparently, the other fifteen didn't have my 'good looks'. You didn't see Casey Mallors full body picture in there, did you? No. Why? Because, I don't think that the girls would go ga-ga over his prematurely balding head, and beer gut, would they? No-siree." Tristan cringed as he heard himself use the phrase that when he had heard used before, he had inwardly scoffed at.

Walking over to the couch, he sighed tiredly as he sat beside his dog, "I want to fall in love. I want to be so in love that I don't know my knees from my ass. But I can't find love with every girl out there throwing themselves at me for my money. I want a woman to love me for me. I want someone who doesn't care about the money that I have in my bank account, or the people I know, or my family. I want somebody to know me. The real me. The me that I don't let anybody see." He looked down as he felt a weight settle on his legs. Curtis looked up at him with sad eyes, patting his dog's head, Tristan settled back into his plush sofa. "I know, you know that me. I want someone that I love to know that me, too. . .and I want her to love him."

He grabbed the remote that was laying on the small table that was beside the arm of the couch, he turned the television on, flipping station after station, ignoring the channels that were still live from various New Years Eve parties across the country. Finally giving up looking for anything at all amusing, he stopped on a random station that he was sure he only received due to his state-of-the-art satellite system, that was playing the predictable late night infomercials, he dropped his head on the back of the couch, zoning out the voice that was currently trying to pawn a set of stainless steel knives off on him for the amazing payment of only two payments of £69.95, a station from England, his guess that the satellite had been the reason that he received the channel was confirmed.

Continuously patting his lab on the head had lulled them both, well, it had rendered one unconscious, and had Tristan in a trance-like state, thinking about his love life, or rather lack thereof. He noticed that the annoying infomercial had stopped, and he lifted his head to look at the screen, frowning as he saw words, and heard the powerful voice boom from the surround sound speakers that were placed strategically in the corners of the wall behind him

'TIRED OF HAVING NO LOVE IN YOUR LIFE?

WISH THAT WOULD CHANGE?

WELL, NOW IT CAN!

YOU CAN JOIN. . .

LONDONPERSONALS.COM!!'

It continued to harp about the successful pairings of many couples, but Tristan paid no mind as he turned the television off. Looking over at the door that led to his small office, he smirked, a plan forming in his mind. Finally satisfied, he lay his head back once again, unwilling to move and disrupt his sleeping dog. Closing his eyes, he sighed, for once thinking that his love life might be about to look up.