A/N – Here's Chapter 4. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to review; it makes my day! Once again, thoughts should be in italics, but with the formatting issues…not so sure they will be. Keep that in mind when reading; I hope it's not too confusing.
Quick shout-out to Gilmoregirl1979 – I hope some of your questions/comments are answered here. Keep the amazing reviews coming, they're sooooo helpful.
Chapter 4 – Bubbly…and then confused
Lorelai was feeling bubbly and victorious as she walked away from the diner with a jaunt in her step. 'Take that Chris!' she thought to herself. The nerve of him to say all those things to her! It was just like him to act like an ass and say totally inappropriate things in front of a crowd, not to mention in front of the man he thought to be her boyfriend. Actually, if she were honest, it wasn't really like him…but he was often impulsive and he'd been pretty mad at her when he left the diner the first time, so she wasn't exactly surprised when things had gotten out of hand.
"I don't want you to be over me, I still want you under me." 'Who, besides an actor in a really bad B-movie, says stuff like that?' Lorelai wondered. It was just her rotten luck to be on the receiving end of such a cheesy, back-handed compliment. And from her daughter's father, nonetheless!
Rory!
Oh my God, what if Rory heard about what happened? No, not if. When. The citizens of Star's Hollow, God love them, were incapable of keeping anything a secret. Rory would soon find out that her father, with whom she already had a shaky relationship, was propositioning her mother while he was in town visiting with his new girlfriend. The only positive thing about the whole situation was that Rory had been blessedly absent when the whole thing went down.
'Are you sure that's the only positive thing about what happened,' the little voice in her head asked.
Luke!
Lorelai slowed to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk, still only halfway home, victory long-forgotten and all bubbly feelings gone. They were rapidly replaced by guilt and another feeling that could only be described as…arousal? 'What the hell? Since when does Luke make me feel all hot and bothered?'
Since when did thoughts of Luke come accompanied by butterflies in her stomach and shortness of breath? Thoughts of Luke were usually quickly followed by the mental image of a really tall cup of coffee, with the steam rising to tease her senses with that delicious coffee smell, all warm and strong and tasty. Wait a minute…
Lorelai slapped her palm to her forehead and started walking again. 'Gah! I feel like sixty-seven types of idiot!' Who was she kidding? Coffee was a metaphor for none other than Luke!
Warm? Check! He was a guy; guys were always warm. In was in their nature to be human furnaces.
Strong? Check! She'd seen the arms, so she was pretty sure he was no slouch in the strength department. Granted, she'd never actually seen anything but the arms, but judging by Miss Patty's random lewd comments, the rest couldn't be that bad.
Tasty? As of twenty minutes ago, she could say 'check!' with utmost confidence. Kissing him had been…indescribable. Like diving headfirst into the ocean and being swept away by the current. Like that delicious split second at the top of a roller coaster before the train rushed downward along the tracks. Like…
Ok, she was out of comparisons, but it had been pretty damn amazing. She could almost forget that she had done it to get back at Chris, which was where the 'guilt' part of the equation came into play. She, Lorelai Gilmore the Evil, had used one of her best friends to get back at her ex-boyfriend. What, was she suddenly back in high school? Nobody over twenty should stoop that low. With adulthood was supposed to come common sense and rational thinking, not childish behavior tailor-made to hurt someone. 'Cause, judging by the look in Luke's eyes before he'd all but shoved her out the door, he hadn't been too pleased. In fact, he'd looked downright miserable.
She shook herself from her thoughts and realized she was home. As she climbed the porch steps, she briefly toyed with the idea of heading back towards the diner to apologize to Luke. He certainly deserved it, that and an explanation. If there had been no kiss, she'd do just that. He was such a good friend, pretending to be her boyfriend and not ruining her theatrics. She cringed when she remembered the possessive way he'd called her 'babe'. So un-like him, and she hated when guys called her that. So what if it had made her feel warm and giddy and hesitate before speaking again? She still hated it.
But there had been a kiss and, now that the whole thing was over, she wasn't sure how she should act around him. Sure, she'd cracked a stupid joke when she'd left, but she was still riding high from the adrenaline of the confrontation at that point and therefore had no control over her brain-to-mouth coordination.
She pushed open the front door just as the phone started to ring. Grateful for the interruption from her thoughts, she rushed inside and dropped her keys on the table as she reached for the phone.
"Hello!"
"Hey Mom. Or should I just call you 'Babe'?"
"My God does word travel fast in this town! How many people stampeded over to the bookstore to share this morning's events with you?" Lorelai shrugged out of her coat and climbed the stairs to her room. She had to get out of her clothes. She wanted pajamas and slippers and she wanted them now!
Rory laughed. "Just Kirk. He couldn't resist sharing the news with Andrew. Who even knew they were friends?"
Lorelai held the phone between her ear and shoulder and rifled through her dresser to find her favorite lounging pants. "What did he say?"
"Well, I definitely heard him say something about a kiss, which I find hard to believe, and Luke calling you babe, which I find even harder to believe, and then Dean came in and saw I was with Jess and I couldn't listen anymore. You know, what with the steam coming out of Dean's ears. So, what happened? I didn't think you liked Luke in 'that way'," Rory teased.
Lorelai sent a mental thanks to Dean for his normally annoying jealous tendencies. "Well, I'll tell you the whole story as soon as you get home. I can however warn you that you can hold off on imagining your bridesmaid dress, it's so not what you think."
"Come on, don't tease! I can't come home now, Dean's pretty pissed that I was hanging out with Jess. I had to promise we'd see Lord of the Rings again and go out for pizza in order for him to calm down," Rory grumbled.
"Oh, poor baby! Well, do me a favor and don't let anyone tell you what happened, no matter how enthusiasticly they beg. Do the 'la-la-I-can't-hear-you-I've-got-my-fingers-in-my ears' thing if you must. This is something you'd better hear directly from me. It's, uh, not a good story," Lorelai sighed.
"What, Luke's a bad kisser?"
"Oh no, he's great. World-class. Top-notch. Sonnets will be written. Sky-writers will be hired. It's the circumstances leading up to and following the kiss that kind of sucked. Let's just say I don't think I'll be seeing a repeat performance anytime soon." Lorelai was filled with an inexplicable sadness at the thought. 'Huh? Why should I be sad? It's not like this would have happened if it weren't for my idiotic schemes.'
"Ah, so you're a bad kisser," Rory giggled.
"Ok, this talk is over. Enjoy your movie and I'll see you later!"
"I promise I won't tell anyone. Wouldn't want to ruin your reputation. I'll be home around 9." And with that, Rory hung up.
Lorelai stood in the middle of her room with the dead phone still held to her ear. 'But that's over 10 hours away!' How could she last this long without Rory to help her analyze the situation?
Upset, she tore off her jeans and pink sweater and pulled on the pants and a t-shirt. There was no way she was leaving the house now. She would just have to wait until Rory came home to talk it over. Usually, she could also talk to Sookie, but since this involved Chris…better keep it within the family. And Sookie would probably gloss over the bad stuff and demand instant replays of the kiss. Lorelai wanted to keep it to herself for awhile and go over it in her head to see if it really was as good as she remembered.
So she flopped back on her bed and decided to indulge herself in the memories. She used a trick she had learned in high school: visualization. She closed her eyes and placed herself in the diner, at the counter, with Luke standing in front of her. She saw her hand clutching the fabric of Luke's shirt and pulling him to her. She saw the look of panic in his eyes before he was too close and all became fuzzy.
She had closed her eyes at one point, but she couldn't remember when. She could, however, recall the surprise she had felt when her lips first touched his. She had expected nothing, just a quick, friendly peck, enough to convince Chris they were together but too little to get her in any serious trouble. But the moment their lips connected, all her good intentions had gone out the window and she had clung to him for dear life, already lost and not giving a damn.
She remembered softness and heat and frustration at being the only active participant. She remembered deepening the kiss in an effort to affect Luke. She, God help her, remembered the moment when he had finally responded, how he had planted light kisses on her lips before brushing his tongue over them. She had been ready to grant him access, to take things further than would have been proper in a dining establishment in full view of all the customers, when he had suddenly backed away.
She groaned at the memory, frustrated that it stopped there. She supposed she could always tweak at history a bit and change what had happened, fantasize about what could've been, but…it was Luke. She couldn't just go from screaming from the rooftops that they were just friends to imagining him naked and willing and braced above her, his blue eyes dark and serious…
No she couldn't. It was hard enough coming to the realization that she had quite possibly jeopardized their friendship with her antics. Harder still to realize that she didn't care.
She wanted him. She wanted him, here, with her, now. And she was the world's biggest hypocrite for it, because she could remember all the denying and the sidetracking and the stupid "are you good at dating?" speech she had given him after Rory's reenactment of Romeo and Juliet. She remembered Sookie telling her to look in his eyes, that it was right there, and she remembered ignoring it time and time again.
'How could I be so blind?' Lorelai wondered. 'How could I not see what was right in front of me? I am such an idiot, and this is getting me nowhere. He's mad at me and I'm too much of a coward to go to him. Gah! This is so frustrating! Must think of something else…' She pushed herself off the bed, grabbed her glasses of the dresser and headed downstairs to fetch her marketing book and a snack. Maybe she could pour all her energy into studying, like Rory did, and magically forget her problems. It was worth a shot.
She was making her way to the couch, clutching her book and a Twinkie, when there was a knock at the door. A loud knock. More like a pounding, actually. She toyed with the idea of ignoring it. Pretending she wasn't home seemed like the best option, really. Sure, the Jeep was out front, but she could've walked somewhere, right?
"Lorelai, open up! I know you're in there!"
Luke. She should have expected it.
