A/N: I'm blown away by the positive response this story has gotten. I never expected it, and I'm grateful to all of you who took the time to review. This was supposed to be the last chapter, but it turned out longer that I thought it would…sorry I misled you D.! MMS later, I promise. Anyway, it was a blast to write; I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together!
Chapter 5 – Confrontation
Luke tried to reign in his temper as he waited for Lorelai to open the door. He knew she was home. After the scene at the diner, he couldn't think of anywhere else she would go but to her house, her sanctuary. He hadn't intended to come after her so soon, but anger, frustration and, strangely enough, concern for her had all but negated his intention to stay holed up in his apartment and had driven him to walk the short distance to her house to have it out with her.
He raised his hand to knock again when the door opened. There stood Lorelai, looking like a very frightened and very sexy librarian with her glasses perched on the end of her nose. What was it about her that she could make even the studious look seem downright dirty?
"Luke, hi. What a surprise…would you, um, like to come in?" Lorelai asked brightly, her brittle smile belying her casual tone.
Luke just glanced at her and pushed past her into the house. Whatever happened, whatever they said, or screamed, at each other before this was done, needed to take place behind closed doors. He couldn't have some nosy neighbour (say, Babette, for instance) alerting the grapevine that something was going down at the Gilmore place. The last thing he needed was a crowd making Lorelai even more skittish than she was at the moment.
He strode into the living room and turned when he reached the couch, unsure of whether to sit or stand. He turned to look at Lorelai, who had slammed the door and followed him into the room. A thick book dangled from her right hand, banging against her thigh as she moved around him to sit on the couch. She placed it carefully on the table and unwrapped the snack she carried with her. A Twinkie, of course.
Luke rolled his eyes and plopped down on the couch, as far away from her as he could manage. He shrugged out of his coat as he started to speak, "Would it kill you to eat something other than crap once in awhile? What's wrong with fruit? You know, an apple a day – "
"…causes tooth decay." Lorelai finished for him.
"Huh? What are you babbling about?"
"That's what my dentist said. The acidity of the apple eats away at the enamel of the tooth," she said as she savagely bit into her Twinkie, as if driving her point home.
Luke sighed. "Brushing and flossing usually takes care of that, you know."
"Bah! Too much trouble," she retorted.
"And you kissed me with that mouth!" Luke exclaimed. Oops.
An awkward silence filled the room. Luke mentally berated himself. 'Real smooth, Danes. You were supposed to ease into the subject…'
As if in slow motion, Lorelai delicately placed the unfinished Twinkie on the table and turned to face him, tucking her right leg under her left. "Luke…" she started.
He held up his hand to stop her. "Lorelai, let me start." He took and deep breath and adjusted his cap, a habit he had when he was nervous. He used the small gesture to gather his thoughts. "How could you do this to me?" he demanded.
Lorelai sat up straight, obviously not expecting the attack. "You're going to make this about you?" she asked, incredulous. "I mean, sure, technically, you were involved, but – "
"What were you thinking?" he interrupted as if she had not spoken. "We've been walking this tightrope of a friendship for years now. It's simple: you don't touch me, I don't touch you, and all is right with the world!"
"What are you talking about?" Lorelai asked, confused.
"We had an agreement!"
"Whoa! Backtrack a little, Sparky. What agreement?"
Luke stood up abruptly, startling Lorelai. "You can't not know! The unspoken agreement –"
"…ah-ha, which explains why I have no idea – "
"…that stipulates that in order for me to maintain my sanity, I must stay at least a foot away from you at all times." Geez, that sounds wrong when said out loud, Luke thought. He sighed and sank back down onto the sofa, placing his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
After a few seconds of unbearable silence from Lorelai, he raised his head. She was staring at him, dumbfounded. He cleared his throat awkwardly before starting to speak again. "Sorry, I, uh, didn't mean for it to come out like that…I guess I'll leave you alone now, we can talk later…that is if you want to…" Luke cringed as he said the last bit, hating how weak it made him sound. He started to get up, but thought better of it. "Lorelai, are you going to say something, or should I just –"
"Shut up, Luke! I'm still processing, give me a minute, ok?" She turned away from him and took off her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. "This day has been pretty eventful so far, and it's not even noon yet. Oh my God, it's almost noon! You have to get back to the diner!"
"Relax, I had Cesar lock up. I'll open again for dinner, it's not a big deal. This," he gestured to the both of them, "is more important. I think we have some things to figure out. Like, what the hell was that back there?"
"Back where? Back two minutes ago when you either implied I was repulsive or that you're majorly attracted to me, or back at the diner?" Lorelai asked.
"Whichever. Both. And you're not repulsive, so don't go campaigning for the sympathy vote," he said with a small smile, trying to diffuse the tension.
"All right, Danes, I'll make a deal with you: I'll try to explain the weirdness with Chris earlier if you tell me exactly what your meant by the one-foot minimum distance crack." She stuck out her hand for them to shake on it. He grabbed it and was caught unprepared when she yanked him closer, causing him to jerk forward until his face was inches from hers.
"Lorelai…" he said in his sternest, I-mean-business tone.
"Relax," she countered, "I'm just messing with you…or am I?" She let go of his hand and he shifted over until he was once again seated as far from her as possible.
Lorelai took a deep breath and pushed her hair behind her ears. "Ok, here goes. Uh, I guess you know that Chris is Rory's dad, so I'll skip my usual introduction, which is too bad because it's quite colourful, I mean it has sex and betrayal and intrigue…it's a regular soap opera. It's almost like it could have happened on Dynasty, but with better clothes. I mean, what were they thinking –"
"Lorelai," Luke growled, "your original plan to skip that part was quite inspired, I really think you should follow up on it."
"Oh, sorry," Lorelai blinked at him, trying her best to look innocent and failing miserably. "Where was I? Oh yes, Chris. Long story short, we've had a weird relationship ever since our parents tried to force us into the whole shotgun wedding thing. We drifted apart, due in part to the fact that I had to grow up and he was free to go gallivanting…wherever. His constant absence in Rory's life didn't help any, either. Anyway, for awhile I really thought that he'd get it together and come back, you know, ready to be a family." Lorelai got up and began to pace, apparently needing to gather her thoughts.
Luke turned to follow her with his eyes. She stopped pacing in front of the window and stood, silent and still, for a moment, gazing out across her front lawn. He wanted to say something to urge her on, but thought better of it. She would continue with her story when she was ready. The diner was closed, he had nothing but time.
She took a deep breath and started talking again. "After awhile, it became apparent that it wasn't going to happen. It really hurt Rory, and it was killing me. It took time, but I gradually realised that there was no chance in hell that he would be my whole package."
"Whole package?" Luke repeated.
"Yeah, you know like friend, lover, husband, father to my child. That kind of whole package. We got to a point where he was only the last one; I couldn't even call him my friend anymore. Friends are there for you, they support you and know what's going on in your life. He wasn't and didn't. So I moved on. I stopped seeing him as my soul-mate and began to secretly refer to him as Rory's sperm donor…not real mature, but it helped."
"I can imagine it would, in a…clinical sort of way," Luke ventured.
Lorelai turned from the window and walked back to couch, sitting closer to Luke than he would have liked. "Don't mock. Anyway, time passed and we saw him on holidays, would get the odd phone call and everything was fine. The status quo prevailed. Then, last year he came to Stars Hollow, for one of the first times ever and tried to convince me he had changed." She closed her eyes. "I almost fell for it. In fact, he proposed to me that time." At that, she opened her eyes and looked over at Luke. "It was then that I realised that, even though I still loved him because of everything was had shared, I wasn't in love with him. It sounds terribly clichéd, but it's true."
"It's not an easy thing to realise," she continued, "and there were a couple of times when I forgot, like when I first found out about Sherry."
"Who's Sherry?" Luke asked.
"His girlfriend. The woman who was with him earlier. You must have seen her, she was in the diner before…the weirdness…occurred."
"Yeah, I saw her," Luke said, remembering the attractive woman he had noticed talking with Rory.
"I had this ridiculous, knee-jerk jealous reaction when I first found out about her a couple of months ago…and then when he showed up here with her yesterday…I was upset, I guess," she admitted, and shrugged.
"It's only normal, I would imagine." Luke tried to sound encouraging but he was getting restless. He was sick of hearing about Christopher. He wanted to move on to discuss more important things, like what had transpired between him and Lorelai because of Christopher.
"Relax, Luke. I'm getting to it." Huh? How did she know? "Anyway, I had a talk with Rory this morning and she said something that made me realise that one of the reasons I was uncomfortable with the whole Sherry situation was that she was potentially taking the chance of a real family away from Rory. I want my baby to have the family-variety whole-package too…but I found out that she had given up on it also."
"Whoa, back up Lorelai. You said one of the reason you were uncomfortable with Christopher's girlfriend. What were the others?" Luke successfully kept the worry out of his voice.
Lorelai took a deep breath. "She seems to really want to get to know Rory, which shouldn't bother me, but it does. I mean, I should be glad that Chris has a girlfriend who's genuinely interested in his kid. It's great! It's just that it's just been Rory and me for so long that…well, it's going to sound stupid…but I don't want to share her."
"It doesn't sound stupid. Rory's your daughter and best friend, it's normal that you'd want to protect that."
Lorelai laughed softly at that. "You're sweet, Luke, but it's plain and simple jealousy. I don't want my daughter to have a stepmother she can like, who takes her shopping and wants to know all about Chilton and Lane and Stars Hollow and Dean. I don't want her to have someone who can replace me."
Luke swore softly under his breath. He was shocked to discover that even a beautiful, successful and confident woman could be so insecure. He thought such feelings were the exclusive property of the likes of him. He had tons of reasons to be insecure, but Lorelai? He couldn't image Rory ever 'leaving' Lorelai for someone else. It was impossible.
"Lorelai..." he started, unsure of what he could say to make her feel better. "Listen to me: you have nothing to worry about. Rory adores you; you two would be lost without each other. She hardly ever sees her dad, I doubt she's even going to be seeing that much of this Cherry"
"Sherry," she corrected him. "Not the fruit, the drink. Logically, I know you're right. It's just that they live in Boston, and Rory's going to Harvard in a couple of years…they'll be close to her and I won't." She sat up straight and slapped her palms against her thighs. "And we went off on a tangent and it's just depressing me, so I'll get on with the good stuff."
"The good stuff?" he asked suspiciously. Trust Lorelai to go from sad and introspective to upbeat and perky in 0.8 seconds. No wonder she confused the hell out of him most of the time.
"I decided to be honest with Chris," she continued as if he hadn't spoken, "and tell him that I was out of the game we'd been playing. I honestly meant no harm by it, and he just went nuts. Well, you were there, you heard what he said."
"What? No, I was busy, you know…"
"Luke, everyone within a two-mile radius of the diner heard him. It embarrassed me. He embarrassed me. He made it sound like I'm some pathetic loser who's been waiting for her prince to get a clue and come back to her, which is so far from the truth it's in a whole different zip code. Hell, in a different county!"
Luke cleared his throat before speaking. He got that words were everything to Lorelai, but he really wanted to get to the point. "Well, then please explain how –"
Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Geez, it's like you're determined to ruin my buildup! Anyway, you'd almost have to be a woman to understand this next part…see, I don't want Chris at all. It's been made abundantly clear that 'that ship has sailed'. But when I saw him heading back towards the diner…I couldn't just let it go. I wanted to hurt him, make him realise that he was wrong about me, so I, uh –"
"What, Lorelai?" Luke couldn't contain himself anymore. She was driving him crazy with her stories and hesitations and by just sitting there looking amazing. All he wanted to know was why. Why him? Was she really saying that she had upset the delicate balance of their friendship to get back at Christopher? Was she really that shallow? He didn't think so, but if she didn't hurry up and make with the explanations, he was going to draw his own conclusions.
Lorelai jumped up from the couch and turned to face him, blue eyes blazing and hands propped on her hips. "I used you! Is that what you want to hear? I used you to get back at Christopher, which backfired so badly. How was I to know that he would be a total jerk and proposition me in front of everyone? How was I to know that he would magically forget he had a girlfriend and that I had what he thought was a boyfriend standing not two feet away? How was I to know that he would cause yet another scene to further embarrass me in front of everyone? How was I to know –".
She seemed to run out of steam then. Her shoulders slumped forward, and she covered her face with her hands briefly before removing them to take a deep breath.
Luke leaned forward. "How were you to know what?" He tried to keep the hopeful tone out of his voice. Success was limited.
She sat down on the coffee table, unable to meet his eyes. She was silent for a moment. And then she whispered, "That I would enjoy kissing you so much…"
TBC…
A/N I've been told I'm cruel with my cliff-hangers. Um, sorry?
A/N For those who are interested, the apple thing is true, at least according to my dentist. Since I'm definitely a 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away' kind of girl (I credit my anal-retentive, rule-observing Virgo nature for my healthy habits), he told my I could still indulge in my apples, as long as I rinsed my mouth out with water or brushed my teeth after. Go figure, a health concept we were raised with is also bad for us! My opinion? Take it with a grain of salt, and keep enjoyin' them apples!
