CHAPTER 4
Rory awoke startled. Aside from the fact that she caught her good friend staring at her with a wicked glint in his eye, she found her fingers tangled up with the hair on Tristin's lust line, an act only someone only intimate with him should be permitted to do.
She immediately withdrew her hand from the heated skin, sitting up so quickly that she saw stars. If that wasn't enough, she almost let out a squeal when the arm circling her waist tightened upon her movement.
"Tanh, you're up!" she stage whispered.
"Post action, yeah," he said, salaciously grinning at her.
Rory's response to him was a shade of crimson lightening up her creamy complexion.
"Anyway, Alex and I are taking off," he mentioned as her eyes wandered to Alex who was standing by the door, waving at her. "However, I want deets. No hold barred, x-rated deets."
"Fine," Rory promised.
"And if you think you can pull a fast one on me, you can't," he threatened playfully. "I will be grilling him on Wednesday."
"I get it!" Rory said, bugging her eyes out at Tanh to hush him. "Details, details."
Rory cautiously untangled Tristin's arm from her midsection before getting up. Both she and Tanh held their breaths as Tristin rustled in his sleep before letting her go.
"He is so cute," Tanh muttered.
"The jury is still out on that," Rory responded, also staring at the sleeping figure.
"So, what are you and David doing today?" Tanh hinted.
"I've not gotten that far yet. But if you keep on bugging me, chances of me doing something with David will be slim to none," she reminded him.
"Square!" he said before sticking his tongue out to her. "Ooh, it better be the nasty or else," Tanh harassed her. "Okay, if you don't at least pretend that you did. One of the three of us at least shouldn't be confined in a convent on our senior year of college," he amended.
"There is nothing wrong with celibacy," Rory said.
"Speak for yourself, sister. Some of us try to get as much action as we can," he said winking at her.
"Fine. We will be cavorting the moment you leave," Rory exaggerated giving him and Alex a hug. "Be safe."
"Bye, cakes," Tanh said before kissing her cheek and walking out the door.
Silence filled the room once more when Rory shut the door behind the guests that just left. Rory surveyed the room as she rubbed the sleep off of her eyes. She wanted to pretend that last night didn't happen but the evidence was before her: a non-combative slumbering Paris and a cocksure Tristin that had made himself comfortable on their apartment floor like he had done it so many times before.
She stared out of the window before tiptoeing her way around the living room floor to get to Paris who was ruining her suede floor pillows by drooling over it.
"Paris, Paris!" Rory shook her roommate to consciousness.
Paris, mid-snore, raised her head from the pillow. "What? I'm up."
"Shhh!" Rory pressed her finger against Paris' lips. "Tristin's still asleep."
"So why did you wake me up? Why are you up?" Paris grumbled.
"Because I had to see the Will and Jack off," she said.
"Oh," Paris said.
"Just wanted to know whether or not you'd want to go out for breakfast. My treat," she offered.
"On a Sunday? No thanks," Paris groaned. "If I didn't celebrate the Sabbath in a synagogue, I might as well do it in bed."
Paris got off the floor and stared at Tristin. "Don't you find it strange that the one person we are stuck with is the one person who became our tormentor in high school?"
Rory stared at Paris. "I think we woke up in purgatory this morning."
"And a lovely state that is," Paris said smugly. "Don't forget to bring home some Danish!"
Just like that, Paris retreated to the confines of the bathroom.
Rory was a little bit anxious to get the blonde up. Not knowing whether he is a morning person or not, she approached him as cautiously as she could.
"Hey, Tristin!" Rory shook his shoulder.
He didn't move.
"Tristin!" Rory called out, this time louder in a singsong voice.
Still, no action.
"Tristin," she shook him one more time before his eyes opened up.
"There better be a good reason for you to be getting me up in this god-awful hour," he muttered in the sexiest bedroom voice Rory had ever heard. Not even Marty who she had occasionally had to wake up from study sessions had ever given her goose bumps at the mere sound of voice.
"For starters, I think you'll end up with a real sore back if you continue on sleeping in that position and it really isn't a god-awful hour," Rory cajoled. "It's a little past ten."
She can't afford to show tell tale signs of his effect on her.
Tristin looked around and noticed the muted gray atmosphere. "But it looks like a good day to stay in bed."
"But you don't have a bed here," Rory said with such naiveté.
"But you do," he smirked.
Rory grinned. She walked into that knowing that Tristin was in double talk mode.
"Well, you can sleep in my bed if you want to. I am going out to get breakfast," she said, feigning ignorance to his subliminal message.
Tristin got up to a sitting position, hugging his legs. "Three things that are guaranteed: death, taxes and Rory Gilmore immune to my charm."
Tristin stretched out his hand to her to help him get on his feet. The distance that closed between them made both of them aware of a sexual tension that seemed to linger every time they butted heads. This time, it was unnerving.
Paris' singing in the shower broke the underlying tension. Both giggling, they took back each other's personal space.
"So, where are we getting breakfast?"
Half an hour later, Tristin found them sitting in Café Java, a few streets down from the Taft Apartments where Rory and Paris resided.
"Okay, humor me," Rory asked Tristin, biting into a cranberry-orange scone. "What are you doing posing nude in Yale?"
Direct. That was another thing Tristin knew intimately about the brunette. His eyes gazed at her over the rim of the coffee mug he slurped slowly.
"Do you want the truth?" Tristin fished.
"The more succinct, the better," Rory said, sipping the coffee in front of her.
"Remember why I got shipped to military school?" Tristin prefaced his story.
Rory nodded at him.
"I am pretty much in the same boat," he admitted.
"The part where your dad is going to be sending your name to the draft board?" Rory asked in ignorance.
"No, silly," Tristin laughed. "Getting in trouble. My dad can't do anything to me now that I'm twenty-one."
"So what kind of trouble did you get yourself into?" Rory questioned, leaning back on her chair.
"Pretty much smart mouthed my Humanities professor one too many times. My counselor had to pull a few strings to get my requirement fulfilled before graduating," he stated.
"Hmm," Rory mused. "That pretty mouth gets in trouble? No," Rory mocked, not realizing that she chose her words poorly.
"So you find my mouth pretty, eh?" he baited her.
"You know what I mean," Rory replied. "You know there are community colleges that would let you take humanities courses. The bonus is you get to keep your clothes on."
"But what's the fun in that?" he teased her. "Besides, I like knowing that I can contribute to the arts and pass my course without lifting a finger."
Rory masked her embarrassment by stuffing her mouth with the pastry.
"Now it's your turn," Tristin settled his mug on the tabletop. "What were you doing in that class? I thought you were Harvard bound?"
"Gramps convinced me to study in his alma mater. Plus, it's closer to home," she prattled.
"Logical," he deduced. "And the class?"
"Pure accident," she said. "I was supposed to lend moral support to Tanh. He was supposed to ask a letter of recommendation from the professor that day."
Rory looked into her purse for a second and stood up. "Wait here. I have to get more coffee."
Tristin stood up the same time she did, a habit he picked up from military school. He never understood why Miss Manners found it important to stand to give a woman leave but he did it and had become part of him unconsciously.
When she walked away, Tristin studied the gray clouds forming over the infrastructures around the café. Who would've thought that his past would catch up to him this way?
"Penny for your thoughts?" she asked, putting a fresh cup of caramel latte in front of him.
"Just wondered about you," he stated in blatant honesty.
Blushing she continued her inquisition, "What about me?"
"Why you're not with the Marty dude you were talking about last night," he said.
Rory sat back on her seat, mulling over the question thrown at her. "It's complicated."
"Try me," he dared her, leaning up against the table, his elbows supporting him.
"Marty… is Marty," she stated. "He was known as the naked guy on our first year here in Yale."
"Sounds like a fascinating character," Tristin stated in amusement despite feeling sudden resentment for a person he had never met.
"He passed out in front of our dorm room after a huge party and I was first to recognize his state of undress so I loaned him my robe until he found his clothes or got back in his room. I don't remember now which he accomplished first."
"Love at first sight?" he quizzed. 'I know I was when I first saw you in Chilton,' his ego echoed the sentiments to his brain.
"No," she muttered. "I think it's one of those friends first kind of feelings."
"Ah," Tristin responded. He thought for a moment that maybe the friendship stage is one that he should attempt to avoid the catastrophic relationships he'd gone through in the last couple of years.
Rory had a sad smile as she reminisced. "I remember one time, Headmaster Charleston called me up to house this Chilton student and she pretty much ran away from me. Marty helped me find her." She paused. "After that, things were different."
The confession made Tristin smile. "That's when you fell in love with him?"
"Maybe… Subliminally. I started dating Logan and things between Marty and me became sticky because he used to bartend Logan's soiree. I apparently cannot socialize with help," she snorted.
"What would you say I'll make it my goal to see you dating him by the end of the semester," he swore.
"Yeah, right. Keep me posted on that," Rory replied while saying to herself, 'Liar!' "Anyway, it's too late. We're going to be graduating and I don't even know if we're going to be going to the same place afterwards."
Turning the tables, Rory started asking questions of her own. "How about you? Any current affairs?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," he leered.
"Tit for tat," she said.
Tristin didn't know what made him do it but he found himself milliseconds later confessing his recent state of being single.
"I just came out of a really bad relationship," he admitted.
"I'm sorry," she sympathized, grabbing his hand from across the table.
The warm comforting touch of her hand made Tristin's crystallized heart melt a little. "It's the past. Gotta move on, right?"
Rory couldn't help but notice the coldness in the eyes that earlier showed so much luster.
"What happened?" she inquired.
Tristin's thumb found comfort in making imaginary circles on Rory's knuckle. "Do you remember Summer?"
"Pretty girl you dated in our sophomore year Summer?" Rory asked in surprise.
Tristin grinned. "Wow, I didn't think you'd remember."
It was Rory's turn to blush. "We kissed the night you guys broke up."
"How could I forget?" he said softly knowing that night so well and how he wished he could've rewound the clock and gone after her.
Rory lowered her eyelids and tried to pull her hand away when Tristin's other hand decided to cover it like a trapped butterfly.
"Anyway, I was back two Christmases ago and we started seeing each other again. Right before I went back to Brown she told me she was pregnant," Tristin recalled the distant memory and how those same feelings made him really angry.
Rory gasped. She felt her throat constricting even if she coached herself that she didn't care.
"I almost didn't go back to school, Rory," his eyes flashed an anger she never thought he could surmise. "She told me Rodney was mine."
"You had a boy?" she whispered, her eyes tearing up.
"I was a fool," he said through gritted teeth. "I found out last Christmas that the kid wasn't mine."
Rory was speechless and she allowed him to rant.
"It was Austin's," he growled. "Anyone who says you can escape high school lied."
"Did you do a paternity test?" she inquired, not knowing why she even dared ask such an insensitive question.
"Yeah," he grumbled. "I was duped and I should've stopped caring a long time ago."
It was Rory's turn to put her other hand on top of his. "I don't think it's in your nature."
"You've gotten your wish somehow, Gilmore," he said sadly. "I've turned into a misogynist."
Baffled, Rory asked, "I never wished for you to become one."
"Hmm, but if only I didn't become a skirt chaser, I wouldn't have had karma bite me in the ass, right?" he said surly.
Rory didn't know what to say. "Tristin, I may not have liked you in high school but the day you took Paris out on a date because I suggested it made me look at you in a different light."
He looked at her with a funny gaze.
"Tell you what," she stated. "Let's make promises to each other. You promised me I'd be Marty's by the end of the semester. I promise you I'll help you fall in love in the same length of time."
Tristin sighed. "That's a tall order on your end, Rory."
"Stranger things have happened," Rory responded, surprised that her heart took a leap of its own.