Oh yea, I think I'm 'posed to say somewhere in my story that I don't own. I thought that was implied, but just in case, the goddess that is Amy Sherman-Palladino owns these fine characters. I own the plot and a pair of groovy red knee socks.
Never-Rebel: Excellent idea about the books…I'll try and incorporate it soon!
nmshni: I hope I didn't hurt Sasha when I hit her on the head…
Helle18: I'm so glad you didn't think that sentence was confusing…I wondered how it would look to me if I hadn't written it. Also, I'm glad you liked the reference; come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen the music store referenced before either. Shame, because that was a great scene.
Roganu-chan: It's okay, grammar Nazis are fun! I don't always use the best grammar though, I'm the worst double-checker on the planet. So sorry in advance if I slip up a tad bit.
Everyone Else: I'm so sorry about the cliffhanger, I didn't really realize I did it…When I was writing the chapter, it was getting a little long so I stopped at the most convenient POV switch, and just made everything after that the next chapter…I got a lot of angry people on that one, so I'll try not to do it again.
Jess raised his eyebrow at the young woman who had just fainted a few tables away. Several of the older authors around her jumped up and ran to fuss over her, so he took his drink and walked away from the commotion. Lily followed.
"Just one?"
"I'm not getting you alcohol, Lil. You're 16."
"And when you were 16…"
"I could drink the boys under the table. But I didn't turn out too well, did I?" Lily shrugged.
"Maybe you screwed up a little. But I think you turned out okay." Jess grinned and gave his sister a one-armed hug.
"Maybe a sip…just cause I love you."
Meanwhile, Rory had about ten authors around her body, flapping books and pamphlets in her direction.
"Are you alright, dear?" asked an elderly looking lady.
"I'm fine. I just…need to get a drink." Instantly, all of her new friends were helping her stand up and offering to get her a drink, or better yet, give her theirs. She thanked them sincerely and set off for the bar by herself. She didn't see him standing there anymore, so she channeled her mother for a few seconds and ordered a martini.
After consuming the alcohol, she felt a bit better, so she went off to see if she could find him. It could have been her mind playing tricks, was most likely her mind playing tricks. He wouldn't be here, especially not out of the blue like this.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted him. He was standing near a plant, trying to fade into the wallpaper. His suit looked new, and a little rumpled. His tie was loose and his hair lay on his head the same way Jess's had. Jess had normally spent a great deal of time fixing his hair so it looked like he had just woken up, but sometimes he just left it alone. The first time she'd really seen him like that was when he bought her basket in a silly town event, and they ended up spending the entire day together.
The girl with him noticed Rory's stare, and she pointed this out to the man who looked so much like Jess. He turned and glanced at her, an amused look in his eyes. She lowered her head, letting her hair fall in front of her eyes, and stood frozen to the spot. She could almost feel him coming closer and closer until he stood directly in front of her, having darted across the room the second she lowered her head in such a Rory-like gesture.
"Rory?"
"Jess?" For a minute, neither said anything, just stared at each other.
"J. M. Danes?" she asked, prodding a bit. He cracked a grin, still showing a little of his old Jess-smirk, and nodded.
"And you are?"
"Leigh Hayden." He blinked.
"Russia tells no lies."
"That's the one."
"I was reading it like twenty minutes ago."
"Oh. Did you like it?"
"Yea. Good book." Neither said anything after this polite small talk, but each was too caught up in their own thoughts to notice Lily approach the situation.
"Jess? You going freeze-man on this girl?" Rory lifted her eyes again and glared at the girl before she could stop herself. It had always been like this with Shane, even when she tried to avoid being jealous.
"Oh hey Lily. Do you need something?" The girl looked at Jess weirdly.
"What's with you?" She noticed Rory standing there, wishing the floor would swallow her into it's depths.
"Who's you friend, Jess?"
"Her? No one…just an old acquaintance." Rory looked at him sharply, and he stubbornly stood still and stared past her. Acquaintance? Rory was not sure what exactly he'd call her, but being referred to as an 'acquaintance" by the man who'd stolen her heart and taken it with him to California was beyond cruel.
"Right..." Lily rolled her eyes and stuck her hand out, pretending to be of equally good breeding as the girl in front of her.
"Lily Mackenzie," she stated as Rory snapped out of her angry trance and shook her hand.
"Uh, I'm Leigh. Or Rory. Kind of both." Lily nodded and stepped back, nudging Jess to make sure he was still alive.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, noticing Rory resume checking out all the exits, and her brother remain motionless.
"Uh, Lily, do you want this?" Her eyes lit up as Jess handed over his half-finished sidecar, and she accepted it without a word. He jerked his head towards the tables as he completed the transaction, and she caught on.
"I'll be getting hit on by older men, if you need me," she casually mentioned as she left the two. Jess didn't say anything. She sighed and walked away, wondering who the chick was.
"So, here alone?" Jess asked once she was gone. Rory nodded and felt embarrassed. In her mind, she'd always pictured what it would be like to see Jess again. In her fantasy, he always stood on the side of whatever event they were at, as she strolled by in the arms of another guy. His face would contort in jealousy, and he'd run up to her and say something blunt and completely Jess-like. She'd always turn him down and watch as his heart fell out of his body and cracked on the cement (they were always outside in these reveries), finally feeling something similar to what she'd felt when he packed and left town without telling her. She'd never imagined what would happen after the initial meeting. It seemed too dangerous to venture down the path of regret and possible repentance.
But here he was with this Lily character, and she was the one by herself. The Gods of irony and fate were apparently waging war on her tonight.
"Why are you here Jess?" she asked softly, after another silent minute had passed. He shrugged and glanced around.
"Publisher made me. Tried to get out of it, but next thing you know he's dragging Lily into it, and telling me to comb my hair…" Jess trailed off, seeing Rory's face. He still knew her well enough to crack a smile.
"My dad got remarried. Lily's my step-sister."
"Oh," Rory said, blushing as he smirked at her. Feeling somewhat emboldened by the fact that he too was flying solo, she lifted her martini to her lips and downed the rest of the glass.
"Wow…Rory Gilmore slamming down. Who ever thought I'd see the day?" Rory blushed yet again and set the glass on the tray of a passing waiter. She turned and began to walk back towards her seat, hoping Jess would follow. He did, she noted with an apprehensive sort of glee. She reached her table and sat down, tucking her hands underneath the skirt of her blue silk dress. She'd bought it with Lorelai on a recent shopping trip, specifically for this night.
He glanced at the place cards, and saw that he was not sitting next to Rory tonight. Holding up a finger in the universal signal for 'Just a second', he maneuvered around the table and quickly switched cards with the gentleman next to Rory. She smiled shyly at him, as he sat down. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed.
"What's it going to be then, eh?" he asked with a slightly rough fake accent.
"A Clockwork Orange," she said, remembering one of his old favorites. He nodded.
"What's it going to be then, eh?" he asked again, moving closer and dropping his voice a few volumes. She gulped and felt the need to consume more alcohol, although a voice in the back of her head told her that would most likely complicate the situation. She did NOT need to be drunk when seeing Jess for the first time in six years. So she simply shrugged.
"I guess…we eat?" she suggested, as a waiter brought menus to the both of them. He stared at her with his piercing brown eyes, cold and warm at the same time, before casually flipping his open. Lily and the other authors joined them, making no mention of the change in seating, and sat down for dinner.
"So then I says to him, 'Bobby, m'boy, you can't really expect people to pay good money for this horseshit!', and he looks me in the eye and says, 'Charlie, when people are paying damn clean cash to put it in their gardens, they'll pay to put it in their heads!'" Everyone laughed at the old man's joke, a little tipsy by this point. The open bar seemed to be calling to everyone in the room. Lily was by far the soberest at her table, and she sat there playing with her napkin as she watched Jess and the girl named either Rory or Leigh. Somehow, Jess had ended up sitting next to Rory/Leigh, and their chairs had been scooting closer to each other as the night wore on. If she had to guess, she'd say Jess was interested in this girl. But as Jess was a career-first kind of guy, she hadn't seen this reaction enough to recognize all the signs. She did know one thing though: 'acquaintance', her ass.
"Jess…what's this I hear about another smashing seller?" Jess grinned at the man who had asked the question and waved his hand through the air.
"Smashing indeed…God that last round was strong." Everyone howled with laughter and Lily rolled her eyes. Jess was having a lot of fun drinking with men twice and three times his age. And the way Rory/Leigh was fawning over him every time he spoke was almost sickening. He'd look at her out of the corner of his eye as he addressed the entire table, and Rory would stare back, a defiant smile on her face. Every time he made a joke she placed the back of her hand –Oh so ladylike- over her mouth as she giggled girlishly, and whenever he fully turned towards her she leaned in so he could say whatever he had to say in her ear. Then she did the hand-over-mouth giggling thing.
"Do tell us, Jess!" exclaimed the only other female author at the table. Jess held up his hands in an exaggerated shrug.
"City Boys and Small Town Girls. I go to small town, hook up with small town virgin, the rest is history." Everyone laughed and applauded, and turned towards a new speaker. Meanwhile, Rory/Leigh pulled Jess closer to her and the two began to have a hushed conversation.
"What?" she asked, having wigged out as soon as Jess said that. He shrugged again.
"Autobiography, sort of. I wrote it." She nodded, feeling very close to tears for some reason. 'small town virgin'? This was worse than 'acquaintance'. He instantly knew what was bugging her, and reached up to tuck some of the brown hair that brushed her cheek behind her ear.
"Hey. I'm drunk. It wasn't like that in the book. I didn't even use your name. I didn't exploit you." She nodded, the tears coming closer now.
"I have to use the ladies room," she stated, standing up slowly and then backing out of the room. She held his gaze painfully the entire time, before exiting the convention and running upstairs.
As soon as she reached her room she grabbed her cell phone off the dresser and pressed speed-dial.
"Gilmore residence" an unhappy voice stated.
"Luke? She's got you answering the phone?"
"Rory? Hey kid, what's up?"
"I need to talk to my mom."
"Hang on a second, she'll be out of the shower momentarily."
"No Luke, I NEED to talk to my mom! Now!" There was some mumbling on the other end, and Lorelai's voice answered a few seconds later.
"This had better be good, because if I get back and all the hot water is gone, daughter pays."
"Mom, I'm incredibly drunk."
"Didn't I send you off to an author's convention? Bunch of old guys gathering around a roaring fire to discuss literature?"
"Jess has a step-sister" she said, ignoring her mother's interruption. She was trying to get everything across, and short bullet points seemed to be a good way.
"Wait, what? Jess?"
"He's here. He's J. M. Danes. He wrote a book about me. But he didn't exploit me."
"Rory, deep breath. Okay, one for me too. Now what is going on? Where are you?"
"In my hotel room."
"And Jess is?"
"Not in my hotel room?"
"Okay. That's…very good. Where else is he?"
"Downstairs. He's at the convention. With Lily. Do you think glasses would make me look smarter?"
"Whoa, slow down Speedy. Jess crashed the convention?"
"His publisher made him comb his hair and come."
"Jess wrote a book?"
"Many books. Good books. I'll let you read one sometime."
"Lorelai, what's going on?"
"Jess wrote a book and is not in Rory's hotel room with Lily."
"What?"
"I don't know, I'm trying to figure it out too. Rory, any more clues as to what the hell you're talking about?"
"I miss him."
"Honey, I think you need to go to sleep now. It's getting late, and you can think about all this and tell me what exactly is going on tomorrow. When the bedroom stops spinning."
"Yea. No spinning. That's a good idea."
"Sleep tight, babe."
"Night mom."
The two Gilmores hung up. Rory kicked off her shoes and snuggled down into her bed as her mother suggested. Lorelai immediately went back to her shower, reached for the knob, and turned the water as cold as it would go.
"What are you doing now?"
"Clearing my head. Rory's riding the pink elephant with a bunch of old guys and Jess. My head thus needs clearing."
"Jess? Jess isn't back, is he?" Lorelai sighed and turned the freezing water off.
"I have no idea. She could be rambling. She WAS rambling. But it could have been all in her head."
"That's probably what it was. I mean, I haven't heard from him since he took off. He could be dead now for all we know." Lorelai nodded and began to comb through her cold, wet hair.
"Life would be so much easier if he was dead."
A/Ns- And no, Lorelai is not going to kill Jess. My sister asked me that after reading this, and I want to make it clear that she is simply expressing how much she loathes the little bastard. Whoa, got carried away there. I love Jess! I swear I do!
Somthing I've noticed on this site is that a lot of the Gilmore Girls writers are Dresden Dolls fans. I'm sorry, but I had to take a short little sentence to gush: I got to see them Friday night! They kick ass live, and afterwords me and my friend got their autographs, and our pictures taken with them. It was sooooooooooo amazing! Okay, gushing done.
