5.15. Jews and Chinese Food addition. The second cast party after the show.
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He leaned back into the upholstered bench and looked over at them again through hooded eyes.
Stupid idea coming here tonight, he kicked himself.
He lifted his heavy frosted mug and drained the last of the draft and then set the empty glass down to join its three companions on the table in front of him.
He heard her laugh ring out then and gloated a little over it.
He knew that laugh. He knew all her laughs.
The uncomfortable one that punctuated a babble. The 'I'm-just-being-polite' laugh. The derisive snort when they fought. The deep belly giggle at something stupid on TV. The delighted. The naughty.
It was the second in that line up he was hearing now, he felt pretty sure.
He lifted his finger to the waiter to signal another beer.
He should go home. But was too riveted by the scene before him.
Lorelai, on the bench across the small room that was the bar at Antonelli's, and the show's piano player, so hot for her he's sweating a little, sitting next to her. Luke can see how really hard he's trying.
He probably is really hard, poor schmuck, he snorts to himself.
For her part, he sees that she's trying to be polite because Piano-Guy is clearly drunk and relatively harmless at the same time.
He's not willing to admit right now that he's also a nice guy.
He watches her lift her martini to her lips then and feels rather than sees her sadly flick her eyes over to him.
Piano-Guy isn't gonna get none tonight, he knows. Poor clueless bastard.
Not that he wants him getting any with Lorelai. He sure-the-hell doesn't. He should go over there and punch him right now to show him that. Knock his lights out.
But knows he's got no right. Not anymore. He can't go over and hit a piano player who wears glasses just because he obviously wants Lorelai so badly.
Fuck, he wants her too.
It's not an easy adjustment, the going from sex several times a week to cold turkey for two. Not easy at all.
He watches as she lifts her chin to the ceiling then in her Delighted Laugh at some joke, exposing her long white throat.
And he wants it.
To be there. Licking it. Sucking her earlobe in. Marking her as his.
Jeez, he snorts to himself, he's becoming a neanderthal, and tries to look away.
Two weeks from whipped to neanderthal.
He swallows. Hard. And looks over again as another laugh from her knots him up deep inside.
God, he misses her so much.
He takes a deep draught of the just-arrived fresh beer then and continues to watch as music begins beating hypnotically in the background.
He could almost be sorry for the Piano-Guy (Piano-Prick?) as he watched him, yet again, lay a smooth, white, long-fingered hand on Lorelai's thigh, rubbing it slightly up her jeans.
Luke bristles and changes his mind. No, he's not sorry for him at all.
He knows Piano-Guy wants to put his hand much higher.
Knows that he wants her to moan for him.
So, Luke almost laughs out loud when Lorelai smilingly chastises the guy, lifts his hand off her thigh, and puts in back on the table.
Damn straight, he nods to himself.
The music picks up then, and a few people go to the small dance floor in the corner and start to do what can only be described as gyrate. Piano-Guy whispers something into Lorelai's ear, she smiles and nods, and they get up and head over.
Figures the asshole can dance.
And suddenly Luke is back at some high school dance where he sees the line-up of pretty girls. Girls that smell so good it could knock you to your knees. Their skin glistening under spaghetti straps. But there is no way in hell he can make his body move across the gym floor to ask one to dance. And when one got up the nerve to ask him, he could only bark 'No thanks!' and retreat behind a stony face.
He can't dance. Not like that.
But that doesn't mean he didn't want to hold one of those girls that smelled so good.
He watches Lorelai begin to move to the music. She is smiling, but he'd seen the little lines around her eyes earlier.
Good, he thinks nastily.
He should have hit Piano-Guy before they went over to dance, he decides then. Should have walked over and decked him and told him to keep his goddam hands off of her.
She's mine.
Ah, shit...
was mine.
He takes another drink and reminds himself for the millionth time that they are broken up. That this is a civilized world. That she can dance with the guy if she wants too. That she can handle herself too, if need be...
Dirty! he smirks into another drink, then sighs as he remembers that going solo is all he has to look forward to for quite awhile now.
"Well, well, well..." he hears the purr, feels the depression in the cushion next to him, and smells the heavy perfume all at once.
"Hello, Carrie," he says without looking at her.
"What are you doing here all by yourself, handsome?"
She leans on her arm over the table and stares up at him with huge lined eyes.
He looks down at her and then back up at Lorelai dancing with Piano-Guy just over her right shoulder.
"Drinking beer," he tells her.
He's too plastered to bother about her. Too horny for Lorelai as she wiggles her hips on the floor.
Carrie laughs at him, "So, nice cast party."
"Which one?"
"Well, I think this one for the grown ups was a good idea. There just comes a time when you have to send the kids home, let your hair down, and be adult. You know what I mean, Luke?"
"If you say so."
"Oh, I do."
He almost jumps out of his skin then as he feels her hand creep up his thigh.
"Dammit, Carrie!" he growls and pushes it away.
She just laughs and lifts her hands in mock surrender.
"There aren't any kids here now, Luke."
She lifts her elaborate drink from the table. It is tall and a suspicious acid green color.
"So," she goes on undaunted, "It was so sweet of you to provide sandwiches for the kid's party earlier, Luke."
"Yeah, well, they needed something decent. All they eat is processed crap all the time."
Carrie laughs like this is the funniest thing she's ever heard.
Luke feels the music downshift and watches as Lorelai and Piano-Guy move into the semi-embrace of a slower dance.
Go home, Danes, he tells himself. Go home.
Carrie follows his line of vision as she takes another sip of the green concoction and then leans back on the bench, her shoulder rubbing up against his.
"We're not all like her, you know, Luke."
He's thinking then, again, about hitting, or better yet, killing, Piano-Guy.
"Some of us are more... realistic," Carrie goes on.
His mind goes on in this fantasy; After killing Piano-Guy, he grabs Lorelai by the hand and they run to the diner.
"Take me, for instance, I accept the realities of men."
They furiously peel off clothes as they climb the stairs to his apartment.
"Women like Lorelai have no sense of reality."
He's pushing her on the bed now, parting her thighs, kissing hungrily down them... And she wants him, he smiles. He can tell, she wants him...
"Luke!"
"What?"
"I was telling you that some women in this world understand men like you. Appreciate them, even."
"They do, hunh..."
Go away, he thinks at Crazy Carrie. Go away and let me at least think about her alone.. Think about her saying, 'I want you, Luke... I want you!'
"Women like Lorelai can't just be grateful for the sex."
He looks over at Carrie a bit startled then.
"It's true," she goes on, "They need the emotion, too. They feed on it. They need you to talk and tell you what's going on inside. Blah, blah, blah..."
She giggles and opens and shuts her hand like a talking puppet.
"Blah, blah, blah. They want relationships, Luke. See, the sex is up here on one level," she shows him with her hands, "But the communication is on the deeper. It's crap, but it's true. It's like food to them, these women. And I'm here to tell you it's a Goddam Fairy Tale!"
She shouts this last phrase gleefully, causing a few to swivel their heads and laugh, but he is too caught by what she has said.
He blinks and tries to wrap his mind around it, and then turns slightly in to her.
"What?" he asks stupidly because he really wants to know.
Carrie, aroused by his attention, slurs airily on, "They're parasites, Luke. Women like Lorelai. Hungry for talking. Not just their own words, but the man's too. They need to hear what they mean to a guy to get off, to commit. They get turned on being inside your head, which they think is your heart, and it's a load of crap, because you and I know the only thing going on in there is the plotting to get into the pants of every woman within sniffing distance."
Luke is frozen by this thought.
"Not me though, honey. You see, I understand. I know how to appreciate the strong silent type," she placed her hand on his thigh and leaned in deeply to him again, "I don't care what you say to me, sweetheart. Or what you feel. I'm not hungry for words. I just need someone to, you know, keep up."
She laughed into his horrified face then.
And leaned in even deeper, "Come on, Luke, you're a big boy, and clearly not the marrying kind. We could come to understand each other," she whispered throatily, "Screw love and then screw me, baby!"
He stands up then, shaken to his core, digs into his pocket, throws money on the table, and leaves without looking back.
"Luuuuuke!" he hears her wail.
The bar door swings closed behind him.
He pushes his hands deep into his pockets, bends into a powerful walk across the square and breaths deep into the cold night air. Over and over. In and Out. Getting his lungs clean. Getting his heart clean.
He walks and walks. Fast and hard.
He is old. It is almost too late for him.
It is too late with Lorelai.
Isn't it?
He stops cold in his tracks, rubs his hand under his hat, and then starts walking again.
What should he do now?
He can build things, he knows that. He can coax Lorelai into screaming his name in passion. He can cook. He can buy her a rink. He can rant.
But he can't dance fast.
And he can't talk.
That stupid book had told him how to get her. How to show her he wanted her. But it hadn't said anything about how to talk to her afterwards.
Not in the way that was clearly needed.
Had his parents ever talked, he wondered then.
Did his dad ever say the things from his heart that a woman worth having needs to hear? The words that make it all mean more. The words that change lovers into a family.
What are those words, anyway?
He doesn't know, of course.
And now he's forty...
And he's never told anyone that he loves them.
Shit.
Is there a book for that?
He sighed and stopped again, staring down at the ground, and realized, right there and then, by the gazebo, in his work boots...
I love her.
That's what all this must mean.
Right?
He begins moving again.
I love her.
This hunger for her, this needing her, this knowing of her laughs, the longing for the smell of her body, the cringing for her when he sees her eating little waxy candle-like things at a kid's party that Damon has assured him are 'fruit snacks', but have no actual fruit in them, goddam it.
I love her.
And he feels it as a truth then. A terrifying truth.
Down deep in his groin in a primal way.
It terrifies him, but all he can think about is how he wants to protect her and wrap his fingers around her delicate ribcage at night as they sleep. How he wants to feed her. Cook healthful things for her...
And... and satisfy her heart.
He sighed deeply then, letting the air in his lungs go, raking a hand over his face.
It's too late now, old man, he thinksand then feels he might actually cry.
Shit.
She'll only go on. Find someone who can talk and dance fast.
That'll bethat.
Right?
He looked up then and saw that he was in front of the diner now...
He was hollow and cold...
And really feeling the beer...
Should have had a sandwich earlier...
So, silently, he went in, locking the door behind him.