A/N: Luke and Rory will meet again, don't worry. I just had some other things to take care of first.
Thanks to presssecretary for the beta.
Meanwhile, Lorelai was going crazy. She wasn't exactly sure what going crazy felt like, but she was pretty sure it was close to how she felt. Somehow, she had forced herself to go to work, but, much to Michel's annoyance, was having trouble concentrating on anything beyond her own thoughts. She thought she saw Manny chase Michel with a cleaver several times, but she couldn't be sure. She was also quite surprised that after she and Luke were interrupted the night before, more people in Stars Hollow hadn't gotten wind of what they had been talking about. Every minute that went by made her wonder more and more why Luke hadn't called. Even though they had agreed (or he had told her by way of post it) to meet later, she still half expected at least a phone call from him, but she got nothing. She was dying to know what he was thinking, but knew how much he hated being bombarded with questions, especially when it came to their relationship. This was important, though, and she couldn't understand why he wouldn't just talk to her already.
That morning, she had woken up and looked out the window to find that the porch light was on. Upon further glance at the yard, she vaguely remembered leaving the lights on in her Jeep, although now they were turned off. That could mean one of two things – either the battery had actually died, or… Luke. She decided it was probably the latter, and then wondered what the hell Luke was doing sneaking around her house in the middle of the night. She trudged downstairs, in desperate need of coffee, when she remembered that she had drunk it all the night before. "Great," she muttered to herself. Now she was going to have to go to Luke's. Before she could talk herself out of going over there, though, she noticed a yellow post it stuck to her coffeemaker, and pulled it off to read it.
I noticed you were out of coffee.
Come find me later.
Lorelai opened the coffeepot, and sure enough, it was filled with Luke's coffee. She pushed the on button, wondering what the hell "come find me later" was supposed to mean. Could he be any more cryptic? Oh well, she sighed, putting the post it in her purse, at least it didn't say "I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me." Although she wasn't sure "come find me later" was any better.
She stopped replaying the morning's events long enough to notice Michel rush by her one more time, and stopped him. "Michel, are you sure there are no messages for me?"
"You are standing right next to the phone."
"I know, but I thought, maybe if I had gone to the bathroom or something, and you forgot to –"
"Lorelai, I have not seen you leave that desk for the past four hours. Why don't you just call him already?"
"Fine. Watch the desk, I'm going over there."
Lorelai reluctantly left the inn, and set off for Luke's, wondering if four hours counted as "later." She had to get to the bottom of this, and couldn't believe that had spent all this time not talking to each other. Where the hell was he anyway? If she knew Luke at all, either he was supremely angry with her, or he was planning something. Either way, she had to know, and she didn't care if she was pushing his boundaries.
On her way through Stars Hollow, she was stopped by almost colliding head on with Gypsy.
"Lorelai!" she exclaimed, "is it true?"
"Is what true?"
"You and Luke? You're getting married?"
Wow, thought Lorelai, I have really underestimated how fast news travels in this town.
"Uh, no, not to my knowledge."
"What? You mean he said no?" Gypsy asked incredulously, as she started fishing for something in her pocket.
"Uh, well, I –" Lorelai started as she saw Gypsy pull out a pink ribbon and try to fasten it to her shirt, "what are you doing with that? Put that away!" she cried, hoping no one else saw them.
"So you're not getting married, and you're not breaking up?"
"Uh, sure," said Lorelai, "let's go with that. Bye!"
With that, Lorelai hurried away, trying to get to the diner without anyone else getting involved in her love life.
Once Luke was convinced Rory wasn't lying in a ditch somewhere, being escorted around the country club by her grandparents, or spending all her time canoodling with her boyfriend in that pool house, he had to get back to business. He had a diner to run after all, and oh yeah, a girlfriend who had proposed to him and still hadn't gotten an answer. He was still convinced Lorelai was mad at him though, especially since his cell phone was not ringing incessantly, and he had to find a way to rectify the situation. However, he still had no idea what he was going to say to her. Was marriage really what she wanted? Really? Was it possible that all this time he had been stalling on confessing his plans for the future, she had been thinking the same thing? Never in a million years had he dreamed that Lorelai Gilmore would be proposing to him. How could he say no? Yet, he wasn't entirely positive that she was done with the 'mulling,' or that she wouldn't grow bored with him once this Rory thing was resolved. He knew he was being silly and letting his insecurities get to him, but still.
He stopped debating internally for long enough to notice that his gas gauge was extremely low, and stopped at a gas station so that he wouldn't end up having to call Lorelai to come get him when he was stuck on the highway. That certainly wouldn't make the situation any better. He got out of the car, and went to pay the attendant. However, upon opening his wallet, he remembered that Lorelai had taken his last twenty and that he still hadn't made it to an ATM. He handed his credit card to the attendant and glanced at his wallet again, noticing that there was money in it after all. He pulled out the dollar bill that Lorelai had written on. He had no idea when she had done that, or even how long that had been sitting there, but it made him smile nonetheless. In fact, that simple gesture was enough to put butterflies in his stomach and a huge grin on his face, and right then, he thought, if Lorelai had the ability to do that just by writing on a dollar bill, how could he not marry her? As illogical as he knew that was, it made sense to him, and suddenly, he couldn't get back to Stars Hollow fast enough. Actually, he thought, this can't wait, and he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Lorelai's. Much to his dismay, he got the voicemail once again. After leaving the 17th message in 24 hours on her phone, he decided he would have to just wait until he got back home to talk to her.
Late in the afternoon, when she had had enough of the sun, Rory trudged back into the pool house and slumped onto the couch, not bothering to put clothes on over her bathing suit. Actually, make that Lorelai's bathing suit. Rory wasn't sure if her mother had noticed that she had borrowed it (she was going to give it back at some point), but it looked fantastic on her, so she didn't much care. She grabbed the remote and started flipping through the 375 channels on the plasma TV that Emily had recently had installed. She had no idea what her grandparents were going to do with that many cable channels, but she was enjoying it just the same.
Rory knew she was supposed to be looking for a job, but seeing as she had no idea what she was going to do with the rest of her life, she didn't know where to start. She had promised her grandfather that she would find one, and that if she didn't find one within two weeks, he could have one his friends employ her as their secretary. She knew she was good at that, at least, but she wanted to at least pretend to have some semblance of independence before she went crawling back to the Gilmores. She debated calling Luke and finding out if he needed any help at the diner, but she was pretty sure that neither he nor Lorelai would be fond of that idea.
Out of ideas for the moment, she instead reveled in the idea that she could, in fact, spend the afternoon lounging around in her bathing suit watching television. She finally landed on a Felicity rerun, and gave up flipping through channels. She hadn't much cared for this show when it was on – she found that she couldn't understand why a smart college student like Felicity would waste all her time whining about which boy to date. She had especially hated that episode, the one they happened to rerun all the time, where Felicity blew off her final in order to spend more time in bed with her boyfriend. She remembered wondering why the hell anyone would do that. However, now she was finding that when looking at it as an afternoon soap opera, this show wasn't so bad, and she found herself getting lost in it. She was finally beginning to understand how Paris had gotten so addicted to soaps that one time, and let herself doze off while getting lost in the fictional world of college students.
Rory sat on her bed, still in her school uniform, lost in thought. She thought she heard Mr. Medina's voice on the answering machine, but she couldn't be sure. He was saying something like 'don't lose heart…'
At that moment, she knew what she had to do, and she leapt off her bed, running into the living room.
"MOM!" she shouted, not realizing that Lorelai was standing right next to her.
Lorelai panicked, and immediately gave her a hug. "What is it, sweetie?"
Rory began to sob, saying, "I don't wanna go to Chilton anymore."
"Are you sure that's what you want? I mean I know what I said earlier, but I think you can do it. Mr. Medina thinks you can catch up. Even Il Duce over there thinks you can catch up. It'll be okay," said Lorelai.
For some reason, that just sent Rory into an even bigger panic. "You said I don't have to go anymore and I'm telling you that I don't want to go anymore!" she cried.
"Ok, ok," said Lorelai, "you don't have to go anymore."
Rory awoke with a shiver, noticing that the glow outside had gotten dimmer, yet she was still in her bathing suit. She went into her room to change, still disoriented from sleeping in the middle of the day. She had already gone swimming, sunbathed, had a heart to heart (or as close as one could get) with Luke, and watched TV, and now she didn't know what to do with herself. She wondered what to think of the dream she had just had – she had almost forgotten about that incident at Chilton, and that so many people had encouraged her not to give up. What would've happened, she thought, if mom had let me drop out of Chilton that time? Or the time that I didn't want to go because of Dean? Or if she had let me drop that Spanish class that I swore I was failing? (If she remembered correctly, she had actually gotten an A in that class, and then thanked Lorelai profusely for it when they were lost in Granada that summer). She felt the sudden urge to talk to Lorelai, even though she knew she had disappointed her in a major way. She was getting the silent treatment from her, but Lorelai was always better at holding a grudge than she was anyway, and Rory went in search of a phone.
She dialed Lorelai's cell phone, but got no answer. It went straight to voicemail. However, when the voicemail picked up, the stupid thing wouldn't even let her leave a message, telling Rory that her mailbox was full.
"What the hell?" Rory wondered aloud, knowing that Lorelai carried that phone as if it was an appendage, and that there was no way Lorelai would have missed that many calls and not noticed. Something was up, and she was dying to know what was going on. She sat down at her computer, figuring that e-mail was probably the only way to get in touch with her at this point. She opened her e-mail program, hit 'new message,' and stared at the blank screen. And stared. And stared. Finally, she typed a short message, hit 'send' before she could delete it, and slammed her computer closed in disgust.
Meanwhile, Lorelai was back at the inn, trying to figure out where the hell Luke was. She had gone to the diner to 'find him,' as he had requested, but he wasn't there. She had called his cell phone several times, but he didn't answer it. If he was still mad at her, why was he asking her to meet him anyway? If he was going to turn down her proposal, couldn't he just do it and get it over with? She knew she had potentially messed things up with her bad timing, but now he wasn't even giving her a chance to explain. She had spent most of the morning thinking about it, and decided that despite her lack of finesse and possibly poor timing, she had meant what she said. She wanted to marry Luke more than anything in the world. Now she just had to find a way to tell him.
Tired of thinking about it, she started fidgeting with the computer on the desk, and realized she hadn't read her e-mail in several days. Not that she was expecting any messages, but she figured she should at least make sure the Hilton sisters hadn't, like, bought the Dragonfly without her knowledge or something. She went through her inbox, not finding anything particularly interesting. One from Mike Armstrong, with the subject line, 'What did you think?'; Another from Mike Armstrong, with the subject line, 'Please consider our offer. I'm eager to have you aboard;' A gig announcement from Lane's band saying something about a church; and several trying to sell her prescription drugs from Canada. She systematically deleted all of them, but just as she was about to hit the little 'x' in the corner of the screen, the computer flashed again at her. '1 new message,' it said. It was from Rory. Lorelai couldn't help but feel a little glimmer of hope as she opened it, although she wondered why Rory didn't just call her.
Mom,
You never gave up on me. Don't start now.
Love,
Rory
P.S. What the hell is wrong with your cell phone?
Lorelai sighed as she read the message. She had no idea how to respond to that, or if she should at all. She stared at the screen for a little while, until the last line registered with her. There's nothing wrong with my cell phone, she thought, until she vaguely remembered throwing it at the wall the night before. She fished through her purse until she found it, and sure enough, the display was completely blank, and the casing was cracked in several places. She tried turning it on, to no avail. Finally, she grabbed the inn's phone, and called her cell phone number. "You have 17 new messages," her voicemail told her, and she started to feel really stupid.
Sure enough, they were all from Luke. Apparently she had been too busy crying and throwing phones at walls to notice that the phone in her house had been ringing, and Luke had gotten a little nutty trying to get in touch with her. As she kept listening to his voice on her phone, she felt stupider and stupider.
"Ok, you're not answering your phone which means you're either lying in a ditch somewhere or you're mad at me. If it's the first one, please call me," he said.
"Lorelai, where the hell are you? If you are mad at me, and don't want to talk to me, I'm sorry. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm sorry, ok? Now will you pick up the phone?"
And so on, until Lorelai couldn't take it anymore. She deleted all the messages and hung up, dialing Luke's cell phone. However, she didn't need to finish dialing, because right then, Luke appeared in the doorway. She rushed over to him and tangled him in a fierce embrace.
"Where the hell have you been?" she cried, much to Luke's amusement.
"I was at the diner."
"No you were not at the diner. You said to come find you, so I did, and then you weren't there, and my cell phone was broken, and –"
"—so you're not mad at me?" Luke cut her off.
"Mad at you? Why would I be mad at you?"
"I don't know, Lorelai. A guy leaves you 17 messages and you don't call him back, I think he has reason to believe you might be mad at him. And you ran out so fast last night -- "
"Ok, first of all, I have asked you repeatedly to stop talking in the third person. It freaks me out. Second, you mean you're not mad at me? Third, did you really expect me to stick around so that the two loons over there could listen to the rest of our conversation?"
"Why would I be mad at you?"
"I don't know! You didn't say anything, you didn't call, you didn't come over."
"I did call," said Luke, matter of factly. As much as he wanted to add to that speech and tell her how much he did, in fact, want to marry her right then and there, he had to admit that he was kind of enjoying watching her squirm.
"Yeah, you really like my answering machine don't you?"
"Ok, are we done with this yet?"
"You're right. I'm tired just listening to myself," said Lorelai, calming down a little. She looked up at him, just glad they were done with that section of this evening's performance, and put her arms around his neck. "You have no idea what I went through last night. I actually got so mad at myself at one point that I threw the phone against the wall."
"That's a little bit dramatic, don't you think?"
"Yes, well, no one ever said I was the queen of cool."
"I'll give you that."
"Wait a minute. You still haven't answered my question, you know," said Lorelai, her heart racing again. She had gotten so caught up in seeing him again, that she had momentarily forgotten how they had gotten into this mess in the first place.
Luke hadn't, though. "I know," he said, with something resembling an evil cackle.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"A little bit."
"I swear Luke, your cruel sense of humor rears its ugly head at the strangest times."
"We're going out tonight. I'll pick you up at seven," said Luke, and kissed her softly. "Goodbye, Lorelai."
With that, he was gone.
Later, as Lorelai was rushing home to get ready for her date, her heart felt ten times lighter. She really didn't understand how her mood could change from so angst-ridden the night before, to so elated, especially when Luke hadn't even addressed her ill-timed proposal yet. However, she had a good feeling about tonight, whatever the outcome. She had to admit that his cruel joke still made her smile, and cheered her up immensely after the e-mail she had received from Rory. Only Luke could do that, she thought, which just made her want to marry him even more. As she drove through town, an idea sprang to mind. She got out at Doose's, and started gathering green things she thought might go into a salad or some such ridiculous dish. After she paid for the vegetables, most of which she didn't even know the names of, she pulled a pen out of her purse and wrote on the receipt.
If you say yes, I'll let you watch me eat all of this stuff.
She threw the receipt in the bag, and headed to Luke's, praying he was already upstairs getting ready. It worked, because when she walked in, she only saw Lane and Kirk. She paid Kirk twenty bucks to deliver the bag to Luke, watched him to make sure he did it, and then set off for home. After all, she had a date to get ready for.
At seven fifteen, Lorelai's doorbell rang, just as she was making her way down the stairs, as best she could in the four inch heels she was wearing. When she opened the door, a very well groomed, well dressed (in the clothes she had bought him) Luke stood before her, handing her a rose. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, "am I on The Bachelor?"
"Are you on the what?"
"C'mon, Luke," she said, peering around him, "I know there's a camera guy standing behind you somewhere."
"Lorelai, what on earth are you talking about?" Luke was having trouble comprehending words to begin with, because Lorelai was wearing the black dress he loved and that perfume that drove him crazy. He found himself unconsciously drawn to her, involuntarily touching her in places he wasn't quite sure were appropriate.
This amused Lorelai to no end, and she finally gave in and let him kiss her passionately. When his hands started to wander, she pulled away and looked at him sternly. "No way, mister. We have important things to discuss before we can do any of that."
"Yes we do. Let's go," said Luke, and Lorelai thought she detected a little mischievousness in his tone.
They got in the truck, and drove in overbearing silence to someplace Lorelai didn't recognize. "Where are you taking me to continue torturing me this fine evening?"
"You're gonna love it."
"Oh no. You're not taking me to some fancy restaurant where no one knows us just so you can ceremoniously dump me right in front of everyone, and tell me that you need to marry a Jackie not a Marilyn, are you?"
"Uh, no." Luke was pretty sure she was reciting the plot of some ridiculous chick flick that at some point she was probably going to make him watch, but decided not to inquire about it for now.
"Planetarium?"
"Seriously, where do you come up with this stuff?"
"Luke, you have to start watching more TV."
Suddenly, Luke pulled off the highway at an exit surrounded by nothing but trees and streetlights. Lorelai grew more and more skeptical as they drove further and further into the woods.
"Oh, my god, this is where you're taking me to kill me."
"Can you just stop talking?"
Finally, Luke pulled up to a deserted parking lot with a small, dimly lit stand in the corner. The sign was faded, but from what Lorelai could make out, it looked like it had an ice cream cone on it. Though the prospect of ice cream excited her to no end, she was a little worried about the fact that the place seemed to be deserted. Luke caught on to this and decided to tell her the story so that she wouldn't think he had actually brought her here to have her murdered.
"It doesn't say so on the sign, but this place is called 'Arthur's.' I went to summer camp –"
"-- YOU went to summer camp?"
"—around here, and our counselor used to let us sneak out and walk down here at night, where we would all eat our gigantic ice cream cones while walking the mile and a half back to camp, and then feel extremely nauseous by the time we got back. I think that may actually be the reason for my aversion toward ice cream."
"If you have an aversion towards ice cream, then why are we here?"
"Because you like ice cream, and if I remember correctly, this place makes the best ice cream."
Lorelai was amazed at how much she still didn't know about Luke, and how even though this was practically their 375th date, it still felt eerily like a first date. They walked up to the counter, and Lorelai ordered something with massive amounts of chocolate in it, which she ate while she and Luke sat on a spread out blanket in the bed of his truck.
"So, as much as I love seeing you get all GQ'd up, as you so eloquently put it, why did we have to get dressed up for this?" Lorelai inquired.
"Because I love seeing you in that dress."
"Oh, so it was completely self serving. Nevermind the fact that I will inevitably get chocolate all over it and then have to dry clean it."
Luke ignored her and continued watching her eat, trying to figure out how to ease them into the conversation he knew was necessary.
"Can you stop watching me eat? It's creepy. Plus, if you don't get to the point soon, I'm going to stop eating this so I can throw it in your face," exclaimed Lorelai.
"Ok, ok. See, the thing is… here's the thing…" Luke stammered, unable to get out anything even closely resembling a sentence.
Lorelai couldn't believe she was about to do this again, but she couldn't take it anymore. "Luke, will you marry me?" she said again.
"Geez, Lorelai, of course I'll marry you."
Lorelai let out a little squeal, put down her ice cream and kissed Luke so fiercely she thought they'd never be able to part. When they finally broke, Luke started, "but…"
"But what?"
"Are you sure this is what you want?"
"What do you mean? Of course I'm sure."
"It's just… all this time, I'd been dreaming about our future, buying houses and whatnot, and getting discouraged every step of the way because I thought you wanted more."
"More than what?"
"This. Us. Stars Hollow."
"Luke, what on earth are you talking about?"
"Look, that day that I ran into Dean, he said some things…"
"… Dean? What did he say to you? Oh man, I'm going to kick his ass."
"Something about me not being good enough, and you Gilmores always wanting more than I could provide you with, or something like that."
"And you listened to him?"
"Not at first, no. But then with the job offer, and the mulling, I couldn't help but think maybe he was right."
"Luke, I never had any intention of selling the inn. I love my inn, I love my friends, I even love Michel. I'm not going anywhere."
"Really? You're sure?"
"For the hundredth time, yes!"
Luke just looked at her in amazement, not knowing what to say next. Never in his wildest fantasies did he ever think this would happen. He was still in shock over the events of the past few days. He put both arms around her, and they both reveled in the moment for a while.
"Lorelai?" said Luke, quietly.
"Yes, hun?"
"Thank you."
She responded with an "Oh, Luke."
"What?"
"I just… I love you, that's all."
Luke didn't want to inform her that she had never said that to him before, or that she had just made his heart beat so fast he thought he might collapse right there. So instead, he ran his fingers through her hair and pulled her in for a long, lingering kiss.
On the way home, a silence had fallen over the inside of the truck while Luke drove and Lorelai looked contemplatively out the window. Luke wondered what was keeping her so quiet, and looked over at her, the look on her face telling him everything he needed to know.
"You thinking about Rory?" he asked gently.
"How do you do that?" asked Lorelai, amazed that he was able to read her thoughts so well.
"I have strange talents," replied Luke.
"That is true."
"She'll be okay," said Luke, sounding a little too confident for Lorelai's taste.
"How do you know that?"
"I just know."
"You don't know everything, you know."
"Damn, Kirk is going to be so disappointed when he finds that out."
"I just… I can't believe…"
"Don't you worry. Rory will be fine," he said again, a weird macho-dad thing creeping into his voice.
"Luke… do you know something that I don't?"
"I know lots of things you don't. Rory's a big girl, she can handle it."
Luke wasn't divulging any more information than that, but Lorelai had the sneaking suspicion he actually did know something she didn't. However, she didn't have the energy to try to get it out of him now, if she even could, and decided that anyway, she had the rest of her life to try to wrest his secrets out of him. She laughed a little to herself thinking about how much fun that would be.
Much later, Lorelai found herself awake again. As usual, Luke was dead to the world, so she crept out of bed and made her way downstairs. She decided she preferred her constantly tired state from the week before to this one, because at least then she could sleep. She wasn't a big fan of becoming well acquainted with the owl that lived in her backyard and memorizing the lines from the infomercial about the thingy that seals the bag of potato chips (although, she kind of wanted one). As she sat down on the couch and got ready to spend yet another night learning how to make smoothies out of ice cream and a magical blender, she noticed her laptop sitting on the coffee table. She couldn't remember the last time she'd even turned the thing on, and thought maybe she could find some solace on the internet. Upon turning on her computer, she also remembered that she still hadn't answered Rory's e-mail from earlier. She had so many things to tell her, she wasn't sure where to begin, or if she even wanted to tell her.
Lorelai couldn't help feeling slightly betrayed by Rory, as if Rory had suddenly decided to sit with the cool kids at lunch and hadn't invited Lorelai to join. She opened the file and looked at Rory's message again.
Mom,
You never gave up on me. Don't start now.
Love,
Rory
The longer she stared at it, the more at a loss she felt. She finally decided to keep it short, though somewhere in the back of her mind, she wanted to write Rory a novel detailing every single thing that had happened in the last two days.
Honey,
You know I won't.
I love you.
Mom
P.S. Can I have my black bikini back? I'm going to need it. And please wash it first. Twice.
Satisfied, for now at least, with her message, she hit 'send' and closed her computer. She sat on the couch and stared at it, feeling the tears threatening to spill over once again. She didn't think she had cried this much in her entire life, and yet, here she was, losing it again.
Upstairs, Luke awoke with a start, with an acute sense that something was horribly wrong. He glanced over and saw the empty side of the bed, once again. He sighed at the thought of Lorelai and her insomnia, and went downstairs to see if he could coax her back to sleep. All the lights were still off in the house, which made it hard for him to see where he was going, but he definitely heard a distinct sniffle coming from the living room.
"Lorelai?" he said from the doorway.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"No, what are you doing?" he wondered in response. He made his way over to her, bumping into various pieces of furniture on the way.
"Sorry," she said, "you can turn a light on if you want."
Luke sat down next to her and kissed her hair. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's stupid. I just couldn't sleep."
"I usually find you down here watching that guy who can't pour milk, not crying in the dark. Talk to me."
"No, it's ok, really. I'm just emotional from the day we've had. Let's go back to bed," she explained, and stood up, taking his hand and dragging him up with her. Luke obliged, even though he knew there was something more bothering her. But he also knew she would tell him in due time, and they had the rest of their lives to discuss whatever it was anyway.
As she snuggled against him and tried to go back to sleep, Lorelai couldn't figure out why she didn't want to tell Luke about Rory's e-mail. She just didn't feel like talking about it. She couldn't put what she was feeling into words yet anyway. She knew she would tell him eventually, but first she had to figure out herself how to word it, something she was not used to having to figure out.
The next morning, about two hours after Lorelai had finally fallen asleep, she felt Luke stir next to her. He was being careful not to wake her, but it was already too late and she felt him getting out of bed. She grabbed his hand and stopped him, wondering, "Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"Uh, the diner."
"Why the hell would you want to do that?"
"I don't know, to run my business."
"This early?" she asked, not waiting for a response. She pulled him on top of her and kissed him. Pretty impressive, thought Luke, considering the fact that she hasn't even opened her eyes yet. He reluctantly pulled back and started to get up again.
"I'm sorry, but I really have to go. I haven't been paying much attention over there recently, and I need to make sure Lane hasn't turned it into a rave or something yet."
"Fine," grumbled Lorelai, "go. But you better be here when I get home tonight so I can have my way with you. And there better be coffee downstairs."
"You're bossy when you're tired."
"I'm always bossy."
Luke leaned down and kissed her cheek. "See you later," he said softly, and headed towards the bathroom. Lorelai smiled when she thought about the fact that from now on, he would be there every night when she got home.
Several hours later, Lorelai's alarm clock purred, pulling her out of a most excellent X rated dream starring a certain diner owner. She had let herself sleep in a little bit, but when she looked at the clock, she knew she had to get going. After taking her time in the shower and getting dressed, she made her way downstairs, hoping to god that there actually was coffee in her house, because as much as she would have liked to, she really didn't have time to stop at Luke's. Mostly because she didn't think she would leave once she got there. To her delight, there actually was coffee in the coffeepot, and she poured herself a generous cup, sitting down at the table to drink it. She knew she didn't have the luxury of spending ten minutes drinking her coffee, but on this particular morning, she really didn't care.
However, she almost spit out her coffee when she looked down at the table in front of her. There, right in front of her, was a white gold and diamond ring, sitting on top of a piece of Garfield stationary with Luke's handwriting on it.
Thought you could use this.
Have a great day.
Once again, Lorelai was floored by Luke's ability to brighten her day five seconds after she woke up. 'He should, like, work for Hallmark or something,' she thought. She let herself get caught up in the moment, and just sat at her kitchen table, smiling into her coffee, most certainly for longer than she had time for.
A/N2: 'Arthur's' (at least I think that's what it's called, if it's still there) is an actual ice cream place in Washington, Maine, where we used to walk to from camp.