You're no good at lying and I'm no good at comebacks
He walks along the path to her dormitory. It's quite a chilly night, for only being fall and he wraps himself tighter into his leather jacket. He sits outside her steps, wondering what exactly he's supposed to say to her. How to formulate the words. Words, he's never been good with him. Look what they've gotten him into now. He goes in and walks around until he finds the door. He knocks and when no one answers, he tries pounding.
Finally he hears her yell, "Come in."
He follows the instructions and finds no one there, but sees her door swung open and music blaring from it.
"You're early," she yells to him. "I'm not really ready."
She peaks around the corner of the door to make eye contact with him. Her eyebrows shoot up.
"Jess? O god, I thought you were Paul."
Jess grimaces at this mistake and reminds himself to try and erase it from his memory. She turns off the blaring music.
"Come help me get ready."
He walks into her room and finds it just as he expects. Its furnished fine with great detail and it's comfortable, all with neutral colors but splashes of Lorelai in its character. He finally goes to look at her and for the first time he realizes she's in her underwear, a lace bra and matching panties. And suddenly Jess feels very self conscience around her, unable to look her in the eye.
"You're naked," he blurts out.
"I didn't think it would be a big deal. We're friends, remember, it's ok, besides I'm not completely naked," she tells him, laughing slightly.
He laughs too. And he realizes for the first time that she doesn't really realize how he feels about her. Otherwise she wouldn't have willingly let him come in.
"Ok," she starts as she sets two dresses down on her bed. "Pick one."
The first is a red cocktail dress with a slit down the front, an obvious cleavage-shower, which immediately Jess sees as a red flag. The second is a conservative black one, which looks more Emily than Lorelai. It's shorter than the red one, but it only has a very small scoop neck. The problem he realizes is that she would look seductive in overalls and a t-shirt. So anything he chose would be bad. But then again the red dress would only worsen the situation for him.
"The black one," he tells her.
She frowns for a moment.
"I was leaning towards the red one," she tells him.
"Ya, but I mean this guy is conservative right? Well the black one is more conservative sexy, the red one looks just down right whorish. It'll be great."
She smiles at him.
"What would I do without you," she asks him.
He just smiles faintly at this remark. And he turns around to give her privacy to dress herself.
"Done," she says, letting him turn around to face her.
"O wait," she says, as she sprits a small amount of perfume onto her. Then she hands a necklace to him.
"Can you?" she says referring to the necklace. He pulls it around her as she backs up until almost her whole body is pressed against him. He breathes in the perfume and suddenly he can't take it any more. It takes every fiber in his body to just clasp the damn necklace and walk away.
"Good to go," he says.
She walks away from him, inspecting herself in the mirror.
"Alright, I guess," she says.
The understatement of the year, in his opinion. She looks magnificent and part of him wants to tell her, but the words would never come out in the right way. They both hear a knock on the door but her reaction is upbeat while his is down.
"Ok, Thanks Jess," she tells him.
"No problem," he tells her he says heading towards the door.
They both walk out into the common room and he answers the door for her.
A tall, tanned, muscular guy stands in front of him and suddenly Jess feels even worse.
"Hello," he says to Jess and then skips right over him to her.
"Hey sweets," he tells her, grabbing her into a huge hug.
"Uh- Paul. This is Jess, my friend. We knew each other in high school."
Paul lets go of her and walks over to Jess, and sticks out a hand.
"Is this the Jess?" he asks her smiling.
Jess sticks his hand back out and firmly grips Paul's.
"Yep," Rory says.
Jess doesn't know whether to take this as a good sign or not.
"Well it's good to finally meet you, heard a lot about you," he tells Jess.
Bad sign. Definitely a bad sign.
"Same here."
They let go of each other's hands.
"Well," Paul starts. "We should get going, those reservations won't last forever."
He pulls her into him and Jess turns away, already ready to kill Paul. But he puts on a good face, knowing this is for her. As long as she's happy, he tells himself.
"You kids be back by 11," he says trying to make it sound like a joke.
Paul just laughs as he leads her out the door.
"Thanks mom, Don't wait up," she tells him as Paul closes the door.
He watches her leave and suddenly feels the immense need to drink. 12 months sober? Who cares about that now anyway. Damn it and he was doing so good too.
He wonders why he always falls apart around her. Why she can never realize how important she really is to him? He rids himself of thoughts of alcohol because that'll only make him look weak. No he realizes. Someone once told him, you have to fight for what you want. Well Paul, he realizes, better be ready to fight.