Banana Pancakes
part II

When he opened his bedroom door a few minutes later, a plate and two cups balanced precariously in his hands, he found Rory still in bed, engrossed in whatever movie she had put in the player. She sat up eagerly and accepted the coffee he held out to her. "You made breakfast?" she asked finally, after four long sips of coffee.

He nodded and set the plate between them. "Figured I couldn't go wrong with pancakes," he said, fighting the urge to smile as her eyes lit up.

"They are the second most important part of breakfast," she agreed amicably as she accepted the fork he handed her. He tried not to watch as she slid the fork through the pancake and lifted it to her lips, opting to focus his gaze on the television instead.

"Banana?" she said through her mouthful and he nodded silently as he turned back to watch her. She seemed to chew for a long time before swallowing.

"Your secret recipe?" she asked with a small smile as she took another bite. He watched again, as she chewed on it forever before swallowing.

"Something like that." His eyebrows knit together as he tried to read the expression on her face. "They're good, right?"

"They're awfully sweet," she commented after taking a drink of her coffee.

"Oh, well I didn't realize we didn't have any bananas until it was too late, so I substituted."

She frowned. "With what? Liquor?"

"Yes actually." Her head shot up and she looked at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. "What?"

"You used alcohol to make pancakes?"

"The alcohol cooks out," he argued defensively. "So it should still just taste like bananas."

She shook her head mutely as pressed a hand to her mouth. He watched as her shoulders shook up and down with her silent laughter.

"What's so funny?"

Her laughter was audible finally. "These are the worst pancakes I've ever had, Emeril," she confessed through her giggles.

"What?" He shook his head. "You're crazy, these are awesome pancakes."

"Sure," she said with a nod. "Here then." She cut off another piece and held the fork in front of him. This time she watched as he chewed. "And?"

"Awesome," he repeated. She waited for him to swallow. "Awesomely disgusting, God!" he risked losing a limb and reached for her coffee to rid the overly sweet banana taste from of his mouth. "What the hell was I thinking?"

She laughed again and snatched the fork and cup back from him. "The thought was sweet," she said, patting his knee. "At least now we know neither of us can cook so we'll be eating out from now on."

Logan tried not to dwell on her choice of pronoun as he nodded dejectedly. "I swear they don't always taste this ba—what are you doing?" he watched as she raised another bite to her mouth. "Ror, you don't have to eat them, it's okay." He reached for the fork again but she held it out of his reach this time.

"No really, after that first bite they're disgusting enough to be…well, not bad," she decided. She smiled at the look on his face. "They get better, they really do."

"If you say so." He leaned back against the headboard, pulling her to sit against him between his legs. She had taken a shower while he had been in the kitchen and her wet hair tickled his chest as she leaned back comfortably. She was dressed in one of his t-shirts and smelled of his soap and he realized how much he liked her this way.

"What are you watching?" he asked, pushing the thoughts out of his head.

"Empire Records," she answered, setting the now-empty plate aside.

"What's it about?"

She craned her neck back to look at him. "It's your movie, you've never watched it?" He shook his head. "There really is no plot," she decided after a moment's consideration. "But no plot movies are the best and this one used to be mine and Lane's favorite." She laughed softly at something on the screen and then turned back to him. "Because of this movie, we used to dream about running our own record store and we wanted it to be exactly like this," she said, jerking her head toward the screen. "I was going to marry AJ and she was going to get Lucas. Besides, how can you not love a movie that has an all non-star lineup including Liv Tyler and Renee Zellweger pre-Jerry McGuire?" She shook her head. "It's a must-see movie and I'm tempted to start it over so you can watch from the beginning."

"I think I can catch up," he said, moving the remote control from her reach and settling his hands back on the tops of her bare thighs, playing with the hem of his shirt. She rolled her eyes at him and moved out of his reach, stretching out on her stomach, her head at the foot of the bed, her legs crossed at the ankles behind her, giving him a tempting view that he chose to ignore as he settled himself next to her.

He tried to watch the movie but Rory was distracting him, even if she didn't mean to and the best part was, she wasn't even aware of it. She was a pain in the ass to watch movies with; he could feel her tense up next to him as she anticipated upcoming scenes, she would glance at him sideways to see if he appreciated a joke, her lips moved along with the dialogue, her words just beneath a whisper but still detectable. It didn't help things either, when her ankles uncrossed and one of her legs fell over his and her head rested against his shoulder. The whole moment was entirely too comfortable for Logan's liking and he tried to concentrate on the movie and not think about everything else.

Rory kept her eyes on the television, focusing on Deb's fake funeral as she felt his body stiffen next to hers briefly. This whole morning had her on edge; maybe he was feeling it too. It was as if their entire arrangement had been thrown out the window. It started last night, when he had suggested his place instead of hers. She had protested but he rationalized that it was closer than her dorm and she had been in no position to walk all the way back and he had promised to set the alarm for her and she had been surprised to find he meant for the morning, and not for three hours later, as they usually did. Of course, he hadn't set the alarm, but thinking about that just opened a whole other can of worms.

She was…Rory wracked the thesaurus in her head for a possible synonym for what she was. Comfortable? Content? At ease? Any of them worked well enough, but lying here on his bed, watching a movie and acting like, dare she think it, a couple, was almost too familiar for her and she wasn't sure how she should act. Their arrangement wasn't called off; they had just lapsed for day right? She was trying to convince herself of this all the while trying not to think of how it had felt being with him this morning.

"Hey Ace?" Logan's voice snapped her back to reality and she turned her head to look at him.

"Hmm?"

"At least now I know where Finn got the idea to glue quarters to the floor."

She laughed. "I always knew I liked Finn the best," she teased. They both turned back to the movie, each privately deciding to not put any more thoughts into the what-ifs, but focus on the day at hand and worry about everything else tomorrow.

"Well?" She turned to him as the end credits rolled and waited for his consensus.

"Well," he mimicked. "You were right."

"I was?" she smiled brightly.

He nodded. "Absolutely no plot at all." He smirked as she yanked the pillow out from underneath him and hit him with it. "That's the second time you've hit me today," he protested as he wrestled the pillow away from her. He tried to hit her but she grabbed his wrists before he could and stuck out her lower lip again. That damn lower lip. He sighed and set the pillow down. He caught sight of the alarm clock as he did and pointed at it. "Look at that, it's twenty after twelve and you haven't burst into flames yet." She didn't say anything and he watched as she pulled her lower lip into her mouth. "What?"

She looked at him slyly. "I can still make three of my classes if I get dressed and leave now," she said.

"Ace!" he groaned in frustration and looked at her. "Seriously, how can I get you to have fun today and not think about what you're missing in class today?"

"So you admit I'm missing stuff?"

"I'm going to plead the fifth on that one." They studied each other silently for a few seconds before Logan spoke again. "How about an I Never Day?" he asked finally.

"An I Never Day?"

He nodded. "We've already started really," he pointed out. "You never skipped a day of class and I never watched Empire Records, now we both have."

"How Breakfast at Tiffany's of you," she said dryly, folding her legs underneath her on the bed.

He tried not to look at her bare legs. "Exactly."

She sighed. "Watching a movie is nowhere near the level of what I'm doing," she said.

He shrugged. "Day's still early, you never know what could happen." He stood up, pulling her off of the bed with him. "Come on, I'll tell you what. I'm going to go jump in the shower, you go ahead and get dressed, and we'll decide what to do from there."

"All right," she relented.

"That's my girl," he grinned at her again, trying again to ignore the pronouns being thrown so freely around this morning. "I'll be right back." He grabbed a towel and headed for the door. He turned and looked at her for a moment, before bending down and picking up her shoe again. "Just in case," he said at her raised eyebrow before heading into the bathroom.

Rory got dressed and wandered out into the living room. She was startled to see Finn sitting on the couch, watching television, and painting his nails.

"A little early for you to be up, isn't it?" she asked, sitting down next to him. He looked up and smiled warmly at her.

"Usually yes, but I needed to go to class today. Everything happens on a Tuesday, you know." He looked down at his left hand as he drew the tiny brush over it with an ease that suggested a lot of practice.

"Labs?" Rory asked.

"Rosemary," he clarified with a wink. "We have all the same classes today and she would be absolutely heartbroken if I didn't show up."

"I know I would be," she agreed. She watched him for a few more seconds. "Finn?"

"Yes Doll?"

"What's with the nails? I mean, is there a reason you always paint them black?"

He nodded. "The ladies seem to like it."

"I see."

"That's not all," Logan called, as the bathroom door opened and he stepped out, dressed for the day. "That's not the whole story."

"There's a story?" Rory asked eagerly. She smiled as Logan handed her another cup of coffee and sat down across from her and Finn.

"Finn came to the States in the summer of '98," he began. "Now, I don't know how well you remember it, but that was the summer of MTV. You know, the beach house, TRL, and Carson Daly was the man."

"He was?"

"He was," Finn confirmed. "Did you not see his girlfriend?"

"Tara Reid?"

"The Neutrogena girl," Logan corrected her. "Jennifer Love Hewitt."

"Oh of course." She rolled her eyes at the two guys who both bowed their heads at the name.

"Anyways, why would Carson Daly of all people, be sleeping with a girl like that?" Finn asked with a shake of his head. "I mean, for all intents and purposes, he was a smug prick and not all that good looking. There was no reason I couldn't be with the caliber of ladies that he was. He didn't have anything I didn't."

"Except the black nail polish?"

"Give the girl a cookie!" Finn nodded.

"And it works? I mean, even now, after he's pretty much disappeared, the nail polish still gets the girls?" Rory was fascinated.

He winked at her. "I haven't gotten lonely yet." He capped his nail polish and stood up. "I'll be leaving you two alone now, I need to get to class. I simply cannot keep Rosemary waiting." Finn grabbed his stuff. "Rory, always a pleasure, Logan, your hair is sticking up in back." He stuck his head back into the room. "You want another story? Ask Logan why he never wears jeans." He stuck his tongue out at them and slammed the door again.

"Dick," Logan muttered under his breath as Rory swung around to look at him again.

"Why don't you ever wear jeans?" she asked obediently.

"No reason. Finn's drunk, don't pay attention to him." Logan looked at his watch. "We should get going, I bet we could—where are you going?" He watched as Rory hopped off of the couch and headed back to his bedroom. "What are you doing?"

"Searching your closet," was her frank reply. He stood in the doorway and waited until she emerged from his closet. "You know, Finn's right. I have never ever seen you in a pair of jeans, and there aren't any in your closet either." She leaned back against the closet door. "What's that about?"

"It's nothing," he insisted.

"Right. If it was nothing, you wouldn't be dying to get me out of your room right now," Rory said. "I'm a reporter Logan, I know when there's a story to be had, and there's a definite story here so you may as well tell me."

"No comment?" Logan tried again.

"Off the record?" Rory countered and he sighed.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone," he said finally.

"Pinky swear," she vowed, holding out her left pinky. He grudgingly linked his right pinky around it and then pulled her into back into the living room.

"It's stupid, really," he began after they had settled themselves on the couch again.

"That's a great start to any story." She ducked her head at the look he gave her. "Right, sorry." She pressed her lips together and waited for him to continue.

"When we were younger, Honor and I had this nanny, Jenny, who was pretty cool for a nanny, I guess. Anyways, one summer, I think I was either eleven or twelve, my mother was having the whole estate redone and the place was filled with contractors and gardeners."

"You had a nanny when you were twelve?"

He gave her a dirty look. "My parents were in Europe all summer, so yes, we had a nanny. One more interruption and I won't tell the story." He couldn't help but smile as she drew an imaginary zipper closed over her lips.

"Anyways, I forget what we were doing, but Colin and I for some reason were hiding in the closet in my father's upstairs study." Rory snickered and he shot another glare at her as she clasped her hands over her mouth. "Well, apparently, from the window in that study, there was a really good view of the backyard, and every day, just after lunch, Jenny and our cook, Charlotte, would go into the study and just stare at all of the workers."

Sounds like a Lorelai thing to do, Rory thought as she just nodded at Logan.

"Obviously, I didn't know they did this, and they didn't know we were in the closet, but Colin and I could hear everything they were saying and it was funny." He shrugged. "At least it was blackmail to use against Jenny if need be, you know, neglecting us to drool over guys. So they were talking, and both of them agreed that there was nothing better in the world to look at then the backside of a guy in really tight jeans." He looked at Rory, who was still silent, but her eyes were clearly laughing at him. "What?"

"Sorry, you used the word backside." She shook her head. "I'm okay."

"Well I'm not going to use the exact phrase they used. Your ears don't need to hear it." He paused and looked thoroughly uncomfortable at the memory. "Just know that it was burned into my brain and I haven't worn jeans since that day."

Rory nodded. "I understand." She hoped her voice was full of sincerity.

"You do?" He looked at her doubtfully.

"Mmhmm, it's perfectly understandable. I mean really, who doesn't want their cook checking them out?" She couldn't get the sentence out without laughing.

"I told you it was stupid," he grumbled.

"It really is," she agreed through her giggles. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh; you were obviously very scared by the idea of the staff checking out your twelve year old self."

"That story doesn't leave this room," he threatened. "You pinky swore."

"I just have one question," she said as her laughter subsided.

"Sure."

"Does Colin not wear jeans too?"

Logan grinned. "Are you kidding? He wore the tightest ones he could every time he came over that summer. Jenny was hot."

"Of course." Rory shook her head and stood up. "Okay, I know what we're doing now, come on."