Summary: Literati. One-shot. They're friends. Yeah, they're friends.
Disclaimer: I own…absolutely nothing, foo. Title belongs to The Jealous Sound.
A/N: Ack. It's been a while. I'm a bit rusty on the Literati. Or Gilmore Girls for that matter. Or Fan Fiction for that matter. Alright, it's only been a couple months since I posted something, but that's a long time for me! I have a love/hate relationship with this piece. That I wrote in like an hour. I just had to post something. Sorry it's so short. That's me, after all. Quiz time: after last night's episode, I wanted to A) kill Logan; B) Yell at Rory; C) Marry Jess; D) all of the above. Hope you picked D. I mean, honestly. Haha. Okay, enough stalling…onto the main event! I love reviews. Like, um, a lot.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000
They're friends. Yeah, they're friends.
She hears his voice on the phone, static and city, and she wraps the invisible cord around her finger, sighing into the speaker about how she misses his hair and his cigarettes.
And he comes up on weekends, habitually, always with reasoned excuses (I've got to help Luke with the thing; did you know they don't have snow in Philly?), because all this driving with the broken heater blasting frigid, recycled air and the radio looping ancient country songs can't go to her head.
Her fingers tightly hold the compact novel, skimming page 57, with the diagonal rip, and the letters don't quite match up. He'd wrestled her for it, her knee jabbing his thigh, her clammy hands smothering his mouth, scraping his teeth. She'd won; he'd relented, fetched her the Scotch tape and said he was sorry, locking his middle and index fingers behind his back.
The words don't spill like they used to, brain to mouth and mouth to air, but they'll sit in silence, and it's okay. His lip still drags, stalls, when sounds do manage to escape and he's standing behind the counter of Luke's, a dishrag in one hand and her skin in the other, in her mind.
They haven't kissed. They won't; the blonde boy with the metallic Porsche is waiting outside, revving the engine, grey smoke floating from the rear. But she winds her arms around his shoulders, his hot breath on her neck, open lips treacherously close to her collarbone. Friendly hugs, she tells the blonde boy, who nods and tightens his mouth, white knuckles around the leather bound steering wheel.
She drives to Philadelphia, late night, black ice, her frozen fingers fumbling with the volume dial. The CD plays smoothly, sliding from track to track (he did this on purpose). She can barely make out the address, scribbled on a napkin from a bar, amber liquid staining the numbers. He moves fluidly from the window, dipping in and out of the light streaming from a table lamp.
She's shivering, her knees shaking under her short cocktail dress in front of his door. He opens it on the second knock, striking a box of cigarettes against his jeans. And his mouth contorts as he lets her in, trailing his fingers along the small of back, pulling a cigarette from the box and slipping it behind his ear.