"I'm serious, Rory, don't peek! It'll completely destroy the surprise."
"I'm peekless I swear," Rory giggled, her response muffled by her mother's hands that covered her face, trying vaguely to obscure her vision as she was led towards the living room. "Please don't tell me we're going to watch all five Rockys again," she begged.
"Hey, you liked that in the end. I was going to stop after the second one but you were just too into it and I didn't have the heart to follow through," Lorelai pointed out.
"I was nodding off to sleep."
"You were? Oh, I thought you were nodding in approval with everything that happened. God, I you mean I could've saved myself from having to watch the brain damaged Rocky in Rocky V?"
"'Fraid so," Rory nodded.
"Right, are you ready for your surprise?"
Rory nodded again enthusiastically.
"Alright then little lady, prepare to be wowed. Drum roll please," Lorelai announced grandly. Both Gilmore's attempted to mimic a drum roll and failed miserably before Lorelai flung her hands away from Rory's face, revealing the living room in all it's splendor. Rory's wide smile lasted for a moment before she frowned in confusion.
"What is it?"
"What do you mean, what is it?"
"Well, where is it then?" Rory rephrased, her brow furrowing slightly.
"You're standing in it," Lorelai answered, spinning around with her arms wide, "It's our new and improved living room!"
Rory blinked. Looking again, she realized that the angle of the couch had changed.
"You moved the couch?"
"Yes, I moved the couch," Lorelai nodded proudly.
"But why? Now we can't see the TV when we sit down."
"Yes, but we can see the stairs."
Rory paused for a moment, considering the idea, "Why is that reason to move the couch?"
"Now you can see who's coming down the stairs so you don't get the fright of your life when you realize that someone else is in the living room with you," Lorelai reasoned confidently.
"That's never happened to me."
"Well... just in case then."
"There's only two people living in this house, mom. And only one of our rooms is on the second floor."
"Fine, Miss Logic, do you really want to know the real reason behind the couch move?"
Rory crossed her arms, "Does it involve leprechauns like the time you moved the kitchen table?"
Lorelai rolled her eyes, "That was years ago and I haven't heard from them since. I moved the couch because I was watching that news show on that... news channel and they said that seventy six percent of all home burglaries can be avoided by people turning their couches to face the stairs so that the robbers don't catch them by surprise and they can call the police."
"You're telling me that the robber would be so unsettled that we weren't surprised that he would take long enough to come down the stairs for us to call the police?" Rory summarized, unconvinced, "And who, may I ask, are you expecting to break into our house. We know just about everyone who lives in Stars Hollow."
"Ah," Lorelai started with a raised finger, "Have you ever seen the way Luke stares at our monkey lamp?"
Rory glanced over her shoulder at the purple and green lamp stand on the table behind her. The stand was graced by three monkeys that leered from under the orange glow of the lamp. She turned back to her mother, her features relaxed by apathy, "So let me get this right, you moved the couch so that Luke couldn't climb up on to the roof, come in through one of the windows only to come down the stairs and steal our monkey lamp without us knowing. Is that right?"
Lorelai nodded, "Better safe than sorry. All precautions must be taken to protect our life source, the great monkey lamp." She took Rory by the shoulders and led her towards the kitchen, "But you've got another surprise now."
"I don't think I can handle anymore surprise," Rory groaned.
"Trust me, this surprise you can handle, my daughter. I got up at six to prepare your favorite breakfast!"
"You made blueberry pancakes?"
Lorelai frowned, "Since when has that been your favorite breakfast? What happened to pizza?"
"Oh yeah, but that's in general, it's an all day meal," Rory grinned as she sat down. She paused after taking a bite of the couple day old pizza, "You woke up at six to microwave pizza?"
"Well, originally, I was going to wake you up and take you to Luke's early so we could pester him for a whole extra hour before you go to school, with it being your birthday eve eve eve. But then I thought, hey, I'm a fully capable mother, why don't I stretch my boundaries and just make breakfast myself? So then it took a half hour to decide on pizza and then as I was heating it up, I heard the couch thing on the news show and I thought, what am I doing? Here I am worrying about futile things like food when the monkey lamp is vulnerable to being stolen by Luke. So then I moved the couch. And then you woke up and there we are," Lorelai finished, drawing a much needed breath.
Rory stared at her mother for a moment before nodding.
XxXxX
Luke surveyed the apartment, regarding the space he had created by moving a few things around. He had been preparing for Jess' arrival since Liz's phone call, making sure the fold out sofa still folded out, clearing draws and cupboards and fixing leaks and other malfunctions around the place that he had learned to live with. Finally, he was satisfied.
He took one last look before heading down to the diner. It was within thirty seconds of his changing the sign at the door to say 'OPEN' that Lorelai entered. Unconsciously, he poured a cup of coffee and pushed it across the bar towards her, "Morning."
"No coffee for me this morning," she said simply as she sat down.
He stared blankly at her, shell shocked, "I can't believe you don't want coffee."
"Yeah, just imagine it," she shook her head, taking the cup. He smirked. "Hey, you don't look like the living dead today," she pointed at him after a few sips.
He frowned, "I usually look like the living dead?"
She nodded, "At least until eleven."
"I got up earlier this morning."
"What for?" she asked. Her eyes narrowed, "I'll have you know that we have turned our couch to face the stairs, mister. So I'd just think twice if I were you."
He narrowed his eyes back at her, "What?"
"Never mind, carry on," she gestured for him to continue.
"I was cleaning up. It seems like I'm going to be looking after Liz's kid for a while."
"Wow," Lorelai said in shock.
"Why the wow?"
"It's just... Luke, are you sure you're up to looking after a kid? Your nurturing skills, they, uh..." Lorelai drifted off.
"They what?" Luke prompted expectantly.
"Nothing. They just... a kid?"
"He's seventeen."
"So is Rory. She doesn't exactly seem high maintenance."
"She's not Liz's kid."
Luke opened his mouth to offer a retort but found none. He fell back on reasoning, "He ran away so he must be slightly dependent. And I don't think it'll even be for that long. And he hasn't had Jimmy around to influence him so he can't be that bad of a apple can he?"
Lorelai shrugged and took another sip of coffee.
"Excuse me, Luke?"
Luke glanced up to see Kirk and fought against a groan, "What do you want, Kirk?"
"I have been sitting over in that table for the last," Kirk checked his watch, straight faced, "Four minutes and forty three seconds waiting for you to take my order. I have morning tea at mother's in thirty six minutes and it takes me thirteen minutes to walk over there which only leaves me twenty three minutes to place my order, wait for it to be made and eat, not including the three seconds it took for me to walk to the counter and the six seconds it will take for me to exit the diner."
"What's with the exact times, Kirk?" Lorelai asked, trying to suppress a smile.
Kirk turned stiffly to face her, "I recently read 'Sorting Through Every Wasted Second' by Leslie Kingman. I would strongly recommend it as daily reading to you both. It's truly changed my outlook on how I spend my days."
"Is that so?" Luke frowned.
"Now I have to take the," Kirk checked his watch again, "thirty nine seconds it's taken for me to talk to you off the time it will take for me to eat."
"What do you want?" Luke sighed in obligation, pulling out his notebook.