For disclaimer refer to prologue.
Thanks everyone for your wonderful and positive reveiws. Don't worry this will eventually be Rory/Logan. Key word: eventually.
Chapter One: Meeting Todd
It was a perfectly clear November afternoon. The rain had stopped pitter pattering on the pavement in the New Haven campus. The sun was making an unexpected appearance and the students all over the campus were taking advantage of the good weather. Frat boys were tossing a football back and forth to each other while girls were walking the New Haven streets, wearing last springs sandals, with their friends glad to take a break from classes. And Rory, as could be expected, was holed away in her single dorm room studying for her finals which were three weeks to come.
Since her breakup with Huntzberger she hardly got out. It seemed that he was everywhere, when in truth she hadn't actually seen him since the day at the soccer field. She had seen his friends and went through great troubles trying to avoid them or making up excuses to leave. They reminded her too much of Logan and she just wanted to avoid thinking about him. Thinking about his annoying smirk, him calling her Ace, the smell of his aftershave… Oh yeah, she was getting over him.
Rory smiled as she closed her eyes and remembered him, every flaw and every perfection. She envisioned him hovering over her breathing heavy, his sweat rolling off his perfectly toned abs and falling onto her bare stomach, his hand softly and sometimes roughly touching her breasts. Her hand snaked it's way into her pants. The phone rang. Rory jumped out of her seat, removing her hand in the process. She turned about seven shades of red, like she was caught doing something she shouldn't be doing. She looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching even though she lived alone. She picked up her phone after a few rings, after a few seconds to regain her composure and make it sound like she was the perfectly innocent princess from small town Stars Hollow.
"Hello?" She asked, she didn't know why she posed it as a question.
"Okay two problems with that statement." Her mother began.
"One, you shouldn't be in your dorm. Two were you doing something dirty, or on second thought someone?" Rory could always count on her mother to know everything. But that didn't mean she wasn't going to deny it.
"One I'm studying for finals. And two, ew." She answered in her usual verbatim.
"One finals aren't for three weeks, two good answer mommy doesn't really want to know."
"You're horrible. Besides I have to study now because I usually get the flu the first or second week in December, flu shot or not, so really I'm just planning ahead so when I do get sick I can concentrate on getting better instead of stressing over finals. And also if you don't like the way I am doing things then I could always drop out and have fun all the time." She reasoned with her mom. She knew with her last point she was calling in the big guys, but hey, she had something to hide.
"Like I believe that. I won't ask anymore questions Hun." Her mom obviously knew when a fight was won. She was a little suspicious that her mom gave up that easily but she wasn't really in the mood to question it.
"So Rory, kid, fruit of my loins," Rory interrupted with a squeal of disgust.
"You haven't been dating. Which is not a big deal, don't get me wrong. It's just your singleness had annoyed one Emily Gilmore who has a date for you on Friday. You may want to get sick earlier." Lorelai explained.
"Ugh. Why does she do this to me? I'm not ready to put my heart out on the line again." Rory groaned into the phone. She heard her mother sigh.
"I'm sorry to hear that kid, but…" Her mother's voice was full of pity.
"No. No buts. Tell Grandma that I got hit by a car and died a long and agonizing single death."
"Well that might be a little hard." Her mom started.
"Well you're the expert at getting out of things, so come up with something. I have some studying to do." Rory hung up the phone in anger. She hated people pitying her.
She tried to study some but couldn't concentrate. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Paris. She needed to get out. Paris ended up babysitting the Chilton sluts better known as Madeline and Louise. It wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she asked Paris to go out to the pub with her.
"Great, I could use some normalcy." Paris told her through the phone.
"No no, it's okay. I just remembered I have to wash my hair or something just as stupid but will take me the rest of the afternoon and night to do." She desperately didn't want to go out with those two, who only seemed to want to get laid and talk about boys. She was met with a click and ten minutes later, as expected, Paris arrived with her goonies in tow.
"Rory." Madeline squealed in delight. The black haired beauty skipped up to her and hugged her. It wasn't even a good hug, it was an 'I-don't-want-to-actually-touch-you' hug. Louise came up and said hi. The two of them had never really gotten along.
Rory watched suspiciously as Madeline and Louise looked around her dorm. Louise went into the bathroom while Madeline was opening cupboards in her kitchen.
"Wow, Rory you've got a lot of condoms here. Who's the guy?" Louise asked walking out of the bathroom. Madeline grabbed a couple bottles of alcohol.
"Most of these are almost empty, somebody's been partying." Madeline remarked before Rory even had time to blush at Louise's comment.
"I'm an alcoholic." She joked, completely ignoring Louise. Louise, however, waved the condoms around in the air to remind her of the question.
"Perhaps the question you are looking for is, You're almost out of condoms, who's the guy?" Paris answered for her. Rory shot her a look of contempt.
"Oh, left over condoms from a relationship gone sour." Louise commented and turned around to put the condoms back to their original spot.
"Yeah, that's it." Rory muttered under her breath.
Eventually she was dragged out of her dorm by six strong arms. They threw her into the back of a car and took away her keys. She wasn't allowed to ask questions. She was under direct orders to have fun, get drunk, and to get laid. When the car stopped Rory looked out the window and saw a neon green sign for a hip dance club. She groaned. She was in for a night of crude rap music, overpriced drinks and inappropriate groping from both genders.
Rory was being stubborn. She refused to play by the three musketeers' rules. So she was sitting on the bar stool moping over her Irish coffee. She wasn't really moping. The bartender was cute and funny and they joked around a bit.
"You know it's always the depressed people who drink Irish coffee." He had joked to her. She laughed and threw her hand against his chest flirtatiously.
"I'm gay." He flat out told her and she did her best impression of an 'I'm-hurt' face. He called her on it.
"I'm not interested." She went on to explain that she didn't want her friends to drag her out onto the dance floor. He laughed with her. Soon he was replaced by another bartender who wasn't as fun.
Her eyes wandered. She was a little drunk at the time, but refused to show it. It was only nine o'clock at night. She had been drinking since a little after four. Eventually her eyes locked on a man about six feet tall with sandy brown hair. He was built but not in an Arnold Schwarzenegger way. She couldn't quite make out his eyes. They were dark and mysterious. She liked it.
Paris sat in the stool next to her and followed her gaze. She smirked and called her two stooges over. They looked over Rory's shoulder and looked at the man. All of this was done without Rory knowing. Louise approved of him by growling and sticking her finger into her mouth then pulling it out slowly in a sexy gesture. Madeline nodded her head in approval. Paris was Paris and interrupted Rory's staring.
"Ask him to dance." Paris suggested. She was having problems envisioning Rory with this guy.
"You should get his number." Madeline suggested. She knew Rory was shy when it came to boys so she suggested something timid.
"You should do him." Louise told her in her sex voice.
Rory didn't know what made her get up and ask him to dance. Maybe it was all the alcohol, maybe she was tired of being lonely or it could have been the fact that Paris took some initiative and pushed her off her stool. She landed in a heap on the floor but got up and made her way through the crowd to mysterious eyes. She had too much pride to have just gotten back up in her stool.
She tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned around she gave him a shy smile. He smiled back at her, obviously not interested.
"Hey, um, do you want to dance?" She asked him. She felt like a little girl who was afraid of men. He hesitated.
"If anything to just save me from humiliation. My friends think I'm lonely, and need to get laid. But I am just coming out of a relationship, actually that's not true, it's been a few months. Anyway they dragged me here and it's not really my style to take the first move, or to be here in the first place. But I just want my friends to leave me alone or I'll have to find new ones and you know how that goes." He smiled during her rant.
"And oh, look at that, I am rambling." She laughed at herself.
"It's cute." He finally spoke. He grabbed her hand and dragged her out to the dance floor as a slow song came on.
"Do you want to dance, still?" He asked thinking the change in song would change her mind.
"No. Yeah. This is better actually, I can actually slow dance. Not much to it, you know?" She rambled again. He laughed again.
"I wish I could tell you I'm not usually like this." She went on and they started to dance.
"But you are?" He clarified. She nodded her head and laughed.
"I'm Rory by the way." She looked up at him as she told him this.
"Todd." He whispered into her ear. She could barely hear him.
Forty five minutes later, six shots of vodka later. Todd took her home. She was unsuccessful in finding the three rascals she called friends. She didn't know what possessed her to go home with Todd. She wasn't really a sleep-with-someone-you-just-met kind of girl. She blamed it on the booze.
The next morning Rory hurried out of his apartment disgusted with herself. She couldn't believe she had just had sex. It was so unlike her. But maybe that killer headache she had could justify her act. She looked at the naked form of the man she had had sex with and couldn't remember his name. She wandered if she ever knew his name.
When she got back to the campus it was covered in early morning snow. The first snow of the season. This year it had come really late. She wanted to turn back around and go to Stars Hollow so she and her mom could have their annual snow walk. However, the urge to take a shower and drink coffee won.
Rory was about to put her key into the door lock when she realized she didn't have her keys. She muttered un-Rory like words and kicked her door in anger. She was genuinely surprised when the door opened. Her first thought was 'I didn't know I kicked it that hard' then she noticed the person hiding behind the door. She gasped a little before subconsciously smoothing out her hair which screamed sex.
"Good morning Rory." Louise smirked while hiding behind the door.
"Ah geeze." Rory groaned. Inside her dorm were two passed out girls, a half naked Doyle, a nude Louise, and empty bottles of her alcohol. That was in the living room area. She didn't even want to look in her bedroom.
"So was he good?" Louise asked in her know it all way. Rory stopped where she was and mimicked the spitting image of a deer caught in headlights.
"I don't know what you're talking about." She feigned innocence. Louise saw right through it. She had no intention of letting it go but decided to wait until she had backup, i.e. the sleeping beauties.
"Do I want to go in my room?" Rory asked with a sigh.
"Depends." Louise shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
"You have five minutes to get everybody dressed and out of here before I kick you out on your naked ass." Rory ordered. She walked into her bathroom and brushed her teeth. She didn't have enough time to take a shower if she was going to make good on her threat.
When she came out exactly five minutes later, that's right she timed it, she found the place tidy and the three girls in clothes but not gone.
"Erg. Get out." She didn't have the energy to scream.
"We got rid of the boys and don't worry your bed was used for nothing sexual. The floor on the other hand could use some shampooing." Paris explained the best she could with a hang over.
"So Rory when did you get home?" Madeline asked cheerfully. It was like that girl was on Prozac or some other happy pill.
"She just got home." Louise answered for her. Rory shot her famous withering look towards the culprit. Louise turned away shocked that Rory could look that mean.
"So was he good?" Madeline asked just as Louise did moments earlier.
"Errg. Get out." She shouted. It wasn't actually a shout, she was just speaking at normal volume which was loud to the hung over crowd.
"Want a beer?" Paris suddenly interrupted.
"You know, hair of the dog." Paris elaborated. All the girls, including Rory, nodded their head.
"So Rory, was he any good?" Paris repeated after she handed each of them a beer. Rory sighed. She wasn't getting out of it.
"What if I told you I just slept on his couch because you left without me?"
"I'd say that's bullshit and then shout it out of you." Paris answered, her volume increasing with each syllable.
"I don't remember, okay?" She screamed at the girls then walked into her bathroom and slammed the door. She turned on the shower and stepped in. It felt good to wash away the sweat and dirt. It felt good to get clean.
A few days later Rory was bedridden with the flu when her cell phone rang. She sleepily grabbed it, thinking it was her mom.
"What?" She grumbled into the phone. She hated the fact that Louise, Madeline and Paris had dragged her away from early final study and now she had to study while she was sick.
"Is this Rory?" A man asked. She prayed to god it wasn't the man her grandmother was setting her up with.
"Depends, who are you?" She was being rude, she knew. But she was sick so it was okay.
"This is Todd. We met at the dance club a few days ago." Rory who was drinking some coffee as he said this spit it out.
"Oh no. Just great. Errg." She muttered while trying to clean up her sheets.
"Not the reaction I was hoping for." He said into the phone.
"No, it's not you. I spilled my coffee." She explained.
"Oh right. I'll get to the point. Do you have plans on Friday?" He asked.
"Like a date?" She clarified.
"Yeah." He answered.
"Oh I can't." Luckily for her she still had those Friday night dinners so she didn't have to come up with an excuse. Besides since when did one night stands call.
"Ah. Again, wasn't expecting that. You really know how to let 'em down, don't you?" His voice was sounding so disappointed. She felt sympathetic for him and little cocky since he really wanted to go out with her.
"I have a prior engagement that night. Family obligations, you know." She explained. At least he wouldn't feel like she was blowing him off because she didn't want to go out with him, which technically was the case.
"Oh yeah. Well actually I don't know. I don't have much of a family." Rory rolled her eyes, he was playing the sympathy card.
"I'm not really feeling too well, the flu. But I'll tell you what if I feel better on Saturday we can go out and talk." She silently whined. She didn't want to go out with him.
"Hey that sounds great. I really hope you feel better."
"Yeah yeah, I bet you do." She muttered under her breath, thinking he only wanted her for sex.
"It's not like okay." He got defensive and with good reason.
They spoke for a little while longer planning out what their date would be like if she felt better. They planned to meet at the restaurant so their would be no implication of sex. He joked that he didn't want to sleep with a sick person, she feigned hurt. It turned out that they hit a tangent and chatted for almost an hour. When Rory hung up she threw her books to the ground. She wanted to get to know him some more, so she had to get better. Screw finals!
A soft knock on her door interrupted her and Rory cursed a little while stumbling out of bed. She had just fallen into her REM cycle so the unpleasant noise woke her up and her body felt heavy. She answered the door and saw her mother smiling back at her.
"Look at me. I'm sick. I don't have time for guessing games." Rory grumbled. Not only did she feel sick, but she sounded it and looked it. Her mom smiled sympathetically at her and then pushed her way into the small one person suite.
"You hate me." Rory went on.
"No. No I don't. It's just you're sick and all alone. There is nobody to take care of you." Rory rolled her eyes.
"I think I'm old enough to take care of myself." She walked over to the couch and practically passed out on it. She fell on something hard and jarring. She lifted the pillow and pulled out an empty tequila bottle. She imagined smacking Paris hard the next time she saw her. She placed the bottle on the table then laid down again only to feel another bottle poking her. She got off the couch and removed the cushions.
Lorelai laughed. Rory shot her a look. She stopped laughing. She walked over to the couch and Rory. She then dragged Rory, who was still removing empty bottles from her couch, to her bed. She motherly tucked Rory into bed and kissed her forehead.
"Wow, you're hot." Lorelai remarked. She placed her hand on Rory's forehead.
"Yeah, tell that to my Saturday date." Rory laughed in a scratchy phlegm infected voice. Lorelai didn't pay attention to Rory she was too busy looking for a thermometer. Rory started coughing. Lorelai rushed over Rory.
"I'm not dying, you know." Lorelai stuck out her bottom lip and moved her eyebrows closer together perfecting the puppy dog look.
"Let mommy help."
"You have no life, do you?" Rory laughed.
"Alright that's it. I can only take so much abuse. Go to sleep young lady! And no more partying." She added the last bit in reference to all the hidden empty bottles.
Saturday came much too quickly for Rory. She hadn't felt any better. She had dragged herself out of bed Friday night for dinner and when she got there her Grandparents took one look at her and sent her home. It seemed that this flu bug just wouldn't leave her alone. She hoped it would be gone by Finals.
It was five o'clock in the evening on Saturday. She hadn't been able to get out of bed all day except to go to the bathroom and pay the delivery man. Her mom had offered to spend the weekend with her, but she didn't sound too good on the phone. It didn't make sense to have a sick person take care of her.
She tried to get up and get ready for her date but made it as far as taking off the covers before giving up. She grabbed her cell phone. It was time to cancel on Todd. She hoped he would be somewhat understanding. Boy, was she wrong…
Hey, so not my best chapter, in my opinion. The story will really start around the third or fourth chapter. This is just more of some back story.