On A Scale of One to Ten…
Luke arrived for the Saturday night Two-Lorelai Movie-Marathon at eight, bearing two enormous bags of take-out from the diner, and coffee, for the junkie whose mental and emotional health he was now largely responsible for. He rang the bell, hearing footsteps thundering down the stairs as Rory opened the door.
"Luke! Thank God, I'm starving!" she greeted him, grabbing the food and dashing into the kitchen, leaving the door open as an informal invitation to come in.
"Hi, Rory, nice to see you, too," Luke remarked dryly to the empty hallway. A second later it was no longer empty, as Lorelai bounded down the last three stairs and skidded to a stop in front of him.
"Hi," she said shyly, putting all thoughts about not thinking about it from her mind.
"Hi," he replied awkwardly, shifting slightly and placing her coffee on the cabinet by the door.
"Brownies!" Rory exclaimed happily in the kitchen.
"Yeah, they were left over, I thought you would appreciate them," Luke called back, smiling resignedly at Lorelai.
"Yes! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we love Luke Danes!" Rory crooned.
Luke shook his head and raised his eyebrows at Lorelai.
"Well, there's a couple other reasons, too," she answered his unspoken question, acutely aware of the coincidental wording that immediately got her not thinking again. So not the time to be doing this, she instructed her treacherous mind. Be light, airy, witty.
"Really," he said, intrigued.
She pointed to the large paper cup on the cabinet. "Coffee."
"Ah." He told himself he wasn't disappointed by her flip response. After all, he hadn't expected her to say it; it had only been a week, maybe he didn't even expect her to feel it, yet. He didn't know why he didn't say it. He felt it. And he was used to feeling it and not saying it. In all his many and varied encounters with Lorelai Gilmore, he'd always been a sort of passive, reactionary player. He never took the initiative- he realized that now, staring at her, years of memories flashing before him. It was always Lorelai who would do…something…then he'd respond. It seemed as if he were always waiting, waiting for her to set the example, waiting for her to give permission, in a way. It was always she who would hug him, or demand to know the status of his private affairs; she who would invite him to movie nights or order him to repair one of the many fix-it-jobs around the house. And it had been she who had kissed him, first. He had no idea what would happen if he upset the pattern, if he said it before she did. It scared him, so he said nothing. Again.
Lorelai paused for a minute. They still didn't have the hang of this greeting thing, yet. They'd seen each other this morning at the diner- she winced as she remembered that they didn't have the hang of the public greeting thing yet, either- so it had been several hours. She really needed to know the scale- how many hours in between interactions to how intense the second interaction was supposed to be. Like, after one hour, a smile and a wave would suffice? Two hours, a tender touch on the arm? Three hours, a peck on the cheek, and four hours, some serious smooching? She did a mental calculation- it had been ten hours; which was off the charts, so probably they should be in bed right now. Unless the scale peaked at four hours, and ten hours was stand-awkwardly-in-the-hallway-for-a-really-long-time. She frowned. She really wanted to kiss him, so screw the scale.
Quickly but awkwardly she put her arms around his neck, before the moment could get any more uncomfortable.
"Hi," she said again, only this time in a way more appropriate for a woman greeting her significant other than for a four-year-old child who'd just bounced down the stairs.
"Hi," he said back, something like relief in his face and desire in his voice.
She smiled up at him, loving the thrill that shot through her when he spoke to her like that. This was easy, when she didn't let herself think about it too much. No thinking, no analyzing, no second-guessing, just- knowing. She wasn't consciously aware of either of them making the first move, her stretching up or him leaning down, but suddenly his warm, perfect lips had captured hers, and as she melted against him she stopped being conscious of anything. She pressed herself closer to him, gently tangling her fingers in the inch of curly hair under the brim of his backwards baseball cap, feeling his arms encircle her and hold tightly. Her only semi-coherent thought was, so this is what happens after ten hours, and then a moment later, I…like…ten…hours…
"Get a room," Rory ordered sternly as she passed by on her way to the living room, loaded down with all kinds of junk food that would probably cause all kinds of health problems in her future. The words came out slightly muffled, as she was carrying a bag of chips between her teeth. She paid no attention to Luke and Lorelai doing a good impression of Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt at the end of What Women Want, and unconcernedly yelled back over her shoulder, "But not this one! This room is reserved for movie-watching and junk-food-eating purposes only. In fact, you will be asked to state your business at the door, and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of Gilmore law."
Luke pulled away from Lorelai, embarrassed, but she tightened her arms around him and pulled him back, murmuring breathlessly, "Maybe if we ignore her she'll go away…"
"Luke!" Rory's voice interrupted again. Wickedly she demanded, "Did you come here to suck face with my mother, or watch a G-rated movie in which beings of disputed existence help a fictional baseball team learn how to hit a ball with a stick?"
"Don't answer that," Lorelai said in a low voice, noticing how completely horrified he looked that Rory had said "suck face." Obviously the moment was over, so resignedly she released him. Her eyes lingered on his, and she knew he was feeling what she was feeling- excited, exhilarated, happy, and maybe just a teeny bit frustrated with a certain person's certain offspring. She turned toward the living room.
"Hey, there's nothing in the rule book about making out with your boyfriend on movie night," she complained to Rory, contemplating locking Rory in her room and feeling completely justified in doing so.
"Oh, yes there is! Number seventeen!" Rory countered, long-distance.
"Argh! Why did I teach you to count?" Lorelai demanded as she came into the room, tugging Luke along by the hand. He still looked embarrassed; this was only the second movie night he'd attended in his official capacity as Lorelai's Luke, and he still wasn't sure how to act around Rory. She seemed to be taking the relationship really well- she'd welcomed him into the Gilmore club- but then, you never knew with teenagers. Just look at Jess, for crying out loud. Luke had no idea whether to play Luke-Lorelai's-Boyfriend, Luke-From-the-Diner, Luke-Friend-From-Town, or Luke-Who-Yelled-at-the-Bully-Who-Teased-Rory-in-the-4th-Grade. He sat down on the couch when Lorelai prodded him, but jumped back up almost immediately when he realized that Rory had been demoted from her usual spot on the sofa to the floor in front of the coffee table.
"What's with you, Mr. Jack-in-the-box?" Lorelai squinted up at him from among the pillows.
"Nothing," he replied quickly, sticking his thumbs through his belt loops. "Um…are you okay on the floor, Rory? Because there's room on the couch, I'll grab a chair or something, you don't have to…" he trailed off, waving his arms in the general direction of the floor.
"She's fine, Luke," Lorelai said as she unceremoniously pulled him back down. "The couch is for grown-ups tonight." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
"Watch it, you," Rory warned.
"I'm not talking to you right now," Lorelai sniffed, her nose in the air. "You interrupted us and made Luke squirmy."
"He's not squirmy," Rory lied, even though she knew he was. That 'suck face' comment might have been a little thoughtless, and she should have known better. Her mom had waited a really long time for this thing with Luke, and Luke had waited even longer. They were entitled to a little tonsil-hockey, even though it grossed her out.
"He's squirmy," Lorelai repeated.
"I'm not squirmy," the object of their conversation spoke up, sounding aggrieved that not only did he have to reject the accusation, but use the word as well.
"Okay, you're not squirmy," Lorelai let him off. "You're not squirmy, I'm not squirmy, Rory's not squirmy, although she will be if she pulls another stunt like that again…"
"Sorry," Rory's apology was short but sincere. "No more verbal commentary on the kissing situation, I promise."
"Not in front of Luke," Lorelai amended.
"Can we just start the movie?" he pleaded, desperate for a distraction.
"'Kay. And I'm fine on the floor, really," Rory returned to the original point- even without a map. Her big blue eyes peered up at him from below the mound of food on the table, and Luke realized with a sinking feeling that she did the full-on puppy-dog 'aren't I cute and don't you love me' look just as well as her mother. "I'm all set up, see?" she indicated the pile of pillows and blankets she'd made into a nest in front of the TV. "And I'm much closer to the food this way."
'If you say so," Luke shrugged uncertainly, leaning back on the couch.
"Are you comfortable?" Lorelai demanded, studying his posture with a practiced eye. "Because once the movie starts there is to be no squishing around."
"Again with the squishing," Luke muttered to himself.
"Do not take the movie-night rules lightly," Lorelai warned with an air of superiority. "If you've forgotten I'll have to go over them again."
"No squishing, no talking- anyone with the last name Gilmore excepted- no phone calls, no bathroom trips," Luke ticked them all off on his fingers, keeping his scowl firmly in place. "I got it, Lorelai."
"That's only half," she sniffed disdainfully.
"Well, I didn't memorize the rules," he sighed, exasperated.
"Well, that's rule number eleven! All rules must be memorized!" Now she was just trying to annoy him.
"No, rule number eleven is, Mom shuts up when you give her coffee," Rory corrected, giving Luke a sympathetic look.
"That one I remembered," Luke said in relief, grabbing the paper cup full of coffee that he'd brought in from the hallway and shoving it into Lorelai's hand. "Happy?" he demanded dryly.
"Ecstatic," she replied, smiling, with a look that said she was talking about more than the coffee. Luke smiled back, feeling the now-familiar somersault his stomach performed every time she looked at him like that. God, he was lucky. He settled back on the couch, supremely comfortable with a minimum amount of squishing, and laid his arm along the back.
"So, what award-winning piece of cinematography are we watching tonight?" he asked Rory as she popped a tape in the VCR.
"Angels in the Outfield," she replied, in an even voice that gave him absolutely no clue of what he was in for.
"We picked it for two very important reasons," Lorelai chimed in gleefully. "One, the unbelievably high mocking potential of Christopher Lloyd in a halo, and two, because it has something to do with baseball. That's a sport you like," she added knowledgeably.
"You know me so well," Luke teased; practically everyone in town knew he was a baseball fan.
"I do," she replied, suddenly serious, tucking her feet up onto the couch and leaning her head against his shoulder. "I do."