Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls or the characters/places associated with the show.
A/N KeitaWolf- I hope you didn't fail your Physics exam. But I know what it is like to put off schoolwork for ff.n. Ahhh, I can't wait until summer…
Chapter Three
Tristan flipped his phone opene and examined the missed call list. Shelly had not called him once. He had to smile at the irony; his father was more concerned about him leaving his own wedding than the bride was.
His cell phone read four twenty eight. The sooner he did this, the sooner it would all be over. But he was still afraid of the confrontation; this was the moment he had been putting off for his entire life. This was the moment that he had left Rory to avoid.
He opened the address book in his phone and scrolled through all of the names, the hundreds of names of girls whose faces he could not remember. He made a mental note to delete some of those numbers. He settled on his father's name and pressed the SEND button before he could back down.
Tristan sat on the edge of the bed, curled over, defensive. He lifted the phone to his ear as the first ring sounded through the earpiece. Two, three, four rings passed. In the middle of the fifth ring the line switched over to James Dugrey's voicemail.
Tristan let his phone snap closed, the ironic smile back on his lips. That was just like his father. He showed worry and anger, but only on his own schedule. With a sigh, Tristan tossed the phone onto the bedside table and flopped back against the pillows.
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"I thought you would never come,"
"I'm ten minutes late. Seven if you go by the clock in my car."
Lorelai looked at her daughter with a woeful expression.
"What?" Rory asked as she tossed her purse on the table and sank down next to her mother on the living room sofa.
"You promised me coffee," she sighed.
"You wouldn't accept Starbucks."
"That stuff is crap."
Rory shrugged. "That is all I can offer you."
Lorelai let out a little grumble but settled back against the pillows. "So, you weren't answering your phone yesterday."
Rory nodded. "It was on silent."
"Well, I figured it was either that or the Boogieman finally got you."
Rory smiled, thinking of Tristan. "I was sleeping…" she offered.
"All day?"
Rory nodded.
"All day?" Lorelai asked, studying her daughter.
"Yup."
"Uh huh…" Lorelai said. That wasn't like Rory. She liked to sleep, but she was very productive, even when she had nothing to do. She wouldn't just sleep all day unless… "You were hungover!"
"Mom," Rory pleaded.
"Don't Mom me," Lorelai said, her eyes bright with good humor. "My baby went out and actually had a good time for the first time in longer than I care to remember. What, did Paris finally get over the whole drinking destroys brain cells idea of hers and go out with you?"
Rory took a deep breath and shook her head. "I went alone."
"And gut drunk enough to have to sleep it off all day?"
"I met an old friend," she said. Her heart was racing with nervous energy.
"From Chilton?"
She nodded.
"Let me guess, it was Francie."
"Ugh, God no! Why would I ever talk to that girl again?"
"I don't know. I was just trying to figure out who could possibly put that look of fear on your face. Spill."
Rory grabbed a pillow and started picking at the tassel trim. "Do you remember a guy named Tristan?"
"The one that tormented you endlessly because he was so in love with you that the only way he could let you know was be a Helga and treat you like Arnold?"
"Yah…" Rory said slowly. "That's the one."
"Wow."
"Wow what?"
"You didn't yell at me for using my Hey Arnold analogy. You used to get really mad if I so much as hinted that he had a little crush on you. But wow, those Hey Arnold references were dangerous."
"I'm sorry," she responded, still picking at the pillow. Lorelai looked at her closely.
"What is it, Babe?"
"Nothing," she shrugged. "We just ran into each other at the bar, and then I went back to his room and we had some more drinks."
"And…you slept with him."
"What? No!"
"Then you are thinking of sleeping with him."
"No."
"Then what is it, Ror?"
She added another tassel thread to the growing pile on her knee. Lorelai reached over and took the pillow away from her, forcing Rory to look up at her mother's worried expression.
"Alright," she said with a sigh. "You just have to promise that you won't get mad at me when I tell you this story."
"Rory--"
"No, wait. Just understand that I didn't tell you because we were fighting, and I had already lost so much respect in your eyes that I couldn't tell you this when it was happening."
Lorelai's face was calm, but her eyes were laced with worry. Rory bravely and resolutely looked her mother in the eye and started her story.
"Do you remember the summer that I went away with Grandma?"
"Yes…"
"Well, Tristan was there."
"In Europe?"
"Yah. We ended up being in all the same places; it was something to do with the DAR or something. He had this fiancée, Shelly, and so we started off just trying to build a friendship. And I enjoyed his company. I told him all about how badly I had screwed things up by sleeping with Dean, and he told me about how he was entering into an arranged marriage with Shelly. And before we knew it, Shelly had gone back to the states for the rest of the summer, and we were alone…"
"And you slept with him…"
"Yah, but it was more than that. I really liked him, and I knew that I had real feelings for me too. But in the end he wouldn't leave Shelly, and he went back to her at the end of the summer."
"And you went back to Dean?"
Rory nodded softly. "Dean had given up Lindsay for me. And I did think that I loved him, despite the things I had felt for Tristan. I figured it was a fling, and that Dean deserved better than that."
Lorelai bit her lip, trying hard not to pass judgment on her daughter.
"I know what you are thinking, Mom," Rory said, reading Lorelai's expression. "I know that all of it was wrong. I know that everything surrounding Dean was a mistake. And I shouldn't have turned to Tristan to forget my problems. I was screwed up."
"And now he just randomly walked into the same bar that you were in."
"He left Shelly the other night."
"And just happened drive over to New Haven?"
"He walked out on his wedding at the banquet hall down the road."
"Oh shit Rory."
Rory was surprised by her mother's reaction.
"This guy is trouble, Ror. He has emotional baggage, a jilted fiancée, a very pissed off family, I'm sure. And you have Logan! What about Logan?"
"Nothing happened, Mom! We just had drinks. I am not thinking about getting involved with him again."
"You say that now but--"
"I love Logan," Rory answered. She could feel her face flushing in anger. "I love Logan, and I may have made mistakes and had very poor judgment in the past, but that does not mean that I will cheat on Logan, or in anyway betray him. He deserves better than that."
"Rory, you are lonely. You haven't seen your boyfriend in months and--"
"So I have no self control? God Mom, we have been through this a hundred times. I am okay without Logan around. I trust him, he trusts me, and I trust myself. Why can't you believe that?"
"It just seems that every time things get a little rocky in your relationship, you turn to this Tristan guy."
"Every time?"
"Well, in high school at that party…"
"And in Europe. That is twice out of all of the relationships I have had in my life. Sorry Mom, but Tristan isn't my tissue box. He's not my Christopher."
"Ouch," Lorelai said softly, looking down and away from her daughter.
"I'm sorry," Rory said, trying to fill the awful silence that had engulfed them. "I didn't mean…"
Lorelai shook her head sadly. "I just hope that you know what you're doing, Kid. I hope that you have better sense when it comes to relationships than I do."
--
--
Rory tossed her keys on the kitchen counter when she got home. She made a straight line to the bedroom where she undressed and slipped into bed. The big, empty bed. Their bed. Her bed. She sighed and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come. She found herself remembering waking up in Tristan's arms, and was surprised to find that she missed the sensation. She missed waking up to another body.
She let out a groan of frustration and threw one of the large, unnecessary pillows at the wall. Logan hadn't called her in a few days. She reached for the phone and dialed his number. There was no answer, and she hung up when his message machine clicked on. It was late there, or early morning, depending how she looked at it.
She hung up the phone, but did not settle back against the pillows again. Instead she dialed Tristan's number and tried to push back the guilt that rose in her chest from the pleasure the sound of his simple 'hello?' elicited.
--
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A/N: sorry that there wasn't much T/R. next chapter, I promise. Tell me what you think, please. And suggestions are always welcome. I want to know how you think that the timing should go in this story. I have my ideas of course, but who knows, yours might be better : )
And if this was filler, I am sorry. I just wanted to make it clear that Rory's life continued as it did on the show from the point that she returned from Europe until now. Lorelai still broke up with Luke and slept with Chris etc. This just goes on more year into the future.