AN: This is a chapter for Jess lovers rather than Logan lovers perhaps, but I am just trying to make this realistic (as much as a fanfic can be).
She hasn't seen Logan in 5 years, so she isn't just going to start searching for him or just run into him at the first place she goes (they'll meet, but not just yet). Her most recent history is with Jess and if the relationship had any ounz of good in it there's got to be some weight to it. Even just the fact that this is the father of her kid. She wants what is best for her too. And I guess I am just trying to show the struggle between what she wants and what would be perhaps the easiest/best for Em solution to her lonelyness a bit more. And later some insight into how that relationship began.
Chapter 9
September 22st, 2021
"Mommy, will I have to wear glasses when I grow up?" Em asked, observing her mother's features closely with her little hands, as they both laid in Em's bed, Rory having just finished reading her a bed-time story. It was Rory's first day with her new glasses, but so far she struggled to forget she was wearing them, their presence being so unusual to her. But she did see better, she needed to squint less, and surely it hadn't hurt to get a couple of compliments from her colleagues at Chilton about her new look.
It was their bedtime routine, Em's ice cold feet, like they naturally were, in Rory's hands, rubbing them gently under her blanket to make her feel warm and cosy. When she was little and sick Rory would often sleep in her bed all night, now there was less and less need for that. She was already getting so big.
"Probably not," Rory replied. "We don't really know," she added, trying to give her daughter an honest answer.
"Is it because you read so much?" Em asked, curiously
"Books - no, my computer - maybe...," Rory shrugged, smiling gently. She didn't really know. Old age, maybe?
"Will daddy have to get glasses too?" Em inquired further.
"I don't think so, you'll have to ask him that," she replied. Rory figured Em had probably seen Jess work a lot too.
"I wish daddy was here, you two could read me a story together," Em suddenly said, tracing the contours of the main character on the cover of the book they'd just read.
Rory was surprised that Em had remembered that they had in fact done that before, when they'd still lived together. Rory reading the role one of the characters, Jess reading another, while Em laid between the two. There had been all these meaningful glances of 'look what we made' or sometimes those of plotting how to get her to fall asleep faster like fake yawning and reading in a really dull way. Buying Em that super single sized bed right after moving out of her crib had never made so much sense when there were the three of them in her bed.
Rory desperately hoped this thought was not something Jess had planted in Em's head. He wouldn't do that, would he?
"I know, sweetie," Rory exhaled, and kissed her hair that smelled of her vanilla scented bath gel.
"I just don't want daddy to be all alone. He must be sad," Em worried.
"I'm sure he's not sad, you go visit him all the time, don't you?" Rory reminded her, sighing internally. "Alright, how about you now, try to get some rest. Remember there'll be that new play tomorrow at school that you'll all get to see," she steered her daughter's thinking. She kissed her once more, and made sure her blanket was on her comfortably. She turned off the table lamp, leaving just the low nightlight on, slipping out of her room.
After that interaction she was genuinely feeling bad for Jess. Was he still really pining over her after all these years? It was the first time she'd actually thought about his side in this - it was her that had given him hope, not the other way around. While she felt like a victim of her own desires, it was really him that was the victim here, wasn't he? Or maybe that was an exaggeration? Maybe this whole thing just showed that she was a bad person? It was not like her track record was stellar.
She was tired, and normally would've just gone to bed. But she did feel some concern - maybe she just needed to talk to him, apologize maybe even to make him stop hoping. She hadn't dared to touch that subject with him face to face, it felt too raw like that and there was still definitely that tension, that dangerous tension. But she owed him that much.
"What no casual 'you up?' text?" Jess picked up his phone, definitely not getting off on the right foot with Rory by saying that.
"Jess..," Rory replied scoldingly.
"Fine, what is it?" he asked with some concern. Usually if she called this late it was something about Em's logistics or once when she'd taken her to the hospital when her fever had gotten too high.
Now Rory struggled. She hadn't exactly thought this through.
"I guess I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for what happened… It shouldn't have happened, I'm sorry it did. I had a weak moment…and you just happened to be there. It wasn't fair to you," Rory said. She liked to think she would've slept with any guy whom she'd had chemistry with at that moment, but deep down she couldn't deny that the fact that it had been him had loosened her boundaries significantly.
"Well I'm not sorry," Jess replied.
"I know, I kind of picked up on that," Rory replied, rolling her eyes.
"Can you really blame me? Should I just not express what I want? When what I want is just 32 miles from me, why should I not make an effort to get that life back?" Jess debated, sounding confident.
"And that's why I am sorry," Rory sighed.
"I'm not that guy who I was two years ago, Rory. I'm not even out of town that much these day… What is there to lose, Rory? I'll go talk to that… What's her name… Caroline with you," Jess offered, seeing things in a simplified manner.
"Her name is Catherine," Rory corrected him, taking that tiny slip as more of a win that it really was. Catherine was her therapist. She'd seen her a lot during the last year when they'd been together and continued for a while after. A large part of what she'd spoken to her about had been about Jess, naturally, as that was most topical at the time. But there were other things as well - the same things she'd struggled with concerning her career, her less-than-ethical behavior in certain situations from the past and so forth.
"What is there to lose? We're not nothing Rory and you know it. And you know damn well what the most important reason that would make it worth trying is," Jess continued, hitting just the spot.
In a way Rory was thankful for Jess not saying out loud that Em was the main reason, as that would've been like using her a little. But as usual, Jess was good with his words, finding the perfect way of laying that thought out there without actually doing that. That had been a valid argument for a while before, but this was also the first time Jess had actually admitted that he had been at fault too and that he was willing to work on them.
"You still there?" Jess asked, some hope in his voice.
"It wasn't easy for me, Jess…," Rory said, quietly.
"Just think about it," Jess urged.
"I'm sorry," she added, meaning that for more reasons than just the current one.
December 10th, 2016
It was more than a month after Lorelai and Luke's wedding. A lot had happened since, though perhaps to an outsider not that much.
Panic. Fear. Relief. Sorrow. Guilt. Acceptance. Excitement. Self-blame. Anticipation. Anguish. Elation. Grief. Stimulation. Replaceability. Hopefulness. Fulfillment. Longing. These feelings, but not necessarily just in that order, were what Rory had gone through during the past month and five days, among others.
Rory would've liked to say she was fine, and so she did to anyone who directly asked. Largely those people being just Lorelai and Paris who knew everything and kept asking her that. The rest just thought she'd had the flu or some equivalent for a while there, when she'd been off the radar. Living in her grandmother's house in Hartford enabled that hiding place for her. But she hadn't been off the radar for everybody, talking to someone who didn't know how complicated things really were, having been her escape.
With Jess, who'd spent that time since the wedding in Philly, it was all about the characters of her book, its pacing, working, rephrasing and so on, and whatever he was doing at the time from his end. Adding a few jokes, numerous 'good mornings', 'good nights' and some casual flirting into the mix and you had yourself a reason to get up in the morning. Neither was in denial that this was developing into something, it wasn't just friends rebonding.
Rory didn't want to explain the complicated to Jess, she didn't think it was necessary. It was nothing. There was nothing. She didn't think it would help anything if one more person would pity her as a result of telling him. And the background of that complicated - she was just worried he might take it the wrong way. She'd done that to him before, there couldn't be any doubt like that. And there couldn't be - she and Logan had been 'nothing'.
The doorbell at the Gilmore household in Hartford rang, the sound feeling so odd to Rory. For once it wasn't just food delivery, but an actual person wanting to see her.
Rory made her way down the stairs hastily, her boots still in her hand, having not had the time to put them on before she heard the bell, wearing a black Maje muslin and lace smocked dress. It was cute but understated, yet it showed off her burgundy red tights, which she thought made the outfit kind of hot. Jess was 12 minutes late, knowing well the Gilmore way of timetelling when getting ready for anything was concerned.
"Hi," Rory said, opening the massive wood door, gesturing Jess inside.
"Hey," Jess replied, giving Rory a hug in greeting. Hugging and innocent physical contact between them was normal, there wasn't any awkwardness there. It was just that perhaps they were a little rusty in crossing that boundary these days, years of being careful about that, having become the new normal.
Jess too had made an effort - dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a dark, vintage looking, blazer over a dark blue dress-shirt and a double-breasted wool coat over that. The outfit was well-fitted, showing off his physique that was a lot different from that of the teenage Jess. Rory had definitely noticed.
"Just hold on, I just need to check something," Rory said, apologetically, pulling on one riding boot after another, and hopped towards the kitchen still pulling the zipper on one of the boots up. It was just too cold for her high-heeled ankle boots outside. She was no longer the 20-something girl who put looks before comfort, in her 30s she knew that stumbling in the snow with her heels was not something she needed to impress Jess with.
"The dishwasher here is kind of weird, last time I ended up with a mountain of foam. I just want to check it has finished before we leave," Rory explained.
"Well this is definitely not a place where I'd expect to come pick you up for our date in any scenario," Jess called after her, walking along the foyer a little, glancing at the near empty household. Emily had left mostly the basics, anything extra had been either moved, donated or put into long-term storage. The plan was to sell, but Emily wasn't in any hurry, having left most of the rooms still in usable state.
Jess had definitely picked that wording intentionally. They weren't just going out somewhere together, they were going on a date. It was still a little hard to believe. But the undertones in which they'd agreed to see each other when Jess was back in the area, didn't involve much vagueness, except for actually not having used the word date. Maybe they were even past dating by now?
"Tell me about it," Rory mused, as she returned. Rory had explained to Jess weeks ago why she was there. She wanted to focus on her writing, at least until she had that momentum, and this place enabled her not to worry about making ends meet that desperately. Sure, she still wrote a few freelance pieces to cover food expences, her phone and transportation. But there was broke and then there was broke, which in Rory's case really just meant that she didn't have ample regular income presently for her own place. Her dad owned an insurance company, so that part was covered however long she wanted to search for herself. She was privliged and she knew it.
Rory continued to move in a quick step through the house like she owned it, well she kind of did I suppose - at least something very close to that. Rory was just pulling on her coat when she caught Jess quietly staring at her, having for a moment not looked at him.
"What?" she asked, already beginning to look over herself whether she'd put her dress on backwards or maybe her tights were ripped.
"You look beautiful," Jess said, in a deep and dramatic tone.
Rory tilted her head, as if being in disbelief. She didn't feel her greatest - she'd looked better too, she knew her faults like any woman in their early thirties did. But still she smiled, his words being the perfect remedy for her broken soul.
The date, first dinner at a charismatic little Italian restaurant and then to a live-music lounge, that played Jazz that evening, had gone as well one could ever hope. Pleasant discussion led to deep eye contact, statements charged with notable sexual undertones steering things towards a gentle brush of their fingers - a touch here and there, a whisper to her ear creating that incredible draw once again. Lips being so close that the forcefield between them was magnetic. With heavy breathing and a few deep moans as their lips crashed into each other in the stairway of the lounge, they'd been just leaving, both knowing exactly what they where they were headed and what they craved.
There might have been some words exchanged from that moment on, but neither could really recall them after that.
There was definitely a certain mischievous element in Rory leading Jess upstairs to her bedroom at the Gilmore house, as Jess' hands were already under her skirt, reaching around her ass and between her thighs, despite the layer of her tights obstructing direct access, lips locked on each-other, not having to worry about getting caught.
(TBC)
