Chapter 200
July 9th, 2022
"You, sure it's okay I go?" Logan asked Rory, as he stood at his doorstep, ready to head off.
"Yes! It's your bachelor party, of course it's fine you go," Rory replied, holding his hands, her bump against his stomach - the closest they could stand by now, facing each-other.
"Yeah, but I've already had more than enough partying to last a lifetime. I doubt they can really come up with something I haven't seen before," Logan said, referring to his buddies. "But I know, I know - all you just really want is to get me out of your way," Logan teased, knowing Rory was going to have her own party with the girls.
Rory just smiled widely at him, finding him incredibly cute like this. He'd become such a homebody with her. It was adorable.
"Where are they taking you anyway?" Rory asked, having not gotten a lot of detail. She knew it was overnight, maybe two nights - judging by Logan's weekend bag.
Logan shrugged. "Like they'd tell me!?" he chuckled, for once getting a taste of his own medicine considering his love for surprises. "But Colin did tell me to bring my passport so…," he added.
"Ah…, of course - the joys of frivolous foreing travel," Rory nodded, teasingly. "Though you should tell Colin that this particular fiance would prefer to know which consulate to call in the case of an emergency," Rory added.
"Don't even joke about that," he hummed, snuggling into her neck. The fire, two weeks ago, had given Logan a scare, even if looking back he'd understood how he'd overreacted. It had been strange - Rory being the calm in the midst of the storm this time, but they'd agreed that it must've been a combination of successful therapy, her no longer working and the pregnancy.
"We'll be fine," Rory said, referring to herself and their unborn child.
"I'll call as soon as I am somewhere with reception," Logan promised.
"Just don't jump off anything," Rory said. "Or dive anywhere too deep, okay? And wear a helmet!" she lectured, just in case.
"I doubt they have anything too extreme planned….," Logan began, but Rory's cautioning look made him realize it was better to just comply. "I promise," he said,despite knowing that Colin was nowhere as fit as he'd been during college to climb a cliff or go wake-boarding. Jet-skis, water scooters - maybe, but more likely he was just expecting them to lounge by a pool somewhere. Colin had gotten in contact with Finn, thank god, and apparently he was joining them, but Logan still didn't really have a full overview of his whereabouts during the last month.
"I can't believe I'm marrying you in two weeks!" Rory sighed, excitedly, and kissed him.
"Not soon enough," Logan replied, before heading off with "I love you"'-s and a few more hasty kisses.
An hour and a half later Rory had made her way to Stars Hollow all alone in the limo Honor had organized for her. Riding that mothership of a car felt silly all by herself, and it was certainly one of the fanciest she'd ever been in. In a way she knew it was the new reality she was going to have to get used to, even if she and Logan never really planned on living very lavishly, having grown quite fond of their humble - meeting in the middle - living arrangements.
"Oh my God, I feel like I haven't seen you in forever," Lane exclaimed, excitedly, jumping up and down, a little like she had both when she'd told Rory about her engagement decades ago.
"I've missed you," Rory replied, and hugged her friend.
"And I can't believe we're finally having your bachelorette party!" Lane continued. They'd talked about this before and Lane had been so sure Rory would say 'yes' to Logan the first time around and had already been thinking about how to make her bachelorette party really something to remember - way cooler than her own at the time. Now Lane knew people and places - her humble, but eventful, music career having at least given her plenty of connections, even if their best original song had only made it to the top 50 of a regional radio station once.
They'd met up at Lanes, and planned to go from there. The plan was to have the first part over in Stars Hollow and later let Honor take the reins and take them to some secret location for the after party.
"What kind of bachelorette party is this - two weeks early? You're going to miss out on the wedding day hangover," Lorelai began, laughingly, adding, "Oops - nearly forgot," recalling Rory being pregnant, having already helped herself to a very large Long Island Iced-tea, as she returned, having been to the bathroom just now.
Lorelai had teased Rory for weeks now about having the bachelorette party a little early, so this was nothing new to Rory. But it had come down to practicalities, about not her schedule she'd agreed upon with Jess so also Em would get to enjoy her summer. Besides the entire week before the wedding was looking like it was going to be crazy - the final fitting for Logan, who'd had himself a new suit made, the rehearsal dinner, and driving over to Nantucket early to get settled properly to actually try and enjoy the party without any last minute glitches.
"Is the baby kicking a lot?" Lane asked, as they were still waiting for Honor, Gigi, Paris, Lucy and Olivia to arrive. It was going to be a small group, but that was how Rory had wanted it.
"Oh yes!" Rory sighed, feeling a kick right then. "Feel," she said, pulling her friend's hand to her bump.
"That never gets old," Lane replied, shaking her head. "The boys didn't kick much at all, something about it being too little space in there," she added, disappointedly.
"Oh, mom - did you get a chance to look at my dress?" Rory asked, suddenly recalling she didn't yet know what the final verdict was. She'd had a lot on her mind - and as expected, she'd been prioritizing getting her manuscript finished now that she actually had a publicist, over all the wedding preparations. Somehow she just believed that things would be fine by lowering her expectations. As long as Logan and the most important people to her showed up, it'd be okay, wouldn't it?
"Oh honey… I tried, but I think it's a 'no', at least on my end," Lorelai said, and slurped on her drink through a swirly straw. They'd had the dress professionally cleaned, but the rip in its lacing and parts of its lining that had torn were a little trickier. The designer was fully booked for the rest of the summer, though more likely on a holiday in some resort. They'd claimed that the wedding of someone in the Royal family took priority over the Huntzberger wedding. And this despite the amount of money Logan and Honor attempted to throw at the problem. Rory was getting the feeling it was just that the designer didn't like her much, since she'd already had them alter the dress into a maternity version which hadn't been to their liking much. But at least, the store had sent them a long letter of apology along with giving them the damaged dress for free along with a compensating gift card. But what use was that card now - it was not like they were going to postpone the wedding because of this.
"I kind of figured that," Rory confessed.
"I'm sorry, I knew you love that dress," Lorelai said, but more than anything found Rory's calmness confusing. "Are you okay, hon?" her mother asked, expecting some reaction of sadness or dissapointment from Rory. She was actually a little surprised Rory hadn't been more upset about this. But it had by now already been almost two weeks since it had happened, and other than a description of what had happened, minus the intimate details, had surprisingly been overshadowed by her meeting with her publicist. To Lorelai her calmness was suddenly almost suspicious.
"Yeah, why?" Rory wasn't quite following. She'd gotten herself new shoes, not the same but something similar but was presently also considering just wearing a lacy pair of tennis shoes she'd found as an alternative, planning to go by her gut and see how the pregnancy was treating her by that time.
"Your wedding dress got ruined less than four weeks before the wedding!" Lorelai stated. "I've seen Bridezilla, I've also arranged weddings for like 30 years - I've seen people go all whack-o about things like this, smaller things than this, side-track even more experienced brides. Hell - I ruined my own wedding because the wedding planning seemed too easy," Lorelai explained, and went on to decribe a particular example of a bride having hated the clothes the officiator had worn.
"Do you want me to panic?" Rory asked, confusedly, and frowned.
"No, I'm just curious how the hell are you so calm about this? I want to know what's your secret!" Lorelai asked, teasingly. Rory was pretty sure her mother would be the first one this night to get drunk, embarrassingly drunk - but she tried not to worry too much. She'd seen this before.
"Um… I've just had other things on my mind," Rory began and shrugged. When she hadn't been working on her writing, she had been spending her holiday with Em, going on little outings and just lounging back by the pool in their backyard which had become their outside living room these days. Gigi had helped her with fetching the things she could order home, having decided for the sake of her mental health and the baby not to stress and go running around looking for missing items. She'd even gone back to the same store to get her that same set of sexy lingerie.
"Uh-uh," Lorelai found it hard to believe, but held back because of the way Rory had spoken to her a few weeks ago about keeping her opinions to herself on some matters. That sting, and in a way that was why she'd been so eager to just get wasted this evening - hoping to just enjoy a carefree night with her daughter.
"I got a back-up dress," Rory confessed.
"Uh?" Lorelai asked, it being the first she'd heard of this.
"It's this super simple kaftan style dress, full-length, ivory. Light and airy, doesn't wrinkle… It cost like 250 bucks and if we can't think of a way to fix the real dress, then I'll just go with that," Rory explained and shrugged.
Rory could just like see the gears turning in her mother's brain.
"I don't care as long as I am still getting married," Rory added, feeling her mother needed some more assurances.
"Okay then…," Lorelai exhaled.
"What?" Rory asked.
"Nothing," Lorelai replied.
"Mom!" Rory insisted. This was even worse, Rory knew her mother too well, including knowing when she wanted to say something and could nearly say what she was thinking herself.
"Um…, I guess if you already have a back up dress then you wouldn't mind if I took it to this little place in Litchfield that does embroidery. They did our table cloths, but those were machine made, but I think they had hand embroidering as well. I think just with just a very fine silver threat - maybe they could think of something," Lorelai continued, feeling sorry her embroidering skills were not the greatest.
"You would do that?" Rory asked, for once having not expected her to say that.
"Duh!" Lorelai exclaimed as if it was obvious.
"And seriously - we'll cover the cost, whatever it is...that'd be lovely," Rory said, not being quite as indifferent as she'd let on earlier. If she had a choice between the two dresses there was no question, but she didn't want to become this flaky bride who'd get upset about every single little thing either. Her anxieties were so much better since she'd been away from Chilton, and with everything else - Logan was grounding her really well also. Even her blood pressure had imporoved.
"We'll see," Lorelai replied, not darign to give her daughter a lot of hope, but she herself was already glowing with excitement. She wanted this to be special.
AN: Bit of a filler this one - but there needed to be one.
We're experiencing a heat wave and it's just impossible to sit behind a laptop writing for too long right now.
But since I do have the opportunity to ask your input for the next chapters - cool bachelor/bachelorette party ideas are welcome (to compliment what I have thought out already)! Also if you prefer me to focus on one or the other party more - let me know.
