AN: alright you guys, double chapter day today as tomorrow I might not have time for one. But please review! Miss reading your feedback. Suggestions and critisism are welcome too.
Chapter 27
"Mom!?" Rory called out loudly, arriving at her childhood home the next morning just a little past 10.30.
Logan followed her, somewhat hesitantly, but Rory could tell he was trying to act all brave about it. It was kind of cute.
"Huh, I wonder where she is?" Rory pondered out loud, having seen her car out front, as she walked to glance into the kitchen, finding no one.
"Just wait here, okay? I'll go check upstairs," Rory suggested to Logan, who was looking very out of place in this humble home. It was almost like his personality was so much bigger than this place, the place looked even smaller now that he was here. Still, she was full of glee that he was finally here.
Rory rushed upstairs, taking small but quick steps, briefly smiling back at Logan who remained standing there in the living room.
"Mom?" Rory called out again, peeking into her bedroom. The room was dark and from between the sheets she could barely hear a low mumble.
"Go away!" Lorelai groaned.
"Mom? How are you not up yet?" Rory asked.
The fact that her mother liked her sleep was not news, and it was for the same reason they were there 45 minutes past 10 not at 9, having timed their arrival perfectly so Lorelai would be just about having her first cup of coffee downstairs before they headed out to Luke's for the real breakfast. Besides, she had texted too, giving her a warning about Logan's arrival - twice.
"Too much tequila. Bad…," Lorelai mumbled words of wisdom to her daughter.
"But your car's out front? You didn't drive did you?" Rory fretted.
"Not so loud!" Lorelai begged.
"Tell me you didn't drive back in this state!" Rory continued worriedly.
"Chris got someone to drive me…," Lorelai said, drowsily.
"Good," Rory exhaled. "When did you get back?" she asked.
"Sun high, birds sing, head hurts," Lorelai listed.
"Come on, you got to get up," Rory urged.
"Where's the fire? Mommy wants more sleep…," Lorelai groaned.
"Logan's here. I texted you. Called you too but you didn't pick up…," Rory explained.
"What!?" Lorelai groaned, for a second raising her head from her pillow. "But I'm not at my game to…," she added, unable to think of an appropriate movie reference for the worst mother of the girlfriends in history.
"Interrogate him?" Rory finished her sentence for her, rolling her eyes. "I think that might actually be for the best," she added.
"But he can't see me like this? I must have an octopus imprint on my face and I smell all gross," Lorelai whined.
"How if you drag yourself to the shower, change your clothes... I'll go get you some coffee and orange juice in the meanwhile. If you promise to be nice I'll get you an ibuprofen pill too," Rory haggled.
"Fine," Lorelai blurted, reluctantly, burying her face in her pillow one more time.
"I mean it!" Rory threatened as she left the room, calling after her.
"When did you get so mean?!" Lorelai complained.
"She's hungover…," Rory explained, as she made it down the stairs, in a lowered tone, chuckling lightly.
"I kind of got that," Logan replied, having clearly quite enjoyed overhearing that little dialogue. He'd heard their banter on the phone a bunch of times before, it was nothing new - and he'd told her time and time again how amusing he found it.
"She'll be down soon enough… just she might not be quite herself this morning," Rory explained.
Logan shrugged. "It's actually kind of cool to see a parent to actually not be all proper and appears flawless 24/7, you know," Logan replied.
Rory smiled in response. But she realized Logan was standing around rather formally still. "But please, make yourself at home..," she began, aiming to correct that. "So this is the living room, there's the bathroom, here's the kitchen and finally… my room. Mom's room upstairs but I guess you figured that already," Rory explained, showing him around the small space. It was a house that contained far too much stuff for the size of it, none of it fancy or matching.
"Huh, so this is the room?" Logan exclaimed, following Rory into her old bedroom, observing the place.
Rory hadn't really had time to set the room up ready to receive visitors, so she quickly tucked a box of tampons into the drawer and straightened the pile of old Teen Vogue and Seventeen she had perused through, having nothing better to do, the last time she'd been here and waited for the laundry to be done. It was not like she hid from him that she too had periods or on occasion flipped through something other than Kafka, but it was just a little embarrassing just like naked baby pictures can sometimes be. The thought made her realize she was yet to make sure the place was clear of the latter. But still - her old room was the old her at her purest, the unpolished version, reminding her Logan was yet to see all of her under the microscope.
Rory leaned back against her dresser and observed Logan observe the small and humble yellow-walled room. Rory could still remember how her mother had filled it with second hand furniture at the time, and she'd been so proud to have her own room she'd cherised every item, wanting to name every piece in the beginning. Moving into this house had been a big deal.
"Not what I expected…," Logan commented, smilingly. He at least looked like he liked being here, despite still looking like he was out of place. She'd been in this situation before - Dean looking over her room for the first time, and Jess. Dean going straight for her stuffed chicken, Jess for the books or well, technically suggesting they climb out the window.
"What did you expect?" Rory teased, raising the corner of her mouth a little seductively. Last night had actually been the first night they'd simply slept together - no sex, just sleep - and in her narrow dorm beed no less.
"Quite a wall," Logan commented instead of replying to her question directly, referring to all the Yale memorabilia.
"It was Harvard's until after I was accepted and made my choice," Rory shared, gesturing at the wall.
"I guess I'm just more used to girls' rooms containing more pink and… or well in Honor's case more glittery. You know.. Piles of stuffed animals, boy band posters?" he shrugged, half-jokingly.
"I know it's simple…," Rory replied.
"Yeah, but it's the good kind of simple," Logan replied.
"I'm just going to put the coffee on..," Rory excused herself, weakly hearing her mother flush the toilet upstairs. Not exactly the best attribute of this old house, and she felt a little embarrassed for it, knowing Logan was used to a much different lifestyle. She was still clueless to how different exactly.
"And I do have a room at my grandparent's place… though I've rarely stayed there. Just when the roads have been bad or something," Rory explained, talking to him from the kitchen.
"I also kind of expected more books…. You didn't bring them all to Yale with you, did you?" Logan discussed, some caution in his tone.
"Under the bed, and the dresser by the door," Rory shared, generously allowing him to explore if he wanted to.
"Ah-ah," Logan declared, along with an appreciative chuckle, Rory hearing him pull out a drawer.
"What's with the Thailand and Japan posters?" he asked few minutes later.
"Always wanted to go. Until we booked our tickets for our backpacking trip to Europe I had a couple of vintage posters of Lisbon and London up there," Rory explained.
"Never been myself either, well… just Indonesia and a layover in Tokyo-Narita, though I don't think that really counts. We were supposed to head over to Thailand too, but… well you know what happened," Logan shared, returning to the kitchen where Rory was making sure a glass of orange juice, an ibuprofen pill and a large cup of coffee waited for her mother, and poured herself one.
"Coffee?" she offered, looking indeed like she belonged in that kitchen, moving about so effortlessly.
"I'm good," Logan replied.
But instead of accepting his answer, she filled his cup about a quarter way up, swirled it around a little and handed it to him anyway. "Just hold that," she said, not wanting to take any chances.
Logan laughed, but accepted it.
"Anything else I need to know?" Logan asked in a whisper, getting the sense this was the final moment to ask, hearing footsteps upstairs. On their way over they'd talked about her friend Lane and what she did, rather than her mother, Rory hoping they'd catch her that day too even if just briefly.
"Just be yourself," Rory said, the words coming out on instinct, though as she could already hear her mother's footsteps come downstairs, she also regretted it the minute she'd said it. But she didn't want to be the girlfriend telling her boyfriend to tone down all the things that made him just because her mother might not appreciate those properties quite as much as she did.
"Hi," Lorelai said, materializing in her sweats her hair pulled into a neat pony tail, seeing Logan standing around in the kitchen, while Rory was checking the contents of the cupboards to see if they had anything else to offer, but the selection was slim.
"Good morning Ms. Gilmore! Logan Huntzberger. It's nice to meet you," Logan said, offering his hand in greeting, putting on his best behavior.
The response, however, was not what he'd expected - as the two women burst into laughter. The formalness just didn't fit into this house. The one and only time they'd been formal like this in here was when Trix had visited, and that too had been brief, almost like an inspection.
"Ow - too loud," Lorelai laughed, despite looking like she was in pain.
"Here," Rory handed Lorelai her juice which she stared at with moderate disgust and her pill, and then switched the juice for the coffee, which seemed to be the appropriate thing to offer. She would just drink the juice later, both of them knowing it was a crutial part of the hangover cure.
"Nice to finally meet you! I've heard a lot about you," Lorelai said, changing her tone just enough to emphasize the 'finally'. "And just call me Lorelai, okay? And sorry about this morning - tequila and I got a little too friendly last night," Lorelai explained.
"Come, sit," Rory urged Logan to relax.
"Lorelai it is," Logan replied, nodding along.
Lorelai took a large sip of her coffee and made a sound very similar to what Rory tended to make right after the first sip - one speaking of utter contentment.
"So did you stay late?" Rory asked her mother, wanting them to rather just do what they would've done had Logan not been there, than allow her to sober up enough to start her interrogations.
"Kind of…," Lorelai admitted.
"He looked so off… I've never seen him like that," Rory sighed.
"Yeah… he was pretty out of it. He was glad we came though," Lorelai said.
"I heard what happened. I'm sorry for your loss," Logan said, the moment to say that having come a little abruptly.
"Well… It's not like we were close. Far from it," Lorelai replied. Rory could just tell how her mother didn't really feel grieve for the man, she just had sympathy for her father.
"Hey, do you think dad would want me to go to the funeral or… us?" Rory asked her mother.
Her reaction was to nearly have her coffee go down the wrong way, and she coughed as a result.
"What? To Straub's funeral?" Lorelai repeated, after clearing her voice, making it sound almost ridiculous.
"I mean obviously not for his sake, but for dad's," Rory felt she needed to explain herself.
"Well… I wouldn't know why you would want to put yourself through that. There's a lot more of his kind on his side of the family, you know. But I guess… in the end it's something you'd need to talk to your dad about," Lorelai suggested, shrugging her shoulders, continuing to drink her coffee in silence for a moment.
"So I hear you established an inn pretty recently? That must be pretty exciting," Logan began deciding to break the silence, and in her mind Rory applauded him for picking the topic Lorelai was probably the most proud of.
They talked a little about the Inn and what Logan was majoring in, which Rory thought was a little weird considering she'd already told her that. But she just assumed Lorelai was just looking for things easy on her brain right now.
After about half an hour they agreed to meet at Luke's, Lorelai saying she could use a shower, and Rory and Logan headed over to Lane's. Zack was still out of it, having worked late last night, and Lane joined Rory and Logan for a stroll around town.
"I can't believe I'm finally getting to meet THE boyfriend," Lane exclaimed, walking next to them. Rory had told Logan before already what Lane did and a little about her upbringing, and also about how they'd met.
While Rory had told no-one about her sex-ploration with Logan during spring break and in Rome, Land included, she had shared that with her later on, simply needing to talk to someone. Lorelai had told she was fine with it, but she could still tell the topic made her a little uncomfortable, hence she hadn't really gone into the depths of her sex life with her mother.
"Um… how many people here actually know about me?" Logan asked, but didn't sound mad.
"Just Lane, mom… and I guess Luke probably knows 'cause he's mom's boyfriend… but he never really cares unless he thinks someone's not good enough for me. I've known Luke since forever too," Rory explained jokingly.
"Luke's been like Rory's dad in a way… sometimes way more than her real dad. Even way before him and Lorelai started dating," Lane explained.
"Okay, so going to Luke should be considered equivalent to meeting the dad then," Logan raised his eyebrows, but his tone was half-serious, enjoying the casual banter the three seemed to be able to carry.
"It's okay I told Lane, right?" Rory asked.
"Don't worry, my lips are sealed. I'm excellent at keeping secrets," Lane promised.
"She really is," Rory assured.
"Uh-uh. You told me your grandparents hardly come here so, I assume it's pretty low risk," Logan replied.
"Oh, don't tell me you're about to run a SWOT on us or something," Rory teased, having just seen Logan do a lot of SWOT analyzes for one of his business classes at the end of the semester.
"Ha-ha," Logan noted, pretending-laughingly. "But if you must know, I did tell my sister about you over Christmas. She pryed it out of me... I'm keeping my fingers crossed she's as good as keeping secrets as your friend here," Logan confessed, winning Lane over to like him. It was a month after Christmas and frankly Rory was in shock he hadn't told her sooner.
"You did?" Rory reflected.
"Yeah," Logan said.
Rory stopped in her path and kissed him right there on the street, not caring if technically Ms. Patty was in eyeshot. There was always a risk of people finding out, and they weren't that secretive over at Yale either. The part they were keeping to themselves was about them being exclusive mostly, even though to most people around them, like Doyle, Paris, Lanny, Colin, Finn, Stephanie and a few other LDB members, and also Frank, knew there was no one else. Either way it felt like validation.
"You two are sickeningly cute, you know that right?" Lane commented, and continued to go talking to Rory as if this was just a normal day, not drilling Logan too much about his person, keeping things perfectly casual as that was the kind of person she was. Besides she'd always been big on learning to know people through experiences rather than interviews, having plenty of experience in that thanks to her band.
They stopped at the re-enactment, which was indeed the perfect demonstration of the quirks of small town. Taylor and Kirk gave them the perfect dose of laughter into their Saturday morning and after the cute elementary school students had finished their narration they headed across the square to Luke's, having said their goodbye to Lane.
As the bell at the door chimed and their nostrils were invaded with a sweet scent of pancakes mixing with that of cooked bacon and coffee, they found Lorelai sitting at the table they most often considered theirs, unwrapping what looked like a taco.
"You ordered tacos to Luke's?" Rory asked her mother, as the two took a seat. That was brave even for her.
"I might have," Lorelai replied and bit into a beef taco. "Want one?" she asked, and took another bite.
"Um… and how does Luke feel about that?" Rory asked skeptically.
"Perks of being the owner's girlfriend. I expect at most to get an eye roll," Lorelai said, speaking pretty confidently. At least to Rory it was a relief that she was eating her taco openly like this, at least this way it was fairly certain she wasn't going to hide the fact she'd gone over to her dad's from Luke. Or so she hoped.
The next moment Luke emerged from outside, looking like he'd been out for some errands.
"Oh hey, I didn't know you guys were here," Luke commented.
"Hi Luke, this is Logan. Logan - this is the infamous Luke," Rory introduced them.
Logan stood up and offered to shake his hand, catching Luke a little by surprise.
"The place looks great," Logan commented.
"Thanks, man," Luke replied, still looking a little puzzled.
"Hello, there," Lorelai replied, and gave Luke a peck when he bent down for it, not hiding her taco. And Lorelai had been right - she only got an eye-roll.
"I had to run to the store," Luke commented, and gestured down the street, and he was indeed holding several rolls of coins. For a moment he stepped aside, and handed the money to Caesar to handle and then returned to the table.
"Your eyes are red," Luke commented, looking at Lorelai.
"I had a bad night's sleep last night," Rory heard her mother fib.
"Oh, yeah? What happened?" Luke asked.
"Um… well…," Lorelai hesitated, but thankfully then spit it out. "We went over to Christopher's last night to see if he was okay - his dad died… and I had a few too many drinks, that's all," she said, giving him at least a variation of that story.
Close enough - Rory thought.
"Oh, okay," Luke said, accepting her response. "So, what do you guys want to eat?" he asked instead, seeing the place fill up behind them.
"More coffee, and um… a burger for me. Logan, what would you like?" Rory inquired.
"I must try the burger, it seems to be the yardstick Rory compares all other burgers to and that even after all the good burgers I've tried to introduce her to…," Logan replied, smiling supportively.
"Alright, two burgers and coffee coming right up," Luke repeated.
"Oh, could I get a water instead?" Logan added, Rory knowing damn well that he was not the kind of guy to overdo it with caffeine. He had his morning coffee and then usually another around 3 PM, but that was about it for him.
Rory could just see her mother's eyes dart at Logan skeptically, but thankfully she didn't say anything.
"So… Logan…," Lorelai began, her tone being a lot more sneaky now that she was fully awake. "Why not come to visit sooner?" Lorelai asked.
"Mom!" Rory objected.
"It's quite alright," Logan replied, not sounding rattled at all anymore. "I guess I just didn't want to rush things… But then again if I picture meeting the parents I sort of always imagined meeting the types of my parents who are too stuck up for their own good and care more about appearances than the content so… I guess I never really knew what this would be like," Logan confessed and Rory could already see how he was going for their similarities as a tactic.
"And why now?" Lorelai inquired further, making Rory roll her eyes at her.
"I just felt it was time. I care about Rory, and I want to see where she comes from...," Logan said, putting it pretty perfectly.
"Alright, good answer by the way," Lorelai replied, somewhat reluctantly.
Luke brought over his glass of water, mumbling with relief, "Finally someone without a caffeine addiction," in passing, and filled up two cups with coffee.
"You know what the difference between that type of parents... the kind you described before... and the other kind is?" Lorelai asked.
"Um… I don't think so," Logan replied unsurely.
"The high society parents make everything sound good, basically they just lie to your face whether they like you, but I… I don't have to do that.," Lorelai replied.
"Mom!" Rory objected.
"Hold on Rory," Lorelai said. "I'm not saying that I don't like you, it's just that I have my reservations about you. And it's only fair you know that. You know… your whole arrangement and the secrecy… I just don't like it. I also think you've probably grown up all entitled and thinking in a way that makes the world yours, and that's not even something that is your fault. But I also know that if this dear daughter of mine, tends to be a pretty good judge of character, so I just need you to know that I'm keeping my eye on you… and now that you've actually stepped foot into this town of ours, everyone's keeping an eye on you," Lorelai said, looking around the place, and indeed there was Luke, Ms. Patty and Babette and also Caesar who were throwing occasional glances towards him.
Logan was indeed not that used to that kind of looks. They weren't the admiring or envious kind he was used to getting.
"Don't worry, she gave a very similar talk to my first boyfriend," Rory commented, understanding better than ever that a significant part of the town had seen their kiss earlier.
"Yeah, to the second one I didn't have to because he already had the town watching him because of his priors," Lorelai shared.
"Priors?" Logan asked worriedly, clearly assuming something worse than it had been, causing the two women to laugh in unison and take another sip of coffee.