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A/N: oh my gosh! I am sooo surprised by how many reviews I got! thank you all very much and I hope that after this chapter you all will still be reading, and of course reviewing ;)
Perfection is a Scary Concept
Jess hurried to the wedding and just barely made it. He spotted an empty seat next to Lane where he assumed Dean was supposed to be sitting, and luckily it was an easy-access isle seat. Lane glanced at her watch and looked around then gave a flustered sigh of defeat. She had no idea where Dean had gone. Jess snuck into the seat while she was looking the other way, and when she looked over at him, his presence caused her to jump.
"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Dean is sitting here!" she attempted a withering stare but couldn't quite accomplish it. Jess smirked causing her to glare to intensify.
"Oh if looks could kill," Jess dryly responded. "I'm here because I think Dean uninvited himself when he broke up with Rory, after starting a fight with me, so she asked me to take his place, quite literally." Lane's jaw dropped in shock, but the only thing she could get out was,
"So that explains the bruise." Jess put a hand over where Dean had punched him and felt a bit of swelling.
"Huh I guess it does." People around them started to notice his presence and murmuring erupted through out the place. Jess rolled his eyes a bit but Lane hadn't noticed,
"Is this your fault? Because Rory and Dean were doing great after you left!" Lane pointed an accusing finger in his direction.
"Really? Now if they were really doing as great as you say, why did Rory ditch school, and even miss her mom's graduation, to come see me in New York?" Lane's jaw dropped once again but she didn't have a chance to respond because the music started playing, announcing that the wedding was about to start.
Jackson walked down first, wearing his extravagant kilt which caused Jess to wonder, How crazy is this town? Then came the wedding party and his heart skipped a beat, as it almost always did when he was anticipating Rory's presence. He looked on and found her. She looked vacant, but he could tell that a million emotions were dying to get out.
Rory looked at her mom who had a similar expression, but she was trying to read any emotions or vibes she might be giving off to see if she was okay. She caught nothing. Then they heard their cue to walk. She felt his gaze on her and she sought out where Dean was supposed to be seated and met his eyes. A smirk adorned his face causing her to release a bright smile that lit up her blue eyes. Lane caught the gleeful expression that hadn't come up on her face since…well actually she hadn't seen her ever use a smile like that. The smile was subtle but said so many things that Lane couldn't comprehend. Instead of trying to figure out what her expression read, she fallowed her gaze, and it met with Jess's knowing smirk.
Lorelai too noticed Rory and Jess's silent exchanging of looks. Why had her daughter and the seemingly perfect Dean broken up? She was not exactly sure why but one thing she was willing to bet money on was that it had something to do with Jess one way or another. Why was Jess at the wedding in the first place? And she definitely took note that Jess was in Dean's place and she wondered if Jess would be taking another position held by Dean that had nothing to do with chairs.
The wedding ended at 1:30. Jess did not wait around after, he did not want to have to deal with questions. He went right back to Luke's after the ceremony had ended. The diner was empty due to the fact that half the town was at the wedding. So when the bell on the door rang Luke was startled and surprised to see Jess walking through the door. Was that a bruise on his face?
"So how has your first day back been?" asked Luke, unsure as to what to say without pissing him off.
"Fine," Jess simply stated.
"Well that's good," his uncle paused to search for the right way to ask him about the bruise without invading his personal life, "Have you gotten into any trouble today?"
"Wow good to know how high your expectations are of me, Uncle Luke," Jess headed towards the stairs but Luke stood in front of his way, "I need to go to the bathroom you're going to give me a bladder infection."
"Look," Luke said sternly, "It's your first day back and you already have a bruise on your face, I get to ask the questions." Jess nodded and looked down, "So are you going to tell me how you got it?" Jess looked back up and swallowed hard before answering,
"Dean punched me." Luke put his hand on his fore head and tried to calm down.
"I thought I told you to leave her alone!" Jess became furious,
"Hey! It is not my fault that she saw me, it is not my fault that she came running up to me, and it is NOT my fault that she kissed me!" Luke was stunned and it took a few seconds to register what his nephew was saying.
"She kissed you?" He asked amazed.
"Yes, and Dean saw us."
"Wow. I can see why he'd want to punch you, I mean I'd want to punch you," Luke stopped and sighed and thought about the havoc he'd already caused, "Did you punch him back?"
"Maybe."
"Oh Jess!"
"Hey he punched me first!"
"You were kissing his girlfriend!"
"No, his girlfriend was kissing me!"
"And you just stood there motionless?"
"Now that would be just rude, and my mom always told me to be polite," Jess smirked.
"Jess! Do you think that made you look good for Rory?"
"Well she told Dean she liked me as more than a friend so I must be looking better than him."
"Wow," Luke was having a hard time taking this all in. Why would the town princess be falling for a bad kid like Jess? But then he started to think how beneficial this would be. Like he had said before, Rory would be really good for Jess. Maybe he would get his life on track. "So are you two an item?" Jess thought for a second,
"I'm not quite sure what we are really."
"Do you want to be?" As soon as he asked it, Luke wanted to take his question back. He knew it was crossing the barrier they both had put up, but he waited for his answer nonetheless.
Jess looked down once again and showed a side Luke saw for the first time that morning, vulnerability. Slowly he began to nod. Luke didn't know how to react to his nephew's show of emotion. He thought hugging him would be awkward, but then again so was just standing there. He reached out an arm and pat Jess on the back and stepped away and let him go up to the apartment.
Just as one door closed, another one opened. Coming through the diner door was a flushed Rory. She looked around for a second and realized he wasn't downstairs. When she went looking for him after the wedding she was disappointed to hear from Lane that he had left as soon as the bride and groom walked down the aisle again. Lane begged for the details of the break up but Rory brushed them off as she ran towards the direction of the diner, not saying anything to anyone when they asked her if she knew why Jess was back. All she wanted to do was talk to him, and she didn't even know about what. She searched the diner for even a clue that he had been in there at all.
"Hey Rory," Rory jumped when the silence was abruptly broken by Luke.
"Hi," she replied weakly. She hadn't even noticed him there.
"How was the wedding?" Luke wasn't sure if he should let on that he knew what happened so he decided to stick to small talk.
"Nice, really nice," she said rushed.
"Nice, that's nice," he was stalling, "Uh… do you want some coffee?"
"Yeah coffee would be great." She knew that Luke was probably thinking about how to tell her that Jess was back, "So Jess is back?" Rory asked rather than stated.
"Yes he is back," Luke was barely containing himself; he just wanted her to ask him where Jess was so the awkwardness would end.
"Well that's good, I guess."
"Depending on who you ask," Luke chuckled and Rory politely laughed along. Okay he was done with the small talk, "He's upstairs you can go talk to him if you want."
Rory eyes lit up but shook her head, "Oh no it's alright. I'll see him later."
Luke sighed heavily, "Yeah I guess that's inevitable." Rory looked down at her cup of coffee and then back at the stairs. She wished that he would just come downstairs so that she wouldn't have to make the first move. As if telepathically, Jess emerged through the curtain and yelled to Luke,
"Hey did you just want to close up right now since I don't think anybody is going to be coming in," motioning to the diner. Then he saw their only customer sitting at the counter.
Even though there were only three people in the diner, to Rory it was less empty than it had been in a few weeks. She smiled at him, and he suppressed his grin to a slight smirk.
"Well I guess even a wedding can't keep a Gilmore from her coffee," He cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Nope I guess not," she said shyly, "I bet even on my own wedding I'll be running here." Rory didn't mean for it to come out that way and she blushed as he smirked even more.
"Jess I'm going to go get some stuff, I'll be back soon, and please actually serve people if anyone comes in," Luke commanded before walking out the door.
"Yes sir," Jess called back after the door was already shut.
After Luke left, there was silence, silence and tension. Tension you could cut with a fork. It was a bit unnerving to Rory and a bit annoying to Jess, but neither of them wanted to even begin dissecting how their relationship had changed. Rory decided that if she was ever going to get things solved she had to speak up,
"Jess, what is going to happen to us now?" She looked down into her half-full coffee cup.
"There's an us?" He questioned.
"I… don't know, is there?"
"Do you think there should be?"
"I don't know." Jess sighed.
"What do you want Rory?" Rory was about to answer before she got suddenly flustered,
"What about you huh? You keep asking about my opinion, how about your opinion? What do you want Kurt?" Jess smiled a bit at the reference.
"I already know what I want, you're the one that still needs to figure things out." But she knew what she wanted, and she wanted it badly, desperately. But she couldn't shake the image of disapproval she knew she would get if she did what she want, "Stop thinking about what everyone else wants Rory," he had read her mind. She hated it when he knew her so well and yet so much of him was a mystery to her. "So Courtney how about you?" Jess tried to lighten up the mood by playing along with her reference just as he had the night of the car crash.
"Jess, I'm going to Washington D.C. in a few days for this leadership council thing-"
"For how long?" he cut her off.
"Six weeks," she confirmed. He nodded, telling her to go on.
"And in those six weeks I think we need to think about what we want and if it's what we think is best for us." Rory didn't really want to spend six weeks dwelling about making up her mind on something she was pretty much set on. It would be like taking time to decide if she really wanted to go to Harvard.
"Okay," he agreed like it wouldn't be killing him to have no guarantees. In reality he was in an extreme state of disappointment. He didn't know what he was expecting, like the town princess would fall to his feet the moment he came back. He knew it was corny, and yes very cocky, but also very similar to what he believed would happen.
"Okay so we'll think about it?" She asked confirming. He simply nodded. "Well I guess I need to get back to the wedding. I don't want to worry my mom," Jess just nodded again.
She didn't know what possessed her to do it, perhaps it was his confident expression, like he knew what her decision would be. Or maybe it was the way he was just standing there so unfazed, maybe she just wanted a reaction from him. Rory Gilmore would never quite know what influenced her to lean across the counter and place a soft kiss on Jess Mariano. All she cared about was that it was perfect, and perfect was a scary concept. She had to end the perfection before it had ran its course and died out, she wanted to end on a high note. Once again Jess reacted completely unsurprised. It was as if he was reading her like a book.
In fact, this was all a front for Jess to hide behind. He had no idea what her final decision would be. When she kissed him his surprise was hard to control.
"See you," she said before racing out the diner. Jess smirked and watched her.
Yep these six weeks were going to suck.
