Saturday morning came sooner than the girls would have liked. Rosemary had arranged for all the rooms to be woken up at ten with coffee, the girls were supposed to meet for brunch at eleven.
Rory rolled over with a groan, which was joined by a matching groan from Olivia in her own bed.
"Too early," Olivia spoke.
"You sound like your brother," Rory said, with a laugh which she rapidly regretted. "Okay laughing was not a good idea."
"Never compare me to Finn again, Gilmore," Olivia said.
"Oh God, you have already been around Paris too long. You go shower first, I want to text your brother, I forgot to text or call him last night," Rory said reaching for her cell. She had several messages from Finn, including some referencing a voicemail she had left him. "Oh no! Looks like we drunk dialled the guys last night!"
"Good luck with that one," Olivia said, heading off to shower.
R: Morning Finn, not sure how early you needed to get up for your activities today. I missed you last night, hopefully I didn't say anything too embarrassing when I called you last night. I don't even remember calling. We are going for brunch in an hour, if you are up before then, give me a call.
Not even two minutes later Rory's cell started to ring.
"Morning" she whispered into the receiver.
"Morning, how is the head kitten?"
"The lack of good, in front of my morning was intentional."
"Some Advil and breakfast and you will be all better."
"Hopefully Finn, hopefully."
"So you don't remember calling me last night?"
"No, not at all."
"I will save the voicemail, so you can listen to it when I get home. There was some singing, a declaration of undying love, some Paris shouting, it pretty much covered how I imagine your entire weekend to go."
"Oh God, I'm mortified."
"It's ok Kitten, it will probably be my turn to drunk dial you tonight."
"What time are you guys heading out today? Is everything going okay there?"
"We are meeting in about thirty minutes for breakfast. It's been okay, interesting. A few snide comments from Logan, nothing I can't handle, he was trying to encourage Colin to have a final fling last night, which we all shut down pretty fast."
"Have I apologised enough for causing this mess?"
"There really is no need, I would never have agreed that Colin needed a final fling, even before you were around, which is when he got the most comments in."
"If you say so. I can hear Olivia getting out of the shower, so that means it's my turn. I have forty minutes to get ready for brunch."
"Okay, have a good day, I'll talk to you later, love you."
"Stay safe, make sure and let me know when you are finished with your activities so I don't worry too much. I love you, have fun."
An hour later all the girls were seated in the courtyard of Cafe Amelie. They had Mimosas and coffee, they were waiting on their food. The waiters hadn't known what to do with themselves when the group was ordering. Half the ladies were like Juliet and ordered one of the salads, while the other half were like Rory and had ordered a mixture of dishes such as chicken and waffles, gumbo and poutine. Olivia was taking the opportunity to try the creole dishes on the menu.
Juliet quickly tapped the side of her glass with a knife, "Okay ladies, no strenuous plans for today. After brunch we are going to go shopping in the French Quarter to get masquerade masks to wear to some parades this evening, after that we are all booked into the spa in the hotel for massages, mani-pedi"s and to use the steam room."
"After that the plan is to get dressed, then we have arranged dinner at the Carousel Bar, and yes as the name implies the bar does spin, then we will try to catch a parade or two before dancing into the night. Any questions?" Rosemary continued on from where Juliet had left off.
Rory was feeling much more alive after the chicken and waffles soaked up the remaining alcohol in her system. She looked around and saw that most of the group were still eating, so she quickly texted Finn.
R: Chicken and Waffles, new hangover cure x
F: I'll have to try that sometime. We are heading out, I'll keep you updated.
"Who are you texting Rory? Or do I even need to ask." Stephanie shouted down the table.
"I was just trying to let everyone eat in peace Stephanie, who said I was texting anyone?"
"You get a dopey look on your face everytime you text Finn, Gilmore, you can't hide it."
"No one asked you, Paris." Rory quickly retorted, as all the girls laughed at her defensive tone.
"What are the boys doing anyway? Does anyone know?" Louise asked.
"They are going off-roading in the desert today, and I think there was talk of skydiving off the stratosphere tower but I'm not sure if they actually booked that." Rory said.
"That sounds like fun, Colin will love that." Stephanie replied, before digging her own cell out.
"You can't tell him, it's a surprise," Olivia shouted.
"I'm not going to tell him, it just made me miss him, so I was just going to text him and tell him to have fun." Stephanie replied.
"Okay, I think it's time to head," Rosemary said, after they paid the bill.
Meanwhile in Vegas, the guys all met in Colin's suite. Finn had arranged for a large buffet breakfast to be set up there. The guys, a mix of sober and hungover, all loaded up their plates and sat down to eat.
Finn tapped his fork against his cup of coffee, "Okay men, first activity up today is off-roading through the desert. A bus is picking us up downstairs in thirty minutes to take us out to the desert to get set up. So eat and drink up, we all need to stay sober until after this one, or else they will not let us use the equipment, so let's save the beers until this afternoon."
At the announcement of this activity, the excitement was obvious around the group. Most of them had several sports cars but had little experience in a more off road environment, which had been what made Finn choose this versus any of the other race car experiences that he could have booked out at the speedway.
Once the guys arrived at the location they realised that Finn had not been overestimating how much fun they would have. He had arranged for them to each have a dune buggy. What he had not told them was that Colin was going to get a forty five second head start and then the rest of the group would be chasing him like a Baja Chase. The off-road area consisted of dunes, gravel, hard packed dirt, hills, valleys, washed out creek beds, and trails running in every direction making for an exciting two hours of chasing each other around. A few of the guys tested the safety capabilities of the rollover cage and harness several times, while others drove around like they were in golf carts. As Finn had predicted the best part was that as they were in the desert, they could all keep to their own pace.
Finn decided to race to try and catch up with Colin, he had a few unintentional rolls and was generally having a good time, when he realised he was being closely followed by Logan. Once Logan was sure that it was Finn he had caught up to, he gave up on all pretense of chasing Colin and started chasing Finn. It started as clean fun, and Finn was enjoying himself as much as Logan was, but it soon became less enjoyable as Logan started trying to ram into the side of Finn's buggy while Finn was on dunes and on the sides of some of the valleys. It became obvious he was trying to force Finn off the trail to make him roll. When Finn raised his visor to try and shout at him to get his attention, Logan spun his tires out, ensuring that they kicked up the maximum amount of dust possible in Finn's direction getting into his eyes. While Finn was stopped, trying to rinse his eyes out with his bottle of water, Logan rammed him again. As Finn was stopped this time the force caused his dune buggy to roll multiple times down the side of a culvert, landing on its roof. Once Logan saw this, he took off in the opposite direction in his buggy.
Thankfully Jess and Robert were not too far behind them and had spotted what happened. They managed to get Finn's buggy righted, and helped him out to check he was ok. It appeared, at least, that all he would need would be a proper saline rinse to wash his eyes out, which was lucky considering the force that Logan had been ramming him with.
Finn swore Robert and Jess to secrecy, at least until the way home. He knew that it would ruin Colin's weekend to know what Logan had tried to do and he didn't want to do that, so he was willing to let Logan believe that he had won for now. Finn knew that even if Logan won the battle, Finn had won the war.
The girls had all had fun shopping for masks, enjoying the party atmosphere of the french quarter even as they walked around in the middle of the day. It was a nice relaxed area, which was rubbing off on them all, even Paris. By the time that they were heading back to their rooms after the afternoon in the spa, some of the girls were more ready for a nap, than they were ready to go out for the night.
"Okay ladies, we need to rally! We all need a second wind," Paris ordered them.
"We will all meet in Stephanie's suite in ninety minutes," Juliet shouted.
Ninety minutes later and all the girls were dressed to the nines, and sporting their masquerade masks. The concierge of the hotel took a picture of them all which was then quickly forwarded to several of the men at the bachelor party. They headed to the Carousel Bar as their first stop, where they shared a mixture of appetisers instead of a proper meal and started the night with cocktails. Rory and Olivia were bonding over jumbo crab cakes, while Paris and Lane were bonding over the fried chicken biscuit sliders, Louise had quickly bonded with Juliet and they were both watching everyone else eat while drinking champagne cocktails.
After they were all fed and watered, albeit with alcohol, they headed out to the streets to watch the first mardi gras parade of the evening. The ladies enjoyed watching the floats go past, in a multitude of colours, listening to the eclectic mix of music as they all caught beads and danced from where they watched. Even Paris couldn't find anything to fault about the parades, which was a testament to how much fun it was.
The group then made their way towards Bourbon Street where they went on a bar crawl visiting six different bars, before finding one that Stephanie loved, it had a relaxed vibe and a good size dance floor so the group stayed there until the early hours of the morning.
At three am, Rory was leading the group back to the hotel when her and Olivia decided the group needed a detour. They took them to Cafe Du Monde for beignets and coffee, the staff there took a picture of the group, all dressed up, drunk and eating beignets at three am, something most of them would not normally be seen dead doing. Even Juliet was declaring her love to a beignet, something Rory made sure to capture on film.
Once the guys made it back into Vegas, they showered the sand and dust off themselves, before heading towards the Strat to do the Skyjump.
"So is everyone doing the jump?" Tristan asked, as they travelled up to the skypod.
"Yes," Logan responded
"No," Finn said at the same time.
"Who isn't doing it?" Logan asked, "I thought everyone was."
"I'm not." Finn said.
"That makes sense," Doyle said.
"That makes the least sense I've ever heard. Finn, you did almost every stunt the LDB ever did and you aren't going to do this?" Logan asked.
"LDB?" Jess asked.
"I'll explain later," Finn responded to Jess, before turning to Logan. "No, I'm not jumping today, I don't particularly want to."
"Why? Explain it to me." Logan pressed for an answer.
"Probably something to do with what happened the last time you guys attempted a base jump," Doyle muttered, louder than he should.
"Rory has you so whipped that you aren't going to do a jump fourteen year olds can do?" Logan sneered.
"I'm not whipped, I saw what it did to her when that jump went wrong, and I won't risk something similar even if it is under much safer circumstances. She doesn't even know about this, she knew we considered coming here, she doesn't know we booked it or that I am refusing to jump. It's my choice Logan, nothing to do with her or anyone else here."
"What happened last time?" Tristan whispered to Jess, Jess shrugged. Doyle leaned over and whispered back.
"Logan's parachute didn't open while base jumping in Costa Rica, he almost died, he had to be airlifted back to New York for surgery."
"So this is just another way for you to try and prove that you are better than me?" Logan shouted at Finn, giving him a shove.
"Colin, I am going to watch from the observation deck, I will try and film each of you jumping." Finn said, before walking off quickly.
"Chicken," Logan shouted after him.
"Logan, stop trying to cause a fight," Colin pleaded.
"Me?! What about him?"
"So far all I have seen is Finn trying to remove himself from situations where you continue trying to antagonise him into a fight." Colin asserted, while the rest of the group pretended to be busy so they didn't get dragged into the situation.
Finn was as good as his word and made sure to capture everyone as they jumped, they all did the jump even Doyle, who Finn had been sure would chicken out.
After the jump, Finn led all the guys to a private room back at his hotel. He had arranged for them to have super while there was a burlesque show in the background.
"In keeping with Steph's rules, because otherwise she would have my balls, no strippers, no nakedness, and no touching of women," Finn announced as the group entered the room.
"Boring," Logan muttered. "I'll take you to a proper strip club later Colin."
"No, thanks Logan, I've seen enough strippers to last a lifetime. But if you really want to go to one I'm sure some of the single guys would go with you. Jess just broke up with his girlfriend. He maybe needs some cheering up."
"I'm okay, man," Jess said quickly, trying to keep the spotlight away from him.
"So Jess, you are familiar but I still can't place you," Logan said.
"You almost had it last night, Rory introduced us back when she was taking her break from Yale."
"Seriously?" Logan asked.
"Yep," Jess said, all the emphasis on the 'p'.
"Colin, what were you thinking? Bringing this douche with us?" Logan asked incredulously.
"I was thinking that he is one of my friends, and he is newly single and a weekend away would be good." Colin responded. "Seriously Logan, you met the guy once seven years ago. You guys could be best buds for all you know."
"I doubt it," Jess whispered to Tristan, who had to fight hard to hide his laughter.
"So guys, I thought this might be a good opportunity to reminisce about some of Colins more memorable attempts at LDB stunts. Anyone have any good stories?" Finn asked, trying to steer the conversation to a safer area. It worked and soon, Robert was regaling the group with a story about a stunt gone wrong freshman year.
A few hours later and the guys were spread around the casino gambling, some were playing poker, while others went for roulette and blackjack. Colin and Finn were playing blackjack, neither felt like concentrating enough to play poker. The other guys continued rotating around games, Jess was doing remarkably well at poker, while Doyle had won big at the roulette table before getting cocky and losing it all, so he was now just watching for fear of repercussions from Paris if he lost any more money.
"Did you get a picture from Stephanie earlier?" Finn asked.
"Which one? I got one of the whole group before they went out. Man! They all looked hot!" Colin replied, taking a drink of his scotch.
"Oh that one was hot! I hope those masks come home," Finn said.
"I already told her it better come home."
"Did she send you the one of them all eating beignets drunk?" Finn asked, laughing.
"NO! Let me see it!"
Finn was showing Colin the pictures Rory had sent him of the girls at Cafe Du Monde, the guys were laughing at the state of the girls, it being obvious in the pictures how drunk they all were.
"What are we laughing at?" Logan asked walking up to them
"Just some pictures of the girls that they sent us," Finn replied, holding his phone out to Logan so he could look at the group.
"Is that Juliet eating a beignet?" he asked in shock.
"Yep!"
"Wow, they must be hammered."
Logan continued looking at the pictures of the drunk girls on Finn's cell, while Finn and Colin played another round of blackjack. Unknown to Finn Logan had scrolled back further into his pictures and was now looking at pictures of Rory that Finn had taken.
"What are you looking at Logan?" Colin asked once he realised Logan was still holding Finn's cell.
"Just wondering what Finn here has that I don't that he got Rory to say yes."
"Don't do this Logan," Finn said, his tone pleading.
"Don't do what? Try and find out why one of my best friends for the past fifteen years decided to shack up with my ex!"
"Logan-" Colin tried interjecting.
"Don't you Logan me, you are just as bad, you knew and never told me."
"Logan, don't ruin Colin's weekend. If after his wedding, you never want to see me again, then find I'm sure we can do that, but until then please let's be civil."
"I just want an answer, what do you have that I don't."
"Logan."
"No he's a big boy, he can speak for himself. So tell me Finn, how did you get the girl?" Logan sneered.
"Fine, you really want to do this here and now?" Finn said angrily.
"Yep! Right here, right now. Prove to everyone else how much of a traitor you are."
"Fine, Morals! That's what I have that you don't. I haven't cheated on her, and I never will cheat on her. I don't see the point in getting married just to get a new mistress every six months. I know that I am lucky to have Rory, and I will spend my life trying to be worthy of her!" Finn was breathing heavily by the time he finished.
"Easy to say now, talk to me in six months, Rory's pretty boring in the sack-"
Before Logan could even finish that sentence he was on the ground. Jess was standing over him shaking his fist.
"Sorry Colin, I couldn't let him talk about Ror like that, and I knew Finn wouldn't punch him, or he'd get in trouble with Rory."
Robert and Seth decided to take one for the team and carried Logan back to their suite before they got kicked out of the casino. There was only so much leeway that their pocketbooks could get them. The remaining guys stayed for a few more games before heading back to their suites as it was almost four am.
The next morning as the girls had just finished packing up and were getting ready to leave for the airstrip when Rory's cell went off.
"Morning Finn, you're up very early," Rory said, she had checked the display before answering.
"Morning Kitten, is your morning going ok?"
"Why? Why do I get the feeling you are only asking because you are about to ruin it?" The surrounding girls stopped to listen to the call at this point.
"Because you are too smart for your own good."
"Finn."
"Sorry. We were woken up this morning by Robert, Logan decided to leave this morning with the jet. He took some of the guys with him, but left some of us behind."
"SERIOUSLY?" Rory shouted as she started to pace. The girls now wondered what was happening at the other end of the phone.
"Yep, he was pretty wasted last night and Jess ended up punching him. It was a well deserved punch, if he hadn't I was about two seconds away from punching him. Well anyway, Logan being the big child that he is, decided that abandoning us here was the best course of action."
"Are you all ok?" Rory said, stopping pacing for a minute.
"Yes Kitten, we are fine."
"Do you need me to send my plane that way after we get home?"
"No i think we will be ok, I am waiting on my Dad telling me where our plan is, if needs be we will charter one from here. I just wanted to let you know what was going in before you got in the air on your own plane, baby."
"Thanks for worrying about me, but now I'm worried about you guys, are you sure that you don't need us girls to rescue you?"
"You already rescued me, kitten."
"You big sap Finn."
"In all seriousness, it's fine, if needs be we will fly home commercially. It's more we need to get Tristan and Colin home, they both have court tomorrow, I think the rest are flexible."
"Okay, if you are sure, let me know as soon as you know what your plan is."
"I will, I love you, see you soon, hopefully."
"Yes, I'll see you soon, I love you too."
As Rory hung up, all the girls looked at her.
"Logan took the plane and left them all in Vegas, without a ride home!"
