AN: First of all I want to thank you all so much for being so patient with me over the last few weeks, and thanks to those who checked in to make sure I was still alive. Haha. I am. I'm here, and I'm still writing.
I'm so sorry for the delays over the last month. Suffice to say June has been a bit of a crazy one for me. My grandmother passed somewhat unexpectedly. We knew it was coming, but the doctor had said we had months and it all escalated within a couple of weeks. And with that going on I was then hosting my parents at my 1500sqft house for two weeks. They are gone now, but I've just needed a few days to mentally recover from all that stress. Then on top of that I had to make the decision to put my dog down… it's just been a really hard month and I just aven't been able to focus my time and energy on writing. But, my plan is to get to Save the Date next and then Mind the Gap. I'm hoping that I'm at a point where writing will be a welcome distraction.
In the meantime, please don't forget to review. Not just my fics, but ALL the fics by your favorite authors. The amount of time and energy it takes to do this work can't be overstated and this particular fandom is pretty small. So please please please show your love to the people who are keeping it going. Even if we've never heard from you before and you feel awkward, we'd love to hear from you now. It's the one form of payment and recognition we get for the work that we do, and it really is the thing that keeps us going.
Thanks so much!
Chapter Four
"Are you sure you're okay?"
The question came just as Logan slid over a hidden icy patch on the sidewalk for what must have been the fifth time since leaving his host's home that morning. He caught himself before falling, managing to stick his arms out to his sides in an effort to right his balance and protect himself from careening toward the ground in an embarrassing display of clumsiness. He looked down at the ruined Prada oxfords wrapped around his feet and felt a burning urge to yank them off of his feet and throw them head on into the window of the house that they were passing. But, thankfully, he had enough self control to refrain.
"I'm fine," he answered, doing his best to bite down his frustration and appear unphased. It didn't help to appease his ego, however, that the ten-year-old child they'd left the house with was already practically a mile ahead of them at this point, having no issue whatsoever with the snow and ice while he slipped and slid with ever precarious footstep an forced the boy's mother to slow her own journey to accommodate him.
He'd always assumed that there must have been something romantic about living in a small town to make the abundance of negatives worth it. There were so many factors that he had always considered intolerable - the poor cell and Internet service, the lack of five star restaurants, quality stores, and luxury hotels. Everyone around you knew exactly who you were and what you were up to at any given moment. People wanted to talk to you all the time. You couldn't even manage a quick Starbucks run in the morning without ten people getting in your face and demanding an overly cheery conversation.
There must have been something to make it all worth it, something that appealed to the people who lived this kind of life. In his musings on the matter, he'd surmised that the appeal must have been the idyllic nature of it all - the clean streets, the classic victorian homes, the distinct Main Street America feel, and - of course - the ability to safely and quickly walk wherever you needed go in just a matter of minutes.
Now, however, he was beginning to see the error of his thinking.
"You might be able to take those to Pasquale - he owns the shoe repair store…" Rory trailed off for a moment, seemingly considering something before letting out a small tutt. "Though… now that I think about it, it's been a while since we've had a Stars Hollow Loves Pasquale Day, so he might not be in a very helpful mood… They do sell boots at Bonnie's though. They're probably not like... Timberlands or anything but - "
"I'm fine," he insisted.
He wasn't sure what 'Bonnie's' was, but if he had to hazard a guess it was likely some tiny little boutique store with a miserable selection of generic clothing that made everyone who lived there look like some kind of carbon copy of Aunt Bee from the Andy Griffith Show, and considering he didn't plan on spending much more time in this place, he wasn't very interested in buying a pair of extra pair of boots that he would most likely end up throwing away as soon as he got back home anyway.
"Suit yourself," Rory replied with a shrug, smirking as Logan slid once again against a slick patch on the sidewalk.
"Haven't you people ever heard of salt?" he asked, the frustration eeking out through his tone. His companion only smiled in amusement in response and gave another shrug of her shoulders.
"Kirk is usually in charge of salting the sidewalks," she explained, as if the explanation was something that he should understand. "And the morning after the first big snow is always a little delayed because he's usually up all night doing the reenactment."
"Reenactment?" Logan asked. He wasn't entirely sure why he was probing for more information as he didn't really care, but he was probing nevertheless.
"Yeah, it's a whole thing. The Battle of Stars Hollow," Rory responded.
"The Battle of Stars Hollow?" Logan asked, his eyebrow raising in bewilderment. He'd lived on the East Coast his entire life. He had a history buff of a grandfather and a mother who had bribed her way into The Daughters of the American Revolution. He'd attended boarding schools just minutes away from Lexington and Concord. He attended a university that housed the Franklin Papers and educated twenty-five members of the original Continental Congress. He'd spent his childhood taking field trips from one battle site to another. And in all of that time, in all of the constant immersion into the history of the American Revolution, he had never once heard of The Battle of Stars Hollow.
"Yeah…" she responded with a sigh and a slight sag of her shoulders. For a moment, Logan even thought that she was slightly embarrassed by the story she was going to tell. "It was in 1779. The Stars Hollow militia got word that a British General was traveling through the area and they went out to block the high road in the middle of the night in the snow and… well… they kinda ended up just waiting out there all night because he never showed up…"
"Wow…" Logan said, ironically. Though, his sarcasm didn't seem to deter her.
"At least that's what we used to think," Rory continued. "Turns out what happened was that they blocked the road so that the general would be forced to ride through town instead and they had set up for a local um… lady of the night to distract him and keep him from rejoining the British troops."
"Lady of the night?" Logan asked with a slightly teasing tone. But, Rory continued unfazed.
"Anyway… we reenact it every year. We used to do it on the actual anniversary, but now we wait for the first big snow because Taylor - he's the Town-selectman - decided that it was more authentic for the reenactors to be outside in the snow. Plus the pictures are better, but he doesn't really care about that as much as I do…"
Logan furrowed his brow a little bit at that comment, not exactly sure why she in particular would care about the quality of the pictures for some daffy war reenactment. Strangely enough, however, his confusion was not destined to last long. Before he even needed to ask for clarification, Rory came to a sudden stop in the middle of the sidewalk and let out frustrated groan.
"Seriously?!" she asked, bending down to pick up a slush soaked newspaper from in front of an open white picket fence. "How hard is it to put a paper into a plastic bag?! I swear to God this kid is going to be my financial ruin. This is what I get for giving the spawn of Froggy a paper route..."
A paper route?
He was starting to piece things together - at least he thought he was. Worrying about the wasted cost of water damaged newspapers. The collection of journalism books on her shelves. The fact that she'd recognized his name… It was all starting to make sense - a little bit of sense in the very least. The only thing that still didn't make sense was that she was working as a receptionist at an Inn.
Just as she was returning to an upright state, Logan saw a diminutive Asian woman step out onto the porch of the yellow house they were currently stopped in front of. The yard was packed full of random pieces of old wooden furniture, and to the left of the fence gate was a white sign bearing the words 'Kim's Antiques' in serifed block lettering.
"Hi, Mrs. Kim," Rory greeted, somewhat bashfully as she gently gestured at the woman with the sopping wet newspaper in her hand. "Looks like I owe you another paper. Sorry about that."
Logan wasn't sure how exactly he expected the woman to react to Rory's greeting. But, considering the stereotypical saccharinely sweet persona that was so often assigned to small town folk, he was surprised when her expression went harsh and her back stiffened at the sight of him. She fixed him with a hard glare. And even standing no more than five feet two inches tall and ten yards away from him on her porch, she was intimidating enough to strike the fear of God in him. Though, why he was on the receiving end of her wrath he didn't know. Upon realizing the source of the woman's discontent. Rory threw a few glances between the two of them, giving Logan an apologetic expression and his newly found nemesis a somewhat panicked one.
"Mrs. Kim, this is Logan Huntzberger. He ran into some problems on the road last night, and he needed a place to stay. The Inn was full," she explained, quickly. "We're not dating!"
"Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion."
The woman's chin was held high as the vaguely insulting passage fell from her lips. She narrowed her eyes one more time in her direction and then spun on her heel, not even bothering to respond to Rory's comments about her damaged newspaper. Rory merely nodded subtly in response to the woman's cryptic commentary, and once she was fully inside her home yet again, Rory grabbed Logan's attention with an audible breath and a sigh.
"So that was Mrs. Kim…" she explained as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had just transpired between them - as if she hadn't just been so eloquently been called a slut to her face. "She's my best friend's Mom."
Logan scoffed. It hardly seemed like appropriate behavior from a person's best friend's mom. Though, to be fair, he wasn't all that sure what appropriate behavior from a best friend's mom actually looked like. His best friend had been through several 'moms,' and each of them had their own unique flavor of inappropriateness. There was Mom Number Two with her 1:00 PM Long Island Iced Tea Parties, Mom Number Three with her shoplifting hobby, and - most memorable of all - Mom Number Four with her handsy preoccupation with the inside of Logan's thigh.
"Charming," said Logan, receiving a shrug in response.
"She grows on you," Rory said. "Anyway, Hewes Brother's is right around this corner…"
As Rory pointed off to her right, Logan's gaze followed her finger around the bend in the sidewalk. In the distance he saw a small converted house with blue siding and a pair of vintage gas pumps in what used to be the front yard. Next to them, he could see the mutilated figure of his G Wagon parked on the pavement and a denim clad body bent inside the hood. He winced at the sight. Seeing the extent of the damage for the first time in the daylight was a bigger shock than he had expected.
"Thanks…" he droned, not feeling at all thankful for his circumstances. Still, he figured it was probably the polite thing to say in the moment.
"Luke's is just over there," she continued, pointing to a corner building in the opposite direction. "That's where we'll be for breakfast if you want to come over when you're done."
"Sounds great," he said with a smile and a nod just before she peeled away from her and started making her way toward the aforementioned diner.
Logan stood there for a moment as he watched her walk toward her destination. His eyes lingered on her for a while - probably for too long a while if he was being honest with himself. He focused intently on the way her jeans were hugging the curves of her behind and the way that her hips swayed back and forth underneath the hem of her light blue puffy coat.
Eventually he snapped himself out of his trance, but not without inwardly groaning once again at his horrible luck. As if wrecking his brand new G Wagon wasn't enough, he had to have this beautiful woman dangled in front of him on top of it, this beautiful woman was entirely out of his reach, who had a kid, and whose house he had spent the night in - a full story separating them as he slept on her couch.
In a few weeks he might find the irony amusing. But, now… as he watched her ass sway back and forth as she made her way down the sidewalk, now he was still lost in the cruelty of it all. The only comfort he had was the thought that in a manner of moments he'd be on his way to fixing his car and getting the hell out of there.
By the time Rory opened the door to Luke's Diner, her son had already managed to lay claim to his favorite table by the window. He was perched on his knees on a chair, concentrating deeply on creating a kind of house of cards out of the sugar packets on the table. His bottom lip was trapped between his teeth and his slightly too long hair was flopping into his eyes - an expression that left him looking too much like his father for Rory's comfort.
She started peeling her coat off of her shoulders as she made her way over to the table, nodding and waving at friends as neighbors as she passed. Everyone looked happy to see her. Everyone, that is, except for her own child who sighed in dejection and annoyance as his tower of sugar collapsed the moment Rory's fingers brushed across the surface of the table.
"Mom!" he whined, flopping back into his seat. Rory only chuckled in response.
"I'm sorry. I know. I ruined everything," she replied with a teasing smile as she wrapped her coat and her scarf around the back of her chair and sat down.
"Where's Logan?" Ben asked, now fidgeting as he had no construction work to keep him occupied.
"Mr. Huntzberger..." Rory corrected, pointedly. "...is at Gypsy's checking up on his car."
"You called him Logan," Ben countered, giving his mother a disapproving look as he rocked back and forth in his chair.
"Yeah, well, I'm a grown up," said Rory. "And when you're a grown up you can call other grown ups whatever you want to call them. But until then you can call him Mr. Huntzberger until he specifically tells you otherwise. What do you want to eat?"
"I already told Pop I want waffles."
Rory held back a sigh. He'd already packed himself full of sugar the night before with the ice cream and Skittles she'd bribed him with to sit at the Inn all night with her. She hadn't really wanted to add more sugar into the equation with breakfast this morning, but she wasn't sure what to do about it at this point.
Despite Rory's own Pop Tart and pizza infested upbringing, she had always tried her hardest to make sure her own child's diet was a little more… balanced. It wasn't that she never let him have junk. She did. Just… in reasonable doses. Perhaps it was her type-a personality, or the fact that she'd been older and more responsible when she'd had Ben. Or perhaps it was just that Ben was an energetic little boy who could hardly be contained when he wasn't filled to the brim with high fructose corn syrup. But whatever the reason, it was one way that Rory differed from her own mother when it came to raising her kid. Ben, on the other hand, didn't differ from Lorelai in the slightest, and he would be far happier subsiding on a diet of chocolate chip cookies and Sour Patch Kids.
"And I said to get you a coffee too."
Rory smiled, suddenly overwhelmed with a rush of affection and love for the little boy sitting across from her. These were the moments that made it all worth it. Making the decision to keep him, recovering from the heartbreak wrought by his father, the sleepless nights, the trouble he was always getting into, moments like this made all of that so worth it. It didn't matter that they were small and, to him, seemingly insignificant. To her, they meant everything.
"You're sweet," she said, reaching forward to run her hand over his head. "Thank you."
"Stoooooop," Ben whined, not exactly thrilled with the public display of affection. He groaned under his breath and squirmed to get away from her touch. Unfortunately for him, however, he was about to find himself entirely outnumbered.
"Yeah, Mom, stop! You know he doesn't like it when you do that!" " a new voice sounded from behind him. Ben's face lit up, happy and grateful from the reprieve at their arrival of the newest addition to their party. Yet, his relief was profoundly short lived. "He much prefers big hugs and kisses from his Grams!"
Lorelai bent down. She wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders from behind, making it near impossible for him to wiggle his way out of her grasp in time to avoid the big kiss she planted on his cheek. Though he was able to vocalize his disgust and reach up to wipe it away from his cheek.
"You're right. How silly of me," said Rory, laughing while Lorelai eventually let go of her son and slid into the chair next to him. "He does love those."
Ben was glaring daggers at his grandmother. By this point he had slumped into his seat and folded his arms over his chest, giving his most menacing look - a look that might actually be somewhat intimidating if he was a foot taller and weighed more than seventy-two pounds. As it was, it just made him look adorable, and the angry expression stayed planted firmly on his face until a plate of waffles, bacon, and eggs found its way onto the table in front of him.
"One order of waffles and a coffee," said Luke as he arrived at the table and placed their respective orders down.
"Thanks, Pop!" Ben replied with a smile, his anger and embarrassment at being publicly loved on by his mother and grandmother suddenly gone with the prospect of food.
"Um…. excuse me," said Lorelai. She held up a hand in a stop motion, prompting Ben to freeze before digging into the hot meal before him and looking up at her husband with scorn and reproach. "Do you really expect my grandson to eat that?"
Luke sighed and slumped in annoyance, yet he knew better than to assume that she was done with her question and jump in with a reply just yet.
"Do you really expect my precious baby grandson - the light of my life, my pride and joy - to eat that!?"
"You know believe it or not, I had," Luke replied, crossing his arms over his chest much like Ben had been doing just moments before. "Do you maybe want to tell me why I shouldn't?"
"Luke…" said Lorelai, gesturing to the steaming plate of carbohydrates next to her. "Look at those!"
"I am looking at them," said Luke, unamused. "They're waffles."
"There is not nearly enough whipped cream on those waffles!" Lorelai finally clarified, offense dripping from her tone. "What do you expect him to do?! Eat whole entire bites of waffle with no whipped cream?!"
"Yeah…" said Luke. "Like a normal human being."
"I'm sorry. This is unacceptable. I'm calling an attorney. You clearly don't care about the wellbeing of my offspring…"
Luke grumbled under his breath about getting a can as he turned around and walked away, not even bothering to offer his wife an intelligible response to her outrage. Ben looked positively joyous at the prospect of more junk on top of his already calorie-packed breakfast, and Rory decided to simply resign herself to the situation with a sigh and an amused shake of her head. After all, there was no fighting Lorelai Gilmore when it came to matters of junk food.
"So," Lorelai said, abruptly turning her attention back to reality rather than the contrived grievances against her husband's ability to feed their grandchild. "How was the Inn last night? I hope it wasn't too much trouble."
"It was pretty uneventful for the most part," said Rory. "We had a couple of people check in once the storm started. But it was mostly pretty quiet."
"And then Logan came," Ben offered before munching happily on a piece of crispy bacon.
Lorelai's brow rocketed all the way to the sky at the dropping of the name. And before Rory could scold him yet again at the casual way he was using a grown man's first name, Lorelai was inching forward in her seat with a mischievous look on her face - a mischievous and highly interested look on her face.
"Logan?!" she asked with a smirk. "Who is this Logan, and what was he doing with you last night?"
"He's no one," Rory replied, shaking her head. "He just - "
"He spent the night at our house," Ben interrupted, innocently, with a shrug of his shoulders and a heaping helping of waffles hovering right in front of his lips.
It was hard to find the words to describe the look that came over her mother's face- and Rory was a writer. She looked as if she was about ready to burst, like the top of her head was about to fly off and steam start to blast from her ears. Her body was practically twitching as she sat there and tried to contain herself, waiting for an explanation that Rory was too mortified to give her.
"I…" she started, panic settling into her tone. "He… no. That's not… He didn't… We didn't… We're not...He's just a guy - "
"Just a guy?" Lorelai asked. "He's just a guy that's spending the night at your house and meeting your ten year old kid?"
"That's not what I meant!" said Rory.
"Well… what did you mean?" Lorelai asked. "I want to know what exactly this guy is to you and why I am just hearing about him now."
"Because he's no one!" Rory insisted, though the look on her mother's face made it clear she didn't exactly believe her. "Well… he's not no one. He's Logan Huntzberger."
"Oh. Well. Why didn't you say so?" said Lorelai, with a feigned display of indifference. "He's Logan Huntzberger. That explains everything."
"Mom…" Rory continued, starting to get annoyed. "There is nothing going on between us. There never will be. He's Logan Huntzberger."
"Yes. Of course. Huntzberger. What was I thinking?" said Lorelai. "How could anything ever happen between you and a… German...?"
Rory rolled her eyes. She let out a deep breath and her shoulders slumped in annoyance. She knew she wasn't doing a very good job at explaining what had happened, but she'd been entirely thrown by Ben's loose lips and her mother's enthusiastic misinterpretation of the evening's events. She was flustered. She was embarrassed. And there was still a tiny part of her that she was trying to ignore that kept telling her that she wouldn't have been all that upset if something had happened between them.
But that's to be expected when you go through a dry spell as long as the one she was currently experiencing.
"The Huntzbergers are one the most important families in American media. They're like… the Hearsts of the East Coast. Charles Foster Kane was partially based on his great-grandfather. They own The New York Standard - and about twenty other papers up and down the Eastern seaboard. There's also a rumor that they're trying to expand out into the European market. There is nothing going on between me and Logan Huntzberger."
"Is he cute?"
"Mom!"
"What?!" said Lorelai. "I don't want ugly grandchildren. I can't have you ruin your successful streak on that front so far."
"He got into an accident right outside of town during the snow. Gypsy towed his car and Officer Westin brought him to the Inn right before I was about to close up. I offered to let him stay on my couch because by that point all the rooms were booked. That's all."
Silence fell over them for a second as Rory watched the delighted glint disappear from her mother's eyes. She seemed to be genuinely disappointed to hear that there wasn't actually a man in Rory's life at the moment. Though, despite the sexual frustration and the occasional wish that she had someone to help her take out the trash and fix her leaky kitchen sink, Rory didn't share in her mother's discontent. As far as she was concerned she did have a man in her life, and he was sitting right across from her stuffing his face with waffles and whipped cream.
Though apparently he wouldn't be for long.
Before either Rory or Lorelai could say another word, they were suddenly startled by a loud tapping against the window next to their table. Jumping up slightly in her seat, Rory turned toward the source of the unexpected sound and breathed a sigh of relief when she was met with the sight of two very familiar identical ten-year-old boys waving at Ben enthusiastically. Zack was standing behind them, a long bright orange sled held firmly in his grasp.
Ben's face lit up at the sight of his two best friends beckoning him to come outside. All food forgotten, he whipped his head in Rory's direction and immediately started begging her for permission to go with them.
"Mom, can I go sledding?!" he asked, practically bouncing in his seat. "Please!"
"If it's okay with Uncle Zack, it's okay with me," she said. Ben was just about ready to launch himself out of his chair before the next words made it out of Rory's mouth, but thankfully she got them out in time. "Finish your eggs first!"
With two fast and massive spoonfuls, Ben heaved the remaining protein into his mouth and practically swallowed it whole. He hopped out of his chair and threw his coat and hat back on, ending up with the cap completely backwards in his haste. He was so anxious to get out of there that even his beloved waffles were left almost entirely unfinished. And by the time Luke returned to the table to set down the full can of Redi Whip he'd brought for him, the chime above the diner's door had already sounded and Ben was out in a flash.
"Where's he going?" Luke asked, watching him out of the window with surprise and confusion etched on his face.
"It appears Zack is taking the boys sledding," Rory explained, causing her step-father to sigh.
"Well, I guess I brought this for no reason then," he replied. Lorelai, however, simply chuckled mischievously.
"Oh no…" she said, reaching for the red and white can and placing it on the table before sliding the half eaten plate of waffles in front of her. "We can't have all this go to waste."
"Junkie…" Luke mumbled under his breath. Lorelai, however, paid him no mind. She merely smiled with glee as she unleashed an unreasonable amount of whipped cream onto the plate in front of her and started digging in. "Do you want something to eat?"
"You know…." said Rory. "Those waffles look pretty darn good."
Luke rolled his eyes and turned on his heel to head back to the kitchen and put her order in. As a mother, Rory knew exactly how he was feeling. But as a Gilmore, she knew there was little to no point in fighting it.
TBC….
AN: Hope you all liked it. Please don't forget to review.
