This Crazy World
Part 9
Jess sat down in a chair by one of the desks, feeling exhausted. He closed his eyes for a second and then pulled out his phone, dialed a number and slumped down further in the chair, waiting for the call to go through.
"Yeah," came Luke's voice from the other end after three signals.
"Next time Liz decides to come visit here, you warn me," Jess demanded without introduction.
"Jess?" Luke asked, startled.
"No, Santa Claus," Jess retorted, irritated.
Luke rolled his eyes and chuckled, signaling to Caesar that he was going upstairs. "She came to see you, huh?" he said as he walked up the stairs, making it more of a statement than a question.
"She told me you knew she was coming."
"I didn't…" Luke began, but stopped at Jess' snort. "Ok," he relented, "I might have heard something about it."
"Great," Jess scoffed. "Thanks for the warning."
"I wasn't sure she'd go," Luke defended himself.
"Well, she did."
"So it seems," Luke agreed and paused for a second. "So…how did it go?" he asked curiously.
"She wanted to get me a rug for my room."
"And…" Luke wondered.
Jess frowned. "Have you seen their house?"
"Yeah…"
"Point made."
"Well, it's a bit…different," Luke finally settled on.
"Different?" Jess said baffled. "That's the understatement of a century."
"It's not that bad."
"Right," Jess scoffed.
"Ok, the colors are a bit…strange and the doll collection freaks me out," Luke admitted.
"Thank you."
"How did you convince her not to?" Luke asked, genuinely curious.
"That's classified information."
Luke chuckled. "Which basically means you threatened her."
"I…didn't threaten her," Jess halfheartedly protested. "Exactly." He grimaced.
Luke shook his head and let out a laugh. "Do I even want to know any more?"
Jess thought for a second. "No."
"Ok then, I won't ask."
"And if she tells you anything, I deny all involvement."
Luke chuckled to himself.
Jess let his eyes drift and caught sight of something green at the other end of the room. "She got me a plant," he said.
"Oh?" Luke said, trying not to laugh at the disgusted tone in Jess' voice. "What kind?"
"How the hell should I know?"
"Well, what does it look like?"
"Green?" Jess asked, glancing at the plant again.
"That's very specific."
"Yeah," Jess agreed, "and completely irrelevant considering it'll be dead in less than a week."
"The plant already got its death sentence?" Luke asked amused.
"Yeah, it got stuck with me."
Luke chuckled. "My condolences to the plant then."
"I'm sure it appreciates them."
"You know she only means well," Luke said.
"Yeah," Jess sighed. "I just didn't remember it being this exhausting."
"You should get some practice then. Come and visit next weekend."
"I don't know Luke…" Jess said hesitantly.
"Last weekend you said you had vacation left. You haven't used that yet, have you?"
"You really want me to come up?"
"You left so quickly on Sunday that I never really got a chance to thank you for taking care of the diner for me."
"Luke, you already thanked me enough," Jess protested. "You really don't have to do it again."
"I know, but I want to." Luke sighed. "For that and for pushing me to talk to Lorelai."
"Luke…"
"No, I want to," Luke repeated. "I'll even let you cut down the traffic light."
"You bribing me?" Jess chuckled.
"I…"
"I can come up for a while if you want," Jess said with a shrug. "But I can't before the middle of next week."
"That works too," Luke said and smiled. "So, how've you been?"
Jess chuckled to himself. "I've been good." Then he frowned a little. "How did the talk with Anna go? That was yesterday, right?"
"I'm not sure," Luke frowned. "Good…I think."
"That's good," Jess said a bit hesitantly.
"I'm not sure if I understood exactly what she said."
"From what I hear she has some strange ideas," Jess remarked.
"Yeah," Luke agreed with a sigh. "And the latest events didn't exactly help the situation."
"It'll work out," Jess assured him.
"I hope so," Luke said and took a deep breath. "But enough about that now. I should get back to work."
"Yeah, you do that. Dinner rush's about to start, right?"
"Yeah," Luke smiled. "I probably shouldn't leave Caesar alone with it."
"Nah, probably not," Jess agreed with a short chuckle.
"Let me know when you're coming up," Luke said.
"Yeah, I will."
"Good."
"Bye Luke," Jess said with a smile and hung up the phone.