Chapter 5

A few weeks later, Jess was making decent progress on his current book. Not only did he finally have a protagonist (or as close as he ever came to one) but he'd also found the flow and some semblance of an idea of where he wanted to go with things. He was spending most nights working and most days at Truncheon, settled into the kind of rhythm he liked best. He'd never talked to Matt, and Matt had never approached him. It was clear that Chris had told him to just let it blow over for a while and that there wasn't a point right now. Relieved, Jess had been able to resume business as usual, ending Tuesdays and Thursdays with nights at the bar with the two of them, laughing at their combined Abbot and Costello/A Beautiful Mind tactics of meeting women. In this sport Jess was mainly a spectator, and though he occasionally indulged one of the many women who would try to catch his eye in a little conversation, he never pursued anything and usually just acted as wingman, when he wasn't busy screwing with their attempts to charm the fairer prospects.

It was a Thursday night, but Jess had decided to stay back. He was exploring the city on his own, something he did on a regular basis just to satisfy that need for solitude inside of him. For the sake of pragmatism and so as not to concern his friends, he'd curbed his desire to be alone over the last few years until he became a reasonably social member of their little society. He actually started to enjoy the regular company of others, but still, sometimes he just needed his space. This was one such night. It was around 9:00 and he had just left one of the lesser-known bookstores in the area and was struggling to balance the two bags of books he was carrying, without breaking the paper, when his phone rang.

He sighed and dropped the bags, pulling off to sit on the outer window ledge of a nearby building. "Jess."

"Monosyllabic today?" he heard Luke's voice crackling across.

"Only for the people I like. How's life?"

"Same as always. You?" "Same here."

"Really?" Jess rolled his eyes.

"You wanna just ask your question already?" he said, "Or would you rather dance around the subject for hours? Or we could skip. Let's skip."

"Alright, alright," Luke grumbled, but Jess could hear the smile in his voice, "Lorelai told me Rory made an unexpected visit to Truncheon."

"Yep."

"You okay?"

"Me?" Jess asked, confused, "You're asking if I'm okay? Shouldn't you be asking her that?"

"Well, you know Rory. If she wasn't I would've heard from Lorelai. Who isn't quite as interested in your emotional state."

"I don't think she believes I have an emotional state," Jess shrugged, choosing not to correct Luke's assumption about Rory. When things were really wrong with Rory, she actually avoided Lorelai. Not that he thought the encounter had upset her, "Anyways, I'm fine."

"You sure?" Luke pushed on, ignoring the warning in Jess' tone, "You don't have to lie to me Jess, I know how you were before. I'm on your side."

"Well the sentiment's appreciated but honestly I wish everyone would lay off a bit," Jess replied, not unkindly, "I mean, I'm not the same guy I was back then. And she's not the same girl. Of course it mattered, but that's not what it is anymore."

It is what it is. You, me.

"Well, okay. If you say so," Luke said doubtfully, "Anyway, that was only part of why I called. I'm wondering if you have a lot going on this weekend."

"Nope," Jess responded, "Need a break from the Twilight Zone?"

"Something like that. Lorelai's out of town and the timing just worked out," Luke continued, "And April's in New Mexico so it was either you or camping, and in this weather, that's not an option."

"Glad to be your last resort. I'll see you at Truncheon whenever you get here."

After hanging up, Jess decided to take a detour on the way home. When Rory had asked if that diner was his Luke's, he hadn't been lying when he said he'd only been once or twice. He didn't really have a Luke's here. But he did have a bridge.

Bladen's Court was a local thing, and even among the locals it was losing steam. The ghastly rumors of its past (murders, etc.) deterred a lot of people from making it their quiet corner in the big city. But Jess was never one to be afraid of old stories.

Finally setting down the bags (a pretty sizable haul, he had at least twenty books), he sat down on the steps of an old brick house. The alley was mainly houses but this one was unoccupied, having been on sale since he moved in. It was red brick and beautiful but Jess had never broken in, in spite of the fact that he certainly remembered how to pick a lock. He just sat on the steps sometimes when he wanted to read or think.

As he started leafing through the pages of the book (an old paperback copy of Franny and Zooey, at this point he probably had about eight different editions and had memorized almost every word), he started thinking about Luke's call. Luke was always the one who called him, even today. Luke was always the one who visited him and the one who put in the effort. Sure, Jess did everything he could from Philadelphia but some part of him refused to take the initiative in that relationship. Even after all this time.

He sighed deeply, inhaling the scent of the old pages. He knew what he needed to do and even though it would have to wait a week or so, he was already dreading it. But he wasn't a kid anymore and Luke was good to him. He'd proven that he wasn't going anywhere, and Jess needed to start treating Luke like he knew that was true.

After another twenty minutes or so he stood up and started walking back towards Truncheon and his apartment overhead. Yes, that's right, his apartment. Matt and Chris had moved into an apartment in the outside world like real adults, but Jess decided to just take on the extra rent payments and live there himself. With the privacy, it was actually an ideal situation. For one person the apartment was the perfect size and when living alone Jess was actually pretty neat, save for the endless stacks of books all over the place. He wasn't the type to go crazy and go back to work in the middle of the night like Matt always did or to awkwardly bring girls back to where he met them and have to say he lived there, like Chris. Jess was pretty simple, and the space was perfectly fitted to his current needs. He'd moved out the other two beds, knocked out a wall (not hard, considering the things Luke taught him a long time back) and had some work done on a couple appliances and fixtures and for the last eight months it had been his very own place. A foreign concept for someone who never really had one, which was probably a contributing factor to his reluctance to move.

Jess walked in the door and up the stairs, quickly unlocking the door and bolting it behind him. A wave of exhaustion overcame him as soon as he saw the stacks of papers strewn across his desk and the unmade bed inviting him to just let go for the day. Sighing, he stripped down to his boxers and switched off the lights, dropping the bags of books haphazardly on the floor by the desk. He climbed into bed, setting his alarm for 6 so that he could handle the preparations in the morning before his shift.