Chapter 18
The next morning, Jess awoke at 8:00 AM, expecting to see Rory up and working, coffee in hand, or at least reading the book or a paper. But as he rolled over and rubbed his eyes, he saw that she was still lying in the other bed, completely asleep. To her credit, she'd fallen asleep on a book. One of his actually- the Holy Barbarians. He grinned. She must have found it when he was asleep, realizing that of course he never returned it to her and probably left notes in the margins. Which he had. Torn between pleasant nostalgia and a growing sense of concern, Jess decided that the safest answer either way was to make coffee, both for himself and for the woman who was causing all of this confusion.
A few minutes later, he turned on the radio, the dulcet tones of the Smiths resonating throughout the apartment. Rory jolted straight up and rubbed her eyes. After a few minutes of moaning and groaning which Jess completely ignored (only way to deal with the Gilmore insanity at times), she turned to him. "Not the Clash? Really?"
"Figured that might be taking us back a bit too far. Don't you agree?" he cocked his eyebrow, and the tiniest hint of a flush rose above her cheekbones.
"Um…do you have…"
"Coffee?" Jess held out the second mug to her, "Teeth-rotting, body-shortening and lethal, just the way you like it."
"Those might be my favorite words, and I've read Adrienne Rich," Rory said, taking the mug gratefully and drinking from it with no air or sense of propriety of any kind.
Jess had always loved how unaffected Rory was. Even though a lot of the people around the town saw her as prim and proper, and to some extent she was, he loved how she never put on airs. At least she didn't with him. She never seemed to panic about how she looked or what people thought of the way she carried herself when he was there. She didn't try to impress anybody. She just let it be. Even this much later, it was one of the sexiest things in the world to him. Diverting his mind quickly, he turned back to her.
"Alright, well it's another crazy morning, if you're willing to help, but there's not much going on tonight so I'm thinking maybe we take off, grab some food, piss off a waitress and confuse her with some marginally obscure pop culture references. Sound like a plan?"
Rory grinned. "Only if there's three separate instances of coffee inserted into the itinerary, not including the meal location. But yeah, other than the caffeine deprivation that sounds great."
"Addict."
"God." Rory took her mug with her and continued to smile as she went to gather some clothes.
A half an hour later, Rory appeared downstairs to help. "Where's…"
"Gave him the day off," Jess replied, not looking at Rory but rather focusing on balancing a particularly stubborn stack of books, "He looked like he felt like crap still. And the other's off but it's a slow day for us. We should be fine."
Finally looking up, Jess felt a brief jolt. Rory was wearing a black tee shirt, black skinny jeans, and black converse. Her hair was loose and flowing around her face, and her eyes enhanced but otherwise bare of makeup. Struggling for a minute to reconcile his feelings of being worried with those of his visceral reaction to her looking so simple, relaxed, gorgeous…
"Jess?" Rory asked, trying not to smile, "It is okay that I borrowed your shirt, right? I'm sorry, I just left mine at home."
"Are you seeing someone?" Jess asked, unable to stop himself anymore. It was his goddamned shirt. And it didn't matter whether she stayed or left or was or wasn't because she wasn't the same and something was wrong and that was what mattered right now. But some very weak, quiet part of him let out the strange, brave sound of the question he heard leaving his lips. He sighed, and turned away, continuing to stack books.
"No," Rory said, quietly, "I know you know about Logan through Luke. So I thought you would've known I was single."
"Rory, we aren't in high school anymore. There are some things even you don't tell your mother, especially right now, and it doesn't take a genius to see that," Jess responded, snapping a bit. Composing himself, he continued, "I mean, it doesn't matter either way but I just don't really feel like dealing with another Logan Huntzberger who's gonna scream at me for letting you shelve books or something."
"Fair opinion," Rory nodded, "But what about you? Who are you entangled with?"
"I'm not," Jess answered, his eyes not leaving the work, "Seriously. I'm at work all the time, and if I'm not I'm either with Luke or writing. I don't have any time."
"Me either," Rory nodded in agreement, stacking more books, "I am always going somewhere, never staying still, I can barely get a date and still now I actually cannot plan the few dates I get because I'm not around."
"I don't believe for a second that you can 'barely get a date'." Jess said, looking her up and down slowly. This time she blushed red. His eyes hungering, Jess realized he needed to regain his sense of control.
"You've always been attractive, Rory, and you know that. You don't need to fish for compliments with me, I'm a member of the handout school," Jess joked.
Rory laughed. "Of course you are!" she cracked, "Anyway, let me know what else I can do after I finish these shelves."
"You're going really quickly," Jess said, impressed, "Like twice the speed he does."
"Well, let's just say I've had more practice," Rory smiled cunningly, and carried off another stack of books.
