Author's note: Thank you all for such a warm reception for this story, and really a warm welcome to writing for this fandom. It's a new one for me, but these two have caught my heart and haven't seemed to let go yet!
Chapter 4: Learning Curve
Any chance for sleep had been shattered after that statement. It was the crème de la crème on a day so unusual, so surreal that Bill Murray would be asking her for pointers in case he wanted to head a Groundhog Day sequel.
It'd taken 10 minutes of a furious, whispered argument before Luke agreed to not sleep on the floor, mainly because the room was so small that the probability of her and Rory accidentally stepping on him was nearly 100%. He'd gone back to her bed, and she lay next to Rory and tried her very best to sleep for the rest of the night. Every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was those blue eyes on her as he told her he lacked the self control of a celibate monk, the intensity of his gaze so strong that had she been at home, certain items in her nightstand would be getting quite a bit of use.
But Lorelai wasn't at home, and her daughter was snoozing barely a foot away, so she couldn't even allow herself to think about anything having to do with sex or Luke or Luke and sex or being naked or being naked with Luke or chocolate sauce … ok, she could think of chocolate sauce. And ice cream. And pie. And coffee. Great, now she was hungry, and the croissants were gone. She wasn't desperate enough to see if Luke had managed to finish his meal after all. She would risk ruining her anti-vegetable rep.
So she stared at the ceiling and tried thinking of everything unappealing in her life. Somewhere between Taylor dressed in a Rainbow Brite outfit and Kirk becoming an opera singer, Lorelai risked glancing across the room to see if Luke was asleep, only to find his eyes open and staring at the ceiling as well. He glanced across the room at her, and she quickly looked away, fixing her eyes back on the ceiling tiles.
She closed her eyes and sighed. Well, great. Now she was going to have to start all over.
—-
"Ground rules," Lorelai muttered to herself as she ponder face-planting into the absurdly small cup of coffee she held. Someone really needed to teach Europeans about proper coffee sizes. Nothing smaller than a vat would do. "Definitely need ground rules."
"For what?" Rory asked absently, once again absorbed in the adventures of Harry Potter. A small notebook sat on the table in front of her, where she jotted down notes on the differences between the book she held and the one she owned back at home.
Mainly for having sexual feelings for one of your best friends while your daughter was in the same room, but as close as she and Rory were, Lorelai wasn't about to tell her that. She waved it away. "Sharing really small spaces between a guy and two girls. I think Luke nearly passed out when he saw the box of pantyliners and tampons at the top of my toiletry bag this morning."
"Luke has a sister and had girlfriends. I think he's aware periods are a thing."
"Yes, but probably not literally shoved in his face." As what happened when he'd rolled over and opened his eyes to see that toiletry bag with feminine products and makeup spilled everywhere just a few inches from his face. Lorelai, who'd been hunting for her eyeliner, would never forget that priceless moment when Luke's face turned an interesting shade of purple, had yelped "jeez," and rolled off the narrow bed in an attempt to look away. Sadly, Rory had missed the entire thing because she'd been in the shower.
"We'll just keep our bags closed," Rory said practically. "I learned how to contain my things to a limited space. One must do that to successfully live with Paris for a summer."
Lorelai made some sort of sound of vague agreement and watched as people passed outside with colorful umbrellas, jockeying for sidewalk position as they handed their extra burdens. She and Rory were now on day 3 of sitting at the same cafe near the hostel, which turned out to be part of a British chain that had expanded into France. It was seeing quite a bit of Gilmore money between the coffee and bakery trips, plus it'd been where they found the veggie wrap the previous afternoon. This time, with a light rain pattering outside, they migrated inside and took up residence in a corner table, making sure just to order enough to keep them from getting thrown out.
"How long does it take to hit up an ATM?" Lorelai wondered.
"Hope it didn't eat his card," Rory replied absently. She peered over the edge of her book. "He did place a travel note on it, right?"
"I'm sure he did. This is Luke, and he was the one who told us to do it to our cards to begin with. He's always super careful about …" Her brow furrowed. "What happens to an ATM card if you use it in France when you're supposed to be on a cruise on the other side of the world?"
—
It gets eaten by the ATM.
Lorelai walked in the lobby of the HSBC, eyebrows arching at a tiny crowd clustered around the ATM as the English-speaking teller fished through the machine for the Bank of America debit card it had consumed when the machine realized that the owner of said card wasn't supposed to be in France. Luke stood back a bit from the crowd, hands shoved in his pocket as he glared at his new mortal nemesis.
"So. ATM craved a nummy snack, huh?" Lorelai patted his arm comfortingly.
"This is not the way I wanted to learn the fraud protection on the thing worked," Luke groused.
"I didn't think they fished out cards like this."
He shrugged. "Well, I showed them my passport and they let me call the bank back in the states on their phone. Wouldn't want to imagine the cellphone bill otherwise. It's gonna be high enough as is." Luke gave Lorelai a knowing look.
Lorelai knew it was her fault and gave him a somewhat apologetic smile. "Sorry … not sorry. So, it should work after this?"
"Yeah, the bank sorted it out. They needed to restock the machine anyhow, so it worked out."
"Speaking of that, any word on your luggage?"
"It should get here in a few hours." Luke glanced about, uneasy at the attention they were drawing. "Look, you two go out, do some stuff. This leg of the trip only lasts another couple days, right?"
"Have you looked at the weather outside? I don't know about you, but I prefer to see Paris when I'm not worried about having to book passage on an ark. Do you have any extra clothes with you?" She plucked at the shirt he wore, now in its third day of use and a little worse for wear.
"Just some emergency things. Extra T-shirt, underwear, socks. I changed into those this morning. Few toiletries, my camera."
Lorelai pressed a hand to her chest. "You mean the answer to life's biggest mystery was in my hands last night, and I totally didn't find the answer to it?"
"What's that?"
Her smile was wicked, bordering on the edge of slightly reckless. "Boxers or briefs?"
Before he could groan, the teller approached them and handed over Luke's debit card. "Here you go, our apologies for the inconvenience."
"Nah, it's my fault. Wasn't thinking." Luke profusely thanked the teller, and Lorelai added in hers as well. When the teller managed to make her escape, they joined the end of the queue for the ATM, letting the people who had to wait on them go first. Then Luke took out 500 Euro and handed Lorelai 400 of it.
"This is a lot of money, I can't take all of it," she hissed at him.
"What if your card's not in Avignon? Put that money away, don't let people see it. Geez, Lorelai." Luke did his best to cover the cash before Lorelai could wave it about everywhere.
"It'll be there! You can't just give all of this to me!"
"Wasn't that the whole point of this exercise?"
They argued their way to a 300/200 split, and she insisted on writing an IOU on the back of the ATM receipt before dragging him back out and to the small café that had become their Parisian home base.
"What's this?" Luke eyed the sign suspiciously, even though he'd been right outside it the day before. Granted, his jet lag had been to the point where Lorelai was surprised he remembered her name, much less where he was at.
"Pret a Manger, or however you say it. I can't begin to pronounce it right. Our home away from home since we got here." She grinned at his scowl. "What?"
"How can you eat at this place? Do you have any idea what it serves? You can't even say the name!"
"I can't say the name of most of the things in this country. I know what it serves, Luke. And so do you. Where do you think Rory and I got that veggie wrap you ate last night?"
She saw the flash of recognition in his eyes, and he had the grace to look a bit sheepish. Luke followed her in to see fresh-basked pastries along the back wall and a cooler on the side filled with an array of sandwiches, soups, juices, and healthy sides to go along with everything. Lorelai poked through the cooler, suddenly ravenous for more than a croissant.
"This actually meets your seal of approval. Everything is made on site and the leftovers are given to the homeless at the end of the day. Look, there's green stuff in all this. I couldn't even avoid the spinach."
"It's good for you." Luke selected a sandwich with avocado and chicken and a bowl of tomato soup to go with it.
Lorelai wrinkled her nose at the sandwich. "You eat avocado?"
"What, you like avocado when it's in guacamole."
"Yes, as guacamole and served with a huge pile of tortilla chips, sour cream, and cheese. Not as avocado where it's all slimey and gross."
Luke shook his head. "It's not slimey and gross when you eat it before it goes overripe."
Lorelai huffed and grabbed a ham and cheese wrap. They ordered more croissants, coffee, and tea, and walked back to Rory, who had added chocolate croissants to their food supply while they were in the bank.
"So, what's the plan?" Lorelai asked as she slid into the booth next to Rory, who had abandoned Harry Potter and had her guidebook and itinerary out, more notes scribbled over it.
"Well, we need to integrate Luke into the trip."
"Integrate me?" Luke took the chair across from the bench seat and swapped cups so Lorelai had coffee and he had tea.
"When we came up with this trip, we developed a system," Lorelai explained.
"It's a very logical system." Rory pushed a piece of paper over to Luke. "For every place we stay, Mom and I each pick an activity for us to do together. Then we have one day where we completely go our separate ways. We can do whatever we want as long as we meet at an assigned place at a specific time and tell each other what we did over supper. That way, we can get some space. So, you need to decide on a group activity for all of us, and on Thursday, we'll all go our separate ways and do something on our own."
"Which, coincidentally, is how Rory has already managed to ship half the British Library back to Stars Hollow."
"I'm disowning you," Rory cooly informed her. Lorelai stuck her tongue out at her. "So, here's what we've picked for us to do together in Paris so far." She tapped the paper, which held some of the usual tourist destinations: the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame, the Catacombs and the Bastille. "Versailles is the furthest out, so that'll take the better part of the day, so we may have to rule that out. "
Rory handed the guidebook across the table, and Luke absently flipped through it. He glanced at the paper, back at the book, then at the paper again. "All right. How about this?" He pointed to something that was vaguely familiar-looking on the first page he stopped on. "That doesn't seem to be on your list."
"You just pointed at the book!" Lorelai objected. "We only do guidebook roulette if we're really stuck!"
"You need to read it. Do you seriously want to go see," Rory angled the book toward her, "the Palais Galliera?"
He shrugged. "Sure, sounds fine."
"Luke," Lorelai sighed.
Luke stared at their exasperated expressions. "What?"
"It's a fashion museum," Rory explained.
He paled ever so slightly. "What!"
Rory took the guidebook back from him to read aloud. "The Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, otherwise known as the Palais Galliera, is dedicated to French fashion history. There's everything in there from costumes to underwear. Lots and lots of women's underwear through the centuries."
"Aw, geez."
"So, if you really want to go there …" Rory picked up her pen and hovered it over the itinerary, her eyebrows lifting ever so slightly.
Luke beckoned the guidebook back and Rory handed it over with a smug smile as Lorelai hid her laugh in her swallow of coffee. He read through it slower, turning pages until something caught his eye. He scanned the paragraph and nodded. He handed the guidebook back to Rory, tapping the middle entry on the page. "There."
"Is this your final answer?" Lorelai quipped.
Luke knew it was another pop culture reference lost on him and merely tapped the book again. "Yes."
Rory silently read the guidebook entry to herself. She arched an eyebrow and nodded with approval. "Good choice! Mom, you get final approval."
"I thought you said this was a democracy?"
"It's one where the mommy is in charge," Rory informed Luke and handed the guidebook to Lorelai.
She read through it, pleased and a touch excited by what he'd chosen. "I like it! This looks great!"
"All right." Rory wrote Musée de la Magie on the itinerary with a pen, sealing their commitment to visit.
—
Luke's suitcase was waiting for them by the time they got back to the hostel. It was large, plain, sturdy, proper and not at all suited for a backpacking trip, and even he conceded that he needed something better if he was going to follow Lorelai and Rory all over part of Europe.
"I don't want to drag this thing all over the place," he decided as Lorelai opened it. "What are you doing?"
"Making sure you're properly outfitted," she replied and began to shift through his clothes.
Luke shoved his hands in his pockets. "I imagine what I'd wear on this trip is the same as the cruise."
Lorelai laughed. "Aww, Rory, do you see this?"
"What, Mom?"
"It's the face of pure innocence before we utterly destroy it."
"Again? It's the third time this month."
Lorelai decided she was only the tiniest bit jealous to see that most of the items in the suitcase were the clothes she had purchased for Luke a couple years earlier. She admired herself for her tastes and was not-so-secretly glad that Nicole would no longer be the benefit of seeing Luke in tailored trousers and nice dress shirts. She kept shifting clothes around, ignoring Luke's protests to let him take care of it himself. She waved him off and he stood awkwardly near the bed, scowling at her as she went through everything.
"Jeans, T-shirts, ah there's the flannel," Lorelai said approvingly. She snagged out a shirt and a T-shirt and thrust it in his general direction. "Here, go take a shower." She tossed his jeans at him and he barely managed to keep them from landing on top of his head. "I'll make a list of what you need, which thankfully isn't plenty. Don't you own a pair of shorts?"
"One, and they're not here."
"You need shorts."
"I'm perfectly fine in jeans."
"Tromping around Europe? In July? Lorelai raised an eyebrow.
"I'm fine," Luke bit out. "I need the toiletry kit out of the duffel."
Rory fished it out and handed it over. She pulled out his new camera at the same time. "Oh, wow! This is cool! It's a DSLR, isn't it? Can I try it out?"
"Sure," Luke replied, his tone far more kindlier than the one he used with Lorelai.
"He'll listen to her, not to me," Lorelai muttered.
"I heard that."
Lorelai frowned at the clothes in her lap. "Where's your baseball cap?"
"I didn't bring one."
Lorelai and Rory snapped their heads up, gaping at him in shock. "Who are you, and what have you done with Luke Danes," Lorelai demanded.
"What?"
"How do you not have a baseball cap?" Lorelai managed. "It's like Indiana Jones without his bullwhip!"
"Arthur without Excalibur," Rory added. "Robin Hood without his bow."
"Luke Skywalker without his light saber!"
"Geez," Luke all but swore. "Look, it just didn't seem appropriate, OK?"
"How," Lorelai asked, "could it not seem ..." Her voice trailed off as she remembered his preferred cap. The only cap he'd worn since she'd given it to him as a gesture of thanks for helping them out when her father had been in the hospital. He'd even worn it through their fight the previous summer, and that had been the one thing telling her he hadn't given up on their friendship after all. It said something, that he didn't bring the baseball cap she'd given him on his trip with Nicole. She wiggled her toes and gave him a smile so bright that she felt the shock reverberate from him.
"We'll get you another," she told him, and he simply nodded in response.
She'd reached the bottom of the bag by then, where various colored and white rolls of clothing remained. She plucked out a pair of socks and handed them over. "There you go."
Luke sighed at her. She blinked. "What?"
"I need …" His voice trailed off, and his cheeks went flush. Luke glanced a bit nervously at Rory. "I um need … those." He made an absent gesture to the bag.
"These?" Lorelai's fingers rested on one of the colored rolls.
"Yeah. Yeah, just hand me that one."
It was a blue roll. It was in her hand before she realized what it was and she nearly dropped it. Instead, she all but shoved it at him and he buried it among the clothing pile in his arms. "I'm just going to go …," he stuttered.
"Right, you just go …"
"OK." He turned around and promptly walked into the door.
"Luke!" Lorelai and Rory sprang to their feet as he shook his head and waved them off.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just … right." He made a more graceful exit after that.
"That was awkward," Rory stated the obvious. She glanced at the piles of clothes on the floor. "Will that all go in a backpack?"
"It's not that much actually." Lorelai knelt to scoop everything back into the suitcase. When Rory wasn't looking, she quickly pulled out another colored roll and unrolled it just enough to answer one of life's greatest mysteries.
Boxer briefs.
She efficiently rolled the briefs back up and dumped the dress clothes on top of them.
—
Luke felt like himself again for the most part after the shower, after he tried not to think about the communal aspect of it too much or that Lorelai now knew exactly what sort of underwear he wore. Not that he particularly minded other than for the fact Rory had been in the room. He'd seen the way the color rose on her cheeks, and he knew if she hadn't done a closer inspection after he left that she wouldn't be the Lorelai he knew. He wondered if she was imagining them on him. Before he could enjoy that imagery too much, loud voices reminded him of the communal aspect of the showers again and that was far more effective than a cold shower.
He no longer felt he'd spent a week on an airplane by the time he carried the little bundle of laundry back to the girls' room and drew up short to find it empty. Surely he hadn't been in the shower that long. 20 minutes, tops? That included dressing and undressing. Not only was their luggage gone, but so was his. He started to wonder if he'd just walked into someone else's room when Rory's head popped out of a room two doors down.
"Hey, Luke! One of the bigger rooms opened up, and we got it for the rest of the Paris part of the trip. Mom says that way you don't have to have a guilt trip over taking up one of our beds."
She opened the door wider to reveal a slightly larger room with two sets of bunk beds. Rory's gear was already on the top bunk of one and Lorelai was laying on the top bunk of the other, absently kicking her feet.
"We couldn't decide which one of us would take the bottom bunk, then we realized that neither of us would. Unless you have a thing for the top bunk," Lorelai informed him.
"No, I'm fine with the bottom." Luke glanced from bed to bed and it felt less odd to sleep under Lorelai's bunk. He moved his duffel bag to that bed, and almost before he could blink, the remaining bed was filled with an odd assortment of whatever the girls had pulled out of their backpacks plus his own suitcase. The Gilmores, he realized, had the uncanny ability to take over a room fast.
A quick query at the hostel's front desk later and they were on their way to Carrefour for supplies. It was far enough away that they had to acquire subway passes and joined the crowd of commuters. Luke wasn't a stranger to the subway, having taken it in New York City to visit Jess and Liz. It wasn't his favorite means of travel, but being crammed into a narrow tube underground for short periods of time was far better than spending an extended period of time on a narrow tube in the air. From there, they made their way to the department store."
"It's like French Wal-Mart," Luke observed as he gazed down one of the aisles, then realized he was talking to thin air. Both Rory and Lorelai had disappeared, and he just sighed and shook his head. He found Lorelai three aisles down, arms loaded with candy and snacks.
"What is with the junk food?"
"Necessary supplies!"
"You're eating out every meal as is because of the trip. Do you want to rot your insides even further?"
"I eat at your place almost every day," she pointed out.
"Yeah, but then I can at least control the crap that's being fed to you," Luke muttered. When he wasn't around, fruits and vegetables were invisible to the Gilmore eye and palate. Lorelai knew better than to throw nothing more than a token argument with him about whatever healthy foods he managed to sneak into her diet. Ignoring the oncoming gluttony storm, he glanced down another aisle, snagged a shopping basket from a display, then headed down it.
"What are you doing?" Lorelai asked, following him with her armload of junk food. She dumped her haul in another basket and picked it up.
"You said you wanted coffee." Luke gestured to the display of electric coffee makers and the items next to it to make coffee in alternate ways. He grabbed several items, tucking them in the basket. "This is the stuff I need to make your coffee."
Lorelai poked at a narrow box. "Is this a coffee grinder?"
"Yeah, a handheld one."
"Interesting." She picked up the grinder and turned it over in her hands until she found the English instructions. "You have a coffee grinder in the diner?
"Yeah, I grind the coffee fresh every day."
She gaped at him. "Seriously? I've never seen a coffee grinder in the diner."
"Because it's in the kitchen where you're not allowed."
"I'm finally learning the secret behind your coffee! What's this?" She tapped the glass pitcher with an odd lid in the basket.
"French press. We don't exactly have the room for a full-sized coffee maker. You take the ground coffee, add hot water and after a few minutes, depress the plunger. It traps the grounds in the bottom and you pour out the remaining coffee."
"Huh. That would have been useful when I lived in the potting shed with Rory. And this?" Lorelai put the grinder back in the basket and pulled out a piece of white plastic with two thick coils of metal attached to it.
"Immersion heater for when we don't have access to a kettle." Luke selected three travel mugs, then kept working his way through the aisles. There was a brief discussion over backpacks, and he vetoed the neon orange one that Lorelai insisted would go well with his plaid. She held his basket while he tried on several before settling on a sensible blue one that could bear a good bit of weight. They crossed over to the grocery section of the store, where he grabbed Ziploc bags to store everything and a couple boxes of tea for himself. He perused the coffee selection and grabbed a bag of dark roast and another of light roast whole beans, then attempted to wave Lorelai off once they reached the spices.
"Why don't you go meet up with Rory?" Luke suggested.
Lorelai hefted her basket. A few more snacks had found their way into it as they shopped, and maybe an adorable scarf or two. "I'm good. What else do you need?"
"Lorelai, you should really go meet up with Rory."
His suspicious behavior made her own spidey sense tingle. "No, I think I should stay right here. Afraid I'm going to discover the secret behind your coffee?"
"Yes," he said shortly. "Now, go."
She stood her grown. "I want to see what makes your coffee yours."
His eyes narrowed. "Fine. I won't make you coffee."
"Oh," she purred, "you'll make me coffee."
His scowl deepened, and he leaned in toward her. She could smell the toothpaste on his breath from his shower, and her heartbeat kicked up ever so slightly. "I will make you tea. Nothing but tea. Green tea."
"You wouldn't."
"Watch me."
"OK, Mom!" Rory ran down the aisle and grabbed her arm. "Let's not poke the bear. I want coffee."
"But I was about to learn his secret!" Lorelai protested as Rory dragged her off.
"No, you weren't," Luke said after them.
Lorelai scowled as Rory wrangled her to the end of the aisle. "I hate you."
Then he did the unexpected. He smiled back, annoyance replaced with humor, and damn it if her heart didn't stutter. "No, you don't."
Once they disappeared around the corner, Luke quickly grabbed small bottles of nutmeg and cinnamon and buried them in the bottom of the basket.
He took the break from the girls to swing by the pharmacy, mentally checking off what he had in his toiletry kit against what he needed. There were things Nicole had told him the cruise line would provide, so he needed more shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. He poked through the bottles before finding something that smelled vaguely close to what he had at home and added them to the basket. He wandered into the next aisle, and he drew up short before one of the displays.
Condoms.
Luke hadn't brought any with him, because Nicole had an IUD and he wasn't quite sure what direction their trip would take regarding intimacy. He figured if things had headed in that direction that he could purchase them on the ship.
Now he stared at them, wonder if … maybe if … he shook it off and quickly hurried past the display. No matter how their conversation ended the previous night, no matter how much he wanted it, it was unspeakably selfish to even consider sex with Lorelai. Not with Rory around. If it was going to happen, it would be when they were back in Stars Hollow and had a proper talk about everything. That was that.
He reached the end of the aisle, glanced over his shoulder. With a sigh, he walked back, grabbed a box of condoms, and hid it in the bottom of the basket along with the spices.
A few aisles away, Lorelai left Rory contemplating candy choices, explaining that she needed to stock up more of their toiletries. It wasn't entirely a lie. She poked through travel-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner, picking out ones she couldn't find at home that smelled amazing. One strawberry and papaya scent was appealing enough to where she got the full bottle. She turned down the next aisle to pick up more tampons, noticing the display of condoms out of the corner of her eye.
She walked past them, slowed, then glanced over her shoulder. No sex feelings. No sex feelings, she repeated like a mantra. But while her body was in the middle of a Parisian department store, her mind was back on the hostel rooftop, her best friend one step away from undressing her with his eyes as he informed her that her preconceived notions about his self control didn't live up to reality.
She had only seen Luke around two women, really. Nicole and Rachel. He showed little outward sign of being involved with either of them and knew just from their past conversations that he did his best to keep control on everything. It was a product, she surmised, of too many years of being jerked around by Rachel's comings and goings. Lorelai knew what that felt like. She had Christopher, after all.
Lorelai wondered what would happen if Luke's self control shattered?
She wondered if she could be the one to finally do it.
I always wanted to be.
She quickly walked back to the display, grabbed a box of condoms, and shoved it in the bottom of her basket before racing to the checkout, determined to get everything bagged and out of sight before Luke and Rory could see her purchases.