Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"Did you sleep with him?"
"No."
"Then why did you call at this ungodly hour for us to get together?"
"It's not that early and I missed you." Rory smiled innocently at the two men that were sitting across from her.
"Ace, what happened? When you called this morning you sounded like you had just finished crying."
"Did that bastard make you cry!?" Finn shouted.
"No, Finn, he didn't, but I appreciate the concern." Rory smiled.
"Then what happened?"
"I told him I slept with Dean."
"The whole story of Dean?" Logan questioned.
Rory nodded, "The whole story, but I told him while I was drunk."
"Reporter girl was drunk and told embarrassing information. That makes me so proud!" Finn beamed ecstatically.
Rory had woken up two hours after she had talked to Tristan and found him asleep next to her. She couldn't talk to him again without having some insight on the situation. She knew Lorelai and Sammie would tell her she did the right thing by telling him, but that wasn't what she wanted to hear.
Rory had slipped out of Tristan's apartment leaving a note thanking him for everything he'd done and she'd see him Monday at work. She was hoping that the note would prevent him from contacting her until then. She had decided that she knew the perfect people to get some insight from were the people that had already been in this situation.
"It was not one of my finer moments I can guarantee you that."
"What happened?" Logan asked sympathetically. He knew Rory didn't usually drink so something had to have happen for her to get so totally trashed.
"Everything was going fine! A bunch of counselors had all gone out to a club and we were having a good time. All of the girls were kind of tipsy and we went to the bathroom--"
"Why must all girls go to the bathroom in groups? Is it physically impossible for you to go if there is not someone in there with you?" Finn asked, he obviously had thought about this topic before.
"No, but until you are a girl you will never understand the purpose of going in groups. Anyways, we came back from the bathroom and I saw some girl kiss Tristan at the bar and I snapped…I vaguely remember taking two or three shots of …something."
"Ace, you and shots are not a good combo. I thought by now you would have realized that," Logan smirked.
"This is not funny, Logan! I admitted to the biggest, more horrible thing of my life to someone I could quite possibly have feelings for while I was drunk."
"There are two things wrong with that sentence." Logan told her "One, sleeping with Dean was a mistake, he lied to you and told you his marriage was over which obviously wasn't true and you definitely have feelings for Tristan."
"I've never felt like this with anyone before." Rory blushed. She thought it would be awkward talking to her ex-boyfriend and his best friend about her current relationship problems but it wasn't. It was actually easy and they seemed to want to help her figure out her problems.
"You want to know what I think? I think it's because Tristan is someone you've always wanted, but never had. You've said yourself that you had a crush on him in high school." Finn began but Rory cut him off.
"How did you--"
"You and alcohol, love, are a very bad combination." He grinned, "Anyhow, Tristan always seemed unattainable whether it was due to his reputation or yours and now you finally are together with nothing standing in the way and that scares you. You're looking for an excuse not give in to the feelings he gives you but you are coming up short. I think you need to let your guard down. He didn't write you off when you told him. Stop looking for a bloody excuse! Plus he's a pretty good looking guy…If I were gay I'd do him."
Rory and Logan looked at Finn in shock, aside from the whole he'd have sex with Tristan comment, he was completely right.
"I watch Montel…Plus, Stephanie has a tendency to leave her girly magazines lying around."
"That doesn't mean you have to read them." Logan told him.
"Oh! Don't give me that holier than thou attitude Huntzberger! I've seen you reading about how to give yourself a home manicure!"
Rory glanced over at Logan unbelievingly and he avoided her gaze, "I do a lot of work with my hands…They need to be up to par. Besides, I never got any complaints from you, Ace."
Rory groaned and covered her face with her hands, "I need more girl friends."
------------------------------
Tristan had awoken to an empty bed, not that it surprised him. He knew Rory, and when Rory got scared or couldn't grasp the situation she ran. He didn't know why he could read her so easily, she wasn't that transparent and Rory Gilmore was definitely not predictable.
He got out of bed deciding he was going to go for a run when he found a note from Rory on the counter saying in no uncertain terms that she would see talk to him Monday and not any time before. He probably wouldn't have called her before Monday, he would have given her space but there was a difference between knowing that she didn't want him to talk to her and giving her the option. Sighing he picked up his iPod and left his apartment to go running, in hopes of getting his mind off of Rory.
------------------------------
Monday had come much too quickly for Rory. She had talked to Logan, Finn, Sammie, Lorelai, and even had a short chat on the phone with Lane, and none of them had helped except Finn, which was odd.
She pulled into the parking lot to see Tristan's car already in the parking lot. Taking a deep breath she got out of the car and walked into the office. Every employee was sitting around the table except Tristan and herself. "What's going on?"
Sammie jumped up, "Nothing."
"Then why is there a staff meeting going on that I wasn't aware of?"
"There isn't."
Rory gave Sammie a strange look, "Looks like one."
"It's not."
"It's not?"
"Nope."
"So, then what's going on?" Rory questioned, looking around at the group of people that weren't making eye contact with her either.
"Nothing, why don't you go sign in? The sign in sheet is in the copy room."
"Um…Ok?"
"Great." Sammie said brightly.
Rory walked into the copy room and the door slammed behind her and was locked. "What the hell?" Rory said, trying to open the locked door.
"Don't bother." A voice from behind her said, causing her to scream and jump in surprise.
"Mary, relax. It's just me."
"Make yourself known!" She exclaimed.
"I thought I did."
"Why are we locked in a copy room?" Rory questioned.
"P.O.W." He told her.
"P.O.W.?"
"Prisoners of war."
"I know what it means, but why?"
"It's war week at camp."
"War week?"
"Yes, it's girls against boys. As the favorite male and female counselor, voted by the campers we are locked in a room and we are stuck in here until campers can get to us. Whichever team finds us is the winner of the challenge."
"You knew about this?"
"From previous years, but the coordinators don't tell us when war week is so the counselors who will be the P.O.W.'s don't know."
"This is crazy!" Rory exclaimed angrily.
"Blame your campers, they voted for you."
"So let me get this straight…I'm stuck in a copy room with you until a bunch of preteens find a way to get into the office without being seen and free us."
"Yes."
"That could take hours!"
"And it will…They have twelve tasks to complete before they can even considering getting into the office and a lunch period."
"We'll be here all day!"
"Yep."
"You planned this!" Rory accused.
"I didn't vote you favorite female counselor!" Tristan defended.
"I hate you." She grumbled dropping her bags and sitting on a table across from the counter Tristan was sitting on.
Tristan just smirked, "Coffee?"
"You mean we get sustenance?"
"It's not actual war, Rory." Tristan laughed "We do get food and beverages."
"I'm new to this."
"You're safe with me…After all I did go to military school." Tristan said smiling at her.
'Am I safe with him?' Rory thought to herself. 'I've told him a lot about my past and he's hardly told me anything.' She sighed and decided to pass the time quietly by sorting the colored paper.
Tristan realized he'd sent her off into the world of her own thoughts and he wished that he knew what she was thinking about. Why was she so uncomfortable around him? Then he remembered something Breelynn had told him, "Why are you more trustworthy than any other guy she'd meet on the street? I mean sure you've said a few nice things and proved you're not the asshole you were before, but that makes you a nice person not a confidant." He realized that he couldn't expect to be Rory's confidant, for her to be comfortable with him when she wasn't his. He was pretty sure she knew nothing about him.
"Heather McCoy." Tristan said after fifteen minutes of silence.
Rory peered up from her stacks of paper "What?"
"I lost my virginity to Heather McCoy." He clarified.
"Oh?"
"Yep, I was thirteen."
"That's young."
"Yep, I was thirteen and she was fourteen. That doesn't seem like much but the difference between eight and ninth grade is a big gap."
"Sure, one is middle school the other is high school."
"That's how I got my reputation."
"By sleeping with a ninth grader?"
"If you're an eighth grader sleeping with a ninth grader you are the man."
"So you weren't the man before?" Rory teased.
"Oh, I was. It's just no one knew it."
"Of course." Rory nodded, "So, why tell me this?"
"Because, you told me how you lost yours, I thought it was only fair."
Rory smiled, she wasn't sure it was the same concept, but it was sweet. "So, tell me…What else is there behind the mystery of Tristan DuGrey?"
"I'm a mystery?"
"Yep." Rory said putting the paper away and making a makeshift blanket out of her towel.
"Cold"
"Yeah, they have the air on full blast."
Tristan handed her his sweatshirt "Here."
Rory looked at it hesitantly but took it and pulled it on, it was three sizes too big, but it was warm and comfortable, not to mention it smelled amazing. She wondered how Tristan and all his belongings smelled so good. "Thanks."
"No problem," he smiled. "I never looked them in the eye."
"What?" Rory asked "You really need to elaborate more when you start a new topic."
"C'mon Mare! Keep up! You wanted to know the mystery of me you gotta listen!" He teased, "At Chilton. I believe you asked me how I could honestly use those girls and not feel guilty and that's how I did it. I didn't look them in the eye."
"Never?"
"Well, occasionally I'd slip and do it…Those girls were…special."
"Special?"
"Yes, special. There were very few people who could actually make me take my precious time to look into their eyes and read their emotions."
Rory's breath caught in her throat, one of the only things that she couldn't block out from her first day of Chilton was that he had looked her directly in the eye. She decided to change the subject slightly, "Your time is precious?"
"It was back then…Or at least I thought it was."
Rory gave him a questioning glance and Tristan sighed, this was harder than he thought it was going to be. He never really had to talk about how he used to be. His family pretty much ignored that he had problems at all. He had told Eric his past within the first two days of meeting and it was never spoken of again. Rory, well…Rory didn't know all of it or probably any of it. She knew the headlines and what was in the Chilton gossip mill.
"You don't have to tell me," her quiet voice said, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"No, you told me your past. It's only fair I tell you mine."
Somehow Tristan had ended up on the floor across from her so she took his hand in hers. "I am the last person that will judge you. I've done too many screwed up things in my life to even consider judging someone." Rory said, repeating his words from the night at the beach.
"Someone has a good memory."
"Only when the person is worth listening to." She shrugged.
Tristan smiled, "I told you about how everyone thought I was the man after I slept with Heather, right?" Rory nodded. "Well, it all sort of took off from there. Apparently, Heather decided to tell all her friends about our night of…whatever it was because it sure as hell wasn't love or passion and then her friends decided they wanted a piece of me."
"And who were you to deny pretty upperclassmen?"
"Exactly. So, I didn't. I slept with whomever I wanted."
"Except me." Rory smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to sleep with you, but to be honest, I don't think I would have if I'd had the chance."
"Why? Was there something wrong with me?" Rory asked, slightly put off by the fact that he didn't want to sleep with her.
"No, there wasn't. Still isn't. Rory, you were the only girl besides Paris that bothered to speak to me in words that weren't sexually provocative or baby talk. You, like I said…were …are special."
"You think I'm special?"
Tristan nodded as he leaned forward and was just about to capture Rory's lips with his own when the copy room door flew open.
Sammie appeared in front of it with Casey and Emily. "Hello."
Tristan and Rory both sat back and glanced up at the three girls, "Hi."
"Did we interrupt something? Because I can put these two in a different prison if we did." Sammie smiled suggestively.
Rory glared at her, "No, nothing was interrupted."
"Alright, well…These two were caught fraternizing with the enemy so they are now POW's as well." Sammie explained.
"We were doing it to get the boys to slow down, it was a winning strategy!" Casey defended.
"A wining strategy that only kept two boys busy out of fourteen, behind the equipment shed." Sammie supplied to the group.
Casey and Emily both shrugged and walked into the room and sat next to Rory. "What if I have to go to the bathroom?" Casey asked.
"Then knock five times on the door and Wendy who is sitting guard will let you go."
"This is crazy! We were taking one for the team!" Emily argued.
"I'll bet you were." Sammie laughed closing the door leaving the two oblivious girls with Tristan and Rory.
"So, what were you two doing?" Casey questioned looking around the copy room.
"Nothing." They both answered quickly.
"Yeah and we weren't doing anything behind the equipment shed either." She scoffed.
"I thought you had a boyfriend?" Rory asked.
"Had…Not anymore…You were right, boys say a lot of things they don't mean and apparently he didn't mean what he had said." Casey said uncomfortably knowing that Tristan was in the room.
Rory glanced at Casey then at Tristan who looked just as awkward and smiled a little, "We'll talk later."
"Ice cream?" Casey asked hopefully.
"Of course and Emily you are more than welcome to come along too."
"What about me?" Tristan asked teasingly.
"No boys allowed!" Rory told him childishly.
Tristan just laughed, "Sexist!"
"Point?" Casey asked.
Rory laughed, "So, who were the boys that you were sidetracking?"
"Tyler Donell." Emily told her.
"Dan Ridge." Casey said proudly.
"He's quite popular, isn't he?" Rory said, remembering all the lunch periods the girls had spent talking about him.
"How can he not be? Have you seen him? He's gorgeous."
"If I thought he was gorgeous it'd be illegal." Rory laughed.
"For a fourteen year old he's cute…Admit it!" Emily yelled.
"He's cute for being fourteen. I've seen his type before."
"So where does his type end up in three or four years?" Casey questioned.
"Why?" Emily laughed.
"I'm trying to see if he's worth a long term investment of my time"
"He'll make a bad choice, he'll pay the consequences, and then he'll turn into a pretty good guy." Rory smiled glancing at Tristan who just smiled back at her appreciatively.
"Oh, I don't want to wait that long for him to be a good guy." Casey said a little disappointed.
"They are worth the wait." Rory said still not breaking eye contact with Tristan which did not go unnoticed by Casey and Emily.
The rest of the afternoon Rory, Emily and Casey had occupied themselves by making up inane games or making paper fortune tellers. They'd even gone so far as to play light as a feather stiff as a board with the glow from Rory and Tristan's cell phones being their only light source. Tristan didn't really participate in these games, he allowed the girls to tell his future but for the most part he observed while playing poker and Tetris on his cell phone.
It was fifteen minutes before the camp day was over when there was a lot of yelling outside of the room and suddenly the door burst open. Emily, Casey, Rory and Tristan all stood up and came face to face with a group of boys and Eric as their leader. "You had an unfair advantage." Rory told Eric.
"I don't know what you are talking about." He said innocently.
"Yeah, right Mr. Military School."
"I think that's part of the reason Tristan was put into the copy room because they can't have both of us playing, it would be unfair."
"It's unfair anyways." Rory laughed.
"Who knew getting shipped off to a military school would help me with something later in life?" Tristan laughed as they all exited the camp office and out to the picnic tables where Wendy would be explaining what would happen the rest of the week.
All the counselors were sitting on the tables while the kids had all gathered on the ground in front of the office. Wendy was explaining the game rules, but Rory's campers weren't listening, no they were plotting. What Emily and Casey had seen in the copy room only confirmed their suspicions that Rory and Tristan liked each other. The best part of their plan, Rory and Tristan wouldn't even know they were interfering because the decoy was going to be none other than the sweet and innocent Kiah.
Reviews and Critiques are always welcome as usual!