Summary: Rory and Jess met again when Jess drove the taxi she was in, but as luck would have it, they split without any promises of meeting again.

Disclaimer: Hahaha. No.

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"He met her, her brown hair and blue eyes nearly blinding. She was brilliant. He knew at once she would never fall for him. But he was oh, so wrong."

Rory looked at the two pages about herself. Jess' book was truly stunning.

"Whatcha reading, Rory?"

Rory jumped, surprised to see Mavin standing over her. "Just a book my friend wrote."

"Diction." Mavin looked at the front. "By Jess Mariano."

"He lived in my town for a few years. He was…something."

Mavin smiled. "And you dated?"
Rory blushed. "Well, yes."

He patted her hand in a grandfatherly way and walked on. Rory set the book down and snapped back to her article. She had gone out and bought the book during lunch and read half of it before Mavin had brought her back into reality.

"Gilmore, here's an article that needs serious editing. It's written by someone abroad, great story, God-awful writing. Use that genius degree to fix it."

Joe breezed past, dropping the folder. Rory groaned inwardly. She hated editing, she could only fix mistakes. She set to work, scratching out entire phrases as she worked. This writer truly was horrible. She finished up her article and worked on some other things, and when she looked at the clock again, it was 8. Sometime in the past 5 hours, a manila folder had landed on her desk, with a post-it telling her to fix it and add it into her next article. She decided to deal with it tomorrow, and left extremely early, going to a small Italian restaurant she liked. She ordered a plate of pasta and eagerly opened the book again.

"Oh, by God, look, someone's reading his book."

Rory looked up and saw two twenty-something guys staring at her. One had dark brown hair and green eyes, the other was an African-American with dreadlocks all around his face.

"Sorry, we're just stunned someone actually is reading this book. He's only sold like, 300 copies."

"Jess?"
"Yep. The one and only. Thank God. Two of Jess would be enough for the whole world to fall to sarcasm."

"I see. Yeah, I, uh, I knew Jess."
The two exchanged glances and focused their attention back on Rory.

"Hey, you don't happen to be, uhm, Rory Gilmore, do you?"

"I'm Rory."

"No freaking way. Wow."

"Do you know about me?"

"Well, he says he took you home during his route last night, and has been…God, so crazy today."

Rory bit her lip. "Then, can you, not tell him, I was, here, tonight?"

"Sure. If I can ask, is there a reason behind that?"
"I just, don't want him to know."

"No problem."

"It was nice to meet you…um…"

"Carson Dalley." The guy with dark blonde hair stuck out a hand.

"And Eric Leland." The other guy, with dreadlocks, nodded.

"Eric. Manners." Carson smacked Eric's shoulder.

"Sorry." He laughed and stuck out his hand as well. Rory grinned and shook his hand.

"And it was good to meet you as well, Rory. We might see you again, eh?"
"I honestly have no idea."

"We will. Jess couldn't forget someone like you. And I'd bet that you couldn't forget someone like Jess." Eric spoke as if this was inevitable.

Eric and Carson went over to another part of the restaurant. Rory reflected on this odd meeting over her dinner. She finished up and paid her bill. She took the subway home, a rare occasion for her, and called her mom.

"Hey sweets."

"Mom. He's back."

"Who?"
"Jess."

"What?"
"He drives taxis at night. He drove me home last night. He wrote another book. Diction."

"Sweetie, do…do you want…?"
"No." Rory spoke quickly, unsure.

"Then don't worry about it." Lorelai chose not to comment on the possibility.

"But he wrote about me, in his book."

"So? Sweetie, you had a history with him. You can't change that. He was a part of your life. But don't worry about it, especially if you don't want him."

"But do I?" Rory thought.

"I guess. God, I am just so, messed up. So confused."

"Why?"

"Because I never thought I'd see him again. I thought that after we kissed two years ago, it was over, done."

"Honey, I can't tell you what to do…the first reason is that you're 23 years old now, and can figure it out. The second, is that I honestly don't know. But you have time. I promise."

"When I need you to tell me what to do, you can't, when I don't want you to, you do."

"I'm sorry. I try."

"Well, I've got go, articles and stuff."

"Bye sweetie. I love you."

"Love you too, Mom. See you later."

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Jess continued to sell little known authors at the newly opened publishing company/bookstore he helped run. He continued to drive his taxis from midnight to four in the morning. But wherever he was, Rory was never far from his mind. Ever since the ride he had given her 3 weeks ago, she had been present. A million different memories came back, from when he was 17. It seemed like yesterday.

"Yeah but I didn't understand a word of it, so I had to reread it when I was fifteen." Jess remembered her smile, her soft, soft, smile as she spoke.

"I've yet to make it through it."

"Really? Try it. The Fountainhead is classic."

"Yeah, but Ayn Rand is a political nut." That line. The line that had caused them to realize it was each other. Or, Rory to realize it.

"Yeah, but nobody could write a forty page monologue the way that she could."

"Okay, tomorrow I will try again, and you will. . ."

"Give the painful Ernest Hemingway another chance. Yes, I promise."

"You know, Ernest only has lovely things to say about you." When he had first let that slide out, he had been embarrassed. But Rory had later said it was an incredibly romantic thing to say.

"Mariano. Some books, in the back, get them."

Jess smirked at Carson as he shook off the memories. "Drop them, Dalley?"

"Quite possibly."

"Got it." Jess went back and picked up the books. He walked into the front, the bookstore half and saw Rory wandering around. He was shocked, but pulled himself together. He went up behind her.

"Don't read that book." He muttered, careful not to move his lips.

Rory jumped up, and knocked over a whole row of books. "Oh my God, Jess."

"Who did you expect? I do work here. You know that." Jess stooped over and helped her pick up the titles.

"I know, I just, didn't expect that. And why shouldn't I read this?"

"It's explaining the life cycle of a piece of gum."

"Isn't there a little kid's book about that?"

"Yeah but I'm pretty sure the little kids book isn't so, uh, risqué."

"Oh, God. We live in a sick world."

Jess shrugged. "The guy who wrote it gave us a ton of money a few years back, it's the least we could do."

"By printing his book? Whatever happened to just paying back the loan? You could've upped it and added a bonus."

"This way, we just strongly discourage the buying of the book…actually, we refuse to sell it. We just give the guy a couple hundred bucks a month so he stays happy, and chuck all the copies."

"Wow, quite a shady business."

"I guess. But all of the other books in here are amazing, none of them are very well known at all, in fact, if it's even been near the New York Times bestseller list, or any bestseller list, we refuse it. No offense to the Times, of course." He nodded at Rory.

"None taken. And I'm sure the Times would live."

"So, what are you doing here?"
"What do you mean? I'm at a bookstore. I read. I know you hated school, but really, the pieces fit."

Jess raised his eyebrow. "Really. This small bookstore in the middle of New York? That no one has ever heard of. Quite curious."

Rory sighed. "Well, I read your book. And I just…wanted to…I don't know. I just wanted to see if there was anything else good where you worked."

Jess knew there was more, but he had learned not to press with Rory. She would come around, if you stuck around to listen.

"Well, I do work here, I can give you some opinions."

"Okay."

Rory and Jess wandered around the bookstore for the next three hours. Based on the fact that the store itself only carried about fifty different books, Eric and Carson knew that they were not just talking about books. They left Jess alone, and continued about business as usual. But Jess would be in for hell tonight, they were to make sure of that.

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"So, then, I talked to him for three hours." Rory sat at Lane's house the weekend after, visiting home for a weekend.

"Three hours? God, I can't even talk to Zach for two hours without taking a break."

Rory laughed. "Well, we just have a strong bond of friendship."

"Oh yeah, just friendship."

"Lane."

"Rory. Don't play this stupid act on us. Me, your mom, yourself. You still like him. Everyone knows it. He knows it. You know it, but you won't admit it. That doesn't change the fact."

Rory shifted uncomfortably on Lane's porch. "No. I don't."

Lane sighed and looked at Rory. "Whatever you say. Just don't let him go again. He let you go before, don't do the same to him."

"I'm not going to, because I don't want to be involved again. How could I miss the boat on someone I don't want to be involved with?"

"I don't know."

Zach came out, holding Steve and Kwan. "Say hi to Mommy and Auntie Rory, boys."

Steve and Kwan both gurgled and went back to sucking their sippy-cups. Lane took Kwan and left Zach with Steve.

"God, look at them, they're so big."

Lane nodded. "I know, it seems like just yesterday they were no bigger than a bag of flour."

"But they're already one."

"I know. Do you think that all kids grow up fast in their parents' eyes?"
"I can't say from experience, but I know my mom always complains I grow up too fast." Rory looked at the clock. "Speaking of which, I'm so sorry, but I've got to go meet her."

"No problem. Stop in tomorrow morning though, just for a quick goodbye. And don't miss the boat."

"Of course." Rory and Lane exchanged a quick hug and Rory set off into the night, walking towards Luke's. She opened the door, and the bell jangled.

"Hey, sweetie. How was Lane?"

"Alright. She…got me thinking…about…" Rory was about to finish her thought, but Luke came in. Luke had no idea, and one thing she and her mom had agreed on was the fact that Luke would not be involved in this.

Lorelai gave her a sympathetic look. "Sweetie, she may be right."

"Right about what?" Luke looked up from the coffee he was pouring.

"Paris Hilton. She may be right about one-night stands."

Luke started to walk away. "Somehow, I don't think I want to know."

Lorelai grinned and exclaimed rather loudly, "Lukie, you know you do."

"Keep it down, there are other customers here."

Lorelai looked around. "Who? Kirk? Andrew? That's two people."

"And loyal customers."

"Ten years of service does me nothing. Am I not loyal?"

"Well yes, bu-"

"Do I not give you money for your services?"

"Dirty!" Rory interjected.

"Yes, but-"

"Then I am just as loyal as Andrew or Kirk."

Luke grumbled as Lorelai beamed. Rory smiled and took another sip of her coffee and continued to think about Jess. They had made no further plans; Rory had just left with 12 books and a smile on her face.

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Jess had gotten back to the apartment he shared with Eric and Carson that night and was greeted to a lovely round of questioning. By midnight, they knew everything he knew about Rory, but that didn't mean they knew Jess' thoughts. Which was good. Because, damn, he wanted Rory back. Everything about her. And they couldn't know that.

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Author's Note: I think that was pretty long…but it held a lot of things. But beware, a twist is ahead. Review if you like, if you have constructive criticism as well…

And the italicized part is from A-Tisket, A-Tasket, and belongs to AS-P, not me.