First thank you for all of the reviews! Second I have to say that fairieangel is the reason I updated so quickly. Her review inspired me. Oh and I have to admit I couldn't think of anything grosser than sharing an ice cream cone with Tommy Lee. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you like this chapter!
Paris found Doyle passed out on the couch when she walked into the small apartment. She groaned. She knew Doyle wasn't very good at drinking liquor. She found his empty bottle of Malibu under the coffee table. She threw it in the trash can and then stared at him for a moment. After grabbing a blanket out of the linen closet she went into the bedroom to study. She couldn't deal with this right now. She understood that he had been frazzled about this lunch. Still that didn't mean that he needed to drown his worries in alcohol. She grabbed her Genetics textbook off of the dresser along with a highlighter. Lunch with Jamie had been everything Rory promised it would be. It had been fun. It had been normal okay well as normal as any lunch with her could be. It had been refreshing. She had apologized for how things ended and he had said that he understood. The only downside to the whole thing was that she realized how much she missed spending time with Jamie. She knew that when Doyle was finally sober she would have to tell him how things went. That scared her.
Jamie sat in his car questioning whether or not this had been a good idea. He'd called around and found out where Paris was staying. He would have followed her home but knew that she was paranoid enough to notice him behind her. The setting of her apartment building was a little more "street" than he would have liked. Finally he got out of his car and locked the door behind him. He crossed the street and made his way inside. He looked at the mailboxes until he saw hers. He memorized the number 3C. The fact that she was living in a six story walk up shocked him. He wondered if her parents knew about this. The sheer number of locks on her front door didn't surprise him because well he knew Paris. She was as anal retentive as they come. He lifted his hand and paused for a moment before knocking.
Paris sighed as she closed her book and made her way to the front door. It took her a minute to open it due to the fact that she had to unlock at least seven locks. She saw him standing there and couldn't help but smile. "Jamie."
"Paris I just I needed to see you one last time." Jamie admitted quietly.
Paris looked at Doyle and shook her head. "I'd invite you in but…"
"But your boyfriend is in there and you don't want to start a fight." Jamie finished for her.
Paris nodded. "He's passed out drunk but yeah. I had a good time today Jamie."
Jamie grinned. "I'm glad. It felt like old times." Jamie paused. "Paris what does this mean for us?"
Paris looked down at her feet. She had never felt so uneasy before. "It means. It means. I don't know what it means Jamie. I have a boyfriend. We live here together. I have a life here. I mean you're in Boston. We aren't very good at long distance."
"I'm transferring to Yale for law school." Jamie had been waiting to share this detail with her. He wasn't sure why he hadn't told her at lunch. He just didn't. He'd made the decision a while ago. He wasn't happy in Boston. His parents were smothering him. He also thought that maybe just maybe if he came here they could be together. He knew that a big assumption but he couldn't help it.
Paris was shocked to say the least by his news. "As of when?"
"As of the last three months. I came down here to talk to a professor and to work out some details about my transfer. I start in January."
Paris closed her eyes and wished she could think of what she wanted to say next. "That's six weeks away. I'll call you Jamie. The thing is Jamie if I break up with Doyle it'll cause a lot of rifts."
"I'll wait for your call. Just so know you can stay with me and I promise you won't need nearly as many locks at my place." Jamie took that as a sign that he had a chance. "Lock all of your doors." He instructed and then he made his way back toward the stairs.
Paris watched him go. Despite the stress that was coming with this situation she couldn't help but smile. He was willing to live with her. He was willing to wait for her. She had never had someone want her so much in her entire life. She walked back into the apartment and found Doyle struggling with a bottle of aspirin. She undid the top for him as she sat down next to him. "Don't you have an exam tomorrow?" She asked softly.
Doyle closed his eyes for a moment to stop the room from spinning. "Yeah I do. How did lunch go? Was that him in the hall?"
There was something about the anger in Doyle's voice that made Paris angry. Still she knew it was to be blamed on the booze and the sudden arrival of a boy Doyle knew nothing about so instead of yelling at him she just let it slide. "It was nice. I had a nice time catching up with him."
"You didn't say whether or not it was him in the hallway." Doyle pointed out as he popped two of the small white tablets into his mouth.
Paris nodded. "It was him. He just came to say goodbye one more time."
"Why?"
Paris was getting tired of the way he was speaking to her. "He's going back to Boston until January. Then he'll be transferring to Yale for law school."
"A lawyer huh? I pegged you to only go for creative types." Doyle wished he had another bottle of Malibu.
Paris clicked her tongue. "I don't have a type. You know Doyle I get you are upset about this whole situation but you aren't making it any better for yourself. I know I didn't tell you much about Jamie so here it goes. I met Jamie in D.C. the summer before my senior year. He was handsome, smart, and my equal when it came to debating. We dated seriously until I met Asher. I had never dated anyone other than Jamie so I fell for Asher. I broke up with Jamie in the cruelest of ways. He came to visit me and I ditched him. I told him in the end I couldn't do it anymore because there was someone else. Still he was never mean to me. He never held it against me. After Asher died I considered calling him but I wasn't sure what to say. I stopped thinking about Jamie after a while. We got together. When Jamie called the other day I felt like I was that girl who was about to be a senior again."
"The question is do you love him or do you love me?" Doyle needed to know. He couldn't avoid this question any longer.
Paris closed her eyes to think for a moment. "I love you both. I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. I need time. I need you to just be there for me."
"You have a nerve demanding patience when you never give it." Doyle spat.
"I won't fight with you Doyle mostly because you're still drunk. I'm going to bed. You can sleep on the couch tonight." Paris got up from the couch and went into their bedroom. She shut the door behind her and willed the tears not to fall. She couldn't be emotional right now. She grabbed the textbook she had been looking at earlier and she went back to studying. Paris could always count on her textbooks to be there for her. She briefly considered calling Rory but decided not to thinking that Rory was probably with Logan or sleeping.
Lorelai listened to the eight voice messages that Luke had left on her phone. The first one he sounded worried. The next four he sounded irritated. The two after that were apologetic. The last one was bored and disinterested. She fixed her makeup and then made her way from her Jeep into the home she had raised her daughter in. She found Luke sitting at her kitchen table staring at a cup of coffee. She was surprised that he was actually awake. For a while there she had mentally donned him Rip Van Winkle. "Hey I got your messages."
"Yeah but you still didn't feel like calling me back?" Luke snapped.
She clicked her tongue and then let out a resigned sigh. "I was in the middle of something."
"Oh yeah was it with Christopher?"
"No it wasn't. I was with Rory. I apologized for my actions." Lorelai ignored the harshness in his tone when asked her that last bit.
A crease immediately formed in the middle of Luke's forehead. "Why would you apologize? You did nothing but push her to go back to school and to stay away from the little prick Logan."
A few months ago this was the exact way she wanted him to feel about her choice. Now though after a lot of reflection she knew it was the wrong way to feel. "The thing is I not only pushed her towards school I also pushed her away. I made her choose between going to school and things being kosher between the two of us or her choosing to take time off and basically removing myself from her life. Plus you know Logan isn't as bad as we thought he was. Actually he's really nice. He loves her. You can tell he loves her. He also can give her the world and does his best to do so."
Luke just sat there not understanding where this sudden change in opinion had come from.
"Luke I have to know if you've picked a date. If you haven't then I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to just keep on truckin'. I want a date so that I can tell people to clear that day." Lorelai pleaded.
Luke closed her eyes. Couldn't she see that he wasn't ready? Couldn't she see that this wasn't the right time for him? He shook his head instead of saying no. When he opened his eyes he could see she was crying. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head and made her way upstairs. She pulled out her cell phone as she threw a few things into an overnight bag.
Emily Gilmore was sleeping deeply when her phone began to ring. Her heart pounded loudly as she feared that something had happened to Richard who was on his way back from Barcelona. "Hello?"
"Mom, it's me." Lorelai said in a defeated tone.
Emily looked at her clock and groaned. She was surprised that Lorelai would call so late. Especially considering how frosty things were between the two of them presently. "Lorelai is everything okay?" She was still nervous but not nearly as much as she had been before.
Lorelai could always count on her mother to worry about her. "Can I stay at the house with you tonight?"
Emily was surprised by the question. "Are you sure? I mean you realize Rory is still saying in the pool house correctly? Has something happened?"
Lorelai zipped up the bag and headed downstairs towards her car. She couldn't be here with him tonight. She wouldn't do it. "Rory and I made up today. Luke and I have broken up Mom. I need somewhere to stay."
"Of course you can stay here Lorelai. This will always be your home. You still know the code to the alarm don't you?" Emily was honored that Lorelai would want to stay with her tonight.
Lorelai saw Luke standing by the door. "That I do. I'll be there in twenty minutes or so. Thank you for this." Lorelai hung up her phone and put in back in her pocket. "I'd like your stuff to be gone by the time I come back tomorrow."
Luke couldn't believe she was doing this. "So this is it. We're over. You're going to throw everything we have down the drain just because I can't set a date?"
"Don't fucking down play the fact that you won't set a date. We are over because Luke if you loved me then you would have married me the night I asked you. The only real love I've ever experienced I experienced when I was still a girl." Lorelai told him calmly. "So we're over. I'll see you around." Lorelai opened the door and then got into her car. She sat there for a second just fighting the urge to sob. Finally she cranked the engine and drove back to Hartford.
Emily was sitting by the front door waiting for her when she heard Lorelai pull into the drive. She listened to the front door open and she heard Lorelai punch in the familiar code. "I'm in here Lorelai."
Lorelai dropped her bad beside the entrance to the parlor and then walked over to where her mother was now standing. She smiled when she saw her mother had her arms open ready for a hug. She walked into the hug and let out a weak laugh.
"What?"
Lorelai couldn't help but smile at the situation. "I just never thought that the first time I would run to my mommy I would be in my late thirties."
Okay so that was yet another update. I bet you couldn't believe that I updated so quickly. I really liked this chapter because I thought it was very angsty. You see I am a soap opera fan so I love drama and I love incorporating all of the characters I can. I hope you liked it. Review please! Thanks!