Story Title: Razor
Chapter Title: We Need to Find A Better Place to Hide
Pairing: Lit
Rating: T (for now); some language
Summary: Future Lit; Rory's trying to get a foot in the door in the journalism world and she's dragging Jess along with her against his will. If past performance is the indicator, he wants to avoid any contact with her; professional or otherwise. Story and Chapter titles taken from the Foo Fighter's song, Razor off In Your Honor.
AN: Apparently some didn't notice the language warning in the last chapter, so I will point out that it's up there, just like it was in the last chapter. I can't seem to write Jess without a little bit of potty mouth. (shrugs)
She tapped her pen against her legal pad absent-mindedly and then checked that she'd put batteries in her tape recorder for the fifth time since she sat down.
Her interview was late, and she hated when people were late. She had a million things to do, which were now going to be abbreviated or sliced completely out of her schedule, all because of one careless person. It's not that she didn't love her job; in fact, it was the job she'd been dreaming of for quite some time. It was a feat that at her age she'd landed such a prestigious job. It was the stepping stone to much greater things in her life.
It also meant she didn't have quite as much say so in what she wrote about. She'd been promised that her own work would be evaluated and considered, but that when a story had to be written, she would be the one writing it, like it or not. She had held her tongue when her boss had barked this particular assignment to her over the phone last night—giving her very few details and no time to prepare. She had shown up on time, despite her current situation. She would have taken a few more minutes or hours to try to come up with prepared questions, but she had assumed that the next big thing in literature would have things to do and places to be.
Apparently, none of them included the New York Times editorial offices at three o'clock in the afternoon, as scheduled.
She took a deep breath in, resumed her pen bouncing, and focused on the fact that she loved her job. That everyone in her life understood how important it was, and no one would be too put out by the fact she was running late because of it. Surely Logan wouldn't care, and for sure his father knew the demands of a reporter's life. No one would even notice how late she would be after finishing this 'in depth and fresh look into a young author's life', as verbatim from her boss, going all the way back uptown to change, waiting for a cab, and making it all they way back downtown to the party being thrown in her honor. She was almost positive of it.
She was so close to calling the apartment to see if Logan could run her outfit past the building on his way when the main door opened slowly and the dark-haired man looked around the mostly empty reception area. She got a slight twinge in her abdomen, at the uncanny likeness he shared with…. Her mouth went dry as she stood up once he'd spotted her. Her tape recorder fell from her lap and hit the ground, and she bent down to retrieve it before going to work at retrieving her pen from the couch cushions.
Great start, Gilmore, she thought to herself. Next stop, Pulitzer.
When she looked up again, he was standing about five feet from her, a bemused expression on his face. He kept one hand on his carrier bag and used the other to push some hair out of his eyes.
"What?" she demanded.
Jess held up both hands in self defense. "I'm just standing here."
"What are you doing here?"
He looked around the offices, clearly wondering the same thing himself. "I think I'm late for a meeting. What are you doing here?"
"Getting stood up, apparently," she gruffed, all her belongings now getting shoved back in her large handbag. Her mother had insisted it looked way more professional than a briefcase, telling her that it was no longer the 80s, and if she insisted on a briefcase, she'd have to have shoulder pads sewn into all her blazers.
"For a three o'clock interview?" he asked, ducking his head slightly to make eye contact with her.
"How did you… no," she shook her head slightly and laughed. "You're kidding me."
"I would have been here sooner, but my agent was a little light on details, then called about an hour ago, telling me to get my ass up here," he rolled his eyes. "Guess you really do get what you pay for."
"Or pay for what you get," she offered.
"Yeah," he nodded. "So, you want to do it here?"
She blinked at him. "Uh, we could, or we could go into my office. It's not much, but it has chairs," she said lamely.
He nodded. "Lead the way."
She could feel his eyes on her as she walked down the hall, and she did her best to just put one foot in front of the other, walking at a normal pace and resume her professional demeanor. She wouldn't take out her anger on any other author had they been so blatantly late, especially one that had given her a crappy apology while explaining the confusion. She didn't need to lash out at him, just because she could tell he was put out to be here. She wouldn't be able to read any one else's body language that well.
Though the thought occurred to her that if it had been anyone else, she might not have had the advantage of knowing their work, having read it so thoroughly, or having a laundry list of questions swimming through her mind at the very mention of his name, let alone at seeing him sitting down across her desk from her.
"So, shall we just jump right in?" she clicked her recorder on and smiled at him.
"Uh, sure," he nodded.
"Great. So, I loved your book."
He nodded curtly. "So I've heard."
She frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, then thought better of her tone. "I mean, you look displeased."
He raised an eyebrow. "You did print it in a major newspaper. Did you think I forgot how to read?"
Okay, so now maybe she was justified in wanting to strangle him. "I didn't know that was going to be published. It was an audition piece."
"Huh," he nodded, smiling slightly, in that crooked way he had. Like half of him was amused, and the other half couldn't be bothered.
"What?"
He looked at her, a maniacal gleam in his eyes. "Didn't they teach you to ask more descriptive questions at Yale?"
She was not going to let him get the better of her. She'd written an exceptional article, good enough to make the Times on her first shot out, and it'd garnered her a job offer. Just because he'd written a book didn't make him superior to her.
"How was it you came to find out that your book had landed on the bestseller list?" she asked, her pen poised to write down his words, though between her ability to soak in everything he'd ever said to her and her mini-recorder, she barely needed to take notes.
"My phone wouldn't stop ringing," he shrugged. "It's rare that my phone rings so early in the day. No one I know is up that early, so I let it ring. By the time I checked my messages, I'd racked up seven offers from agents and all my buddies had called to congratulate me on the piece, and," he smiled that smile again.
"And?"
"You don't want to know," he met her eyes.
"On the contrary," she assured him.
He cleared his throat. "Fine. They wanted to know if I'd fucked the reporter and if I enjoyed it as much as she did."
Her mouth fell open, unable to form any other proper response.
"I told you."
"Look, Jess," she let out a disturbed version of a laugh, "If you don't want to take this seriously," she shook her head.
"I am. It might not have been the answer you wanted to hear, but it's the truth. Or should I just start making up answers I think will amuse you?"
"This is my job, Jess. This isn't some high school prank that you can blow off."
He smiled at her. "So, no magic tricks?"
She knew he was kidding, trying to calm her down, but as she checked her watch and realized she was never going to get a good interview out of him as unprepared as she was, she only grew more restless. What she needed was time to skim back over his book, this time with the eye of a reporter not as a bibliophile, and come up with solid questions that he couldn't bullshit his way around.
"You got a hot date or something?" he asked. He always did notice everything.
"Kind of."
He didn't need personal details, this wasn't a social call. He hadn't come to see her, she reminded herself for the millionth time; this was business.
"Like, an early bird special kind of evening?" he teased when she remained quiet.
"You do realize I'm the one that's supposed to be asking the questions, right?" she shot back.
He leaned back in his chair. "Then ask."
"Can I level with you?" she leaned forward to prop her chin on her palm, her elbows solidly positioned on the desk.
He mimicked her posture. "Please."
"It's just, my boss is kind of sadistic, and he didn't give me your name or any kind of notice, and ideally I would have been a lot more prepared and we'd be done by now," she checked her watch again. "Actually, I sort of have no choice to be done by now, because I'm already running late."
He nodded. "So, we're done here?"
She shook her head. "No. I mean, I don't have anything."
"Rory," he cocked his head to one side.
She held up her legal pad. Her blank legal pad. She stared at him with all the authority she could muster. "I have nothing, save for some inappropriate banter and a lewd comment on behalf of your friends. Unless you want me to get that gem down as a quote and write a piece about how chivalry is dead," she shook her head.
"You really believe that?" he leaned back again, as if settling in.
"What? No, I mean, it doesn't matter. My assignment is to get an in depth look at your life."
"So write one. You know the answers to most of the questions you'd end up asking anyhow."
"How do you figure that?"
His eyes softened for a minute, but in the blink of her eyes, he'd concealed whatever emotion he almost let out with a look of cool resignation. "You know my life story."
"Barely," she muttered.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"Look, I need an interview."
"And you're blowing it off for a date," he informed her.
"It's not a date!" she huffed. "I have an event."
"An event?"
She knew she wasn't going to get him to agree to give her more time without details. Jess Mariano didn't work that way.
"Huntzberger Media Corporation is throwing a party in my honor, to celebrate my new position," she pursed her lips and squared her shoulders. She felt weird flaunting her new-found status, especially knowing that her connections in the journalism world had been expedited in a way she'd never imagined when she first entered the halls of Yale, all because she was sleeping with the heir to the biggest magnate in the country. She felt worse hiding that fact and letting him think she was sitting where she was due to the power of her writing.
"Fancy," he let out a low whistle. "You wouldn't want to miss that."
"I can't," she swallowed.
"So…" he trailed off, waiting for her to fill in the rest.
"So, I propose we try this again."
"Again?" he blinked, not liking the plan.
"I need time, to prepare and come at this from an angle. Some angle, any angle," she frowned.
"Look, I have to get back to Philly tomorrow," he begged off.
She was thinking as fast as she could with him staring at her like that, like he knew her every thought and had a smart comeback for every suggestion she'd toss out at him. She could invite him back to her place, to unnerve him, but immediately she thought of Logan. If he had any sense in his body, he'd not be okay with Jess being in their home. Not that he had anything to worry about, but that didn't mean that she couldn't conjure up an image or a feeling of what it had been like to be with Jess, to be touched by him and feel wanted by him. She was surprised at the lack of effort it took, after all this time.
But this wasn't about trying to be the only one he let into his world. At least, not like she had once upon a time. Yet her apartment still didn't feel like an option.
"Can we meet tonight?" she offered, deciding that she didn't need a location just yet.
"Tonight?"
She gave him her own half smile. "I do my best work in the middle of the night, all hopped up on caffeine," she assured him.
His smile melted something in her she hadn't been aware was frozen. "I'm sure you do."
She looked down at her legal pad and swirled the tip of the pen, making long, swooping designs. "Is that a yes?"
He sighed. Clearly it wasn't his first choice of how to spend a night in New York. "What time?"
She stood up, itching to be on the subway. "Um, I'm not sure."
"Okay," he stood up as well and secured his bag back around his torso. "Where?"
"Um," she racked her brain, trying to think of a place that might give her the higher ground, or heck, even a neutral spot. This was her town, not his anymore. She wasn't sixteen and at the mercy of his….
"I know a place," he offered. "They're open all night, and they've got decent coffee. Not as good as Luke's but better than what Starbucks extorts people for. I mean, if you want," he added, a gleaning likeness to his old self. The old self that she'd found so irresistible that she'd all but lost her mind trying to learn about and be with. She reminded herself that they were both different people now.
"Sure," she shrugged. "Look, I really do have to go. I'm not sure when I can get away," she began and pulled out her new Blackberry. She wasn't used to the thing yet, but Logan had given it to her as a congratulatory gift when she got her new job, insisting it was just what she needed to keep her working life in order. Apparently, he was attached to his like a life support system, but she'd be happy just to be able to access her address book on the stupid thing.
"Here," he took the object from her hands, hit a couple of buttons and handed it back. "Just give me a call."
"Wait," she said, as he went to exit her office, staring at the address book that he'd added his name and number into. "How did you do that?"
He just smiled. "I'll see you tonight."
He was gone a moment later. Not only had she failed to get any answers, but she was left with more questions that she couldn't possibly bring herself to ask. She realized her boss probably had seen this as a nice surprise, to let her get a chance to talk to an author whose work she admired. It wasn't supposed to be an exercise of wills, or a rush of old emotions that she thought were long past buried, if not dealt with and gone.
Perhaps she'd brought it on herself, using his book as an example in her editorial piece, but nothing else had seemed quite so fitting as a foil to her thoughts, and it was obscure enough to show that she had range. She wasn't going to give them pop culture and old standbys. She was a fresh voice, one that wanted to examine every facet of the human condition.
For now, she was late, like a modern-day Cinderella, but she made one last stop at the bookstore to buy another copy of the book that the clerk assured her she was lucky to get because it was literally flying off the shelves. Her other copy was still in a box from her recent move, and she'd need a book to slip into her clutch anyhow.
She never knew when she'd get the opportunity to read at these things.