Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. They belong to Amy Sherman Palladino and the WB.
Rating: R (for language)
Characters: Rory, Tristan
Dedication: To Sus because she looks hot.
Author's Note: Yes people, I am finishing all my fics. Or at least I plan on finishing ones that are very near the end.
Part Three: Heat
It was too hot to be outside.
Officially the hottest day of the year, it was dry and the air stilled and stuck unpleasantly to Rory's skin. She tugged the strap of her white tank top over her shoulder and adjusted her skirt as she tried to stop from squirming in her seat. Across the wrought-iron patio table Emily Gilmore and various DAR members were talking animatedly, unaffected by the weather. Rory couldn't remember why she had agreed to accompany her grandmother to another DAR meeting but she was regretting it now.
She lifted her third glass of lemonade to her lips and took a long sip. Her eyes met kind and amused blue ones, and despite the drama she shared with the owner's grandson she found herself smiling back guiltily in return. Rosalyn DuGrey hitched her head to one side and mouthed, "Go for a walk."
Rory realized that the other women were so indulged in their planning that they wouldn't even notice if she followed Rosalyn's suggestion. She smiled at the older woman and mouthed back a "thank you" before she pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. Emily glanced up briefly, smiled distractedly and then returned to the ongoing debate.
She followed the path to the extensive gardens that the DuGreys called their backyard and let out of a sigh of relief. It wasn't any cooler in the gardens but at least she didn't have to listen to old women babbling about the right color combination for an event that was still weeks away. She breathed deeply and made her way to the pool, she knew the DuGrey land almost as well as she knew her grandparent's estate and she didn't want to dwell on the implications of that.
Thoughts of Tristan were kept in a double-locked, booby-trapped file in the back of her mind that would take Mission Impossible-like stunts to access. And when a few errant thoughts slipped out, she easily clobbered them and wrestled them back into the file; choosing sheer avoidance as the best course of action.
Not that she had much of a choice, even if she wanted to do something about it, Tristan was too stubborn, too uncaring, to listen to reason.
Forcibly wrenching her mind away from these thoughts, Rory worried her bottom lip, debating whether or not to take a dip in the inviting blue pool. She knew the DuGreys wouldn't mind and Rosalyn had basically told her a million times that she was free to come and go whenever she desired. Of course that was before The Great Separation as Lorelai had dubbed it, which Rosalyn knew absolutely nothing about so Rory wasn't sure if Tristan's grandmother would have been that friendly knowing that she was no longer a part of his life.
It had been almost three months since she had last seen him, when she had stood in the rain painfully pouring her heart out while he callously rejected her obvious remorse. After that, her remorse had quickly turned into anger which she channeled constructively into taking on stressful finals and it had kept her going right through graduation and the first few weeks of summer.
And now she was just tired.
She fell asleep night after night due to sheer exhaustion but hadn't had a proper night's sleep since Christmas. Even going back to Stars Hollow, her sanctuary, her home, hadn't been the anecdote she hoped it would and only left her with an ennui she couldn't seem to shake off.
Finally deciding that it was just too hot not to jump into the inviting water, she looked around to make sure she wasn't being watched and stripped down to her bra and panties. Depositing her clothes on the chaise lounge nearby, she dove elegantly into the pool, barely breaking the water and surfaced at the other end. She grasped the ledge and let out a tired chuckle; she was never athletic and her muscles protested to one simple length. After taking a few breaths, she went under again ignoring her body's request to stop; the water was refreshing and helped clear her mind of thoughts as she concentrated on pushing her limbs through the water.
From the living room window of his grandparent's house, Tristan had seen her strip and dive into the water. He stood there for a minute, mouth slightly open in shock while his mind registered the fact that Rory was standing at the edge of the pool in her pale-pink-might-as-well-be-naked underwear. Despite everything he couldn't stop his body from reacting to a sight he'd only envisioned in his fantasies and he automatically moved forward and made his way outside to the pool.
He had known his grandmother was having her DAR meeting on the patio so he took the other way, hoping to avoid their fawning and small talk. He hadn't known Rory would be there even though for reasons unbeknownst to everyone, she enjoyed working for the DAR. He would have avoided visiting his grandparents if he had known. Or maybe he would have come all the same.
With her he never knew what he was doing.
Despite his best efforts to keep her and thoughts of her at bay, and the fact that he had completely and – yes, he admitted it with extreme guilt – callously cut her out of his life, she still managed to pop into his thoughts. More than he cared for, in fact. He had done the right thing – the smart thing – by cutting his losses. It was impossible to be Rory's friend, to care for her so much and have this cloud of possibility; of 'if only' hanging over his head every time he got within a few feet of her. Even when he tried hard to deny it, deny himself the pleasure of kissing her senseless, it was always there, just hovering beneath the surface. The only thing that kept him going was knowing (hoping, praying) that she felt the same way, felt the heat between them that had existed way too long.
Apparently, he was very wrong.
When Tristan stood at the edge of the pool, she was at the other end; under the water moving with a grace he hadn't known she possessed her body straight and sleek. She turned, with little trouble and headed back to his side, unaware of his presence. She looked naked and he had to remind himself not to go there, before he said or did something he would regret later.
Rory surfaced and looked directly up at him, grasping the ledge and wondering if he was really standing there or if the sun had finally fried her brain and she was starting to imagine things. Running a hand over her face, she found her voice and managed a weak, "Tristan. You're here. What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Europe."
He pocketed his hands in the shorts and shrugged, looking away. "Trip got postponed. Grandfather had some stuff to take care of at home so we're leaving in a few days."
"I didn't know," she explained and ran a finger over the surface of the water, still grasping the ledge with one hand trying to hide the fact that she was mostly naked. "I wouldn't have…I mean, if I'd known, that you'd…or not just you, anyone-"
Tristan finally looked at her, levelly. "It's okay. No one minds."
Rory nodded and kicked her legs uselessly under the water. She debated whether or not to just get out of the water, casually walk to her clothes without asking for his help and give him an eyeful of her body or ask him to hand her a towel and break her promise of never needing him for anything. "Um…"
He seemed to understand her predicament grabbed a towel from the chaise lounge nearby. Opening the bright blue towel, he stood beside the ladder and held it for her politely looking away as she ascended out of the water. For some odd reason, him being so okay with her presence, being so unaffected by it as if she were some stranger hurt her more.
Tristan deliberately kept his eyes off of her, not wanting to torture himself with the sight of her in all her glory; pink, flushed, wet and so Rory that he would surely spend countless nights wondering how she would feel under his fingertips.
And even as he thought this (his self-preservation instinct wasn't honed so perfectly after all) he couldn't stop himself from wrapping the towel around her, so innocently, and tucking it in a knot, in the middle, in the valley between her breasts. Hesitantly, almost casually, the back of his fingers, grazed against her dewy skin and his knuckles (mistake, such a fucking mistake) bumped against the swell of her breasts.
She shuddered at the delicious contact and when her eyes met his, her lips opened on their own accord. But before she could even say his name, his arms fell away from her and he took a step back as if burned. Swallowing past the lump in her throat and curling her fingers futility into her palm, she choked out, "How's it working for you?"
Tristan looked at her, this time, questioningly. "What?"
She shook water out of her hair with one hand as the other clutched onto the towel and tried to remain nonchalant even as her words came out bitingly, "Hating me, how's that working for you?"
The corner of his lips twitched but in a way devoid of any humor. "Don't start, Ror."
In the past, he had always used "Ror" affectionately but now it just sounded bitter and ironic. She bit her bottom lip in frustration and decided that she had had enough of obsessing about him; she was tired of wondering how he felt or if he missed her and tired of hurting over him.
Wasting her love on Tristan DuGrey had become an ugly habit.
"You're right," she finally said and brushed past him to get to her discarded clothes. "My mistake. I don't know why I thought you'd want me -"
He didn't know what compelled him to do it; maybe it was the heat of her so close, smelling like chlorine and summer (and because she was fucking Rory) or maybe it was the heat alone but he circled her wrist in his hand as she passed by and pulled her back to him, their bodies softly bumping against one another. Her hands immediately went to his chest as she tried to regain balance and her eyes (Jesus Christ why did everything come back to those blue eyes?) widened in surprise as she stared back at him.
Fuck, he thought as his hands grabbed onto her hips and the staggering inevitably of the moment hit him. What the hell am I doing? His eyes opened and trained on her shocked ones, he lowered his head and covered her lips with his. She remained completely passive, unmoving and he hated that he feared it was from disgust more than surprise but then her eyes fluttered closed and the hands on his chest moved up and gripped at his shoulders, softly kneading as her mouth responded to him.
Finally, she thought almost blissfully somewhere in the back of her mind as his arms banded around her and brought her closer, finally. Then his mouth opened and slanted over hers, deepening the kiss, and she couldn't think at all.
Rory had imagined and dreamed herself into a frenzy wondering about what he'd taste like, how he'd feel and now she knew that once would never be enough. Passionate, strong, erotic, possessive - the kiss took from all of her and she could only hold him closer and match him need for need.
Nothing his imagination could conjure up would have been as powerful as actually kissing her, holding her warm and deliciously wet and perfect in his arms. Her enthusiastic response, the way her tongue danced hotly with his and the soft purring sound coming from low in her throat made he ache, made his whole body burn in a way he had never dreamed. Her fingers were now in his hair and his hands had worked up her body to undo the knot of the towel. It fell between them and he greedily reached for flesh, reaching between their bodies to take her breasts in his hands. She gasped into his mouth and broke away from his lips and raced hers over his jaw, over his cheeks and then back to his mouth for another searing kiss.
The reality of Rory Gilmore was a more wickedly powerful punch than any fantasy. And a thousand times more dangerous, a small voice chided him over the rushing blood in ears. You should know that by now.
As effective as a bucket of cold water, the prickly reminder served its purpose and he dragged his mouth away from her, abruptly ending their embrace. She whimpered as he drew away and then opened her eyes in shock when he grabbed her upper arms and physically pushed her away.
Rory stared at him, panting and trembling (fuck, she was trembling) and brought her fingers to her lips, still feeling his kiss tingle against her lips. She had no idea why he had pushed her away but there was this look on his face that made her already shattered heart crack. She watched as he bent down to retrieve the towel again and, without looking at her, wordlessly handed it back to her.
Fighting back tears, anger and the sharp sting of rejection she took the towel, carefully avoiding his fingers. Slowly, she wrapped it around herself, willing her fingers not to tremble and turned to go (run away and weep).
"I don't hate you," he said suddenly, before she could leave, stopping her though she didn't turn around. The words tumbled out and he couldn't make sense of them himself, "I just really wish I could."
When she (finally) walked away, he could feel the heat right down to his bones.
To Be Continued…
