The third D did arrive, three days later and with more shock and awe than either of the others. By the time the third D arrived, the second D had become a T: Tolstoy, to be more specific. If the name did not quite suit the goofy-looking hound, he certainly did not seem to mind. He had been fed, bathed, vaccinated, neutered, and taken shopping, and now, he was looking downright at home in cozy beach house. Tristan had laughed at her when she had called him to ask if she could have a dog and immediately driven over to meet the precocious goofball. When she had told him the dog's name, he had laughed right over her explanation of why it was a fitting name (which was obviously because the dog had moved from hardship, War, to happy companionship, Peace).
It was on a brisk morning when she had put Tolstoy's smart-looking green leash on his leather collar that she walked out her front door (amazing how quickly she came to think of it as her front door) and saw the third D. The third D was named Dean Forester, and he was parking a dilapidated old car in her driveway. Rory was so shocked, she halted in her tracks mid-step, and tumbled all the way down the steps. Luckily she dropped the leash, and Tolstoy just trotted down at his own pace to stop beside his heap of owner.
She looked up again. Yes, it was definitely Dean. He was every bit as tall and tan and handsome as she remembered him. Only now he was sporting a goatee, a few lines from more than ten years of hard work outdoors, and a smile as big as any she had ever seen. He waved at her with one hand, an off-hand, easy wave as if his presence in her driveway was the most natural and expected thing in the world. She knew it was a ruse, though, because he did not rush over to help her up from her fallen heap but allowed her the moment to slowly, cautiously stand up, check for broken bones, and gather her thoughts. She had not seen Dean since she had broken up his marriage and briefly dated him, and she had not thought about him much more recently than that either. Two trials, two failed experiments, had been enough to displace Dean from her Hope List for romance. Yet here he was. He had obviously sought her out.
"Dean? What are you doing here?" She sputtered the words out.
He approached her now, as she stood there, dumbfounded while Tolstoy's wagging tail smacked against her leg repeatedly. "I came to tell you something I should have told you years ago," Dean sounded completely calm and collected, but as she glanced down at his hands, free from the weight from a wedding band, they were shaking. As Dean got closer still, Tolstoy started baying. That had been the biggest adjustment for Rory about life with a hound dog; having come from fairly urban Northern spaces, she had not often experienced that unique sound that only a hound can make. At first, it had seemed horribly grating, but already, she was starting to develop some affection for it.
"Hush, Tolstoy," she murmured, reaching down to pat the dog's head. The dog looked up at her lovingly and stopped his barking. Dean looked grateful to have the barking stop.
"Rory Gilmore, from the second I saw you reading on that bench when we were kids, I was enchanted by you. I know we've had our chances, and we've failed, but I know there's a reason I still think of you when I think of who I want my 'happily ever after' with. I just turned thirty, and I've realized it is time to stop just thinking of that from afar. I called Lorelai and asked for your number, and she did me one better and gave me your current address. So I took saved up vacation time off of work, got in the car, and showed up here like some kind of crazy person to ask you…. Will you go to dinner with me tonight? I want one more chance." His speech had none of the polish Rory had always imagined in an I love you speech; he stuttered and stumbled over his words, and he ran those shaking hands through his hair, leaving behind ruts as evidence of his nervousness. She tried to figure out what she should say, what she could say.
She had not been thinking any of the same things, had not even been thinking about Dean at all, but somehow, she found herself moved to tears. Was it the beauty of having a movie moment play out in her own life? Was it the hope that Dean truly was her Great Love Story and that one day she could tell her children that she married the man who was her first kiss? Or was it something else entirely, perhaps the buzz of discomfort under her skin at being on the receiving end of such raw emotion she did not think she shared? She opened her mouth more than once to say something and then pulled it shut again.
He shifted where he stood. "That was a lot. Try to just hear the question: Will you go to dinner with me tonight?" He looked at her and managed a crooked smile. She patted Tolstoy's head and tried to buy a few precious seconds with a smile. Ignoring her dizziness, she finally spoke,
"Dinner." It was one word, and it was not spoken with the rising inflection needed for a question yet he answered it as one.
"Yes."
"Tonight?" This time she succeeded in making it sound like a question.
"Yes."
"Okay." She wondered if it was wise to agree to dinner with someone who was obviously seeking something so much more, but again, she felt the shock numbing her ability to think this through solidly. Whether her answer was wise or not, Dean jumped on it readily. A grin appeared on his face, a twitchy, quick-natured expression that flitted in place all at once. She tried to manage one equally happy but just felt shaky.
"I'll pick you up at six, okay?" He responded, all caution gone. "Wear something nice. I make a little more money now than I did when I was bagging groceries, so we'll go to a real restaurant." His smile quirked, and her heart skipped a funny little beat at the memory of high school dating. It had been such a sweet, simple time between them, without game or guile. She suspected any boy could have been the other half of her relationship with Dean, or at least any decent, fairly inexperienced guy. It had been her who had made that relationship one so special to her; she had long since recognized that one of the reasons she had returned to Dean after his marriage was not for love of Dean himself but for the love of the quiet, book-loving, smart, funny, naïve girl she had been when she had met and dated Dean. And reclaiming that girl was not an option; once naïveté is lost, it seems destined to be lost for good.
"Okay." She responded, a beat too late, not that he noticed. Her thoughts swirled. Yet even if she was not that girl any longer, neither was Dean that same boy. They were adults, changed, shaped by new experiences and world views. Dean and Rory might be as compatible as adults as they had once been as children. Yes, dinner was a worthwhile test run, an experiment if you will.
They parted ways awkwardly, without any small talk and without anything to break any sort of touch barrier, not even a handshake. Leash wrapped once around her hand and eyes glazed as she lived in her internal workings, she led Tolstoy, the obedient hound, on a meandering walk along the beach. Sand grazed her toes, and she thought of Tristan in an instant, remembering dancing with him in the cool evening by the firelight, in that magical place of neither friendship nor romance. What would Tristan say if she told him about Dean's dramatic monologue that sent him careening back into her life? On one level, she supposed, she and Tristan were friends, but four days of spending some time together probably did not count as enough to forge true friendship. So she was not obligated to tell him about Dean. But at the same time, she knew instinctively that she should.
"Tolstoy, why do people keep showing up on my rented doorstep? Trist, you, Dean… I can't handle this," she murmured, but the dog offered no great insight. If she wanted insight, it seemed she was going to have to make some phone calls. She waited until she had finished walking the dog and then even waited until he was asleep on the couch, snoring those awkward snorting snores that he was prone to. Then she curled up on the bed in the bedroom and clutched her cell phone in a death grip. The numbers on the keypad, and the corresponding people they would reach if she speed dialed them, seemed to swirl in front of her eyes. So much to tell any of the people she could easily reach. Lane would want all the details and would encourage her to be wild and crazy, probably to sleep with both of them even – "You're single and free! Do it!" she could just imagine her best friend saying. Mari would be outraged that an old boyfriend was throwing a wrench in her master plan – "How is the jerk who cheated on his wife any comparison to the war hero who fought for you overseas?"
And her mother, what would her mother say to all of this? It was hard to predict, even though this was such a Lorelai situation. After all, Lorelai had juggled men her whole life, until this marriage to Luke. Rory could not think of any way to explain her dilemma to her mother, though. "Hey Mom. I feel a little squishy about that boy from high school you thought was an arrogant dickwad, but you just sent that other boy from high school that you loved obsessively careening back into my life with promises of love, and now I don't know what to do" really did not seem like an appropriate conversation to have to have. She was probably going to have to face this one on her own.
X
She dropped her bottle of nail polish three times while she was getting ready, and on the third, it shattered, sending red-orange smeared shards all over the bathroom floor. She immediately rocked her bare feet up onto her toes and cursed with a particularly foul bit of profanity. Looking around for something to stand on, she cursed herself for throwing the bathroom rug in the washer after bathing Tolstoy; sure, it had been stained, but it had been valiantly covering the floor and would have protected either the bottle from breaking or her feet from standing in it had it still been there. She stood there, frozen, in her bra and underwear, with seven painted, still wet fingernails, and wondered what to do. Finally, when her toes started to ache, she decided to leap haphazardly over the pile of polish and glass through the doorway. In the process, she severely smudged the polish on two of the painted nails and still managed to get a tiny piece of glass lodged in her heel.
"Eff," she muttered, opting to skip out on the actual cuss word this time. Tolstoy, who was lying out in the hallway, looked at her curiously for a moment and then dropped his head again, obviously feeling that he had better things to do than empathize with her. Inadvertently, she glanced at the clock. She had fifteen minutes to get completely ready before Dean arrived to pick her up. This getting ready process was not going well. She limped through taking care of her heel, cleaning up the bathroom (there seemed to be no hope for totally getting the polish off the white tile floor so that was coming out of Mari's security deposit), and finally, squeezed herself into her dress. It was almost unfair, she thought, for her to wear something so gorgeous, so sexy. But she could not resist the opportunity to dress up and go on a nice dinner date. It had been too long since she had done just that, and this dress had been sitting in her closet, her suitcases, her car, anywhere she had wishfully stuck it in hopes of getting to wear it. It was a sleek little black number with lace long sleeves and a hemline just short enough to turn heads but long enough not to be sleazy. When she added her red-orange pumps, which her nail polish would have matched, it was 5:59, and Dean knocked on the door.
Checking her hair one last time in the mirror, she felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach. This could be your last first date, if Dean is right about his feelings, she thought to herself. At least she looked beautiful, stunning, more attractive than she herself truly was. For one night, thanks to her long lusted-after dress, she was going to be a head-turner. She pulled open the door, and there Dean stood, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, teeth biting a little on his lower lip. His eyes roved her up and down, and his cheeks turned red.
"Wow, Rory," he breathed out the words with such genuine awe that she blushed too.
"I've had the dress for ages, but it's nice to finally have a chance to wear it," she replied modestly, smiling. She noticed that he was dressed in pressed khakis, a white button-down, and a well-fitted blazer, and that he had shaved carefully, leaving behind neither hair nor nicks. He was tall and dark and handsome, and she realized in an instant, that tonight had the makings of a wonderful evening.
"Well, you look incredible in it. I'm so lucky you're letting me take you out," His unabashed sincerity touched her in a soft, warm place in her heart. The touch barrier was broken immediately as they walked out. He wrapped an arm around her waist, strong fingers settling in on her hipbone, and she leaned into him. There was such warmth and comfort in the knowledge that, though this was a first date, Dean was no stranger. She had once known him so well that it was easy to relax into him again. The ease made her smile and converse with a relaxation she had not experienced in years. There was no flutter of nerves, no hammering of her heart, just that soft, gentle easiness that had once existed between them.
From that moment of relaxation, the evening floated on in an easy haze that demanded nothing troubling from Rory. Her stomach didn't lurch; her palms didn't sweat. He drove evenly to a charming, upscale seafood restaurant where he held the door for her and pulled out her chair. He was a better conversationalist than she remembered, and she learned that he was now a successful business consultant, a job that had earned him both respect and enough money to live very comfortably. He had no children, no pets, and no ex-wives except for Lindsay, and the remarkable parallels in his rootlessness and Rory's compelled her. He ate without spilling food on himself, and he complimented her several times without being overly simpering. They ordered coffee and dessert and sat talking for an hour after their plates were clean. By the time they left, the easy rapport between had taken on a life of its own, and they were holding hands as he walked her up the walk and ultimately the stairs to her house. Even though Tolstoy stood at the window baying, undoubtedly wanting Rory to come in and Dean to leave, Rory felt no awkwardness or hesitation when Dean put his hands on her waist, pulled her close, and kissed her, a thorough, enjoyable good night kiss that tasted comfortable and familiar.
With a promise to call her in the morning, he left for the evening after only that one sweet kiss, and she walked inside and tossed herself on the couch with a smile. Now that was a date; no rush, no fumbling, no awkwardness, no ruffled feathers, no discomfort. It had been as easy as going out with Mari or Lane for the evening, only neither Mari nor Lane would have looked so dashing in a suit. Tolstoy flopped his head down on her lap, sending a thin line of drool across the couch on the other side of her. "You're so gross," she said affectionately, scratching him under his ear the way he liked. He snorted and closed his eyes.
Rory basked in the moment. Was this what it felt like to have everything come together? To have a goofy, lovable dog sleeping on her lap while she relaxed in the glow of a good date? She kicked off her shoes and muttered a soft, "Damn." It was a combination of something like happiness and a little pain from the cut on her heel where she had stepped on that shard of glass earlier.
"Damn." She tried the word out again and smiled, leaning her head down onto the back of the couch. She knew she should move and try to avoid wrinkling or mussing her dress any further, especially since it was dry clean only. But it was hard to think about moving right now. She was experiencing contentment so relaxing it bordered on actual sleep. Or at least, she was until her phone buzzed insistently from her purse across the room by the door. With an annoyed grunt, she stood up, suddenly aware that her heel definitely hurt more than she had realized at all throughout the date. She limped to her purse, dug through its varied contents, and pulled out her phone. The screen flashed five new text messages, and she remembered that she had been ignoring her phone all through dinner and dessert. She flipped it open and started reading them one at a time.
"Hope your having a great time with BUBBA. Luv you," from her mother.
"MY WATER BROKE AGAIN," from Mari.
"Mari's water broke!" from Logan.
"False alarm. Nevermind. The Jumping Bean is still in the oven," from Mari.
"Busy in the morning? Wanna show you another Banks tradition. Bring the damn dog," from Tristan.
And just like that, she remembered the knots in her stomach and the awkwardness and the mystery of her evening with Tristan, a mere four days ago. Her contentment vanished, and her cheeks turned bright red and her palms started sweating.
Was she busy in the morning? Well, Dean was calling her in the morning.
Well, Dean might just have to call her while she was with Tristan. In a purely platonic sense. Because that was how she felt about Tristan. Platonic, dammit.
Right?
She snapped her phone shut without responding to his text message and tried some deep breathing to reclaim the feeling of serenity from her date earlier. It wasn't working. Just like that, Tristan DuGrey had thrown her off again.
She was going to have to start meditating if he kept this up.
AN: I know this chapter is a little short, but I'm not too hung up on symmetry right now, and this was a nice, kosher way to work this one out. I'm excited about this one. It was fun to conceive and fun to write and hopefully be fun to read. Let me know what you think!