One last thing that I forgot to mention was that Jess did NOT call Rory from California. They have not�heard from�each other since the bus ride.

I don't want to have to stress this, but please don't plead with me to have Rory and Jess meet sooner. I need to establish their independence before I can get them together. Just stay patient, and before you know it…they'll meet.

Thanks for the reviews on chapter three: Curley-Q, DiehardJavaJunkie14, Lynn, YankeesFan12, ShaolinQueen, CherryWolf713, Sagebeth, gilmorefanforever, flowerson, bartocorleone, chunkymunky85, and Kassandra27.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Gilmore Girls or Oliver Twist.

Jess Mariano, Boston Bound

Jess collapsed on his bed and threw the pillow over his face.

"Rough day?" Sam asked.

Jess groaned under his pillow. "Why did I convince myself that working two full time jobs would be a good idea?" Jess asked.

"Because you need to money to move and go to college, remember?" Sam responded, turning back to his computer.

"Shut up," Jess mumbled.

"Seriously, though. What's your schedule like?" Sam asked.

"I'm working seven in the morning to seven at night at the café down the street. Then I usually have enough time to run down the block to the market for my seven o'clock shift that lasts until one-thirty in the morning." Jess buried his face in the pillow again.

"Jess, that's like eighteen hours a day," Sam pointed out.

Jess slid under the blankets. "But I'm making almost a thousand dollars a week, before the tips," he reasoned.

"But aren't you tired of working all the time? You barely have time to sleep, never mind do anything else." Sam hit a few keys on his keyboard. "You're going to kill yourself like this." He paused. "Jess?" he asked, not looking away from the computer screen. A snore came from his tired roommate's direction. "Okay. You're asleep. I may as well be talking to the wall."

Jess started to snore louder and Sam groaned. During the day, he had the whole room to himself. Even when Jess was at the apartment during his scattered days off, he didn't make a whole lot of noise. When he was sleeping, that was another story. Jess snored louder than anyone Sam had ever slept in the same room with. Groaning, Sam shut down his computer and crawled into his own bed.

At six-fifteen in the morning, Sam was jarred awake by a buzzing noise. Groggily, Sam opened one eye and surveyed the dark room. Jess usually whacked the snooze button on obnoxious alarm clock before it woke his roommate up. This morning Jess was flopped over on his bed, ignoring the steady shriek of the plastic object. Sighing, Sam pushed himself out of bed and wandered over to sleeping Jess. He inspected the clock on the bed table and started pressing buttons. Instead of successfully quieting the alarm, Sam hit the radio button. Yet another noise blared from alarm clock. Sam was about ready to give up.

"Dude, your fucking alarm clock in going off!" he yelled to Jess. He rolled his eyes when Jess failed to respond. "Come on," he said, shaking his roommate's shoulder. "Get up. I can't find the stupid snooze button!" Jess didn't wake up. Groaning, Sam got down on the floor to unplug the alarm clock. "Aha!" he exclaimed, finding the outlet the clock was plugged into. He ripped out the plug and was sorely surprised to find the clock ran on batteries as well. The alarm and the FM radio continued to shriek. Sam grabbed the pillow off his bed and smacked Jess in the head with it. He continued to hit him with the pillow until the snoring ceased.

"Jesus," Jess mumbled. "Stop hitting me with the fucking pillow." He reached his hand up to block Sam's pillow. "Ugh. What the hell is that noise?"

Sam reeled backward on the floor. "That's your alarm. It's been going off for almost ten minutes!"

"Christ. What time is it?" Jess rubbed his eyes and looked at the red numbers dancing across his clock. "It's almost six-thirty! I have to leave!" Jess thrust the offending object at Sam. "Turn it off!" he yelled as he grabbed a fresh shirt out of the closet. He yanked off the wrinkled one and slid into the clean shirt.

"Dude, no! I don't know where the off switch is!" Sam yelled after Jess. The door slammed and Sam sighed. "Fuck this," he said, tossing the alarm clock out the window.

After a long work week, Jess embraced his Saturdays off. Usually, the guys would grab a case of beer and they would all relax in the apartment. For Jess, the greatest thing about having a day off was getting a new book to read. Jess poured his café tips out on the floor. Throughout the week, Jess would swallow his pride and wait tables. It was a cliché California job, but it worked for him. The pay was great and the tips were usually steady. Saturday was the day he brought the tips to the bank to deposit in his growing account.

Carefully, Jess rolled his quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies before packing his earnings up in a bag. This week, he had earned four hundred dollars in tips. Uncle Luke would have been pleasantly surprised by the way Jess had turned around his attitude. At the diner, he would always grunt back orders and be rude to people. In California, he tried to be nice and it seemed to be paying off. It was literally paying off.

Jess accepted the deposit slip from the teller and scanned it before finding the magic number. A smile plastered on his lips as he stared at the twenty-thousand dollar figure. It was more money than he ever had in his entire life. Now he could buy his plane ticket, granted his GED scores were ever processed. Wandering down the street with a five-dollar bill in his pocket, Jess noticed a used bookstore he hadn't been in yet. After browsing for ten minutes, he fingered a worn copy of Oliver Twist. Deciding that he needed another copy, since his other one was missing, Jess picked it up and brought it over to the register. The book cost only two dollars, and he opened it as soon as he exited the store.

"Jess!" Sam yelled as he entered the apartment.

"What?" Jess asked, looking up from page five.

"Your GED scores arrived with the mail today." Sam handed him an envelope and Jess hesitated. "Come on. Open the damn thing."

He flung the book on his bed and grabbed the envelope. Ripping it open with his index finger, Jess extracted the sheet of paper.

"What does it say?" Sam pressed, waiting for the expression on his friend's face to change.

"Apparently, today is a good day," Jess said as he stuck the page back in the envelope.

"So that means…?"

"I passed!" Jess yelled before throwing himself on his bed. He picked Oliver Twist back up and began to read where he left off.

"Hey, Jess?"

"What?" he asked, not looking up from the pages.

"You don't want to get a beer and celebrate?" Sam asked.

"You guys will have a case later. We can celebrate then," Jess said, fishing in his drawer for a pencil.

"Yeah, but that's them," Sam stressed.

"So?"

"So we're friends, right? Why can't we go and celebrate?" Sam asked.

"I don't care about celebrations. Besides, Joe and Alex get plastered after two beers. We'll have the whole place and case of beer to ourselves." Jess started writing something in the margin of his "new" book.

Sam looked away for a second. "Okay. That's how it is, then," he answered.

"No, that's not what I meant. Sam, it's my only day to myself. And then I need to buy my plane ticket." Jess tried to recover, and slipped the paperback under his mattress.

"Plane ticket?" Sam choked.

"I hit twenty-thousand with my last paycheck. I'm a little over." Jess said.

"Well, that's great man. Congrats," Sam said weakly.

"Beers tonight, okay? I'm going to the cyber café to buy my plane ticket."

"Right on," Sam said halfheartedly, pressing a button on his computer.

Jess closed the bedroom door behind him and sighed. Every time he moved on, Jess unintentionally hurt someone.

He sat down at a computer at the cyber café and started checking rates. Typing in Boston, Massachusetts sent a tingle down his spine and caused his stomach to waver. Jess was leaving town. He was finally going to start a new life. Someday when he was a better man, Jess would scope out Rory Gilmore and sweep her off her feet. But he wasn't a better man yet, not even close. It would take years for him to even build up the courage to venture back to Connecticut where he left the girl. As he entered his credit card number, he felt the virtuous tingle in his stomach again. This was right, and he would be on his way in only a couple of weeks.