Incoming
Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. Not even the computer I wrote it on.
Summary: Jess shows up at Richard and Emily's vow renewal. Luke has something to say about it. Rory is less than happy. Lorelai has to deal with Christopher. And the day is definitely not everything Emily hoped it would be.
Feedback: Reviews are fun. Like a barrel of monkeys. Why anyone would put monkeys in a barrel…I don't know, but it's supposedly a lot of fun.
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"Lorelai!" Luke yelled up the stairs, trying to be heard over the '80s music she had blasting in her – their – room. When he had gotten up for work the day before, she informed him that he was to move in with her, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
She turned the music down a little. "Yea?"
"Why are all my boxes in the kitchen?"
"Jess didn't have time to put them in the right rooms so I told him to leave them there."
"Why didn't he just leave them in the living room?"
"Cause we use the living room."
"And where exactly do you think I cook all the food I make in this house?"
She groaned loudly. "Just let me finish what I'm doing and I'll help you unpack."
"What are you doing?"
"Making room in the closet. I think we might need another dresser too. And a mirror to hang on the ceiling." She waited for the 'jeez' before continuing. "Why don't you start unpacking all the shiny kitchen things?"
"You have no clue what's in any of these boxes, do you?" He asked amusedly.
"Hey, I totally packed the flannel. And I saw Jess put a big shiny mix-y thing in one of the boxes. Ooh, ooh, and Bert's down there and, uh…a…spatula."
He laughed a little. "I can't believe you made Jess pack all my stuff by himself."
"I said I packed the flannel. And he was dead set against going near the underwear drawer. Besides, I didn't see you helping."
"You know that place where you eat about seventy-five percent of your meals? Someone does need to run it, if you want it to stay open. And Jess said he'd rather pack then cook, so…"
"He probably just wanted to see if you had anything good stashed up there. You should have seen the look on his face when he saw the naked pictures of me you keep in the nightstand. He hasn't been able to look me in the eye since then."
"You really think I leave naked pictures of you in my nightstand where my nephew could find them?"
"I'm just kidding, Luke. I know you keep them under your mattress."
"And you say that like I didn't walk in on you putting them there."
"Hey, aren't you supposed to be unpacking?"
"I don't know. If I take the box with the flannel and my underwear I could probably get Jess to do the rest of it."
"Go. Unpack."
He grinned then made his way to the kitchen to unpack the 'shiny kitchen things'.
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Rory was sitting on the couch in her dorm room with the Clash CD she stole from Jess playing loudly while she studied. When she heard a knock at the door she closed her book and climbed off the couch. A smile graced her lips when she pulled the door open. "Hey you." She gave Jess a soft kiss on the lips then stepped back to let him in.
When he got to the living room her looked her up and down and smirked. "I think I saw that look on the fashion channel last week."
She looked down at the flannel Curious George pajamas she had on then smiled at Jess. "These are adorable."
"Do you have a big yellow hat?"
She stuck her tongue out at him, which only made him grab her hips and pull her body against his. "Why are you in your pajamas at seven o'clock?"
"They're…" She breathed in sharply when his hands, still chilly from the night air, slid under her shirt to rest on her skin, heated by the flannel. "My clothes were wet. It was raining."
He leaned down and brushed his lips against the skin just below her ear then let his tongue slide over her earlobe. He heard her whimper then whispered, "Go get changed. I wanna show you something." He turned her around and gave her a light push towards her bedroom.
She muttered something that sounded like 'evil' before walking into her room to get dressed.
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After a short drive, Jess helped a blindfolded Rory out of his car and put his hands on her hips as he stepped behind her. "This is a lot nicer than the flannel." He said of the t-shirt and tight jeans she had changed into.
"Oh, yea," She said sarcastically. "The blindfold goes great with these shoes."
He grinned and kissed the back of her neck. "You can take it off in a minute."
"Fine. Lead the way." She waved her hand blindly in front of them.
He brushed another light kiss on her neck then guided her forward. "Step." He said when they got to the stairs. "Step. One more." He stopped her on the porch and opened the door before leading her inside. He stopped walking and untied her blindfold but kept it covering her eyes. "Ready?"
She nodded. "Yes. Let's go. I wanna see." When he let the blindfold fall to the floor she looked around, confused. "Huh. This is…well, it's exactly the same as the last time we were here."
"Not quite."
She raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm really not seeing…"
"Oh, hold on." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. "This might help."
She gave him a funny look but unfolded the paper. A soft gasp escaped her lips as she read it. "Jess…" She breathed. "This…this is the deed. You bought…" She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a fiery kiss.
He felt her teeth against his lips as she smiled into the kiss and pulled back a little. "So what do you think?"
"I think…" She looked back down at the paper. "I think I'm shocked that you managed to keep this a secret for two weeks."
"No one knows. Well, Luke and Lorelai, but that's it."
Suddenly she realized something and gasped. "Oh my God! It's you! You're the guy Mom's cheating on Luke with."
"I'm what?"
"In her palm pilot, it said 'call Tom for price estimates' and she said it was for a friend that I didn't know and I thought she was cheating on Luke but it was you so hopefully she's not 'cause that would be wrong because you shouldn't sleep with your daughter's boyfriend especially if he's also your fiancé's nephew. And this whole thing is throwing a major weird factor into our relationship 'cause now we're step-cousins but I guess it's still okay since we're not blood related and we dated two years before Mom and Luke got together but it's still kinda weird." She stopped and took a deep breath. "And that was totally off subject."
He grinned at her, thoroughly amused. "I like when you babble."
She smiled then waved her hand around. "Well, come on. Give me the grand tour."
He raised his eyebrow, knowing she'd every room in the building more than once, but took her hand and led her towards the back room anyway. "We really need to work on the name."
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Luke leaned against the counter when he got a free minute and watched Lorelai eat the breakfast he made minutes earlier. "What time do you have to be at the inn?"
She took a sip of her coffee before answering. "I don't. I have a date with your nephew."
"Right." He said, remembering Jess asking about paint shopping. "He gets around doesn't he?"
She clasped a hand to her chest dramatically. "He just wants me for my paint. I know he'll never leave her, but I just want this one day."
"Where is Jess, anyway?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm meeting him at his place. I need to get a feel for the place before I can pick the colors.
He shook his head. "I still can't believe he's letting you do this."
She gasped. "You don't have faith in my paint choosing skills?"
"None whatsoever."
"Then – what? That's not what you're supposed to say. You're supposed to say 'Lorelai, my love, the woman I am choosing to spend the rest of my life with, of course I have complete faith in your paint choosing and all other skills, because you are the perfect woman and I couldn't paint anything without you'."
He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. "Lorelai…it would be wrong to lie to you." He pulled back and smirked.
Lorelai gaped and smacked his chest lightly. "See, this is why I have to paint with Jess on the side."
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"Oh, come on."
"No!" Jess argued.
"But it's so pretty." Lorelai whined at him.
"I thought we decided this at the apartment. No pink."
She furrowed her eyebrows. "We never decided that."
He sighed. "Yes we did. We were upstairs in the kitchen looking at the swatches…"
"I have no recollection of this."
"We looked at swatches. You don't remember the swatches?"
"No. But hearing you say swatches is really fun."
He glared at her. "We looked at the…paint chips and you sang that stupid song you made up and…you know what, never mind. It doesn't matter. I'm not painting my apartment…" He looked at the label. "…Rugosa. Rugosa? What the hell is Rugosa?"
"All the paint has funny names. We picked Windstream with Arabian Night trim for the bedroom, and Lime Hint with Mariposa for the bathroom and the downstairs is…Pure White. Okay, so they don't all have weird names but downstairs is white 'cause you wanna hang all that stuff on the walls."
"You're still not painting the living room pink."
She frowned. "Damn."
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"And he said he pushed back replacing the floors a week because he wanted to paint first so somebody – well, you – didn't spill paint on his new floor." Rory told Lorelai as she got ready for Friday Night Dinner.
Lorelai sat on the couch flipping through a magazine. "That's great, honey."
She stopped lining her eye and stuck her head out of her room. "Are you even listening to me?"
She closed the magazine and tossed it onto the coffee table. "Floors. Pushed back a week. Jess doesn't trust me with paint. And what are you doing?"
"Getting dressed?"
"Why? Going somewhere?"
She glared and went back into her room. "We are not doing this again."
Lorelai got up and walked to Rory's doorway. "Not doing what?" She asked innocently.
"Stop it."
"Stop what?"
She put the lid on her eyeliner and turned on her mother. "I'm getting dressed because Jess is picking me up at quarter after so we can to Friday Night Dinner. Okay? I'm going to Friday Night Dinner and if you start dancing or make up a song or mock me in anyway I'm gonna stab you with this pencil."
"Did I tell you that Luke moved in?"
She dropped her arm and went to the closet to find her shoes. "No, but I saw the big, shiny mixing thing in the kitchen so I kinda figured it out."
"I'm sorry. I should have asked you first. This is your house too, and I didn't even-"
"Mom." She sat on the bed to pull her shoes on. "You guys are getting married. Living in the same house is kind of a necessary step. And you know I love having Luke here."
She smiled and sat next to her daughter. "And how cool is the mixing thing?"
"You don't even know what it's for."
"No, but it's really pretty."
"Okay." She stood up to get her purse off her dresser only to find it missing. "Where's my purse?"
"She's a little ashamed about it, but she's been seeing the fanny pack, but you didn't hear it from me."
"So, you borrowed it and left it at Luke's?"
She shrugged. "I could call Jess and tell him to bring it."
Rory shook her head and walked out of her room. "It's okay. I'll just use one of yours." She laughed. "I can't believe you still own a fanny pack."
Lorelai followed her daughter to the living room then watched her run up the stairs. "Don't mock."
"I mock only that which I love." She called back.
"We both know you only love me for my lovely purse collection."
"Your purse collection? More than half of these are mine."
She clapped her hands over her ears. "Lies! All lies."
Rory looked at her watch when she heard a knock at the door. "Hey, can you get that?"
"It's not even six. I thought you were training him." She walked to the door and pulled it open, ready to lecture Jess on him punctuality and how it's frowned upon in the Gilmore house, but was shocked to see someone else standing on the porch. "Mom?"
