Chapter Four- Like Hail on a Window Pane

Luke was sitting in his father's old leather arm chair, nursing a beer as he stared blankly at the little dots of light that were scattered across the floor from the spaces between his blinds. He knew that just across the square there was a wedding going on and the woman he'd lusted and loved for years was promising to love another man for the rest of her natural life. It made the bile rise in his throat and unwelcome tears sting the corners of his eyes. He couldn't believe he'd actually had the hope that one o'clock would come and go but Lorelai wouldn't climb out the back of some overpriced limo with enough fabric to clothe an entire starving tribe in New Guinea and head into that church with her father leading the way. But she had; he'd seen it all from his window before he'd pulled the shades closed and sunk despondently into the comfortable old chair that his father had spent the last years of his life lounging in. He couldn't help but think that he was going to die exactly the same way.

He'd lifted the dark glass to his lips to polish off the last swig of beer when the door to his apartment flung open, startling the bottle right out of his hand. It shattered loudly, flinging shards of broken glass all over the floor around his chair. Instinctively he'd jumped to his feet with his blood speeding through the veins in his brain, carrying adrenaline like kids in inner tubes down those giant slides at water parks. He was prepared to handle almost everything except for what had come barreling through his door.

There stood Lorelai Gilmore with a couple wild curls floating away from the knot at the base of her neck and her chest rising and falling so rapidly that the practical part of his brain reminded him that she was going to hyperventilate if he didn't get her a bag or calm her down. But he stood immobile not ten feet away from his dream girl, watching her melt down.

"Get it off," she pleaded, spurring him back into reality.

"Get what off?"

"This dress. I can't breathe."

He crossed the room and moved to stand behind her. A line of at least thirty or forty miniature buttons glared up at him and his large fingers fumbled with the top one, unable to slip it from its miniature loops of silk. With every second he wasted trying to undo even a single button, Lorelai's breathing only continued to quicken as she started to panic.

"Luke! Get it off!"

"Will you chill out? These damn buttons are too small."

"Oh my God, please, just get it off."

"Is it too tight?"

Though as soon as he asked the question he knew that it wasn't; her mother would have made sure to have the dress altered and re-altered again and again. There was no reason why this dress should have been hindering her breathing. Starting to get desperate, Lorelai bent her arm at a painful angle and started clawing at the buttons with nails polished a perfect pink, trying to undo even one of the oppressive closures. Luke batted her hands away twice before he finally grabbed her by a shoulder and spun her around to face him.

"How attached are you to this dress?"

Lorelai looked up at him with an expression he'd never seen turned his way from her before, her eyes a shade of blue he hadn't identified. It wasn't the blue of a summer sky that signaled she was happy, it wasn't the blue-gray of a winter's sky that was sadness, it wasn't the dark blue of the sky after the sun went down past the horizon and took the pinks, purples, and oranges with it that signaled her anger. Her eyes were the color of a gas flame, bright blue and almost as fluid and active as the flame itself was and Luke had yet to figure out what that color meant.

"Get it off," she pleaded on a whisper.

He nodded and turned her back around. He gathered the stiff fabric of the bodice on either side of those buttons and pulled as hard as he could. Tiny seed buttons rained down on the hardwood, plinking softly like hail on the window pane. Luke stepped past her, willing himself not to look at her as she hastily shoved the fabric down her body. He opened his closet and pulled out one of his flannel shirts and a pair of his sweatpants from his dresser and held them out behind him, trying to give her privacy.

A few moments later she cleared her throat loudly and Luke turned to find her practically swimming in his shirt and clutching the sweatpants to her chest. He arched an eyebrow at her, curious as to why she was only half dressed.

"They don't stay on my hips," she said.

He nodded shortly and tipped his hat up as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"So… do you want to sit down and tell me why you're up here and not across the street getting married?"