AN: Pheww, finally the next chapter is up. I'm sorry that it took me such a long time to update, high school finals are in january and I'm doing nothing but studying for school. I hope you enjoy the new chapter, it's longer than the last ones (and I also made some corrections on the first seven chapters)

Tell me what you think: reviews make me write faster :)

Disclaimer: all of the characters belong to Amy Sherman Palladino and the WB

Chapter 8

Lorelai woke up the next morning finding the space next to her empty. There was a note on the pillow next to her.

"Good morning, sunshine!

I didn't wanna wake you up this morning. I had to open the diner this morning. Come by later I'll have coffee and pancakes waiting for you.

Love you,

Luke

P.S.: You look beautiful sleeping."

Lorelai smiled to herself. Luke could be such a softy sometimes.

After taking a shower she got dressed and got on her way to Luke's. She heard someone call her name when she walked out the door.

"Lorelai, sweetie!" She saw Babette swiftly walking towards her.

"Oh, hey, Babette. How's it going?"

"Good, good."

"Good." There was a moment of silence between them.

"Well was there anything you wanted to ask me?" Lorelai directed at her.

"Well now that you're saying it. Was that Luke's truck in your driveway? He seems to be here more than usual. Is everything allright?"

Lorelai knew that Babette was suspecting something, but still hoped that she hadn't found out yet. "Uh, yeah. He's just keeping me some company, now that Rory's in Europe, that's all."

"Oh, I see." Babette said and winked at Lorelai.

Lorelai knew that the whole town would be talking about her and Luke in the next half hour.

"Uh, listen Babette. I really gotta get to work, I'm already late. And you know Michel, always giving me a hard time. Although I'm the boss, which he doesn't seem to care about. Anyway you have nice day, Babette."

Lorelai still had enough time left, but she didn't want Babette to pry her with any more questions.

"Allright, sugar. I don't wanna keep you from your work. You go and have an nice day, too." Babette said and grinned at Lorelai.

Lorelai waved to Babette and got into her jeep.

Babette ran back into her house yelling for her husband Morey. "Morey, come here. I gotta tell you something."

Lorelai smiled to herself and drove off towards the diner. She didn't care if the whole town was talking about her relationship with Luke. She loved Luke and was happy to show it to the whole world.

Luke looked out the window and saw Lorelai walking by the gazebo, where she had parked her car, towards the diner.

"I'll be right back, Ceasar," he yelled into the kitchen and ran outside.

Lorelai saw Luke walking swiftly towards her and smiled at him. Luke grinned back at her. He stopped in front of her.

"Hey, what's up?" Lorelai asked him.

"Not much. Just this," he pulled her into his arms and kissed her passionately. After getting over the shock of Luke kissing her in the middle of the town square, Lorelai swung her arms around his neck and kissed him with as much passion as he was kissing her.

People who were walking by stopped after realizing who they saw making out by the gazebo, for everyone to see.

Luke slowly released Lorelai.

"Wow," Lorelai said out of breath.

"Yeah," Luke smirked at her.

"That was amazing. Let's do it again." Lorelai grinned at him and pulled him back into another kiss.

The people standing around them started whispering. Within a couple of minutes the whole town would know about the new and long awaited romance in town.

Miss Patty had watched the two lovebirds and was now about to call Babette and tell her to make sure it would get around town quickly.

Lorelai where totally oblivious to all the people gathering around them. Again they had to break apart for the need of oxygen.

Luke softly stroke over Lorelai's hair. "I love you," he said whispering in her ear. "And I didn't wanna hide my feelings for you anymore. I want every single person in this town to know how happy you make me feel.

Lorelai smiled, "I'm glad you feel that way. I love you, too," she said gently caressing his cheek.

By now some of the people were gathered in small groups while most of the people went back to their normal duties.

Luke put his arm around Lorelai and the walked back to the diner together.

"So you want some coffee?"

"Do you still have to ask?" Lorelai said grinning up at him.

Lorelai sat down on a stool at the counter while Luke poured her a cup of coffee.

"You want some pancakes?"

Lorelai nodded, "and eggs please … oh and bacon!" she yelled after him into the kitchen.

Luke came back outside and down next to Lorelai who dug into her breakfast.

"Charming," he said watching her eat her breakfast.

"Thanks," she grinned at him. "You should be used to my eating habits after so many years."

"True. So tomorrow's the grand opening."

"Yeah" Lorelai's expression turned a little sad knowing that Rory won't be there, celebrating with them.

Luke caught her expression and tried to think of something to cheer her up a little. "So do you still have a lot of work to do there or can we do a movie night, later."

Lorelai's expression lightened up. He always knew how to cheer her up. "That would be so great. Come by at seven? I should be done by then. Can you bring some food and a couple of movies?"

"Don't I always?"

"True."

Lorelai hopped of the chair and took some money out of her purse.

Luke started to protest but she said she didn't to give her everything for free since she's eating at the diner a lot.

"Ok, I'll see you tonight," she said and gave him a peck on the lips.

"Ok, bye," he pulled her back and kissed her a little longer, not caring about the costumers staring at them.

"Bye," she said with a huge smile and walked out of the diner.

Luke walked back into the kitchen whistling to himself feeling like the luckiest man on earth finally being together with the person he had loved for so many years now.

As soon as Lorelai arrived at the Dragonfly she walked straight into the kitchen to talk to Sookie about the last preparations for the grand opening of the Inn the following day.

"Hey Sookie, how's it going?"

"Hey. Great. Everything's fine, staff is doing well everything is pretty much prepared for the first real guests to arrive tomorrow."

"Good, good. I can't believe this is finally happening Sookie. Our own Inn, finally our dream has come true."

"I know, it's amazing we finally did it." Sookie said excitedly and embraced Lorelai in a big hug.

"So," Sookie started, "I heard about a fairly new couple getting pretty hot in the middle of the town square.

Lorelai gasped. "How do you know about this already?"

"So it's true!" Sookie said squealing. "How was it?"

Lorelai shyly grinned at her best friend. "It was amazing. You know, Luke and I had talked about not hiding our relationship and I thought he was kidding when he said that he could just kiss me in the town square so everyone would know about it, and then he actually did."

"I'm so happy for you. You two are just great together."

"Thanks, Sook. I'm really happy, too. I'd be even more happy if Rory would be here, too, but I guess you can't have everything at the same time, huh?!"

Sookie smiled at her sympathetically. "Oh, hon. I'm sure she'll be back soon, and then the two of you will work out whatever's gotten between you."

Lorelai sighed, "Yeah, Luke said that, too. I hope you guys are right. So is everything set for you know what, for tomorrow?"

Sookie knew that Lorelai didn't want to talk about Rory anymore and decided to let it go.

"Yes, everything's set for tomorrow, night. I allowed myself to put up some decorations, Derek is gonna be you're waiter and I'll make sure that no one's going to disturb you," she said winking at Lorelai.

"Thank you Sookie, I really appreciate it. I've planned this for a quite a while now I really want things to be special."

"I know, honey. It will be perfect trust me."

"Okay, good. I'm gonna go talk to Michel and see if the arrangements for our first guest are made, and I'm also gonna go check the rooms again if everything is in the right place."

"Ok, good. I'll have a meeting with the kitchen staff and the waiters later to see if everything is settled in her, but I think everything is exactly the way we wanted it to be. Don't worry about it, and try to get some rest, tonight."

"I will, Luke's coming over for a movie night. Bye Sook. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, hon."

"Hey, Michel, is every…"

"Yes, everything is set for tomorrow," he told Lorelai in his French accent. "I told you before and I've already checked the rooms but of course you can do it again, which I'm sure you will cause you obviously don't trust my judgement."

"That's not true, Michel, well sometimes," she told him when he gave her one of his annoyed looks. "I just want to make sure that everything is going to be perfect for the grand opening. Ok, so you'll be here tomorrow morning than you can have lunch off, and take over again for tomorrow evening. And I'm telling you the torture is going to be bad if there is any…"

"Disturbance tomorrow evening when you and the…."

"Don't go any further, Michel. I've told you not to say anything bad about or to Luke, or the torture is going to be even worse."

"I know, I know," Michel said in his typical annoyed voice.

"Good. OK, will check the rooms now and then I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early", she said grinning at him.

A little after seven there was a knock at door.

"Who is it?" Lorelai yelled from inside the kitchen.

"It's me."

"Come in."

Luke entered the house and hung his coat on the rack in the hallway.

"Where are you?"

"Kitchen."

Luke walked into the kitchen seeing Lorelai rummaging in one of the cabinets.

"Hey, what are you doing there?"

"Uh, I thought I had some red vines left, but apparently I don't. You know, no proper movie night without a good variation of junk food."

"I know," Luke said, holding a paper bag up in front of her.

"What's this?" she asked, taking the bag from him.

"Well I thought you probably haven't had much time lately to go shopping so I stopped at Doosey's and got you some of your disgusting stuff.

"Oh my god, you did," she said peeking into the bag. "You really are the perfect man," she said and hugged him tightly.

"That's the word on the street," he said hugging her back.

Lorelai stood on her tiptoes and kissed him tenderly. "Hi."

"Hi." He said smiling down at her still holding her.

"So what did you bring? I'm starving!"

"Really, hadn't thought so," he said teasingly for which Lorelai smacked him lightly on the arm. "Well, I brought a double cheeseburger and fries for you, a veggie burger and a salad for me and some ice cream for the both of us. And movies, we got, Sleepless in Seattle and Dirty Dancing."

"Aww, really? But I thought you hate those movies?"

"I do, but you like them and I wanted you to have a good time tonight with all the stress you had over the last couple of weeks."

Lorelai kissed him softly. "Do you know just how much I love you?"

"I do," he said kissing her back, "I love you, too."

Lorelai gave him another peck on the lips. "Allright why don't you grab us some plates and a couple of beers out of the fridge and I'll go start the first movie."

"Allright."

"That was good," Lorelai said rubbing her belly after she had finished her burger and fries. "Hey you know what I'm gonna get out of these clothes, get a little more comfortable." She said walking upstairs into her room.

A couple of minutes later she came back downstairs, dressed in pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. "Hey, you want another beer?" she asked walking into the kitchen.

"Sure."

She came back into the living room and him his beer, taking a swig of her own while settling down on the couch next to him.

"Hey, so tell me what the plans are for tomorrow night," he said lightly padding her leg.

"Allright, you'll just come to the Dragonfly at around seven. I guess most of the guest will be down for dinner by then, I'll say a couple of words to them, you know being the first guest at the inn and stuff like that. And then… we'll have our own private dinner made by Sookie especially for us. Oh, and don't forget to bring you're overnight bag with you."

Luke nodded. "That sounds really nice. It's seems like yesterday that you showed me around the Inn telling what kinda stuff has to be done and what you wanna change about it, and now you're already having the grand opening."

Lorelai smiled at him, "I know, it's amazing. Thanks so much for helping us out Luke. We really couldn't have done it without you." Lorelai kissed him softly and pulled him into a hug.

"Nah, that's ok. I'm glad I was able to help. So, you wanna continue the movie?"

"Sure." She pressed the play button and lay down next to him with his arms holding her close to him and her arm on top of his.

About twenty minutes later, Lorelai had fallen asleep in his arms. He turned of the movie and gently took her into his arms carrying her upstairs, hoping not to wake her. He put her down on the bed and after taking his clothes of got into bed next to her. Lorelai snuggled closer to him. "I love you, Luke," she mumbled half asleep.

"I love you too, Lorelai."

AN2: Allright guys that's it for this chapter. The next one will be about Lorelai's special plans for the grand opening, and hopefully will be up soon. Keep reviewing it makes me write faster. :)