Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls but I do own the word banteress…I think.
"There you are. I saved you a seat." Rory said, moving over for him.
"Finn filled me in." He whispered in her ear. "Do you want to sell this?" Nodding, Rory smiled. He was going to play along. Logan watched the back of Tristan's head and monitored Rory's grin. He did not like this guy, at all.
"So Tristan, tell us a little about yourself." Logan said.
"Well, I graduated from UNC, Pre-med. Did Med school at Johns Hopkins for Pediatrics. I actually spent my internship and first year of residency in Baltimore, but then my dad got sick and died a few months later so I moved back to Hartford. I'm finishing out my residency at the Hartford Children's hospital."
"Oh, that's so cute. You get to save little sick kids every day." Steph said with a sigh. Tristan smiled.
"I like it. It means I don't have to grow up." Rory rolled her eyes.
"Then you've found the perfect career." She said with a wink and a smile. "No, that's actually how we met again." Rory said, holding his hand. "I went in with Gigi to get her cast taken off and there he was…"she said, looking him in the eye. This time she let the feeling in her stomach linger as he smiled at her.
"You were still the spitfire banteress that I remembered."
"We always did play poorly with one another. It was like I had never left."
"Did you two date in high school?" Collin asked, despite the fact that he could feel Logan's laser vision burning a hole in the side of his head.
"No, but he tried." She said with a giggle.
"It's true, she wouldn't give me the time of day. I was an evil society boy who was going to corrupt her with my money and charm." He grinned.
"Ah, that's so not true! I was a conquest. The only girl left in the school who you hadn't been out on a date with."
"You could never be a conquest." He said honestly. "Remember the piano bench at Maddie's party?" Rory turned a bright shade of red.
"Don't…please."
"What? What happened?" Finn was enthralled.
"Rory had broken up with her boyfriend the night before and I had just broken up with my girlfriend about two seconds before in front of, well, pretty much the whole school. So I go off into the library to get away and Rory follows me."
"I wanted to make sure you were okay."
"You hated my guts."
"Still…I was concerned." He smiled, loving that about her.
"Anyway, we're sitting there talking about our mutual breakups and the next thing I know, we're kissing."
"You kissed me." He thought about it.
"That's probably true." He laughed.
"So why didn't you two date?" Steph asked.
"I would have asked her if she hadn't run away…crying." He said, knowing she would be humiliated by the story. Sure enough, her hands went over her eyes.
"You cried?! Was it that bad?" Steph laughed.
"Don't answer that." Tristan said.
"No! I just, I had just broken up with my first boyfriend you know? I wasn't ready to kiss another guy. I felt like a horrible person."
"We decided we would be friends." Tristan said, smoothing over her guilt as he squeezed her hand. "Until I got cast as Romeo to her Juliet. We had to recreate the famous death scene. I had to practice kissing your lifeless body over and over and over. Paris was relentless."
"You have got to be kidding me." Logan muttered to himself.
"But by this time you were back with…what was his name?"
"Dean." The crowd that was listening booed.
"God he was awful." Collin said. "Dumping you in front of everyone." Tristan glanced at Rory but she shook him off his question by changing the subject.
"But then YOU got shipped off to military school before we could perform it." She jabbed her finger into his chest.
"And I never saw you again." He said sadly.
"Until now." She smiled.
"Until now." He repeated. Logan got up and left, unable to take it any longer. His curiosity had been filled and now he knew way more than he had wanted to know.
OOOOO
"You were amazing." Rory said to Tristan.
"What?"
"Pulling all of that romantic stuff out. It was great."
"You don't have to thank me. I've had my fair share of ex-girlfriends." She nodded. "Besides, it was all true." She thought about their story. "I never told anyone we were dating, I just let them assume."
"Yeah, you're right. Our story is pretty crazy." He smiled and nodded. The sun was setting as they finally arrived back at his car. He leaned back against the driver's side door and pulled her over to him. She looked in his eyes briefly before glancing at his lips. He leaned in and kissed her slowly, but comfortably, as if they had done it a thousand times before. She pulled away and smiled.
"What was that?" She asked. He shrugged and smiled as he opened the car door. He waved to someone behind Rory as she stood there in shock. Touching her lips she turned around. Logan was walking towards her.
"Finn told me that Tristan said you weren't dating."
"We aren't." She said, defensively. "We're just good friends." He shook his head.
"You never looked at me the way you looked at him." He said as he brushed past her.
"Logan…"
"Stop it Ace. It's over, I get it, but that doesn't make it any easier." He said as he got in his car.
"I'm sorry."
"It didn't work out, it happens."
"We never got a chance to talk about it. You were in California and I was here. It wasn't right."
"But that's the way it happened."
"I really did love you." She said. He nodded.
"I know." He had always believed that if he had just treated her better from the start, they might have made it work. But he knew that she wouldn't have been happy with him, and he blamed himself.
"It wasn't anyone's fault, you know? It just happened." She said. She touched a nerve and she knew it. When she said that it wasn't anyone's fault, she meant that it wasn't his fault. "What we had, it was real, it just… wasn't permanent." Bothered by her statement, he looked away.
"Bye Ace." He said, starting up his car and swiftly driving away without another word.
OOOOO
"Why did you kiss me at the picnic?" She asked him. After their picnic date, he had called and invited her out to his house. They were taking a walk around his neighborhood after a long day of enjoying each other's company. He had expected her to bring it up a lot sooner. Smiling, he thought a minute before replying.
"Why do you think?" He said, being evasive.
"Because Logan was standing there?" She guessed. He shrugged and didn't answer her. She smiled. "It was a little above and beyond." She said taking his hand.
"Maybe."
"It was a little phenomenal too." She said, her voice getting soft. "Any chance of a repeat?" He stopped walking.
"Just say the word." He said honestly. She looked up at him, a small smile tugging on her lips. With a nod, she leaned in and kissed him again. This time, she was prepared. Her fingers toyed with the hair on the back of his neck. He deepened the kiss, his strong hands that were resting on the small of her back moved to her hips and pulled her closer. She sighed into his mouth and felt her knees go a little weak as she pressed herself against him. When breathing became vital, Tristan ended the kiss.
"That was more than a little phenomenal." He muttered, clearly out of breath.
"Can we go inside?" She asked, wanting this feeling to continue.
"Yeah." He laughed at the situation as they raced to the house. They were like teenagers all over again. Stumbling through the front door, they reached out for each other. Giggling and pulling off each other's clothes, Tristan led her to his bedroom. Falling onto the bed, Tristan pushed a section of hair out of Rory's eyes.
"Is this really happening?" She asked him.
"God I hope so." He said before kissing her intensely.
OOOOO
"You make me feel like I'm in high school." He said as he lay next to her.
"How so?"
"I don't know…nervous, desperate, completely under your spell." She smiled while he found the word. "You make me feel inadequate." He realized.
"Inadequate?" She said, trying to understand him.
"Yeah, I want you to think highly of me. Not see the old version of me, but the new me." He said. "It's like I'm trying so hard to prove to you that I'm someone new, but whenever I'm around you, I become sixteen again, which completely defeats the purpose."
"I think that tonight we clarified, twice, that you are anything but inadequate." She said with a blush. He smirked and kissed her shoulder. After a few seconds of quiet, she posed the question. "Do you think that we did this too soon?" He shook his head.
"I don't think so. It was years in the making." He said, surprised she would ask that question. "Why, do you?" He was concerned the answer was yes.
"I don't know. You make me feel…easy. You look at me and any self-restraint I had just disappears." She whispered in his ear. "I did not feel easy in high school."
"You could never be considered easy Mary." He said, pulling her towards him to prove his point.
"I slept with you after you kissed me twice." She said. "I'm not that girl. I don't just sleep with guys I've just gotten to know."
"Technically, we've kissed plenty of times. And you do know me, you know more about me then most people do. And I've never been happier than I am right now. So you can be easy and I'll be inadequate, whatever. I'm just going to lay here and enjoy this moment, because today was one of the best days I've ever had." His quiet confidence as he stopped the conversation took her by surprise.
"Well, okay then." Settling in, she acquiesced to him. It wasn't long before they were both sleeping peacefully. It wasn't much longer that Tristan awoke to the sound of his pager vibrating next to his ear.
"No." Rory said, clearly woken up by the buzz.
"Shit." Tristan said, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. Picking up his pager, it was just as he thought.
"What?"
"I've got to go." He said, sitting up. "Stay here, sleep." He said as he kissed her forehead. "I'll be back as soon as I can." Throwing on his clothes, he was out the door as quickly as he could.