A/N: sorry for the delay! I've been so busy the past days but I hope this update makes it worth the delay! And I plan on having another one before the end of the week so I hope that makes it better :) Also, I'm having trouble with the flashback staying in italics so I hope it worked.
Jen smiled at Jess, walking closer to him. "I didn't expect to see you today."
"I work here," he pointed out.
"Right," she laughed without humor. "I just - I heard you went back to...there. Stars Hollow. I didn't know you would be back."
"I did," he nodded. "But there was work stuff so I came back."
"That's good," she told him.
"What are you doing here?" Jess asked. "I thought the new job made you really busy."
"It does," she laughed. "Way more busy then this place did. But I wanted to come see you."
"How come?" He asked then his face turned serious. "Is something wrong?"
"No," she shook her head. "Nothing is wrong. I, um...I don't know why this is so hard to say."
"What's hard to say?" Jess was starting to worry despite her words. He tried to make a joke to ease the tension. "Please don't tell me there is three year old kid out there waiting for me."
Jen laughed. "No kid. Don't worry about that."
He nodded. "Good."
"I met this guy a year ago," she started. "A really amazing guy. We instantly started dating and...well, we're getting married. He asked me to marry him."
"Oh," Jess simply said.
"I knew it was wrong to come here," she told him as she tried to walk out the door. Jess caught her arm and spun her to him.
"I'm happy for you, Jen," Jess told her honestly. "Really. I mean it."
"Thank you," she smiled but it quickly faded. "We were going to do it soon."
"How soon?" He was curious.
"Next weekend," she answered.
"Wow," Jess said.
Jen nodded at him. "I know. And I was wondering if you could come."
He took a deep breath. It felt like seeing that invitation to Rory's wedding all over again, just a lesser ache. "I don't know."
She nodded, understanding. "That's all right. Just let me know. Before."
"I will," Jess promised and he meant it.
She went for the door again and he called her this time instead of grabbing her arm. "Do you want to go for coffee?"
...
Rory had made it home safely that morning, closer to afternoon but she didn't care. She decided to call her mom after all because she hated keeping anything from her, especially her feelings. The phone only rang twice before Rory heard her mother's voice on the other end. "What's up, kid?"
"Not much," Rory shrugged. "I'm working on an article work sent me to edit."
"You're not writing your own?" Lorelai asked.
Rory bit her lip. How would she explain she called days off to go to Philadelphia and see Jess so they passed those articles to others? "Not today. I let another journalist have it "
"How come, sweets?" She should have known her mom wouldn't back off. "I've never known you to turn down a story."
"I wasn't in New York," she took a deep breath. "I went to Philadelphia."
"Philadelphia?" Lorelai questioned. "Why would you go to - oh."
"Yeah," Rory looked down at her hand in her lap.
Lorelai was quiet for a moment then spoke again. "You went to see Jess?"
"Yeah," she repeated. There was another pause. "Are you mad?"
"You're an adult," Lorelai replied.
"And?" Rory said.
"I'm not going to get mad at my adult daughter for going to see someone," she explained.
Rory nodded. "Okay."
"However," Lorelai added. "I will ask my adult daughter why she went to see that particular someone. Last I knew the two of you weren't close anymore and only went to dinner."
"We kissed," Rory admitted.
She could imagine her mother nodding. "In Philadelphia?"
"No," Rory said. "Well, yes, but that kiss was longer ago."
"So there's two kisses with Jess you're telling me about?" Lorelai asked. "Start from the earlier one."
"It was after me and Logan got back together," Rory sighed. "Remember that open house I went to of his that I met April at?"
"Yes," Lorelai said. "You said you weren't seeing Jess, you were just friends. I'm guessing you did not tell me the whole story."
"I don't know why I didn't," Rory cried out. "Wait, I do. I was embarrassed. He didn't know me and Logan were back together. I told him yes when he asked if I fixed everything. Then he kissed me and I pulled away because I couldn't do that to Logan."
"So you kissed him," Lorelai tried to follow along. "And what after you pulled away?"
"I told him I couldn't cheat on him the way he did to me," Rory went on. "Jess connected I was still with Logan and got upset. And I hurt him, Mom. Really bad. He'd never admit but the look on his face..."
"Hun, slow down," Lorelai told her. "Jess knew Logan? Back then?"
Rory swallowed. "I never told you about that either, did I?"
"No," Lorelai said sadly.
She took a moment to think of how to start. It was never east talking about that time her and her mom didn't speak. It was probably part of why she never mentioned seeing Jess or his part in their reunion or Yale. "He came to see me when I was at Grandma and Grandpa's."
They were both silent for a moment. Rory waited for lorelai to say something but when she didn't, Rory went on. "He had just published his first book and wanted to show me it. The second night after he came, we had planned on going to dinner but Logan came and invited himself. To say it did not go well would be an understatement."
"I see," Lorelai replied. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"We were fighting," she answered as if that explained all. "And because Jess... He was the one who got me to come yo my senses. He yelled at me, screaming what's going on with me. He asked why I was fighting with you, why did I drop pit of Yale... He reminded me of who I was and why I was being so stupid."
"Oh, hun," her mother just said. "I wish you'd told me that. I always wondered what made you come back."
"He was just standing there, so confused," Rory confessed. "Telling me he knows me better than anyone and how that wasn't me. And I was thinking how Jess was always someone people expected to fail, to amount to nothing. Yet there he was, 21 years old and a published author while I was getting drunk and a Yale dropout living at my grandparent's house."
"Honey..."
"I know."
"I wish I knew you felt like that," Lorelai told her.
"I was ashamed," she said.
Lorelai tried to reassure her. "You have nothing to be ashamed about."
"Nobody believed in him," she continued. "Besides me and Luke. Everyone believed in me and I let them down."
"You didn't let them down," Lorelai said.
Rory wiped a tear she hasn't noticed. "I let you down."
"Hey," Lorelai told her. "You could never ever let me down. Was I sad? Of course. But you can't let me down. Got that?"
"Got it," Rory smiled. "I was ashamed about seeing him in Philadelphia, too."
"Because you were with Logan and kissed him?" Lorelai asked.
"It was more than that," Rory admitted. "We had a great day together. I stayed past everyone else and we were just...us. It was easy. I planned on using him to get back at Logan. I planned on sleeping with him and didn't think of his feelings."
"But you didn't," Lorelai pointed out, trying to listen rather than asking her to expand.
"What I did was so much worse than Logan," she murmered.
"Worse than sleeping with an entire bridal party?" Her mother questioned.
"Yes," she sniffled. "There was always feeling there. And seeing him that fall and then at the open house, I realized how much it didn't go away. How much I still felt for him. And its exactly what I did to Dean. Feelings for someone else is so much worse and I kissed Jess while I was with both of them."
"It is," Lorelai agreed. She tried to sway her from her guilty thoughts. "What about this other kiss you didn't tell me about?"
"It happened before I left last week," Rory groaned and put her hand over her face. "I hugged him goodbye and before I could really register how close we were, we were kissing. And I wanted to see him, away from the gossip so I waited for him to go home so we can talk."
Lorelai was curious. "And what happened?"
"It was awkward," Rory sighed. "About as awkward as seeing him at your wedding was."
"Whoa," Lorelai joked. "Don't call my wedding awkward. My wedding was delightful."
Rory didn't continue the joke. "He hated me. I could tell how badly I hurt him from the first second I saw him."
"I'm sure he doesn't hate you," Lorelai defended.
"He did then," she admitted. "And I would have, too."
"Rory?"
"Uh-huh?"
"How did you...feel about the kiss?" She asked. "When it happened. Did you regret it or were you glad it happened? What was it?"
"I think it was a mix," she answered. "I didn't completely wish it never happened. But I wasn't happy either. We just decided we'll be friends again and then like always, a kiss ruins it."
Lorelai nodded. "Were there feelings? Like in Philadelphia?"
She was quiet for probably too long. Lorelai didn't say anything, either, she waited for Rory to reply. "Yeah, there were."
"Hun, you know what I'm gonna say then," Lorelai told her. "You have to follow your heart."
Rory scoffed. "What if my heart doesn't make up its mind?"
Lorelai laughed. "Then we explain to it that's its a heart, it doesn't have a mind."
"Or ears," Rory added with a laugh. She turned serious. "I don't know, Mom. I'm not even sure how I feel."
"Okay," she said softly and didn't push. "Take time, sort it out. But if there is...tell me. I want to know these things, sweets."
"I know," Rory sighed. "And I'm sorry I didn't tell you any of it."
"However I am glad I learned Jess got you back into school now," Lorelai said jokingly.
Rory laughed. "How come now?"
"Because - well I wouldn't say I like him - but I don't dislike him anymore," she explained. "I'd be much more hesitant to thank him then compared to now."
Rory laughed and they fell into an easy conversation about how the baby is doing and how Lorelai is doing with the baby.
...
"What's this?" Logan asked as soon as Rory walked into the door.
She smirked. "Hello to you, too, honey."
He didn't smile back. She walked further into the room and looked down at the table where a box sat. "What's this?"
"A box," she tried to joke. Rory knew exactly what it was but was too afraid to admit it.
"I see that," he said. "I also saw that it was buries in the back of a closet. When I opened it to see what it might be of, I found this."
He threw something at her. It was an envelope, opened with an invitation inside. She recognized Jess' handwriting on the front and the Truncheon symbol. She swallowed hard as she stared at the paper on the floor.
"That's from Jess," she whispered.
"I noticed," he sneered. "Did you go see him? Did you reminisce?"
"Yes, I saw him," Rory answered. "It was a whole ago though."
"Uh-huh," Logan nodded. "When? Were we together?"
"It was right after you left for the life and death brigade," she told him. "Before you got hurt and before Lane's wedding."
He just kept nodding and walked closer. Rory felt her heart pounding. She never told him about what happened in Philly. "So when we were fighting, you went to go visit your ex-boyfriend."
"It wasn't like that," she defended. "His work had an open house. They were showing off his book. I went for support."
"Oh, I'm sure," he replied sarcastically.
"Logan!" She yelled. "Stop that. Nothing happened."
"Really?" He asked. "So no staying overnight in his bookstore?"
"No," she shook her head.
"It was a quickie then?" He kept going. "And I thought writers were passionate people."
"There was no overnight," she yelled. "No quickie! I didn't sleep with him."
"I never said sleep," he emphasized.
She made a face. "You're disgusting. And you're drunk."
Logan ignored her comments. "Did you kiss him? Did he kiss you?"
She was quiet for millisecond too long. He noticed and she watched his anger flare. He was only trying to get a rise out of her before, to just admit she saw her ex without telling him because they fought. But now he was furious she couldn't answer or admit ot to him.
"Where?" He asked.
Rory looked him straight in the face. "Excuse me?"
"Where did he kiss you, Rory?" Logan said each word slowly.
She felt bile rise in her throat. "Are you seriously asking me if -"
"Yes!" He exclaimed. "You're damn right I'm asking that!"
Rory was furious too now. "I'm your wife, Logan. Do you really think its okay to ask me something like that? If some other guy had his mouth on me?!"
"But he's not just some other guy, is he, Ace?" Logan threw back.
She snapped her mouth open and shut. "That isn't fair."
"What's not fair about it?" He moved closer. "That I asked or that you want it happen? Or that he's more than just an ex-boyfriend?"
"All of it!" She yelled, her anger raising higher. "Yes, I went to go see him! Yes, Jess and I dated! Yes, we kissed! And it was on the lips, nowhere else that your mind seems to assume!"
"Were you ever going to tell me you kissed him?" He said in a quieter voice after a few seconds. "Or that you went to visit him?"
Her heart was still pounding though it was calming down as his voice got softer. "I don't know."
Logan looked around the room, to the box them back to his wife. "I don't like that guy."
"I know," she nodded.
"I don't trust him, either," he added.
"I know," she said again.
"Will you tell me these things?" He asked. Logan was much calmer now that he had been just a minute ago. "Not that I'm expecting you to go kissing him or anyone else but I would like to know."
Rory nodded and walked towards him, moving aside his empty beer bottle and the box that had been hiding the bottle from her view earlier. "Promise."
She hugged her husband to her, feeling something in the pit of her stomach. The whole conversation - if you could even call it that with all the yelling and screaming - made her feel sick for multiple reasons. Rory pushed it aside and tried to make Logan feel better.
...
Matt was waiting in the doorway of Truncheon as Jess came back from coffee with Jen. He watched as they smiled at each other and said goodbye. Jess almost walked right into his friend when he entered.
"Well?" Matt asked as Jess passed.
Jess didn't even turn to look at him. "Well what?"
"So that's what you meant by you see Jen?" He asked. "You go out together?"
"I meant that I see her," Jess told him. "We're not going out."
"You seem friendly," he pointed out.
Jess smirked as he sat at his desk. "Well, we are friends."
"Just friends?" Matt continued his interrogation. "What about Miss Rory?"
"Miss Rory?" Jess repeated with a look of annoyance on his face.
Matt shrugged. "Does she know you're seeing your other ex too?"
"I'm not seeing either one of them," Jess explained. "Jen is getting married, as a matter of fact."
"What?" This stunned him. "To who?"
"A guy named Jordan," he replied. "He sounds real nice."
"And you're not jealous?" He pushed.
"No," Jess said. "Well, a little, maybe."
"What about Rory?" He asked again.
Jess groaned. "What does this have to do with her?"
"Were you jealous of her getting married?" Matt questioned.
He sighed. "I'm done with this conversation."
"Ah," he smirked. "So you were."
"The only thing I'm doing is working," Jess said. "I was out so now I'm gonna get back to editing, if you don't mind."
"Fine," Matt put his hands up in surrender. "Be like that. But I'll be back."
Jess smirked again. "Oh, I'm sure of that."
Matt walked away and Jess went back to his work, sighing as his brain started to ask himself all of Matt's questions now.
A/N: Thank you for the reviews once again! You continue to amaze me! You all rock, seriously. And as much fun as it would be to keep Rory completely in denial about her feelings for Jess (we all know she did enough of that on the show right? lol), I decided to make her acknowledge they're there. I hope you like it!