Chapter 6

The dorm room floor digs into my back and I wince. I'm too old for this shit. But everybody else is sprawled out on the floor so I'm not going to be the stodgy one in a chair. Instead, I hold the book up so I can find another question to quiz Rory with.

"The date the rock paper scissors guy surrendered the French troops in Haiti," I read out. Lorelai's head bounces on my stomach as I read and I recross my boots.

"General Rochambeau, Luke." Rory rolls her eyes tolerantly. "November 19, 1803, and it was still called Saint Domingue then, not Haiti."

Lorelai lifts her book. "Pop quiz, hotshot. Do you know the difference between a vintner and a sommeliere?"

"A vintner makes the wine, a sommeliere supervises a restaurant's wine cellar and makes recommendations. Come on, Mom, that was too easy."

"Not my fault you inherited my brains." Lorelai tosses the book at her. "Put this one on the trash heap, too."

"Mom! We can't throw away books. We're not Nazis!"

"We won't throw them away, sweetie. This is Yale. We'll find them a good home. But if you know everything in all of them you don't need to keep them and if you don't keep this set, we'll have a good three months before Luke has to jack up this bed and build you another one so high that Logan has to climb up a ladder to get to you, like a princess in a tower."

"That does hold a certain appeal." Logan smiles at Rory. He's got his back propped against a wall while she sprawls on the floor, her feet in his lap.

I drop the Haiti book and grab one of the wine books, eager to change the subject to one that doesn't make me want to feed my knuckles to that cocky blonde kid. He's touching her feet. Not just touching them but touching them, right out in the open like her mother and I can't see.

"Logan, one for you," I say. "You ready?"

"No use, I won't know the answer. Wine is wet and when I steal it from my parent's cellar, it's always delicious." He smiles. "That's all I need to know."

There's a low growling sound. I clamp my mouth shut, determined not to get myself in trouble with Rory, like I did about Dean. But then I realize the growl was Lorelai's stomach.

"So, apparently the pizza course is all used up," Rory announces. "Ice cream course? Might help you guys sober up."

I've only had two beers, but I'm manfully pretending to be too tipsy to drive so Lorelai can have a little more spying-on-Logan time. Which is working out surprisingly well considering she doesn't exactly need to pretend to be tipsy after drinking the other four beers in the six-pack.

"I'll get it." Logan moves Rory's feet out of his lap with a little caress to her ankle that I wish I hadn't seen.

"Are you sure?" Rory looks up. "You got the pizza."

"Least I could do, Ace, considering Luke was busy fixing the bed we broke."

Lorelai flinches, and covers it with a fake sneeze. I pat her shoulder. "Bless you." And bless that kid, because he's going to need it as his last rites if he ever again mentions sex with Rory while I'm within earshot.

"Besides, dining hall is just around the corner, if you're all okay with Yale-brand soft serve." He points at Rory. "Vanilla with Cocoa Pebbles on top?" Without waiting for an answer, he looks to Lorelai. "And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so…" He narrows his eyes. "Chocolate with Cocoa Pebbles and whipped cream?"

"Add yourself some candy sprinkles and you got yourself a mother in law," she proclaims.

He nods, though his eyes go a little distance and his smile turns plastic. "Duly noted. Luke?"

"Nothing for me, thanks."

"Logan…" Rory looks worried.

He whips a meal card out of his pocket and holds it up between two fingers. "Worry not. For the lady, I will even swipe."

Her face relaxes into a smile. "Three times. Since it's for three people."

He looks to me. "Ladies are expensive, aren't they?"

"The ones that are worth it, yeah." I nod, cocking a hand up under my head and thinking of the hundred grand Lorelai talked me into spending on my building, all the paint she put on my diner that hardly needed paint, and the thirty I've got tied up in her Inn. "Expensive as hell."

She tugs on my shirt tail, grinning. "Ooh, I'm worth it, am I? Because there's this little blue sweater Rory returned for me for the third time, and I actually think I might want to keep it. It would go super cute with my yellow rain boots you got me out of the boating catalog."

"Go," I advise Logan. "Or they'll keep adding stuff to the order until that little student ID of yours folds under the strain."

Rory still looks guilty, and he must notice, too, because he chucks her under the chin and grins. "Don't feel bad, Ace. This way you guys can talk about me while I'm gone. I'll make lots of noise before I come back in."

He saunters out.

I hate guys that saunter. I glance down at Lorelai, wondering what she's going to say. She says, rather shockingly, nothing.

I'm considering checking her pulse when Rory ventures, "Mom?"

Her fingers are twisting in the edge of her sweater vest, which I recognize rather well. It looks a lot more modest on Rory than it does on Lorelai, who always drops an extra button on the shirt beneath to make sweater vests look a lot more, "Bend me over the desk" schoolgirl than, "Studying on a Saturday" schoolgirl.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes, of course this is the nose I was born with," Lorelai says. "I do realize it's the perfect combination of cute and pert, but that's just the way the double helix twisted for me. And you should be happy that you got your Grandpa's nose because it will probably net you a neat seven figures of inheritance, which is even more useful than the perfect combination of cute and pert, if you ask my utility bills."

"Did you know Grandma's been coming to Luke's?"

Lorelai rolls up onto an elbow, throwing a quick glance at me before she focuses all her concern back on Rory. "Yeah, kid. I know. Why? Is she trying to strong-arm you into going back to Friday dinners?"

My eyes narrow. "I would not let Rory be strong-armed in my diner."

"Yeah, well, the Tsar of Russia didn't want to go to war either, but even when you've got a whole country of soldiers with pointy pointy swords and Napoleon comes calling, it's not likely everybody's going to sit down to hot cocoa and canasta," Lorelai says.

"That was a startlingly accurate historical analogy," Rory notes.

"Yeah, well, you talk to yourself when you're doing flashcards and I've got an ear for dialogue. Just ask me, I can do the whole second DVD of Titanic from memory."

"We know you can," I interrupt, because I really don't want to have to sit through that a second time. She gets this look of longing in her eyes when she calls out to Jack and for some reason that really turns my crank, and not in a good way.

Leonardo DiCaprio is a putz, anyway.

"She's not strong arming me, but she does seem…different," Rory admits. "We talked a little. I told her I wasn't coming back to Friday dinners until you did, and she said she's been trying to apologize but you won't take her calls."

I get up and start gathering my tools, loading them back into my toolbox. I'm not sure I'm supposed to be a party to this mother-daughter discussion, but I also feel like it's my fault because I let Emily into my diner, and despite all my rules, that does still mean she has a window back into Lorelai and Rory's lives.

"Aww, hon," Lorelai says, heart-deep sympathy in her tone. "I know she seems different. She can do that, for a little while. But it never lasts. And I totally understand if you want to go back. They're your grandparents and you have a right to whatever relationship with them you want. Just please, remember what I said about how they engineered that Yale matchmaking party when they found out you were with Dean. Remember how similar it was to what they pulled on me and Luke. As much as you want everyone to like you, you need to be assertive enough to set boundaries with them now while you still can. They will never respect your choices unless you're strong enough to stand up for your own decisions."

I steal a look at Lorelai as I organize my screwdrivers back into their case. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about kids. Our kids. But I don't think even if I had another twenty years to try and catch up to her, that I could ever be the parent she is without even having to think about it. For as flighty and impulsive as she seems in her own life, she's got all the wisdom and foresight in the world when it comes to preparing Rory for her future.

"I was proud of you," I say abruptly. Because maybe if I'd said that out loud to Jess once or twice, he would have invited me to his Employee of the Month ceremony instead of me having to find out from his boss at Walmart. "When you told her you'd have pie with her but stuck to your guns about Friday dinner."

Rory blinks at me, surprised, then a tentative smile creeps onto her face. "Uh, thanks, Luke." She grins. "I liked when you growled at her, too." She drops her voice and her chin, imitating my grouchiest expression. "'Rory has homework.'"

Lorelai laughs. "You guys are starting to do your own bits. Do that one again this weekend for the video camera, would you?"

"Sure, sure, but if you think I'm going to mention you in my Oscar speech, you got another think coming."

"Right, because I only pushed you out of my own body and kept you alive in a potting shed for years. Clearly I need to put some effort into it to get into the Oscar speech."

Rory glances at the door, like she's not sure when Logan will get back. "Hey, I'm serious, though. I think Grandma's really different this time. And I think she's starting to like…Luke."

I scowl. "You didn't have to say it like that. I'm likable."

Lorelai explodes, and if she'd been drinking anything, it would have come spraying out her nose. She tips over, laughing until she shakes. "I'm likable."

Rory joins in, dropping her voice to the grouchy baritone again. "I'm likable, dammit."

"You guys are a real comedy team."

"I'll be here all week," Rory says brightly. "And this weekend, for the video camera, and the doughnuts you promised me."

"I didn't promise you nothing."

"I'm likable," Lorelai mutters, and erupts with laughter again.

"Cute," I say. "Real cute. Which you're gonna need, when you're hanging your thumb out on the side of the road to get a ride home."

"Luke, do you think Grandma's sorry?"

Lorelai stops laughing and I freeze with my toolbox in one hand. Lorelai sits up, looking at me like she's actually listening, and I could tell her what I actually think, but I don't want to be in any way responsible if Emily changes again and breaks her heart. When I picture that, I want to dump the old broad in the bed of my truck and drive her out to the middle of the Canadian tundra rather than let her anywhere near my girls.

But I also remember the way Emily's eyes droop and the way she slumps onto the counter stools after Lorelai leaves, every day, without talking to her. It's a little too much like the whooshy exhales Lorelai used to give when she made it to the sanctuary of the counter stools after escaping her mother.

And I wonder, with family, if there's any real escape.

There's a sore spot in my heart for Liz, and a matching one for Jess, and no amount of hugs and talks can erase all the times they've let me down. And no amount of let downs can erase the fact that those places in my heart will always belong to them.

"Don't put him on the spot, hon," Lorelai finally murmurs. "We've all got to make our own decisions about my parents, okay? Because life is long, and they're family, and a big part of becoming an adult is making hard choices and living with the consequences."

I clear my throat. "I'll have her out of the diner on Monday. I won't be responsible for her pressuring you two, no matter what her intentions."

"No." Lorelai rises to her feet and touches my arm. "I was talking about you, too, Luke. You have a right to make your own decision about my mother. And regardless of whether we come to the same conclusion or not, I will always respect your choices, because I respect you." She squeezes my arm. "You always do what you think is right, even when you hate it." She looks at Rory, then tips her head toward me. "You could do a lot worse than being that kind of grownup, kid."

I cough, then clear my throat into my fist, then swap my toolbox into the other hand. "I'm going to run these tools out to the truck."

I barrel through the room, not looking up to see Rory's reaction as I let myself out, because one of the things my dad taught me about being a man is that you let no one see you cry.

Author's Note: Only one more chapter, folks! Thank you so so much for all the support and wonderful reviews, and please remember NO REVIVAL SPOILERS in reviews because I need to finish my first watch of all seasons before I can watch the revival.