I was pretty sure there was a fire engine inside my apartment, until I opened my eyes. The alarm clock… I dragged my ass out of bed for the second Friday in a row. I was definitely hung over, but decidedly less miserable than the week before. I smiled when I thought last night.
Right when I was about to pour myself a cup of coffee there was a soft knock at my door. My first thought was Leslie. She would want to know everything. I was surprised to see through the peep hole that no one was standing there. I opened the door to look around, and almost stepped on the box that was sitting on the floor. There was a note taped to it, on the same kind of card that had been sitting under the cup of coffee a week ago.
I put the box on the table and opened it up to find warm coffee, doughnuts, Pop-Tarts, and a bag of tacos. I grabbed a cup of coffee and opened the note.
"Wasn't sure what you'd be in the mood for, but I thought you might need a Fairy Godmother this morning. – L"
I couldn't stop smiling as I drank my coffee. It really was sweet. I pulled a taco out of the bag to eat as I picked out my clothes for work, and to bring with me for the weekend.
I had a morning meeting and a few other things that I had to take care of today, so I shook myself out of my dreamy daze to get in gear. After a quick shower, I got dressed, picked up my bags, grabbed a doughnut and another cup of coffee for the road and was out the door.
As expected, a certain friend of mine was waiting at the coffee cart when I got off the train.
"Well I thought you could fill me in about last night after we got some coffee, but I see that you've got that covered… perhaps from a certain someone?"
"Perhaps…"
She got her own coffee, and we headed inside. I could feel her looking at me out of the corner of her eye as we walked. "So what's with that face you have on? Finally do the deed with Huntzberger?"
Jeeze, she was blunt. "No. There was no deed doing. And could you keep it down?" I made a face to indicate my hangover, but surprisingly it wasn't so bad… it was the taco. The reality was that I knew someone overhearing the name Huntzberger would draw attention, especially in a news room, and I that was the last thing I wanted right now.
"So no sex? I thought for sure that after you guys got drunk… you did actually go, didn't you?"
"Yes I went." I mocked resentment at her insinuation that I would chicken out on last night. "There was no sex, and... no avocado tree, but there was an argument about the car… and tacos." I was smiling as I recalled the events of the night.
"Riiiight… And these are good things?" I laughed when it occurred to me how confused she was.
"Yea. They are good."
She shook her head, still baffled, "Whatever this thing you guys have going on here is getting twisted."
I sat through my meeting, and took care of replying to a few emails, before I clicked the tab to compose a new message to LHuntzberger.
"The tacos did the trick. – R"
If he could be all short and sweet, then so could I. About two seconds later my cell phone buzzed on my desk; the text message was from an unknown number.
"I have a confession to make."
I knew who it was. "Could it possibly be that you went through my phone to steal my number last night?"
"It's not like I wasn't going to get it eventually anyway."
I actually wasn't sure why we hadn't exchanged numbers before. I thought about what Leslie said, about this thing being twisted. Twisted definitely wasn't the word I would use, but it certainly was interesting.
"How did you get tacos delivered at 7am anyway?"
"I know a guy..."
He text again before I could reply.
"I've got meetings all day, but I'm glad you got the tacos. Have fun with the Gilmores tonight."
Oh the Gilmores. I could only imagine what Emily would have to say if she knew that I had been out getting drunk with Logan Huntzberger last night. She had been so disappointed when I turned him down; she'd had her heart set on us being the 'Golden Couple'. After I didn't hear from him, both of my grandparents spent some time resenting the impropriety of his disappearance… Who was he to walk away their granddaughter? Since then he has not been a topic of discussion amongst us, just kind of an unspoken persona non grata.
I was not about to bring him up at dinner tonight, but I did need to fill in my mother.
When I took my lunch, I called her. She got all the details of the evening…
"So did you…?"
What was with them? "No, mother. Contrary to popular belief getting drunk does not equate to falling into bed."
"But it's…"
"I know, it's him. Look, I told you the other day, I'm not ready for everything yet… But he did send some much needed tacos this morning…"
"Tacos? Hun, it sounds like this kid really means business."
I paused to think, and yet again found myself smiling, "Yea… I guess he does." It was silly to think about the fact that the taco delivery had been more convincing than his moments of soul bearing over the last couple of days. Maybe it was a combination of both.
"Alright, my dear, will Mr. Darcy be joining us for dinner tonight?"
"Are you kidding?"
"Mostly." I knew how much my mother loved to cause trouble at Friday night dinner, but I hope that even she knew that that would just be cruel, for me and for him.
Later that afternoon a messenger delivered a large envelope from Dominic, containing the notes he had made on my article and a copy of my perspective contract, as promised. Interestingly, my first thought was to have Logan look it over. It actually wasn't a bad idea… he knew this industry as well as anyone and could make sure I got exactly what I wanted, but I changed my mind. I made a decision in that moment; regardless of whatever complicated capacity Logan ended up occupying in my life, he would not be involved in my career. I had gotten this far on my own and that wasn't going to change now.
I read over the contract myself. I agreed with the terms and understood what I was being offered, but decided to bring it with me to dinner. A once over by my business-minded grandfather wouldn't hurt.
At the end of the day, I changed for dinner before I left work, since the garage where I kept my car was closer to the office than my apartment. As per usual I was running a little behind schedule. My mom was going to kill me. Even after a stop for coffee I ended up making pretty good time up to Hartford, and was welcomed with open arms upon my arrival.
"Rory! It's been ages, come in, come in…" Emily led me into the living room for hugs all around.
"It's about time you showed up; you know being late to dinner is practically a cardinal sin." My mom was already trying to stir the pot.
"Oh Lorelei, let the girl be. She had a long drive, besides it sounds like she got lucky. I just had the radio on in the study and there seems to have been a big accident on the interstate; apparently there was at least one casualty, several injuries; it has everything backed up for miles. We should just be glad she got here in one piece." Mom was disappointed that Grandpa let me off the hook. "Can I fix you a drink, Rory?"
"Oh um…" The taco had worked its major hangover magic this morning, but I think that detoxing would be wise, "…just club soda, please."
Mom let out a snort. "Had enough lately?"
She was deliberately trying to get me in trouble. I ignored her. "So, Grandma, Grandpa, what's new?"
"Well your mother was just telling us that even though they missed last week's dinner, they will be unable to come next week as well. Some can't miss Stars Hallow event, although it seems like there's some festival or something equally asinine going on in that town every other day…"
"Asinine is right." Luke didn't often voluntarily enter conversations with my grandmother, but we knew his feelings about Taylor's shenanigans.
It was making sense now; Mom was just trying to take the heat off of her. What a surprise. Two could play that game.
"And what exactly does Taylor have in store this time, Mom?"
"Oh you know, Rory..." She was making a face at me, urging me to play along. She was clearly full of it. "…the one hundredth annual Stars Hollow…"
My phone went off in my purse. She was saved by the bell.
"No phones, Rory!" Landon surprised everyone with his scolding of me. I laughed, my mom looked appalled by his adherence to Emily's rules, but Grandma looked proud.
"He's right Rory."
"I know, I'm sorry, I'll just…" I checked my phone. It was an email from Gerry reminding everyone to be ready for the pitch meeting on Monday. "It's just work." I silenced the ringer and slid it back inside my bag.
"Oh you're working too much. Besides, you should have let Miranda take your purse." Before I could protest, she had grabbed my bag and began shouting for the maid, "Miranda! For heaven's sake, you couldn't have the courtesy to take our guest's purse?" Her voice trailed off in the direction of the dining room.
Grandpa directed our attention away from Emily's diatribe against their latest made. "All that hard work seems to be paying off for you though. You've had a solid streak of bylines lately." He was proud. "I've added The Post to the subscriptions of papers that are sent to the club, that way I have an extra excuse to show off your talents."
"That's great, Grandpa. I've actually been working on some new ideas…"
I filled them in on my entrance into the world of freelance. I had Grandpa take a look at the contract; he told me it looked pretty good, but suggested that I propose a sliding scale for my print royalties… higher payment for publishing in papers with higher readership. I don't know how realistic of a counter offer that was, but it was certainly a good idea.
Over dinner, Grandma caught us up on the latest gossip at the DAR, Luke reluctantly answered questions about business at the diner, Mom earned her fair share of dirty looks in response to less than appropriate comments, and Landon entertained us all with a spirited rendition of the theme song from his favorite cartoon.
By the time we had finally gotten out of there Landon was half asleep. We headed back to Stars Hollow and made a pit stop at the diner for pie. Lane met us there to fill us in on Zack, and Steve and Quan. She gave us the latest on the music store. She and Zack had taken it over a year ago, after Sophie moved out of state; it was the perfect gig for a pair of rock n' roll parents.
"So, what's new in the big city?"
Lane was always excited to hear about life in New York, but before I could answer, Mom burst out,
"She's seeing Logan!"
Thankfully, by now Luke had taken Landon home for the night, but still. "We aren't seeing each other."
"You have seen each other."
"Woah, woah, woah… slow down! Logan? The Logan? Since when? What happened?"
Two pieces of pie and a lot of shocked expressions later, she had heard the whole story.
"Holy cow. So, what now? Are you back together? Are you getting married?"
"Married? No!" Not counting our first run in, I had only seen him twice in four years.
"What? It's not like you guys just met. You're not exactly starting from scratch… I mean, he sent you tacos."
Again with the tacos… I knew it was impossible for us to start from scratch, but I didn't want things to move too fast.
"And you really haven't had sex with him yet?"
"Lane!" Why is everyone in my life obsessed with whether or not I've slept with him?
She rolled her eyes at me and glanced at my mom, "Sorry, Lorelei."
"Don't apologize to me, I asked her the same thing."
"No. There hasn't been anything like that…"
"Honestly Rory, all these declarations of love, but no sex?"
"There has been no use of the word 'love' and for the last time, there has been no sex. Besides, this is an awful lot of grief coming from the person who vowed to never sleep with her husband again after her honeymoon."
She and Brian had moved passed that a long time ago, but it was still fun to poke fun at Lane about it once in a while.
After some more light-hearted girl talk, we called it a night, locked up the diner and headed home. I took a shower before heading in to my old room. I was glad that Luke had talked mom into round two of renovations when she got pregnant. They added a second bedroom upstairs for Landon, which meant that my room stayed as is for my visits.
For the first time since drinks that evening I pulled my phone out of my purse, having forgotten that it was on silent, but by now the battery had died. I plugged it into the charger, but was asleep long before it turned back on.
I was startled from a deep sleep by my phone ringing. I looked at the clock… 1:30 am. I answered groggily without looking to see who was calling.
"Hello?"
"Ace! God, are you okay?"
"Logan? It's one-thirty in the morning. What is wrong with you?"
"I… I called you earlier; I've sent you like fifty text messages…"
I held the phone away from my ear to look, and sure enough there were icons in the corner of the screen to indicate unread texts and missed calls.
"Sorry… there are no phones allowed at dinner, then the battery died, and I fell asleep…"
"Are you at your mom's?"
"Yea. Logan, what is on?" He was talking so quickly, and I was still half asleep.
"Can you let me in?"
What!? I looked out my window just in time to see headlights pulling into the driveway. What in the hell is going on here?
"Logan, what…"
"Please?"
I hung up the phone and crawled out of bed. He is insane. What is he doing here? He was halfway up the porch steps when I opened the door. He looked like a mess.
"Rory…" A look of relief washed over his face. I still had no idea what was wrong, but it was freezing outside. I opened the door wider for him to come into the living room.
I was whispering as not to wake everyone upstairs, "Care to explain?"
"You didn't answer your phone."
"Yes, we've established that. I'm sorry, but…"
"I know, I know… I'm not supposed to worry about you. You made that pretty clear last night, but you know that's a bunch of crap, Rory. I always worry about you..."
My brain was still catching up to him being here in the middle of the night. I rubbed my hands over my face trying to process all of this.
"…I worried about you when you were trekking around the country on the campaign. I worried about you being in city alone. And that place you're living in…"
Okay, he didn't like where I lived, I get it. "Fine Logan, but what are you doing here?"
He took a breath. "I knew you were driving into Hartford tonight, and then I heard about that accident, and…"
"…and I didn't answer my phone." It was falling into place. He was scared.
"I waited to hear back from you, but you weren't calling me back… I thought about calling hospitals, but that seemed a little extreme…"
"You think?" He was a nervous wreck. It was kind of cute.
"I just didn't know what to do. I couldn't sit there not knowing if you were okay… I just got in the car…"
"I'm fine, Logan. Look, all parts here and accounted for." I spun around, trying to provide proof that he could relax.
He seemed to a little bit, but the look in his eyes were still uneasy.
"I just got so… I had to…" He didn't get to finish that sentence… I looked up, put my hands on either side of his face and kissed him.
How could I not? He cared about me, he still wanted me, he worried about me, he was here… he sent me tacos.
I pulled my head back, just enough so that I could look him in the eye, "I'm here. I'm okay."
"Okay." I don't know what it was about us and the word 'okay', but somehow we managed to make it mean a lot more than it should.
I let my hands rest on his chest and he dropped his head. I could feel him finally take a deep breath.
"Rory, I'm…"
I shushed him softly. He had clearly been through enough tonight. He looked exhausted.
"I should go…"
I couldn't let him drive back to New York like this. I would end up being the nervous wreck.
I took his hand and led him toward my bedroom.
"Rory…"
I turned and gave him a smile, "Don't get any ideas. You're sleeping on the trundle bed."
He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. It took me a little longer to fall back to sleep. I had wanted to kiss him. I had missed kissing him. There was no going back now.
** I do not own characters or content related to Gilmore Girls, Pride and Prejudice, or any other entities mentioned.**
A/N - I'm so glad many of you liked how the night out transpired... I know some of you were waiting for a kiss at the end of the night, but I thought they could stand a little more drama... What do you think?
More to come very soon! xx