I was a bit unsure about how to write this chapter, at first I thought about splitting it in half, with the first half picturing Lorelai reading the book and the second one this chapter I just posted, but the chapter about Lorelai reading isn't quite done yet (and it requires some re-watching of some episodes that I really don't have the time to fit in right now) and this is, so I decided to post it.

Matt and Chris weren't given that much time on the show so I took the liberty of making up their personalities myself. Please let me know what you think of them!

Last but not least: Thanks for your wonderful reviews, I love them!

When he hears the sound of voices outside the apartment Jess lifts his head from the table, almost knocking over the half-empty bottle of tequila. For a short second his heart takes a jump in his chest. Rory was coming back. It wasn't too late. She still loved him. She did see that they belonged together.

"She might have looked at you, but she gave her number to me." The male voice in the hallway reminds Jess about his roommates. It wasn't Rory coming back, it was his roommates coming home. He sighs and pours himself another glass of tequila.

"I don't see it." It's Chris' voice. "With me standing right next to you, why on earth would she give her number to you?"
"Guess all those hours spent at the gym finally paid off." It's Matt's chuckling voice.
"Please, you only go to the gym to check out girls while pretending to jog on the treadmill."
He hears Matt snorting.

"Hey Jess!" Matt shouts out as their voices move closer to the kitchen. "You know that blonde chick, working at the bar, well Chris claims she's…" His words die out as he walks into the kitchen and sees Jess sitting at the table with the glass in his hand.
"Are you all right?" He says, slowly walking closer with a worried look on his face.

"Me? Yeah, I'm just peachy." Jess looks up at him with a face that clearly contradicts his words and makes a face as he takes a gulp out of the glass.
Matt wrinkles his forehead and sits down on a chair next to him.
"Yeah, 'cause that's how I always imagined peachy to look like." He says and looks at Jess with confusion written all over his face.

"Just leave it alone and tomorrow I'll go back to being my perky self again."
Matt snorted again.
"Well, I wouldn't say perky is you main character trait and also, the hangover that tends to follow closely in the steps of tequila doesn't usually allow that much perkiness to take place."
"Whatever." Jess says, shrugging his shoulders. "I'll be fine."

"Hey! You're having a party without me?" Chris says as he walks in and grabs a beer out of the fridge. He takes a long look at Jess and then turns to give Matt a questioning look. Matt shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head in response.

In their trio Jess had always been the odd one out. Matt and Chris had found each other immediately. There was no denying they were all close, but Jess had always preferred keeping his distance, keeping his private life private. It wasn't that he didn't trust them or that he didn't like them; he simply didn't know how to open up and let people in. Matt and Chris, especially Matt, didn't seem to have that problem at all.

For several minutes the kitchen is filled with an awkward silence, until Matt clears his throat.
"So…what is this about?"
Jess looks up from the table.
"What's what about?"
"This." Matt motions his hand towards Jess and the tequila. "You. Drinking alone. Where's the girl we left you with? And what's with the mess downstairs?"

Jess shrugs his shoulders, a pain shooting through his heart at the mentioning of Rory.
"I'll take care of the mess tomorrow."
Matt shakes his head.
"I'm not worried about the mess, I'm more worried about what caused the mess."
Jess refills his glass again and sighs. Why can't they just leave him alone, to drink his pain away? A few more drinks and he's sure it will go away. It has to.
"I caused the mess and I'll clean the mess up tomorrow."

"I'll think about that tomorrow." Chris says with a girly voice as he slams two more glasses down on the table and starts filling them with tequila as well. "Come on now Miss O'Hara, tell us what's wrong." His voice has changed back to normal and he passes one of the glasses to Matt before sitting down on a chair at the other side of Jess. "Let's start with the girl. Ex-girlfriend?"

Jess shots him a glare and Chris stares back at him, eyebrows raised. Ex-girlfriend, yeah, that could be one way of describing her. Someone else's girlfriend would be another way. The girl he's madly, insanely in love with would be yet another. Jess sighs and nods.
"Okay. Good. We're getting somewhere." Chris nods and takes a sip of his beer. "First love?"
"What is this? Twenty questions?" Jess looks irritated.
"Wouldn't be such a bad idea." Matt chimes in, nodding. "I've known you for what, little over a year? Still, I don't know you. If it weren't for the fact that we share an apartment I doubt I would even know your last name. So what's the story? You work for the FBI? CIA?"

Jess rolls his eyes, but he can't help thinking about how good it would feel to talk to someone about everything, about what happened tonight. Someone who didn't know Rory, someone who wouldn't automatically assume that he had been the one hurting her and side with her in this matter. He looks at both his roommates and sighs.

"First love and last." He gets up and grabs two beers out of the fridge and hands one of them to Matt. "Eighteen questions to go." He says and attempts a smile as he sits down again.
"First love and last?" Matt says. "You can't know that. So, she broke your heart and you feel like you'll never love anyone ever again, that'll pass. We've all been there. I know I have. Several times actually."

Chris smirks.
"But you fall in love each time a pretty girl looks at you, hell, with enough beers in you – she doesn't even have to be that pretty." He smiles and Matt laughs back at him. With a serious look on his face he continues. "I don't think Jess is like that. I believe it." He turns to Jess. "I believe that if you really love this girl it's forever."

Forever. That's a long time. He wonders if Rory will love Logan forever; if Logan will love Rory forever. How can you claim to love someone when you've cheated on them? That's not love. Rory deserves love, she deserves forever-lasting love.

"How can you say that?" Matt argues. "You don't even know who she is, how they met, how long they were together, if they even dated at all, or why they're not together now, or…" Chris holds his hand up as to shut him up.
"Honestly Matt, think back, have you ever seen Jess smile when talking to a girl?"
"But that's not… I mean, that's his M.O, that's how he gets the girls. He's the moody, bitter writer that they're just dying to cheer up."
"Really? Was I the only one who noticed how his face lit up when this particular girl walked through the door? The smile that was plastered on his face the whole time she was there?"

He had been happy when she walked through the door. Butterflies that he thought didn't existed had been going crazy in his stomach all night. Chris was probably right, his face had probably lit up when he saw her.

And the fact that he didn't smile at other girls wasn't part of some plan to get them into his bed. He simply wasn't interested enough to engage in smiling, the fact that they seemed to see that as a challenge was merely a coincidence. A coincidence he had at times taken advantage of he had to admit. But still, merely a coincidence.

Matt doesn't answer right away, instead he takes a sip of his beer and pouts for a while before answering.
"That doesn't have to mean anything. He had a lot of reasons for being happy tonight. The business is going great, his uncle came to visit…"
"I'm still here you know." Jess interrupted with a tired voice.

"Tell us about the girl." Matt asked.
"There's nothing to tell." Jess answered and shrugged his shoulders and was rewarded with two sets of disbelieving looks. That was a bad lie, but he hasn't yet decided whether he wants to pour his heart out to them or not. It would probably feel good to talk about it, about her, but the thought about it makes him feel uncomfortable. He's never been any good with talking about emotions, and they're guys – guys don't do that. He's not sure why it is so, seeing as he really never had any close friends, male or other, but he knows that's how it is.

"Ok." Chris says and empties his glass of tequila in one big gulp, making a disgusted face. "I'll go first. Her name is Jennifer and I met her freshman year in college. I have never, neither before nor after, loved anyone like that. After graduating she got offered a job in California, I didn't want her to go, she did anyway, and I was stubborn and stupid and told her she had to chose between me and the job, 'cause I could never see myself living in California. She chose the job and not a day goes by that I don't regret giving her that ultimatum."

Chris chuckles and continues.
"I actually sent her an invitation to our open house as well. But she didn't show."
Jess looks up at him and smiles, after Chris' confession it doesn't feel quite as difficult to talk about her, the thought doesn't make him as uncomfortable as it did before.
"Well, at least she didn't show to tell you she's in love with someone else." He says and smirks.
"No, but I think the engagement notice in the local newspaper two weeks ago made the need to tell me in person rather redundant." Chris says and leans back in his chair.

"Come on guys!" Matt says, refilling everyone's glasses. "There's plenty of girls out there, why dwell on the girls that broke your hearts? Huh? Move on, find a new girl. Love's overrated."
Chris looks at him with a pondering look on his face before he speaks.
"New girls every weekend. The tad bit exaggerated 'I don't care' attitude. Love's overrated. Come on, we're pouring our hearts out here, what's her name?"

Matt stares at him like a deer caught in the headlights.
"I thought Jess' girl was the subject at hand here." He quickly says, trying to shift focus from himself.
"Heart-break is the subject at hand here." Chris corrects him. "But maybe Mr. Happy-go-lucky never had his heart broken?" He continues, his tone clearly sarcastic.
"I'll tell if Jess tells first."
"What are we? Little girls? I'll tell if you tell." The last words are said with Chris' imitation of a little girl.

"Well, we are having a heart-to-heart conversation I would imagine fitting in at a girly high school slumber party." Matt replies. "Only the ice-cream and the toe-nail painting missing to make this picture-perfect."
"We got tequila and beer instead, and somehow, to me it always seemed like those girls in high school had love all figured out, maybe we're on to something." Chris smirks.
"As long as we're not having a pillow fight in our under wears I actually kind of don't think this is the worst idea ever." Jess says with a half-hearted smile.

Jess had never had any real friends in his life. The only one he had ever talked to about real stuff was her. But he could never talk to her about the things that really bothered him. He couldn't talk to her about the fear of losing her, of letting her down, of not being good-enough for her or about his decision to leave.

Friends. That word sounds good. Great actually. Friends. Not business partners, not room mates – but friends, real friends. It was worth a try, besides he had nothing to lose. If he let them in and they betrayed him, it couldn't possibly feel worse than he did right now at this moment.

"See?" Chris says in Matt's direction.
Jess takes a deep breath and starts talking.
"Her name is Rory and I met her while I was staying with my uncle in this crazy little small town in Connecticut…"