A/N: Hello! I'm sorry it took me so long to get this update finished. I didn't mean to upload one chapter and then leave you hanging for two weeks. I've actually been working on this chapter for a while now, but I had a severe case of writer's block that slowed down the whole process. I must have rewritten parts of this chapter at least 10 times, because it just wasn't working. But I've gotten the whole thing under control now, and have already started work on the next chapter, so hopefully I won't leave you waiting for such a long time again. Enjoy!

Chapter Two – Pajama Party

"Completely naked?"

"Completely naked!"

"And he was passed out in your common room?"

"Right in the middle of the floor!"

Rory was dying to tell Lorelai everything about the 'naked stranger in the dorm' incident all throughout Friday night dinner, but she couldn't think of a way to bring it up without her grandparents, particularly Emily, becoming wildly curious. Her grandmother was butting into her life enough as it was.

Rory knew that she only had herself to blame. She should have known what she was getting in to when she asked her grandparents to pay for Yale. Lorelai had as good as told her so when Rory approached her grandparents about the loan, but there hadn't really been any way around the situation. She was stuck with her grandmother butting into situations she didn't belong, including Emily's desire to stock her common room with brand new, expensive furniture.

In any case, Rory had to wait until well after dinner was over to tell her the whole story. They were back in Stars Hollow, having coffee in Luke's Diner, eating some pie. Rory hadn't intended on coming home that weekend, but the full story was better told face to face.

"Boy, your college life is better than a soap opera!" Lorelai finally said when Rory finished telling her everything. "I should have asked Luke to make us some popcorn. Pie does not do this story justice!"

"I'll keep that in mind for my next story."

Lorelai finished the rest of her coffee. "So did naked guy at least have a cute butt?"

"Mom!" Rory blushed. "I wasn't exactly checking out his butt. I was a bit more concerned about getting him out of there before Paris woke up."

"Yeah, but come on! Naked Australian passed out in your room. If you didn't at least glance at his butt, then I have serious doubts as to whether or not you're actually my daughter. Maybe you were accidentally switched at the hospital with someone else's baby, and I've been raising the wrong child this whole time!"

Rory made a face at her mother. "I mean, I guess his butt was kind of cute. But he is so not my type."

"He's Australian, he has a cute butt. How is that not your type? Sounds like the perfect type to me!"

"Well, I prefer guys who don't make it a habit of getting drunk, taking all their clothes off, and passing out all over New Haven. That girl Steph made it sound like this is a regular occurrence. No thank you, I'll pass."

"Okay, you're right. What about the other guys who came to get him? Were they cute at least?"

Rory shrugged. "I mean, I guess. But they remind me of the guys from Chilton, like Tristan? They act like picking up girls is just one big game. And the blonde guy, Logan? He just kept looking at me. I mean, what exactly was he looking at? I was in my pajamas! I didn't even look cute."

"Come on, Rory, you can't really be that clueless." Lorelai wanted to be sympathetic, but her daughter was a little naïve sometimes.

"What are you talking about?"

"Those guys were probably checking you out. I can't really blame them; you have good genes. And you do have that annoying ability to look cute in your pajamas."

"You're supposed to be on my side here." Rory was pouting a little bit, and she knew it.

"I am on your side," Lorelai insisted. "Look. All I'm saying is that guys will check you out. Especially college guys. It's what they do; it may as well be their slogan. I mean, what else is there to do in college?"

"I don't know, go to class maybe?"

"And where's the fun in that?"

Rory sighed. She wasn't really used to the whole, 'guys checking her out' kind of thing. It made her feel weird. "Any way to avoid it?"

"Well, you could try getting really fat and wearing a paper bag over your head, but I don't think even that will work. Even fat girls can have boyfriends. Have we learned nothing from Shallow Hal?"

"That was different. Hal was hypnotized into believing that his new girlfriend looked like Gwyneth Paltro when, in fact, she was incredibly overweight. I may eat a lot of junk food, but somehow I am still of average height and build. A marvel to the medical world, but it does nothing to help me with your whole, 'get really fat' suggestion."

"Well, then you've really only got two other options."

"And what's that?"

"One: you can take the compliment and ignore a guy who checks you out like that."

"Don't think so, what's your next option?"

"Two: you can yell at the next guy who even so much as glances at you in a displeasing manner until he runs away like a coward with his tail between his legs."

"Or I can have Paris do it or me."

Rory was going to kill Paris, end of story.

It wasn't Paris's usual bout of insanity that was driving Rory crazy at the moment. On this particular occasion, Paris had turned off Rory alarm clock, causing her to almost miss breakfast. True, Paris was rather on edge lately, but now Rory was forced to suffer because of it. The situation in their dorm was getting tense. Janet, a runner, woke up every day at 5:30 am to work out in the common room, and do whatever else it is that runner's do. Unfortunately for Rory, Paris was a light sleeper, and so the grunting that came with Janet's early morning workouts would wake Paris up. Paris was not someone who took losing sleep very well, and so many an argument had been started out of these circumstances. The resulting arguments usually woke Rory and Tana up as well. Soon the arguments had escalated into an all out war zone in Durfee suite 5, making it a very unsafe place for anyone to enter.

On this particular, Paris had stayed up most of the night working on a lab report. When Janet woke Paris up, Paris had decided to turn off Rory's alarm. Needless to say, Paris was in more of a rage than usual that morning, and now Rory was stuck dealing with the consequences.

The past couple of weeks had been weird enough for Rory as it was. On her last visit to Stars Hollow, she had accidentally found herself in the middle of her ex boyfriend Dean's wedding. The incident had shaken her feathers slightly. She was over Dean, of course, but it still wasn't easy seeing her ex marrying someone else; especially when she thought that they were rushing into things in the first place. In any case, she had opted out of going to the wedding on the advice of Luke, avoiding what could be another very awkward situation.

The invitation from Dean had been awkward enough as it was, but Rory hadn't been able to figure out how to say no. She was trying to be friends with Dean, wasn't she? And friends go to their friends weddings. But Luke managed to convince her not to go, although Rory loitered around the town square long enough to see the happy couple exiting the church together.

Rory had been in a bit of a funk ever since, and the war that was slowly escalating wasn't helping matters. Waking up late that Tuesday morning was not making things better either. If Rory missed breakfast because of Paris, (and on waffle bar day, no less) there would be hell to pay. She was not the kind of person who could skip a meal and still be a pleasant person to be around.

Having only five minutes to make it to breakfast before the Dining Hall closed, Rory ran out of her room, still in her pajamas, pausing only long enough to throw on a bathrobe and slippers.

She arrived just as they were taking food away, leaving practically nothing left for her to eat. Please let there be coffee, Rory silently begged as she grabbed an empty mug and placed it under the coffee canister. She pulled the lever and nothing came out, causing Rory to groan in frustration.

Barely any food and no coffee. "This day just keeps getting better and better," she mumbled to herself, a disgruntled look on her face.

As if the entire universe were working against her that morning, the last people she would ever want to run into her under dressed and under caffeinated happened to spot her just as she turned around with her empty mug of coffee.

"Rory!" It was a female voice, coming from the table next to where she was standing. It took her a moment to match the face to a name in her mind, as she was still trying to bring herself out of the half asleep fog her brain seemed stuck in due to lack of caffeinated beverages.

"Steph," said Rory, slightly surprised. She hadn't seen the girl or her friends since that night when she found Finn passed out in her common room. It wasn't that Rory had forgotten about it. In all honesty, Rory was having trouble believing that the whole thing really happened. The story seemed so crazy that she half thought she made the whole thing up in some kind of sleepy haze. Since she hadn't seen any of those involved that night around campus, Rory had nearly convinced herself that the whole thing was just a very vivid dream. But here Steph was, sitting in the Dining Hall having breakfast. And she wasn't alone.

"Pajamas again I see," said the blonde guy with a smirk. It took Rory a moment to remember that his name was Logan. "I'm starting to think that you don't own any other clothes."

"Um. No, I own real clothes."

Logan's eyes roamed over her body, his smile growing wider. "Right."

"No really, I do." Rory's annoyance was growing. She wasn't in any mood to put up with this right now. "It's just, my roommate turned off my alarm this morning, and I was about to miss breakfast. And apparently, I didn't really need to rush, because they're out of coffee, making this whole embarrassing encounter completely pointless." She was rambling nervously, but she was unable to stop herself. She was tired and hungry, and in desperate need of coffee.

"You can have mine if you want," Steph offered, pushing a full mug towards her. "It might be a bit cool by now, but it's my third cup and I'm probably not going to drink it."

Rory's eyes widened, her mouth dropping open in surprise. This girl was sent directly from heaven for the sole purpose of caffeinating her, Rory was sure of it. "You sure?" she asked, but her hand was already reaching for the mug, and she took a large gulp before Steph even had a chance to respond. It was still slightly warm, but it hardly mattered to Rory at this point as she downed half the glass quickly.

"Hey, why don't you join us?" Steph suggested, gesturing to the empty seat next to her.

"Yeah, have a seat," Logan added. "We can continue this discussion of your various states of dress and undress."

"Logan – " Steph warned.

"What?" he asked, trying to keep his voice sounding innocent. He knew that he was heading for trouble, but Logan couldn't help himself. Rory had shown up, looking flustered and annoyed, which Logan thought only made her look more attractive. He didn't see any harm in simply pushing her buttons, particularly when he didn't plan on acting on his implications in the first place. It was a fine line he was dancing with, between flirting and inappropriate. He figured that keeping things playful was the best course of action in this situation.

"All I'm saying is that pajamas are a good look for you. Now, do you have other variations of this style, or are you more of a footsie pajama's kind of girl? Unless you're into something a bit more risqué. In which case, by all means, feel free to share your wardrobe choices with us."

Rory wasn't sure if she felt more embarrassed or enraged. His tone implied so much more than just what he was saying. He was practically inviting her to strip down into some sexy lingerie and hop into bed with him. In any case, she was far too cranky to deal with this right now.

Without bothering to respond, Rory turned on her heel and headed for the door with her food, walking quickly so as to get far away from him before she said something she'd be embarrassed about later.

Steph glared at Logan. "What did you do that for?" she asked.

"What are you talking about? I was just teasing her. You know I was kidding, right?"

Logan didn't see what the big deal was. Rory was just some random freshman that he'd only seen twice in his life. What was the harm in being a little playful? The girl looked cute when she was squirming. He hadn't said or done anything too inappropriate, had he?

"Of course I know that, but she didn't! Not every girl thinks you're open flirting is cute. Idiot! You scared the poor girl away!" Giving him one last death glare, Steph stood up and chased after Rory, leaving Logan sitting alone at their table.

"Rory, wait up!" Steph called just as Rory was exiting the building. Rory stopped walking only when Steph finally caught up to her.

"Hey, I'm sorry about my friend. He sometimes forgets that not everyone thinks he's so charming right off the bat," Steph apologized. She truly meant it, too. Normally Steph wouldn't really care how many girls Logan, Colin, and Finn pissed off. In fact, the more the merrier. She rather enjoyed watching them get drinks thrown in their faces. But there was something familiar about the girl, and she couldn't put her finger on why that was. Steph had been racking her brain ever since the night that Rory found Finn naked in her common room, trying to figure out why Rory seemed so familiar.

Rory shrugged. "It's okay. I'm a little cranky this morning already. My roommates are fighting, and I haven't had any coffee, and then when I went home the other weekend I was almost in the middle of my ex boyfriend's wedding; that was fun. Really, I'm just not in the mood to deal with people right now. Especially people that annoy me."

"Well, I'm sorry nonetheless. Logan's harmless, I swear."

Rory gave her a skeptical look. "I don't think that any of those boys from the other night are harmless."

"Alright, they're mostly harmless."

Rory chuckled softly, rolling her eyes. "I've really got to get going. I have class, and I'd like to attend it wearing something other than slippers with bunnies on them."

"Right, of course you do. We'll talk another time."

Rory doubted that. She wasn't about to willingly put herself through another awkward run in with Steph's male friends.

"Sure, maybe," she said, although her tone implied that Rory had no intensions of getting together with Steph any time soon.

"No really, I mean it. That's twice now that my male friends have inconvenienced you. I owe you a drink at the very least as repayment for their crimes against all womankind."

This, at least, made Rory smile.

"So give me a call if you need anything," Steph continued. "And I promise I'll leave the boys at home."

Rory hesitated. Steph seemed like a nice enough girl, despite the company she kept. The question was whether or not she'd really be able to keep her male counterparts at bay.

But who was Rory to say no to someone who seemed to be making a genuine effort to befriend her?

"Why not?" Rory finally agreed. "I'll give you a call sometime."

Logan could tell that Steph had calmed down a bit since storming away from him to chase down Rory, but he probably still had some major groveling ahead of him. He really didn't understand Steph sometimes. It wasn't like Logan was acting in any way different than he normally acted around girls. True, usually he reserved such open flirtations to girls he had interacted with a bit more, but it had been just too easy for him to resist. He usually kept away from the bright eyed and bushy tailed freshman, being as they were the ones the least likely to allow him to follow through with his flirting. Innocence did not normally mesh well with his chosen lifestyle. But the temptation had been too great for him. Her annoyance only added to her attractiveness, a quality he found rare in most girls. So what was the harm when he knew nothing would come of it, especially when he was enjoying himself?

Perhaps he should have backed off like Steph had asked him to. He hadn't meant anything by his comments. But it didn't really matter now.

"So, is all right with the world?" Logan asked when Steph rejoined him at the table.

"You couldn't just leave well enough alone, could you? You just have to flirt with every girl with a vagina that walks by. Come on, Logan, you could tell that she was uncomfortable!"

Logan shrugged. "I don't see what the big deal is."

"One, you don't need to make it your mission in life to sleep with every girl at Yale, especially ones who don't find you charming. And two, she looks familiar, and I can't figure out why. It's bothering me."

"Yeah, you met her at the beginning of the semester when we had to go fetch Finn from her common room. I thought you were sober that night, how could you forget?"

Steph shook her head. "No, that's not it. There's something else. I thought so the other night too. Don't you think she looks familiar? I feel like we've seen her before."

Logan only shrugged. "When could we have seen her before? She's a freshman. She didn't grow up in society; otherwise we'd already know her."

That's when it suddenly hit Steph. "I've got it!" she exclaimed, slapping the table to emphasize her point. "Remember last April, when the Gilmore's threw that impromptu party that our parents dragged us to?"

How could Logan forget? His parents were so drunk that night they had forgotten to yell at Logan for disappearing to form a subparty.

"That was a good night," Logan said with a grin. "Finn got shut down by Rosemary twelve times that night. You've gotta admire his persistency sometimes."

"Right. And we snuck into Richard's study to steal some scotch. He has an oil painting on his wall of his granddaughter. That's her! She's a Gilmore!"

Logan was floored. "Wait, that doesn't make any sense. If she's a Gilmore, why don't we know her? My mother is on about a thousand committees with Emily. I've been to their Christmas parties before. We'd have met her already."

"No we wouldn't have," Steph insisted. "See, you don't pay enough attention to the gossip."

"Why would I when I have you and Honor to fill me in? I don't care about any of that crap."

Steph rolled her eyes at him. "Shut up and let me talk. The story is that Richard and Emily's daughter, Lorelai, got pregnant when she was sixteen. And then she just took off; raised the kid all on her own in some small town, away from society. Lorelai only came back a few years ago when her daughter got into Chilton."

"That prep school in Hartford?"

"Right. You remember Tristan DuGrey? He was practically in love with her, but she would have none of it. She kept turning him down."

Logan smirked. He'd never liked Tristan. The guy always thought he was better than Logan, when really he was just an annoying, rude little prick. He couldn't charm his way out of a paper bag. "She has good taste; Tristan's an ass. He tried so hard to get kicked out of school, but he could never manage it. Got sent to military school instead. What a rookie."

"Not the point. Not everyone can be you, Logan." It was true, Tristan did often try to act the way Logan did. The difference is that with Logan, making trouble and still being on the top of everyone's 'nice' list came naturally to Logan, whereas Tristan tried too hard. It was part of why Steph liked Logan so much. Logan was a lot more genuine. At least when he wanted to be. Logan knew where the line was and when not to cross it.

"Anyway," Step continued, "ever since she started at Chilton, Lorelai and her daughter have been around a lot more. I think the Gilmore's are trying to properly integrate her into society; she even had a coming out party I believe. And the Gilmore's are always going on and on about their perfect angel of a granddaughter Rory; Emily won't shut up about it. She's always telling my mom about how amazing the girl is. That's her, Logan! I'm sure of it."

Now that Steph brought it up, his memory started unfog a bit, connecting the dots to bits and pieces of information he'd received throughout the years. He remembered that party in April, and briefly having Richard bombard his father with anecdotes about his brilliant granddaughter, who wanted to be the next Christiane Amanpour. Logan had escaped shortly after that to form his subparty out of fear that his father would start in on him about his lack of journalistic aspirations.

Logan smirked. Now there were even more chances of having a run in with her. His parents were very good friends with the Gilmore's. It was almost guaranteed that he'd see her again at some point in time. His tactics needed to change, of course. She wasn't his usual type of girl, and she didn't grow up in society, although she had some experience with interacting in it. He'd have to figure out exactly how he wanted to play his next encounter with her.

Not that he was going to try anything with her. Really, he just enjoyed pushing the girl's buttons. It was that look she got in her eyes when she was flustered. He wasn't used to girls feeling so uneasy around him, and her reaction was rather amusing.

"I know what you're thinking," Steph finally said, interrupting his thoughts. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Leave her alone, Logan! The last thing you need to do is piss off the Gilmore's."

Steph really had very little faith in Logan. "What do you think I'm going to do, Steph? I'm not trying to sleep with her."

But Steph knew him better than to accept that answer as final. "Fine, if you're not trying to sleep with her, then why can't you just let her be? You know that the way you were talking to her made her uncomfortable. What's the big deal with letting this one go?"

Logan shrugged. "Look, it's not like I'm going out of my way to piss her off here. She's a cute girl, and it was fun watching her squirm when I teased her. That's it."

She looked at him skeptically. "That's it?"

"That's it!" Logan insisted.

Steph wasn't really buying it, but she didn't have enough evidence to really press the matter. She knew how Logan worked. She knew that there was a line of girls waiting to get to him, meaning that he could practically have his pick of girls a Yale, ones that would be far less work than a girl like Rory. He claimed that his reasons for wanting to flirt with Rory were harmless, and Steph didn't believe him. It shouldn't really matter to Logan if he left this one girl alone, especially since he had no immediate plans to sleep with her.

That was another problem. Rory was clueless to Logan's games. There was no telling how she would react to him. Maybe the whole thing was just one big game to Logan, but this game had the potential to end badly. It turned out that Rory wasn't just someone they could avoid outright if Logan did something stupid. But what could Steph do? If Logan didn't see what problems his little game might cause, then that was his own issue. Steph wasn't about to interfere with Logan on this one, at least until she'd gathered a bit more information.

For now, she'd wait.

"Look, if it really bothers you so much, I'll lighten up," Logan finally said. He only half meant it.

Steph frowned. "No you won't; don't patronize me, Logan."

"No I will, I promise. The next time I see her, I won't make any suggestive comments about her clothing."

It was the most Steph could ask for at the moment. She'd let him screw this one up on his own, then laugh at him later.