Disclaimer: Owned by the ever charming Amy Sherman-Palladino

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and put me on story alert. You guys are all pretty awesome. This chapter is for you! And as always, my awesome beta cutiepiegirl.

Chapter 3: California Here I Come

"A sunkisted miss said don't be late
That's why I can hardly wait
Open up that golden gate
California, Here I Come"

-Ray Charles

Finn woke up the next morning in an incredibly comfortable situation. Nevermind how the bed felt, he had one Rory Gilmore snuggled up to him. Her head was on his chest and one of her arms was around his waist. The way her legs barely brushed up against his was driving him crazy. He had to get out of that bed. With a disappointed sigh, he slowly untangled himself from her so as not to wake her, and replaced his body with a pillow, which she immediately grabbed and pulled close to herself.

It was nine forty-five, just enough time to stock up on whatever was left from the continental breakfast. He'd learned many road trips ago that continental breakfast was possibly the best thing ever invented, ranking right up there with extended checkout. He raked a hand through his messy hair and then became painfully aware of exactly how comfortable he'd been in that bed. Damn. Well, he'd have to take care of that, then raid the buffet.

Thirty minutes and one charmed hotel staffer later, Finn juggled his bounty as he struggled to open the door as quietly as he could. It was all for naught though, because Rory was already awake and watching TV. CNN, if he could guess correctly. The smell of shitty hotel coffee assaulted his nostrils and her eyes snapped to his when the door shut.

He held up all the food he'd brought. "I have a feast, m'lady."

"Such a provider," she teased back and swung out of bed. He couldn't help but stare at her long legs as she strode over to him and grabbed a plate of food. "Did you go downstairs like that?" she asked incredulously, referring to his shirtlessness.

He grinned at her. "Are you saying that I should try to cover up the reason I got us food ten minutes after the buffet closed?"

"Can't argue with results," she sang as she gave Finn a once over. He was wearing a pair of jeans that hung low on his hips. And that was it. No shirt. She'd never noticed how broad his shoulders were, or how skinny he was. He was incredibly skinny, which always seemed to be overlooked when he wore those garish shirts he tended to favor.

She hadn't realized she was staring until Finn asked innocently, "Would you like that bagel for breakfast or me?"

Blushing furiously she took the plate and retreated back under the covers of the bed. "I didn't mean... well, you were shirtless and I was-"

He chuckled and sat down next to her on the bed. "It's okay, love, I'm irresistible. No need to explain. What are we watching?" He grabbed the remote and changed the channel.

"Why did you ask if you were just going to change it anyway?" she asked, clearly annoyed.

He shrugged. "To be polite. C-SPAN is so boring." He stopped his flipping on the Sci-Fi channel. "Wouldn't you rather watch an awful horror movie?"

"I've already seen Frakenfish," she commented off-handedly.

He just gaped at her. "You're perfect."

She ducked her head slightly and jumped out of bed as the coffee maker signaled it was done, saving her from having to come up with a witty retort. "Did we-" she started as she poured the coffee, but then cut herself off.

Finn quirked an eyebrow. "Did we what, love?" he asked.

She bit her lip, then blurted out, "They didn't have a room with two beds?" She sucked her lip back up at that, expecting him to be angry with her.

Instead he threw his head back and laughed. "You're adorable, love. Don't worry; you kept your hands to yourself all night."

She handed him a styrofoam cup and settled back into bed. "What time is check out?"

"Noon." He watched her out of the corner of her eye as she adjusted herself in the bed and then picked up the bagel. "So you have plenty of time to shower and put on make up and all that girl stuff."

"I don't wear that much make up."

"Really?" he replied incredulously. "My god, you're beautiful."

Rory chose not to reply to that so that he didn't know how nervous he was making her. Finn was such a flirt and she hadn't seen Logan in so long. And if she was going to be honest with herself, Finn was more her type than Logan, physically anyway. Even her mom had commented on it after they'd all had lunch together. So she finished her bagel and took a shower. When she got out Finn had packed up everything and had thankfully put on a shirt. There was only so much a girl could take. She was beginning to regret agreeing to the road trip.

"Ready to go, love?" He stood up and met her eyes.

"Almost. I just have to blow dry my hair," she replied with a small smile.

"Why?"

"Because otherwise Kyan will pop up and chide me for not taking exception for my appearance," she quipped back.

Finn rolled his eyes. "We're going to be in the car for ten hours, who exactly are you trying to impress? Me? It's sweet, but all you have to do is put on a short skirt and I'm like putty."

Rory ran the comb through her hair one last time and then paused. "Okay, fine, I won't blow dry my hair."

"Oh, don't make it sound like I'm making you watch Stealth or something." He threw an arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead. "You're pretty, pretty, pretty," he sang to her. "Do you want to drive first or second?"

"You're going to let me drive your car?" she replied.

"Are you a secret street racer?"

She shook her head. "It's just that Logan never lets me drive his car."

"Well, Logan can be a dick about his cars, which is odd considering he totals most of them. But either way, there's no way I'm driving all the way to Iowa City without your help today. Driving is hard," he whined. "Will you be the Trixie to my Speed?"

She laughed. "Okay, I'll drive first, does that sound good?"

"You're the bestest of the best, Rory Gilmore."

Finn knew all the words to every song that came on the radio. He knew the country ones, he knew the rap songs, he even knew all the words to the swing station they'd picked up for half an hour in Indiana. And he wouldn't let her put in a CD. Instead he kept pressing scan and waiting for a station to come up. Then he would sing.

"It's the spirit of the road trip!" he'd exclaimed when she complained about what was on the radio.

"What fun is a road trip if you don't sample the music of the local culture?"

"It's all country though!" she'd protested.

"Nonsense." He stopped the scanning on NPR and began to sing. Again. "Brazil, where hearts were entertaining june, we stood beneath an amber and softy murmured 'someday soon,' we kissed and clung together," he crooned. His voice was lower and more gravelly than she'd ever heard it. She relaxed into her seat and listened to him sing to her. "Return I will, to old Brazil."

"How do you know all these songs?" she asked him a little later, once he'd changed the station and found the local American Top 40 station. He was drumming his fingers to Kelly Clarkson and she giggled a little bit.

"I told you," he said slowly, "I like music."

"Even Kelly Clarkson?"

"Especially Kelly Clarkson." He smirked at her. "I bet all your preconceived notions about me are being shot straight to hell, huh?"

She smiled back at him. "Something like that."

Around the boarder of Indiana and Illinois they switched off driving. Rory grabbed the pillow her mom made her and hugged it to herself. She would have to remember to call her mom tonight when they got to the hotel room.

"What's my next direction?" Finn asked as he got back on the highway.

"Just follow all signs that say I-80 west on them and you'll be fine." Rory glanced up from the directions. "Is there a particular reason you picked Iowa City?"

"I know the three 'I' states seem boring right now, but Iowa City isn't awful," Finn informed her. "It's a quiet little college town with a fantastic coffee place I know you'll love called the Tobacco Bowl."

Rory smiled at this. "You're taking me to a place because there's a coffee place you think I'll like?"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"No problems here. I am so problem-less it's almost a problem."

Finn smirked again at her. Again, with the smirking. He always smirked. Rory was pretty sure she'd seen him give a real smile or twice. It made him look mischievous and her stomach did a tiny little flip flop. It was just because she hadn't seen Logan in a while, she assured herself.

"I wish something interesting had happened in Indiana after 1831," Finn grumbled.

Rory laughed. "I'm sure something interesting has happened since then. Rudy!"

"I said interesting, Rory," he replied condescendingly.

Instead of coming up with a retort she turned up the volume. "I love this song! He kept dreaming that he'd be a star!"

"Superstar, but he didn't get far," Finn sang back at her.

"Seriously, Finn, not even my mom knows all the songs ever. Is there a song you don't know? Some

German metal or a J-Pop group?"

He shrugged. "It's a gift. Hey look, we're in Indiana, the birthplace of Lincoln! Finally, we leave the boyhood home of Lincoln. Honestly, you Americans, you'd think there were only four presidents: Washington, Lincoln, Reagan, and FDR."

"No need to get all insulting, you swagman, we have had some good leaders," she defended.

He gave her a sideways glance. "I think you're gonna make a swell journalist, darling."

"And the non sequitur award goes to..."

"You don't believe me?"

"I believe you, that just came out of no where."

"Your deductive skills are one of the reasons I think this."

"Are there parts of this script I'm missing?" Rory shook her head and pulled her legs up so she was sitting Indian style in the seat. "Can we stop for coffee? You're kind of freaking me out."

"Me? I am the picture of sanity." He lowered his sunglasses to convey his best innocent look to her. It didn't work.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course you are, Tycho Brahe."

He stuck out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. "You wound me, darling. Here I am, giving you a compliment and you tell me I dress up midgets."

"I was at Colin's birthday, are you trying to tell me that wasn't you?"

"I plead the fifth." He pushed his sunglasses back up on his face. "So coffee?"

It was dark outside when Rory finally convinced Finn to let her put in a CD. It was a mixed CD Lane made her before she left. And as it played, she realized how much Finn really did like music. Even with the rare few songs he didn't know all the words to he would bob his head and drum his fingers on the steering wheel. Finn was something else, that she was beginning to see, with his chipped black nail polish and shirts Gene Autry would call 'gaudy.' She was glad to see aspects of his personality that weren't drunken lout.

"I was born a unicorn, I missed the ark but I could have sworn you'd wait for me. I was born a unicorn, I could have sworn you believed in me, then how come all the other unicorns are dead?" And he was singing again. It was always slightly off-key. It was endearing.

"How much longer to Iowa City?" she asked suddenly.

"'Bout ten minutes. Why? Gotta pee again?"

Rory blushed slightly. "Yeah," she mumbled.

Finn just laughed. "With as much coffee as you drink, I'd be concerned if you didn't pee every twenty minutes. We'll be there soon."

"Finn?" She bit her lip slightly after she said his name, but pressed on before he could reply. "Have you ever thought about being in a band? I mean, you like music so much."

"My ability to play an instrument is about as good as my ability to sing, love."

She gave him a sympathetic look. "That bad, huh?"

"I've taken piano lessons, violin lessons, guitar lessons, mandolin lessons... Even the guy at one of those prep schools I went to tried to teach me how to play triangle and gave up after three days. I am a plague upon the musical world." He paused, then turned up the music. "Speaking of string instruments, is that a harp that is being warbled over?"

"Aha!" Rory cried triumphantly. "Finally, a song you haven't heard and memorized!"

Finn gave her an exaggerated eye roll. "Yes, darling, some of those exist. This is too girl-folk for me."

"Yet you'll listen to the Mountain Goats without complaint. They're folk too, mister," Rory argued.

"But they sound less like someone strangling a cat and then throwing it under a bus," he replied.

"Joanna Newsom just needs time to grow on you. Her lyrics are amazing!" she gushed back to him.

"Like a fungus?" Finn muttered.

Rory glared at him. "Not like him. I'm sorry that you're too busy listening to Akon to appreciate inspired music that doesn't talk about being in jail or smoking weed."

"Love, this song is definitely about a one-night stand, so perhaps you should re-evaluate – what do the kids call it, street? How 'street' this sheila is before you go making insults about Convict Records," Finn told her.

Rory moved her legs from the indian position to touching the floor. "You only know it's Convict Records because he says it in every song."

Finn chuckled. "What is it going to take for you to be okay with me not liking this Joanna Newsom? A cookie?"

"Yes, actually, a cookie would be nice."

"Oh, look, we're here," Finn dead-panned.

"Already?" Rory replied just as sarcastically. "It's almost as if someone is trying to shirk his or her duties as cookie-giver."

"I was thinking of the Hampton Inn again," Finn said pointedly. "It has late check out and is surprisingly nice considering the cost."

"Are you sure you don't want me to chip in a little? I know you said you have it all covered, but I feel bad that I'm not paying anything for this trip."

Finn held up his hand as he got on the off ramp. "Relax, dear, I have this covered. Just because I'm looking for a bargain doesn't mean I'm suddenly Little Orphan Annie, it just means I'd rather stay in a place that doesn't cost four hundred for the night so I have more money to spend on booze. Financial smarts isn't something to joke about, love."

"I'm almost proud of you," Rory told him.

"Almost is something." He pulled into a driveway and park. "Perfectly non-threatening, considering how Nick and Daisy we are right now. Did you want to come in with me and make sure that scoundrel of a clerk doesn't mess up our sleeping arrangements like they did last night?"

"Lead the way, Nick."

"After you, Daisy."

"Hey, Ace," Logan said when he answered the phone. "How're you doing tonight?"

"I'm only two time zones away from you now!" Rory replied happily as she sat under the covers of the plush bed.

"Finn told me that you two are in Iowa City now. That's a great little town, almost makes up for the fact that it's actually in Iowa. Are you enjoying it so far?"

"I ordered pizza and I finally have some time alone to read and eat and did you know that Finn knows every single song that's ever been recorded, baring the folk genre? He even knows the country songs!" she exclaimed. "If I never have to hear Honky Tonk Badonkadonk again, it will be too soon. He's the Rain Man of music."

"Oh, Rory, don't let him try to tell you that scanning the radio for music is a time honored tradition, because Colin and I fight him on that very subject every time we're in the car with him for more than ten minutes," Logan said. "Actually, are you with him right now?"

Rory blushed, thinking about how they'd slept in the same bed last night. "He's out right now, he didn't say when he was getting back. I have something to tell you though. I'm sharing a room with him."

"Okay," he replied. "I kind of figured you would be. His sleep talking isn't waking you up, is it?"

"You're okay with this?" she asked doubtfully.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be? I trust you both."

Rory let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in. "I just didn't want to keep anything from you." She picked up another piece of pizza from the box on her lap. "So tell me, do you have an embarrassing car chase on video yet?"

The door swung open violently around one in the morning and Finn literally spilled into the room, having tripped over his open feet, and woke up Rory with a start.

"Guess what?" he staged whispered to her when she sat up suddenly in bed. "I'm a tad bit drunk."

"You don't say." She got out of bed and helped him stand up and get to his bed. "So this is where you were going a few hours away when you said you were going out?"

"Don't be passive-agressive, love," he admonished, "I'd take you out, but you're regretfully underage and even I can't compete with small town War on Underage Drinking." He made a grab at his shoes but failed to even touch them. "Kindly help me out? I seem to forget how to take off clothes. Thank god I didn't take anyone home, that would have been awkward. Is it hot in here? I feel like it's reaching levels Saharas would find unbelievable."

Rory sighed. "It's not hot in here, you're just drunk. Let me help you with the shoes."

"But don't take advantage of me, darling, I am much too vulnerable in this state and couldn't possibly be responsible for my actions. Take me, love, and I shall explain to dear Huntzberger why we've suddenly eloped to Vegas!" Finn cried dramatically.

"I can't take you anywhere, can I?" Rory murmured as she finished pulling off Finn's shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt. "You're going to have to do the rest when I finish."

"Because my amazing abs are too much to control yourself around?" Finn waggled his eyebrows and shrugged off his shirt before flopping back on his bed.

"Something like that. I'll talk to you tomorrow." She climbed back into her bed and made herself comfortable in the multitude of pillows.

"Admit it, you find me irresistible," Finn sang.

Rory stifled a laugh. "Goodnight, Finn."