Author's Note: So as promised in the last chapter here is another post. I hope you like this one. About two weeks has passed since the last chapter. In that time jump Jess found out that Lorelai still doesn't know about the break up and things have gotten awkward.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls, the characters, or their dialogue. I only own what is mine and the plot.

Rory wasn't sure how she was supposed to be acting around him. Jess had been more distant over the last week. She understood why, when he heard she hadn't told her mother about the break up he'd gotten upset. Rory knew she should bring it up to her mom but it was hard.

She hadn't even had a proper conversation with Jess in weeks, the last time they had hung out he'd spent the whole time staring at the clouds. She hadn't minded the silence in that moment, she relished in it actually, but now she was starting to get annoyed with how hot-n-cold Jess could be. He had sat there and comforted her, they had kissed, hung out a few times, and then it seemed like it had never happened. Part of her was starting to wonder if she had completely imagined the whole thing. Maybe Dean would show up one day kissing her and proving that the last few weeks had all been a part of her imagination.

Jess was wandering the diner with a coffee pot in his hand. She supposed it said something that she had been able to get him downstairs at all. He hardly looked happy about dealing with the large crowd, and seemed even more frustrated every time he looked over at her. After all he hadn't been helping Luke out at all when she all but insisted he get his ass in gear.

"Young man," an older man called after Jess, "where's the young lady we've heard so much about who's using those delightful old diner phrases to place people's orders? It sounds so fun. Could you point her out for us?"

Jess turned around quickly to face the customer. He filled the empty cup of coffee quickly as if he was going to ignore the question all together. But part of him could feel Rory staring at the back of his head. He knew she had been watching him closely, paying attention to every move he made. Part of him wanted to believe it was because what they had shared meant something. He thought that just maybe she didn't regret anything maybe not telling her mom about the break up had nothing to do with him. But how angry she had been with him about not helping out enough around the diner hardly seemed friendly.

"No." Jess said in hopes that Rory wouldn't catch the venom behind his voice as he talked to the customer.

He didn't give the man a chance to respond. Before he could blink Jess had turned away and was setting the coffee pot back on the counter. He wasn't supposed to work that afternoon. The only reason he had come down at all was because of the forceful way Rory had dragged him into the diner. He had almost made a joke about her roughness with him, but he thought better of it. Before this whole mess he would have said it no question, even if she was still with Dean, but now he wasn't sure what was okay and what wasn't.

The awkwardness between them was weird. Since he moved to town they had never shared an awkward moment, then all of a sudden they couldn't even look each other's way without one of them darting in the opposite direction. Their friendship had been all but erased since their last afternoon at the bridge.

"That's everyone. I'll be upstairs." He said as he walked towards the stairs for Luke's apartment.

"Thanks for doing the very least you could possibly do." Rory snapped sarcastically at him.

Jess only smiled at her as if he had missed the sarcasm in her tone. He knew that she was angry with him for some reason, but he figured he had more of a reason to be mad at her, so he figured the old phrase kill them with kindness might work best. He'd ignore her spitefulness and just try to enjoy what was left of his evening.

"You're welcome." He said as he made his way through the curtain and into the stairway for the apartment above.

Part of Rory wanted to run after him, to ask what his problem was. He had practically dated her, even though she was beginning to question her sanity on the topic she was still fairly sure it had happened. Yet, Jess was barely acting as if she was alive. Surely she hadn't been wrong thinking there was something between the two of them. She was fairly sure that Jess had been obvious about his feelings for her. Now that she was finally available he just seemed to stop caring.

A terrifying thought popped into her mind… They say the chase is the best part of a relationship. What if that was all Jess had been interested in? If he had spent all that time and energy just seeing if he could get her to fall for him all while having no intention of ever making it a real thing. She had let Jess come between her and Dean, she was sure to have an argument or two with her mother about all of this, and the entire town was going to go ballistic. If he hadn't even been serious she didn't know where to go from the place she was.

She liked Jess that much she knew. He was smart and kind, but he wasn't cookie cutter like most other people in Stars Hallow seemed to be. He was made for something a lot bigger than a small town, which was evident by how strangled he felt since he had moved in. Rory could imagine him doing something great in a big city, she hadn't been able to say the same for Dean.

As the days passed she saw Jess many times. He would be working in the diner, or she would force him to work in the diner. But their conversations never seemed to be serious. She would yell at him to get downstairs and he would eventually get moving. It made her nervous that in the weeks since him finding out Lorelai thought Rory and Dean were still together they still hadn't talked about it. They hadn't even really talked at all since it happened. He had quickly become one of her best friends and then just as quickly became an awkward part of her life she had no clue how to handle.

After the funeral she hadn't been expecting much. Her mother had made it seem like no one was going to stand by Luke in mourning. But the way the diner was all set up, food and so many people, made it seem like the town cared a little more than Luke had thought. Rory could only smile as she walked around the groups of people seeing if anyone needed anything.

Eventually she caught sight of Jess, who seemed to be sulking at the edge of the counter. She walked over quickly knowing she wanted to get to him before he noticed and ran away from her.

"Nice spread." She said with a smile.

"People have too much free time in this town." He offered up as an explanation.

But Rory could see through the ruse. She knew he had to have something to do with it all. Even if it was nothing major, he was not at all surprised by all of the people that had invaded the diner. And just the fact that they had gotten in at all meant Jess had to be involved somehow.

It didn't matter to her if they had practically broken up before they really started dating she still wanted him to own up to the good things he was capable of. She had seen that good side of him, She knew it was there just under the surface and it was ridiculous to her that he would hide it away.

She looked up into his eyes knowing he wasn't going to talk about it in front of everyone else. Anyone could overhear them and he wasn't going to risk his hooligan status by being accused of being nice. Rory grabbed his hand and pulled him back towards the stock room. She tried the door but it was locked and while Jess might have a key she was comfortable enough with the small hallway and the corner people would have to turn before they could be seen.

"You did a good thing."

"What do you mean?" he asked, playing dumb.

"I thought my mom set this up. Turns out she didn't."

"So? Wasn't me."

She thought about arguing with him over it. Part of her wanted to push him into admitting he had helped out and that he cared about Luke if no one else in this town. But it was Jess standing in front of her, and pushing him into talking was never easy.

In the few weeks they had hung out she had learned there was little she could do to force him to talk. If he felt like being silent he would be. There wasn't much else to it. But Rory couldn't understand why he wanted to keep people out. She had always been about letting people into her life, into her heart, and it was hard to understand a person who was so different.

A new thought occurred to her as she realized how closely they were standing.

"Jess, we haven't talked."

He almost seemed to laugh at the sentence. She was sure he understood what she meant but he didn't seem to care as much as she did.

"I think we just had a conversation. Memory going already, Gilmore?" he teased.

"Jess, I'm serious."

She stayed quiet as she looked up into his eyes. She wanted him to talk to her, wanted him to explain what was going on between them. But all he did was break away from her gaze and push his way past her. He looked, almost hurt, if she truly paid attention to his eyes.

"I get it Rory, I 'm not saying anything. And I really didn't have anything to do with that out there. The crazy ballet teacher called and asked when Luke was getting back from the funeral, if I could unlock the door. I came down, I unlocked the door, then went back upstairs and back to sleep. I haven't done anything and I promise I won't do anything."

"That's not it." Rory said, though it didn't make much sense to either of them she just had to stop him from walking away from her.

"I just," she started hesitant to speak, "I don't understand what happened. Sure whatever that was wasn't dating but we were together and… I just… Now we don't even speak really. Who am I supposed to talk about books with, or music. I just… I don't understand."

She didn't think about how it sounded. When she went over the words in her head it seemed more like she missed her friend than the possibility of becoming more with him. So she couldn't even be surprised when she saw the look on his face drop ever so slighty.

He walked away leaving her in the dark corner wishing she had corrected herself . She was sure he had meant something more than just saying he didn't help with the wake plans, he could have been saying he wasn't going to say anything about them. But that wasn't what she wanted, no matter how poorly she said it, she wanted to be able to tell people about them. Rory couldn't help but think he was promising not to do anything to her ever again. But she hadn't made the connection quick enough. Part of her wanted to go running off to catch him but she didn't think it would help. Jess was his own person through and through, if he suddenly didn't like her enough to do anything about it she wasn't going to change his mind by talking.

The thought hurt…

Rory didn't see Jess around town again for a long time. She was amazed at how well he had managed to avoid her considering she ate at Luke's every day, sometimes multiple times a day. She just figured he had been extremely serious when he promised to not do anything. She hadn't realized not doing anything meant not seeing each other either.

As she and her mother made their way into Luke's Diner she was far too busy thinking about Jess to be truly paying attention. She was almost obsessively thinking about his ninja-like abilities to avoid her. Lane had even reported back that Jess had been quiet and almost invisible in classes, which was nothing like him within Stars Hallow High.

Rory could recall one of her favorite stories he had told her at the bridge. He had been talking about his history class and a big scene he had caused. It seemed any story about school involved the big scene he caused. Being invisible wasn't Jess' style.

"Could you please move?" she heard her mother's voice distantly.

Luke was making his way over to them quickly and a customer was staring up at her mother like she had a third eye. Rory wasn't fully sure what had happened but Luke ushered them away from the customer and his wife very quickly.

"Anywhere where there's not people." Luke stated.

Rory smiled, suddenly understanding what had happened. Her mother loved her silly bits. Asking someone to move tables was part of her classic material.

"Hmmm, that's funny." Rory heard, catching the end of her mother's sentence.

"What?"

"Something's different here, something's changed."

Rory was shocked. Luke's hadn't changed in all the time they had been going there. Sure her mother had forced him paint but all in all nothing had ever been altered about the diner.

"You're cracked." Rory stated in a serious tone, not even realizing she had picked up on the habit from Jess.

"You're mother is just as sane as I am." Lorelai said with a grin, "Something really is different."

"You know I'd be very disappointed if something changed in here." Rory said as she was realizing it herself.

"Why are you so anti-change?"

"Because most change sucks." Rory stated as if it had been obvious.

"That's true, it does. Uh! The chalkboard!" Lorelai looked up in wonderment above the door to the kitchen.

"What about it?"

"Luke's special omelet. That is brand new."

"A new special? His four-slice French toast has been up there since I was born!" Rory's jaw dropped.

"You just gotta let that go, baby."

Rory looked up at the chalkboard as Luke and her mother went into a back and forth about what Lorelai wanted to eat. The new special was written beautifully. It was just artistic enough without looking ridiculous. The words were drawn carefully, precisely. It only took her a moment to realize those words were not drawn by Luke.

As she thought of the boy who had written on the chalkboard she couldn't help but feel another pang of regret. Things had gotten all turned around somehow with Jess. It wasn't how it was supposed to be. Nobody in town knew what had happened between them, and they should have Rory didn't want to hide it anymore.

"French toast for me." Rory said after she realized Luke had been staring at her for quite some time.

Luke wrote the order down and walked back towards the kitchen. Lorelai sat in silence for a minute before her eyes travelled back up to the sign that Rory had been so enthralled with only moments before.

"Look how hard he worked on that sign and everything. Look at the handwriting, it's so precise, so determined. It's focused-Luke."

"That's Jess' handwriting." Rory said before she thought.

How was she supposed to explain that? Her mother was staring at her like she was an insane person.

"Really? How do you know Jess' writing?"

"Oh, well, I helped him with some work here one day, I just noticed it was all." Rory fibbed thinking she would never be able to explain it to her mother.

"You did his homework?" Lorelai seemed upset.

"No! No, I just commented on some of his notes."

"Notes? Like that train wreck takes real notes. What were they, play basketball, eat a sandwich stuff like that?"

"No,Intelligent stuff. He's actually quite smart if you talk to him for more than a minute. And if you could get past the whole beer debacle then maybe you could see he's not such a bad person after all. He can philosophize, and debate. He's a smart person.

Rory seemed to have shocked her mother into silence with her rant. She hadn't meant to say so much, but she felt offended for Jess. Though she knew he'd be mad if he knew she was defending him. But he was one of the smartest people in Stars Hallow and her mother was treating him like dirt. Though Rory was smart enough to know he hadn't shown Lorelai the best side of himself.

The silence seemed to almost overtake them. Rory wasn't sure what to say to calm down the situation after practically yelling in the middle of Luke's about something ridiculous. She couldn't meet her mom's eye but she did watch her look out the windows of Luke's and smile.

"Hey, you didn't tell me Dean was joining us."

Rory's heart all but stopped. She still hadn't told her mom about that night. She hadn't said anything about the break up or her weeks with Jess. Lorelai was about as clueless as she could be. Rory had tried really hard to not make a big deal about anything.

She had silently packed up the things Dean had given her into a box and hidden them in the convenient ex-boyfriend closet. She knew her mother hadn't bothered going in there since her official end with Max so the addition of another box wasn't suspicious. But there would be no way to hide the breakup now. Suddenly everything seemed to be getting much, much worse.

"Hey." Lorelai greeted him kindly with a smile.

"Hi." He was short, and not completely rude but he had yet to look in Rory's direction.

Lorelai seemed to be waiting for the two teens to say anything to each other but she wait was in vain. Neither seemed to even acknowledge the other. Rory hadn't spoken to Dean in almost two months. He was looking at her like she had killed a puppy and there was no way to explain that if her mother caught on.

"Uh, do you wanna eat with us, Dean?" Lorelai tried to buffer what was clearly a fight between the two.

"Rory?" he asked his eyes finally moving towards her.

Dean sounded shocked. Not only by the invitation but by her mother's clear ignorance of what had happened between them. He was looking at her as if she was crazy. But then again they had broken up on the night when she had Jess over. Of course she claimed Paris was there to, but that could hardly be proven. Dean almost laughed realizing he shouldn't be surprised that Rory didn't want to explain that to her mother.

"I've got to get to school." Rory said grabbing her backpack off of the chair behind her.

She had never left Luke's so fast, or so hungry before. She turned the corner of Luke's quickly making her way towards the bus stop. She knew she'd be sitting there for a while at least but it beat having to endure another awkward moment in Dean's presence.

Just as she was about to get to the bus stop she crashed into someone. They had come straight on from the other road and with both of them not paying attention it had been a dangerous intersection for them. She looked up already beginning to apologize and caught Jess' eye. Her mouth snapped shut quickly as she realized who she had just run into.

"Sorry, wasn't looking." Jess explained.

"Me either."

"So."

"Yeah."

It was turning into a riveting conversation. Rory never fully understood how Jess could go to so talkative around her to monosyllabic. They were two opposites, and as attractive as he could be never speaking she preferred him obsessively talking about books or music. She preferred him the way only she got to see him, not the rest of the town.

"Well."

"I have to tell my mom about my breakup." Rory blurted out.

"You still haven't?"

Jess felt offended. After he stopped talking to her she still couldn't get up the courage to just tell her mom the truth. She couldn't bring herself to tell the person she called her best friend that she had been dumped and had even spent time with a different boy. He wasn't just offended he was mad.

"I was just trying to figure everything out."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Rory said lamely.

"Well." He said feeling a sense of déjà vu.

"I should go." Rory gestured towards the empty bus stop. "I don't want to, but I should."

She didn't think it could hurt. If she just gave him small hints that she was still thinking of him, it couldn't do any more damage than them not speaking to each other.

"You probably should then."

"I just… I'm really sorry, Jess. For what it's worth." She spoke towards the ground but he had heard her loud and clear.

"Wait," he called as she turned to walk away, "can we meet up?"

"What?"

"I'll page you later this week, can we meet up?"

"I guess."

Rory turned and walked towards the bus stop. She could feel him still staring at her as she walked away. Part of her wanted to turn back and see his face again, but she felt like they had made progress just by saying a few words. She didn't want to jinx anything. By the time the bus came she had convinced herself that meeting up meant absolutely nothing, and that Jess probably wouldn't end up paging her anyway. She figured that would make the week much easier than waiting on him for days.

"Okay that dinner was good." Lorelai said after Friday night dinner later that week.

"All of Grandma's dinners are good."

"I know, but this one had the rolls."

Lorelai made the turn onto the Stars Hallow exit quickly, quicker than the speed limit suggested. She had promised to drop Rory off at the Kim's early. Although Lorelai was still surprised Lane was allowed to have company after eight thirty.

"Aw those rolls were excellent rolls."

"Weren't they? Hot and buttery with that split top thing going on. I miss the rolls."

"Well, she can make more next week."

"That's okay. I got four in my purse."

"You do not."

"Go ahead and check."

Rory reached into the back of the jeep and grabbed her mother's purse. Inside was a bag filled with four rolls. Rory could only shake her head and smile. Teasing her mother, just a little.

"Have you no shame?"

Rory heard her phone go off and she carefully set the bag of rolls back into her mother's purse before she pulled out her own phone. She wasn't sure what her mother was thinking as she looked from the road to the younger girl.

We still on?

The message was from Luke's phone but she knew who it was really from. Jess had taken his uncles cell only a day before to text her about a plan to meet up. She assumed he had just been deleting the messages and then returning it to Luke without suspicion but that was something she planned on asking him when they met up. He didn't think Jess was dumb enough to just leave the messages as proof, but she wanted to be sure.

"Who's that? Is it Dean?" Lorelai asked as Rory quickly wrote out a message and hit send.

"Why?"

"Haven't heard from him in ages, and you've been pretty much a home body for months."

"I hadn't noticed." Rory said.

They still hadn't talked about the breakup. Dean hadn't out-ed her after she ran off from Luke's earlier that week, and she had been conveniently busy with a school project all week.

"You should talk to him. He went all Rory crazy for a while and I might have hinted for him to slow down on the Rory love but he went from sixty to zero. I mean seriously I don't think I've seen him more than once in two months.."

"It's crazy." Rory hated lying, she wanted to just tell her mother the truth but it just didn't seem like the time for that conversation.

"Do you want to give him a call? You guys could hook up for a little while."

"I'm hanging out with Lane tonight."

She felt awful. Never before had she used Lane as a cover story. Even if she had lied about something she hadn't pulled Lane into it. Now she was in too deep to tell the truth and she had to make sure Lane and Mrs. Kim never got questioned about any of it or she'd be caught.

Lorelai seemed to quiet down after the conversation lagged. Rory was sure she had plenty going through her head but she didn't want to question her mom and risk another conversation of lies.

"You know its past nine now. It took us a while to get here. I didn't realize Lane could hang out after nine."

"Her mom's not home and her grandmother is asleep."

It was such a blatant lie Rory didn't know how her nose didn't grow twice its size.

"Well then, see you kid."

"See you later." Rory said hoping out of the car and walking slowly towards the front door of the Kim household.

She watched as her mom slowly pulled forwards and made her way down the streets of Stars Hallow towards their own house. Rory waited just long enough for her mom to be out of sight before she walked away from the porch and started to head off for the bridge.

"Rory." She heard Jess' voice in the darkness.

"Hey." She responded making her way on the bridge to sit down with him.

They sat in an awkward silence for only a minute before Rory couldn't handle it anymore.

"Why'd you want to meet me?"

"I just- I- Listen, I know you probably want to forget the whole kiss thing and everything that happened after and that's fine. But I'm sick of this ignore-me game we've been playing."

"You're the one who started the ignore me thing." Rory pointed out.

"Yeah well I had just learned your mom didn't know about you and Dean, sorry." He said with a tone that told Rory she was pushing the wrong buttons.

"I know that is bad of me. But this all just feels like a delicate balance and I'm not that graceful."

"If you want to forget it…"

"I can't believe you think I want to forget it."

"Don't you? I mean even I know that was a dick move. Dean had just dumped you and I took advantage. Girls are vulnerable after break ups."

"I let you take advantage."

"So?"

"So."

"You don't regret it and I don't regret it, but we haven't been speaking for ages.

"Well you are mad about my mom, so at least there's a reason we weren't talking?" she asked, as if she wasn't sure if it was a real statement.

"I don't want that to be the thing that keeps us apart though."

"Me either." Rory said stepped closer to him.

"So maybe I just try to look past that for now, and you try to tell her."

"Sounds good to me." Rory said almost melting into her own words.

"I missed you, you know."

"I missed you too."

Jess seemed to scoot closer to her on the bridge. They were sitting in almost the exact spot where they had picnicked what felt like a lifetime ago. Jess' smile was shining in the moonlight and Rory's eyes were sparkling from the reflecting light. The water of the lake looked beautiful and they both continued scooting closer together as time passed by.

Rory wasn't sure how long they had been sitting in silence by the time they got close enough to be touching, all she knew was she was cold. Jess ran his hand up her arm, up and down, as if trying to warm her from the friction. But the moment he touched her she felt her temperature spike.

"Jess, are you going to kiss me?"

She didn't know what made her ask it. Well, other than the fact that she wanted him to kiss her. But it seemed so forward, so un-Rory-like.

Either way his lips were closing in on hers and it seemed like everything might be okay for that minute. When he finally separated his face from hers she was out of breath.

"We have to keep quiet for a little bit. I still have to explain everything to my mom."

"Okay. Whatever you want."

Suddenly it seemed like nothing could get in their way.

AN: Teens and their silly misunderstandings. Honestly I can remember having dumb problems like this back in high school and it seems so silly now. The fact that you can not talk for weeks and then just make up on a dime... only teenagers, man. Well I hope you enjoyed... Please review it would be greatly appreciated. Tell me what you think so far. Is there something you want to see happen? How do you think of how the two love birds have been behaving?

Up Next: Rory agrees to tutor Jess as a way of spending time with him despite her mother. But could that ever end well?...