Author's Note: So here is another chapter. Hope you like it. This one will have some more of the actual dialogue in it just to warn you!

Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls, the characters, or dialogue. I only thought of the plot.

It was a few days later and Rory was sitting in her room deciding the best way to explain everything to her mother. She had made multiple pro con lists and written down many speeches all explaining everything that had happened and exactly how she felt. First she wanted to tell her mom about the break up. She thought it would be best to let her sit with that news for a day or two before she informed her mother about Jess. Everything has gotten so complicated and she couldn't blame anyone but herself.

It was her own fault that she had hidden away to herself after the break up, her own fault that her mother didn't know, her own fault that she was too scared to tell her mom about Jess. But everything was going so well with him she didn't want to jeopardize it by bringing other people into the mix. Thing with Jess would just get messy with other people involved.

But there was no reason for her to keep the Dean secret anymore. He had been nice the one time in the diner but if her mother kept on acting like they were dating Dean was sure to tell her the whole truth. Everything was a balancing act of getting Lorelai to remain calm and not kill Jess. Many lists were needed to help Rory figure out a way to keep her mother from killing Jess. She was working on one of her lists when there was a small knock at her door.

"Rory, it's Luke. Can I come in for a minute?"

"Hey, what's up?" Rory asked as Luke shut the door to her room behind him.

"Not much, can I…" Luke gestured towards her trunk.

"Yeah."

Rory watched as Luke nervously sat down and fiddled with one of the dolls he had almost crushed. He looked over at the notebooks she had in front of her, which she had closed when she first heard the knock.

"So I see you're studying."

"Oh well actually… yeah, yeah I'm studying." Rory lied, thinking it would be easier that way.

"That's good. Studying is very, very good. What you're doing right there with the books, very good."

"Uh, okay thanks." Rory stuttered.

She hadn't felt weird about letting Luke come in, but now she was regretting the decision. She had never seen him so flustered and odd before. It was like he was trying to remember the English language as he spoke to her.

"Okay, look, I wanted to ask you a favor. Oh. Uh. I was wondering if you could tutor Jess."

Rory was shocked. She and Jess had been meeting up secretly over the last few days and he hadn't mentioned having trouble in school. In fact they had talked about school work most of the time. He had no reason to need a tutor.

"What?" she finally managed to get out.

"He's not doing too well in school. The principal said he's not gonna let him move on unless something changes. I was wondering if you could help."

"That doesn't make any sense, Jess is smart, way smarter than anyone at Stars Hallow High he should be fine."

What she wanted to say was they had been talking about every subject and he knew everything he needed and more. It didn't make any sense that someone who could discuss history and English with her the way Jess did could be failing.

"I don't think it's his lack of smarts, more like his lack of proximity to the actual classes that's the problem."

"Ah." Rory said lamely.

Sure they had talked about school but she had never actually asked if he had been going. It would make sense honestly that he taught himself everything he knew through books and was then bored in class when mediocre teachers attempted to teach him the same thing.

"Yes."

"Okay, what subject does he need help in?"

"I'd say all of them, probably." Luke responded.

"Huh."

Rory felt like punching Jess. She had never realized he could put such an effort into failing something before. He literally had to be trying to miss school if he was to the point of the Stars Hallow High Principal getting involved.

Rory didn't need to listen to the mini speech Luke started giving her, she already knew she would help Jess out. She just didn't believe he actually needed any help. Someone to walk him from class to class –maybe- but not studying help. Luke was speaking so passionately about making the school see that Jess was worth it Rory almost wished he would continue once he finished up.

"Don't worry, I'll do it."

"Great, tonight?"

Roy wanted to smile. She and Jess hadn't managed to make plans for later. They had been struggling with both of them getting free and being able to sneak off. This way they didn't even have to sneak, they just needed to keep a distance so they looked like friends and nothing more.

"Tonight." She said with a smile.

"I really appreciate this." Luke said walking towards the door, "Ah, okay, you should get back to your studying, otherwise you're completely useless to me."

Rory watched as he left the room. She couldn't help the giant smile that broke out across her face the moment the door closed. She listened carefully for a moment and could hear her mother running after Luke through the front door. Quickly, she took the opportunity to grab the phone from the living room and retreat back to her bedroom without being seen. She was sure her mother was yelling at Luke but all she could think about was dialing Luke's apartment number.

The phone only rang for a moment before Jess picked up.

"Hello?"

"It's me." She said.

"Hey, why are you calling, Luke could have picked up."

"Since he is currently in my front yard I figured that was unlikely."

"Oh, well cool."

"I'm coming over tonight."

"You come to Luke's almost every night, that's not surprising."

"But tonight after we eat mom is leaving and I'm staying. Luke asked me to come tutor you." She said fighting the urge to laugh at the words.

"And why would you agree to that? I don't need a tutor."

"It's a way to hang out without sneaking around. And if you're failing then you so do need a tutor."

"Shut up, Gilmore." He said but Rory could hear the smile on his lips.

"See you later, Mariano." She said hanging up the phone.

Later couldn't come soon enough for Rory. The dinner at Luke's seemed to take hours, even though she knew logically that was ridiculous. Her mother had tried to talk her out of tutoring Jess at least three times before they left the house and many more since the drive into town.

Rory had been done with her food for quite some time and was just waiting on Lorelai to leave. She knew Jess wasn't even downstairs yet but she still knew nothing would happen as long as her mother was hanging around.

"We're just going to study." Rory whined when her mother stalled again.

"I know."

"And we'll be right here doing it." She said gesturing to the table.

"I know." Lorelai said losing steam.

"So all this stalling is completely unnecessary."

"I know." The words were beginning to sound fake.

"So go." Rory said pointing towards the door.

"I will." Lorelai grabbed the cup of coffee off the table and brought it to her lips slowly, "Just finishing up the coffee that I paid for already. All right, that's enough, I'm going. Goodbye."

Lorelai grabbed her purse off the back of the chair and stood from her seat. She didn't feel good about leaving Rory alone with Jess. She didn't like that Rory seemed to be ignoring Dean for the last few weeks and now there she was going to sit all night with the town hoodlum.

"Are you sure there's nothing else to this? You know you can tell me stuff, right?"

"Actualy I uh," Rory paused. It was the perfect opportunity but she couldn't take it. The Dean issue needed to be a long conversation. She couldn't blurt it out then tell her mother to leave. She knew her mom well enough to know she would need a chuck of time to explain everything, "no, nope. Can't think of anything."

"Alright, see ya." Lorelai said with a sigh.

"Bye."

Rory smiled as sweetly as she could in hopes it would speed her mother up. She watched as the older Gilmore left Luke's and couldn't help but give a small sigh of relief. There had been something nerve wrecking about waiting for Jess with her mother. Sure her mom didn't know they were spending time together, no one in town knew that, but her mother just had a way of stating situations and making her feel bad about them.

Lorelai had been non-stop mentioning Dean for the last few hours. It was like she thought bringing up that he was out of town would have made Rory not tutor Jess. She knew she should have told her mother about the break up, she didn't have any excuse. At this point she had had plenty of opportunities she just chose not to take them. Each opportunity there was some reason; it was too late, too early, she needed to be somewhere, she'd had a bad afternoon, Lorelai had a bad day the excuses were never ending.

"Hey Teach." Jess said smiling at her as he sat in the chair across from her.

"Hey."

Rory smiled at him. It was weird to be in public talking with him. She had been doing a very good job of compartmentalizing her life. She had Jess at nights when her mom thought she was on the phone with Dean or out with Dean and in the day she had her everyday Stars Hallow existence.

"So you ready to start?" she asked.

"Yes, I am."

Jess pointed towards the stack of books sitting on the diner counter. She couldn't help but smile that he was at least going to pretend to take things seriously. She knew the whole night hadn't been his idea, and it certainly wasn't the ideal way to be spending time together but Rory figured it was better than nothing.

Plus she decided to try and find a bright side in the situation. If she started spending time tutoring Jess he would have to come over to the house occasionally and her mother would have to learn to deal with him at some point. Rory was sure that eventually her mother would get over the crazy uncalled for hatred she had for him.

"Well are you going to go pick them up or am I?" Rory teased.

"Wait there."

Rory looked up and watched as Jess did another magic trick. She wasn't sure what to say about it. He tried to look so cool when other people were around but magic was defiantly not a part of the bad boy image. In fact she almost wanted to laugh at how much a magic trick would ruin his image if he ever showed them to anyone but her.

"I stand by my statement, pull a coin out of my nose and you'll be sorry. Will you please get your books?"

They studied for an hour. Except that studying consisted of very little actually studying on Jess' part. He watched Rory, played with his cards, he flipped through the textbooks making odd sounds but Rory had yet to see him actually attempt any study time.

She had spent the last hour going through every point she thought he would need to know for the test he had coming up. She had spent all her time working on what he needed, not caring that she was missing out on her own study time. She could have been at home doing her own homework, she could have been reading something that wasn't a textbook, or they could have snuck off to hang out. But instead she was doing everything she could to help him get his grades up while he just sat and looked at her.

Jess was going through the deck of cards, organizing the cards and doing a trick by himself. Rory was trying her best to ignore him, but each time he flipped over one of the cards it was hard for her to ignore the distraction. Jess shuffled the cards, flipping them around and shuffling again before he fanned them out within his hand.

"Explain to me the political ramifications of the Marshall Plan." Rory said her nose down in his book once more.

"Pick a card."

Jess held the fanned out cards closer to Rory. She looked up feeling a slight pang of hatred bubble within her. Here she was wasting most of her energy to help him and he couldn't even answer a simple question, one he had to know because she had literally just gone over the answer.

But as much as she would have liked to throw the cards all across the diner she knew that if Jess wanted to be distracted he was going to be and there was nothing she could do. If she played into his antics she had a better chance of getting him to actually put in a little study time before the night was over.

She grabbed a card, looking at it quickly without really paying attention. She didn't watch as he did the trick. He could have just set her card on top and picked it up again and she would have never known. But either way he grabbed her card and showed it to her.

"That's right. Now focus, Jess."

"So…"

"We just went over this. There's no way you already forgot it. I have been talking about this for fifteen minutes, don't tell me you just ignored everything I said."

"Hey know what'd be fun?" Jess had a mischievous look in his eye.

"I will make you write it out fifty times on the specials board if that's what it takes."

"No you wouldn't."

"Wanna bet?" Rory said halfway smiling.

"You told me just the other night how you like the new specials board cause you like my handwriting so much."

"That's not exactly what I said, that makes me sound stupid. Now will you study!"

"Really though, know what'd be great?"

"Jess why won't you at least try to remember the Marshall Plan?"

"Have you ever read 'Please Kill Me'?" his tone was enough to tell her how done with the night he was.

"No." she groaned.

She had heard of the book once. It was on her to-read list.

"Oral history of the punk movement. You'd like it- you can borrow it if you want."

"I'm here to help you study. I came over because there was no way to see each other tonight without me telling mom I was seeing you and you telling Luke about me. I would have had to mention the break up and things would have gotten complicated. But as it is, I'm here now to help you study. Now, if you want me to go, I'll go, but if I'm going to stay, then you will stop distracting me and start paying attention, understand?"

She seemed to have struck a chord. Whatever part of her small speech had made him pay attention she didn't care, all she cared about was the fact that he had lowered his eyes and stopped smiling. It was like he realized he was wasting their time together.

"I understand." She looked at him funny, "I swear, Rory. I'll study."

"Good. And yes, I would like to borrow it, thank you very much."

Jess seemed to have taken her words to heart. Sure over the next hour he was hardly a willing participant but he seemed to actually attempt to get some work done. He had opened his books and had even taken some notes. When she assigned him to write something from Shakespeare from memory he had pen on paper quickly and seemed to be focused on his writing.

"Done." Jess said handing her the notebook.

"This isn't Shakespeare." Rory said reading over the words.

What he had written down was beautiful, but she knew it wasn't Shakespeare right away. She had half expected him to just write down some song or write about how much he didn't care. But whatever it was that he wrote was quite beautiful even if it didn't fit the assignment.

"It's not?" he asked playing dumb.

"What is this?"

"Mark R. Slaughter, but which one?"

"Hey, I'm not the one being tested right now."

"Ten seconds." He said smiling as he began to count down her time.

"Ah, oh oh, oh, Completing All The Touches." She said just before he got to one.

"A plus. Didn't expect you to get it, Gilmore."

Rory smiled at him feeling accomplished. In all honesty she was surprised she got it as well. Poetry had never been huge on her reading list. The only reason she had known any Mark R. Slaughter was because they had talked about him the other night.

Jess had been mad about doing poetry in school and they had spent a whole night on the bridge going through ridiculous poems.

Jess was giving her a crooked smiled. She couldn't help but get pulled in. They still hadn't made anything official and no one knew they were hanging out but there was something about him that made Rory feel like it could last a lifetime. It was like his smile made her know that everything would be okay.

"Come on, let's get to work." Rory said looking back down at her books

"Hey, do you wanna get outta here?"

"You can't be serious."

"I'm sick of studying."

"How can you be sick of studying? You've done card tricks, you've made coffee, you've tried to explain to me how on earth Coldplay could be considered an alternative band, but as of yet, you've studied for maybe a minute tops."

Jess didn't seem to be listening to her again. Instead he was looking out the window as if he was trying to find something to do within their small town limits just by gazing out the window.

"That's your car?" he asked when he noticed the blue car out front of the diner.

"Well, kinda. Dean made it for me. If I stop using it mom will know something's up but I should probably give it back to him."

"Ain't that a sad tale." Jess said sarcastically, "Tell you what. Let's go out. You and me on the town. Studying isn't us being together, even if I'm not doing any studying. We'll get ice cream and then when we get back I promise I'll study."

"This is a diner, there's ice cream here."

"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the woman I've been spending all my time with… The diner doesn't have any cones."

Rory's eyes went big as she made the connection that she had never had ice cream in a cone at Luke's. Ice cream without a cone was hardly worth it. Far too often when she was with Dean she had to eat ice cream out of a bowl. It just wasn't the same without a cone.

"Cones." She said aloud as she contemplated leaving.

"I need cones."

"Well, so, if we go get ice cream…"

"In cones."

"Then you will be a perfect student for the rest of the night?"

"We'll have the teacher student relationship thing going for us for the whole night through."

"Dirty." Rory joked, "I could not believe you less. Here you drive, I'll read you Othello. Won't that be fun?"

Rory tossed him the cars to the car and smiled as she went to put her coat on. Jess followed behind her as she left the diner.

"Professor Gilmore, everything you do outside of the classroom is fun." Jess joked with her.

He wasn't able to get out of the way quick enough and her hand swung back hitting him in the chest gently. But Jess only smiled as he continued out towards the car. He enjoyed teasing her. Sure they weren't dating, but he imagined that would be how they'd act if they were. They would tease back and forth and have in depth conversations about books and music.

He could see himself driving her around, she would wave out the window at everyone in town while he not so silently cursed every person they passed. She'd beg him to go to town events and he'd refuse but get annoyed when she got to spend a whole evening with the crazy people in town. Sure they'd never have a moment to themselves between Luke's paranoia and Lorelai's hatred of him, but they would be happy when they were alone. He wanted to ask her out, do it properly.

They had been hanging out in secret for ages. But there was something about the title of boyfriend that felt important to him. Since Dean had dumped her Jess had felt the need to step in and be there for her. He wanted to have the title and let the town know it. But Rory's mom had loved Dean, she still did, and until Rory was able to break the news to Lorelai Jess certainly didn't have a chance at a real title.

A.N. So there was another chapter. And surprise, another one will be posted tonight as well. I think something that is important to point out is the fact that their secret 'relationship' doesn't change much. They are still the same people, they still act the same as they would have to begin with. The bigger changes will come later in the story when the characters have bigger decisions to be making.

I know a few people questioned why Rory wouldn't talk to her mom. I just wanted to say that Lorelai loved Dean and with how things ended I think Rory was afraid to talk about it. She didn't want to tell Lorelai that Jess had been the reason but couldn't think of how to say they had broken up without bringing Jess into it. And once you keep something from a parent you're close to for a while it only gets harder to tell them. I know some people might not agree with that idea, but I'm pulling from my life and different character developments that I've looked into.