Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls or any of the characters associated with the show.

Chapter Seven: Conflicted

"Sooooo, party at Tristan's house, huh?" Lorelai heaved herself down upon Rory's twin sized bed with a groan. Rory turned from her mirror and looked at her very pregnant mother. The pregnancy wasn't easy on Lorelai, she was forty one after all. But she would never admit that it was taking a toll on her.

"Well, it's more of a party at Carly's."

"Uh huh." Lorelai fluffed a pillow. "Your best friend, Carly."

"Hey, I told you that she's pretty cool."

"So you are having a sleepover at your best friend Carly's."

"Something like that."

"Not at the guy's house who you went on a quasi date with last week?"

"Get out."

"Oh no. I just sat down. There'll be no getting for about five more minutes."

Rory turned back to her packing. She wasn't sure if she should pack jeans and a cute top or a dress. She decided on a dress. You could never really go wrong with a dress.

"So...not to harp on the issue, but why exactly are you going? I mean, two days ago you were going to kill Tristan."

Rory stiffened a little. She didn't exactly know what to say to that, after all, her mother was right.

"Hey, aren't you the one who is always encouraging me to act my age? Friday nights in Stars Hollow consist of babysitting for you, Sookie, or Lane. Which is really just a regression to being sixteen."

"Are you insinuating that Friday nights in the Hollow are lame?"

"I'm almost ready to reinstate Friday night dinners."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Well then stop bugging me about going out tonight. I'm twenty five. Do I need a logical reason for everything that I do?"

"No. But you are Rory Gilmore and it has been many years since you acted without a plan."

"Yeah, and look where that has gotten me."

"Rory!"

Rory stopped packing and looked at Lorelai. "Honestly, Mom. All of the planning, all of the being careful and thoughtful and cautious. Where has that gotten me? I'm twenty five, back at home, working a job that is a glorified internship. I never date, I have a very limited pool of friends, none of whom can even relate to me right now. And who was I when I was being a little more rebellious? I was in love, living on my own, and I had confidence in my dreams."

"Living in your grandparents' pool house is hardly living on your own."

"I'm not talking about that," Rory said with a sigh.

"Just the Logan years in general?"

"I guess."

"You're looking at them through rose colored glasses, kid."

"Maybe. But you have to admit that something's gotta give."

Lorelai sighed. "I don't know what to tell you, honey. When I was twenty five I had a nine year old. I don't know that there is a specific place you should be right now. But I do know that I want you to be happy. And lately you are walking around this place pretty damn miserable. And that makes me wonder if hanging out with Tristan is going to help that or hurt that."

Rory zipped up her overnight bag. "I guess we will have to see, then." She kissed her mother on the cheek and headed out to catch her train.

Tristan stood in a corner of the small kitchen sipping whiskey. In front of him was a rather conflicting scene. Carly was seated at one of the bar stools at the counter, cutting up an array of cheeses for her appetizer platter. Rory was standing by the microwave, working on melting down blocks of cheese. What conflicted him didn't seem to be the contrasting taste in cheeses. Instead, he felt ill at ease watching the two women in the kitchen, chatting and laughing as they prepped their own dishes. Well, the problem was really just one of the women. He had watched Carly move around the kitchen a thousand times and he couldn't remember ever having this feeling. What this feeling was, specifically, was a little difficult to pinpoint at the moment.

He had heard Carly mention that morning that both women were going out to get their hair done for the magazine that afternoon. Carly always got her hair done, that was nothing new. In fact, had she not mentioned the appointment, he wouldn't have noticed. Rory, on the other hand, he noticed. Not that she looked dolled up or overdone. She just looked...beautiful.

Tristan had noticed it the moment he had walked in the door. Even as he kissed Carly hello. And then she stood up and crossed the small room to the microwave and he had seen the tight little black dress she had on. And those heels…

For days now Tristan had been regretting the way he had snapped at her at lunch, accusing her of reading into things. Now, watching her smile at Carly's story as she stirred up that damned liquid cheese, he knew that the attraction he had tried to accuse her of was growing stronger within himself. Not that he should have been surprised. He had pined after her, almost achingly, all through Chilton. And then threw Military school. After the fact, it was easy to convince himself that she had haunted him throughout those years because she was the last girl he had really been hung up on before being surrounded by other teenage boys. But now, that old feeling of unfulfilled longing simmered inside of him.

When Carly had told him that she was coming, Tristan had expected to come home to a sulking Rory, the one that he knew so well in high school. But she had apparently decided to forget it all in favor of having a pleasant evening. And somehow this was disconcerting to Tristan. Like the feelings he was trying to smother were unfounded. Like the tension that had existed between them was in his head.

It hadn't been. Her reaction the other day was proof of that.

"What are those," she asked pleasantly, nodding towards his drink.

"What?"

"Those little cubes. They don't look like ice. What are they?"

"Oh, whiskey stones." He shook his glass and the stones clinked together.

"I got them for him for his birthday," Carly filled in. "You stick them in the freezer so they act like ice without melting and watering it down."

"Cool," Rory said. She took the glass from Tristan's hand and swirled it around. Damn, she smelled good. "I'll have to remember these as a gift for my grandfather."

"I found them in a catalog that I've tossed, but you can probably just google."

"I'll be sure to do that. Can you pass me the salsa?"

Tristan watched as Rory dumped a jar of supermarket salsa into the melted cheese. She stirred it all together and the concoction settled into a brownish, lumpy mess. It looked like something that he would have eaten when he was high, back when he did that kind of thing, that is.

"What, exactly, is that?" he dared.

"Velveeta. I know, it looks kind of funky, but I promise you'll love it. Here, try it with a chip."

He couldn't resist the devilish sparkle in her eye. He took the offered chip, dipped it in the mess in the bowl, and tried it.

"Not bad," he conceded.

"I hear it is a delicacy in some countries."

"Red states are not separate countries."

"And what are you implying?"

"That Velveteen must be eaten predominantly in Walmart dominated states"

"Velveeta. And I bought this right at your corner Quik Mart, which pokes a hole in that theory."

"Ah, the Quik Mart. I should have known. If it had been the-"

"Ah shit!"

He looked over to the other side of the small kitchen to Carly. She was wiping at her dress with a dish towel. "You okay?"

"I spilled wine on my dress. I'll have to soak it. Tristan, come back with me to help me with the zipper?"

She rushed back towards their bedroom. Tristan followed her, throwing Rory a quick "Be right back" over his shoulder.

He closed their bedroom door behind him. Carly was already lining her shoes up in her closet, neatly, like always. She stood and turned her back towards Tristan, expectantly. He swept her hair over her shoulder, planting a kiss on her neck as he did so. He slowly pulled the zipper down her back, tracing the motion with his finger on her bare skin.

"God Tristan, not now." She stepped away from him without turning to him. She quickly pulled off her dress, draped it over her arm, and stood staring into her closet. "This is going to take me a minute," she said, still not turning. "Go back into the kitchen and entertain Rory?"

"Yes, dear."

Everything started happening at once after that. When Tristan went back into the kitchen he had just settled into a conversation with Rory when the doorbell rang and the first of his friends had arrived. After that, guests trickled in and out all evening.

Tristan had set himself up as bartender in the kitchen. Liquor flowed as the hours passed. His friends gathered around him. Most of them were friends he had made through his business dealings in New York, a collection of young entrepreneurs, much like himself. A few others were friends from Hartford who had likewise settled in the city.

Occasionally, Tristan would look up and watch Carly as she entertained some of her girlfriends in the living room. She often teased him that even though they lived in New York, their friends acted like they were at a middle school dance-boys over here, girls over there.

And then, sometime around midnight when what seemed to be the last of his friends left the apartment, Tristan noticed Rory. She was tucked away on the couch, out of sight from where Tristan had been set up in the kitchen. Next to her on the couch was Nathan Holcomb.

He didn't look like he was going to stay next to her long. In fact, it looked like he was inching his way towards being on top of her. That longing that had been simmering earlier? A rolling boil.

Nathan Hedge Fund had spent a year in Tokyo and lived in Greenwich, even though the commute was a bitch. That's what Rory had gotten out of their conversation. But she wasn't really thinking about any of that now. She was thinking about how long it had been since she had been kissed. She was thinking about how Nathan definitely had that look about him, like he was thinking about going in for it. She was thinking about whether or not she was going to go home with him. Was she ready to be that girl?

She felt the couch sag a bit. Over Nathan's shoulder, she could see that Tristan had sat down.

"Carly went to bed," he announced. He yawned. "It's getting late. Long day today."

Rory felt Nathan pull away from her. "Do you want to grab a nightcap?"

"I don't think so man, another time," Tristan responded.

Nathan looked over at him, throwing him a bewildered look. He turned to Rory. "We could go back to my place. The view is pretty incredible. It might even be nice enough to go up on the roof…"

Decision time. Her head floated a little, most likely a mix of the wine and the late hour. Was she going to be that girl? Take control of her life? End the little pity party she had been throwing herself over being dried up at twenty five?

"Nathan…" she trailed.

"All right, good night man." Tristan was unmistakably ushering Nathan towards the door. By the time the door was open, Tristan's flow of chatter was so smooth that Rory was beginning to think that maybe she had missed some cue on Nathan's part.

The door closed heavily behind Nathan. Tristan moved into the kitchen and began making lots of noise.

After a moment, Rory followed him in. He was throwing plates and glasses into the dishwasher.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" He ran some water in the sink over the dishes that had collected there.

"That. With Nathan."

"It's late, I want to go to bed. I didn't want him here anymore."

"You didn't let me speak for myself," she said. "You just kicked him out."

Tristan turned off the tap. He paused a minute over the sink before turning to her. "You were going to go home with him?"

Rory crossed her arms across herself. "It wasn't your decision to make for me."

"That wasn't an answer."

"What does it matter?"

"So you make it a habit to just go home with strange men? I have to admit, I'm surprised."

"It's not a habit."

"But that's a yes, you were going home with him?"

"That's a 'it's none of your business.'"

"It would have been if you had walked out of here."

"How so?" she asked.

"Well, I would have had to explain to Carly why you were missing at breakfast tomorrow morning."

"I'm sure she would have survived."

Tristan threw a few more dishes into the sink. He reached for the bowl of Velveeta. "This crap that you made is all congealed."

"Give it to me," Rory said. She grabbed the bowl from him and put it in the sink. She ran some water into it. "Let it soak, it'll be fine tomorrow."

A minute passed. They stood in the kitchen, staring each other down. Finally Tristan sighed. "Nathan's a jerk."

"Oh really? Nathan was the jerk in the room?"

Tristan reached out and placed a hand on her arm. "Trust me?"

Maybe it was the alcohol intensifying the moment. But Rory could have sworn she read something sincere in his eyes. She gave him one nod. "Fine, I trust you."

Tristan removed his hand and took a step back. "Bed," he said simply. "You all set in the guest room?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Thanks."

Tristan nodded and headed off to his room. The door closed quietly behind him. Rory stood another moment in the kitchen. She ran her hand over where Tristan's hand had rested on her arm. She shivered, and shut off the lights.