A/N: Sorry, dropped the ball for a little bit there, didn't I? Well, I'm back now, so it's time to find out what's happening with Luke's arrest and Rory's Spring Break! :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 14

"So he's old but he's not rich?" Louise frowned hard into her cup. "I don't get it."

Rory was kind of glad she wasn't the only one puzzled by Paris' affair with Asher Fleming, though it wasn't as comforting as it might've been to have someone like Louise agreeing with her. She and Madeline were never the sharpest knives in the drawer, or even the nicest people at times. Still, it was fun to reconnect just for a little while. Rory's real concern wasn't the company so much as the drinks they were providing, which seemed to be getting stronger with every cup. Good thing she wasn't near any windows!

"What happened to that boyfriend of yours, Rory?" asked Madeline then.

"Jess?" she asked, like a reflex.

"No, no. The cute one," said Louise.

Paris laughed into her drink. "The cute one was Dean," she clarified. "Jess was the hot one."

Rory's eyes went wide as anything at that remark. She came awfully close to spitting punch all over her friend, which made everybody laugh.

"There was a hot one?" asked Madeline. "Ooh, Gilmore's been holding out on us!"

Rory looked at Paris, who only grinned in response. She meant what she said, there was no doubting that. Rory vaguely recalled a time when Paris had told Dean she had an interest in Jess, later passing it off as an excuse to get her friend out of a jam. Rory always wondered if the lie was based in truth, but right now she couldn't collate the evidence to figure it out. She was way too drunk for this conversation, and yet there seemed no way to get out of it.

"Jess is... Well, he was my boyfriend for a few months Senior year," she explained to Madeline and Louise, one hand over her face because it was just so embarrassing. "It ended badly."

"Oh, come on!" said Paris too loudly, almost falling off her chair in her exuberance. "It never really ended, and now he's back in town."

"And easily reachable by his new cell phone number," said Madeline with way too much glee.

Rory's eyes were so very wide as she realised her old friend was now holding her cell phone and had located Jess' number within the contacts list. If she called him, well, Rory couldn't very well stop her right now. Her heart rate tripled, which was quite a feat since it was pretty close to that already just from the mere mention of her relationship with Jess.

"You have your ex's number in your phone?" asked Louise, craning her neck to see the screen on Rory's cell in Madeline's hand. "His new number" she emphasised. "Oh, this is so not over."

"You're telling me," said Paris, downing the rest of her drink. "Not that I blame her. I mean, Jess wasn't exactly the best at treating a woman right, but man, the boy has the looks, and that whole bad boy vibe that you just can't get around even though you know it's not worth the trouble."

"Ooh, bad boy vibe!" Louise echoed with glee. "I'm liking this guy more and more all the time."

"That's good, because I think we're about to be talking to him on the phone," said Madeline with a sly smirk. "Yup, I just dialled, and it's ringing!"

Rory gasped and scrambled across the table for her phone. She got it to her ear just in time to hear Jess speak very briefly on an outgoing voicemail message and then came the beep.

"Oh, um, hi, Jess," she said vaguely, glaring at Madeline and Louise who thought they were just so hilarious. "Er, this is Rory. I'm in Florida with Paris, and Madeline and Louise, who you never met and now you never will because I'm about to kill them!" she emphasised to the girls across the table. "Anyway, we've all drunk way too much and you're probably asleep so I'm going to go. Good night!"

Snapping the phone shut, Rory closed her eyes a moment and wondered why the hell she had left a message at all. She could've just hung up the phone and if Jess ever realised what had happened she could tell him she misdialled or her friends were playing a prank. She blamed the alcohol rushing around her system for her lack of competence. It had been a really crazy couple of days.

Madeline and Louise were in hysterics over the message Rory had left, apparently completely unphased by the threats when she repeated how horribly they were about to die at her hands.

"Relax, Gilmore," Paris told her, rolling her eyes. "The guy will be thrilled you called, drunk or not. He adores you, and hey, at least this one knows how to read. Dean was cute and all, but seriously, not on your intellectual level."

Honestly, Rory would have argued with her if she didn't know Paris was right. That and she was busy being seriously impressed that not only could Paris use words like 'intellectual' properly when drunk, but also that she was currently multiplying herself by twos and threes somehow.

"I need to get out of here," muttered Rory, holding her head that swam violently. "This punch is living up to its name and I... I need more air than I'm getting right now."

Paris went with her, leaving a cackling Madeline and Louise in their wake. Rory warned them one more time that they were going to die bloody for what they had done. Jess was going to think she was a real idiot after this.

"So, you ever going to tell me what turned you into the kind of idiot you spent two years trying to stop me from becoming?" asked Jess as he drove around the corner and pulled up a few feet behind Luke's truck.

The pick up from the police station had been fine. With the bail duly paid and paperwork signed, Luke was free to go and Jess made no smart ass comments or anything in front of the cops. He let his uncle direct him to the street where he left his own vehicle in silence, but now curiosity was getting the better of Jess. He never in a million years saw a scenario where he would be picking up Luke from jail. The other way around maybe, but never this situation.

"I don't want to talk about it," said Luke, reaching for the door handle and letting himself out the passenger side.

Jess hopped out the driver's side and followed him down the street. "Hey, when crap happened to me, I never wanted to talk about it, but that didn't stop you from bugging me until I did," he pointed out. "Luke, I just picked you up from jail. What the hell happened?"

He sounded more concerned than anything else which was probably what really got to Luke in the end. His hand stilled on the door to his truck and he turned around to face his nephew.

"I'm not wearing my socks," he said, as if that were an explanation.

Jess shook his head, proving he didn't get it.

"You know I stayed over here last night, with Nicole?" he gestured towards the building, which Jess only now realised was the townhouse his uncle owned with his wife. "Well, I got dressed in a hurry this morning and then I noticed later that I'm not wearing my socks."

He emphasised it in such a way and with a look on his face that was unmistakable. Jess' eyes grew a little wider, as he glanced from Luke to the house and back again.

"She had another guy in there?"

Luke nodded. "A guy that was taking off his socks in my bedroom," he confirmed. "So, I came over here and I sat across the street. I waited and waited and then this guy showed up. Nicole came out, met him at the door..." his voice trailed away and Luke shook his head. "I'm wearing his socks."

"And he's screwing your wife," said Jess, with all the tact of a Mack truck. "Sorry," he apologised immediately when Luke glared at him. "But that's what we think, right?"

"That's what we think," Luke confirmed sadly, adjusting his hat and shaking his head right after. "I don't know, Jess, I mean... Me and Nicole, it was never... I was trying, y'know?"

"Were you?" his nephew checked. "I mean, seriously, Luke, did you really want this marriage thing to work? It was such a joke."

"Hey, my marriage is not a joke!" Luke snapped, pointing an angry finger at Jess - he didn't flinch at all. "It's just... it's complicated."

"No, it's not," said Jess definitely. "It's not complicated. It's a sham. You've been trying to make this thing with Nicole work because it's all you've got, but she's not what you want. She's never been the one you really want."

Luke met Jess' eyes with anger but the fire burnt out in a second when his nephew held his gaze firmly. They both knew what he was saying and they both knew he was right too. Just as Jess had never gotten over Rory, Luke had never loved anyone quite like he loved Lorelai. They were both hung up on their own Gilmore girl, and it was not going away.

A huge sigh came out of Luke then, like every ounce of air being pushed out in one long breath. The fight was gone from him in a second as his hand covered his face a moment and he got his bearings.

"I didn't even care enough to hit the guy," he admitted, eyes still on the sidewalk.

"So what the hell did you get arrested for?" asked Jess curiously.

Luke glanced up, then gestured for his nephew to follow him. They walked down the street aways to another car. Jess realised quickly it belonged to the guy with the socks, though he was failing to see whatever it was Luke was pointing to in the side panel.

"Right there," said his uncle. "I hit his car," he insisted.

Jess took a closer look. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously! They don't arrest you for thinking about it!"

"What did you hit it with?"

"My hand... and then my foot."

"You sure?"

Luke was getting mad again by now and Jess decided to let it go. There really was no evidence that anybody had hit this car but clearly Luke had done so, or the cops were unlikely to have taken him in. The main point was that he hadn't lashed out at the guy in question. Jess would guess that was because it wasn't really him or even Nicole that Luke was mad at. It was himself. He was fighting for a relationship he didn't even care about, and it was more likely that realisation that made him so angry.

"We should head home," said Jess, standing straight and giving up on looking for dents and scratches that simply were not present on the BMW. "The diner's going to need opening, in what? An hour?" he joked, checking his watch that clearly said a little after one a.m.

"Smart ass," said Luke, trying not to smile.

"I get it from my uncle," said Jess, smirking as they headed back to their respective vehicles to go home at last.

"I think I'm ready to go home," said Rory as she knelt on the beach with Paris at her side, the whole of the scenery seeming to spin and tilt though they were being very still themselves.

"No, we're doing Spring Break!" her friend insisted. "Or, did we do Spring Break already?" she checked, looking as confused as Rory had ever seen her.

"Well, let's see. We came, we danced, we drank a lot, and you kissed me," said Rory with some distaste.

"You drunk dialled," Paris giggled uncharacteristically. "And the throwing up seems pretty imminent."

"Agreed," Rory nodded, swallowing hard. "So we're done, right?"

"I think so," her friend agreed. "Home sounds good."

"Yeah, just as soon as the beach stops spinning."

Rory really was ready to get back to Connecticut now. Florida had been fun in its way, but she had seen all she needed to see of sun, sea, and sand, and certainly done way more drinking than she ever planned on doing ever again.

Through the spinning and the fog, her brain caught onto Paris' words about the drunk dialling. Rory winced, now hardly able to recall exactly what she had said on Jess' voicemail. She really hoped he didn't think she was an idiot after this. He was unlikely to understand her need to go Spring Breaking, although she supposed there was a chance he would get it. After all, Jess had a wild side, it was one of the things she loved most about him.

"Oh my God!" she gasped the moment those words passed through her mind unbidden.

"What? You need me to hold your hair back?" asked Paris when Rory's hand suddenly covered her mouth.

Rory didn't answer, but she really was feeling woozy and sick, she just wasn't so sure she could blame it entirely on the punch anymore.

To Be Continued...