TRIGGER WARNING: There is a small scene toward the end of the chapter that might be disturbing to pet owners. It's not long, but it is sad.

Chapter 8: The Lodger

There were changes at home.

Well, Rory conceded, of course there were changes. Their household of two had become a household of three, and despite everything, it was a little weird to see all the maleness mixed in with her and her mom's things. The rooms had become a bit neater overall, which was a plus. There was shaving cream in her mom's bathroom and boxer briefs in the laundry. The model of a spaceship sat on the table next to the monkey lamp. The cabinets and refrigerator held real food, and the oven was being used for more than warming socks and the occasional tray of tater tots.

But there was something else, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Maybe because she was shivering too hard to do so.

She pulled her cardigan around her and stumbled out of her bedroom to squint at the thermostat. "Why is it 64 in here?" she moaned. She knocked it up a few degrees and went to go stand over one of the registers so her toes could warm. When she didn't feel the rush of warm air against her feet, she frowned and knelt.

"Why's the vent closed?" Rory murmured and wandered through the rest of the first floor. More than half the registers were closed, and it didn't make any sort of sense. Maybe Luke was some sort of penguin when he wasn't in the diner and needed it to be this cold. She wondered if he was open to negotiation on that front.

The curtains were thrown open, allowing the winter sunshine to warm the living room, so Rory collected her book and settled on the couch to watch TV. She snuggled into a blanket and reached for the remote.

Five minutes later, she turned off the TV and tossed the blanket aside. Hands on her hips, she frowned down at the set and stared at the coffee table. Clean. Absolutely clean except the old basket her mother used to keep various craft projects stashed. She fingered a skein of yarn as she heard the kitchen door open and close.

She turned her head down the hall. "Hey!"

Luke emerged from the kitchen, nodded to her and started to unwrap his scarf. He tugged off his gloves and frowned. "Why's it so cold in here?"

His bafflement was so genuine that Rory knew at once he wasn't behind the sudden transformation of the Crap Shack into an igloo. "The vents are closed," she explained.

He knelt by one and frowned. He flipped it open, then closed, then back open before heading for the basement.

Rory followed, hovering at the top of the stairs as Luke walked to the furnace, then the water heater, checking them over. He shook his head at Rory as she bit her lip. They emerged back into the living room, frowning at each other.

"More than half our cable package is missing," Rory said. "There's a lot of channels we had last month that we don't have anymore. And all of the magazines are gone." She indicated the clean coffee table. "We were subscribed to a lot, but they've disappeared."

"I don't remember the last time your mom referenced one of those magazines."

"Is Mom OK with money?" Rory asked in a small voice. She scowled. "You're helping with the bills, aren't you?"

"Actually, I've yet to see one." And that, she saw that was something that had just occurred to him as well. "Aw, geez."

"Mia gave them that money," Rory said quickly.

"And they're going through it very fast." At her confused look, Luke shrugged. "The diner has become your mom's de-facto office and I'm the messenger boy. Everything seems to start at $4,000 these days."

"Mom's not going to lose the house is she?" Rory's voice skated up several octaves, and she pressed her hand to her stomach in an attempt to calm down.

"No, of course not."

She started to pace the living room, ideas and half-formed thoughts running through her mind so fast that it was hard to latch onto just one. "I mean, I can cut down on my expenses. Eating out, gone. Books? I'll see if I can get them to raise my limit at the library. I'll make over my own clothes!" She spun back to Luke, eyes bright with panic. "I'll teach myself how to sew! Mom's got yarn, I'll make socks!"

"Rory," Luke said in the same tone of voice he used when calming her mother down, but she was too far in her head to notice.

"I'll find a better part-time job than swiping cards at the dining hall. I'll quit the newspaper, get a real job." She thumped a fist in the palm of her other hand. "I can talk to Grandma and Grandpa like I did with Yale!"

"Your mom would never forgive you if you did any of that." Luke shoved his hands in his pockets, toeing the ground with his boot for a moment before looking up at her. "Look, even if anything happened to the inn, your mom won't lose this house. Don't worry about it. Go do what college kids do."

"I can live without the heat. I'll just wear layers." To prove her point, Rory snagged the blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped herself in it.

"Rory, stop panicking."

"I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine. I'm fine and in control." Rory pulled the afghan tighter around her. "You believe me, right?"

Luke merely arched an eyebrow. "No."

Rory nodded. "Good."

"Look, your mom and I will have a talk, and everything will be fine."

"Promise?" She already knew the answer. Luke made everything OK. He always made everything OK for her and her mom. That was what he did. He brought her mashed potatoes when she had the chicken pox, hauled beat-up old mattresses around Connecticut, and flew to Europe on a whim just to give them a few hundred Euro when her mom's debit card was stolen. So when he nodded his response, the fear in her gut eased.

"Why don't you go hang out at the diner? The apartment up there's warm." He fished in his pocket until he pulled out his keyring, separated out one of the keys, and handed it to her.. "You know, there's that extra bed. Have a sleepover or something with Lane. Help yourselves to stuff in the kitchen, but don't use the grill unless Denise is there."

"Thanks, Luke," Rory said gratefully and shuffled off to her room to pack.

As soon as Rory left, Luke did the one thing he told himself he'd never do when he moved into Lorelai's house - snoop through her things. He proceeded to do the next hour doing just that, turning the living room and kitchen upside down and putting it back together again in an attempt to find the bills. When he found nothing, he thought about searching the bedroom, but he knew Lorelai well enough that she wouldn't keep any financial documents up there unless it was part of the wad she stuck in the safe when he installed it in the closet.

At a loss, he went into the kitchen to start dinner. He pulled open the freezer and stared blankly at the contents, his brain not quite focusing on the task at hand. He pulled out the plastic container of fennel from August, sighed at it and shook his head, then put it back in the freezer. Instead, he pulled out a package of cheese tortellini then went into the refrigerator for spinach, cream, and butter. Within 10 minutes, he had a fragrant soup bubbling on the stove and a quick loaf of bread in the oven.

There wasn't much to do until the tortellini cooked, so he found himself pacing the kitchen and absently washing dishes. When those were done, he opened the cabinets and began testing the shelves to make sure everything was sturdy. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He had been so caught up with the fun and joy that was his family that it didn't occur to him to ask how much his share of the bills were. He assumed Lorelai would come to him about that on her own, and it never occurred to him that she wouldn't do so.

A few shelves wobbled, and he was just turning to get Bert when Lorelai blew in through the back door with her computer bag in her arms. Abruptly, Luke realized that was where the bills were and was sorely tempted to smack himself in the forehead for not realizing it earlier.

"Hey, babe!" She pressed a kiss to his shoulder and dumped the bag on the table. "You smell good. Is that soup?" She eyed the package of spinach warily. "You're not ruining it with that are you?"

"Yes, it's soup, and yes, the spinach is going in it." Luke stared down at the pot, trying to tamp down the irritation that had a good hour to build. He blew out a breath. "Look, we need to talk."

"Sure, what's up?" Lorelai was busy setting up Sadie on the table, pulling out stacks of papers and her planner to arrange them around the laptop.

"I was wondering, how much is my share of the utilities?"

Her head snapped up. "Sorry?"

Luke made a gesture at the light fixture. "Heat. Lights. Water. Things like that."

"Oh, don't worry about it." Lorelai dismissed him with a casual wave as she sat at the table and booted the laptop.

Luke turned down the heat on the stove before dropping into the seat opposite from her. "Lorelai, I live here. I should be helping with the bills."

"You've been buying all the groceries and doing all the cooking. You've single-handedly kept me and Rory from constructing that huge fort of Al's takeout boxes that I've always wanted to make, and that's a huge help. Though we really need to talk about your vegetable addiction."

He lightly rapped a fist on the table. "I consume resources, and I should be paying for them."

"Rory consumes resources too, and I don't make her pay for them. Have you seen the amount of laundry a college kid generates? I tell you, I thought I did a lot of it when Rory was a baby, but it's nothing compared to a Yale freshman." Lorelai cast a wary eye toward the laundry room, as if Rory's laundry was about to leap out and attack them at any second.

Oh, no. He wasn't about to let her steer the conversation off track. Not this time. "Don't you think I haven't noticed? We live in the same house. I've noticed you running around turning off the lights and turning down the heat until it's near freezing. Rory says half the cable package is gone. You steal the bills before I can even see them."

"Your name isn't on them," she huffed.

"Something tells me that if I wasn't there, there'd be no food in the house at all." A small kernel of panic suddenly formed in his gut. "Are you in trouble?"

"No," Lorelai snapped. "Everything's fine. I can handle it."

"Fine," Luke snapped back and shoved out of the chair.

"What're you doing?" she asked as he stormed into the living room and flipped the heating vent open before walking back into the kitchen and doing the one there.

"Opening all the vents. Don't argue with me on this one, Lorelai. You can do whatever the hell you want with the TV, but we've got to stay warm."

"I don't want you to think I'm mooching off you."

Luke looked up, expecting her anger. The weariness in her voice made his irritation drain away, replaced by a healthy amount of worry. There were smudges of exhaustion under her eyes, and he found himself wondering what Lorelai was doing when he went to sleep. They went to bed together, and she was by his side when he woke up in the morning, but he wondered how much time she spent actually sleeping.

"You're not," he told her, his voice quiet.

She fiddled with one of the pieces of paper next to the laptop. "I'm not used to this, OK?"

"Neither am I." He slid back into his seat. "Please, let me help."

"You're still paying for all the utilities with the apartment."

"I'd be paying for them regardless, because they're all wrapped into what I pay for the diner." Luke went for the big guns. "Lorelai, Rory knows something's wrong. She offered to make her own clothes."

Lorelai stared at him for a solid five seconds before she burst out laughing. "Don't you remember the time she took home ec in 8th grade?"

"When she walked into the diner with a skirt sewn to her jeans and a spool of thread tangled in her hair?" It had taken Lorelai a good 45 minutes, three cups of coffee, and two slices of apple pie to get Rory detangled from her assignment.

"First student in Stars Hollow Middle School to be forbidden to even look at a sewing machine. I think they still have the anti-Rory warding signs still up on the classroom door. Where is she anyhow?" She turned her head toward Rory's room.

"At the old apartment hanging out with Lane. I've been thinking about leasing the space to her." Luke glanced over at the soup, then got up to check on it.

"Oh yeah?"

Deciding the tortellini was cooked through, he consulted the recipe pinned to the corkboard near the stove, added cream and parmesan cheese to the pot, and stirred. "She's not the happiest at home. I get that. It's a good apartment, and now that Jess is gone, I'm not doing anything with it. She can use Jess' old bed, and we'll store mine in the garage here."

"Where all the band stuff is."

"Right. Basement." He added the package of spinach, stirred it quickly to let it wilt, then removed the pot from the heat. He grabbed a potholder to pull the bread from the oven.

"OK. Half the bills," she conceded.

"Call for more heating oil."

"All right." Lorelai watched as Luke ladled soup into bowls and brought one over to her side, putting it down in the only empty spot on the table. "I'm really not mooching off you?"

"No. Eat your soup." He squeezed her shoulder before getting his own.

Lorelai lay in bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling as she waited. It wouldn't take long.

She turned her head to watch Luke sleep, gauging just how far under he was. She had to time it just right. If she moved too early, he would rouse and wonder where she was going. He always slept in the same manner, which didn't surprise her the least. She was liable to do anything when she was asleep. One morning, when Rory had been a toddler, she had woken up completely stripped out of her nightgown with her head at the foot of the bed and her feet on her pillow. She was also known to remove her pajama top in her sleep when she got hot and had done so in Vienna while sharing a room with Luke and Rory. It was hard to tell which of them had been more mortified when they woke up to find Lorelai's top across the room and her girls greeting the morning for the whole world to see.

But Luke was Luke, and he was steady and sure even in his sleep. He would start out on his back and at some point roll and curl around her, where he remained for the rest of the night. Lorelai thought such a thing would be suffocating, and it wasn't. It truly wasn't. It was safe, comforting, endearing, loving, and a lot more linked thesaurus entries. She just didn't need it right now. She was constantly surprised by how quickly she had grown used to sharing a bed with Luke, considering that when she tried with Max, it had failed so horribly that it surely would be recorded in several dating advice books of what not to do.

She waited until his breathing deepened to the point where she was sure he was in a deep sleep, then eased out from under the blankets.

Even though she missed Rory's first night home from her first semester of Yale, her being gone gave her enough time to finish her project. Lorelai dug in the hall closet until she pulled out a box labeled "Rory's textbooks." It was an effective hiding place for a lot of things, including the Christmas gifts she had in various states of progress. A pair of circular knitting needles held a hat that matched the scarf she made Luke for his birthday. Wooden blocks she had found at a thrift store and repainted were waiting for Davey, along with a couple of vintage cookbooks that Sookie would adore. There were various other gifts for her friends, a combination of homemade and thrift store finds. The largest was a folded quilt, and this was the item she took out now.

The quilt was mostly made up of squares cut from Rory's Chilton uniforms, no longer needed since they were done with the place. Lorelai had bought a couple yards of contrasting green and blue cotton that matched the plaid, along with white eyelet cloth, and the resulting patchwork was beautiful and suitable for Rory's first apartment. She carefully smoothed navy blue cotton over the carpet in the living room, taping down the edges and shoving furniture back until she had enough room. Then, she unrolled a sheet of batting and spread it over the cotton, then carefully centered the quilt in the center before grabbing material to baste it together.

It was a mindless enough task that her mind drifted to the proposed budget that Natalie had given her earlier that day for decorating the inn. Lorelai had split their budget in half, dedicating half to decorating and renovation and the other half to ordering supplies and fixtures. Both sides were seeing dangerously low balances, no matter what she did to juggle money. She had a call out to a couple of banks, trying to secure lines of credit, but the initial prognosis was poor. Her own struggling credit rating, which had come back to bite her at several points over the past couple of years, was rearing itself again. Even though she had successfully paid back the loan from when termites decided the Crap Shack was a nummy snack, it still hadn't been enough to erase her past mistakes.

A check sat in her wallet from Luke, covering his half of the bills from when he moved in two months earlier to now, but even that wasn't enough to cover some of the new things that had sprang up in the Dragonfly renovation. It did give her a cushion for Christmas, to add a few things from the mall alongside the homemade gifts. She needed to talk to Sookie, see if maybe there was a nest egg they had overlooked.

She thought of Sookie's offer to restart their catering business. Maybe there was something there to consider. Lorelai sat back on her heels and rubbed her eyes. Blearily, she stared at the clock, then began to carefully fold the basted-together quilt. She would have to do the final sewing another night. She didn't want her family to worry about money, and they were doing exactly that, so she needed to fill in the gap. She had skills, good skills. Maybe someone was looking for a party planner. Christmas was just a couple weeks away. Thoughtful, Lorelai exchanged the quilt for the hat, then plopped on the couch to knit and think her plan over.

—

If held at gunpoint and asked what they talked about during Friday night dinner that week, Lorelai would have to simply duck and hope the shot wouldn't hit her, because she hadn't a clue what her mother, father, and Rory were discussing. Instead, she was mentally replaying the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, recasting it with the people in her life. She was Lucy, of course, which made Luke Charlie Brown. He was laconic enough for it to work. She wondered if she could talk him into letting her pull a football away as he tried to kick it. She decided Kirk could be Linus, and needed a role for Rory. Sally just didn't quite fit.

A sharp pain in the side of her ankle forced her to jerk her head up. "Ow!" she protested, glaring at Rory. "Stop kicking me!"

"I kicked you because you fell asleep, Mom!"

Startled, Lorelai threw wild looks at her parents, who were both staring at her as if she'd grown another head. "I was sleeping?"

"Is everything all right, Lorelai?" her father asked.

"Lorelai, it is rude to fall asleep at the table," her mother scolded. "But yes, is everything OK?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine. Just stimulating conversation." Right. Don't stay up until 4 a.m. working on Christmas gifts before Friday night dinner.

"Clearly it's not that stimulating if you're falling asleep at the dinner table," Emily replied.

"Well, sleep is supposed to help you process the stuff in your short term memory, and I have a lot going on in there lately. I think it just went into overdrive." Lorelai took a bite of salmon just to ignore the disbelieving looks from her family. Plus, it wasn't that bad. She would even give the asparagus a try, as long as there was plenty of hollandaise sauce to hide the asaparagusness of it all.

Rory was staring at her with that calculating look that Lorelai was well familiar with, where her brain was playing Tetris with all the bits and pieces of information she was being fed and trying to form a cohesive whole out of all of it. She was still attempting to process it when they managed to finish dinner and bid their good-byes for another week.

Emily walked with them to the front door, where the maid was waiting with Lorelai and Rory's winter gear.

"So, what time am I expecting you for the party?" Emily asked.

"Rory and I will be here around our usual time," Lorelai replied as she shrugged into her coat.

"I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear. What time will all three of you be here?"

Lorelai froze, one arm still stuck in her coat sleeve. "I'm sorry?"

Emily stared at her as if Lorelai was still a teenager trying to worm her way out of a debutante ball. "You're still dating Luke, aren't you?"

"No, that hasn't changed in the past three hours," Lorelai said through gritted teeth.

"Well, then he's expected to come to the party with you. It's Christmas, Lorelai. Surely the man can find some way to take time off a few hours to attend a family event." Emily's stern expression was replaced with a resigned sigh. "Your grandmother is also attending."

"Mom," Lorelai started to protest, but she was immediately cut off.

"I will see you all next Friday." Emily turned to Rory. "Good night, Rory, dear."

"Good night, Grandma." Rory kissed Emily's cheek before moving past Lorelai to the door. "Coat," she murmured, and Lorelai quickly pushed her arm into the sleeve and followed Rory outside.

They climbed into the Jeep, and Lorelai just sat, staring through the windshield at the hedges.

"Mom, I don't think he'll mind," Rory said.

"Your grandparents don't know we're living together."

"What?" Rory gaped. "But he moved in two months ago!"

"I know, I know." Lorelai rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

"Does Luke know they don't know?"

"No," she admitted.

Rory drummed her fingers on her purse. "I know I haven't made it to every Friday night dinner since I started Yale, but …"

"He hasn't come with me," Lorelai interjected. "Not since the night before you started Yale."

"Oh, Mom," Rory sighed. "No wonder Grandma's been getting onto you."

"I just …"

"Mom," Rory said quietly, "if what happened in Rome didn't scare Luke off, I highly doubt the annual Gilmore Christmas party will."

"Complete with Grandma?" Lorelai asked, referring to Trix.

"It comes with plenty of entertainment."

"Yeah, the floor show's not to be missed," Lorelai muttered, cranking the engine and backing down the driveway. "Maybe I can just spring it on him after sex."

Rory yelped and slammed her hands over her ears. "I'm not listening!"

Lorelai winced. "Sorry. Filter's broken. Forgive me?"

"Is this before or after the therapy sessions?" Rory sniffed. "You can buy me off by getting a peppermint mocha from Starbucks."

"Deal."

Rory stared at her purse again. "That is if you can afford it."

A little twinge of panic leaped into Lorelai's throat, and she quickly fought it back with the skill of a parent who spent the better portion of two decades pretending that everything was fine. "What? Of course I can afford a mocha. Where's this coming from?" She already knew the answer. She knew exactly where it was coming from. She plunged ahead without letting Rory answer. "Look, the whole thing with the bills was because I never talked to Luke about splitting them. It's not on him. I was comfortable with the way things were, and he cooks for us. Do you realize how much takeout we're not buying now?"

"This is true," Rory conceded. "And I get regular care packages of muffins."

Since they were at a red light, Lorelai shot a surprised look at her. "You do?"

A small smile tugged at the corner of Rory's mouth. "You didn't know?"

"The man's full of surprises." Yet, this one shouldn't had surprised her the way it had, but it still caught her off-guard whenever she was reminded that Luke was a better father to Rory than her own flesh and blood.

"I know you two got laptops, but he's still trying to get through Order of the Phoenix because of work and everything, so he keeps scribbling down observations on napkins, sends them to me and apologizes because he wasn't reading as fast as he was during the summer."

"So, basically, buy him a pad of paper for Christmas." And some time to get through that book before Rory exploded from trying to withhold spoilers.

"I think it's sweet."

Lorelai smiled. "Yeah, it is."

It took until the following afternoon for Lorelai to work up enough nerve to bring up the subject. She and Rory wound up sitting and chatting at Starbucks until it closed, then they migrated to Denny's for late night pancakes and more chatting. It felt good just to simply be with her daughter. She had missed this time like an amputated limb during the months that Rory had been at Yale. Sure, she came home frequently, but already her visits were starting to decrease as she settled into college life.

By the time they got home, it was 2 a.m., and it wasn't important enough to wake up Luke. When she got up herself, he had been at work for several hours. Lorelai pulled herself together, gathered her work materials, and headed toward the diner. Just outside the door, she rolled to her toes and took several deep breaths. Squeezing her eyes shut, she banged the door open and rushed inside.

"I need you to come to my parents' Christmas party with me," she blurted.

"OK?"

Lorelai opened her eyes to see a confused Lane standing at the register and half of the customers staring at her. Those who were familiar with her antics simply turned back to their own food. "You're not Luke."

"Not the last time I checked. Are you OK, Lorelai?" Lane asked as Lorelai scouted out the only empty table. She dumped her things on it.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Where is he?"

"Taking the trash out." Lane motioned to the curtain and turned to the coffeemaker. "Let me get you some coffee."

"You are my favorite kid that's not named Rory." Lorelai headed into the storeroom and saw the back door open and movement behind one of the shelves. "I need you to go to my parents' Christmas party with me!"

Cesar stuck his head out from behind the shelving. "Sure, but I think the boss would be a little jealous."

Zero for two. Damn it. "Oh, oh, sorry, Cesar. Outside?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks."

Lorelai headed out the back and down the stairs, spotting Luke crouched by the fence near the dumpster. "Luke? I need a huge favor."

Without looking up from whatever he was studying, he beckoned to her. "Come here."

"Look, this I know you don't want to do this, but … oh god." Lorelai dropped to her knees next to him, looking at the still animal curled against the side of the dumpster. Her heart leaped into her throat. "Is it …?"

"Yeah." Luke ran a gloved hand down the deceased cat's back, four equally still kittens tucked against her side. "All except this one." He revealed what he held in his other hand, and Lorelai gasped. A tiny black and white kitten, no more than three weeks old, squinted up at her.

"I saw the litter when I was taking out the trash, and this guy was the only one moving, and he was crying. Not sure if the rest froze to death or just starved."

"Oh my god, these poor babies." Lorelai ran a fingertip down the kitten's back as it mewed. "We've got to get it to the vet."

"I was about to head over. Wanna go with me?"

"Of course."

They arrived back at the Crap Shack an hour later with kitten milk replacer, a package of supplies from the vet, and the kitten cradled in Lorelai's hands.

"We are not cat people," Luke muttered as he held the kitchen door open.

"Don't listen to Daddy, Buddy Holly," Lorelai cooed to the kitten as they walked into the warm kitchen.

"Aw no, you named the kitten."

"Two days ago, you said we weren't dog people," Lorelai pointed out. There had been an adoption fair on the town square again, and she had insisted on going to look at the puppies. To be honest, she always considered herself more likely to get a dog than a cat, but she couldn't just leave that abandoned kitten behind.

"They're messy and smelly and require baths. You rearrange your entire life around them and for what?" Luke dropped the package on the table and turned to her. "And cats! You're not a cat person either. Do we have to remind you about the gerbil again?"

Always with the gerbil. Lorelai rolled her eyes at him. "Cats hunt mice."

"The mice you don't have because I set traps out," Luke pointed out as he absently stroked the kitten's back before taking it from her. "Here, I'll hold him while you feed."

"You softie," Lorelai teased and prepared the syringe the way the vet taught them. The kitten immediately tried to suckle as she dripped the food into his mouth. She whispered baby nonsense words as the kitten took the food. She let him latch onto the syringe, and rubbed his head as he suckled the end.

"I was wondering if you could get Friday night off?" Lorelai asked quietly.

Without disturbing the kitten, Luke flicked his gaze up at her. "Oh?"

It was far easier having to do this when there was a kitten between them. "My parents are having their annual Christmas party. Yes, I know it's not Christmas yet, but they like having it super early, because they're usually traveling over the holiday itself." She sighed. "Anyhow, they would like for you to be there with us."

"OK."

"OK? No problem?" She winged an eyebrow at Luke. "Really?"

"Really." Luke pulled the kitten into his chest as he finished the food. "You don't burp them, do you?"

"No." Lorelai grinned at him. "Just the human ones."

"That's what I thought." He lowered Buddy Holly to the ground and gathered the trash.

"I thought I would have to cajole you at the very least."

Luke shrugged. "You put up with my insanity at Thanksgiving. Least I could do is put up with yours for Christmas."

Greatly relieved, Lorelai sat back in her chair. "Huh. So this is love."

"Sure looks like it."

They smiled at each other and spent the next hour watching their newest family member explore their home.

Author's note: Luke's soup recipe is real, and it is amazing. I tested it while writing the chapter and it is a keeper. Google "Creamy Parm Tomato Soup" from Delish.