Rory hits send and then buries her phone deep in her purse. She looks out the window of her Uber as they cross the Manhattan bridge. She had one or two or maybe even three too many at the Yale alumni networking event tonight and the booze and schmooze has left her feeling restless, unsatisfied, and in need of an undefinable something that she can't quite put her finger on.

It's been a week since the reading at Bluestockings, and she can't stop thinking about those warm brown eyes, his crooked smile beneath a couple of days of stubble, and the way her name sounded on his lips. It's nice to see him with laugh lines carved into his jaw, and friends, and funny anecdotes. He has a newness and a lightness about him that she wants to explore and it's not the only thing she wants to explore.

She digs her phone back out of her bag and stares at the ghost bubble with the blinking dots. It disappears and reappears and disappears again. God, I'm an idiot. Thirty-eight and drunk texting an ex. Not even an ex, a high school boyfriend. What does Grandma always say? "Nothing good happens after midnight."

She gets home and kicks off her shoes, dropping her purse by the door and flopping down on the couch with a box of those fluffy marshmallow cakes from the Korean market. No response. Is he seriously going to leave me on read!?

A mistake definitely. He's probably sober and knows a bad idea when he sees one. When she's seen him at the holidays over the past few years he's had a very stable and level headed vibe, not a middle of the night text from your ex vibe. But there was something in his eyes last week, something in the way he held her gaze over the rim of his beer, something that made her think this might be welcome or even possible in a way it wouldn't have been before.

She wakes up to sunlight streaming in her open living room curtains, her phone vibrating on her chest, and the inability to turn her head to the left. She can't believe she knocked out on the couch again like she's not too old for that shit. "Ow, ow, owwww," she stretches, trying to loosen up her neck. Her phone buzzes again.

It was nice to see you too. How about Wednesday? You pick the spot. I'm on the LES, but I can meet you anywhere

Her heart jumps involuntarily into her throat. He texted back at seven a.m. God, he's an early riser, this will never work . She wasn't ready for this. She thought about taking the leap, but not about the landing. She can't do this. What was she thinking? She puts her nearly dead phone on the charger and jumps in the shower, her mom's coming to visit today and she needs to put Jess as far from her mind as possible. Lorelai will smell it on her somehow.

Out of the shower she throws on some leggings and an oversized oxford shirt, raking some dry shampoo through her wavy hair. She gnaws on a pop tart as she checks her email, nothing too interesting. She took the day off to spend time with Lorelai but she feels like she should at least put in a little time now before her mom gets in. She sends off some freelance queries and takes another editing pass at the article she turned in yesterday. She knows it'll come back marked up, so she might as well try to get ahead of it.

Her phone buzzes. A text from Lane.

Dinosaur Jr Where You Been? 30th anniversary tour. I grabbed us tix for the NYC date in August. I can stay at your place?

YES! She types back instantly.

How much for the ticket? I'll venmo you. She adds .

And then: ALSO… I did something stupid last night

And then: Well, I don't know if it was stupid, but it was maybe stupid.

Lane's ghost bubble is dot dot dotting. The agony and the irony it's killing me. Rory is embarrassed to realize she's one of those people that texts in bursts of short messages instead of just saying the thing. Her mom would mock her big time for that.

What could you possibly have done that was so stupid? Wait, was it about a boy?

Of course it was about a boy. I drunk texted Jess at midnight to see if he wanted to go out for drinks next week.

Lane responds in four separate texts

OH

MY

G O D

Jess as in Mariano? WTF RORY

Rory laughs. This was what she needed. Perspective, and from someone who has her best interests at heart but isn't as biased as her mother. She texts back: As in Mariano. I don't know, I saw him at a book thing last week and I just…

Lane replies: You just thought, damn he's looking good these days. I know, I saw him at Luke's over the holidays, he's beefy. Traded the James Dean thing for a scruffy intellectual crossfitter vibe. It's so unfair that men just get hotter as they get older.

I don't know, it's not just the beefiness, it's something else. I've seen him a bunch of times over the years and it was whatever, but he just…I don't know, he looked at me like I was the only person in the entire world, like all of time and space had disappeared and it was just the two of us.

There's a pause in the conversation. She goes back to reviewing her article while she waits for Lane to text back.

Rory, I don't know how to tell you this, but that's how he's always looked at you. Lane finally replies.

"No he hasn't!" Rory says out loud at her phone. No way, it was something different, something new, I swear.

If someone told me Jess actually wrote the Beatles song Something about you instead of George Harrison writing it about Pattie Boyd I would believe them because that's how he's looked at you since high school, you daft bitch

Lane quickly follows that zinger up with another text: So did he reply to your 'u up'?

Yeah, but not until this morning. And he definitely saw it last night.

Very sensible of him. Mature. What did he say?

He suggested Wednesday, said I should pick the place.

A weeknight, safe, gives you an out, makes it less date-y. And he wants you to set the tone for the night– he doesn't want to assume it's a date, he's going to follow your lead. Good signs. I think. Are you going to go?

Rory hums. Is she going to go? Is this still something that makes as much sense in broad daylight as it did in the middle of the night? She did invite him, so it's kind of shitty if she backs out now. Plus…it's been a long time. A long time for them, almost twenty years since he took off for California without saying goodbye. And a long time for her. It's been four years since she and Patrick broke up, and she hasn't really seen anyone since then, no one serious or interesting or with smoldering hazel eyes… Oh god , get it together, Gilmore .

She types back: I don't know. I invited him so it would be pretty fucked to bail. How stupid is it to go out with him? What if I just want to be friends with him again.

Hard to say. Could be stupid, could be like a Before Sunset situation. I'm probably not the best person to ask, I've never tried to rekindle an old flame. Is friends what you were looking for when you texted him?

That hits a little too close for comfort. Lane knows Rory's had two go rounds with Dean, god knows how many tries with Logan, too many for sure, and then she and Patrick were on again, off again for almost six years. Rory knows her own patterns. When things are hard she tries to go back to a time when she felt good, a person who made her feel good. But things are good now, she's happy, work is good, life is good, she's not looking for something she had before. She wants something new, she thinks, or maybe not something new, but something she never quite had in the first place. And she's not looking for a friend, she doesn't think. She has friends.

She gets up and slips on her flats and jacket and walks to the coffee shop on the corner for a cold brew. She sits on the bench outside and reads a few chapters of the new Celeste Ng book on her phone and enjoys the semi-warmth of the early spring day. The cherry trees are just starting to bloom. One of her favorite things about Brooklyn is how intensely floral it is in the springtime. It's so strange to walk through the city and just be bombarded with the smell of flowers and springtime from all sides, the damp earth and the verdant flora somehow overpowering the concrete and cars and garbage and people.

Lorelai texts that she's stuck in traffic but only about half an hour away. Rory heads back to her apartment. She tidies up, wiping down the kitchen counters and putting away the dishes from the dish drain and putting away the coat and shoes that she dumped by the front door last night. She starts a pot of coffee because Lorelai will definitely want a cup as soon as she gets in and she sprays down the shower and wipes the bathroom counters. She knows her mom doesn't care if the house is clean but it's important to her. She wants her mom to know she's happy and doing well and that's what a clean house conveys.

Lorelai arrives with bags and bags of stuff partly because she can never pack too much and partly because she always has to bring every single item she's seen in a store that reminded her of Rory since the last time they saw each other, which admittedly was too long ago. Rory hasn't been back to Stars Hollow since the ill advised and extremely silly Star's Hollow Mardi Gras parade at the beginning of February.

"My precious offspring, is that you? It's been so long since I saw you, I forgot what you look like. You must have a cameo painted in your likeness and give me a lock of your hair so that I will not forget you upon our next parting," she says, the back of an arm draped dramatically across her eyes.

"Okay, okay Mrs. Bennet, I get it, it's been too long," Rory says, taking some of the bags and kissing her mom on the cheek as they head back into her brownstone. Rory lives on the second floor, and they're both winded by the time they get in the door, dropping their bags and embracing.

"Your place looks great! So homey and cozy. I love your bookshelves!"

"Oh yeah, those are the ones Luke put up for me as a birthday present last year. Aren't they nice?"

"Yeah, they're great. He had a lot of fun visiting you to put them up. I was surprised because he's usually so grumpy about the city."

"Well, Brooklyn's a little quieter and friendlier, it's got a more Luke vibe."

"Totally," Lorelai says inspecting the shelves. "Wow, quite a collection of Jess' books you've got here."

"He keeps writing them, so I keep buying them. He's a great writer. Have you read any of them?"

Lorelai makes a face. "No, I haven't."

"You should read one. I think you'd really like By Degrees ."

"Hmm, maybe." She turns her attention back to Rory. "So, I brought presents!"

"Oooh presents! I love presents."

"Well, first off we have a care package from Lane of recent must-listens: Bacharach & Costello, Dionne Warwick Complete Scepter Singles, remastered Animal Collective, and Sneaks. What's Sneaks?"

"This cool post-punk artist from DC that does a lot of spoken word stuff. Someone at this reading I went to last week mentioned I should check her out." Oh no, Rory is suddenly terrified that all these Jess references are blood in the water and Lorelai is going to find her out like Jaws.

"Sounds cool. I never find anything good and new anymore."

"Just go ask Lane. She can always find you something new."

"Yeah but I want to be like a cool girl at a reading and someone just like recommends a cool band to me because I look so cool."

Rory rolls her eyes. "It wasn't like that. I got drinks with this writer and some of her friends after a reading and someone recommended it. It was no big deal."

Lorelai sniffs. "Fine, spoil my illusions of your fabulous Dorothy Parker-esque New York nightlife. Up next on the present parade is… Taylor's new mystery novel The Clock Strikes Time. He's hoping you can get it reviewed in the NYT for him."

"I'm on it," Rory says, grabbing the book. "Gonna make this puppy a bestseller, or you know, just hateread it, whatever."

"I'll read it with you, we'll start a book club." Lorelai digs through her bags. "Oh yeah, there's a new vintage boutique in town that had a lot of cool stuff. I got you this dress, it's very nineties Kim Gordon, so I thought you might like it."

She holds up a sort of sixties style blue baby doll dress with a windowpane pattern.

"Oooh, I love it!" Rory says. "It'll look so good with those white ankle boots I bought last year when we went upstate!" She holds the dress up to herself, looking down. "Thanks, Mom! You didn't have to bring me all this stuff."

"I know, but I wanted to. The rest of it is just stuff from the house. I wanted you to have the clown pillow and the monkey lamp. I feel like you should have a little bit of the Crap Shack here in Brooklyn with you."

"Aww, that's sweet. Luke's making you get rid of them?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Because I know. I'll happily take the clown pillow. I'll feel safer knowing he's here to scare off anyone who might break in."

"See I tried to use the protection angle on Luke but he wasn't buying it. At least you get it."

"What now, what should we do first?" Rory asks.

"Eat!"

"Great, there's an amazing place right up the street with these really crispy chicken sandwiches and they make these amazing Thai basil daiquiris, you're going to love it."

"Sounds perfect," says Lorelai.

They spend the weekend eating and drinking and eating some more and watching really bad movies and then Lorelai heads back to Connecticut and it's just Rory, alone with her thoughts again and it turns out she's still thinking about Jess, so…she texts him back.