Chapter 6

A/N: Hey guys this chapter is gonna strictly be Lorelai and Rory. It's gonna be Rory talking everything through with Lorelai. Enjoy!

I was pulled from my memory by the sound of my cell phone ringing. I reached over to the coffee table, grabbed it and answered the phone. "Hello?" I said.

"Hey sweets. You okay?" Mom said.

I sighed. "Yeah. Just got a lot on my mind. You got any plans for the next couple of days?" I asked her.

"Nothing that I can't reschedule. Why?" She asked.

"Need to get out of town for a couple of days. Do some thinking, clear my head." I told her.

"Where you wanna go?" She asked.

"What sounds good?" I asked her.

"Let's go to the beach." Mom said.

"Sounds good. Call you in the morning." I said.

By the next evening, mom and I were happily laying on the balcony enjoying the evening sun when she spoke. "So, you wanna tell me what happened to spark this sudden trip to the beach." She said.

I sighed. "It's a long story." I told her.

"I have time." Mom said.

"I don't really know where I should start." I said. I was stalling and Mom knew that.

"The beginning is usually the best place."

"Well, you remember that weekend that I went to stay with Dad. When I had the interview in Boston?" I said.

"Yeah. You said that that your interview went well and then you and Chris met up with some guy who's dad wanted to merge with the firm." Mom said.

"Right. What I didn't tell you about the guy, was that I knew him." I said.

"You knew him?" She asked and I nodded. "Like from Yale?" I shook my head. "Then how did you know him?"

"Chilton." I said.

"Huh. The only guy I remember you talking about from Chilton other than when you played matchmaker for Lane, was Bible Boy." She said. Give it a second. "No!"

I nodded. "Yep. Dad had sent him to meet with Dad to see about a merger. I found out while talking to him. I quickly shot it down knowing that neither me nor Grandma Francine wouldn't go for. That firms been in the family for generations. No way was that happening." I told her.

"So then what happened?"

"Well…"

"Oh Rory! Tell me you didn't?" Mom asked.

"Well you know what they say… Like mother, like daughter?" I said with a smirk.

"Dirty!"

"Anyway…. By the end of the weekend Tristan and I were struggling to figure out if we could make a relationship work. Then the bombshell happened." I said.

"What bombshell?"

"The Logan bombshell. You know how Paris has always called Logan, Tristan 2.0?" I asked and she nodded. "Well it wasn't just because they look similar. Their cousins." I told her.

"No way!"

"Yep. So, needless to say, Tristan wasn't exactly thrilled that I'd dated his cousin and was almost engaged to him." I said.

"But you weren't actually engaged to him." Mom said.

"I tried telling him that." Mom rolled her eyes. "So by the time I left Boston on Sunday we'd decided to just part ways." Mom nodded. "Now. Remember that because it's about to start getting confusing."

"Gotcha."

"Okay so I come home from Boston completely unsure about what I want to do. So, I went home and I started thinking about what all my friends were up to. Logan, Steph and Juliet were out in California building their careers. Finn and Robert were both in New York working for their fathers. Paris was at Harvard Med. Tristan was working for his father in Boston. And Colin was at Harvard Law. That's when it hit me. I could go into one of the family businesses." I said.

"Oh Ror." Mom said, sympathetically.

"No, it's okay Mom. I knew that it was probably going to happen at some point. I was honestly surprised that it hadn't happened sooner. Well, I knew that as much as I love Grandpa I didn't want to go into the insurance business. And I'd taken a couple of Law classes at Yale strictly out of curiosity. So I started applying to Law school. Well I knew name alone gave me a chance at Yale but you know Harvard was the dream, so I applied there as well as NYU."

"Great schools." Mom said.

"I know. Well, obviously I ended up at Harvard law." I said.

"Yes and I couldn't be prouder." Mom said.

"Thanks. Okay so, a few weeks into the start of Law school guess who I run into on campus?" I asked. Mom shrugs. "No other than Colin." She raises an eyebrow. "Colin and I hadn't seen each other since Logan's graduation when I threw the London party for him."

"Gotcha."

"See Colin and I… there was a brief history. Nothing major." I told her.

"What happened?"

"Remember when we weren't talking and Logan and I had broken up over that Thanksgiving break?" She nodded. "Colin and I kinda hooked up." I said.

"You hooked up with Logan's best friend?" I nodded. "Why?"

"It's complicated. We were both drunk. I was hurting from finding out through Honor that Logan and I had broken up… I ended up at a bar in Hartford. Ten minutes later, Colin's there and we're talking, the next thing I know we're back at his apartment making out and tearing each other's clothes off." I told her.

"Wow. That's… definitely complicated." She said.

"It gets worse." I pause my story going inside and grabbing the bottle of Tequila that I'd bought and coming back out with it and two glasses. I sit back down pour mom and I each some. "Shortly after starting at Harvard, I ran into Colin. That first day, we went out for coffee to catch up." Mom gave me a look. "Nothing happened. Just coffee." I said, and she nodded. "A couple days later, Colin calls me and asks me out to dinner. I hesitated but I agreed. Despite everything Colin and I did have a good time together. It was a great night. We went to this amazing Indian restaurant in Boston and then afterwards we walked around the harbor. It was incredible. When he dropped me off at home, he kissed me goodnight with a promise to see me soon. Mom, I can't explain it. Colin and I just have this amazing chemistry. He can keep up with my references and he loves coffee almost as much as we do." I tell her.

"That's great babe. I'm failing to see the problem." Mom said, taking a drink of her Tequila.

"I'm getting to it." I said. Where was I? Oh yeah. "So, the weeks that followed Colin helped me study since he was a year and a half ahead of me and in turn I introduced him to movie nights. He'd only experienced one or two during the time that Logan and I were together." I said and Mom nodded. "Well, eventually the Grandma's started demanding my presence at society functions and I didn't want them to set me up so Colin and I decided to team up. We agreed to be each other's dates in Hartford. It kept the Grandma's off my back. And it gave his dad a reason to leave him alone."

"Sounds reasonable. You both tried to make the best of the situation." She said.

"Right. Well, we sort of ended up in an arrangement similar to when I was casually dating Logan… but at the same time not really." I said.

She gave me a confused look. "What do you mean? That makes no sense." Mom said.

"Well, see, we were only dating each other but neither one of us wanted to put a label on it because of Logan. Neither of us was sure how he'd react to it." I told her.

"I can understand that… you being the ex and him being the best friend."

"Exactly. Well, then the day came where Logan called me and said that since everyone was gonna be in Hartford for the Christmas parties that we should all get together. Neither Colin and I thought that it was a big deal. We figured we'd arrive at dinner separately, so that nobody suspected anything and then when dinner was other we'd both end up back at his apartment. No big deal. But then the bombshell hit." I said.

"What bombshell?" Mom asked.

"That was the night that we found out that Logan had proposed to Steph. It was a huge shocker. See Colin, Finn and I suspected that he was dating Juliet because they were both down in San Francisco. We had no idea that he was dating Steph."

"I can imagine. Wait… didn't you tell me that Colin and Steph dated?" She asked.

"Yep. The second that Logan made the announcement, Colin completely freaked out. He completely went off on both Steph and Logan talking about betrayal. Finn and I tried to calm Colin down but it wasn't happening. Eventually, we managed to get Finn to take Colin home and then Robert would drive Finn's car since they'd driven to Hartford together. And I told them that I'd come check in as soon as I left." I said and Mom nodded. "After they left, I looked at both Logan and Steph and told them that they should be ashamed. That nobody would have been upset if they'd just been honest. And then I left." I paused for a minute to catch my breath. "I realized on my way to Colin's that night that I had been a bit of a hypocrite… considering that Colin and I were essentially doing the same thing." I told her.

"Babe… I don't think that it's the same." She told me.

"Maybe…Maybe not. Anyway, so things continued like that for a while with me and Colin. That is until he graduated Law school. After he graduated, he headed to New York to join his father's firm. They have offices in both New York and Hartford. We didn't see each other much after that, unless one or both of us were called to Hartford. We did talk on a regular basis though. After I graduated, Grandma Emily seemed to notice that neither Colin or I seemed to show romantic feelings toward each other at functions and that's when she introduced me to Charlie. Biggest mistake of my life." I said.

"Yeah, your dad's told me a little bit about it." She said and I nodded.

"Well, things seemed to be okay with me and Charlie… at least until he moved in with me. That's when things started going downhill. The biggest thing was when I decided to introduce him to the Yale gang. We were all meeting up for New Year's that year in New York. I thought that it was gonna be a great night. Boy was I wrong! From the moment we walked into the hotel suite that night for the party, things were bad. I mean after all, he was from Hartford too. Anyway, Charlie didn't exactly like the fact that Logan, Colin, Finn, and Robert all hugged and kissed my cheek. Then he decided to drink a little too much and started getting handsy. That of course pissed both Logan and Colin off. Finn ended up having to call hotel security and had Charlie thrown out. It was horrible." I said.

"Sounds like it. And this was a guy Mom set you up with?" She asked and I nodded. "Gross."

"Yeah. Well after that night, I started working on breaking up with Charlie and kicking him out of my condo. Didn't exactly go well. There was a bunch of legal stuff that we had to deal with so Dad was handling that and he suggested that I stay somewhere else temporarily. Which wasn't a big deal, because I had options. Well, I ended up staying with Colin. Well, by this time, it was approaching Logan's wedding. He and Colin had patched things up and everything was good. Logan had even been calling me to get my opinion on what he thought he should get Steph as a wedding present. In addition to that, Logan was trying to drop subtle hints that I should break up with Charlie. I didn't find out why until later. But at the same time he didn't know that I was already working on that." I said downing the rest of the tequila that was in my glass. "The weekend of Steph and Logan's wedding arrived and Colin and I knew that it was going to be hard. Not because we didn't want them to be happy but because Colin and I were finding it harder and harder to stay away from each other."

"So things were sort of getting serious?" She asked me.

I nodded. "Yeah. I mean, we hadn't had a conversation about it but after Dad got Charlie out of my condo I was finding it difficult to want to go home." I said. "So, we went to the wedding. Obviously, not together but neither one of us was dancing with anybody else either." I said and mom nodded. "About halfway through the reception, Colin and I managed to slip away and we found a coat closet."

"Oh Rory, you didn't?" She asked.

"Yep. I had a repeat of the grandparents vow renewal." I told her. "Colin and I had been in there for about ten minutes when somebody opened the door."

"Who was it?" She asked.

"None other than Logan himself." I told her.

"Ohh that's bad. What'd he say?" Mom asked.

"He completely freaked. I quickly straightened my clothes. It wasn't until yesterday that I found out what happened after I left."

"What happened?" She asked me.

I sighed. "Logan and Colin talked. It was probably more like yelling knowing those two. Logan questioned him about why it had to be me. Colin reminded him that he'd just married his ex. They argued and they haven't spoken since." I said.

"But… that was a year and a half ago." She said.

"Exactly. I pointed that out to both of them yesterday." I said. I poured some more tequila. I took a drink. "When Colin and I got back from the wedding, we decided to push Logan out of our minds. Well, I at least tried. I found it hard though. On the one hand, I could understand where Logan was coming from and why he'd been upset. But on the other hand, I realized that Logan was happy and that I deserved to be that happy too."

"Of course you do babe." She told me.

"So, Colin and I kept seeing each other, but then it started to become less frequent. I found out that his Dad was pushing him to take over the firm and he didn't want that. Three months after Logan's wedding, Colin called me in the middle of the night. The moment I answered the phone, I knew that something was wrong. Colin told me that his dad had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. It brought back memories of when Dad showed up at Yale right before Grandpa Strobe died, you remember?" I asked and she nodded. "I asked Colin where he was and he told me that he was in Hartford at his dad's house. I told him I was coming over. I knew that it had to be bad if he was calling in the middle of the night. I quickly got dressed and I drove over to his Dad's house. Colin was waiting for me on the front porch. Mom, the second I put my car in park, he ran over to the car and pulled me out of the car and into his arms, crying into my shoulder. He was scared. I'd never seen Colin like that… except for one time. It was after our hookup and I reluctantly decided to forgive Logan after I went back to Yale. Those are the only two times that I've ever seen him like that."

"He was probably terrified for many reasons." Mom said.

I nodded. "He was. About nine that morning, Colin and I were sitting with Andrew when he died." I told her.

"That sucks."

"Yeah. I stayed with Colin and helped him make all of the arrangements notify everyone that needed to be notified. With some help I was even able to write Andrew's Obit and get it sent out." I said. I could feel a few tears building up and I tried to push them back down.

"That was really sweet of you hun."

"Six weeks ago, Colin calls me and tells me that he can't do it anymore. That he doesn't want to be CEO anymore and wants to know if I'd be open to a merger." I tell her.

"That's big." She says.

"Yeah. I tell him that we could talk about it and that's what we've been doing." I say. I take a drink. "Now it gets complicated again. That same day, Paris calls me and tells me about the invitation that she got in the mail for our Chilton class reunion."

"Oh no."

"Oh yes. I tell her repeatedly, that I have no interest in going and that I have no desire to see the people who made my life hell for two and a half years." I say.

"But she wouldn't take no for an answer." Mom says.

"Of course not. The day of the reunion came. Paris called me three times and texted at least six to remind what time to be there. I knew that if I didn't show up, she'd make me regret it. So, I hit myself with the pretty stick and I went. So, I'm standing at the bar ordering a drink when who pops up next to me?" I say.

"Let me guess…"

"Yep. Tristan DuGrey." I said.

"But he didn't even graduate with you guys." Mom says slightly confused.

"Oh I know. We make idol chit chat for a few minutes while drinking our drinks before we decide to leave and get Tacos before heading to my condo to catch up. Pulling into my driveway, I notice a familiar car." I say.

"Not Emily…"

"Thank god for that. Nope. It was Charlie." I tell her.

"Why was Charlie there?" She asked.

"He claimed that he was getting the last of his stuff. Not sure if I believed him or not. I got my key back from him. I yelled and called him some names. He called me some names before walking out and slamming my door."

"Kid your life is like an episode of Days of our Lives." Mom said and I laughed.

"I'm not even done yet. So after Charlie left, Tristan and I sat on the couch and we talked. He apologized for everything. Said that he talked to Dad and Dad told him that if Tris could get me to forgive him that he'd make him a partner." I tell her.

"He didn't?"

I nodded. "Yep. He did. Well, by the end of the night, Tris and I both decided that since he was back in Hartford for good that we'd give things a chance." I said.

"What about Colin?" She asked.

"I'm getting to that. So then yesterday came." I said, chugging the rest of my tequila. "I got up, talked to Logan. Found out he knew that Tristan was planning on coming back to Hartford for me. I got into a fight with Tristan about how I apparently don't trust him. Made up with Tristan. Went to a board meeting. Came home, had a bubble bath before I got ready to go meet Colin for a working dinner." I say.

"Definitely complicated."

"Well, I stupidly decide to take Tristan with me to dinner."

"Oh no."

"Well, from the moment we walked in, you could feel the tension. The sexual tension between me and Colin as well as the pissing contest between Tristan and Colin. So we order drinks but before they arrive, Tristan's phone rings. He steps out, leaving Colin and I to talk. It wasn't going well. Colin was mad that I brought Tristan and I was mad because Colin was jealous. When Tristan came back in, he said that he needed to go. I hand him my car keys and tell him that I can get Colin to drop me off, thinking that it's not going to be a big deal." I tell her.

"But again, you were wrong."

"Yeah. Majorly wrong." I say. "The moment that Tristan was out of the building all hell broke loose. Colin starts telling me that he's in love with me and that he has been for a long time. He told me that he'd liked me since the day that they'd all met me. By the time that Colin dropped me off at my condo, the only thing that I could do was there on the porch trying to process everything. When I finally make it inside, Tristan is sitting on the couch waiting. He starts asking me all these questions about me and Colin. When I tell him that it's complicated, he says that he wants to know. So, I tell him. We end up fighting about it in the middle of my kitchen. He asks me if I love Colin, I tell him I don't know. He asks me if I love him, I tell him I don't know. It was horrible. He ended up telling me to call him when I decided. Then he left." I say.

"He left?" She asked and I nodded. "Wow. Is that the end of the story?" I shook my head. "I don't how much more I can hear, Ror."

"I'm almost done. So then I get the bottle of whiskey out of my freezer. I manage to drink about a quarter of it, before Logan calls me. He starts telling me that Tris had called him, mumbling some stuff. He said the only words he understood were Rory…Colin…I left. I felt so bad mom. But while I had him on the phone I managed to get some information out of him, while also giving him some information." I tell her. "After hanging up with Logan, I somehow, finish off the bottle of whiskey and calling Finn while I was drunk. Shortly after that, Colin and Finn show up. Colin says that he wanted to check on me and then I told him the short version of what happened after he dropped me off. I also gave him the same piece of information that I'd managed to give Logan." I said.

"Wow kid." Mom says.

"That's everything." I tell her.

I poured a little more tequila while I let her process everything that I've just unloaded on her. "That's a lot of information kid." She says.

"I know. I'm sorry. I just felt like you needed to know everything." I said.

"That's fine. So, what are you gonna do?" She asked me.

"I have no idea." Mom said.

"I kinda feel like I'm having a déjà vu moment." I told her.

"How so?"

"I don't know really. But it kind of feels like when I started having feelings for Jess while I was with Dean." I said.

"Babe, this is totally not the same thing." Mom said. "I mean, seriously. After Tristan left for military school, you realized that you actually liked him, and that he wasn't as big of an annoyance as you thought he was. And Colin? Hun, you were bound to develop feelings for that one. I've seen the two of you together. There's no doubting that chemistry." Mom told me.

I sat there for a minute and thought. "Is this what you felt like when you were married to Dad but the feelings you had for Luke were still there?" I asked her, knowing that she'd had a hard during that time in her life.

She took a drink of her tequila. "Kinda. But even that wasn't the same as what you're going through."

I nodded. "I think I'm gonna go take a nap." I said and mom nodded.

I made my way inside the house and towards the room that I was staying in. The second my head hit the pillow I was out. My mind filtered with dreams. Dreams of the two men that were in love with me. I knew that I had feelings for the both of them, but I wasn't sure which one held my heart. Just like I wasn't sure which one I could see myself having a future with. The only thing that I knew right at that moment, was that I care deeply about the both of them.