"Hi Mom!" Rory exclaimed, hopping down Mrs. Kim's porch steps two at a time after the front door closed behind her, running into her mother's waiting arms.
Lorelai pushed aside all thoughts of Luke and baseball and Luke in tight baseball pants and whoa, Luke and tight baseball pants? Hmm.
She opened her arms wide to accept her daughter's giant hug, the little girl almost toppling her down to the ground with the force of it.
"Hi Sweets!" She exclaimed excitedly, giving her a kiss on the cheek before hooking her arm through her elbow and leading her down the sidewalk, "How was the sleepover?"
"Sooo much fun!" Rory said as she attempted to skip down the sidewalk, still latching onto her Mother's arm firmly, "Well, at first we had to sit through 2 hours of Christian storytelling on TV but when Mrs. Kim fell asleep, Lane and I re-organized her entire CD collection from A-Z, then by category, and then by length of hair."
"Length of hair?" Lorelai asked amusedly as they passed the gazebo.
"It was Lane's idea, she has this fascination with long hair right now but doesn't have the patience to grow it out, she's thinking of asking Mrs. Kim if she can get a wig for her birthday."
"Let me know how that conversation goes."
"You got it!" Rory said, the yellow swinging coffee cup sign hanging above the diner catching her attention, "Mom, let's go to Luke's!"
"Luke's?" Lorelai asked, hoping her daughter wouldn't catch the hesitation in her voice.
"Yeah, Luke's! I could really go for a cheeseburger right now, especially after the tofu scramble I had to pretend to eat this morning."
Lorelai nervously pushed a loose curl behind her ear and then adjusted the tie of her halter-neck top, "Uh, you sure I can't entice you with half a box of Pop Tarts at home?"
"We were saving the last of the brown sugar ones for tomorrow's movie, remember? Before we go shopping for school supplies?"
Lorelai nodded and gave her daughter a tight smile. Of course her beautiful, smart daughter wouldn't be able to be won over by couple foil packages of brown sugar toaster pastries.
Who was she kidding? She wasn't going to be able to avoid the diner forever. She had already missed her Saturday morning hit.
Rory tugged her mother in the direction of the diner and Lorelai sighed as they trudged inside, taking over a four top by the window. Rory inhaled the aroma of the diner and let out a happy sigh of her own.
After stuffing themselves with 2 burgers, extra extra fries, and heaping portions of boysenberry pie to-go, Lorelai and Rory weaved their way out of the diner and made the short 5 minute walk home.
"Was Luke acting extra grumpy today or what?" Rory asked, as she hiked up the strap of her lime green duffle bag on her shoulder.
"Really? I didn't notice." Lorelai said with a one armed shrug, keeping her eyes fixed on her own sandal-clad feet on the ground.
"He made Kirk eat his lunch on the sidewalk. He refused to give Mrs. Cassini an extra tomato on her BLT, and Babette had to beg for another glass of iced tea."
"Hmm," Lorelai said, happy to see the outline of their house in the distance, ready to change the topic on this conversation but certainly not ready for her daughter to pick up on the fact that Luke had barely said a word to Lorelai, "He gave you an extra large serving of pie without having to give him the Rory Face though."
Rory looked back at her Mother and smiled triumphantly, "I didn't say he was being a grump to us. Luke is always nice to us."
"He's always nice to you," Lorelai amended.
"Nuh, uh! He's nice to you mom, you're just too busy annoying him."
Rory skipped the rest of the way up the driveway and hopped up the few porch steps, and ran inside the house, leaving the door ajar for her mother.
Lorelai pondered her daughter's words for a moment as she climbed the porch steps begrudgingly, "Hey," she said as she entered the foyer, following her through the kitchen and leaned against the doorjamb to Rory's room, watching her daughter as she quickly unpacked her bag and tossed her dirty clothes into the hamper.
Rory looked up from the pile of clothes and books on her bed and looked at her mother questioningly.
"You think I annoy Luke too much?"
"Mom," Rory said, shaking her head with a knowing smile, "Can I ask you something?"
Lorelai shrugged and stepped into the room, sitting down on the twin bed and playing with the ruffled hem of a throw pillow in the shape of a daisy, "Anything, kid."
Rory turned to carefully place the books she had brought over to Lane's house back on the overstuffed shelf next to her window, "Do you like Luke?"
Lorelai's eyes widened slightly at the question. First, Patty and Babette, then Sookie, now…Rory?
"Uh," She chuckled, hoping to play this off as casually as possible, "Of course I like Luke, you like Luke too, we both, you know, like Luke." She finished lamely.
Her daughter spun around to face her mother, placing her hands on her hips and looking much older than her 9 years, "Mom," she said sternly.
"What?"
"I know I like Luke."
Lorelai nodded.
"And I know you like Luke."
Lorelai nodded again.
"But," Rory paused and let her arms fall to her side, walking back over to her bed and sitting down next to her mother, "Do you like, like him?
Lorelai let out a short laugh, and Rory narrowed her eyes at her, "Sweets," Lorelai said, brushing back a few strands of her daughter's light brown hair from her eyes, "What makes you think that?"
Rory looked into her mother's bright blue eyes that so closely reflected her own and saw a flash of nerves, she sighed and let the issue go, for now at least, "I don't know."
Lorelai gave her a small smile, happy to let this conversation topic go. She got up from the bed and picked up the laundry basket before heading out of the room, "I'm going to do the first load, you want to go pick out a movie? And please, I beg you, anything but The Goonies, we've watched that at least 19 times this summer."
Lorelai couldn't sleep.
3 movies, 2 packages of Red Vines, and a few sleeves of Mallowmars later, Rory had officially conked out. Lorelai was happy that Rory decided on a John Hughes marathon.
There was nothing more comforting to her than junk food, Molly Ringwald, and coffee.
Coffee. Luke's Coffee. Luke.
Lorelai rolled over in her bed and looked over at the blaring red letters mocking her on the cute pink fluffy alarm clock that sat on her cluttered nightstand.
4:17 AM.
It was Sunday. At least, officially. Tomorrow was Labor Day and then the next day was Rory's second favorite holiday of the year, the First Day of School.
Lorelai sighed, thinking about the long list of things she had to do in the next two days.
Buy school supplies, sew a smiley face patch over the hole in Rory's pink backpack, cover the afternoon shift at the Inn, buy shoes–sneakers for Rory and a new pair of pointy high heels for Mommy, replenish the Pop Tarts stash, ask around for the name of a handyman to repair the loose tiles on the roof…
"Ugh," Lorelai groaned, a migraine starting to form and she rubbed her temple with one arm. She hopped down off of the bed, twisting the hem of her thin white tank top back into place. She headed down the hallway and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and attempted to tame her wild curls.
Padding down the stairs a couple of minutes later, minty fresh and curls clipped back off of her neck, she hummed underneath her breath as she flitted around the kitchen, turning the coffee machine on and then opening up the cabinets in search of something to snack on. She found an almost-empty box of Pop Tarts and tore open a foil package with her teeth, chewing the sugary goodness thoughtfully as she finished her first mug of coffee for the day.
She sighed to herself and looked over at the clock on the stove.
4:39 AM.
The balmy summer air was already rapidly rising in temperature, Lorelai felt a few droplets of sweat on the back of her neck and groaned. While she and Rory were so excited to finally have a house of their very own, the lack of central air conditioning was really starting to get to her. She pressed the "on" switch on the rotating fan they kept in the kitchen and pressed her face close to the blades for a few minutes, relishing in the cool air sweeping over her heated skin.
Suddenly, she stood up to her full height and glanced back over to the clock, and then at her daughter's closed bedroom door. Ensured she would have enough time to take a quick early morning dip at the lake before Rory woke up, she grabbed a Hello Kitty notepad they kept by the fridge, and scribbled a quick note in glittery ink just in case.
With a small smile, she climbed back up the steps and quickly changed into a navy blue string bikini and pulled on a pair of short denim cutoffs with a daisy appliqués. She slipped her feet into a pair of rubber flip flops and grabbed a towel before quickly exiting the house, careful to flip the lock and close the front door firmly behind her.
Lorelai walked in silence down Maple Street, her flip flops making a soft thunk against the pavement as she took a left turn on Oak, and then a few steps down a little dirt path through the brush until she saw a glimpse of water. She and Rory had discovered this convenient little short cut to a particularly nice section of the lake a few weeks prior.
She felt like she was the only person in the world.
The lake water lapped gently against the old dock that jutted out from the water's edge, the sun was barely visible yet, and Lorelai took a deep breath, inhaling the last few vestiges of the thick summer air.
She set her towel onto the ground and shimmied out of her cutoffs, discarding them and the clip that held her curls back, on top of her towel with a flick of her wrist. She eyed the calm glassy water in front of her and smiled to herself as she approached the shore and dipped her toe into the cool water.
This is just I she needed, just a few moments to myself, wow, why have I not done this before? No thoughts of school starting, waning Pop Tart supply, loose roof tiles, no thoughts of Luke or Luke in tight baseball pants or liking Luke, or…"
"Luke?" She whispered to herself, as she spotted someone quickly swimming freestyle across the surface of the water, whipping their head side to side to catch their breath before dipping back down.
She cocked her head to the side and studied the figure.
Who else would be up at the ass crack of dawn swimming laps?
She didn't know why she knew it was Luke. She just felt it. The air seemed to shift ever so slightly, her whole body suddenly thrown into high alert.
Curiously, she stepped further into the water until she was submerged down to her hips, she dragged her hands across the surface, cupping them, and looked down into the almost mirror-like reflection, the sun was just starting the peek out from behind the clouds in the sky, the water felt refreshing against her balmy skin.
She looked up from the water's surface and realized that the figure, Luke, had disappeared, swimming well past the dock, leaving ripples of current in his wake.
Lorelai tore her attention off of the horizon and twirled around in a circle, dragging her arms with her, and giggling as the cool water splashed against her bare stomach.
Getting a bit dizzy, she closed her eyes and dunked her head backwards into the water, raising her arms to smooth back her curls.
"Lorelai?" The voice was muffled as she emerged from the water, tucking her hair behind her ears before she opened her eyes fully, watching as Luke made quick work at closing the distance between them.
Eyes widening, as his form approached, she nervously looked around at their empty surroundings and took a calming breath.
It was Luke. Just Luke. Luke.
Her breath sped up again as she noticed him standing up in the shallow water and looked over at her curiously.
"Hey," she said breathlessly, taking in his broad muscular chest dusted with fine golden hair, water droplets cascading down his rippled abs and defined biceps, his…tattoo? Luke has a tattoo.
How could he have been hiding all of this under all of that flannel?
He smirked.
Shit, he caught me staring, quick, make a quip, start babbling, say something, words, I need words.
"Hey," he finally said, his eyes not so subtly raking over her form, trying not to stare too hard at the bow tied between her breasts holding together the two flimsy scraps of navy blue nylon that she called a bikini top. Her smooth alabaster skin with a sprinkling of light freckles dotting her chest, her flat stomach, her…
"Do you do this every morning?" Her question shook him out of his daydream and he suddenly realized his too long hair was probably sticking up in all types of directions.
With that thought, he avoided her eyes but self consciously smoothed down the soft wavy hair on top of his head, "Uh, yeah, I try to when I have the time."
"Luke," she said softly, not able to hide the tinge of sadness to her voice any longer. Thoughts of what she was sure was a majorly abridged version of what happened to Luke a few years ago from Sookie swirled around in her head, "Can we talk?"
He finally met her eyes and she saw a flash of something there. Embarrassment? Nerves?
"Yeah, um," he cleared his throat and looked around, spotting the dock. With a nod of his head and gestured towards it, "Want to sit?"
She nodded and followed him as he swam a few feet back into the water towards and the old wooden ladder attached to the dock. Holding onto one rung and flinging another arm out to wave her over, "After you."
"Is it safe?" She asked, eying it nervously.
"Yeah I came out earlier in the summer and replaced the rotted pieces of wood. It's old but it's safe."
She gave him a small smile and moved to swim next to him, instantly feeling heat of his body as she grabbed for the rung of the ladder and pulled herself up, climbing a few more steps before taking a careful seat on the dock, her legs swinging over the sides gingerly.
He followed her up and sat down next to her, eying her as she leaned back against her arms and closed her eyes, soaking in the peaceful silence of the empty lakefront.
"It's early," He said.
She nodded, her eyes still closed, "Couldn't sleep." A few beats of silence passed between them before she continued, "I'm sorry, Luke."
Her eyes were still closed when she spoke, but after being met with more silence she opened one eye, and then the other, "The other day, in the diner, I didn't mean…I was being stupid, I didn't know…" She sighed and muttered, "God, I'm so bad at this."
"You didn't know." He said simply.
She shook her head apologetically, "I didn't know."
"So you have nothing to apologize for."
"Luke," she tried again.
He shifted in his seat and fixed her with a glare, "And now that you know, you're sitting there pitying me, and I gotta tell you Lorelai, the last thing I need, the last thing I thought you would ever do, is pity me."
She sat up from her relaxed position and turned towards him fully, "I do not pity you Luke," she said firmly.
He looked at her carefully, studying her eyes for a moment, seeing determination and fierceness in them, "Why'd you try to apologize then?"
"So you don't accept my apology?"
"It wasn't needed in the first place," he said softly.
"You want me to take it back?"
He smirked, "You can save it for when you're following me around the diner begging for coffee in a few hours."
She smiled at that before growing serious, "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"I don't really, you know, talk, all that much."
"You talk to me," She paused, "Sometimes, sometimes you talk to me. Most times I talk and you grumble, and I talk some more and you grunt, and then I talk some more, and then…sometimes you talk back."
He chuckled and looked out over the horizon, "Sounds pretty accurate actually."
She smiled softly and took in his profile, his ruggedly defined jawline covered with a persistent stubble, his furrowed brows, long dark eyelashes, piercing dark blue eyes, high cheekbones, that nose and those soft full lips, "I'm here, you know."
He let out a short laugh muttered sarcastically, "No really, you're not a mirage?"
She rolled her eyes good naturedly, "You're exhausting."
"Now you know what it's like," he grunted.
"What?"
"You," he said, his eyes still fixed on the horizon, "You're exhausting."
"Why won't you talk to me?"
He finally turned his head and met her sad eyes, "Lorelai," he growled in a soft whisper, her stomach doing that flutter again, "I don't even…it was so long ago."
She pulled her legs up, hugging her knees against her chest and leaning her head against them, her eyes transfixed.
"When I was little, my dad used to take me out here, really early in the morning," He paused as he searched his memory, "Man I used to hate it at first. It was summer, you know? I wanted to sleep in, I wanted to hang with my friends by the public pool or run through sprinklers or somethin', but no, I was up at 4 in the morning, 4:30 on the weekends, comin' out here to swim laps."
Luke turned his whole body towards hers, "It was too hot in the summer to run laps every day, so we came out here in the mornings to work on my endurance, we'd make up our own drills, he'd toss me a baseball from this dock right here, and I'd be out there, swimming out to catch it, we'd race each other, stupid stuff like that. Dad was always testing me, always pushing me, but never to my brink, he always, I don't know, I guess he always kinda knew me better than I knew myself."
Lorelai sat unnaturally still, hanging onto each and every word that tumbled out of his mouth.
"I went to my first Sox game when I was 5 years old," he chuckled, "I still have the program. Dad worked overtime for a couple of months to pay for those tickets, we sat way up in the nosebleeds, but the moment I walked into that stadium, I don't know, it was like a light switch inside of me, I was just, I don't even know the word? I'm not too good at the word thing, I guess that's more your thing" he said, looking at Lorelai with a pointed but compassionate look behind his eyes.
She grinned and soft-balled a few of those precious words back to him, "Enthralled? Enamored? Obsessed?"
He nodded decisively, "All three. I was enthralled by the whole atmosphere, I was enamored by the whole sport, the way the players were so in tune with themselves, the way the pitcher wound up his arm just so. I was obsessed," he paused, "With the Cracker Jacks."
"No way! Luke Danes, you like junk food!"
"I do not like junk food. I loathe junk food. I like Cracker Jacks."
Lorelai tried to interject again but he cut her off, "But only at a ball game."
She grinned and filed away that information in the back of her brain, determined to find what other types of secret food Luke Danes enjoyed.
"I sat there, a scrawny little 5 year old boy, and I knew, I just knew that it wasn't going to be the last time I stepped foot in that stadium. Dad was so excited, he and I kept track of all of the stats, we ate carton after carton of Cracker Jacks, I even choked down a hot dog. And from that day forward, baseball was all I knew."
He drew a breath and rubbed the back of his neck, "We trained together every single day. I joined Little League, but I ended up out-pitching the other kids and they put me on a league a couple years older than me. When I got to High School, I joined the Varsity team as the pitcher, I wasn't scrawny anymore, I spent a lot of time in our garage lifting weights, eating right, keeping my endurance up. Dad taped all my games, we'd go over 'em the next night and marked the time-stamp down on somethin' I had to work on."
He looked into her eyes, "It was my whole entire life Lorelai, and my life was Dad's life. I blocked everything else out, I had a goal, and every single day I worked towards that goal. When the letters first started to arrive, Dad was so happy, so proud of me," He sighed.
"Letters?"
"Scholarships. Duke, Vanderbilt, Boston, Connecticut. Full rides."
"Wow," She breathed out.
He chuckled and gave her a half smile that melted her heart, "And then I got the call. I knew a few people from management had come out to a few of my games, so it was always a possibility that they were scouting me. But I never let it become a serious thought in my head, you know? Nothin' more than a little flattering. Anyways, it was a couple of days before Graduation. I was extremely hungover, and I just wanted to sleep in, just for once, but Dad burst into my room. He threw open the curtains, sunlight was beating in, and he just said 'get your ass up, you have a phone call."
Luke smoothed his hands over his thighs, the wet swimsuit clinging to the muscles there, "It was the general manager of the Sox," he breathed out, "I couldn't believe it, the offer was...it felt like a fever dream. I thought was gonna vomit but I held it together long enough for him to invite me down to the stadium to take a tour, sign some official papers and join the team."
"Luke," Lorelai whispered softly, completely in awe at the man sitting in front of her, humble, burger-slinging, gruff and grumbly, and adorably boyish looking Luke.
"Middle pitcher, that's where I started, I couldn't believe it, didn't have time to really believe it. Things moved so fast, I met the team, started training, moved to Boston," Luke's head was spinning as he was retelling the story, he hadn't told anyone else in this much detail since, well, ever, "Next thing I knew, a few months later the starting pitcher got injured and I got the position," He shook his head in almost disbelief, "Me, Luke Danes, Stars Hollow Luke Danes, that 5 year old kid shoving caramel popcorn in his mouth, was the Starting Pitcher for the Boston Red Sox."
"I don't even know what to say," Lorelai said softly, "It's, that's…"
"Lorelai Gilmore is at a loss for words?" He quirked an eyebrow at her, and knocked her knee with his fist gently.
She smirked and returned the gesture.
"Anyways, I won a few awards, played for a couple more years, Dad was at almost every home game and some away ones too," He paused and swallowed thickly, "Then he got sick. Lung cancer. I came home to help him out while we were on break right before Spring Training that year, and um, it just got worse, his illness. And that's the thing Lorelai, he never complained, not once."
Luke locked eyes with her, "He was always there for me. Always. Without hesitation. After Mom died, after my sister ran off with her deadbeat boyfriend and her infant son, he was steady. He was there. And I had to be there for him. I wanted to be there."
He let a few moments pass before continuing in a soft but steady tone, "Everyone thought I just gave up on everything I worked for, just like that, but it wasn't like it was even a decision in the first place. It was clear as day, as clear as it was for 5 year old me to decide he was gonna play ball someday in that stadium, 25 year old Luke Danes knew he had to come home."
He shook his head, "I don't regret it, any of it, not for one second."
She looked into his eyes and studied them, "I believe you."
"I'm exactly where I need to be."
"Luke?"
"Yeah?"
Lorelai hesitantly reached for one of his big work roughened hands and held it in her own, tracing small soothing circles on the back of it before looking up at him, "I'm happy you're here too."