A/N There will be intermittent time jumps throughout this story, if it continues with my current plan as I am writing. Some will be small periods of months, some will be years. This is the first one and is a small one.
"Hey Rory, can I give you two more manuscripts before I leave for the weekend?"
Rory looked up to see Mr Miller standing at her doorway, okay doorway might be a stretch, the opening of her cubicle was a more accurate descriptor. It was now mid-July and Rory had been interning at the publishing company since school had broken for summer at the start of May. Mr Miller was the head of the department that she was interning in this month. She had decided to take Francine up on her offer, although Francine would admit she did honestly just pass on the resume, she didn't even mention being connected to Rory, and with their different last names it wasn't obvious. She was really enjoying this internship, they weren't just treating her like cheap labor and a coffee maker, they had actually transitioned her through different departments so that she could get experience with all of the different aspects involved in publishing. So far she had been in productions and operations, marketing and publicity, and the editorial department. Right now she was helping the publisher's readers on working their way through the slush pile. She had been helping them for two weeks and so far it and the editorial department were her favorites.
"Of course, Mr Miller. I will try to have them finished by Monday," she said with a smile.
"Rory, how many manuscripts have you worked through since you moved into this section?" he asked, as he looked around the piles in her cubicle.
"I think about forty four, Sir." she answered, following his gaze to take in the piles. "Do I need to speed up? Sorry, there were a few that were awful and it was hard to get through them, but I found two that I think are amazing, I may have even read one of them three times."
"Where are those two?"
"This one is a psychological thriller, a bit of groundhog day, mixed with a savior complex. Has a good twist at the end," she described quickly as she passed him the first one she found. The second one she pulled out of her own bag. "This one is a fantasy romance, it has world building, different mythical creatures and a believable romance. It definitely has the makings of the start of a series. I wouldn't be surprised if the author has already written the second book, as there is a cliffhanger ending which is bold for an unknown author."
Steven Miller stared at his intern in shock. He had of course heard the editorial department talking about how helpful she had been when she helped out the junior copy editors in their department, which didn't happen often, but they never got interns who were helpful in more than one department. It was actually what had started the company rotating interns, they had an intern one year who had been awful in their productions and operations department, so they hadn't brought them back, that student went on to become an amazing editor at a competing company, he just had yet to find his niche when he was with them.
"Thank you. I will take these two and read them next. You don't need to speed up at all, this is a time consuming process which is why we have people where this is their only job. Sometimes they only find one decent manuscript every six months, so that can seem like a lot of wasted time, don't let it get you down. You can leave those for the weekend, I don't expect you to be reading our stuff at home. It is still your summer break, I hope you are finding time to relax as well?"
"Yes, I am trying to. This weekend, my friends and I are going to Ocean Beach park, as long as the weather stays good. And next weekend I am actually going to Philadelphia. A friend of mine works at a small in-house publishing company and they are having an open house for them and local artists," Rory answered, aware that he was only asking to be polite.
"Really? Which publishing house?" he asked curiously.
"Truncheon Books."
"I've heard of them, they are on our radar. They have found some interesting authors especially for the size of the company."
"I will have to mention it to them, they don't think they are accomplishing much yet, they will be happy to know that their small house can make even little waves in the industry," Rory said, genuinely excited to see what Jess's reaction will be to the news.
"Anyway, I have kept you long enough for a Friday afternoon. Have fun at the beach and I will see you on Monday."
"Thank you Sir, you have a good weekend also."
Saturday found Rory, Paris, Doyle, Lane and Zach set up at the beach. As she had done during spring break, Paris had dragged a mountain of stuff to the beach and made sure that she was fully in the shade with a giant floppy hat on. Thankfully, she now had Doyle to help her transport everything like a camel. Doyle was similar to Paris in that he had his sunscreen on in giant thick streaks across his cheeks and nose to avoid getting burnt, while Rory, Lane and Zach all were taking a more casual approach to the outing. Both Lane and Rory were wearing bikini tops with shorts over their bottoms, while Zach was in his trunks having long abandoned his shirt.
Lane and Zach were bickering good naturedly over the stereo that they had set up, while Paris and Doyle were debating over whether the hot dog stand was likely to give them food poisoning. Rory, ignoring her manager, was working her way through one of the manuscripts that he had given her the previous day when she heard her name being called.
"Rory!"
Looking up, sliding her sunglasses into place, she saw Tristan and some friends coming up the beach towards them. They had begun to talk regularly since they had bumped into each other in the spring. With both of them being back in the area for summer they had met up a few times for drinks or movies, just as friends.
"Hey Tristan!" Rory shouted, as she stood to greet him.
"Damn Rory you never said he got hotter," Lane muttered as Rory passed her, causing Rory to blush as she walked to meet them.
"Rory I'd like you to meet Sebastion and you might remember my roommate Mike." Tristan said, signaling between the guys indicating which was which.
"Nice to meet you guys. These are my friends, Paris, Doyle, Lane and Zach," Rory stated, as each of them waved as their name was called. "How was your drive up? And feel free to set your things up," Rory said, looking at their bags.
"The drive was good, trying to get parked was awful though," Jake said, as Doyle agreed with him fervently.
"So what have you guys been doing?" Mike asked, as they set up their towels.
"Not much, these two have been fighting over music," Rory said, pointing at Zach and Lane, "and these two have been fighting over food," pointing at Paris and Doyle.
"And what about you, Miss Mary?" Tristan queried, as he flopped down beside her, and handed her a flask.
"I thought we agreed that you were stopping with the Mary? I have been reading," she replied, waving a manuscript at him. "What is this?" she asked, looking at the flask.
"It's iced coffee. It's way too hot for warm coffee, and I know better than to show up around you without any. Also I like to think of Mary as more of a term of endearment at this stage, you know something special, just between us," he replied with a smug smirk.
"Well whoever won the music fight has good taste," Mike stated as he sat down.
"And on the food, there is a hotdog vendor near the parking lot, it could go either way though," Jake added, thoughtfully.
"That's the problem, I think they will be fine, Paris thinks we will all get salmonella," Doyle answered exasperatedly.
"We have chips and snacks for now, can we argue about hotdogs later? We can send Tristan and Zach to be guinea pigs if we need to," Lane added.
"Anyone up for a game of volleyball?" Jake asked, gesturing towards the court just further down the beach. All the guys but Doyle agreed easily.
"Doyle just go and keep them company," Paris said, pushing her boyfriend away.
"But Paris, they are all so much taller than me," Doyle whined quietly.
"Go!" she said, refusing to even look up at him until he walked away.
"Paris he could have stayed with us, we didn't mind, did we Rory?"
"No, I didn't mind at all."
"Well I did, now we can watch them all bounce around shirtless getting sweaty with no judgment."
"Paris," Rory squeaked.
"Come on Rory, you know you want to," Lane said with a cheeky grin.
"Exactly Gilmore, you haven't seen anyone since you broke up with that waste of space, it might be time for you to get under someone so you can get over him finally."
"Paris!"
"I agree with Paris, but I don't think any of the guys here will work for that. You might need someone more anonymous."
"What about Dugrey?" Paris asked.
"Nah, she isn't ready for him," Lane stated matter of factly. "I don't think he could be a one nighter, they have too much going on there. She isn't ready for that. And that rules out his friends because if she sleeps with them, then the possibility of him is gone."
"Tristan and I are just friends, really there is nothing there," Rory said emphatically to the open scoffs of her friends.
"Really, you look at that and there are no stirrings at all?" Paris asked, pointing at where a muscled, sweaty shirtless Tristan dove gracefully after the ball. "Cause if that is giving you nothing at all, we may have a bigger problem than I thought. Do you need to try lesbianism again?"
"Again? Paris it was one kiss?"
"Two."
"Two what?" Rory asked.
"Two kisses, I have kissed you twice!"
"Maybe you need to go for lucky number three," Lane said, giggling over the turn in conversation. "That can't have been that memorable if she can't even remember one."
"I'm with Doyle now, I'd have to ask him before I kiss you this time."
"There shall be no kissing!" Rory almost screamed out in exasperation.
"No kissing? Who are we banning from kissing?" Tristan asked, causing all the girls to shriek as they hadn't seen him approach.
"Paris wants to kiss Rory again," Lane stated.
"Again!" Tristan exclaimed, "there has already been a kiss?"
Rory paled, while Paris looked smugly at her.
"Two, there have been two kisses."
"Although Rory forgot about one of them, so I'm not sure it should count," Lane added, smirking at her friend's discomfort.
"One was your fault!" Rory exclaimed, poking Tristan in the chest, then pulling her finger back rapidly when she remembered that he was shirtless.
"How?"
"Well the first time I kissed young Mary here, was because you abandoned us just before our production of Romeo and Juliet. You may remember that you were meant to kiss her?" Paris started, looking at Tristan to check that he was following along. "Well when you had to bail, for once through no fault of your own, I had to step in and play Romeo, so I had to kiss her."
"Which is why that one doesn't count, it was for school," Rory interjected with a pout.
"Okay, so after you introduced lesbianism to Chilton, when was the second kiss?" Tristan asked eagerly.
Paris rolled her eyes at his antics before answering, "the second time was during Spring break, we went to Florida and decided we were going to do Spring break right and that included some experimentation."
"Really?" Tristan asked, sounding a lot more interested. "How far did this experimentation go?"
"Not far, one unauthorized kiss in a club that was all," Rory said firmly.
"Sounds like I have missed a lot over the years."
"Don't worry Bible Boy, we will catch you up," Lane said, laughing at the look of horror on Rory's face.
"Why are you over here anyway?" Paris asked, having just realized that Tristan had abandoned his game.
"Oh I just came to get everyone's orders for lunch? Jake and Mike decided that the hotdog place looked risky so they are going to go pick up burgers if you guys want any?"
"Yes!" All three girls chorused in unison, before quickly telling him their order and giving him cash to pass on to the guys to get the food.
