"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Lorelai said, dropping her purse on the table as she plopped down across from Juliet. "There was a line a mile long to talk to my professor after class, and this stupid eighteen-year-old took forever to ask her what should've been a very simple question, to the point where I seriously considered strangling him, but whatever. I'm here now, and I don't want to think about Burger King for at least an hour."
Juliet stuck her lip out in mock disappointment. "Aw, I was just about to suggest we go there."
"Funny," Lorelai said with a saccharine smile, wrinkling her nose. She heaved an exaggerated sigh. "How are you?"
Juliet smiled, almost against her will. "I'm good."
"Yeah? Good how?" Lorelai asked, dragging out the question with a suggestive smile.
Juliet rolled her eyes. "I'm not discussing my sex life with you."
Lorelai's mouth dropped open in mock scandalization. "I said nothing about your sex life! The fact that that's where your mind went says a lot about you."
"Like how I've known you long enough to know what you look like when you're making a dirty joke?" Juliet asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh. That," Lorelai said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. She leaned forward a little, a cajoling smile on her face. "Come on, there's nothing you want to share with Big Sis? Not one tiny, dirty detail?"
"We're in public, Lor," Juliet hissed, glancing around at the crowded coffee shop as her cheeks burned.
"Does he make you call him Romeo?" Lorelai asked with a smirk, snickering when her sister's face turned an even brighter shade of red. "Oh my God! He totally does!"
"He does not! Shut up!" Juliet shushed her, even as she began to laugh too. When Lorelai laughed harder, she slapped her sister's forearm. "Stop it!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll stop," Lorelai said with one last giggle, holding her hands up in surrender.
"Thank you," Juliet sighed, rolling her eyes.
"So, um," Lorelai began, changing the subject with a squeeze to Juliet's hand. "I have a favor to ask you. Or, well, not really a favor, just something I need to run past you."
Juliet furrowed her brow with a small smile. "What's up?"
"So, you know how I told you that Sookie finally got up off her ass and asked our produce guy out?" Lorelai asked, playing with an empty sugar packet on the table.
Juliet nodded. "Yeah, a while ago, right?"
"Weeks," Lorelai confirmed with a fond roll of her eyes. "And she was all worried about following up and making an actual plan, so they haven't actually gone out yet, but they finally made plans for Sunday night."
"That's great," Juliet said, smiling. She pressed her lips together, tilting her head. "What's the favor? Does she need help getting ready or something?"
"Well, Jackson's cousin is in town this week, and instead of rescheduling for next week, Sookie had the brilliant idea of making it a double date, so now I get to go, too!" Lorelai exclaimed with false brightness. "And I know we always hang out on Sundays, but –"
"No, you should go," Juliet said, nodding vigorously. "We'll still have Saturday, and it'll be good for Sookie to have you there."
"Being a human buffer, my lot in life," Lorelai deadpanned, taking a sip of her coffee.
Juliet gave her a pointed look. "Maybe if you got up off your ass and asked Luke out, it wouldn't be."
"Mmmm, shut up," Lorelai said with a laugh, her cheeks pinking. She tilted her head, meeting Juliet's eyes earnestly. "Are you sure it's okay, though? Because it'd be really great if you weren't okay with it, that way I could get out of a date with some guy named Rune and not look like the bad guy."
Juliet bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, but one escaped anyway. "Rune?"
Lorelai laughed despite herself. "Yes, Rune."
"It's okay, really. Um, Sunday actually works," Juliet giggled again, ducking her head with a flustered smile. "Max wants to take me to meet his family, and he suggested Sunday night. I was gonna tell him no, but if you're busy. . ."
Lorelai's mouth dropped open in pretended indignance. "You're ditching me for your boyfriend?"
"Hey, you ditched me for Rune first!"
"Under duress!" Lorelai protested, affronted. "You think I wouldn't rather hang with you than watch Sookie and Jackson stare into each other's eyes while I have to make small talk with some random guy?"
"You think I wouldn't rather hang with you than get interrogated by Max's entire family?"
Lorelai's eyebrows went up. "All of them at once? I thought you were just meeting his parents."
Juliet shook her head with a grim smile. "His parents, his three brothers, three sisters-in-law, two nieces, and two nephews."
"And a partridge in a pear tree," Lorelai quipped, making a face. She blew out a breath. "Sounds like you're the one who needs moral support. Maybe I should –"
Juliet gave her a pointed look. "You're going."
"Worth a shot," Lorelai said with a grimace.
Sunday night found Juliet tugging at her white sweater self-consciously as she frowned at her reflection, pushing her hair behind her ears and shaking it out again for what felt like the hundredth time. Sighing, she grabbed her cell phone and held down on one, her shoulders dropping in relief when Lorelai's voice came over the line.
"Hi, Jules. Are you freaking out too?"
"Too? Who else is freaking out?" Juliet asked, her brow furrowed.
Lorelai blew out a breath. "Sookie has convinced herself that she's the next Michael Douglas or something, and now she wants to cancel with Jackson."
"But how else will you meet Rune?" Juliet teased with a smirk. "I mean, he could be your soulmate. What about the kids?"
"What about the kids, indeed," Lorelai sighed. "Why are you freaking out?"
Juliet grimaced at her reflection again. "I hate my hair."
"You love your hair, you big liar," Lorelai said with a chortle.
"There's so much of it, it's all weighed down," Juliet lamented, trying desperately to fluff the auburn strands.
"Use dry shampoo," Lorelai advised. "Or that free sample of mousse we got from Sephora. Or, you know who I bet knows a ton about how to get volume into your hair?"
Juliet felt herself smile. "Stop."
"Uh – sure, babe, I'll help you with your hair, as long as it's not as cool as mine," Lorelai said, lowering her voice comically. "I can't date a woman with better hair than me."
"No, we wouldn't be together if he felt that way," Juliet said, tossing her hair over her shoulder with pretended arrogance.
"Damn right," Lorelai agreed. "You're wearing it down, right?"
"Uh, yeah," Juliet said, rummaging in her makeup bag for her dry shampoo.
"What are you wearing?"
Juliet held the phone to her shoulder with the side of her head as she sprayed dry shampoo into her hair. "Jeans and that white cable-knit sweater."
Lorelai let out a short laugh. "White?"
"Yeah . . ." Juliet confirmed, glancing down at her front uneasily when she heard Lorelai laugh again. "What?"
"Nothing! It's just – hair down, white sweater," Lorelai cut herself off with another giggle. "It'd be more subtle if you wore a t-shirt that says 'I promise I've never seen your son naked'."
"I can't," Juliet sighed with mock regret. "Mine's in the wash."
"Sounds like poor planning on your part," Lorelai said, clicking her tongue disapprovingly. "Don't wear white, though."
Juliet chewed on the inside of her cheek. "Don't wear white?"
"Green, wear green – Sook, come on!" Lorelai said, her tone becoming distracted. "I have to go, Jules."
"Have fun with Rune," Juliet said, dragging out his name teasingly as she pulled her sweater over her head and tossed it on the bed. "You should take a picture to show to your grandkids in fifty years!"
"Ha-ha," Lorelai deadpanned. She exhaled. "Hey. No matter what happens, remember you're too good for him, okay?"
"Yeah, you too," Juliet said with a fond smile. "I love you."
"Love you too," Lorelai said, hanging up.
Juliet slid her phone into her back pocket, tugging on a mossy green sweater and swiping on one more coat of deodorant as a knock came to her apartment door. Finger-combing her hair with shaky hands, she walked briskly to the door and opened it with a tremulous smile.
"Hi," she said softly, reaching for her keys and coat.
"Hi," Max said, leaning down and pressing his lips to hers quickly. "You look incandescent, as always."
Juliet rolled her eyes, her cheeks pinking at the hyperbolic praise. "Incandescent because Juliet is the sun?"
"Because Juliet is the sun," he confirmed with a laugh, holding out a hand to her. "Ready?"
She nodded, flicking the lights as she wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans one more time, slipped her hand into his, and locked the door behind her.
After about twenty minutes, they pulled up to a red brick house on the outskirts of Hartford, and Juliet leaned back against the headrest, chewing on her bottom lip as her eyes locked on the blue shutters of one of the windows.
Max tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "You alright?"
Juliet forced a smile. "Just a little nervous. I'll be fine."
"Hey. They'll love you," he said softly, turning her face slightly with a hand to her chin. "You make me happy, and that's all they care about. Okay?"
Must be nice. Juliet nodded, meeting his eyes with a reluctant smile, and leaning against the hand that still rested on her cheek. "Okay."
She climbed out of the passenger seat, pulling her pager from her pocket when it buzzed with a message from Lorelai.
NOT a soulmate!
Sorry, Juliet typed back, making a face, before sliding her pager back into her pocket. She looked up and met Max's eyes, reaching out and lacing their fingers together, accepting the squeeze he gave her hand with a grateful smile. Juliet maintained the death grip she had on Max's hand all the way to the front door, her brow creasing as she watched him open the door without knocking or ringing the bell. Difference number two between our family gatherings.
There was a burst of sound as they stepped into the house, conversations overlapping one another as a football game blared on TV. A girl of about seven or eight slid into the foyer on socked feet, her face lighting up in a grin that was missing several teeth at the sight of them. "Uncle Max! Guys, Uncle Max is here!"
At the sound of her voice, a boy around the same age came bounding up to them, a girl a year or two younger at his heels. "Hi, Uncle Max!"
Juliet watched with a fond smile as Max dropped her hand and squatted slightly, his face lit up in genuine pleasure as he let his nieces and nephew throw themselves into his arms and climb him like a jungle gym. After a moment, he extricated himself from his miniature assailants, and stood up, turning back around to face Juliet. "Guys, this is my friend Juliet. Juliet, this is my nephew Tyler, and my nieces Shelby and Sammy."
Juliet reached out her hand, before remembering that kids didn't usually shake hands when meeting people, and pulled it back, settling for waving awkwardly at the three of them instead. "Hi, nice to meet you."
The kids exchanged a smirk, and Tyler looked at her with a devilish smile. "Are you Uncle Max's girlfriend?"
Juliet looked up at Max with a nervous smile, her face already heating up. "Yes."
They giggled to one another, as though the idea that a woman might find their uncle attractive was the most ridiculous thing they'd ever heard.
Shelby, the older of the two girls, tilted her head, her face screwed up in thought. "Is your name Juliet, like from that play?"
Juliet looked down at her and nodded, half expecting this kid to go with the gene pool and start quoting Shakespeare at her. "Um, yeah."
"You know she dies at the end, right?" Shelby informed her, wrinkling her nose.
"Well, we all do," Juliet said, wincing at the words before they were even fully out of her mouth.
There was a beat of awkward silence before Shelby giggled, giving her a toothless smile. "You're weird."
Juliet smiled, bemused. Was that a compliment? She was going to take it as a compliment. "Thanks."
Sammy tugged on Max's sleeve, craning her neck to stare up at him. "Uncle Max, are you gonna play Ghost in the Graveyard with us later?"
"No, dummy, he doesn't want to look stupid in front of his girlfriend!" Shelby hissed, rolling her eyes.
Max put a hand on Shelby's head, forcing her to look up at him. "Don't call your sister a dummy."
"Yeah, don't call your sister a dummy," Sammy repeated with a smirk, earning her a scowl from her older sister.
Tyler rolled his eyes at the bickering, tugging on each of his cousins' hands. "Can we go play now?"
"Yeah, go play," Max ordered, shooing the three of them gently away. "I'm going to introduce Juliet to Grandma and Grandpa, okay?"
The kids were chasing each other out of the foyer before the words were completely out of Max's mouth, shrieking and laughing and not getting admonished for being too loud or almost breaking something valuable. Juliet watched them leave, a sad smile on her face as she recalled how completely opposite her and Lorelai's childhood had been.
She blew out a breath, leaning her head against Max's shoulder as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. She smiled up at him. "They adore you."
"The feeling is very mutual, even if they wear me out," he said with a laugh. Giving her one more squeeze, he dropped his arm and took her hand again, leading her further into the house. He laughed again, shaking his head. "'We all do'."
"Shut up," Juliet said with an embarrassed laugh, rolling her eyes. "It's not like you were any help."
The noise level increased as they walked into the kitchen, where a group of tall, dark-haired people were clustered around the counter, all talking and laughing over one another. All of them were standing up, except for a heavily pregnant woman sitting on a stool, who turned at the sound of approaching footsteps and nudged the man beside her, pointing to them as she whispered in his ear.
The man looked up, his eyes lighting up as they landed on Max. "Hey! Who the hell let you in here?"
At the sound of his booming voice, the rest of the family turned to look at them, and Juliet resisted the urge to hide behind Max the way she used to do with Lorelai at parties throughout their childhood. Instead, she allowed him to release her hand as the man crossed to them in two strides and lifted Max off his feet in a bear hug.
Max seemed unfazed by the exuberant greeting, pushing on his brother's shoulders with an exasperated laugh. "Okay, you can put me down now."
"Aww, did I embarrass you in front of your girlfriend?" he asked, sticking his bottom lip out in a theatrical pout that reminded Juliet of Lorelai. The man turned to her then, sticking his hand out with a warm smile. "I'm Miles."
"Juliet," she said, shaking it. "It's nice to meet you."
"God, you're way too hot for my brother," Miles said with an exaggerated sigh, looking over at Max with a teasing smile.
Before Juliet could think of a way to respond to that, Max arched an eyebrow with a smirk. "Your wife thinks I'm hot."
"He is hot," the pregnant woman agreed loudly from her stool, giving Juliet a wink as she waved and beckoned her closer. "I'd come say hi to you, but I don't feel like getting up."
"No, that's okay, I'll come to you," Juliet said, feeling herself relax at the easy affection that punctuated every pretended insult the brothers tossed at one another. "What's your name?"
"I'm Sophie," she said, shaking Juliet's hand, then leaning in conspiratorially. "Hey, if they grill you too bad, just give me a signal, and I'll pretend to go into labor, okay?"
"Don't scare her, Soph," a blonde woman chided, rolling her eyes as she adjusted her grip on the baby in her arms. She looked at Juliet with a reassuring smile. "We're all nice, I promise."
"Well, except for Katy," Sophie said, gesturing to the blonde.
"Yeah, except me," Katy laughed. "I'm a bitch."
The rest of the evening was much of the same, the loud, overlapping chatter of the adults only interrupted by the kids running into the kitchen to grab something to eat and then running back out to resume whatever nonsensical game they were playing. Occasionally, someone would ask Juliet a question about her job or her family or her hobbies, but mostly, she was content to sit and listen to the conversation swirling around her.
When Max began to play with the ends of her hair, twirling them around his fingers absentmindedly, Juliet cast a nervous glance around the living room, awaiting a reprimand that never came. When no one seemed offended by the display, or even to pay it any mind, Juliet relaxed a little, allowing herself to be comforted by the gentle touch. She watched him with a fond smile, his usual affected charm put away as his brothers teased and laughed with him, a chameleon in his natural habitat.
After a moment, his mother stood up abruptly. "I think I have some ice cream in the freezer, but when I looked earlier I couldn't find it. Juliet, honey, you wanna help me look?"
Juliet nodded, standing up. "Oh, um, sure."
Max, noticing the panic in her eyes, stood up too. "Here, Mom, I'll help."
"Diane, I think I saw it. I can show you where it is," Katy offered, passing her baby off to her husband.
"That's okay, I think we can manage," Diane said, patting Max's shoulder to tell him to sit down.
Juliet followed her to the kitchen, sending Max a quick smile over her shoulder and biting back a laugh when Sophie raised her eyebrows and pointed at her stomach.
Diane walked to the freezer as soon as they entered the kitchen, pulling out a carton of chocolate ice cream and smiling sheepishly at Juliet. "I didn't actually need your help, I just wanted a chance for us to talk."
Juliet ducked her head with a breathy laugh. "I figured."
"Has tonight been okay for you?" Diane asked with a look of genuine concern. "We can be a lot, and Max told me you're a little shy."
Juliet's smile dropped as an embarrassed blush tinted her cheeks. "He said that?"
"No, he used like three other big words, which I looked up in the thesaurus I have to keep on hand whenever I talk to that kid," Diane said, rolling her eyes affectionately. "And they're all apparently synonyms of shy."
Juliet nodded with another small laugh, hoping he hadn't added 'painfully' before whatever adjectives he'd used to describe her. "He does love his big words."
"He does," Diane agreed, tilting her head as she searched Juliet's face. "But really, we haven't completely overwhelmed you?"
Juliet blinked in surprise. This was a far cry from the interrogation she'd steeled herself for when she'd walked into the kitchen. She shook her head. "No, not at all. Um, it was just me and my sister growing up, and I just have the one niece, so I'm not really used to so many people, but everyone's been really nice."
Diane smiled at her as she pulled the lid from the ice cream carton. "I'm jealous of your mom, she must've loved having girls."
Juliet laughed uncomfortably, not sure how to respond to that. "I loved having a sister, yeah."
"You two are close?"
"Oh yeah," Juliet nodded with an involuntary smile, her shoulders loosening at the mere mention of Lorelai. "Even if we weren't related, we'd still be friends, though. She's just, like, the coolest person I've ever met. And she's so smart, like whip-smart, but no one ever pays attention to that because she's so funny, but you have to be smart to be funny, unless you're funny on accident. And people always expect her to be mean, because she's so pretty and smart and funny, but she's so nice to everyone, and she's so genuinely interested in other people, she's just – she's the best."
Juliet cut herself off, lowering her eyelashes sheepishly. "Sorry. I talk about her a lot."
Diane shook her head, covering Juliet's hand with her own. "Oh, honey, no worries. Now I know how to get you out of your shell."
Juliet felt her eyes sting a little as she tried to remember the last time somebody's mother other than Rory's had shown her any kind of physical affection, aside from the desperate, relieved hugs she got from patient's families when she told them their child was going to be okay. She blinked rapidly, forcing a smile. "That, or get me to talk about Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory."
Diane shrugged, giving her a coy smile. "You know, I've always wanted to learn more about that."
They left a few hours later, after a lingering goodbye in the doorway where Diane gave Juliet a hug and a kiss on the cheek, telling her she was welcome back anytime, then patted Max's cheek, her eyes warm with affection.
Juliet smiled at her one more time over her shoulder as she followed Max to the car, their joined hands swinging between them. He tugged her to him, letting go of her hand to drape an arm around her shoulders and giving her a one-armed hug. "What did I tell you?"
"You were right," she begrudgingly admitted, looking at her shoes with a little smile.
"I was right?" he repeated incredulously, squeezing her shoulder. "Can I get that in writing?"
Juliet rolled her eyes. "You can't read my handwriting, remember?"
"That's because your chicken scratch shouldn't even qualify as handwriting," Max said, unlocking the car.
"I guess it's only legible if you have an M.D.," Juliet sighed, climbing into the passenger seat.
"We are not having this debate again," Max said, shaking his head with a smile. "A PhD is just as good as an M.D."
"No, of course it is, I'm sorry," Juliet said, smiling down at her hands as she twisted her fingers together. When he moved to put the car in reverse, she stilled his hand with her own, pressing a lingering kiss to his lips. She pulled back, slightly embarrassed at her rare initiation of affection. "Thank you for sharing them with me."
Max gave her a slightly confused nod, brushing her hair behind her shoulder. "Of course."
Saturday morning, Juliet sat across from Lorelai as they watched Rory tear out of the diner to yell at a freshly released Lane from across the street.
Juliet jerked her chin out the window, glancing back over at Lorelai. "Do you think you had anything to do with that?"
Lorelai frowned. "You know, after Mrs. Kim was all, 'your sister had the same parents as you and didn't get pregnant' when I mentioned that strict parenting usually backfires, I figured she probably wouldn't take anything I said to heart, but I don't know, maybe she did."
Juliet rolled her eyes. "Did you tell her your sister had to get a Psychology degree to fix herself and it still hasn't worked?"
Lorelai laughed, kicking her lightly in the shin. "No, I didn't. I will next time."
Juliet laughed, looking down at her tea for a moment, then back up at her sister, her lips twisting into a wistful smile. She tilted her head slightly. "We had a bad childhood."
Lorelai gasped in pretended shock, putting a hand to her heart and adopting a terrible English accent. "By Jove, do you really think so?"
Juliet laughed again, lowering her eyes back down to her mug. "I've just been thinking about it a lot lately. How much it sucked, living there. How much it didn't need to suck."
"The perils of dating a man with a normal childhood," Lorelai quipped, chuckling dryly. "Oh, hey! Speaking of dating, I didn't even tell you! So you know we came here on Sunday for the double date, since the French restaurant was not working out, and then Rune ditched me, and then I had to treat Rory to an After School Special speech, blah blah blah?"
Juliet nodded. "Yeah?"
Lorelai leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Well, right before Mrs. Kim dragged me bodily out of here, I think – hey!"
Juliet looked over her shoulder to see what had caused the shift in her sister's demeanor, smiling when her first guess was right. She waved at Luke as he walked up to their table. "Hey."
"Oh. Hey, Juliet," Luke said, blinking as though he hadn't seen her there. His eyes softened as they flicked over to Lorelai's, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. "Hey."
Lorelai's smile widened. "Hey."
"Hey," Luke said again, his voice cracking slightly. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, breaking the staring contest between him and Lorelai as his eyes skittered back over to Juliet. "Oh – you, uh, you had a thing on Sunday. How'd that go?"
"Good, thanks for asking," Juliet said, looking back and forth from her sister's face to Luke's with an amused smirk as she digested the newly heightened sexual tension between them. "Sounds like you guys hung out?"
"Yeah, we did," Lorelai confirmed, clearing her throat with a nod as she stared up at Luke. "It was fun – with the cards."
"Yeah, it was," Luke agreed, swallowing thickly. "In fact, you rushed out of here before I had a chance to –"
Juliet's eyebrows went up. Was this happening? In front of her? Had Luke forgotten she was there again?
Lorelai's eyes darted over to her sister's, then back up to Luke's. "A chance to?"
"Kick your ass in poker," Luke finished with an awkward chuckle, seeming to lose his nerve.
Lorelai deflated a little, before smiling brightly with a nervous laugh of her own. "You wish!"
Oh my God, it's like pulling teeth with you people, Juliet thought, closing her eyes briefly to escape the awkwardness settling over their table.
"Maybe – maybe we could do it again sometime," Luke stammered, the tips of his ears pinking. Then, chickening out again, he gestured to Juliet and added, "You know, the three of us. Or four, if, um, if Rory wanted to come too. Cause there's a lot more games you can play – with uh – with four people, than with two. Is your tea cold? 'Cause it looks cold. I'm gonna – I'll get you another cup."
Before Juliet could answer, Luke grabbed her mug from her and took off, giving Maurice Greene a run for his money as he fled behind the counter.
Smooth, Juliet mouthed, catching Luke's eye and giving him a sarcastic thumbs-up, laughing when he gave her the finger in reply.
Notes:
As I'm sure you could tell by how long I took to post this chapter, it was rough going lol, and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. I was close to cutting this storyline for Juliet, and sending her and Max on a triple date with Lorelai, Sookie, Jackson, and Rune (iconic man), but I stuck with what I'd originally planned for her.
Also! Next week I'm entering my Asher Fleming era and going to England for a Shakespeare study abroad program (no Romeo and Juliet though lol), so I won't be spending as much time writing this story. I still plan to write/update it a little, but it'll probably just be a lot more sporadic than usual.
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
