Author's note

Sorry to have kept you waiting. I took a road trip that distracted me a little, but here's the latest chapter. I haven't written much romance before, which means that now that this is sort of romance-heavy, it'll take me a little longer to post new chapters, but also, that I would love feedback!

Light

Jess walked away from Rory's house, conflicted. He wanted to revel in what had just happened, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something lurked around the corner, some vague event in the future, something that would cut the legs out from under him. She had stood in the moonlight in front of him, vulnerable, and he thought it was genuine. But he'd thought the same at the wedding, and then he'd spent three months reeling from the emotional whiplash he'd experienced immediately after she kissed him. "Don't say a word!" she'd said. Her voice echoed in his head now. Would she wake up in the morning and regret breaking up with her strait-laced, cardboard boyfriend? And what about her mother? Jess assumed that Lorelai would heavily favor the boy who had built the car over the boy who had crashed it. Most of the town would likely share that preference. He clenched his teeth and dug around in his pockets for a cigarette. The orange glow of the lighter lit his face for a moment, revealing the worry in his eyes, and then he inhaled deeply. He watched the shape of the smoke that curled around him when he breathed out, thinking.

When he had pictured the aftermath of a Rory/Dean breakup before, he'd had surges of crowing joy at the thought of defeating his rival, and then of kissing her, reading with her, feeling her, knowing her, being known by her. The raw animality of these thoughts had distracted him from his reality, from the world as he knew it, where he had never been wanted. He had not allowed himself to imagine that he would feel this way, uneasy and insecure. But now that he was here, having gotten what he wanted, pessimism crept back in from the corners of his mind. This girl, Harvard-bound and sheltered…what did she want from him? What did he represent to her? What could he offer? The books she read and the job she wanted revealed someone desperate to explore.

He cut these thoughts short and found himself coming to a stop in front of Shane's house. He listened carefully, but he didn't hear her parents arguing like they often did, so he threw small pebbles at her window as he'd done all summer. She came outside quietly and took his hand, leading the way to the small copse of shaggy pine trees a distance away from her house where they had spent so many hours exploring each other's bodies, trying to drown their unhappiness in each other. But this time, as she reached for him, he pulled away. He told her that it was over, and the look of confusion on her face turned briefly to anger. However, that flare of emotion fizzled almost immediately into boredom, and as she walked away from him, he realized that those had been the primary expressions he had seen on her face for the entire three months that they'd spent together: confusion, anger, boredom. That is what he would remember of her, and he tried to imagine what she would remember of him. He wondered idly, and belatedly, if she had worn her boredom as he wore his indifference, like armor. With a twinge of sadness for kids like them, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and turned to leave.

Jess slept fitfully that night, waking every few hours from anxious dreams. When Luke's alarm went off early Sunday morning, his eyes shot open, and he knew there was no point in trying to go back to sleep. Still, he stayed in bed, thinking.

As he considered the day ahead, he clicked on the small reading lamp clipped to the headboard of his bed and glanced around his room. It was a backwards L-shape. The two windows that faced the town square were situated in the longest wall. The shutters and sheer curtains that covered them were just enough for him to enjoy natural light without overheating in the afternoons, so he had set up a small desk and chair in between them. The nook created by the backwards L-shape separated his room from the kitchen, and at night he could hear the refrigerator kick on from the other side of the wall. He had placed the bookshelf that Luke had bought for him on that same wall to try to block some of the sound, and he had put his bed in the farthest corner away from the kitchen, facing the windows and parallel to his door. However, this meant that the head of his bed rested against the wall that he shared with his uncle's room, which in turn meant that he was often woken by the sound of the alarm that went off in there at 4:45 every morning.

Luke had decided to extend the half-wall paneling from the rest of the apartment into the two new bedrooms, and the warm hue of the cherry wood helped brighten the room, but the walls were still bare. Jess had roundly refused Luke's attempt to put up sports paraphernalia and conventional landscapes. He'd done what he could to make the room comfortable, though. The tall dresser beside his bed stayed relatively tidy, although his hair-care products were overtaking the top. The bookshelf across the room was organized exactly how he wanted. The top three shelves were for his books, organized alphabetically, and the bottom three housed his CDs, organized by genre. There was a small, round rug in front of the bookshelf, and a floor lamp glowing soft and yellow beside it. The desk was cluttered with papers and books, evidence of an ongoing effort to improve his grades at school.

Looking past his desk and out of the windows, he watched the color outside go from black to deep navy to that strange blue grey as the sun approached the horizon, appreciating the feeling of quiet solitude. He took a deep breath. In a few hours, the diner would be full of noise. He had to work at least through the morning shift if not longer, so he wouldn't have time to call Rory until later. But as he thought of her, he wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't imagined the entire previous evening. He went so far as to check his jacket pocket for her almost-letters. When he found them there, he breathed a sigh of relief, but still felt restless. He needed to move, do something, so he got dressed and met his uncle downstairs to open the diner. He worked until four and was thankful that it was busy. The onslaught of customers made time go by faster.

After his shift ended, he went upstairs to call Rory.

"Hello?"

He breathed a sigh of relief. It was Rory.

"Hey."

"Hey," she said warmly. "I was wondering when you'd call."

"Yeah, I uh, I had to work this morning."

"Oh, right."

"Yeah. So…I was thinking maybe we could do something later."

"Oh yeah?" she asked happily. "Like what?"

"I dunno. It's Stars Hollow. We could start with a walk and see where we end up."

"Okay. How late is later?"

"I just need to shower. Maybe around five?"

"Yeah, that sounds good."

"Okay. So…see you at five."

"I'll be here."

He hung up and headed to the bathroom, trying to ignore the nervous, hollow feeling behind his navel. Nothing, no one, stood between him and Rory any longer, and he had no idea how to behave. There had been a limit before, a towering, floppy-haired limit, which he had assaulted brazenly, but he'd at least recognized where the limit was. He had pushed her to recognize her feelings for him, and, until the wedding, she had only ever encouraged him to push harder. However, he had never crossed the physical boundary between them; she had done that. And then, he remembered bitterly, she'd run scared. What could he expect now?

When he knocked at her door later, Lorelai answered.

"Oh, Jess. Hey." Her smile was frozen in place.

"Hi," he said awkwardly.

"Rory is uh…well, she'll be right out."

"Oh. Okay."

He stepped back from the door and turned toward the yard, looking around uncertainly. He froze when he heard her voice behind him again, realizing she had followed him outside.

"So, uh…what's the plan here with you two?" she asked.

He put his hands in his pockets and raised his shoulders, staring at his shoes. After a moment, he turned to face her.

"We're going for a walk," he said stiffly.

"A walk, huh?"

"Yeah, a walk."

"So, no driving this time?"

He bit his tongue to avoid saying the six different things that popped into his head. He doubted she would ever let go of the accident, but he was going to try not to antagonize her further.

"No," he said shortly.

"Well, good. That's—"

She was cut short by the sound of the front door opening again as Rory came outside. She looked back and forth between her mom and Jess, picking up on the tension immediately.

"Uh, hey, what's going on?"

"We were just…having a chat," her mother said.

Jess raised his eyebrows but kept his head down.

"Oookay…so uh…shall we?" Rory asked, looking at him.

He looked up at her and nodded, and she came to stand next to him.

"Okay, so uh, mom, I'll be back later."

"Mmkay. Remember what I said?" Lorelai asked loudly as he and Rory stepped off the porch together.

"Yep," Rory responded, an edge of annoyance in her voice.

They walked to the edge of her driveway in silence, both of them unsure of how to start.

"So…what did she say?" he asked finally.

"Oh, nothing, just…she wanted us to be careful, you know, crossing streets and uh…not talking to strangers, y'know..."

"Uh-huh."

Rory sighed. "She still hasn't gotten over us crashing the car. I've told her a million times that it was an accident, that I was just as much at fault, but…" She let her voice trail off reluctantly.

"Yeah, I figured it was something like that."

"I'm sorry. It'll get better. You two just…need to get to know each other," she said, her voice betraying her misgivings.

He chuckled at that. "Yes, and I'm sure she's just dying to sit down and talk to me."

"Well…you never know."

"Yeah, I guess," Jess said noncommittally.

They walked along in silence for a minute, and Jess considered Lorelai's reaction to seeing him on her porch and Rory's subsequent reaction to Lorelai's insistence to be careful. It seemed that, at the very least, Rory wasn't having second thoughts about Dean. This lifted his mood considerably, and he decided to change the subject. "So, did you ever finish The Sun Also Rises?"

She smiled and gave him a sidelong glance. "Yes, I did."

"And?"

"It was better than I expected, but I'm still not totally convinced."

As they discussed the pros and cons of Iceberg Theory and what it must have been like to live in Paris in the 20s, they meandered around the streets of Stars Hollow. Without consciously deciding on it, they eventually wound up on the bridge where they both sat down, remembering a similar conversation on a different day.

"So if you could only go to one country in Europe, which would it be?" Rory asked.

"Hm…I gotta go with Spain. Hemingway makes such a big deal about it. I'd like to know why. How about you?"

"I don't know if I could pick just one. I read the Quijote, so Spain would be cool, but giving up England? France? Greece? Ireland?"

Her eyes were wistful and so full of longing that he felt his heart skip a beat.

"Well, the cool thing about Europe is that if we went, we wouldn't have to choose just one. I hear they have great transportation."

He enjoyed the effect of these words. She straightened her shoulders and looked at him happily.

"Yeah, we could bounce around Europe from one place to the next, no trouble at all," said Rory.

They looked at each other for a long moment, smiling, both absorbed in the thought of traveling together. This innocent thought unfurled rapidly, and Jess felt his pulse quicken. Images flashed in his mind: small rooms in places he'd only read about, late night walks through crooked streets, her face the only familiar sight in a sea of the unknown. He noticed Rory's face flush suddenly and wondered if she were having similar thoughts. She glanced down at her shoes and fidgeted self-consciously.

"Owww," she said as she tried to uncross her legs.

"Are you okay?"

"My legs are asleep," she said, massaging her calves.

"Here," he said, standing and offering her a hand. "You should walk for a minute."

She stood up and leaned on his arm, oblivious to the lack of space between them as she stood on first one foot and then the other, trying to relieve the tingling sensation in the bottom of her feet. Jess, however, was very aware of her proximity. Her delicate fingers gripped his arm tightly, but he was preoccupied by the look of distracted consternation on her face. A few moments later, she looked up at him, and as she read the expression on his face, her eyes widened slightly. He gazed back, trying to find an original way to describe the color of her eyes. Water and stones and sky had been done to death, but what else was there? He made a mental note to think more about it later and then began to wonder how long they'd been standing that way. He cleared his throat, and she stepped away from him awkwardly. He motioned to the far side of the bridge, and they crossed over onto the grounds of the inn. As they meandered along in the dappled shade under the summer oaks and maples, Rory started to reminisce about growing up there. As they circled around the back of the inn, Rory took his hand and pulled him towards a small building with lots of little windows.

"Come here, I want to show you something!" she said excitedly.

"The tool shed?"

"Potting shed, actually, and this is where my mom and I used to live when we first moved here," she explained as she opened the door and stepped inside.

He raised his eyebrows and followed behind her.

"Oh. It's…nice," he said, surprised. It was airy and open, and he could see how it could be comfortable with a little bit of furniture.

"Yeah, mom's always been good at that. She hung pictures and got a curtain to go around the tub. She made it homey."

Jess wandered over to an area that looked like it had once served as a bedroom. A broken metal bed frame sat in a corner, and as he turned around, he noticed an ugly, brown, plaid sofa shoved up against a wall. It clashed horribly with the floral wallpaper.

"This couch doesn't seem like your mom," he said dubiously.

Rory wandered over and grimaced at it. "Oh, that must have been Rune's. He lived here up until recently," Rory said, dislike coloring her voice.

"Well, it beats the bridge," he said as he sat down.

"I guess," she said hesitantly, but sat down beside him anyway.

At the same time, they both became acutely aware of themselves and where they were: a distance away from the inn, from people, from onlookers, on a sofa that was deeper and softer than it first appeared, inches away from one another. Rory fidgeted with the hem of her thin, grey t-shirt. The blue jeans she was wearing suddenly felt too thick, and her legs were hot. Jess was having a similar experience, wishing he'd chosen a short-sleeved shirt over the black button-down he had on. The light coming in from outside was a golden yellow, and through the windows, they could see how it played lazily with the deep summer green of the leaves. The silence around them pulsed in their ears, and they could almost taste the tension.

"So, that thing you had to take care of yesterday…" Rory started.

"Yeah," he said quickly.

"Did you? Take care of it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I did." His voice sounded like it was coming from someone else.

"Oh, good. That's…good."

He nodded, unsure of what to say.

"So, uh…what now…?" she asked quietly.

He looked at her, and as their eyes met, his stomach lurched as if the ground had opened up beneath him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm not with Dean anymore, and you're not with Shane anymore, so…where does that leave…us?"

Jess felt his heart jump into his throat and was briefly afraid that he would not be able to breathe, let alone answer her question. As he tried to rein in his emotions, he reached for her hand. She laced their fingers together, and he couldn't tell if it was him or her that was shaking or if it was blood rushing through him so desperately that it felt like not only his hands but his entire body was thrumming, and he wondered if his hands were too clammy or too cold or too hot, but they were numb, so he couldn't tell and he worried he would float away. He moved closer to her, as much to assure himself of his physical presence as to close the distance between them. She did the same, leaning towards him so close that he could see every individual eyelash, and he was suddenly smiling at her, at how new they were to each other and how nervous. She smiled back, and he couldn't resist any longer. He leaned closer to her. A surge of joy shot through him as she tipped her face up towards him and closed her eyes. He closed his own as their lips met, aware of every nerve ending in his body. Her mouth was soft and yielding, and she parted her lips, encouraging him, asking for more, a request he gave in to happily, slowly, and he felt her respond in kind. Their hands were free to explore, but he could tell that they were both taking their time, looking for new boundaries, on high alert for any sign of resistance. He felt her fingers play gently with the sleeves of his shirt, clutching and releasing sporadically, responding to thoughts and desires he wasn't yet privy to. He brushed his fingers lightly against her cheek, cupped her face for a moment, and then his hand was in her hair, on her neck, pulling her closer, and he was so close to being lost in her.

When coherent thought was all but gone, they were both desperate for air and pulled apart, breathing heavily.

"Well, whatever else happens between us, at least we know that part works," he said, relieved.

When she didn't respond, he began to worry.

"So, did that answer your question?" Jess asked after a moment.

Rory nodded vaguely. Her blue eyes were electric against the red of her cheeks. He took her hands in his again, and she played absentmindedly with his fingers, which he enjoyed immensely. He wondered what she was thinking and was about to ask, but when he glanced over her shoulder, he noticed that the light outside was rapidly waning.

"It's getting late," he said regretfully. "And I don't wanna give your mom any more ammo than she already has."

"Yeah, good idea," she said, her eyes still unfocused and far away.

"Rory?"

"Hm?" she said, coming to with a jolt. "Oh, um, right…let's go."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Why?"

"You just…I don't know. You seem like you're somewhere else."

"No, I um…I just…I realized that I've wanted to do that for so long."

He studied her face, worried that she was disappointed.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked hesitantly.

"No. No, no," she said, squeezing his hand. "It's not that. It's…I knew it would be different, I just didn't think...that it could be like that."

"Like…?"

She blushed as he gazed at her.

"I've read a lot. You've read a lot, too, so you know. There are scenes, descriptions that make you think 'Oh, so, that's what it'll be like.' But I was worried that real life would be a letdown, that books made it sound better than it could be, and then…well, it sort of was, at first, with...and anyway, it was anti-climactic. But that…just now, with you…it was…" Her voice trailed off as she tried to find a way to describe it, noting with frustration that everything with him was always so hard to describe.

"I know what you mean," he said, his voice soft and low. He stood up and offered her his hand. They walked back through town, lost in their own thoughts, not realizing until they came to a stop in front of her porch that they hadn't said a word since they left the inn. He had barely registered that they needed to say goodnight when she turned quickly and reached up to kiss him again. Before he could react properly, she'd already pulled away and run up the porch steps.

"I get back from school tomorrow around four. See you then?"

"I'll be working. If you come by, I'll make a fresh pot of coffee for you."

"I'll be there," she said and gave him a look that made his heart race.

Keenly aware that he could not stop smiling, he walked back to Luke's in a daze.