The next day, Lorelai was on her way to Stars Hollow.

She had been thinking about Luke the whole time and had not been able to concentrate on her work. Luckily, as the boss, she could just withdraw to her office and think about personal matters whenever she wanted.

She'd looked for men named Luke living in Stars Hollow on the Internet, but there was none. A few men named Lucas, but since she never asked for his last name, he could be any of those men.

Around four o'clock, she said goodbye to her employee Tatiana, and hurried to her car.

Her heart was racing and she had to tell herself to calm down, in order not to make her car race just as fast.

She was nervous. What if he didn't remember her? What if he laughed about her for seeking him out?

No, she told herself, he didn't seem like a guy who'd do that.

The drive to Stars Hollow went by quicker than she liked. After only twenty-five minutes she entered a nice, little town. She liked it immediately, it was charming, lovely even. It was the cleanest town she had ever seen, and every single person she saw on the streets looked happy.

As her car approached the middle of the town, though, she suddenly realised that everyone was staring at her. Her or her car, for that matter.

She stopped, a bit embarrassed, and got out in front of a dance studio.

A round and friendly looking lady approached her almost immediately.

"Hello, darling. Are you here for a dancing lesson? Oh, what am I saying – of course you are. You got the tango-hips."

"The what?" Lorelai laughed. "No – is it okay if I park here for a moment? I'm looking for someone who lives here. Apparently …"

"Sure, honey. You can park almost everywhere in Stars Hollow. I'm Patricia, but people call me Miss Patty." The woman offered her hand.

"Nice to meet you. Lorelai Hayden." She accepted the handshake.

"Lorelai," Miss Patty said slowly, "you are an intensely beautiful woman."

"Oh – uh …"

"I would love for you to perform in one of my productions."

"Oh, you wouldn't like it. I'm a lousy actress. And singer. And dancer. I'm chaotic, really!" Lorelai laughed awkwardly. "Plus, I don't even live here."

"Alright, but if you change your mind – again, the name is Miss Patty. Everyone will know who you mean if you ask for that name."

Lorelai smiled. "That's great. Goodbye, then."

"See you, darling."

Lorelai turned around, as she suddenly remembered. "Oh, Miss Patty –?" She flung around again, wincing as she saw that Miss Patty had not moved an inch.

"Changed your mind already? Ach, they always do."

"No, I meant to ask. Do you know someone named Luke?"

"Luke?" Miss Patty's eyebrows rose. "Luke Danes perhaps?"

"I – uhm – never caught his last name. I met him at a bar and we talked. I meant to check on him."

"A bar? Can't be Luke Danes, then, he doesn't really go out. What did he look like, darling? What did he wear?"

"He was tall, had dark hair, and he wore a flannel shirt and a backwards base–"

"Goodness, it is Luke Danes!" Miss Patty called out. "He's right over there darling, in the diner."

Lorelai turned around – "Luke's?" she laughed. That was quite on the nose, she should have realised.

"That's his diner, hon."

"Great, you've helped me a lot. Thanks, Miss Patty."

"My pleasure. Again, if you change your mind …"

"I'll call you. Thank you very much, Miss Patty."

Finally Lorelai was on her way. Her stomach was in knots while walking over, her mind and heart having the usual fight or flight discussion.

Ready to listen to her heart, ready to fight, she entered the diner.

Luke almost let go of a plate as he saw her walking into his diner.

The beautiful woman from the night before, the considerate stranger that seemed to understand him so much. Lorelai. The most beautiful woman he'd ever met with the most beautiful name he'd ever heard.

He'd woken up this morning, sure of having dreamt about her. She seemed like a nymph or a fairy in his dream, his faint memory giving him vivid images of her in a sparkly, red dress. Dark brown hair, shining blue eyes. She was most certainly not real, he'd told himself.

Yet there she was. Wearing a black pant suit, hair done back.

Smiling at him.

She was magnificent.

Luke told Lane to take over the plate he was carrying, before approaching her.

"Hey … Lorelai."

"Oh, good, you remember me," she exhaled.

"How could I not?" Luke muttered. "How did you find me?"

"Uhm, I talked to this woman, Miss Patty –"

"Oh, great, the town's biggest chatterbox. Oh well." Luke sighed. "Would you like to have a seat? As you can see the diner is pretty empty at the moment, so just choose any table you like."

Lorelai grinned and approached a table that was taken by no other than Kirk –

"Excuse me, could I sit here?"

"Any free table that is," said Luke and Lorelai chuckled.

"Sorry. I'll just sit at the counter. I meant to talk to you about last night."

Kirk's head shot up. "Last night?"

"Don't be nosy, Kirk," Luke shot at him, then turned to Lorelai. "Don't say last night like that. And we should leave the diner to talk, people in this town are terrible gossips."

"Sorry." Lorelai leaned down to look at Kirk. "Nothing happened between us."

"Us?" Kirk asked and pointed at himself and then Lorelai, visibly confused.

"Oy," Lorelai made, then turned back at Luke. "Should we go outside, then?"

"Or upstairs," Luke suggested, before adding, "I live there" at her bewildered look.

"Alright, up we go," she answered, and Luke took a deep breath. This was very odd.

"Lane?" he called, "I'll be upstairs for a moment!"

"Alright, boss," Lane called back, and then he led Lorelai to the back of the diner, up the stairs and to his apartment.

"Should I ask about the William's hardware stuff that's going on?"

"Uh – that was my father's business. He died."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm such a clumsy oaf."

"I mean, you didn't know." He smiled lightly. "To get everything out of the way, my mother is dead, too."

"Shit, I'm really –"

"Sorry, yeah. It's fine." Luke unlocked the door. "This was his office, by the way, so beware. It's really small."

Lorelai said nothing. For a moment he feared it would be weird for her to see his small apartment, but she seemed fine as she entered it. She didn't look around, not a single moment.

"So …" he started, "you wanted to talk?"

"Indeed. Actually I wanted to check on you. You looked quite drunk to me last night, and I didn't even offer to drive you back home. That occurred to me later. But you obviously did not have an accident."

"I took a cab. I don't usually drink, by the way. You caught me at a very bad time."

"I know. You told me about it."

"Sorry. For bothering you with my trouble."

"Not at all. I asked you after all." Lorelai bit her lip. "Did you speak to Nicole yet?"

Luke froze for a moment. "You remember my wife's name?"

"I'm an excellent listener."

"I'm sure. And no, I haven't seen her yet." He crossed his arms. "Have you talked to your husband yet?"

Lorelai let out a laugh. "Luke – I kind of lied to you."

"You don't have a husband?"

"Oh, I do." She held up her hand to show him her wedding ring. "But I didn't tell you the whole truth about him. It's complicated and I didn't want to make everything about me last night. Something I usually don't care about, I love when things are about me." She laughed out, then grimaced. "Hey, I don't want to be rude, but do you have coffee?"

"I mean, there's a diner below us."

"Awesome, I'll just head down for a second and buy –"

"No," interrupted Luke, "I'll get it. You get comfortable and I'll be back in two minutes."

Lorelai smiled. "You trust a stranger in your apartment?"

"By all means, take everything that strikes you as valuable," he remarked. There was really nothing that was worth anything in his place.

He hurried down to a diner full of people staring at him. "What?" he barked.

"Who's that woman, Luke?" Lane asked.

"Just a friend."

"A very pretty friend," Lane continued.

"Yeah, she is very pretty. And she wants coffee."

Lane stepped aside to give him access to the coffee machine. He felt everyone's eyes on his back as he poured her a cup, but once he turned around again, everyone looked away.

"Sick, sick people," he muttered, before walking back upstairs.

Luke's apartment was small, but charming. It had everything an apartment needed.

Of course Lorelai was used to different sizes, like the mansion she had grown up, or the condo she and Christopher lived at the moment. But she found she didn't care. She was not one for possessions anyway, though her parents had always helped her out with money issues, during her pregnancy as well as after. They'd paid for the wedding, their condo, they'd given both her and Christopher jobs and supported them with everything they asked for, like paying for Chilton and Yale.

Yet Lorelai had always stayed on the ground.

She loved sewing and had changed many of her old shirts into clothes for Rory when she was little, she'd sewn Rory's dress for a Chilton dance years ago and occasionally still made her own clothes. Christopher had often told her to open something such as a lingerie-shop, but her real passion lay in her current job.

Luke returned with a cup of coffee two minutes later, as promised.

He smiled as he spotted Lorelai sitting on the small couch in what was probably his living room.

"I got comfortable," she said.

"I can see that," he answered. He carried the cup over to her. "So. Now talk. You lied to me?"

"Well." Lorelai chuckled awkwardly. "I kind of lied. My husband and I don't cheat on each other. We sleep with other people, but that's okay. We're in an open marriage."

"Oh. Wow. That's – that's modern."

"Mhm. Yeah, we didn't really have a chance. We've been married since we were 18, so …"

"What?"

"Yep."

"Eighteen? Holy shit."

"Exactly. Which brings me to my next point – my daughter."

"Your little one."

She chuckled. "Yeah, my nineteen year old daughter that is currently studying at Yale."

He was quiet for a moment. Then – "Excuse me, may I ask how old you are?"

Lorelai sighed. "Thirty-five."

He calculated in his head. "You were sixteen," he then said quietly.

"Yes. I was sixteen when I had Rory. My parents made me marry her father two years later, and though we did love each other, that love turned platonic at some point. About ten years ago we talked about getting divorced, but then decided to try an open marriage first. And it worked. Still works. Even though, about a year ago, he had a daughter with another woman – my parents don't know about her. And now he's dating his secretary and I am going out about once a week, on a man-hunt." He winced. "Sorry," Lorelai quickly said, "that sounded really bad. But yes, I go out and look for men to have sex with. That's our arrangement. We both date other people and it's alright."

"That is probably the craziest story I have ever heard," Luke mumbled. "It has to sink in first."

"Take your time." Lorelai took a sip of her coffee. "Holy shit, this is the best coffee I have ever had!"

Luke smiled lightly. "I'm glad."

"No, you don't understand. I love coffee. Coffee is like oxygen to me. I drink more coffee than I drink water."

"Which is really unhealthy."

"If I could marry coffee, I would. I believe, in a former life, I was coffee! And this, my friend, is the best – the best coffee I have ever had. Scratch that, it's the best thing I have ever had in my mouth, Mr. Stanton's stuff included."

"Uh – Mr. Stanton, one of your lovers?"

Lorelai laughed. "No, silly, the owner of my favourite diner in Hartford. And with his stuff I'm talking about his diner food, of course."

"Oh," Luke said, dumbfounded but relieved. "So you're from Hartford?"

"Born and raised there. And destined to die there."

"So I take it, you're not happy with your life?"

"No, my life is good. Great, actually. I have everything I could have wished for, a wonderful daughter at Yale, a husband, a really, really nice condo, a BMW, parents that made all this possible, and a job that I love. But something's missing."

Luke stared at her for a moment. "You're rich," he then said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"My parents are," Lorelai corrected.

"By extension, you are."

"Maybe. But I also worked hard to get where I am right now, both Chris and I did. Nothing just fell into our laps."

"Alright then. So, what do you do?"

"I own the Royal Hotel in Hartford."

He stared at her. "You own it?"

"I started working there as a maid, which my parents hated. But I worked myself up to night shift worker, then manager, and once I had enough money, I bought the hotel."

"You bought the Royal Hotel," Luke muttered, "is that a five star hotel?"

"Well … yeah, it's basically the best hotel in the city."

"Figures."

"Hey, I just said I worked hard for that."

"No, it's fine. It's just crazy that you own a hotel."

"You own a diner."

"That I inherited from my deceased father. I could have not bought the place."

"Okay, then. Sorry, yes, I grew up privileged. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the little things. I adore your diner and I love, love your coffee, Luke. I love it."

"This is too crazy." Luke shook his head. "I don't know you at all. I know nothing about you."

"Okay, listen up then." Lorelai cleared her throat. "My name is Lorelai Victoria Hayden. I grew up as the only child to Richard and Emily Gilmore. I had a daughter with sixteen, whom I've named after me, Lorelai, but we call her Rory, otherwise it would be too confusing. She is nineteen now and studies at Yale, which makes me the proudest mother alive. I own and run the Royal Hotel in Hartford, yes, I also run it. I love the hotel industry and one of the best things about having a hotel is that I can bring all my hookups there without paying anything. I am married to Christopher Hayden, who works for an insurance company and has another daughter besides Rory. Her name is Georgia. Chris and I are best friends and we care about each other deeply, but haven't been in love for a very long time. We're in an open marriage but no one knows about this except for the people we date, not even Rory knows about it, though she definitely knows that something's up. She's the smartest person alive. I dated her teacher for a while, but that didn't work out. I dated my father's business partner in secret for a few months, but that also didn't work out. Last night I went to the bar in Litchfield for a hookup, but met you instead. I drove home right after, alone. And now I'm here, trying to figure out why I couldn't stop thinking about you since I met you. Well … that's me."

"That's … wow, that's a lot. And you explained all that really fast." Luke slowly let himself sink down next to her. He said nothing for a moment, but Lorelai gave him time. She wanted to hear what he had to say to her story.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you either," he finally mumbled, and Lorelai's heart took a leap.

"Yeah?"

"I mean, I was drunk, so this morning I was quite sure that I had just imagined you. But yes, I thought about you a lot. I'm really glad you found me."

Lorelai smiled, but did not answer, waiting for more.

"So … I guess it's my turn, eh? Well, my name is Luke Danes. I own a diner, you've, uhm, been to it. I have a sister and I have a wife who cheats on me. That's … basically it."

"Tell me about your sister," Lorelai inquired gently.

"Liz. She's a pain in the … no, I love her. But she's a pain."

"Younger?"

"Yes. And she has a son who's just too cool for school. She had him really early, too, with eighteen."

"Wow, maybe I should meet her. We should start a support group for teen moms, or so." Lorelai smiled, but Luke didn't return the smile. "Luke?"

"Don't get me wrong, Lorelai. You seem great, you really do. But I don't think we should – our worlds are just too different."

"Oh." The warm feeling in her chest suddenly stung her. "So you're saying we should just part as strangers?"

"I'm saying exactly that. You've seen the people here, they will ask me about you for the next few weeks. And if Nicole hears about this –"

"Nicole, your wife that cheats on you?"

"That's my business, you know?" Luke crossed his arms. "I truly apologise for making you feel like you had to do something about my problems. Look around – there is no place for you in my life. Quite literally."

It hurt a lot, but Lorelai swallowed her pain and nodded. "I hear you," she said, "I just thought there was something between us. I guess I was mistaken."

"Sorry. I was really drunk, for all I know you could have a third eye, and I still would have dreamed about you. Not that I did, I'm just saying …" He sighed. "Farewell, Lorelai."

"Yeah." Lorelai bit the inside of her cheek to prevent the tears from starting to flow. She couldn't explain it, but she felt so connected to that man. It felt as if he was breaking up a friendship they'd been having for years. She swallowed and got up. "Farewell," she managed to press out.

She left the coffee and fled the apartment, not able to see Luke burying his face in his hands behind her.