(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 14

He usually avoided town events. Luke was good at that, just giving most of the wackier activities a wide berth and getting away with it. Taylor pushed sometimes, for little things, encouraging him to put up twinkle lights for the holidays or flags for the fourth of July or something, and there were times when Luke did give in a little. Mostly when he knew it was something his mother would have approved of. More recently, when he knew it was something Lorelai and/or Rory would appreciate. Still, he drew the line at participating in the Festival of Living Art, and said as much, without pause, at the town meeting last week.

"Certainly nobody is being forced to be a part of the event," said Taylor acidly, "though one would have thought you might be a little more supportive of someone you care about than that," he added, with a pointed look at Lorelai.

It came as a pleasant surprise when she frowned and shook her head. "Taylor, I care about Luke, and because of that, I would never make him dress up in paint against his will."

Honestly, Luke appreciated that more than he could ever tell her. Not that he exactly loved her wishing so hard to be the Renoir girl again. Not when it meant her being in the arms of stupid Terrence from the dry cleaners. Of course, Luke was well aware that nothing was going to happen. He trusted Lorelai. She never gave him a reason not to. He just wished there wasn't a twisting feeling in his gut when he pictured her with another man's arms around her, even if it was just for a living painting in a festival.

When Rory suddenly came bounding in through the door, she was a welcome distraction from his thoughts. Not that she planned to talk to him for very long, apparently.

"Hey, Luke. Is Jess around?"

"Upstairs," he told her, with a smile he couldn't seem to help in light of her own obvious good mood. "You seem extra chipper."

"I am, and you should see Mom," she enthused, passing by him and going over to the curtain. "She got the part. She's going to be the Renoir girl again," she said happily, right before she disappeared from sight.

"Oh, that's... great," said Luke, his smile decidedly forced by then. "Just great."

The knocking on the door startled Jess, but not as much as said door flying open before he even managed to say 'come in' or check who was there. He only had his clean shirt half-buttoned when Rory came barrelling towards him, grinning like a loon.

"Hey."

"Hey," he replied in kind, happy to receive the kiss she planted on him. "What's up?"

"This," she said, shoving a book right in his face.

Whatever he might have expected it to be, it certainly wasn't an art book, full of pictures and descriptions of some seriously old paintings.

"Who does that remind you of?" she asked him then, pointing to the left-hand page and encouraging him to look.

"Wow. That's you," he said, unable to think anything else as he stared at the picture. "Seriously, how is that you?"

"It's not actually me." Rory rolled her eyes. "But it is an uncanny resemblance, right? This is Portrait of a Young Girl Named Anthea," she explained, "and Taylor really, really, really wanted me to take the part. So, I told him I absolutely would do it, on one condition."

"He has to make your mom the Renoir girl again" Jess smiled, realising where she was going all of a sudden. "You're good, Gilmore."

"I know," she said smartly, not complaining at all when he pulled her in close with his free arm and kissed her soundly on the lips. "I would love to stay longer, but this is seriously just a flying visit. I have a million things I have to get done at Yale before this weekend if I'm going to be here for my fittings and the event and everything."

Jess sighed, but let go of her all the same. "I'm not going to see much of you, am I?"

"Maybe not," she told him, looking almost as sad about it as he was, "but I'll try, I promise, I will. Any spare time I can get while I'm here this weekend, it will absolutely be for us. Okay?"

"Okay," he agreed, nodding his head. "I'm gonna hold you to that," he warned with a look.

"I really hope you do," she countered saucily, pressing herself tighter against him for a moment and kissing him one more time.

Then, just like that, she had whipped the book from his hands and was running on out of the door. Jess sighed, watching the door swing almost-shut in her wake. He missed Rory when she wasn't around, and that was going to happen a lot for as long as she was at Yale, he knew. Still, he was better off in Stars Hollow, a mere twenty-two-point-eight miles away, then the near hundred that it was from New Haven to New York, or worse, the almost three thousand he had put between them when he ran away to California. It made him think of Lane and feel bad for her all over again.

"These Stars Hollow women are turning you into a sap," he muttered to himself, turning around to grab his watch and strap it onto his wrist.

Of course, he wasn't quite as whipped as he might be. Right after the town meeting, when he carefully told Rory he would really rather not be a part of the festival that she was so excited about herself, she had been pretty cool about it.

"You don't have to be involved just because I want to be," she said easily. "But if I am in it, you'll come watch, right?"

"Obviously," he had assured her without pause, getting a kiss for his trouble.

Not that it was really any problem for him to swing by the event and sit through a few people posing in picture frames for an hour or whatever. He could even bring a book along and read in the more boring, speechifying parts of the evening (because you just knew that Taylor would take every chance for that kind of thing). It would be worth it to see Rory, not just because she would appreciate it, but because he wanted to.

"Seriously, a sap," he told himself once more, checking he had his keys and wallet before he finally headed out, to go help Lane with the band's search for a new lead guitarist.

Another favour to Rory and also to Lane, one of which he loved, the other that he felt bad for, given her own relationship situation. Maybe that really did make him a sap. Jess knew he would have definitely thought so as little as a year ago, but now? Now, he was kind of okay with the fact that he cared about people and that they cared about him too. Truth be told, it didn't suck as much as he thought it might.

"I know you really, really didn't want to get involved..."

"But?" asked Luke, pre-empting the request that he clearly knew Lorelai was going to make.

He really was super-intuitive that way, or maybe she was just terribly obvious. Lorelai decided she would rather not know which one it was.

"So, you know how I told you that Kirk is taking his part way too seriously?"

"As Jesus? Yes, you did." Luke rolled his eyes. "You're not gonna ask me to help him find a way to walk on water or fool him into thinking he can turn that water into wine, are you?"

"No, obviously not." Lorelai shook her head, fighting not to laugh at the jokes in such an important moment. "We have table problems. You know, Last Supper table problems? It's too short, waaay too short for the Lord and his twelve Apostles beside, and you and I both know it's a job for only one man."

"Just one man, huh?" he said with a look, trying to suppress a smirk that she knew was going to break through at any moment.

"Yes, a very special man. The kind of man who has a toolbox named Bert. The kind of man who would hate to let down the town, and most especially, a certain woman who he loves."

"This woman wouldn't happen to bear a striking resemblance to the Renoir girl, would she?" he asked, sliding his arms around her.

"You know, I think she just might," she said, trying for serious and failing, ending up grinning up at him as he smiled back. "So, any chance?"

"Sure, I guess I can give it a try." Luke sighed, leaning down to plant a quick kiss on her lips. "Not that it'll be easy. That thing has to be in perspective for the painting, the angles have to be just right. It is not a ten-minute job."

"I know, but thank you, thank you, thank you," Lorelai told him, peppering his face with kisses until he finally insisted she stopped, if she really did want the table fixed.

"I have to go fetch my tools and make sure Jess is okay covering the diner for a while longer."

"Since Rory isn't back from Yale yet, and she'll be stuck in fittings for quite a while when she gets here, I think you're good."

Luke left to go get Bert then and Lorelai sighed happily while watching him walk away.

"Hate to have him go but love to watch him leave," she said to herself, not realising she had company, until Sookie replied; "There is no denying the man has a fine butt."

"You know, if you were anybody else, I'd feel weird about you saying that, but you are a married woman and great with child," she said, just this side of Biblical, which seemed appropriate given she had been discussing the table for Last Supper just a minute before. "I feel pretty safe that you don't want to take my man, Jolene."

"I would never," Sookie promised, smiling at the reference. "I'm just so happy for you that everything is going so well."

"It really is." Lorelai grinned herself. "I honestly don't know why we waited so long. Me and Luke, it just works. It's just... right, you know?"

"I do know," Sookie agreed. "Come on, I've been encouraging you in this direction for long enough, haven't I?"

Lorelai gave that a moment's thought and realised she had a point. "Huh, I guess you have. Well, that just proves how smart you are."

Sookie snorted. "If I were really smart I'd know how to get this baby to come out of me already. I am seriously so bored of being pregnant now. It's as if I've been fat and awkward forever."

"Aw, Sook," Lorelai sympathised for a while, until she saw Luke heading back her way, toolbox in hand. "Wow, that was fast, Speedy Gonzales."

"Sooner I start, sooner I'll finish," he told her, looking over at the crowd of people around the table, discussing it animatedly, as if that alone had the power to make it longer and also still in perspective. "Good thing we don't have plans tonight."

"You really think it will take that long?" asked Lorelai, going with him as he headed over, promising Sookie she would catch up to her later as she went off in the other direction.

"I don't know, maybe. Hard to say until I get started."

He ploughed on in then, telling Taylor to get the hell out if he wanted the table fixed, dismissing Kirk pretty fast when he accused him of some kind of blasphemy. Before too long, it was just Luke, Lorelai, and the table, all onlookers knowing better than to get in the way of the man at work. Lorelai sat herself down off to the side on a packing crate to watch the process, maybe lend a hand if it were needed, though she couldn't really see it happening.

"You don't have to be here if you have something better to do," Luke told her, never looking up from the task at hand.

"It's fine. I like excuses to hang out with you, especially when I get to watch you working with your hands," she told him, deliberately flirty and suggestive, smiling widely when she realised she got a reaction. "See, I get the best of both worlds with you. Upstanding business man," she said, holding up one hand, and then the other as she continued, "but also genius fix-it guy too. I mean, does it get better than that? I don't think so."

"Not that I don't appreciate the flattery, but I'm sure there are plenty of guys that fit that description."

"Oh, no, no, no, there are not," Lorelai insisted. "At least, not that I come across on the regular. You know, last week Jason asked me out? Of course, I said no, because hey, I have you, and also, he is totally not my type..."

"Jason?" Luke looked up from his work a moment. "Who's Jason?"

"Jason Stiles," Lorelai told him. "You know, my dad's business partner? I've known him a gazillion years."

"The summer camp guy." Luke nodded in understanding then, going right on back to his work. "Didn't you call him Sucker or Scooter or something?"

Lorelai had real trouble not laughing at the alternate names he came up with. "Digger. We called him Digger, which he hates now, understandably. I'm actually not sure he loved it when we were kids. Anyway, I went to yell at him over the whole launch party fiasco, and what do you know? He asks me out. So, like I said, I told him no, and he asked why, and I said, 'For a whole lot of reasons, but first and most important, because I have a boyfriend.' He was totally bummed which, again, understandable, and he asked who the lucky guy was, so I told him a little about you, but don't worry, I also swore him to secrecy. He will not be telling The Emily Monster or the Puppet Master about us, no way."

She wasn't sure what she had said that was wrong until Luke stared up at her with wide eyes and an almost hurt expression. That couldn't be good.

"Your parents don't know we're dating?"

"Well, no," Lorelai admitted, immediately realising she had never actually explicitly told Luke about that, and also, how it must seem from his perspective, now that he did know. "But that is no reflection on you, obviously. Luke, come on, you know how things are between me and my parents. When we first got together, I just... I put it off a while, and before I knew it, it had been so long, it felt weird to suddenly bring it up, because then they'll ask why I didn't tell them sooner, and I'll flounder, and it'll become this whole big thing. It was just easier not to."

She ended much more quietly than she had begun, letting Luke know what she was already too aware of herself. She had screwed up and she had hurt him. She hated that she had, but it was a little late now. Not that he complained, of course. He just said nothing and went right back to fixing the table. Somehow, that was worse than if he had been mad at her.

"You know, Rory hasn't told them about her and Jess either."

The moment Lorelai heard herself say those words, she regretted them. It sounded so pathetic to her own ears. No doubt it sounded doubly so to Luke. She knew she was right when he practically said as much, a second later.

"Rory and Jess have only been back together a week-and-a-half, and Jess is not exactly your mother's favourite person, for reasons that we all know too well. I absolutely understand why Rory is a little skittish about sharing her relationship status with the Gilmore elders."

Lorelai opened her mouth to say something to make it better, but she couldn't seem to find the words. He made a good point, Luke almost always did, and she did know that she should have told her parents long ago that they were together. She did have reasons, good ones that formed a pretty lengthy list when she could bring them all to mind. Right now, she was blanking, because she knew that Luke was hurt and it was making her brain misfire. She hated this, hated that she was screwing up something so basic in their relationship.

"Luke, please," she urged him to stop hammering and pay attention to her for a few more seconds. "Luke," she tried again, reaching out carefully to still his arm with her hand, finally getting his eyes back on her face. "I'm sorry," she said seriously then. "Really, I am. I know I should have told them, but I promise, it really has nothing to do with you. I am so proud and happy to be dating you. I love you, you know that. It's just... my parents," she said, shrugging her shoulders, at a loss as to how to put it any plainer. "Telling them about us is just inviting them to try to ruin what we have, and I would hate for that to happen. I couldn't stand it."

At that, Luke sighed, taking her hand into his and squeezing it. "I know. I do understand why you didn't tell them yet, of course, I do," he assured her, "but Lorelai, you should know that nothing, absolutely nothing is going to ruin what we have. It can't. Not even the great Emily Gilmore is going to be able to find a way to make me not love you."

Lorelai had to swallow hard before she could respond to those words. "See, this is what I was saying before. There are no other men in the world like you, Luke Danes. You're one of a kind, and I love that you're mine."

"Me too," he told her with a smile, pulling her close enough to kiss.

She went more than willingly, falling into a moment she didn't want to get out of. The table fixing could wait for just a little while, she was sure.

To Be Continued...