They had been perusing the book fair for about an hour and Jess had to admit he was impressed by Rory's haul so far, it was almost double his. That was saying a lot considering he already had one stack so big that he'd have trouble seeing over it. There were times they were looking at each other and there were times they'd separate because even though they had a lot of similar likes when it came to books but there were also a few key differences, his love of Hemingway for one.

"Jess, Jess, look what I found!" Rory said as she ran over to him from a few tables over excitedly.

She handed her find over to him looking proud, he couldn't help but smile a little at her and then looked down. His eyes widened, 'Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History Of Punk.' Jess looked at the price tag and saw that it was being sold for only .50 cents.

"What? I've been wanting this! Good find, Ror, I hope you know I'm going to borrow it once you're done with it."

"No silly, I found it for you."

He'd never been called silly before and wasn't quite sure how to feel about it but that was easily pushed away with the warm feeling he got because he realized she'd been shopping with him in mind too. "Yeah?"

"Of course! But like you said, I'm going to borrow it when you're done with it. I'm actually interested to see what you'll write in it." An adorable little blush covered her face as she spoke.

"Okay, cool." He leaned in to kiss her but she turned her head to the side at the last moment so he ended up kissing her cheek. He knew she didn't want to rub their relationship in her ex's but he thought she was being ridiculous. He didn't complain though, not now anyway, he didn't want to push her. When he pulled back her blush was brighter and they went back to looking.

They both got lost in their search and weren't really paying attention to the people around them, that's why they both jumped a little when they heard the voice of a young girl, "Look, there's Rory, let's go say hi!"

Rory froze because she knew that voice, she'd spent enough time around it to know it by heart, it was Clara. That only meant one thing because she knew his parents always went to their church specials after mass on Sundays, Dean had to be with her. She knew she was going to have to face him eventually, she just hoped she'd have a little more time. After all, they'd only been broken up for about two days and she was already out on a date with another guy. Was she a terrible person? She felt like a terrible person.

Jess saw Rory tense and was confused until he turned to look at who was calling her. He didn't bother to stop the exasperated sigh that wanted to come out. Come on, they were having a pretty good first date, he thought so anyway. Of course, something had to ruin it and it shouldn't surprise him that it was the giant tree of an ex to do it. Rory slowly turned around a few seconds after Jess with a big fake smile plastered on her face.

"Clara, hi!" The awkwardness was clear in her voice.

"Rory, where have you been? You didn't come over on Saturday like you always do!"

At least Dean looked just as awkward as Rory did, Jess thought. He wasn't trying to have this interaction either so at least that means it wasn't planned. It seemed that he hadn't told his little sister about the breakup yet because she was looking at Jess like he was the interloper. Dean was giving Jess his best impression of J.R. Ewing, although Jess thought his attempt was falling flat, Jess wasn't intimidated in the least. Jess didn't try to stop the smirk coming on his face and he raised his hand up to wave at Dean, reminiscent of the night back at the inn.

"H-hi Dean, Clara, how are you?" Rory asked.

Clara ran up to Rory and hugged her, she didn't reply to her words until she pulled away and went back to stand next to Dean. "We're good! I was surprised when Dean asked me if I wanted to come today, I thought he'd be coming here with you." She said with innocence only a child could have.

"Oh, well, um, Jess here enjoys reading as much as I do, so we decided to come here together," Rory said tilting her head toward their big piles of books.

Jess wasn't sure how he felt about that explanation, logically he knew that she was just a kid, the kid sister of the ex-boyfriend on top of that, Rory didn't want to start a fight or cause problems and it was fair to let Dean talk to the kid whenever or however he wants. That didn't change the fact that he wasn't just her friend, not anymore anyway, he was her boyfriend, a title it took him a long time to achieve and a really long time to accept. So he wasn't fond of the fact that she was giving him a demotion at all, the least of which was in front of her ex-boyfriend. His first instinct was to lash out, make some move that made it obvious that she was his girlfriend, put his arm around her and pull her into a kiss, grab her hand, and give Dean a look of superiority, whatever, he didn't know, something though but eventually he decided against it. He probably would have if the sister wasn't around, she wasn't part of the problem, and it wasn't her fault that Dean didn't tell her the truth, and it wasn't Rory's either. He still didn't like this though, Rory was his girlfriend and he didn't feel the need to hide it just because she was too nice to everyone. So without thinking too deeply about it he wrapped his arm around her shoulder but stayed out of the conversation.

Rory wasn't too fond of the sign of ownership Jess just made but she decided to ignore it, she didn't want to cause a fight between them, especially because the damage was already done and they were having such a good time together before Dean showed up. Dean looked so angry, not when Jess wrapped an arm around her but when she didn't do anything about it like taking it off her. She did feel bad for Clara though because she just looked confused.

"O—oh, okay. Uh excuse me, Jess, I don't think it's nice to touch your friends like that, especially ones with boyfriends. I'm sure my brother doesn't like it, I don't know if you know this yet, since you're new to town and all but Rory and my brother are dating, like their boyfriend and girlfriend and they're so in love, so maybe you should back off a little."

Clara's words pissed him off, Jess didn't let anyone tell him what to do, especially not a kid. He took a deep breath instead of lashing out he decided he'd let Rory handle this. He'd made his point already, and truthfully, he just wanted to get back to their day, to having his girlfriend to himself. He learned long ago when they could barely call themselves friends, that he had to get that alone time in by being sneaky and coming in during those small intervals when she was by herself. He shouldn't have to do that anymore though, he thought they were passed that and he wasn't going to go back to hiding because the ex was around.

"Clara, Dean and I aren't, well, he isn't my boyfriend anymore."

Dean looked betrayed at Rory and Clara, well, she just looked confused. It was as if she'd never heard of a couple breaking up before. "What?"

Dean chimed in, finally, Jess thought. "Clara, Rory and I are just friends now, we decided we didn't want the same things in life." He said the explanations with much derision, not quite believing the excuse himself but repeating what Rory said nonetheless.

"Yeah, I'll always care about Dean and he's one of my very best friends but we're not in love with each other anymore." And I don't think we ever were' She added to herself.

"Jesus, we get it already, you two were once in love and even though you aren't anymore, you'll always love each other. You don't have to explain it to death. You know what? Whatever, I got some more books I wanna look through, catch ya later," Jess said clearly to Dean, "I'll be over there," He said to Rory though he didn't even look at her while he was talking, just at some vague approximation of were he'd be before waking away from the group. It was about then that she realized she hurt him and she felt terrible. She didn't even care how rude he was to everyone and how he said things to upset her, even though Dean and his sister sure did.

"Uh he's right, we have something to do after this," She lied, though she suspected he did have more to their date planned. "It was nice seeing you, I'll talk to you later, okay?" She asked Dean wholeheartedly, she didn't want to fight with him, she just wanted to skip all that and be friends with him again.

"Yeah, whatever, we'll see you later Rory. Just know you can come to me whenever you need to, alright?" He asked in a way that upset her. It sounded as if he was already sure that her new boyfriend would treat her horribly, and would make her regret ever getting with him in the first place. She found it condescending and made her want to roll her eyes, she didn't though. She was nothing else if not a peacekeeper.

"That won't be necessary but thanks all the same." She said seriously, not wanting to give him any ideas or false hopes.

"Whatever you say, Ror," Dean said as he started to walk away, Clara gave Rory a sad wave before following, it was clear she was confused and had no idea what happened between her brother and Rory before this. Being the kind girl she was, she stayed quiet though, not wanting to start any trouble.

Rory watched them leave for a few moments before turning around to find Jess. It wasn't hard to spot him, he seemed raptured with something in the astronomy section, she didn't think twice before walking over to him and wrapping her arms around his back as he was bent over reading, she didn't see a point in hiding it anymore, Dean was the one she was worried about hurting and it seemed he found out in the worst way possible and didn't seem too beat up about it. That made her think her initial idea of keeping their relationship quiet was dumb and useless. She was surprised when it seemed like Jess tensed up when he felt arms come around him, feeling that he didn't loosen his stance and become more comfortable after a few moments she decided it'd be best to let go and take a step back. Jess sighed before closing the book he was looking at, taking a deep breath, standing up straight, and turning around to look at her. It was his unhappy face when he turned around that clued her in that something might be wrong.

"Well, that seemed to go okay." She ventured.

"Sure."

"That's good, right? We don't have to hide anymore."

"We never had to hide at all. The only reason we did was because you cared more about how your ex felt than how your current boyfriend did."

She felt indignant at his reply and opened her mouth to shoot back some sort of smart reply before she stopped for a second to think about what he was saying. In that second she realized he was right and she felt terrible. She really did put all this effort into making sure Dean was okay and comfortable not stopping to think once how that'd make her boyfriend feel. Heck, she even brought it into their first date, even in the book fair, where she never thought she'd see Dean, she made Jess keep a certain amount of distance because 'people in this town talk. God, she was the worst and she wasn't fair at all to her boyfriend.

Without thinking too deeply about it or how it would look she took quick steps closing their distance and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a tight hug, trying to convey her feelings and apologies. She never wanted Jess to feel bad, that wasn't her intention at all. It was just her personality trait, the one where she had that put everyone and everything above herself, the one she had that made her make sure everyone around her was okay even if it hurt her. Normally that wasn't a problem but today her wants coincided with her boyfriend's so that meant her putting him down too in an attempt to bring everyone else up. Ugh she was the worst, wasn't she? She pulled Jess tighter at the thought and was happy that he didn't push her away even if he didn't pull her closer.

"I'm sorry." She said into his neck.

"It's fine."

"No, it's not fine, I wasn't being fair to you. This is all just so new to me, I've never had an ex-boyfriend before, well except for that one time but it was only for a few days and I wasn't with anyone else."

Jess decided he would ask about that story another time. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her too. He had a feeling she was inexperienced when it came to dating but he didn't know Dean was her first-ever boyfriend, and he doubted she was the type to fool around with people casually, so how she was acting was starting to make a lot more sense. He felt like a jerk for getting upset now. He thought maybe he should apologize too but was never very good at it so instead he said, "Really Rory, it's fine, don't worry about it, we're good. Hey, come here, I found a book I think you'll want to add to the buy pile."

He pulled away from her, not before leaning back in and giving her a quick kiss on the lips. She smiled at him after the kiss, forgetting completely that people were probably watching and the fact that within an hour, everyone would know about them. She took the books that Jess held out for her and smiled at his choices. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dean giving them dirty looks but she decided to ignore it for now, she felt bad for him and she didn't want to hurt him but she also wasn't going to stop her life or hurt Jess just because Dean was around anymore.

They looked around in every section the book fair had, some longer than others, and by the time they left there were so many bags full of books Rory wasn't sure where they'd put them all. She knew Jess didn't have a lot of room in that small apartment, her bookshelf was already full and under her bed was almost stuffed with books already. She decided it didn't matter, she could make some room in her closet if necessary. It was getting dark while they were walking, she was honestly surprised at how long they were able to spend at the book fair, she was pretty sure they beat her record when it came to how long she spent book shopping in one visit by far.

Jess had his arm wrapped around Rory's shoulder as they were walking down the street. Her stomach let out a growl reminding her how long it had been since she'd eaten last, Jess let out a little laugh that made her blush and turned their direction towards Luke's instead of her house. When they made it to the diner both were surprised to see that Caesar was cooking and Luke was nowhere to be found. They put their haul of books down by the counter and that was when they heard Luke and Lorelai's voices upstairs. They gave each other confused looks before walking up the stairs to see what was going on.

Lorelai wasn't sure what to do with herself, she was bored, she normally spent her Saturdays with her daughter, or with Sookie, or working at the inn but the girls were busy with their boyfriends and for once in her life she was all caught up at the inn and everything was running smoothly. So she was left alone with nothing to do. She tried to sit and watch some TV but there was nothing good on and even the bad shows she'd normally watch were nowhere near as fun if no one could hear her hilarious commentary. She tried organizing her kitchen cabinets but the first one she looked into had a huge spider in it and since she hated spiders she decided to surrender and accepted that those cabinets were now the spider's property and she'd be damned if she was going to organize cabinets that weren't hers for free. She paced around her house for a while wondering what other parts of her house had hidden insects in them that she'd also have to give away before being grossed out and deciding she had to leave.

Before she knew what she was doing she was passing the book fair and couldn't stop herself from peeking in and seeing how her daughter's first date with her new boyfriend was going. She liked Jess but she couldn't help but worry, she found her worry was unwarranted within a few seconds of finding them. They were smiling, lost in their own little world, each holding huge piles of books and from the looks of it, they each had other piles already put aside that had just become too much to carry. She smiled, her heart happy for them, that's when she started feeling weird, even a little stalkerish and she decided she had to leave. It was an obvious choice to go to Luke's, she needed a coffee fix anyway. She was upset to see it was only Caesar cooking, he just didn't have the magic touch that Luke did. That was when she heard a crash from upstairs and being the inquisitive person she was, she had no choice but to go upstairs and check it out.

She couldn't stop the gasp that came out of her mouth when she saw the condition of the place, there were boxes everywhere, and you could barely take a step in the place. Clothes falling out of them as if they were messily packed, some trash bags filled with things. If she didn't know Luke any better she'd think he was hosting a clothing drive or something like that. Her gasp scared him so he jumped, knocking over a lamp and she saw as it shattered on the floor.

"Oh Luke, are you okay?"

"Oh jeez, huh? Yeah, I'm fine."

"What are you doing in there?"

"Looking for my stupid supply ledger."

"Is it going well?" She asked already knowing the answer and knowing he'd lie.

"It's going fine."

"Do you know you have a sock on your shoulder? Is it helping you look?"

He looked and sighed when he found that she was correct. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm starving and in need of caffeine, I need you to cook."

"Caesar can cook you breakfast."

"Are we just not going to talk about this?"

"What?"

"What happened to this place?"

"Nothing."

Lorelai walked more into the apartment walking past a 'do not enter' street sign, "This is what I've always pictured the inside of my brain to look like."

"See if you can find a brown leather ledger."

"There's so much stuff, it looks like a white trash Hearst Castle in here."

"On second thought I'll find it myself."

"Where did all this stuff come from?" She asked as she tried to move a box but it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

"Jess, Liz finally got around to shipping the rest of his stuff, he hasn't even seen it yet. Don't bother trying to move the ones in that area" he said while waving over a big portion of the boxes, "I'm pretty sure those are his books."

"This is crazy, you don't have enough room for all this!"

"Did I mention Caesar can cook for you?"

"But he doesn't make the good burgers like you do!"

"Then order chicken tenders!"

"No!" She sounded insulted, she held up her wrapped hand reminding him that she fell yesterday, "Remember? My near-death experience yesterday? I need to be coddled, and coddled Lorelai needs burgers."

Luke rolled his eyes and before he could respond the door to the apartment opened again and Jess' eyes looked almost as surprised as Lorelai's did when he saw the place. "What's all this?"

Lorelai was surprised and even a little disappointed when she noticed Rory behind Jess. Was he really already trying to bring her 16-year-old daughter up to his room? He better not be pushing Rory too fast. She felt a little better when Rory smiled at her, not looking surprised that she was there, maybe they heard her up there and decided to see what was going on. She decided she'd give him the benefit of the doubt for now but she did add another thing to the list she was going to have to talk to him about tomorrow.

"Why are you asking me? It's your stuff!"

"Liz finally sent over the rest of my things?" Jess asked and started opening the boxes closest to him before even hearing the response.

Rory was surprised that he called his mom by her first name but decided that asking about it in front of Luke and her mom wouldn't get an answer from him. Luke nodded his head, and a little cautiously said, "Seems like. There's a letter over there too."

Everyone noticed Jess' body tense for a moment before he loosened up and went back to looking through the boxes, each time opening one, rifling his hands through it while making a mess and quickly moving on to the next one.

"Okay, seems like you're busy up here, I better get downstairs, I'm hungry anyway." Lorelai said while making her way to the door, she walked slowly waiting for Rory to follow her and when it seemed like she wasn't, she added, "Rory, you coming hon?"

"Oh, uh yeah, I'm pretty hungry too. Order me a burger, I'll be right down."

"Ah ha! Found it!" Luke said triumphantly, holding up his ledger. "Alright, now I can cook you your burger."

"I can go through this all later." Jess realized he completely forgot he was on a date when his stuff got here, he felt like a jerk again. They were supposed to get something to eat together, even though it was all shot to shit now, it'd be less a date and more him having dinner with his girlfriend and her mom. He was planning on getting food to go and eating somewhere just the two of them but now it seemed that since Lorelai was there and planning to eat too it wasn't going to happen that way.

Reluctantly Lorelai followed Luke downstairs when he nudged her out of the doorway, she was just standing there watching the two but Luke was right, she couldn't stay there staring, she had already gone too far into stalking territory earlier by watching them at the book fair. She wasn't fond of leaving them up there by themselves though, she decided she'd go check on them in five minutes if they didn't come down by then. She didn't care if his bed was filled with boxes or there wasn't a table in that place not filled to the brim with stuff, she knew the amount of trouble two teenagers could get into no matter where they were.

When the adults were firmly down the stairs Rory looked at Jess shyly. "It's okay Jess, you can stay, it's getting late anyway. Plus there's a list of books you promised you'd lend me once your stuff arrived so you gotta find them for me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, you're coming over to my house tomorrow anyway, maybe I'll keep you company while you're working."

"That could be cool." He said with a smirk.

Rory felt a blush come over her cheeks at the way Jess was looking at her, his eyes kept flicking from hers to her lips and his eyes were dark with… something. He'd never looked at her like that before, no one had but she couldn't help but decide she liked it. She took a shy step closer to him, her step closer was the only encouragement he needed, he quickly closed the rest of the distance between them and his lips were on hers, his arms wrapped around her pulling her closer. She felt his tongue against her lips asking for entrance so she shyly opened her mouth. She didn't have much experience kissing like this, her kisses with Dean were always soft and sweet. She'd been kissed like this by Jess once before but something about this was different, passionate even. She decided she liked it, she felt his hand rub up and down her back so she wrapped her arms around his neck. They stayed like that for a while before the kiss slowed down and became softer. Jess finally broke the kiss before leaning back in once more and pecking her lips then leaned his forehead against hers. She opened her eyes and looked at him with a smile on her face.

"Goodnight Rory."

"Goodnight Jess."

They held onto each other for a few more moments before she leaned in and kissed him one more time then pulled away. She walked towards the door, turned back to him, saw he was still watching her, smiled one more time, and walked out the door, shutting it behind her. She leaned her back against the wall and couldn't help the wide giddy smile that came over her face and the small eep of joy. She quickly covered her mouth knowing that he could probably hear her and went down the stairs to eat with her mom.

Jess did hear her sound of joy and smiled himself. He stood there for a few moments just looking at the door before turning his attention back to unpacking. He made his way through another box finally finding what he was looking for, his notebook. It'd been a while since he'd written anything and he was glad to have it back. He looked around and sighed, he was happy to have his stuff back but didn't know where the fuck he was going to put it all. He still didn't even have a real bed. As he was looking around he saw the letter that was from his mom, he scoffed, he didn't care what she had to say after abandoning him. He tried to turn his attention back to the boxes but every few moments his eyes would move back to the letter. No, he told himself, if she doesn't care about me, I'm not going to care about her.

He let out a scoff of self-disgust two minutes later when he stood up from where he was sitting and walked over to the table where the letter was. With a sigh, he opened it and started to read.