Chapter 16: Shopping trips and Small businesses

"Dad, dad, what about those?" Rory yelled excitedly, pointing at the big coffee mugs that she spotted in the store.

"I'm not sure, kid. They look a little too big for regular size coffee mugs."

"But they're so pretty. All those beautiful colors, we could take blue and green and orange. And mom will love that they're this big."

"You make good selling points. Load them up." Luke said and Rory squealed happily and she started putting them in their huge shopping cart. Rory was more and more like Lorelai every day and she seemed to inherit the ability to talk as fast and as long as needed, until someone agreed with her.

It was late June of 1990, Rory would be starting school in the fall and it was a crazy time for the Gilmore-Danes family. Obviously, the time after William's death was hard for everyone. But Luke kept his promise to Lorelai. He was open about his feelings, they were often talking through it, and instead of shutting each other out they were leaning on each other. William's passing also brought a lot of different decisions to be made. As it turned out William had quite a lot of savings, which he divided equally between Luke and Liz in his will. He also had separate funds set up for both Rory and Jess that they could access when they would turn 18. What surprised Luke the most was the fact that William gave Liz additional money for her to buy a house or an apartment in Philadelphia or New York, while Luke received both the store and their childhood house. He was initially worried that it would cause some tension between him and Liz, and that she would feel that it was unfair. But as it turned out, Liz had advised her dad to do it a while back - she just didn't want to live in Stars Hollow, so she didn't mind that Luke would get these properties. Also, with all the work that Luke did for his dad in the store, it seemed only fair that he would get it.

At first, Luke had his heart set on continuing his family business. He quit his construction job and took over the store. And God, was it boring. He knew constructions well, so the job wasn't hard, but he just wasn't the kind of guy who liked to talk about hardware all day long. It was killing him quietly and finally he confessed to Lorelai that he hated this and didn't know what to do. So she told him that he just needed to figure out what else he could do with this place which he could enjoy. He was struggling with it, not really wanting to change his father's legacy. But he knew Lorelai was right, he needed to make a change if he wanted to feel good about this place. And ultimately, it was Rory who suggested that he should turn the store into a restaurant. She reminded him about the time when he was telling her stories about his dreams of owning a restaurant someday. The space was limited, but he believed he could make it work. He didn't want to make anything fancy so the idea of a restaurant turned to the diner. Lorelai was very helpful with the decoration process. She told him that he should keep things that reminded him of his father, even including the sign in the front. He just added his own sign next to it. The remodel took a while - the dining area was easy to organize with just adding chairs and tables, but he had to add the kitchen and organize storage area so it would be up to code. And finally, they were done. The diner was ready, but it still needed dishes and rest of the assortment. So that's why Luke, Lorelai and Rory were spending their Saturday at the store in Hartford, looking for everything that might be useful in Luke's diner.

"Look what I found, whole sets of forks and knives, I grabbed a bunch for you." Lorelai threw the cutlery in the shopping cart and noticed the mugs. "These are great, where did you find them?"

"I found them right over there." Rory said happily, excited that her mom also thought they were great.

"Good job, Rory. You have such a great taste. If it wasn't for you, I'm sure your dad would pick some boring normal sized mugs. These are perfect, my friend."

"I wouldn't know how to pick any of these things without both of you. Thank you so much for your help." Luke said honestly.

"Sure, babe. After all, we're gonna be your favorite and most frequent customers. Our opinions matter."

"Oh, no. I will never serve you coffee in this giant mug." Luke protested.

"Even if I pay?" Lorelai gasped. "I'm sorry, hon, but this is no way to run a business. You have to give your customers what they want."

"I do not care about the health of my other customers. I care about your health."

"Please Luke, please. I will be giving you the biggest tips, I promise." She pleaded "mostly in the bedroom" she added in a hushed voice so Rory wouldn't hear.

"Well, I guess I could be open to negotiations." He winked at her, chuckling. They were walking around, laughing and bickering, when some guy came out of nowhere and Rory bumped right into him.

"Are you okay, honey?" Luke asked Rory.

"Hey, would you mind watching you damn kid?" An angry man yelled at the same time. Luke and Lorelai both looked at the guy at the same time, angry at his words when they immediately recognised him.

"Christopher?" Lorelai asked, shocked. "What are you doing here?"

"Lor." His voice changed when he saw her. Luke hated that stupid nickname. He immediately felt uncomfortable. He hasn't seen the guy since high school and yet there was still something in him that could make Luke angry in a second. "I'm visiting my parents and my mom asked me to run some errands for her. And what are you doing here? Did you move back to Hartford?" Chris acted like there was no-one standing next to Lorelai. He didn't even give one glance to Luke or Rory.

"No, we're just here to do some shopping." At the word 'we' Chrostopher finally turned his head toward Lorelai's company.

"Luke. Long time no see. Who would've thought you two would stuck together? We used to make bets in high school about when you would break up. I voted for 6 months." It was still the same Chris. Trying to push Luke's buttons, even after all this time.

"Well, then I guess you owe someone a lot of money." Luke answered with a fake smile. "Cause it will be 7 years in the fall. And we've been married for 6 months now." Luke put his arm around Lorelai and brought her closer to him. He knew it was dumb, marking his territory like a caveman. But he just couldn't help it.

"Wow, in that case I guess congratulations are in order. And who would that be?" He asked, pointing at Rory who was hiding behind Luke. Luke squeezed her hand to assure her that it's all okay, and she came out from behind him.

"That's our daughter, Rory, " Luke introduced her.

"Hello, it is very nice to meet you." Christopher reached out his hand to her but she quickly came back to her hiding spot. "Well, she isn't very social, is she?"

"Actually, she is. She's just shy with strangers." Lorelai said, irritated. No-one was allowed to say bad things about her daughter. "And she's almost 6 and she's very smart, she doesn't like when people talk about her like she isn't here. We got to go, Chris. We have a lot of shopping to do." She wanted to cut the conversion short as it was boring and uncomfortable.

"Yes, I see. What do you need all this stuff for?" Chris asked, looking at their cart.

"I'm opening a small diner in our town. We're just picking up all the necessities." Luke answered.

"Wow, your own business. Who would've thought?" And again with this snobby attitude. God, Luke couldn't stand that guy.

"But enough about us. What is up with you, Christopher? You should be finishing college pretty soon, right? Princeton was it?" Luke asked and Christopher's face fell.

"That didn't really work out. I'm not really a college kind of guy. I was trying for a while but it just wasn't in the cards for me."

"You don't say," Lorelai said with pretended sadness. "That's too bad. And I thought that you would love college. I mean you were a pretty big fan of it back in high school. In fact, I recall you saying something about how not going to college would ruin my whole future." Lorelai rolled her eyes at the memory. It almost felt like another lifetime ago. Looking back, she couldn't believe that for a second she thought Christopher was right and that she and Luke would drag each other down. Instead, the opposite happened - they were always holding each other up.

Now that the conversation was heading into an uncomfortable topic for Chrostopher he was fast to cut it short. He mumbled something about the evening plans and was quickly gone.

"Man, this guy still gets on my nerves. Unbelievable." Luke said when Chris was gone.

"Please, just ignore him. I doubt we will ever see him again."

"Who was that, mommy?" Rory asked, curious. Her whole world, apart from Emily and Richard, was Stars Hollow. And it was such a close community that it was very surprising for Rory to see her parents interact with someone from outside this world.

"That was my old friend from high school." Lorelai explained. "We used to hang out a lot when we were kids, but then we grew apart."

"That's sad. Don't you miss your friend?"

"Not really, honey. He was a good friend when we were kids but when I wanted to grow up, he wasn't quite ready to stop being a kid. And now I have new friends, I have Sookie and Mia, Luke and of course my best friend - you. And who could be sad when they have you as their best friend?" She winked and Rory smiled widely at her words.

"Thanks, mom. You're my best friend, too. And so is dad." And with that being said, Christopher was once again out of their minds.

"Damnit" Luke yelled when he stabbed his toe on some stupid box, which was on his way. "Lorelai, have you seen my car keys? I can't find them anywhere." He needed to go to the bank and wanted to get it over with as fast as he could.

"They're here in the kitchen, babe." Lorelai yelled back. He walked to the kitchen and grabbed them. Lorelai was just finishing her coffee and Rory was eating her pancakes. "That's a nice shirt." She noticed.

"Yeah, I have to go to the bank a set up a business account for a diner." He explained. "What time do you have to be at the inn? Can you drop Rory off at preschool or should I do it?"

"I have some time, but if you can do it, that would be great."

"Sure." Luke sat down as he needed to wait for Rory to finish her breakfast.

"Hey, hon? Since you have a minute, maybe we should talk about the house?" Lorelai started gently. Luke of course immediately knew what she was talking about. William left them his house and they moved here after his passing. But, even though it was Luke's childhood home, it just didn't feel right for him to live there permanently - it was his dad's house, he lived there his entire life and he died there. So they decided back in December that they would only live here temporarily, until they could buy something different and then they would sell it. But as it turned out it was easier said than done. First of all, there were not that many good places for sale in Stars Hollow. Whatever they saw, they didn't like. And even though Luke didn't like to live in his dad's house, the thought of selling it hurt him. So now it was 6 months later, and they had a house full of boxes, as they were packing up what they should give away, and what should go with them to the new house. It wasn't an easy way to live and he knew he had to make some decisions soon.

"I know. We can't live like this anymore. I will take a look at new listings and we will go house hunting again on Saturday, I promise."

"I know it's hard. But we should really do it. And once we'll have our house it'll be easier, I promise. And Rory will get her first real room. It'll be exciting, you'll see."

"Yay!" Rory exclaimed at the thought of her new room. "Will you put shelves in my new room, dad? Cause I'll need room for my books. And a closet for my clothes. And a desk. Cause I will be going to school in the fall. I'll have homework to do." She said, excited.

"Slow down, hon. You know you're the only kid in the whole world who's excited about their future homeworks?" Luke chuckled. "But of course you'll get all of these things. I will personally set up as many shelves as you want." He promised and Rory hugged him happily. The vision of setting up shelves for Rory at her new home, somehow made it easier to think about selling his dad's house. He knew it was the time that they should put down roots on their own.

"So, this is the last option that we have for you today." Realtor lady walked them towards a house. It was rather small, 2-floor, freshly painted in light-blue. It looked nice on the outside, it was at the end of the street, so it probably would be nice and quiet. Luke didn't want to get his hopes up, though. Every house that they saw today turned out to be a major disappointment. "It just got on the market, and the owner decided to renovate and expand it a bit before selling. It has 4 bedrooms, 3 upstairs and 1 downstairs, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and a living room. The furniture was set up for an open house but for the right price they can be sold with the house" The lady continued as they walked inside.

Rory was holding Lorelai's hand and they were both looking around, excited. It looked really pretty, homey and cozy. It looked like a total opposite from Gilmore's house and it was exactly what she wanted.

"What do you think, babe?" She asked Luke. On the facade it looked great, but Luke knew his stuff, he could determine whether the house was actually in good shape. He looked around carefully, looking at desks, searching for some possible mold, cracks or other deficits.

"Physically it seems good." Luke gave his verdict after a while. "Some small repairs may be needed, but nothing I can't handle myself. What do you think?"

"Honestly? I love it. It has enough space, it's light, open. It's a walking distance to the diner and not so far from the Inn. It feels like a good place to call home. And what do you think, Rory?" Lorelai asked her.

"It's great. Can I have the downstairs bedroom? It's close to the kitchen."

"Good thinking, kid. I guess it can be yours if you want."

"Before you start moving your furniture in, we have to actually make an offer and see if they accept it." Luke reminded them.

"It's gonna work out, you'll see." Lorelai had no doubt in their mind that they would get this house. It seemed like it was meant to be.

"Sugars, you want to buy this house?" They heard a loud yell when they walked out. "Morey, you're not gonna believe who our next door neighbors are gonna be!" Babette screamed before they had a chance to answer and walked towards the little red house which they assumed was hers.

"And here I thought we would live in a quiet place." Luke rolled his eyes. "Still want this house?" He asked.

"You bet. In this town I would be surprised if we could find any normal neighbors. Bebatte is a little loud but she's nice and she likes us. It's gonna be fine." Lorelai convinced him. And sure enough, when a few days later the realtor called to tell them that the house is theirs, they couldn't care less about the peace and quiet. They've finally found their home, and it was the best home even if it was a package deal with a little chaos.

Author's note: Small note regarding this chapter. I've decided to change Lorelai's house a bit - basically it's a version of the house after remodel from season 6 - also I wanted to make it bigger and added two extra rooms upstairs in case they ever need it in the future (wink, wink ). As always, I'm very grateful for all your nice comments, it gives me motivation to keep going with this story