He wondered how she was doing. Would she ever talk to him again? She said she'd need time, somewhere away from the diner.
Panic took up its familiar residence in his chest. What if she ran away? Like the time with Max? (Or, he thought wryly, without Max.) He smacked the rag down on the edge of the counter in fury. What if she never wanted to speak with him again? How could he have been so careless? He wracked his brain, trying to think about who'd been in the diner when IT happened. It--the innocent encounter between the two most important people in his life. No one, and certainly not Lorelai, deserved public humiliation. He wouldn't even do something like that to Taylor, for god sake. He thought that the look on Lorelai's face as she so clearly struggled to maintain her dignity in front of April, in front of him, and in front of the town would stay with him forever.
Slap! He wrung out the rag one last time. Way to go, he thought. Way to replace the most beautiful memory he had of the diner--her face just as she proposed to him--with the look of undiluted pain and shock as she realized he was not the man he'd posed as. Nope, he certainly wouldn't blame her if she ran, drove, flew, whatever, as far away from him as she could.
That old feeling of panic, the one so familiar over the last two months, tightened its grip around his heart, his gut, his balls...
Unbidden, a thought percolated to the forefront. 'Show her,' it said. 'You're a man of action, not words,' it mocked. 'Always be a man,' his father's voice interjected, 'Take responsibility for your actions.' 'Be kind to women and children,' his mother's gentle but firm voice chimed in.
But that's what I was doing, Mom, he thought.
Surely, if Lorelai'd run off, and not shown up at the Festival, someone would have shown up at the diner to ask about her. Wouldn't they?
Unless, people already knew about April...and were wearing pink and blue ribbons again...if pink won last year, he could only imagine the pink landslide that would come out of this debacle. He looked out across the street to the square, noisy and crowded and full. Maybe he should just head on upstairs, give April a goodnight phone call, and hope for the best as far as Lorelai was concerned.
Lorelai. Upstairs. Guiltily, he remembered the last time he'd waited and wondered if she'd come to the diner to seek him out. He was worse than a hypocrite, he thought. Of course, he hadn't known that he would be the one keeping secrets at the time--how did that saying go? 'How the mighty hath fallen,' he recalled. His mother's voice returned: 'Pride comes before a fall, Lucas...' she'd told him after some childhood transgression. He'd stalked off, and Lorelai'd been forced to come over to the diner and basically seek out his forgiveness, when it should have been the other way around.
Maybe it was all for the best. He'd go back to being Luke Danes, Table for One, well more like One-and-a-half now with April. And Lorelai wouldn't have to be with someone who treated her in such a jerk-like way. Yep, maybe it would be for the best if Lorelai just left. Then, there would be no way in hell he could ever hurt her again. He'd been so awful, that it would be easy for her to get over this, wouldn't it? People are resilient, he thought. Look at him. He got over the whole sock-man infidelity thing...
'Hell, who are you kidding?' his father's voice interjected. 'When things get tough, you make it work.'
-----
A half-hour later, Luke re-entered the diner. He'd gone over to the Festival to see if Lorelai was still in town. As he approached her booth, he breathed a sigh of deep relief. She was there! Plus, he rationalized, she couldn't be feeling too bad if she was out facing the public.
Of course, everyone was there. Rory, Lane, even the damn dog. Luke, his father's voice ringing in his ears, approached Lorelai.
"We can make it work," Lorelai'd said. Why did that make him feel worse? He'd expected tears, screaming, recriminations, accusations. Instead, she'd been a saint, even freely offered to postpone her dream of a wedding. That emboldened him to test the waters and lean in for a quick kiss. He'd gotten not just two, but also one of her trademark quips, and she'd readily agreed to come over.
The ringing phone interrupted his thoughts.
"Hey."
Lorelai.
"Back atcha. Still coming over?"
Silence. Uh oh.
"Uh, I'm at the house. Rory had to go back to Yale tonight..."
"Tonight?" Luke responded, looking over at the alarm clock.
"Some problem with the newspaper..."
"Ah."
She still hadn't answered his question.
"So..." Lorelai continued.
"So?" Luke parroted.
"Can you...come here?"
Her voice was so small.
"In a heartbeat," Luke replied.
At least ten thousand crushing tons of despair miraculously were lifted off his chest by her invitation. His mind reeled as he swept his eyes around the apartment. She was letting him back in. Into her house. At night. His best friend. The woman he loved.
------
Only a few lights were on inside as he entered the house.
"Lorelai?" he called out. "I'm ho...here..."
He was careful not to assume anything. He'd let her take the lead.
"Turn off the lights, Hon, and c'mon up," she called down from upstairs.
Another ten thousand crushing tons of despair lifted off his chest when he processed what she'd just said (and implied.) He'd fully expected that if she even deigned to keep him in her life, that it would be a cold day in hell before he'd be allowed inside her bedroom again.
Stepping into the living room, he walked over to toward the fireplace, so he could turn off the overhead lighting.
Something caught his eye. Something was different about the room.
Ah, the mantle. The photos looked rearranged.
Panic struck. Maybe she'd gotten rid of his photo, and the photos of them together, him, her and Rory?
Nope. Those were still there. Except, they were now in the middle of the display. He walked over in front of the fireplace and picked up the frame holding their post-engagement photo. Kirk'd insisted on taking one. Replacing the frame, he noticed that the entire right side of the mantle was now covered with photos of Rory.
No wonder the mantle looked unbalanced. To the left of their joint photos, were his photos. A couple of Liz and Jess. And then, some index cards.
'April,' read one card, written in Lorelai's script.
'April and Luke,' read another.
And then, one that had somehow fallen to the floor. 'All of us.'
He picked it up and placed it in the center of the mantle, then turned off the light.
That night was the first night he climbed the stairs three at a time.