I want to thank David for proofreading this story!
Chapter 1 – The story behind the boots"Hey Luke?"
Luke looked at his daughter. "Yeah?"
"Is there anything I can help you with?"
"You already refilled all the salt and pepper shakers and the ketchup bottles. There's not much else you can do around here."
"Can't I do some stocking? Or help Caesar in the kitchen?"
"You know you're not allowed in either the stock room or the kitchen. Don't you have homework to do?"
"I already finished that half an hour ago. School just started again this week, so there's not much homework yet."
"Then read the book I bought you last week."
"I finished it already. And there's nothing else I can do around here. Can't you let me help you with something? I can work the cash register, or I can help serving coffee or something."
Luke thought for a few minutes. "Do you know how to make a bed?"
"Of course I do." She told him with a 'duh' face.
"Then why don't you go upstairs and make your bed. There are comforters in the closet in the apartment together with clean sheets. I'll be up in about half an hour and then we can watch a movie together or something."
April nodded, happy he let her go up to his apartment all by herself. She liked to sneak around through his stuff and learn something new about her dad every time. Last time she was sleeping over she found some old pictures of her grandparents and her aunt Liz, and Luke spend half an hour telling her stories about them, until the memories got too painful and he send her to bed almost an hour before her bedtime. But she didn't care. She loved to spend time with her dad, especially when he opened up to her a little. Ever since he broke up with Lorelai, he changed. He was grumpy, he talked even less than before, and his food tasted different. He never told her why he and Lorelai broke up. She didn't understood any of it, because as far as she'd seen, they were happy together. She knew how much her dad loved Lorelai, she could see it in his eyes when he talked about her. She heard stories around town, but that was all where she got her information. She knew better than to ask Luke about it. She tried once, but Luke had gotten so mad, that she didn't dare to try again.
"April?"
That shook her out of her thoughts. "I'll see you soon."
"If you need any help, just call me okay."
"Okay, although I'm sure I don't need your help Luke. I'm thirteen years old. I know how to make a bed. I help my mom all the time."
Proud at all his daughter could do, he smiled slightly. "Then go up. I'll be there as soon as I can."
April hopped off the stool, picked up her backpack from the floor and climbed the stairs to the apartment. She opened the door and walked inside. She looked around and saw that nothing changed since the last time she was here. Not that she expected it to of course. She walked into the room that was once Jess' and saw that the bed was completely empty. She dropped her backpack on the bed, and walked back to the main area of the apartment. She walked to the closet and took out the comforter and the clean sheets, then walked back to the bed and started making it. Because she was small, and the comforter was hard to handle, it took her almost 15 minutes before the bed was made. She knew she had only 15 minutes left now to sneak around.
Not wanting to waste any time, she walked back to the closet where she took the comforter from. She opened it and took a few steps back, deciding where to start. Knowing most people had the most interesting stuff far in the bottom of the closet, she decided that's where she needed to be. She moved some old shoes outside the closet, and ran into some boxes. She opened the first one. It was completely filled with baseball pictures. She smiled, not at all surprised Luke had something like this in the bottom of his closet. She put the box aside, and took out the next one. There were a lot of pictures. Newer pictures than the once she found last time. Pictures of Luke and Lorelai dancing. Pictures of the two of them in all sorts of position. She smiled at the pictures, and remembered once more how happy her dad used to be. Knowing she didn't have much time, and it wasn't something she could talk about with Luke, she put the box back into the closet and took out another one. This was a smaller one, like a shoe box. She took it out curiously. When she opened it, she saw it was indeed a shoe box. There were yellow rain boots inside. She checked the size. Size 9. She wondered who they belonged to. They were too small for Luke, and Lorelai didn't seem like the type to wear yellow rain boots. Maybe they were from Liz? Or maybe one of Luke's old girlfriends. Not that she knew about any of them, but she figured Luke had old girlfriends. He dated her mom, so why wouldn't he have dated other women too?
She moved all the stuff back into the closet, except for the shoe box. Then she walked to her bed for the evening, and started taking out the stuff from her backpack. She wanted to make it seem like she was busy and hadn't been sneaking around. And she 'accidentally' found the box when she was looking for the comforters.
-xxxxxx-
Luke walked upstairs and saw how April was busy emptying her backpack. He walked up behind her and studied his daughter for a few seconds, before he announced his presence. "I see you managed."
"I did. It took me a while, but I think it looks good, don't you?"
"It does."
April studied her father for a few seconds, wondering if she should ask him right away or if she should wait for a while. She wasn't tired yet and she really wanted to see the movie so she decided to wait until later. "Are you ready for the movie?"
"I'm ready when you are. Did you pick one yet?"
"I brought this one." She handed him the DVD box..
He read the lines at the back of the box. "Science fiction huh."
"This is not science fiction Luke. You'll see that in a few years, it will all turn out to be true."
Luke shook his head. "We'll see."
The next hour and a half they watched the movie in silence. Then, when the movie was over, Luke was ready to send April to bed. "You can change and brush your teeth now."
"But Luke…"
"It's almost 11. If your mom knows I let you stay up until after 10 o'clock she never let you sleep over again."
April laughed out loud. "She lets me stay up until midnight almost every weekend."
"And I said you have to go to bed now."
"Fine." April walked away to get her night stuff and disappeared into the bathroom.
Luke looked around his apartment. He was happy April was sleeping over more often. The place was so empty and he liked the distraction. Everything seemed normal, until he looked towards the closet and saw a box in front of it. Wondering how it got there and what was in it, he knelt down next to it. He took off the lid and was surprised when he saw what the box held. Something he didn't remember he had, and definitely did not want to be confronted with. He knew April must have found the box in the bottom of his closet, which means she was sneaking around. He put a hand on his face as he covered the box and was about to put it back in the closet, when he heard the bathroom door open.
"Hey Luke? What's in the box."
"As if you don't know it. I told you that you're not allowed to sneak through my stuff."
"I was looking for the comforters." She looked guilty though.
"This box was in the bottom of the closet. The comforter was on the top shelf."
"That's what I figured out when I couldn't find it in the bottom."
He shook his head. "You have no right to go through my stuff. If you ever do it again, I won't allow you to go up here by yourself, ever again. You hear me?"
"Fine." April wondered why Luke was so mad. He wasn't mad when she found the pictures last time and she asked him to tell some stories.
"Now, go to bed."
She nodded and was about to walk to the bed, when she turned around. "Hey Luke?"
"Yeah?"
"They were Lorelai's, weren't they?"
He nodded. "I don't want to talk about it."
"But…" She thought carefully if it was smart to bring up the subject. "They don't seem Lorelai-like."
With the box in his hands, he sat down on the bed. "They're not."
"Then?" Seeing his response, she knew she could press a little further.
"I was ordering stuff for my dad's boat."
April knew about the boat. It had been parked in front of the diner for months now.
"I needed a whole bunch of stuff and called to make the order when Lorelai walked in. The catalogue was laying on the counter and she went through it. She saw the picture of the boots and somehow fell in love with them. Beats me why. So she kept pushing me to order the boots for her, and of course, I ended up doing so. It was the only thing they had in stock, all the other things went on backorder."
April saw how the look on her father's face changed when he told her the story. There was some sort of peace upon it. "Just, there's one thing I don't understand. If she was so in love with the boots, then why are they in the back of your closet?"
The look on his face changed instantly. "Because we broke up before I had the chance to give them to her."
Knowing he wasn't talking about their recent break-up she wondered. "What happened?"
"I don't want to talk about it anymore okay. You have to go to bed. It's late."
April nodded, knowing not to push him. She walked towards her father and hugged him. "Goodnight Dad."
"Goodnight April." He placed a kiss in her hair before he let her go.
He watched how she climbed into the bed and snuggled into the pillow. For some reason that reminded him of Lorelai. She climbed into bed the same way April did, only she would turn around after a few seconds and put her head on his shoulder and start playing with his chest hair. On the days she was not tired, she would start talking about whatever was going on in her mind, and on the days she was, she would kiss him a few times, snuggle even closer if it was possible and fell asleep within a few minutes. He knew that because either way, he would lie awake for at least 15 minutes, thinking about how lucky he was to have her in his arms. But that was then. And when he thought about it some more, that was even long before they broke up. The last few months she had been distancing herself from him.
She hurt him so badly. When she avoided him for days and then finally came to the diner with her stupid ultimatum. Didn't she know him at all? Didn't she know he was not good with change? That she shouldn't push him? Didn't she know that if she gave him a day or so to think things over, he would have come up with a solution? But no. When he went to her the next day to talk about it, the first thing she told him was that she cheated on him. With… He couldn't even think about it anymore. He truly hated her and the way she hurt him. And he hated him even more. All along he knew that one day he would lose her to him, and he still didn't know why he was even surprised when it finally happened. He heard that she was as unhappy as he was right now. But he didn't believe it. This is what she wanted all along, and he knew it.
T.B.C.