One of Those Nights

Setting: Luke Can See Her Face; Last Week Fights, This Week Tights

Summary: The third shot gives her courage. (And she doesn't mind in the least bit when Jess' Doublemint twin takes her by the hand.) Rory calls Jess in Girls in Bikinis... Lit.

Disclaimer: Majority of dialogue taken from Last Week Fights... Forgive me.

A/N: The power of suggestion is not a thing to be ignored...this was just going to stay a lonely little one-shot, but reviews sparked inspiration for another chapter. This is it, though. Seriously. Enjoy :)

She feels like she should say something.

She should just mention it; casually, just toss it out there in the midst of conversation: "Jess misses me. He said he misses me. And I—I miss him. Should I call him? I want to call him. Is that crazy?"

She feels like she should say it, just to hear what it sounds like out loud. She feels like she needs to get a feel for how Lorelai would react, just so that her mother doesn't feel blindsided. Rory opens her mouth to speak but her mother is ranting endlessly about Jason, cats, and the viability of her eggs. She decides that now, probably, isn't the best time to mention the potential reappearing of an ex-boyfriend.

Maybe it's for the best, anyway— she wouldn't want to get her hopes up about anything.

Learned that the hard way.

Two days later she sees him, sitting on a bench facing the town square. She's home for the weekend and he is a reluctant participant in his mother's fourth (or is it fifth?) wedding. Unexpected, just like the last time he showed up, but this time- she can admit it- he is not entirely unwelcome.

Their paths never would have crossed and she wouldn't have had to see him if weren't for that damned, unable-to-be-ignored ice cream craving.

"So, thanks for letting me know you were coming, by the way." Her sarcasm is nearly impossible to miss, but it just rolls off him, like water on glass. Like nothing's changed.

If he's surprised by her tone, he doesn't act like it. "I wasn't planning on coming. It was a kind of last minute sort of thing..."

"Really." She's trying to seem disinterested and distant, but that's so hard to do when, in the back of her mind, all she can hear is "I miss you, too."

Damn it.

"Rory—"

"I should go," she murmurs, not entirely sure she wants to hear what he has to say. I should stay. "Ice cream's melting."

She doesn't give him a chance to respond; she walks away and tries to tell herself that nothing's changed.

She's never been good with goodbyes.

She senses that Janet is in the middle of hers, but all Rory can do is stand there awkwardly, making small-talk with Tana's boyfriend. (The simple fact that Tana even has a boyfriend is mind-boggling on its own. The girl is, like, twelve.)

"Everyone poured all the alcohol they had left into a bowl and that's what's in the cup. Tastes gross, but does the trick." That it does. Rory thinks she may end up crowning the Funky Monkey as her new, favorite, memory-eradicating cocktail.

I think I'm going to be sick.

Rory swallows back the bad taste in her mouth and tries to smile as she watches Chester Fleet rub tiny little circles on Tana's back with his thumb. PDA has never really bothered her as much as it does now and Rory frowns confusedly as she tries to figure out just what the hell is wrong with her.

"…And, uh, there you are again, Rory, with…oh, that's a lamppost. Oh! Here's a bunch of couples from Valentine's Day. …You're not in that one. And here you are with all the cafeteria ladies. I can make you a copy of that, if you'd like." Tana is so sweet and impossibly naive, so much so that she's definitely not intentionally trying to make Rory feel bad about her lack of a love life this year.

"That's okay," Rory mumbles. She has a feeling this will be one of those moments that she wants to forget.

"Rory, you've had quite the 'dry spell' this year." Paris is actually smug when she states her observation out loud.

"I have not had a 'dry spell'," Rory insists dourly. Paris has one affair with a sixty year old professor and suddenly she's the expert on dating?

"There's not one picture of you with a guy."

"Oh, no. No. There's one. See? That's Rory with the statue of Eli Yale." And, god, Tana is trying to make her feel better. Rory wishes a Funky Monkey could erase that feeling.

"People are gonna talk."

"I don't care what people say." Liar. "Are people talking?"

"Not that I've heard. You just don't get out enough."

The irony of this conversation is almost too much to bear.

Rory isn't sure what it says about her that Paris is convinced Leonard is just the guy to bring her out of her funk. Leonard Fleming. It's not really a name that inspires much thought. Besides that, she is not at all comfortable with the idea of dating a divorcee with a "computer applications" business card.

"And hey, if you call Leonard and one of his kids answers, hang up. They still think Mommy's coming back."

"Sounds like a real winner," she mumbles, but Paris has already left.

The halls of her dorm are quiet, well quieter than usual, and the only company she's keeping as she boxes up her things is the Funky Monkey and an old mixed CD that Lane (purposefully) left behind. She chugs down a third of her Funky Monkey, thinking that maybe just maybe, Paris was right in feeling sorry for her.

"Cloaked in loneliness" seems to be a very apt and scarily accurate description.

Her grandmother surprises her with the visit, but once Rory actually thinks about it she guesses she isn't surprised, not really. "I just wanted to know because I plan to be thinking of you right at the moment when the weight is lifting off your shoulders."

She should have known it sounded a little strange, especially for Emily to say.

"I meant to introduce the two of you ages ago. I hate that it's last minute like this. I feel awful." Subtle hints, with a side of emotional manipulation disguised as earnest guilt— now that's more Emily's style.

"Oh, that's okay. Don't feel bad."

"Alcohol, on your breath," Graham whispers to her. Emily is, fortunately, oblivious. Her grandmother would never suspect such an act from Rory, which works in her favor.

A lovely first impression I'm making, Rory thinks as her cheeks warm. Somehow, though, the alcohol makes her care less about what Graham thinks of her.

She never would have pegged herself as having a "type". For one, she figures, she'd need to have more experience to try to decide who she'd be able to make a relationship work with and who she couldn't. Besides that, the whole idea of not giving someone a chance based on something as superficial as hair color seems a little perverse.

But she figures, with her track record (Jess, Dean, Poolside Guy) it'd be safe to say that she likes brunets. If she did have a type, she guesses Graham could fall under that category.

"Leonard Fleming?"

"Just…ignore that." I know I'm trying to.

She shouldn't feel any sort of weirdness about getting another guy's phone number. She shouldn't.

"Enjoy your lemonade." Rory takes a sip from her cup, swallows the sour drink back along with her guilt.

She hates beer.

She decides that the moment Graham and The Saturday Orphans attempt to start yet another rousing game of beer pong and several splotches end up on her skirt (and, oh, what's that sliding down her cheek? More beer.) Amendment: she hates drinking beer with putzes like Graham Sullivan.

Graham is nothing more than an illusion, a Great Big Disappointment.

On the surface, he appears to be her kind of guy, certainly not for a relationship, but she guesses she could always use a friend.

She sighs as he approaches her table (should it technically be their table?). He's probably only doing it out of some perverse obligation to her grandmother, not because he's missing her company.

"So, what, you only drink alone?"

No, she thinks, I only drink with strangers. "Pardon me?" she asks instead.

"The lemonade?"

"Oh, that was just a roommate thing. I don't usually drink." But her cup of beer (which was his, but she swiped it when he wasn't looking) is already halfway empty now, although she doesn't think he even notices.

The act of drinking itself is not an unfamiliar concept. What she does while drinking, how she acts, what she changes into however is a completely foreign concept. She both loves and hates it. She isn't very smart when she drinks; her actions are more than questionable. Like, say, making out with a random guy on the beaches of Florida.

"Oh...pity."

Yes, she thinks, such a shame that you're not more interesting.

"You want to get back to your group?"

"Not if it's going to get interesting over here." She wonders if he realizes that he's on the verge of leering.

"I wouldn't count on it."

"Man, you have got to lighten up."

"Gee, that's one of my favorite phrases." Wow, beer makes me catty.

She tells him to go, and like a true faux gentlemen, he hesitates—for about a millisecond. "I feel kind of bad."

"Don't," she tells him and manages to mean it.

"Okay. Well, see you later."

"Later. Putz," she mumbles to herself once he's out of earshot.

Left alone, she basks in her cloak of loneliness, stares at her phone for a full two minutes before giving in to the nagging urge burrowing somewhere in her intestines.

"Hi, it's me…I'm kinda stuck and I, well, I didn't know who else to call…"

She feels bad, lying to him - well, not lying so much as concealing the truth. In truth, she called Jess first but after three rings and no answer, she panicked, hung up and called Dean instead.

"Man, it's good to get out," he sounds almost wistful. Rory frowns but tries not to read too much into his tone. They're friends, good friends, that's all. "It's good to laugh. I laughed tonight. You're funny."

"I can be funny."

"That's what I just said."

"Yeah, but you said it like I never am."

"You - you're funny."

"Yeah? Well, this is my room."

"I know."

"Oh, right, you've been here before."

"Yeah."

"Well, thanks for saving me."

"Yeah, anytime."

"Dean, how is it that you can be out like this, here, with me, or with anyone, for that matter? Where does Lindsay think you are?"

"She thinks... I'm out."

"Out where?"

"Doesn't matter."

Alarm bells are going off in the back of her mind. This is a mistake, she suddenly realizes, because if things between Dean and Lindsay are really as bad as they seem to be, she'd rather not put herself in the middle of it.

"Dean, what is going on with you?"

In the time it takes him to come up with an answer she notices Jess walking towards them in a stride of determination. "I need to talk to you."

"What are you doing here? I thought you were at your mom's wedding."

"I just— I need to talk to you," he repeats, looking only at her and completely ignoring Dean. "Rory, please?"

"Rory?"

"Dean, go - go home."

"No."

"Yes, go. You should go."

She tells Dean to go, at the same time worrying whether it'd be best for her to be alone, with Jess.

"You smell like beer."

"It's been a crappy night. Is that really what you came here to talk to me about?"

"No. You called me, remember?"

She flinches as if it were an accusation, feels her face flush with embarrassment. "That was an accident. I didn't mean to—"

"You called me," he continues on, basically as if she hadn't even spoken, "but you hung up before I could answer."

"How did you even know—"

"The magic of caller I.D. What were you afraid of?"

"Why would I be afraid of you?"

"You tell me."

"I'm not afraid of you—of anything. I..."

He rests his hands on her shoulders, and tries to get her to look at him by pulling her towards him. "…Can only tell me the truth after a couple of margaritas?"

She laughs in spite of herself. "Three shots of tequila," Rory corrects him softly, finally looking him in the eyes.

"Had no idea you were such a party girl."

"Yeah, well, the things you miss when you go away and don't call." She doesn't sound as angry as she knows she should be.

"I don't know if...you got my message—"

"I got your message," she assures him. She wishes she could erase his uncertainty, their uncertainty, but of course it isn't that easy. It never is, never will be.

But, she thinks as she grabs his hand to pull him inside her room, it's a start.