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“Are you serious?”
“Of course, Rory, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because the words that are coming out of your mouth seem very un-Paris-like.”
“Wow, Gilmore, your vocabulary has really gone downhill.”
“The point stands,” Rory retorted, unwilling to give Paris another inch.
“It’s freezing. Are you seriously telling me you wouldn’t want to be warm – nay, hot – right now?”
Rory sighed audibly. “I have Jess to keep me warm.”
“Inside, sure, but outside?”
“Who says we have to go outside?”
“You two aren’t just going to hole up in a little love nest, it’s not you. Besides, Asher’s away next week and it’s not fair that you have someone to warm you up and I don’t.”
“Fine, but I don’t want to go all the way to Florida.”
“Please, and be around the usual spring break crowd? Neither do I. No, I was thinking we’d do Georgia. That’s more your speed, I expect.”
“My speed? What about yours, Paris? I can hardly see you at an MTV-sponsored pool party.”
“Exactly. Savannah is eclectic and has a literary heritage. Good food, artsy, interesting architecture, and warm, plus it’s a shorter drive than to Daytona where the entire campus seems to be headed.”
“I’ve never been to Savannah! Oh, I love Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”
“That’s settled, then. We can get a place in town or if you really want to do the beach thing, Hilton Head Island is pretty close.”
“Do I look like a beach goer, Paris? There is not enough sunscreen in the world to make that sensible.”
“Fine, works for me. I’d much rather do museum and cemetery tours anyway.”
“So, just you and me, then?”
Paris looked at Rory questioningly. “You want to ask the hoodlum to come, don’t you?”
“Come on, Paris. Robert Louis Stevenson, Flannery O’Connor, John Berendt? He would love it. Or he’d love to mock it. Either way. It’ll be more fun than just the two of us.”
“You’re so transparent. I never would have thought that you’d be such a nympho, Gilmore.”
“Stop it, you’re the one who’s having a May/December romance with a professor. Jess and I haven’t even had sex yet."
“Please, you’re all over each other.”
“Well, yeah, we’re just… working up to it.”
“And you want to ‘work up to it’ with me as your third wheel?”
“You wouldn’t be. Come on, Paris. Please?”
“Fine. But we’re getting separate hotel rooms. I’ll be far away where I can’t hear you two going at it.”
“You don’t even know that it’ll happen while we’re away.” At this, Paris glared at Rory knowingly. “Okay, fine.”
“If he even agrees. Who knows if Kerouac will want to be trapped ‘on the road’ with me for fourteen hours each way?”
Rory smiled, hoping Jess would agree to come, but silently acknowledging the truth in Paris’s comment.
~
Sure enough, Jess was on board for a trip away with Rory, if only because he was pretty sure that leaving familiarity and family behind would finally work in his favor. He didn’t seem to mind the cold as much as Rory or Paris did, but he wouldn’t say no to a literary vacation.
“You won’t get me into a swim suit,” Jess warned after agreeing to come with them.
“You think I want to see your pasty white chest in the sun?” Paris joked, her own paleness mirroring his.
“I don’t do sand, or sun, or water,” Jess reiterated. They all knew that wasn’t exactly true, though, as California had plenty of all three.
“Then I guess it’s good we’re staying in Savannah.”
“And I get to control the music on the road,” Jess stipulated, going for broke.
“You’ll control the music when you’re driving, as road trip rules dictate,” Paris granted. “If I want to listen to NPR when I’m driving, then that’s my right.”
“Whose car are we taking anyway?” Jess asked, knowing it wouldn’t be his.
“We can take mine,” Rory offered. “Save some money on gas that way.” Her Prius wouldn’t take half the gas to get them there and back that Paris’s Accord would.
“Fine, but if we get in an accident when I’m driving, your grandparents will kill me,” he warned.
“I’ll protect you,” she joked, leaning in for a kiss.
“Ugh,” Paris groaned. “What have I gotten myself into?”
Rory laughed and finished her packing, Jess’s bag sitting neatly on the floor next to her bed, already completely packed.
~
“Okay, lovebirds,” Paris announced, checking her last item off the pre-Spring Break To Do List. “Let’s do this. Those 14 hours aren’t going to drive themselves.” Paris had decided she would take the first 4-hour shift, and neither Jess nor Rory was going to complain when Paris insisted they leave at 5 am to ensure they arrived in Savannah at a reasonable hour. It seemed like she would get to listen to NPR after all.
When Rory piled into the backseat with Jess, Paris glared at her as though to call her a traitor, and then raised her eyebrow to remind them both of the rules they had agreed upon in advance. No PDA in the car. It was strictly forbidden. Especially while she was driving. That Rory chose to sit in the backseat with a sleepy Jess instead of keep Paris company in the front broke the rules of road trips, but they all knew Paris would be just as happy listening to a political podcast as trying to chat with a half-asleep Rory.
It was enough to simply sit next to him, the droning of the political commentator’s voice lulling them both back to sleep as the sun began to rise on them.
When Rory woke up, it was because Paris slammed the front door closed as she got out to pump gas into Rory’s little sedan. Paris had collected gas money in advance from everyone based on the current regional gas prices, and accounted for some additional usage during heavy traffic areas and city driving.
“Where are we?” Rory asked, shifting against Jess as she jolted awake.
“Philadelphia,” Paris answered. “Go back to sleep. I’ll drive another hour or so. I really want to finish listening to this.”
Rory nodded and tucked her head back into Jess’s chest, savoring the rest for a little while longer. For all that Jess had once fallen asleep to loud rock music, the dulcet tones of All Things Considered commentators seemed to work just as well. Or maybe it was the warmth of Rory against him.
~
Jess’s turn at the wheel came quickly enough, and Paris insisted Rory sit up front with him because she wanted to get some reading done in the back. Rory had never been able to read in the car—bus, sure; train, absolutely; plane, of course—there was something about car rides, though, that made her sick if she tried to read. Rory wasn’t going to complain, if Paris had work to do.
Wait, was she a bad Yale student because she didn’t bring work to do on Spring Break?
Rory let the insecurity pass over her and just enjoyed being in the front seat with Jess. They played a game with each other, trying to guess the song from just the first few seconds, and were unsurprisingly well-matched.
“Is this Interpol?” Rory asked as the next song came on.
“Good guess,” Jess said, “But no.”
The next song, it was Jess who was wrong. “Belle and Sebastian?” he ventured after the first few bars, and Rory laughed and squeezed his hand, shaking her head.
It was nice to be in the car with him like this, and she hoped that enough car trips might one day erase the memory of that crash people couldn’t seem to let Jess off the hook for.
They stopped again in Baltimore, for gas, and grabbed some breakfast near F. Scott Fitzgerald’s house, which wasn’t open to the public. Rory had them get out and take a picture in front of it regardless.
“I hate getting my picture taken,” Jess grumbled as they got back into the car to continue their drive.
“Well, you’ll just have to deal with it. I want to have pictures to remember this trip. Besides, if you and Paris end up killing each other by the end of this week, the police will want these pictures for evidence,” she told him, smiling.
“Did you check in with your mom?” he asked her while they stopped to fill up on gas again. Paris had demanded they refill when they hit the ¼ tank mark, though Jess’s particular approach to driving on empty was more one of chance than planning ahead.
“Yeah, I texted her after breakfast,” Rory answered as he got back in the car, passing the receipt back to Paris.
“I still can’t believe how cool she was about us going on a trip together,” Jess said, running a hand through his dark hair.
“With Paris as our chaperone, how could anyone resist?” Rory joked. “Besides, I do actually think she likes you now. At least, she hasn’t disparaged you in front of me recently.”
“Liking me and being okay with you and I staying together in a hotel room a thousand miles away are not the same thing, Ror.”
They both knew what he was referring to. There was this unspoken knowledge that both of them expected they would finally have sex on this trip. Hell, even Paris expected it. If it felt right, and was a good time, there would be no reason not to. Paris had booked her own hotel room, and Rory and Jess had been doing a lot of overnights lately, with things in the bedroom escalating to the point where it would probably happen soon.
“It’s going to be fine,” Rory said, hoping she was right about that. She didn’t know how her mom would react, but they had already had the talk, and Lorelai knew it might be coming soon.
“I’m aiming for a little better than fine,” Jess joked salaciously, offering her a sideways smirk as they pulled back onto the highway.
“Hey! None of that,” Paris called from the back seat. “Dirty talk counts as PDA. You know the rules.”
Rory clucked her tongue at Jess and shrugged as if to apologize. Rolling his eyes, Jess looked back at Paris in the rearview mirror, already absorbed in her book again, and then put his eyes back on the road.
~
As they approached Richmond, VA, Jess started to get antsy. He didn’t mind the driving or the being with Rory, but once Paris had finished her book, she had started a conversation that he couldn’t really hold and drive safely at the same time. Her probing questions were quickly becoming an annoyance, and their remaining seven hours of being in a car together suddenly seemed like torture.
When Jess pulled into the Edgar Allan Poe museum in Richmond, Rory couldn’t fault him for wanting to get out of the car for a bit. They paid the admission fee, which was discounted thanks to the AAA membership Lorelai had required Rory maintain as soon as she started driving.
“This wasn’t on the schedule,” Paris protested once again.
“So we’ll get into Savannah at 9 instead of 7,” Jess argued, “It’s worth it to be able to stretch our legs a bit.” What he didn’t say was that he couldn’t spend another moment in the car with Paris before giving himself a break.
The museum was worth the $7 for history and literary value alone, but Jess’s favorite part was when Paris excused herself to argue with one of the tour guides who had inaccurately recalled some of Poe’s biography, leaving Rory and Jess to make out for a few stolen minutes in a quiet corner.
It reminded Rory of their many stolen moments around Stars Hollow, from their first kiss at Sookie’s wedding, to their first real kiss at the gas station, to their quick peck through Lane’s window. Their relationship was full of secret, stolen moments, but the idea now was that they shouldn’t need to hide. And in Savannah, with no Dean, no Lorelai or Emily, no Taylor or other meddling townfolk, they could really truly enjoy being together without the gaze of onlookers judging them. Well, except for Paris.
But in a hotel room all their own, they could have all the moments together they wanted.
~
With their tolerance for each other refreshed, the rest of the road trip went uneventfully. Rory’s turn at the wheel had resulted in Paris being in the front seat, insisting that Jess and Rory had already had their turns together both up front and in the back seat. Now was Paris’s turn to chat with Rory.
Jess almost didn’t mind, as it meant he could get some peace and quiet in the back. He pulled out a notebook that had taken the place of a paperback in his pants pocket, and was scribbling furiously despite the sometimes-bumpy ride.
Paris and Rory played road games, with Paris’s highly competitive streak and Rory’s attentiveness to her driving leading to a clear victory for Paris.
Rory took the rest of the drive herself, insisting that Paris had taken a longer shift that morning and that she wanted to just get it over with. When they pulled into Savannah, Paris helped her navigate to their hotel in the Historic District. While it would have been slightly cheaper to stay at a chain hotel, they all agreed that The Marshall House suited their tastes much more. Not only was the hotel itself historic, but it didn’t have that hotel-y feel that staying at a Mariott or Hyatt would.
The check-in process was a bit surreal, as this was the first time she was “going away” with a boyfriend. When she and her mother had travelled, Lorelai had always handled the hotel arrangements. Although Paris seemed to know what she was doing, it was still all very new to Rory. Jess had couch-surfed plenty, but had stayed at very few actual establishments like this.
“Alright, you two,” Paris said as they exited the elevator on the third floor, where their rooms were a few rooms apart, diagonally situated across the hallway from each other. “We’re starting late tomorrow because of the long day today, but that’s no excuse for tardiness. I want you both dressed and down for breakfast by 9 am sharp. Here’s the itinerary for tomorrow,” she added, pulling a sheet of paper for them from a manila folder labeled SAVANNAH – 2004 containing all their travel documents.
Jess glanced sidelong at Rory as if to say “9 am is a late start?” but simply shook his head at Paris, certain that the night of sleep would reset his Paris tolerance meter.
“’Night, Paris,” Rory said, now getting a little nervous for what lay ahead.
Jess tilted his head in a goodnight gesture to Paris, turned to their room, and unlocked it with their magnetic key. Before Paris could say anything else, both Jess and Rory escaped into the quiet of their very own private hotel room, a queen bed and not much else greeting them.