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“Oh please.”
It’s her driest, most exasperated voice, the one that always signals that she’s got his number. That she knows him, like really really knows him. (He gets a little thrill every time he hears it, even now. She knows him.)
“Oh please what?” he asks, though he has a feeling he knows where this is going.
“Oh please, as if I have ever believed that lie you’ve been telling me since high school.”
Yeah, he did know where it was going, but he’s sure as shit not going to confess now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.
He gets up from his chair and picks up both of their empty plates from the table, loads them against one arm with muscle memory left over from his time waiting tables at Luke’s. He grabs the salad bowl with his free hand. The trick to evading a Gilmore is to set yourself in motion and keep yourself in motion. He carries the dishes into the kitchen.
She follows him.
“Come on, Jess,” she says. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Who said you were an idiot?”
He’s at the sink, with his back to her, but he can feel her eyes roll behind him.
“You imply it every time this subject comes up.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot.”
He gives each plate a quick rinse and loads them into the dishwasher. God, he loves this dishwasher. He’d never admit it out loud, but nothing makes him feel more settled, more established, than having an actual functioning dishwasher in New York City.
What’s left of the salad is just limp lettuce, saturated with dressing. He scrapes it into the trash can. ($100 they paid for this trash can! He loves it, too. What a fucking adult thing to have, a $100 trash can.)
“Jess,” she says. He brushes past her, heads back to the table for the leftover spaghetti bolognese, and the plate of garlic bread (well, the plate of garlic bread crumbs), and the parmesan. He passes her again, sets everything down on the counter. Pulls one of their reusable glass containers down from the cabinet (fucking bougie shit, those, but so much nicer than Luke’s collection of mismatched tupperware). “Jess.”
Honestly, he should just confess. It was thirteen years ago, the lie, and it’s not like it matters. Not really. But still…he’s held onto it this long, hasn’t he? And it’s embarrassing. Even now. The truth, well…
“Can’t you just let this go?” he asks.
“Can’t you?”
It had been such a nice dinner, too. Not especially nice. Just…just nice. Ordinary nice. Nice the way a lot of their dinners are—an hour spent together at the table, talking, laughing. By the time the subject shifted into dangerous waters she was leaned back in her chair, a glass of wine cradled between her hands, her feet up in his lap, in thick socks.
He’s not even sure how the conversation turned. They’d been talking about Thanksgiving, about whether they’d go to Philly or Stars Hollow this year, because Matthew and his new girlfriend were planning some big feast, and then she’d said something about her grandmother’s dinner and suddenly they were back on that damn black eye.
That fucking swan. Still ruining a nice night after all these years.
He scrapes the leftovers into a container. Sets the dish down. Turns to face her.
“I didn’t get it in a fight.”
Something in her face softens.
“I know that,” she says.
“Okay, so why does it matter?”
“Because.” She sighs a bit, takes a step closer to him. “Because I don’t like secrets. I don’t like knowing that there are things you won’t tell me.”
“Do you tell me everything?”
She stares at him for a moment, like she’s trying to see something in him. “I don’t think there’s anything I haven’t told you,” she says. “Not intentionally, anyway. Not anymore.”
He knows that’s probably true. She’s been big on open communication, honesty, ever since they got back together. They both have. It’s why it’s working this time.
He hangs his head. “What if it’s embarrassing? The truth.”
She reaches out and takes his hands in hers. “More embarrassing than the time I stole a boat and dropped out of college because one asshole told me I wouldn’t succeed?”
“That’s different.”
“What about the time I dressed up like Donna Reed and made a home cooked dinner for Dean?”
He tries not to laugh, he really does, but he fails. A single, low chuckle escapes.
She shakes his hands back and forth. “See? I told you that story, you can tell me this.”
He sighs, feels his shoulders slump. She’s right. Of course she’s right. Fuck.
“I got beaked,” he says. It comes out so quiet he’s not sure if she’s heard him at first.
Then: “Beaked?” she asks. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he pulls his hands free, reaches for a dish towel off the counter, something else to do with his hands. “It means I got attacked by the unhinged swan that used to hang out by Larson’s dock.”
“Oh.” She takes a step back. “Really?”
“Would I make that up?”
“I guess not.”
He’s not sure how he wanted her to react to this information (he didn’t want her to react, he didn’t want her to ever know), but he’s pretty sure this isn’t it, this doubt.
“You don’t believe me.”
“No, I…I’m just surprised, I guess. What were you doing?”
“I wasn’t doing anything!” She takes another step back, and shit, he didn’t mean to raise his voice. He tries really hard to keep that angry teenage boy buried deep inside. He almost always succeeds. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean…I’m sorry.”
“Jess.” She steps closer to him again, reaches up to cup his cheek in her hand. She runs her thumb under his eye, where the bruise bloomed all those years ago. Something loosens inside of him.
“I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me about that,” she says. “Then or now.” She reaches up her other hand, so she’s holding his face between them. “And I’m sorry I accused you of getting in a fight. Or of intentionally trying to ruin that dinner.”
He shrugs, like she has nothing to be sorry for.
“No, Jess,” she says. “I was wrong.”
She lets go of his face, takes one last step forward until she’s pressed into him, her nose buried in the crook of his neck, her arms tight around his waist. He’s not going to cry, he’s not, but he swallows hard as he folds himself around her.
“I should have just let it go,” she says, wet, into his sweater.
“No,” he says. “I should have told you ages ago.”
She gives him an extra squeeze, and then steps back. Looks up at him. She’s not crying, but her lashes are all stuck together.
“No more secrets,” he says, and he means it.
She nods. “Deal.”
They go to Matthew’s for Thanksgiving.