Work Text:
"Hey, Jess!" Lorelai says trying to get the boy's attention. Because of her daughter, Lorelai was having to be nice to the town's new hooligan. Great. It was a known fact she didn't like him that much, especially thanks to the first great impression he gave her. Jess, the guy that said that she was "getting some" from Luke and that's the only reason she was saying nice things about him. Jess, the guy that got into fights with people at school. Jess, a great Sylvester Stallone, Holden Caulfield wannabe. Jess, the smart mouth, reckless, thief and bad influence. Jess, Rory's friend. That's where the issue lies.
"Sorry, too loud?" Jess says from the top of her house, while cleaning the gutters.
"No, it's fine. I got a ton of leftover Chinese food in the kitchen, thought you may like some lunch." Offering food might be a good way to try to make peace, at least for Lorelai. That's what she'd do if she found a strange, rough, angry cat at her backyard and tried to approach him. Did she just compare Jess to an angry cat? Oh well, the resemblance was there.
"No, thanks." Jess responds. Well, she tried.
"Chinese sounds great." Jess says all of a sudden.
"Really?"
"If you're sure you have enough."
"There's plenty. Rory and I ordered the entire chicken column last night. Well, come in when you're ready."
Lorelai makes her way back to the house. Honestly, she didn't expect him to accept the offer. She thought he'd just say some monosyllabic crap and then she'd be gone, but for some reason he had other plans.
"So, when was the last time you had those gutters cleaned?" he asks
"It's been awhile."
"Yeah, I found an 'I like Ike' bumper stick up there."
"Is it that bad?"
"Won't be by tomorrow." he makes his way to the table after washing his hand.
In the short amount of one minute, Lorelai has listened to Jess speak more than the entire time she's known him. Sure, it wasn't that long since they met, but the boy never speaks, at least with her, anyhow. He was understanding all her references and was able to keep up with her quick mind. What?
"Are you on any teams or anything?" she asks
"No, no, no."
"Not a Jersey guy?"
"Definitely not a jersey guy. Though the thought of throwing a ball at some jock's head isn't entirely unappealing." he makes shy eye contact with her and then immediately drops it to his lap.
"Look, I'm not really good at the whole small talk thing." Jess says looking everywhere, but at her. He looked so nervous, and Lorelai couldn't understand why. This was the guy that walked around with his 'I don't care' attitude, looking down at every adult, but now, he just seemed like a anxious teenager.
"You're doing ok. Cold egg roll?" Lorelai says
"Why not?" he picks on and gives it a bite, and his nose got wrinkled with disgust.
"Bad?" she asks
"Oh yeah." he gives her a little smile. What was it with this boy? This wasn't the person she had met. He was annoying and irresponsible, this guy was just an anxious teen 'til now.
The microwave bips and Lorelai grabs their food. Jess starts eating the moment the plate is in front of him. They eat in silence, but Lorelai's mind has been trying to find a topic that would make him talk more. She didn't know much about him, beyond what Rory told her. Rory, that's it!
"So, Rory told me you guys went book shopping after the 'Bid a Basket Festival'. Did you find something good? 'Cause Rory came home filled with more books."
"Uh... yeah, I did. Not as many as Rory, though." he says smirking a bit.
"Yeah, she reads a lot."
"I think the myriad of books she has, her almost twenty hour long analysis of Ayn Rand and knowledge of fifteen synonyms for the word passion might be your great argument." he says smiling even wider now. The way his face lightens at the mention of Rory is enough to get Lorelai worried. This kid has been getting himself real close to Rory in the past days. Since his arrival, Rory and Dean had started to spend less time together and their connection is not the same. She knows that Rory thinks she doesn't see it, but Lorelai has a lot of experience on that department. The way Rory is no longer excited to talk to Dean, how she seems to want to go to the diner more often and how she'd rather talk about books with Jess than spend time with her boyfriend.
Lorelai licks her lips and decides to take the conversation to a more delicate point: "Hey, I know this might be a weird question, but why don't you talk as much when you're around other people?" Jess smile disappears in a second, he starts fidgeting with his fork.
"I should go back to work." he stands up and puts his plate inside the sink.
"It's just, I've never seen you say more than three words, at least not with me." she also stands up and maintains eye contact with him.
"And why is that?" he says it sarcastically.
"Hey, don't say it like I've been on my worst behavior with you. I've done nothing to you. Actually, if we really think about it, it wasn't me that was extremely rude the first time we met." she says crossing her arms. Was she pushing him? Yes. Was she breaking the promess she made to her daughter? Yes. Did she care about that now? Not really. This guy was becoming a consistent thing on Rory's life and if he was going to be around, she wanted to be sure he wouldn't create trouble for her kid.
Jess looks at her like he's about to give her another rude response, but stops before he says something, as if there's something pulling him back from giving her the best of his sarcasm. He looks down and after a beat, says: "Sorry."
Lorelai's eyes almost jump out of her head. What did he say? She couldn't believe she just heard that word come out of his mouth.
"Pardon?"
Jess bites his lip and looks up a little bit, but not enough to look her in the eyes. "I'm sorry... what I said to you was... not nice." She had heard right, he had apologized.
Lorelai scoffs, uncrossing her arms: "Yeah, nice wouldn't be the word to describe it. Only if I was describing your audition to 'breakfast club'."
A moment passes and they both stay in the kitchen in silence. Until, the front door opens and Rory enters holding a bunch of books in her arms.
"Mom, I know I promissed I'd really think it through while buying another book and that I would go through the entire selection process and I promise I did. I thought how it would affect the environment, if Kant would consider my actions moral and good for society and if the goverment would think I'm a potential threat because of my enormous brain and writing abilities, but I couldn't not buy these books." Rory steps into the kitchen and finds a weird vibe to the place. Just Jess and Lorelai standing near and awkwardly. "Oh, hey Jess. What are you two doing?"
Jess scratches his head and blinks stupidly. Lorelai takes the lead and says: "We were just having lunch."
Rory widens her eyes. "Just the two of you?"
"Yes." says Lorelai
"Willingly?"
"No, there's an assassin in the closet. He threaten us and our only way to be alive was to do this, a morbid humor, he has."
Jess clears his throat and says: "Well, I should go back to work." He leaves quickly through the back door.
Rory puts her books on the table, looking at her mother with curiousity. "What happened here?"
"Lunch. Meals. Kitchen things." Lorelai picks the paper bags, throwing them at the trash.
"So, you guys just go from hating each other and barely talking to having brunch every sunday?"
"Gosh, Rory, no. I'm too young for that. Jess might like it, maybe bring some english biscuits and tea."
"Why would Jess like that?"
"He looks like he drinks tea in those fine, pink, porcelain cups and eats biscuits out of those crystal jars."
"In your hundred fake scenarios of Jess, do you always imagine him as an english old lady with five cats?"
"He does look like a cat person, doesn't he?" Lorelai says excited that she isn't the only one that sees it.
Rory rolls her eyes: "Mom, why did you have lunch with him?"
"You told me to try to like him, the only way I could think of us bonding was having lunch or making fun of Luke's fashion choices."
"So you did this for me, because I wanted you two to get along?" Rory asks, taking her hair out of her ponytail.
"Yeah. You told me you like him..." before Lorelai could finish her sentence, Rory intervenes
"I don't like him, I mean, I do. In a friend way, but not a close friend way... just friends.. not like I'm with Lane, Lane isn't Jess, they're very different. Lane's asian, Jess is white."
"Gee, hun. If you didn't tell me that, how could I have known?" Lorelai says smirking.
Before Rory gets a chance to continues, Lorelai asks: "What do you like about him?"
Rory licks her lips and says: "He's intelligent, he loves books, he just has that quick mind, you know. I just never met a guy like him before and he's a good person if you get a chance too see it. He has so many interesting ideas and many things to say. I mean, I've read some of his margins from the books I borrowed from him, but hearing in person, is just so... refreshing." Rory blushes and continues: "I'm just saying that... him and I are in good terms and... we tolerate each other... not in a bad way, I mean he's good company... friendly company... just friends, friendish." she swallows hard. "Anyway, I'm leaving, good to know you two are ok with one another. Bye." she leaves through the back door.
Lorelai looks through the window and see them. Rory and Jess. The moment, the boy notices her daughter, his entire expression changes. He goes from a grumpy face to a soft one in less than a second. It was one of those scenes that would be described beautifully by Jane Austen and would have million of readers hoping to have the same. The young girl would look at him with the same look of curiousity and softness, it was something Lorelai has never seen her do with Dean. Oh, Dean.
This blooming situation growing between the two kids was a dangerous one for the relationship between Rory and Dean. Lorelai was sure that Rory didn't notice the way she, slowly, was starting to mention him less and less. Dean was a good kid and he was really in love with Rory, but it was becoming clear each day that they weren't for forever.
I just never met a guy like him before: if that wasn't her daughter's way of saying she was falling for the hooligan, the only more obvious way was if people could turn a different color when they looked at the person they liked, then Rory would become a rainbow when she looked at him.
When Jess is done with the job, Lorelai walks out to give him his money.
"Here you go." she says
"Thanks."
Before he turns away and Lorelai loses her confidence, she says: "You're forgiven."
The boy turns around and looks at her as if she had two heads. "What?"
"I said you're forgiven. Earlier, you apologized for your behavior, I forgive you."
His face relaxes and he puts his hand of his pocket: "Thanks."
Lorelai is about to make her way back, after an uncomfortable moment with a teenager, which sounds way too out of the law, then it's supposed to, when Jess speaks.
"I only talk to Rory." now, it was Lorelai's time to be confused and he continues: "You asked me before why I don't talk a lot. I'm not good at being social... and I think Rory's the only actual person in town that likes me, for whatever reason. I also think she's the only one in town with a brain and her bookshelf is the most impressive I've ever seen. So... that's why." he looks a bit uncomfortable and looking everywhere, but at the mother from the girl he basically admitted to have a crush on. "Well... thanks for the money."
Her theory was true, the Dean ship was about to sink, anytime soon. To say she wasn't worried would be a lie, she didn't want her daughter to become her, a mother at sixteen and even, if that was way too over the line, she still worried. Rory was her entire world, she wanted her to get better than she ever did. Lorelai knew they'd get together at some point. Even after Jess' sudden change of attitude with her, she was still scared of how their relationship could go. Of course, she would support Rory and be on her best behavior with the two of them, but Jess clearly wasn't the cautious, safe guy. Him, with his authoritarian attitude, his constant sarcasm and rebel attitude was a big threat to Lorelai. He reminded her so much of-- oh.
Oh.
Well, all she could do was hope for the best at this point.