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It was gone nine p.m when a soft knock at the front door roused her from the trance she had been in since getting home from the inn. Sookie had pleaded with her to take the day off - after all, there had been the party last night, and then getting up at four a.m to help Rory get squared away, and then the emotional upheaval of depositing her one and only daughter at the Departures gate - but Lorelai had insisted on coming in, burying herself in work.
She hit pause on the remote, got up from the sofa and padded cautiously towards the door.
The silhouette was instantly recognisable. "Luke," she said, as she opened the door.
He stood a few paces back from the threshold, a large paper bag under his arm and a cautious expression on his face.
"Hey," he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Am I disturbing you?"
She shook her head mutely, and he ducked his chin in response. "Good, okay. Well, I brought you some leftover stuff from the diner," he said, gesturing to the bag. "But I can just leave it with you and head off, you know..." he jerked his thumb vaguely over his shoulder. "I know it's been a long day, and you're probably--"
"--Luke," she interrupted, the beginnings of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "Would you please come in?"
He followed her inside and set the bag on the end table beside the sofa.
"You really didn't have to do this," she said, shooting a sneaky glance at the mirror as she passed and grimacing for the briefest second as she caught sight of her bare face, her hair piled up haphazardly in a clip.
"Well, I was closing up and we had some leftover donuts, and I thought maybe you'd...And then there were a bunch of old fries right at the bottom of the basket, and I know that's how you like 'em and I just thought..."
His gaze was drifting around the room as he spoke and it occurred to her that this was the first time he had been inside her house since they broke up. She had done her best to remove all reminders of Christopher's brief occupancy, but she wondered if he could see any telltale little traces she'd missed.
"Luke," she said, and waited until his eyes settled on her. "This is so kind of you."
"Yeah, well," he inhaled, clapping his hands together. "I figured maybe you didn't eat. You didn't eat, right?" he glanced at her quickly. When she shook her head, he gave a satisfied nod. "Yeah, I figured," he said, starting to slowly pace the room, his eyes roaming around again.
"Do you want to stay?"
That stopped his meandering in its tracks. He looked at her carefully, his brow slightly furrowed. "Do you want me to?
She shrugged one shoulder, helplessly. "Well... yeah."
Without taking his eyes from her face, he peeled off his jacket and folded it neatly on the arm of the sofa, then removed each boot in turn and placed them down on the floor. He stood there in his socks and neither of them said anything for a moment. Then, he cleared his throat and jerked his chin towards the TV. "What are you watching?"
"Oh," she hesitated, having to look over her shoulder at the paused screen to remind herself what she had been staring at mindlessly for the past two hours. "My Mother The Car."
"Huh," he said, as he squinted at the screen. "You know, I actually remember that screwy show. They used to show it in reruns when I was a kid. My dad thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen."
She gasped. "No!"
"He had a weird sense of humour," Luke said by way of explanation as he lowered himself down on the sofa. "Boy, I haven't thought about this show in years."
"Well, me and Rory were halfway through, but she told me to go ahead and keep watching... apparently she can get it on her laptop, somehow? And then we're gonna talk about it on the phone." Her smile was bright but watery, a fact which wasn't lost on him.
"And she got off okay this morning?"
"Mm-hmm," she nodded, fighting to tamp down the fidgety tension that had been roiling inside her all day. "She called earlier from the hotel, but she sounded tired, so I told her we'll talk properly tomorrow."
"Well, that's good."
"Uh-huh," she agreed, not quite convincingly. "You want a beer?"
"Sure."
She came back from the kitchen a moment later with two opened bottles, and passed him one as she sat down beside him. Suddenly noticing the polite distance they had both scrupulously left between them on the sofa, she felt a hot, confused blush rising in her cheeks. She hastily hit the 'play' button, and pulled the paper bag onto her lap.
While she ate, he limited himself to nothing more than brief asides on the action transpiring on screen - "how does a car get amnesia, anyway?" - but once she had finished she felt the atmosphere shift. Although to the naked eye he was still just watching the TV, as the world's leading Luke behavioural expert Lorelai could sense he was preoccupied. She shot him a few sidelong glances, waiting.
He glanced down at the half-empty bottle cradled in his hands, and then across at her. "You didn't call earlier."
She turned sideways to face him on the couch, criss-crossing her legs under her. "I didn't know where to start... I mean, up until last night, I wasn't even sure you still thought of me that way. We'd have these... moments, but then other times it felt like you were over it."
"I freaked out," he said flatly, his elbows resting against his knees. She raised an eyebrow, but before she could open her mouth he went on. "I thought I'd been through this before, with Rachel. She was the first girl I was ever serious about, and it felt like the end of the world when she left. But after a while it started to get better and eventually I got over it. But then with you..." He shook his head. "Every day, I woke up and I still had this exact same feeling... just, empty, you know?" She nodded and he tapped his fist against his palm. "It wasn't getting better. And that scared the hell out of me. Knowing that you could do anything - anything - to me, and it wouldn't change how I felt."
She instinctively reached across the strange little gap they'd left between them and rested her hand on his.
"We've got so much to talk about..." she began, hesitantly.
"--Let's start tomorrow," he cut in.
"Oh, thank god!"
"For now," he placed his beer bottle on the floor and turned in towards her. "Can we start with something simpler?"
She could feel her heart hammering in her throat, but tried to keep her cool. "What did you have in mind?"
Her tone was playfully casual, but when he locked eyes with her she could see she wasn't fooling him. He leaned forward and brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek. A smile blossomed across his face when he saw her eyes close involuntarily at his touch, and he suddenly couldn't wait another second to kiss her. First, her lips, her face tilted up to meet his. Then her jaw, her neck, her hair, her collarbone. Her mouth was hot and entreating against his skin, her hands creeping under his shirt, warm against his stomach. She tugged against his belt, pulling him closer, silently urging him on.
When his fingertips slipped under her bra and brushed the soft skin of her breast, the sharp sigh that escaped her lips seemed to act as a wake-up call, and he suddenly pulled away. She looked at him expectantly, her lips flushed and glistening.
"I don't think it's a good idea for me to stay here much longer," he said, with visible effort.
She frowned, her eyes heavy, hazy. "I think it's a great idea," she murmured.
"Me too," he whispered back in bittersweet frustration. "And that's why I think I should go."
She bit her lip for a moment and then nodded almost imperceptibly as she relaxed the fingers that had been tightly gripping his waistband.
As they gazed at one another, the pent-up tension melted slowly into tenderness. She rested her hands against the sides of his neck, and let her fingertips gently tease the ends of his hair, the way she used to.
"What?" she said, feeling a little shiver run over him.
He glanced off to the side, bashful. "Nothing."
"What?"
"It's just, I don't know..." he cleared his throat. "There's just these little things you do, that no-one else does." As he spoke, he curled his fingers around her wrists and pulled them out in front of him, placing a gentle kiss on each pulse point.
"Is it that tongue thing?" she mused. "Because, I'm telling you, all that takes is patience and a whole lot of cherry stalks..."
"And on that note..." he smiled, getting slowly to his feet and stepping into his boots. "Are you gonna come by the diner tomorrow?" he asked as he pulled on his jacket.
"You bet. Now that Rory's gone, I need to be eating for two."
"Not sure that's how it works," he muttered, bending down for a quick kiss. "See you tomorrow."
When he got to the doorway, he paused and turned back. "By the way..."
She raised her eyebrows curiously, watching the slight blush on his cheeks.
"You'll have to remind me, you know... about the cherry stalks thing," he said, half-bold, half-shy, and then quickly ducked out the door.
Beaming, she raised up onto her knees to lean over the back of the sofa. "Practice makes perfect, my friend!" she called after his retreating back.
As the door clicked closed behind him, she turned back towards the TV and flopped down heavily, hugging her arms to her chest, unable to keep the grin off her face. "Tomorrow... is another day," she murmured, in her best Scarlett O'Hara.