Chapter Text
“Come on!! We’re gonna be late!”
“Rory calm down, we’re not gonna be late.”
“Yes we are if you keep eating so slowly!”
“Whatever. You just wanna go see your boyfriend before school.”
“At least I have one.”
You stick your tongue out at her and go back to eating your food. Rory huffs and sits back into her seat when your mom comes over with some more coffee (surprise surprise). She sits down next to you and hands you both a mug each.
“Here, now come on we don’t want to be late.”
You roll your eyes but finish the last bite of your omelette before grabbing your back off the back of the chair and standing up.
“Are we ready?”
Rory basically sprints out of the diner. “yes, yes, come on, let’s go!”
You wave goodbye to Luke which only gets you a grunt of acknowledgement in response and head out the door with your family. On your way to the bus, Dean shows up around the corner and immediately Rory’s glued to his hip. She’s been different ever since she got a boyfriend. It’s like he’s the only thing important to her and nothing else matters. It’s ridiculous. You roll your eyes as she and him go on about literally nothing and say goodbye to your mom at the bus stop. It’s your first day of sophomore year in Chilton and you just hope that this year you won’t get sucked into any more of Rory’s boy drama because that whole ‘I love you’ incident with Dean last year pissed you off. Last year Tristan kept following you around like a lovesick puppy and you were this close to punching him in the face every time he got near you. He kept calling Rory ‘Mary’ which is supposed to be some kind of biblical insult but it just makes him sound like an idiot. You give your money to the driver and take seat near the back, putting in your headphones and blasting whatever new music you’re into to at the moment.
You open your notebook and start to scribble down notes, quotes, symbols, or just dumb little drawings. Rory gives you a tap on the shoulder to tell you that you’re now in Hartford and you step off the bus, thanking the driver on your way out. You stuff the headphones into your pocket and prepare for the inevitable ‘accidental run ins’ Tristan is totally not going to pre-plan every day. It takes him a full first two periods to find you, a new record.
“Hey! (Y/n), wait up!”
You roll your eyes, put your headphones back in and pick up your pace a little. Unfortunately, he catches up to you before you can get inside your history lesson.
“Hey, did you not hear me?”
“I heard you fine. I just really don’t enjoy talking to you. Like, at all.”
“Wow, that hurts. And here I thought you couldn’t live without me.”
He smiles that dumb smile at you and you just push past him into the classroom. After a heated debate about Christopher Columbus’s actual effect on the Native American population, and another very awkward English lesson with your moms ex boyfriend, you leave the classroom and manage to avoid him for the rest of the day. You tell Rory that you need coffee desperately and that you two need to head over to Luke’s immediately or you’ll collapse into a pile of human exhaustion. Rory rolls her eyes and says something about how dramatic you are but agrees to come with you. You open the door to the diner and the bell over the door chimes a little. You notice your mom talking to Luke at the bar and you take a seat next to her.
“Hey sweetie, how was school?”
“Fine, Tristan still isn’t leaving me alone and I had Mr. Medina for fourth period today. But other than that it was relatively normal.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhmm.”
“So it wasn’t all bad?”
“Not really. History was interesting.”
“That’s good.”
You nod and order a coffee from Luke while Rory talks about how Paris is targeting her in the school paper. Lorali turns to you after Rory’s finished and puts a hand on your arm.
“Hey, you remember that phone call Luke had this morning with his sister?”
“Not really, why?”
“He has a nephew staying over for a while and I invited them over tonight. Sookie and Jackson are gonna cook.”
“Oh, nice.”
“You couldn’t care less could you?”
“Not really, no.”
She laughs before turning to Rory and relaying the information to her, Rory seems pretty excited at least. That night, your house is filled with all kinds of noise and chatter from Sookie and your family in the kitchen. You’re upstairs, just catching up with some physics homework with your music blasting when they arrive. You don’t hear your mom or Rory calling to you so they send up Luke’s nephew to come get you downstairs. You don’t notice him standing in the doorway at first but he clears his throat to make you look up.
“Hey.”
He smiles at you and you give him an awkward smile back.
“Hi. You’re Jess right?”
“Mhmm.”
“I’m (y/n).”
He smiles again and walks into your room. He turns the chair next to you around and sits down, resting his arms on the back of it.
“I guess we’re pretty good with numbers?”
“Yeah, it’s not as boring when it makes sense.”
“That one way to look at it. You and Rory are twins?”
“Mhmm. Do you have any siblings?”
“Not that I know of, though you never know.”
“I get that.”
He picks up an open formula book from in front of you and scans the pages. “This is pretty advanced stuff.”
“I know my material.”
He smiles a little to himself and keeps flipping through the pages.
“You want a soda?”
“Sure.”
You smile and lead him back downstairs, opening the fridge and handing him a coke before getting yourself one too. Lorelai walks in and tells you that the conversation has moved to the sitting room. You and him sit on the couch together. He seems nice, thought he doesn’t really talk a lot. You talk about your day and swap stories with the others of when you were younger. He seems to smile on the occasion but not a lot. About 20 minutes after dinner, you notice he’s gone missing. You excuse yourself from the table and head out the back door. Jess is standing on the back porch, looking at the moon, with a beer in his hand, you stand next to him and look at the moon with him. He offers the glass your way.
“No thanks, I’m good.”
“Oh well, more for me.”
He takes another swig of beer and turns to you again. “You got a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No. Why?”
He shrugs. “Just curious I guess.”
“What about you? No significant other?”
He laughs a little at that. “Nope.”
You nod. “Okay. Why’d your mom send you here?”
“She thought I was getting into too much trouble.”
“The whole ‘fresh prince of bel air’ saga huh?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Come on, let’s go back inside.”
“Why?”
“Why stay out here?”
“Because everyone in there’s just too much.”
“Okay, I can understand that. But they’re just excited to meet you.”
“What if I’m not excited to meet them?”
You sigh.
“Look, Luke is trying his best and he’s really not good with the whole ‘parenting’ thing, but he wants to make you feel the most at home and from what he’s been saying he wants to do right by you. I know none of this seems like your cup of tea but could you try? For Luke?”
He takes a second but he shakes his head. “I don’t even know you, why should I listen to you?”
“Why not? What harm does it do to take my advice?”
“Yeah, I’ll stick to doing it my own way thanks.”
“Okay. I’m going back inside now. You gonna join me or sneak off somewhere?”
“I’ll be back later.”
You sigh and head back inside, sitting down at the table and joining back in the conversation. The next morning, you’re grabbing breakfast at Luke’s when you overhear a very loud and frustrated conversation between Luke and Taylor on the phone.
“What do you want now Taylor? How do you know it was him? Well it can’t get any clearer than that. yes! I am being sarcastic. Whatever, I’ll go talk to him and if he says he didn’t do it, then he didn’t do it. Bye.”
You finish your bagel a little faster than usual and head outside towards Doose’s market where there’s a large crowd gathering. You stand next to Rory and Lane, asking them what happened and they point to a chalk outline of a man in the floor with some crime scene tape around it. It’s obviously some kind of Halloween decoration tape but it was enough to piss Taylor off.
“Ohhh, that’s what Luke was talking about.”
“What? What was Luke talking about?”
“He was on the phone with Taylor and he was blaming Jess for something and Luke was defending him, it was very dramatic.”
“Who’s Jess?”
You give Rory a look. “You didn’t tell her?”
“I forgot his name.”
“Jess is Luke’s nephew.”
“Ohhhh, okay.”
“I’m gonna head, I wanna get to school early so I might miss Tristan.”
“Who’s Tristan?”
You turn around to see Jess standing behind you.
“Oh, hi.”
“Hey.”
“Tristan is just some dick from school. He’s a moron who won’t leave me alone.”
“Wow, sounds like the whole package.”
You scoff. “He’s an idiot.”
“Oh come on, not everyone can be as academically gifted as you miss high and mighty.”
You roll your eyes and he nudges you with his elbow. “Come on, I’ll walk you to school.”
“Oh I don’t go to school here, I go to Chilton in Hartford. I’m going to the bus.”
“Well then, I’ll walk you to the bus.”
“Okay, where’d you end up heading off to last night?”
He glances back at the mock crime scene. “Nowhere in particular.”