Time After Time - A Gilmore Girls Fanfic #1

Chapter 2

Jess spun around as soon as she emerged from the bathroom, one hand on his chin, one on his waist. "Feel better?"

Rory stared at him, at the lines worrying his eyebrows and and bracketing his mouth. For a split second she considered laying it all out for him—the affair, the baby—simply to see how he'd react. But then, she couldn't bear the thought of that expression on his face morphing into something else. Maybe something like disappointment.

"Are you living here?" Rory asked, taking the coward's way out. "I saw a wet toothbrush at the sink."

He set both hands on his hips and took a deep breath. "Yeah. Luke lets me stay here when I'm in town." He motioned to her with his head. "You want some coffee?"

"No thanks. Maybe tea?"

His eyes sparked with surprise but he turned and headed to the kitchen, looking inside cabinets until he found a box of tea bags. He set the kettle on the stove and pulled out a chair, waiting until she sat down before pushing it back in.

"Thank you," she said in a small voice, her eyes following him as he moved around the kitchen, quietly admiring the way his black shirt hugged his wide back.

After several minutes, he set a steaming mug in front of her, a string hanging off its side. Then he took the seat across the table from her.

"Food poisoning or something?" he asked.

"Yeah. Must have been something I ate yesterday," she said, blowing into the mug. She sipped her tea and allowed her eyes to meander leisurely over the planes of his face. His jet black hair was longer now, curling a little behind his ears, and the lower half of his face was covered in day-old stubble. But the sharp look in his eyes was the same, that uncanny way he could look directly into her soul. She supposed it was what had always drawn her to him, his ability to reach right into her darkest fears and hold her true feelings to the light. "You have a lot more hair than I remember," she said.

He grinned that crooked grin of his that always made her heart stutter. "I had a full, bushy beard, if you can believe that," he said, rubbing the dark scruff covering his jaw.

"What happened to it?"

"Luke made me shave it off for the wedding," he said. "I don't blame him. Pretty sure I could have starred in one of those Alaska Axe Men shows."

She smiled, finding humor in the image of Jess in a plaid shirt and boots, chopping wood with a huge axe.

"What?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Something funny?"

She shook her head, still smiling. "Just imagining you as a lumberjack."

The corner of his mouth tipped up. He leaned back in the chair, linking his hands at his stomach. "So we didn't get much of a chance to catch up the other day. How have you been?"

Her happy little bubble burst and reality seeped back in. "Life is..." She paused, her eyes turned down. She traced a finger around the lip of the mug, catching her reflection in the dark liquid inside. "Tumultuous."

"That bad, huh?"

When she looked up, she found his dark gaze on her. "Yeah," she said on a whisper.

"Anything I can help with?"

She shook her head, fighting back the tears. God, to cry in front of Jess was the last thing she needed. "I'll be fine. I'll figure it out eventually."

He sat up, leaning forward. "What about that book you're writing? You were so excited about it yesterday."

A humorless laugh escaped her lips. Funny how things could change overnight. Yesterday she had a novel and a wide open future; but that was before she'd sealed her fate with a pregnancy test. "That was yesterday."