A Father's Love

Chapter 12

 Luke made a run to the store between rushes the very next day. The amount of Lego sets the toy store had was astounding. There were so many aside from the original Lego set. Star Wars, pirates, airport, castles, and lots of others. Scanning both sides of the aisle, Luke looked for the basic bucket set. He found them on the bottom shelf and grabbed a red bucket. Once he paid for it, Luke headed back to the diner where Lorelai was there, waiting.

"Hey. Been here long?" he asked.

"No, I just got here a few seconds ago."

Luke set the bucket of Legos on the counter and grabbed the coffeepot, along with a mug, pouring her some. "Does it make me a terrible parent if I hadn't noticed the lack of toys my kid has?"

"Oh yeah," she replied, in a sarcastic, snappy tone, "let's lock you up and take away your kid."

"Jeez, what's wrong with you?"

"I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Why not?" he asked, sincerely.

Lorelai stared at the counter, depressed. "Rory and I had a fight, and she ran away."

"What?" Luke just about had a heart attack, as if she had just told him Shelby had run away or something. "Where?"

She held up a hand, not lifting her gaze, "She's fine. She's at my mother's."

"Aw, jeez... Throw that information in with the first part. You'll scare a person to death."

Lorelai apologized. Finally, she looked up again to continue. "You know, I got in my car three times to go get her. I drove halfway there and drove back. Drove halfway there and drove back. I actually ran out of gas driving halfway there and back."

"She'll cool off and come home."

"I know," she sighed. "Breaking up with Dean has been so hard on her. I know I said you can't protect your kid, but I just hate that she's going through this. I mean, she's such a good kid. She's so nice to everyone. She cares about everyone, and she's walking around in this unbelievable pain. There's nothing I can do about it. She still won't talk to me." Lorelai shrugged, "She won't tell me what happened."

"I'll tell you what happened, that Dean kid is a jerk and he finally let her know it."

"Wish I could just pinch his head right off." She snapped her fingers in emphasis.

"I'll help."

"I warned him. I warned him when I first met him. If he hurt her..." Lorelai let out an irritated sigh. "Maybe I could key his car."

"Or, better yet, you can key Taylor's car and tell him Dean did it."

"Yeah," she agreed, "that'll be good."

Luke added to it. "You can key Taylor's car, tell him Dean did it, and also tell him that Dean littered, and walks his dog without a leash."

"He'll run him out of town."

"Good."

Things were silent for a few seconds before Lorelai said, "Alright. Well, I should go. Rory's probably out of school by now and I wanna be home in case she decides to call."

"Coffee's on the house."

Lorelai stood up off the stool as she said, "Oh, thanks." As she turned to leave, she asked, "hey, is that the belt I bought you?"

Luke bent over to look. "Oh, yeah, yeah. The old one broke," he pointed behind him.

"Huh. Lucky, you happened to have a spare."