A Father's Love

Chapter 70

Once they finished all they could, Luke and Shelby packed up to leave, letting Lorelai know they finished for the day. On the way out, though, Shelby stopped to ask Lorelai an out of the blue question if she knew if she was born early or on time. When Lorelai stated she was pretty sure she was right on time, to her knowledge, anyway, they heard the kid go, "Darn i'," under her breath. But when Lorelai tried to ask why she wanted to know, Shelby just said, "No reason," and dashed out to her dad's truck.

Luke tried to ask about the random question on the way home, but Shelby refused to tell him, not wanting anybody to know what it was she was up to until Friday night. That was enough for him to understand it had something to do with Lorelai's party Rory invited them to at Miss Patty's dance studio.

Since Jess had to work that night, Shelby got to be home alone again while Luke met up with Nicole to go see a movie. Luke reminded her of the emergency numbers on the fridge before kissing her good-bye. He really hated leaving the kid alone, but with Miss Patty and Taylor nearby and John downstairs, Shelby reassured she would be okay, really wanting the place to herself to work on a project she was working on. When Luke left, Shelby was sitting sideways on her bunk, with her back to the wall with his guitar on her lap and her headphones over her ears. She was still in the same position, three hours later when he returned.

Catching some singing, Luke noticed she kept repeating the beginning of Reba McEntire's song, I'm a Survivor, along with similar phrases like she was trying to rewrite the song, groaning in frustration quite a few times, and using the pronoun she instead of I. After a while, Shelby just moved on to the chorus and practiced that part once more.

Hating having to disturb the kid's song-rewriting, Luke had to go over and playfully smack her foot to get her attention, letting Shelby know he was home.

She opened her eyes, surprised to see her dad home. "You're back already?"

"It's been three hours, kiddo," he pointed out, nodding over at the alarm clock on top of Jess' stereo.

Setting the guitar on the bed beside her, Shelby got up onto her knees to lean on the railing, seeing the time for herself. "Wow, time wen' by fas'," she commented.

Luke smiled, leaning a hand on the railing. "What happens when you're busy. Time moves a lot quicker when you're doing something."

"Nuh always. I' doesn' when I'm in school."

He chuckled. "It also depends how much you enjoy what you're doing, too." At some point, though, Shelby must have taken a break long enough to change into her pajamas, so Luke let her return to her music.

"Since you heard wha' I'm doing, you can' tell Lor-lai. Okay, Dad?"

"I won't." Changing the subject, he asked, "hey, do you know if Jess made it home from work or not?"

Shelby shook her head. "If he did, he would have said something to me," she shrugged.

Nodding, Luke left her alone. Shelby returned her headphones over her ears and resumed where she left off, changing her radio back to the same song. It was nice to listen to as Luke sat in wait for Jess to get home. By the time he did, it was late and Shelby had fallen asleep by then with her headphones still on.

"You're home late," Luke commented.

"Traffic," Jess explained, heading right for his and Shelby's side of the apartment.

Luke stared at his hands as he muttered, "Great. Okay." He then quickly got to his feet. "So, you hungry?"

"I'm meeting Rory," the young man replied, setting his keys on the desk and removed his jacket.