The Thrill of the Chase

thirty three

In a welcome but unexpected turn of events, not much changed for Rory after the announcements of her heirships. Sure she got hit on a little more often, and Emily had been declining a lot of dinner invites on her behalf, but her general day to day life didn't change. She managed to stay relatively secluded in her bubble with Robert. But the Holiday season was approaching which meant that their bubble was inevitably going to burst, whether they wanted it to or not. Emily and Francine had already approached Rory and told her that as she is now officially the heir her presence was required at both companies' Holiday events. Marissa was working, it seemed, in conjunction with them, and was using Rory's status to also try and force Robert's attendance at their family event as well. There had also been talk of a few galas as well but so far the couple were trying to block out those suggestions.

"Hey baby," Robert greeted her, as Rory let herself in and flopped onto the couch beside him, long having given up on the pretense of knocking on his dorm room door. His room mate was never home and Robert had stressed she didn't need to knock.

"Hug?" Rory asked, turning the doe eyes on him. At the sight of her pouting face, he didn't hesitate to pause his game and pull her into his arms.

"Emily or Francine?" he asked, as he kissed the top of her head, sniffing her lavender shampoo.

"Marissa."

"What did Mother dearest want?" he asked with a sigh., prompting Rory to smack his chest.

"Don't call your mother that! She wanted to coordinate color schemes for the Goldman Sachs Holiday party."

"I'm sorry, but did you just say color schemes?" Robert asked incredulously.

"Yep," Rory replied, forcing an extra pop on the p. "Apparently there will be a lot of photographs so she would like to make sure we are all in complimentary colors that won't clash." She laid her head against his chest with a sigh, as his hand came up to play with her hair automatically.

"I'm sorry, what can I do to help," he offered, kissing the top of her head again, before tilting her head to kiss her forehead.

"That, that right there, simply offering to help if you could, that's enough," she said, taking a deep breath against his chest. "I am apparently going shopping with your mother this Saturday in the city to get something suitable."

"How about I go with you, and we stay in the city and make a weekend of it? Would that help make up for my mother forcing you into shopping. I know you don't love that kind of shopping, especially with how busy the city will be coming up to the holidays."

"Really? You would do that for me?" Rory looked up at him shocked.

"Not just for you. I think it would be good for us, we haven't had a night away since Croatia, I think we have more than earned it." Robert said, kissing the tip of her nose.

"You're right, it does sound good."

"Or we could invite the others and have a wild night out on the town?"

"Or third option, I could try and get out of Friday night dinner, and we could do Friday night just us, then Saturday night as a group?" Rory asked, biting her lip as she thought of the possibilities.

"You think that would work?"

"Emily Gilmore refuse to free me so I could go society shopping in New York City with Marissa Goldman? She will be trying to invite herself along!"

"Would that be the worst thing that could happen?" Robert asked, forcing Rory to look at him in shock.

"Would that be the worst thing that could happen? Ugh hell yeah! That would be a whole other world of torture. Jesus, I thought you loved me."