miss americana | gilmore girls

045

"How red did his face get? Was there steam coming out of his ears like a looney toons episode?" Harley puzzled as she sat on Jess's mattress beside him.

"It was pretty looney." Jess offered with a shrug as he recounted Dean's freak out over finding Rory and Jess having dinner when she was supposed to be doing laundry on her lonesome.

"God, I wish I would have been there to bask in the painfulness that is a Rory-Dean quarrel." Harley pursed her lips. "Too bad you were busy hooking up with your boyfriend."

"Stupid teenage hormones, am I right?"

"A real nuisance." Jess agreed. "So, you two are good?"

"Yeah, we're good. Why wouldn't we be good?"

"Well, you were crying about breaking up with him out by the dumpsters." Jess reminded her. "That was forever ago and I never cried." She argued. "Crying. Whining. Is there really a difference?"

"Okay, maybe I was a bit emotional in retrospect, but that's only because I love Connor so much that being away from him was literally killing me. Oh! Hey, speaking of death I heard that your great uncle died. Think he'll leave you anything in the will?" Harley looked up from the seventeen magazine resting in her lap.

"Doubt it." He scoffed. "That blows. On the bright side I've got this really cute black dress I can put to use if we get invited to the funeral. Oh and a veil! I've always wanted to wear a veiled funeral hat."

"You're sick and twisted."

"And you love me more for it. Do you have a suit? I doubt Luke has a spare funeral suit. Maybe I can loan you something out of Connor's closet. He's much taller but,"

"He's not that much taller. And I'm not borrowing a funeral suit from anyone." Jess interrupted, an unimpressed look on his face."You can't wear a band tee to a funeral." Harley's eyes rolled. "Really? Watch me." Jess retorted.

"Jess."

"Don't Jess me. You're not allowed to do that." He scolded the blonde. "Fine, but could we at least compromise on a nice black sweater instead?"

"We'll see." He shrugged, picking up a book from his nightstand. "Jess, open up! I know you're in there." Rory banged on the door until Jess got up and opened it. "My, aren't we bright eyed and bushy tailed."

"Luke needs you downstairs." Rory spared Harley a curious look out of the corner of her eye. "Why?" Jess questioned.

"Because he's on the phone with someone and Caesar's off today and the place is packed and he needs help." Rory tried."

"We'll be down in a minute." Harley reassured her sister, tossing her magazine to the side. "No, now."

"I'm in the middle of something." Jess held his book up for Rory to see. "Just assume that Jeannie's gonna get Major Healey out of whatever scrape he's in."

"Gee, thanks for spoiling it for me." His eyes rolled before he pulled Harley up, the two following Rory out of the apartment and down the stairs that led to the diner.

Harley let out a whistle as she took in the chaos in front of her. Luke was scowling harder than she'd ever seen before as he held the phone to his ear, Lorelai was trying to play waitress, and Taylor was freaking out over the produce stand across the street.