𝓛𝓾𝓬𝓲𝓵𝓵𝓮 𝓲𝓷 𝓢𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓼 𝓗𝓸𝓵𝓵𝓸𝔀

45. Us

 "Hello!" Lorelai greeted as the three of us entered Luke's.

"'Morning!" Luke called back. "Sit wherever."

Lorelai nodded than turned to a guy sitting in the table closest to us. "Move, please!"

"Not there," Luke cut in.

"Fine," Lorelai drawled, then turned to the guy, "I was just joking anyway."

"Something's changed, something's different..." I said, looking around the diner as we sat down.

Rory scoffed. "Well, Lisa's behind the counter—if that's different."

"What?" I whipped my head to the counter and saw Lisa standing behind it. I got up and went over to her. "Whatcha doing?" I asked in a singsong voice.

"Doing my job," she replied in the same voice.

"Since when is this your job?"

"Since I realized I have no way to help pay all my bills," my friend sighed.

I smiled. "This is going to be so fun."

"Why do I feel like you should cackling that?" Lisa was hard at work making coffee and doing coffee stuff, so I just left her alone.

"She's working here now," I reported to Lorelai and Rory as I sat back down.

"Oh!" Lorelai exclaimed. "This is going to be so fun."

I rolled my eyes. Like mother like daughter, I guess.

"Hey!" Dean greeted, walking into the diner. "Thought that I'd find you here."

Rory seemed to shrink away in his presence and I was pretty sure it was because of this whole Jess situation.

"How did you know where we'd be?" My sister asked.

"Rory," Dean scoffed, "you guys are always here."

"Not always," Rory argued.

"Pretty much all the time."

A silence came over up until Lorelai offered Dean to sit down.

"Is that okay, Rory?" He asked. My sister nodded. Just nodded.

"So what even is this business fair?" I asked Rory as we walked through town, on our way to Doose's.

"Basically, we have to come up with a product, advertise it, and the best one wins," Rory explained.

"You know, that seems pretty fun for your fancy prep school."

Rory huffed. "How kind of you to say."

"Rory! Lucy!" Called Dean from behind us. I felt horrible for him. He was in love with Rory, always had been. And here she was, mooning over some other boy, who—not to objectify Jess—I had first. I didn't know why Rory couldn't just settle for Dean. She might never find someone this obsessed with her ever again.

"Hey, Dean!" I called back when Rory wouldn't reply.

"Hey, Lucy," he smiled. Then to Rory, "Hey, Rory." I couldn't stand to watch her be this awkward with him anymore, so I left to go to the market by myself.

I walked up in down the aisles, trying to peak at my sister and Dean over shelves.

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were spying on them," called a voice from behind me.

Jess came up next to me as I shot back, "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were stalking me."

"Touché," Jess sighed.