five.

I'm in Manhattan on business. Free for lunch?

This is the text message that Rory has been staring blankly at for the past eleven minutes. She remembers that they're supposed to be friends now, but she's unsure how to respond. On the one hand, it's ten am and she's still in her pajamas, but on the other hand, all she's had in her stomach so far today is coffee and she's starving. She should get dressed and go have lunch with him. Prove to him that she's a big girl and that one measly one night stand with her ex-flame isn't going to make her bitter. She should feel free, even. The prospect of the two of them picking up where they'd left off was taken off the table almost as soon as it was placed atop it. There'd been no pro/con lists necessary. A decision made easy.

But she's scared.

Scared he'll see the truth on her face — that it did affect her. She's been sleeping in later and later every day since she's been back home, and no matter how much coffee she downs, the memory of the comfort of her bed taunts her numerous times throughout the day, and then because of the copious amounts of coffee she stays up all night hating herself. She knows it's a mixture of the disappoinment she's recieving from the unpromising job department along with Jess's words repeating in her head like a mantra: "It was exactly what we needed. Some closure." that's making her feel sloppy and mopey and pajama-y. She should get dressed and go have lunch with him. If not for any other reason, then because she deserves it.

Another text. I'll be at Union Square Café on E 16th in about an hour if you'd like to join me.

Her stomach bubbles up like champagne. She finally replies.

Out and about. I might stop by if I have the time.

She presses send and makes a run for the shower. She's only got an hour to look perfect.

She stops on the curb outside of the restaurant. She sees him through the window and her stomach flips and she almost turns back around. But then she sees the plate of food before him and her stomach rumbles in protest and she opens the door and walks in.

"Hey, Gilmore," Jess says cheerily as he sees her. He stands in greeting and pulls her in for an awkward embrace that Rory would rather like to never have to relive again. She sits in the booth across from him.

"You know what you wanna eat? This place has the best chicken caesar wraps," he says as he gestures to his grilled chicken caesar wrap on a wheat tortilla.

Her stomach aches more and more at the sight of everything on the menu. And then she sees it, all dressed up and glorious in its greasy beauty. "I'm gonna have the cheesburger and onion rings."

He smirks. "You're really gonna kill yourself if you keep eating like that."

"Now you sound like Luke," she reprimands him, and she knows her mother would be proud of her for continuing their silent feud against the 'unfriendly vegan eco-freaks'.

The waitress comes to take her order, and Rory lifts her brows as the woman flirts hardcore with Jess. Does she have no class? she wonders. Does she not see that he's here with someone? Albiet, just a friend, but this is something she has no way of knowing. Jess smirks at the woman and her popping-out breasts as she brings refills and Rory sips on her Coke and pretends not to notice.

"So, Rory, how've you been?" he asks once the waitress trots off.

"I've been fine."

"Good. That's good."

She clears her throat, unsure of where to take this conversation. "Um, and you?"

"Oh, I've been great. Really, really great." He emphasizes the reallies in a way that makes her stomach churn. She wonders how many girls he's slept with since her, and if he'd like to sleep with their waitress, and she has to gulp down her Coke to keep herself from asking.

"I read your piece for Huffington Post."

This doesn't really come as a surprise to her. He's probably the only one who had. She decides this is safe to voice aloud. "Probably the only one," she says with a scoff.

"Now, come on," he disagrees. "Global warming: fact or hoax? And the right and left wing's views on it? That's something that's never been covered before."

She sees the familiar teasing spark in his eyes and it makes her angry. "Don't mock. The job market isn't exactly doing me any favors right now." She looks down at the table, ashamed. "I added a few new points in there."

"I know," Jess replies and downs the remainder of his first iced tea so he can move on to the fresh one. "I read it."

And suddenly she's angry. "What is going on, Jess?"

"What do you mean?" he asks as he takes the first bite of the second half of his wrap since she'd arrived.

"With us," she explains impatiently.

Chews slowly, swallows even slower, purposefully agitating, remembers exactly how to push her buttons. "We're friends."

"Okay, but why?"

Jess is silent for a few moments then, just looking at her. Her face is red hot beneath his gaze, but she is sure that if she looks away from him that the seriousness of her question will be diminished.

"Would you rather us not be friends?" he asks finally.

"I don't know," she realizes. "We had one admittedly really great night. And if it was good closure for you, then that's great. But participating in a half-assed version of friendship isn't doing anything for me except making me wish I'd never slept with you that night so I wouldn't have to be here right now pretending this is all normal!"

Rory takes a deep breath and drinks more Coke and Jess raises his brows.

"Huh."

"Sorry that was a little harsh, but you drove me to it," she says and rests her head in her hands. "Maybe I'm the one who needs some closure now."

"Trust me," he scoffs, "It's not all it's cracked up to be."

A squeeze of her gut begs her to ask him why not, but she doesn't. "So where do we go from here?"

"From the looks of it," he says with a brush back of his hair, "we have two options. We can continue on with this half-assed version of friendship, or we can say all's well that ends well and be on our merry ways."

Rory sighs. "I don't like either of those options," she says truthfully, although she doesn't mention that her way hasn't been too merry lately.

"Neither do I."

The waitress returns with her food, and this time Rory doesn't pay much attention to the woman's obvious advances towards Jess because BURGER. She finishes about half of it within the first three bites, and she looks up and he is smirking at her in the same amused way that he always used to when she ate in front of him. She eats and doesn't say anything and he watches and doesn't say anything and it's really not as bad as she'd made it out to be. They always did fare well in the silence.

She swallows her last bite, not a crumb left on her plate. "Did you come up with a third option?" she asks, desperation tinting her tone.

"You could show me where you live."

She looks up at him slowly, and he is not smirking, and her heart stops working and her brain scolds it for being lax. "Don't you have to get back to work?"

"I took off today," he answers, and while his features remain expressionless, she sees another familiar spark in his eye. But it's not teasing this time. It's darker. Scarier. Lustier.

He hadn't been here on business. He'd come all this way for the slight chance that she'd join him.

"Okay."

She twists the key in the lock and he follows her into her apartment's scarcely used kitchen.

"So. This is it."

He lets out a signature "Huh," and slides a finger across the countertop. "This is nice. What is that, marble?"

She gives him a look as if to say 'Ha ha, very funny', because she definitely can't afford any apartment that features marble countertops right now. "Want some coffee?"

"I hate coffee."

"Just making sure the whole working class man thing hasn't changed your aversion to it."

"Nope. Still tastes like dirt. ...There's a reason they call it coffee grounds."

Rory can't help but to grin even though she might be secondhandedly embarrassed for him. "That's terrible," she says with a laugh.

He laughs, too. "Yeah."

Rory continues on into the adjoining living room, the bookshelf impressively filled but the coffee table covered in notes and empty mugs and the throw pillows on the couch awry. "Sorry it's a mess. I haven't been sleeping much at night."

"I know the feeling," Jess agrees. "Sometimes I think my living room sees more action from me than my bed does."

Rory chuckles politely although his joke has left her feeling uncomfortable. She focuses her frustrated energy into organizing the contents of the table and repositiong the pillows into a more homey image. "Would you, uh, would you like to sit down?"

He smirks at her as she tidies. "Not really." He shoves his hands into his pockets and lifts his shoulders up to his jaw, and he's just so darn cute that when he averts his eyes from hers and asks, "You could show me your room?" she can't bring herself to refuse although she knows in her gut that it's a bad idea when he brings his eyes back to hers.

It's not much, really, with only a bed, a dresser, and a nightsand to show for itself. The slightly opened top dresser drawer left abandoned during her frenzy to get ready this morning is the lone indication that someone even lives in this room, despite the fact that Rory sleeps most of her mornings away atop that mattress.

"So this is where Rory Gilmore sleeps," Jess muses aloud. "I'd expected it to be a little more disheveled, honestly."

Rory pulls her brows together as she gives Jess a look of confusion. She holds a reputation for never having even one button out of place. Who is he to challenge that? "And why might that be?" she asks, her tone almost angry.

"Because now I know how you are in bed," he answers, his hands still in his pockets. He nudges her shoulder. "You left my sheets pretty ruffled."

And this, this right here is the reason she should've known better than to let him into her bedroom, than to let him into her apartment, than to accept his invitation for lunch. She continues to hold his gaze although she can feel the heat rising in her cheeks. The air in the room has changed, and she knows Jess can feel it too because suddenly he's not smirking anymore.

He takes a step closer to her, reaches out a hand and grazes the backs of his knuckles across her cheek. When she doesn't protest, he steps in even closer and cups her face in his hand.

"Jess..." she half warns, half sighs.

"Tell me to stop, and I will," he says. And then he leans in devastatingly slowly to press his lips to her jaw, allowing her ample time to stop him.

But she doesn't.

"I'm thinking about moving back home."

They're laying beneath the sheets, her head on his bare chest and his fingers tying and untying knots in her hair. He doesn't say anything, just moves his hand from her hair and down her naked arm and slides his fingertips back up it, up and down, up and down, a tiny motion just to let her know he's listening.

"I'm just stuck right now! I'm in a rut. I'm having no luck in the job department; my friends are all too busy for me; I stay up all night and sleep all day. I even almost got a cat the other day. Can you picture me with a cat? Because I could, and it was terrifying." She pauses for a moment and he moves his touch from her arm back to her hair. "Maybe I just need a change of pace, you know? A change of scenery. I could ask Luke to rent out the apartment to me. Or I could take a room at the inn, even. I mean, it wouldn't be for long. Only until I get back on my feet."

Jess doesn't say anything for a while, and his fingers have stopped moving, and she thinks he might've fallen asleep but doesn't want to lift her head to see for fear of waking him. And just when she's about to close her eyes and give in to the impending nap as well, he speaks. And what he says is not at all what she'd been expecting.

"You could come live with me."

She sits up immediately, a knee-jerk reaction, pulling the sheet up with her and prompting him to sit up too. "What?"

He only shrugs. "You might have better luck finding a job in Philly. We have newspapers, too, you know." When she isn't fully convinced, he goes on. "Plus, Matt and Chris both found girls and moved out, so I'm sitting here with this empty three bedroom loft and nothing to fill it with and there's only one of me at the moment. And it'd be nice to have some help with the rent."

Rory continues to stare at him blankly, the inevitable pro/con list already writing itself out in her mind.

He lays back down. "You don't have to, Rory," he says, allowing her an easy out. "It was only a suggestion."

"Okay," she says, her heart doing that weird not beating thing again.

His eyes are closed. "Okay, it was only a suggestion?"

It starts beating again, this time at double the speed. She takes a breath. "Okay, I'll move in with you."

She waits for him to open his eyes, and she's grinning like mad from ear to ear, but he doesn't. He only instructs her. "There's no cats allowed in the Mariano flat."

She tries to stop smiling, but she can't, and as she lowers her head back down onto his chest, she swears she sees the first hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

A/n: Sorry it took me like three years to post this. I was having an aggravating bit of writer's block for a good minute, but at least I got my mojo back long enough to post this next chapter, and at triple the length of the previous one, too! Love me for their reconciliation and the insinuation of a deed been done did.