It was nearly dark by the time they left the museum. Instead of joining the throngs of people trying to hail taxis and clustered around food trucks, they veered down a path into Central Park.

"We can call a Lyft," Luke suggested.

"I just feel like walking for a bit." Lorelai knew she was going to pay for all the walking tomorrow, but she really didn't mind. "Besides, it's getting dark later, so people are still in Central Park."

"I'm not carrying you when you get tired," he warned her, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

They stopped at a food truck for water bottles and made their way south.

Lorelai was sorting through the remaining questions in her mind when Luke spoke up. "Has it been working? The therapy?"

Huh. She hadn't been expecting that. Pleased that he was getting stuff off his chest as well, she squelched her immediate urge to make a pithy quip about therapy and give him a real answer. "I guess? I don't know, it feels weird talking about all that stuff. Mom's right, some of it's ridiculous, but I think it needed to be aired out. I keep thinking that one day, there'll be this magical breakthrough and a light will shine down from the heavens, and everything will be fine and I'll have all the answers. But maybe that's what therapy is – learning how to cope until you find the answers on your own."

She toyed with the cap on her water bottle. "How did you guess I was going to therapy on my own anyhow?"

He shrugged. "Because, I know you. You're not going shopping, because there'd be a lot of new crap in the house with no explanation. If you weren't going, you would have said something. But you didn't tell me or Rory, so I assumed you were still going on your own. And I saw the bill laying next to your purse a couple days ago."

"See?" She lightly punched his arm. "Making you watch Sherlock has paid off."

He took a long pull from his own water bottle, taking his time putting the cap back on. "I want you to know that I'll do whatever it takes to fix what's wrong. I'll go to your therapist with you if you want."

"What?" Lorelai jerked her head around to gape at him, nearly plowing into a trio of bicyclists barreling down the path toward them. Luke pulled her out of the way and off the sidewalk, moving onto a patch of grass between two benches.

They watched as the cyclists continued on their way, nearly taking out a couple with a baby stroller and a small, barking dog. He absently rubbed her arm. "Look, I know I'm I know I am not the easiest guy in the world to build a life with and to share a house with. But there is no one who will be more here for you than me. I have never thought about leaving you, except …"

"When I forced you into it," Lorelai acknowledged.

"But even then … I never wanted to." He rolled his water bottle between his hands. "It hurt. A lot." The words sound like they came from some place deep inside him, where he kept all of his vulnerabilities hidden.

"I still hate myself for what I did to you." They had dealt with it. The only reason they were standing there at all was because in the weeks after Rory left for the Obama campaign, they had dealt with the spectacular explosion that was the end of their engagement. Even so, every so often, remembering that time in her life felt like a rotting tooth. "Which means that clearly therapy is the right place for me."

"It wasn't all your fault. We did it to each other." Luke wrapped his arm around Lorelai like he had months earlier, when she finally agreed to go to therapy with her mother. He steered her back onto the path. "We've been through so much, and we made it through all of it. We can't let something like this happen again. So, I'll go to therapy with you."

They walked together, his arm around hers, but it didn't feel quite so overwhelming as it had when she agreed to go to therapy with her mother. It wasn't going to be pleasant, that was the cold, hard truth. But they were stubborn enough, in love enough, to make it work.

Lorelai stood atop a wide, flat rock, squinting at her phone. She looked up at the skyline, then back at her phone, then up at the buildings again. Satisfied, she turned to Luke, who stood still on the path, and waved her phone at him. "I think this is it."

"Where are we?" He climbed up to her side, ignoring the few tourists that remained in the darkness.

She pressed a hand to her chest in mock horror. "I am shocked you don't recognize the place! I'm having your geek card rescinded."

There was just enough light that she caught his familiar expression of exasperation. "It's close to 10 p.m., Lorelai. All I know is that we're still in Central Park."

"It was on one of those episodes of Doctor Who you had me watch. The one where the married couple got taken back in time, but they had a picnic here first. Rory and I looked up a website where they have all the famous TV and movie locations in Central Park marked, and I knew we'd pass this one on the way back." She grabbed hold of his arm and pressed into his side. "It's a nice view."

"It is," he agreed, and she pulled out her phone to take a photo. "Hey, can you send a copy of that to April?"

"You mean like all the other ones I've been sending tonight?" She turned the phone so he could see April's name across the top as a recipient. "She's been getting them and she replied, and I quote, 'Dad, join the 21st century and get a smartphone.'"

"I have a perfectly good phone!"

"Yes, and chisels and stone tablets were perfectly good in the time of the Flintstones." Lorelai nudged him. "The Apple Store's nearby and is open 24-7. We can go shopping."

"No," Luke told her firmly.

"You're no fun." she pouted.

"I have no desire to join the army of soulless Apple bots."

"Hey, I have an iPhone."

"See?"

She promptly stuck her tongue out at him.

Luke once told her that he enjoyed spending time with her so much that he didn't mind where she dragged them as long as he got to be with her. She acknowledged that it was the same with him. With Rory off to college and later her career, he had become her partner in crime. But in the past few months, they had been so busy that other than for the occasional town event and movie night, they hadn't been able to spend much time together that didn't involve her mother, Rory, April, or the whole surrogacy thing. She needed to rectify that immediately. A real vacation sounded wonderful. She turned to him to suggest that very thing.

"Do you want to try the whole getting married thing again eventually?"

OK, that so was not what she had planned to say.

But at that moment, from her head down to the pink-tipped toes that wiggled in her new shoes, Lorelai knew it was the absolute right thing to say. Everything they had said and done had led to this moment, and for the first time in a very long time, she could see her path in life with a sharp clarity. No matter what happened with Rory or her mother or the Dragonfly or Michel and Sookie, this was the thing she wanted most.

The last time she had popped the marriage question, Luke had reacted with shock. This time, he looked down at her, those blue eyes she loved so much steady and sure, his answer immediate. "Yes."

Speech failed her. Words leaked from her brain and flowed down the rocks to pool somewhere on the sidewalk. "Whoa, that was fast. I mean, really fast. You didn't even have to think about it."

He ran his hands up and down her arms. "I don't have to think. I just know."

She did too. But … "I'm afraid of screwing it all up again."

"You think I'm not?" He squeezed her upper arms. "Look, we've been together for nine years now. Eleven, really. We've known each other for two decades. It's you. It was always supposed to be you."

Her smile was tremulous. "Yeah. It was always supposed to be you, too."

"Besides, isn't that what the therapy's supposed to be for? Isn't that why we're right here, right now? We're not going to screw it up, because you won't let it, and I won't let it." Luke looked down at the rocks, as if he was contemplating something, then back at her. He slid his hands down to take hers, pressing them to his chest. "Will you marry me?" He gave her a crooked, nearly boyish grin. "I figured I'd try proposing for once, see what it was like."

Lorelai laughed, and the joyous sound echoed across the park. She threw her arms around his neck, and he lifted her off her feet, spinning her around as he laughed with her. "You did once before," she reminded him, "to get me to shut up. I never asked you what you would have done if I'd said yes back then."

"Been scared shitless, then consider myself the luckiest guy on the planet." Luke pressed his forehead to hers. "And now?"

"Absolutely, always, yes."

Lorelai barely got the words out before his lips were on hers, his kiss hot and hungry. Their previous engagement had been partially an act of desperation on her part, trying to hold onto what remaining family she had. But this one felt right in every way. They still had a ways to go, and therapy wasn't going to be a barrel of laughs. But this time, they were going to make it. It was simply a fact.

He picked up her left hand and ran his thumb over her bare ring finger. "Your ring's still in the desk at home. We can get you another."

"Don't you dare," Lorelai admonished him, and pulled him to her for another kiss. This one left her mere seconds from dragging him down onto the rocks with her. "How fast can we get back to the hotel?"

"You're the one with the Lyft app." Luke trailed his lips down the side of her neck as she fumbled to get her phone out. They hastily broke apart as she programmed in their location with shaky fingers. Grabbing hands, they raced to the nearest park exit.

Her back was against the door almost the moment they got it closed, and the bag from the Met containing the book on ceremonial ceiling tiles thudded to the ground at their feet. Not for the first time in their relationship, she muttered under her breath about the amount of clothes he wore as she yanked up layers of shirt to reach skin. The passage of time had changed things for both of them, but he was still trim and strong and her fingers mapped out every place she knew drove him crazy.

His hands were large, warm, and very efficient in getting her down to the plain bra she had lamented over hours earlier. As each piece of clothing was removed, their mouths sought each other out again and again, unwilling to be apart for the seconds it took to cast aside bra, shirts, and unbutton both their jeans. The connection between them sang, as strong as the first time they had done this on an August evening so long ago.

He dropped to his knees as she toed off her new shoes, kicking them further inside the room. She nearly cried from relief as her aching feet hit the floor, and her overworked legs were at war with the adrenaline racing through her. He peeled the jeans down her legs, taking her panties with them, and she braced herself on his shoulder one foot at a time as he removed them.

"Are you OK?" He ran his hand up and down her tight calf muscles, lightly massaging them.

"Oh, god, that's nearly as good as sex," she moaned.

His eyes gleamed with a wicked light, and he leaned in, nuzzling her curls before finding her clit with his tongue. Her palms slammed against the door as her hips jerked forward. It was the only thing keeping her upright, one hand digging into the handle as the other fisted and lightly rapped against the door. He abandoned her leg to run those talented fingers through her folds, then thrust deep into her.

Shit, shit, shit. She wasn't sure if she was thinking the words or saying them out loud as her hands let go of the door and found his hair. She opened her eyes briefly, not even realizing she had closed them in the first place. The bed lay not a reasonable distance across the room, but it might have been an oasis in the Sahara for all she cared. He crooked his fingers, and suddenly, she was perilously close to the edge. She wanted him with her, she wanted him inside her, but she was about to lose whatever control she was hanging onto.

Just as she felt herself tightening, tightening, pleasure about to sweep her away, he suddenly pulled away and kissed her inner thigh.

This was grounds for murder, right? Leaving your once and future fiancée on the edge of a screaming orgasm? There wasn't a court of law in the country that would convict her, especially if the judge was a woman.

Ridiculously pleased with himself, Luke rose to his feet and took her in her arms, spinning her toward the bed. No, it was more like waltzing. She was naked, he only wore jeans, and he was waltzing her to the bed, looking down at her as he had that very first dance they shared together. The first time he actually let Lorelai see the depths of the emotion he felt toward her.

The back of her legs hit the bed, and she dropped onto the mattress as he shucked the rest of his clothes and joined her. Well intent on payback, she pounced, rolling on top of him until they were in the same position they had been in eight hours earlier. He sat up, back against the headboard, and she straddled his thighs.

What a difference those hours made.

He gripped her hips as she teased him, dipping her fingers into her own warmth before trailing them down the length of his cock before gripping it hard. She watched the pleasure play over his face as she stroked him, determined to pay him back for his little stunt. Her own need raked her like little claws, and it wasn't long before the fingers of her other hand were between her own thighs, stroking herself at the same time she stroked him. It was a feat of coordination she would had appreciated had her brain been able to function at all.

She knew the moment he had reached the end of his own control, as he swelled larger in her hand and began to shake. Before she could react, he pulled her over him and guided himself into her. The feel of him was exquisite, but she was too far gone to fully appreciate it. She rocked her hips frantically and his fingers dug into her waist once more. They were face to face, eyes locked on each other until his lips found hers. He kissed her deeply until suddenly he broke away with a hiss, gasping and shaking against her.

But she was already far gone, her peak hitting just a couple seconds ahead of his. Her head tilted back, and she didn't know whether to cry or scream. Maybe a little bit of both as she rode out the orgasm until her muscles simply refused to cooperate. She collapsed against him, breathing hard as their bodies still shook with the aftershocks of what they had shared.

"So," Luke managed after gulping in several breaths, "are we back to being gold medalists?"

"Oh yeah." Lorelai grinned at him as he ran his hand through her hair. "The competition isn't even close."

"Thank god for that."

Lorelai rolled off him, collapsing onto her back as lethargy stole over her. Enjoy it now, she told herself, because every single muscle in her body was going to take revenge on her in the morning.

She wasn't sure they had even been asleep an hour before she heard the frantic knocking at the door. Luke's arm tightened around her waist briefly before he pushed himself up. She pulled the pillow over her head.

"Mom?" Rory's voice came through the door. "Mom, I need you."

"She's 31, can't she sleep through the night yet?" Lorelai moaned, then rolled out of bed. Her legs were shaky as she dug into the closet for a bathrobe and pulled it on. She belted it, then unlatched the door to reveal her disheveled daughter.

"The hell? Rory?" she managed as Rory rushed into the room. She nearly called out a warning, but Rory whipped around so fast that she didn't even bother looking toward the bed.

"I slept with a Wookiee!" Rory cried.

Lorelai wasn't even sure how to process that one. "A what?"

Rory paced the short foyer that matched the one in the room she had shared with her mother until a few hours earlier. "Wookiee! Wookiee! I slept with a Wookiee! Don't make me keep saying it!"

Lorelai leaned against the door that had been put to quite a different use not so long ago. Before midnight, it was a hotbed of sexual activity. Now it kept her momentarily crazed daughter from rushing back into the hall and inflicting her insanity on the rest of New York. "Right. Slept with a Wookiee. Is that one e or two?"

"Mom," Rory moaned.

"It's two."

Rory whipped around at the sound of Luke's voice. He sat on the edge of the unmade bed, redressed in his jeans and T-shirt. Lorelai admired his ability to quickly dress under the covers since they hadn't bothered with more than stacking their clothes on a chair after a second round of celebrating their engagement.

Rory's eyes were wide with shock and mortification. "Ohmigod, Luke. What's Luke doing here?"

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Um, did you not read the twenty thousand messages I texted you?"

Rory whipped her attention back to her. "No. Well, I saw that you switched rooms and that my lucky outfit magically appeared in the closet, but I was panicking because I slept with a Wookiee."

Lorelai held up two fingers. "With two es. Got it. So, what happened, kid?"

"You left me with the collectables line, and I kind of bonded with this one group …" Too lost in her own misery, Rory recanted her tale as she paced the full length of the room. As she babbled, Lorelai grabbed her own clothes and stepped into the bathroom to change. "I can't believe this. And now, I'm blurting out that I had a one-night stand to my mom and the guy who's practically my stepdad."

"Spoiler alert: that Facebook status is going to change," Lorelai said from the bathroom.

"What?" Rory nearly tripped over the corner of the bed in her haste to verify the information. "Are you two getting married? Finally?" Because he was closest, she threw her arms around Luke, who returned it with a one-armed hug and proud smile. "I'm so happy for you two!"

"If you had answered the six million phone calls I'd left, you would have known at the same time we told April." Lorelai walked out of the bathroom, scooping her hair back into a ponytail. "We tried calling you on the way back from Central Park."

"You got engaged in Central Park! That's so romantic!" Rory threw her arms around her mother, squeezing her tight before pulling away abruptly. "And I had a one-night stand! I'm 31, and I'm only now having a one-night stand!"

"Huh. Wow." Winning reaction from the Mom's Handbook, Lorelai, she admonished herself.

"Why?" Rory narrowed her eyes. "Why wow?"

Lorelai shrugged. "I thought that's what college was for."

Rory pointed at her. "Exactly! How many have you had?"

"Easy. None."

Rory gaped at her. "How?"

Lorelai gestured back at the reason that one-night stands never entered the picture. "Well, we can start with the whole being a mom at 16. I had you, and rules, and work, and rules. I had a couple three-night stands, if that helps."

"Oh, great." Rory buried her head in her hands before looking up at Luke. "And I'm sure you've never had a one-night stand either."

The color drained from his face so fast that it made his stubble stand out in the low light. He edged toward the door. "You know, I think I'm going to find some liquid poison to inject into both your veins. I think we passed one of those pizza bodega joints earlier. I'll get us a pizza and you two some coffee."

Rory's jaw fell as Luke avoided making eye contact with her. "You have! You've had a one-night stand!"

Amused and definitely intrigued, Lorelai folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall. "Oh, now I'm really interested."

Luke gestured to both girls as he backed toward the door, ducking down at the last second for his boots. "You two should talk."

Oh no. He wasn't getting off that easy. Lorelai snatched one boot before he could grab it and held it up by the laces, her hostage. "Spill. You had a one-night stand?"

"Long before I met either of you, and that's all I'm going to say about it." Luke grabbed the shoe from her hand, because damn it, he was taller than her, and was out the door before Lorelai could think of any further evasive maneuvers. Though the mental image of him walking barefoot to the elevator was amusing. She would have to torture him with information about all the germs in the place.

"Wow. I thought you guys told each other everything," Rory said from behind Lorelai.

Lorelai shook her head. "I asked about his hobbies, his politics, his religious beliefs, but never about the one-night stands. See? If Luke can have a one-night stand and still stand tall and righteous in the world, so can you."

"I guess. I don't know." Rory hugged herself, wandering back to the bed and throwing herself across the end. "Mom, my love life is a disaster." She stared at the ceiling. "You and Luke were just having sex in this bed, weren't you?"

"What answer will mentally scar you the least?"

"That's what I thought." Rory sprang up. "Now I need three showers."

Four cups of coffee and most of a pizza later, a worn-out Rory was steered back to her room. They had talked and talked and talked, and Lorelai wound up telling Rory about the venture to the Met and the agreement to go to therapy together. In return, Rory finally revealed the truth about her own love life that she had kept hidden for so long.

As Lorelai latched the door behind her, Luke spoke up from the bed. "She OK?"

She turned back to him. He had dozed off after coming back with pizza and coffee, the long day he had finally catching up with him. "She will be. She's just lost. We've all been lost really since Dad ..."

"It gets better." He got up to remove his jeans as Lorelai began to change once more. This time, she dug out her pajamas out of her suitcase.

"Says the guy who went into uber mourning on the anniversary of his dad's death," she pointed out as she exchanged shirt for pajama top.

"You realize though after that first year we dated, I haven't." Luke slid back under the covers in his T-shirt and boxers.

Lorelai thought back over the years. She had been there for every anniversary other than the terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad year, and he was right. He had been depressed that second year, but it had more to do with April than his father. "No, you haven't."

"You helped. A lot. I hadn't really told anyone before you. You helped and April and, god help me, Liz and TJ. It takes time, but it does get better." Luke held up the covers for her as she slipped in beside him. She groaned as she relaxed into the mattress. Bed was nice. So very nice. She closed her eyes as he turned off the lamp.

"So, tell me about the one-night stand," she said into the dark.

Luke wrapped an arm around her, and she could feel the embarrassment radiating off him. "Aw, geez."

"I'm not jealous." Lorelai craned her head to look at him. "I'm serious! You said it was before we met, right?"

"Yeah. Not long after my dad died." Luke absently traced circles on her arm. "I felt a lot like Rory, really. Liz had taken off years earlier, so I'd been Dad's only caretaker for years, and then I was left with a failing hardware store and having to sell my childhood home. I had no sense of purpose really. I went out to a bar one night, and it just happened. It wasn't very good." He heaved a sigh. "And I learned that I really am not cut out for those."

Lorelai nudged him. "Committed guy, huh?"

He snuggled into her, burying his nose in her hair. "I even got engaged tonight."

She closed her eyes again, toes curling. "Ooooh, I envy the lucky woman."

"Rory'll be fine. She's a good kid."

They lapsed into silence, and it would be easy to fall asleep after that. But there had been one thing that Rory told her that made her worry more than having a one-night stand with a costumed Star Wars character. "She's sleeping with Logan Huntzberger," she blurted.

Luke jerked awake behind her. "Wow."

"You're telling me." Lorelai turned so she could look at him. "She lied to me about it. She lied to me, you lied to me, I lied to you … we're a houseful of lies."

He tucked a lock of hair behind her ears. "And we're dealing with it. Rory will deal with it too."

"That's what I told her. We didn't want to make the same mistakes again. Gave her a lot to think about." Lorelai sat up, not feeling tired at all. She eyed the pizza box across the room. "Want to split the final piece of pizza?"

"We should sleep." As an emphasis, Luke tugged her back down until she lay in his arms again.

"It's nearly 5 in the morning," Lorelai pointed out. It was practically his wake-up time.

"We should really sleep." He closed his eyes.

"But pizza."

"It can be breakfast."

Lorelai twisted in his arms once more. "You're advocating leftover pizza for breakfast? Living with me has made you a changed man."

He kissed her forehead. "Sleep."

The miracle of it all was that she actually did. Not that it was that much. A series of knocks on the door roused Lorelai from slumber, and to her dismay, she saw it was nearly 10. Great, probably housekeeping, and she forgot to hang the 'do not disturb' sign on the door. She stumbled out of bed, legs stiff and reminding her of the abuse she had inflicted on them. Her Fitbit count was probably through the roof.

"Good thing I went ahead and kept the room an extra day," she muttered, more to herself than anything. She pulled open the door to see Rory in her red outfit, her neat hair pulled back in a ponytail, which she had curled. "Hey, kid! Looking good!"

"You two up yet? I couldn't sleep. I've had six cups of coffee and filled this notebook with research. I have so many ideas." Rory bounced on her toes excitedly. "So, I'm going for it. I'm going back to GQ. I'm wearing my lucky outfit, even though some people says it washes me out. I know what I'm doing. I figured that if you two can get engaged and go to therapy, I can get a good job. Call you later. Bye!" She pressed a kiss to Lorelai's cheek and dashed toward the elevator.

"Rory?" Luke asked as Lorelai closed the door, making sure the 'do not disturb' sign was in place.

"Think she's going to be fine." She smiled at him. Luke was staring at her sleepily, looking far more appetizing than the leftover pizza he promised her she could eat for breakfast. "So, we got the room for one more day. Want to take advantage of it?"

"More sightseeing?"

"Yup." She sauntered back to the bed, already making plans to strip him naked and enjoy him. "I'm seeing a mighty fine sight right here."