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i
The first time it happens, it’s an accident from what Rory can tell. Luke rounds the table closest to the door, the coffee pot in his hand just as Jess barrels into the diner. He’s come up ostensibly to see Doula, but Rory has also promised him a couple of chapters for him to review. Hence why he’s meeting her now. To collect them so he can read and put notes in the margins. She’s always been addicted to his notes in the margins so when he offered to be her editor, she had agreed on the proviso that she gives him hard copies of her chapters rather than send them by email.
The accident is almost in slow motion. Luke’s belated shout of warning and the look of horror on Jess’ face as the coffee pot smashes against his chest, the liquid splashing up and out of the lid and blooming across his chest.
“Shit, that’s hot!” he exclaims, dragging his t-shirt over his head in a hurry to get it to stop burning him.
Rory’s mouth dries up as seemingly miles of gleaming tanned olive skin is exposed. She’s aware that he’d gained muscle at some point over the years as his arms are huge now and look amazing in his t-shirts, but she hasn’t thought about him shirtless. Until now.
She hasn’t seen Jess shirtless since one heated make out session in the back of his rusty junk pile of a car over a decade ago. It had been the one time that she’d been so gone on passion that she yanked his shirt off, ran her hands greedily over him and been tempted to go all the way in the back of his car. However, he had not been sporting the kinds of muscles that he is now and she gulps as she realises just how hard she’s staring.
Someone elbows her in the back and she tears her eyes away to find Babette waggling her eyebrows. “Now that’s some sight, doll. Who knew that scrawny little kid would grow up to pack those muscles?”
Rory tries her hardest not to turn back to where Jess is helping Luke clean coffee up, but she can’t. Colour floods into her cheeks as the thought helping them out by licking the remnants of coffee off his chest enters her mind. Shaking her head to drive the thought away, she offers Babette a small, non-committal smile but says nothing.
Miss Patty isn’t so restrained. “If the writers I’d known had been so stacked, I might have married a couple.”
The door opens again and Taylor appears, his face set into an expression of disapproval. “Young man, this is a diner not a brothel. I don’t know what kind of places you frequent down in that big city of yours, but this is a family friendly town and shirtless torsos are outlawed in section 43b of the town by-laws.”
Jess just rolls his eyes and ignores the Town Selectman.
“Keep your hair on, Taylor,” Luke snaps. “We had an accident.”
“I’m not sure why such an accident means that your nephew has to take his clothes off.”
“So he doesn’t get burnt by coffee that’s why!”
“Well, it’s not decent. I am sure he doesn’t need to still be standing here in such manner, flaunting his semi naked state for the whole town to see. Children might walk past.”
“You got this?” Jess asks Luke, continuing to ignore Taylor.
“Yeah. Go and change.”
Rory just about manages to avoid being caught staring at his chest as he walks by her, adverting her eyes down to her pastry just in time.
“Sorry, Rory. One minute. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a shirt upstairs,” Jess says before disappearing behind the curtain.
“Let’s hope Luke threw it out,” Miss Patty mutters just loud enough for her and Babette to hear.
“You okay, gorgeous? You look a little flushed.” Babette asked.
“Oh!” Rory exclaims putting her hands up to her hot cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
Miss Patty eyes her knowingly but for once doesn’t say whatever is in her mind, which Rory cannot help but be grateful for.
ii
The second time it happens, no one can prove it’s not an accident. There’s a heatwave in Stars Hollow and Taylor is visiting family in Maine so isn’t there to stop the giant water fight that the kids are having in the town square.
Rory’s watching in amusement with Lane as the kids go wild. It’s nice to see the next generation enjoying their childhood so much. Kwan and Steve are in the heart of the action, clothes soaking as they giggle gleefully and aim their super soakers at their friends.
“Oh, Jess is back,” Lane says pointing across the square, to where Jess is walking, head in a book as usual.
“Yeah. Doula’s birthday or something.”
“He’s sweet with his sister.”
Rory keeps quiet about how she thinks Jess popping back regularly to see Doula probably is because he doesn’t trust his mom. She knows Luke keeps a close eye on his niece for that reason, too. Years later, she still doesn’t know too much about Jess’ childhood. He never talks about it and she doesn’t like to bring it up now that he’s so happy and settled in his life. However, he sometimes lets things slip, especially when he’d been editing the childhood chapters of her book. One or two things that made her heart ache when she realises just want a lonely and neglected little boy he’d been.
As Jess steps around some of the kids without looking up from the book, four water balloons loop towards him in a high arc. They suspend above him for a comical second before one lands squarely on his head and the other three splatter against his chest, leaving his t-shirt sopping wet.
Jess looks up, a scowl on his face, but none of the kids are paying attention to him. Rory can see him sigh as he shakes his book off and squeezes it into his back pocket before pushing his wet hair up and out of his face. He grimaces as he looks down at his t-shirt, which is so wet it looks uncomfortable.
“Oops,” Lane says and Rory turns her face towards her friend. “If Dean was here I would blame him, but that was just a freaky accident it seems.”
Then Lane’s eyes go wide. “Oh my,” she says involuntarily.
Rory whips her head back round to face Jess and is faced with his bare chest again. After the incident in the diner back in April, her reaction shouldn’t be as dramatic as it is, but once more her mouth dries out and she’s left with a real need to pet his skin to see if it’s as soft as it looks.
“Now that’s just not fair,” Zach complains, stomping over from where he’d been chatting to Kyle. “How can any of us compete with that?”
Both Rory and Lane ignore him, entranced by the sight of Jess Mariano, hair wet and dripping little droplets of water onto his impossibly broad shoulders.
“Great,” Zach continues on. “It’s not as if it wasn’t bad enough when we were all kids and he had that whole brooding bad boy vibe going now. Now, he’s ripped and a New York Times Bestseller who my wife cannot apparently stop ogling.”
“What?” Lane asks distracted, before she blinks and faces her husband. “Sorry. It’s just…a lot to take in.”
“Yeah. Rory looks like she’s about to jump him,” Zach says, unimpressed.
That gets Rory’s attention from the very attractive sight in front of her and she snaps, “No, I don’t!”
Lane grins. “You kind of do.”
Determined to prove that she isn’t, Rory looks in the opposite direction from Jess in time to see Miss Patty giving Kwan, Steve, Davey and Martha ten dollars each.
“Huh,” she says softly and Miss Patty looks up, catches her gaze and winks.
iii
The third time it happens, it’s a gift. It’s her birthday before she sees Jess again. She’s hit a stumbling block in her writing so hasn’t had any new chapters for him. Besides, he’s been busy with his actual day job at Truncheon and she suspects he’s writing again because her texts in the evening have been answered at random, which they weren’t before. Either that or he has a new girlfriend, but Rory refuses to think about that or even analyse why she doesn’t want to think about it. After her disaster of a love life a year ago, she’s determined to stay single and sort her head out.
So far it’s worked. This past year has been a lot more productive, both professionally as well as personally. She’s now getting paid for her job as Editor of the Gazette and she’s had more articles published than she has for years. Apparently, staying in Stars Hollow for a considerable length of time rather than jet setting around has actually helped her, which she hadn’t foreseen but would definitely take. And her book is also moving along at a steady pace, or well it had been before she’d hit her current block.
She’s feeling more positive than she has in a long while and is moving into an apartment in Queens in two weeks’ time, once she works out her notice at the Gazette. Her life finally feels like it’s moving forward how it should be and she’s beaming when she pulls open the door to the party her mom has thrown her like she’s sixteen again to see Jess standing on her doorstep.
“Hey,” she says happily. “You came.”
“It seemed like a good time for a visit. Liz has been complaining that it’s been months,” he replies with a roll of his eyes.
“Well, she’s in the front room if you want to say hi. I think Luke kicked her out the kitchen.”
“Sounds about right.”
Rory ushers him into the house and hears rather than sees the commotion as she follows behind him, having to duck quickly out of the way as Jess rears back and there’s a loud and prolonged yowl of a cat.
A ripping sound follows and Babette’s contrite voice says, “So sorry, handsome. I probably shouldn’t have brought Pepper, but I wanted Rory to see her before she disappeared off into the Big Apple to live.”
Rory squeezes herself around Jess and sees that his shirt has been shredded by Babette’s new kitten.
“Here, take it off,” Babette continues to say. “I’m sure Lorelai can fix it. She’s very good with a needle.”
“Oh yes, baby,” Liz chimes in. “Lorelai is a whizz with fixing things. Remember that time she fixed my wedding gown and saved the day.”
“Unfortunately,” Jess mutters quietly before his mom gets to him and starts tugging ineffectively at the shirt, making a couple of the rips even bigger.
He manages to disentangle his mom’s hands from the material and tugs it over his head. Rory is closer this time and has to tangle her fingers into her skirt to stop herself from tracing a couple of moles she can see on his shoulders. If possible, he looks even more impressive closer up; all warm skin and hard abs. She gulps as she sees the ripple of his biceps as he hands his ripped shirt out to his mom.
“I’ll go grab something of Luke’s,” Jess says, walking towards the stairs.
Despite his mom standing there, Rory is unable to tear her eyes from his mesmerising back muscles and she can feel her cheeks getting redder by the moment.
“Happy birthday, sugar,” Babette says, grinning mischievously. “Pepper’s little gift to you.”
Rory knows she shouldn’t laugh and encourage her incorrigible neighbour, but a giggle escapes her anyway and she pets the now very docile Pepper.
iv
The fourth time it happens, it’s an injury. After eighteen months back in Stars Hollow, Rory is finally moving out and back to the City. When she moved back home, it had felt like the end of the world, but now she is happier than she has been for a long while. Going home has helped her centre herself once more and she is now energised and ready to fling herself back out into the world confidently again.
Jess has come up to help her move in along with Luke and Lorelai. She doesn’t have a lot of stuff – it’s mainly books. However, Luke and Jess are moving her basic pieces of furniture into the apartment while Lorelai follows behind with cushions and bedding.
“You could carry some boxes of books,” Rory says as she passes her mom in the stairs.
“I could, but then I would be missing the perfect view I have here,” Lorelai replies, leering playfully at Luke’s backside.
“Eww gross, mom.”
Her mom shrugs it off. “Not my fault you’ve been in the longest dry spell ever.”
Rory rolls her eyes and runs back down to Luke’s truck to grab another box of books. As she picks up the heavy box, she mentally upbraids herself for having as many books as she does. Moving would be a lot easier if she had her library on a kindle. However, she’s always been addicted to the smell of books and how they feel when you hold them. She couldn’t give that up if she tried.
She’s climbing back up to her apartment and cursing the lack of an elevator when she hears a crash and a grunt of pain.
A moment later, her mom calls down, “Hey, Kid, have you got a first aid kit?”
Worrying about what’s happened, Rory starts to climb the stairs two at a time. “Yeah,” she calls out. “It should be in the bathroom. In one of the first boxes we brought up.”
There’s a couple of seconds of silence as she struggles with to get up to her apartment as quickly as she’d like.
“Got it,” Her mom yells, just as she rounds the corner and into the corridor leading into her apartment. By the time she makes it into her living room, Luke has the first aid box in his hand and Jess is perched on the corner of her sofa.
“You’re going to need to take your shirt off,” he says to Jess.
“It’s fine,” Jess replies.
“There’s a spot of blood on your shirt, which means you’re not fine.”
Jess sighs, clearly put out, and rolls his eyes. “Stop being such a mother hen, Uncle Luke, I’ll be fine.”
However, he yanks his shirt over his head anyway and then says, “See! It’s nothing but a graze.”
There’s a small cut on his firm abs, just to the side by his left hip and Rory wishes she could say that she is staring so hard because she’s worried about him. But, as usual, it’s the fact that shirtless Jess is incredibly distracting – in the best possible way. For a brief moment, she considers offering to take over from Luke so she can finally get her hands back on his body. Luckily, her brain catches up to her mouth and she swallows the words down her dry throat and settles back to enjoy the view.
“Wow,” Lorelai says. “I didn’t believe the rumours.”
“What?” Rory asks, dragging her eyes away from all the muscles on display and towards her mom.
“About your reaction to shirtless Jess.”
There’s a look of intense amusement on her mom’s face that causes the blood to rush into her cheeks. “It’s not…I’m not…It’s-” she flounders before trailing off.
An evil grin splits her mom’s face. “It’s not what? Too much for you to cope with?”
There’s no point in trying to deny it to her mom. Lorelai knows her far too well and can spot when she lies a mile away, so she sighs and says, “Okay, you got me. But it is a lot to deal with.”
Her eyes skitter back to where Jess is impatiently sitting while Luke dabs antiseptic on the cut and applies a band aid.
“You might want to reign it in,” Lorelai says. “Most of Stars Hollow is aware that you drool every time his shirt is off. Babette and Miss Patty made sure of that. So I’m sure it won’t be long before he notices, too.”
Her stomach sinks at the thought. She really doesn’t want Jess to know that she wants to run her hands over his chest and lick his abs.
“I can play it cool,” she says, failing to stop staring at him.
Yeah,” her mom says dryly. “I can see that.”
v
The fifth time it happens, it is a case of matchmaking. The traditional Gilmore-Danes Christmas expands into the Gilmore-Danes-Mariano-Nardini Christmas thanks to Doula, who at eleven years old has a remarkable ability to manipulate those around her. Lorelai has expressed her admiration at just how good the girl is at getting her own way, even when she’s been on the wrong end of it. And what Doula wants this year is for her big brother to come for Christmas. It is the one family event that Jess has managed to escape, however he is no match for his little sister.
Jess arrives on late on Christmas Eve. His attempts to make it Christmas morning instead had been foiled by Doula phoning up Truncheon Books and crying over the phone to a horrified Matt and Chris about how selfish they were in never letting Jess take Christmas Eve off. With reassurances that they would send her big brother straight up, Jess has no excuse for not coming that day.
Rory and April had watched the whole masterful performance in appreciative silence and they both shoot him amused glances when he arrives and his little sister bats away his annoyance with her with supreme indifference. She has what she wants and that’s her family around her.
It’s not long before Doula’s glee that he’s there soothes away Jess’ irritation and he allows himself to be roped into a game with Doula and Paul Anka, the rules of which are impossible to follow for anyone other than Doula.
“Paul Anka is cold,” Doula announces twenty minutes in.
“Go ask Lorelai for a blanket. I’m sure she has one for him.”
“He doesn’t want a blanket. He likes your shirt.”
“What?” Jess asks in a flat and unimpressed tone.
“Give him your shirt to wear.”
“No!” Jess states.
April nudges Rory, clearly knowing what comes next, and Rory watches in awe as Doula’s bottom lip wobbles and fat tears spill over her eyes and fall silently down her cheeks.
At a loss for what to do, Jess sits there for a moment before he awkwardly pats Doula’s shoulder and says in a pained voice, “Please don’t cry. C’mon, Doula.”
“All I wanted was for you to come and play a game with me. I hardly ever see you and Mom never wants to drive down to Philly to visit and I was so happy when you came and now you won’t play along with this game,” his little sister wails.
Next to her on the sofa, April smothers her snickers and Rory watches in fascination as Jess says, “What do you want me to do?”
“Give your shirt to Paul Anka.”
“But-” he starts to complain before Doula turns her pleading, tear drenched eyes up to him and he sighs in resignation and takes his shirt off. “Here. Happy now?”
Like magic, Doula stops crying, kisses her brother happily on the cheek and yanks the shirt over Paul Anka’s head. Rory wishes she was as happy at the situation as Jess’ sister, but all she can do is feel creepy as she covertly ogles him in front of his sister and cousin. This is the fifth over the course of the year that she’s seen him shirtless, but his muscles have not lost the power to make her gape appreciatively at him.
“Oh yeah, Doula’s right. The thirst is real,” April comments quietly.
“Huh?” she asks, knowing it’s not an appropriate response and that she should look away from where she’s tracking every flex of Jess’ huge biceps, but she can’t.
“Your thirst for Jess.”
That grabs her attention sufficiently for her to turn away. Apparently she hasn’t been as subtle as she thought. “Wait? What?”
“Do you need some alone time with my cousin?”
The heat rushes into Rory’s cheeks and she presses her palms into them, embarrassed. “No!” she objects. “And what was that about Doula?”
April giggles. “Doula said that you had it bad for Jess and I disagreed. So she bet me twenty dollars that if she got him to remove his shirt, you’d drool.”
“I’m not drooling!”
“Yeah, right,” April replies unimpressed. “Anyway, you could probably hit that if you want. I’ve seen Jess check you out more than once over the years.”
“Really?” Rory asks before she thinks and then adds, “Hang on. Just ignore that question.”
April shoots her an amused look and then calls across to the room to her where her cousins are, “Hey Doula, walk with me to Doose’s?”
Doula scrambles to her feet, sending Paul Anka fleeing into the kitchen, and says mischievously to Rory, “He’s all yours. Treat him right!”
Jess gets to his feet and Rory struggles to advert her gaze from how good he looks. “What was that all about?”
Rory feigns ignorance. “Beat’s me.”
“Hey, Jess. Lose your shirt again?” Lorelai asks coming into the room with Paul Anka at her heels and sending a wicked grin Rory’s way.
+1
The sixth time it happens it’s deliberate. It’s New Years’ Eve and Rory has travelled down to Philadelphia. Truncheon Books holds an artistic New Year’s Party each year and Jess had invited her last year and she’d had a lot of fun. It is exactly her kind of scene, lots of artsy people chilling out in a low stress zone with drinks and boxes of pizza and just chatting. Nothing glitzy or glam and totally in line with the life Jess has built himself. She likes it even more this year than she did the previous one and refuses to analyse just why she is sticking so close to Jess’ side.
April’s words have played over and over again in her head and she wonders what Jess would do if she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. As they walk into to his apartment where she’s staying in his guest room, she can’t help but feel antsy. She’s been single for well over a year now and is in a much better frame of mind that she’s been for ages. She thinks that she could handle a relationship healthily now and knows that even if Logan were to show up in her bedroom, she wouldn’t want to sleep with him over Jess. It’s almost as if everything has been building up to this moment, but she can’t bring herself to take the jump. The fear of losing him tightens her throat to the point that she wouldn’t be able to force the words out anyway.
“Ugh, this shirt has been driving me crazy all evening,” Jess says and she watches in horror as he starts to undo his button up.
They’re not in public now and she’s really not sure she’ll be able to control her impulse to reach out and caress him if he walks around shirtless. It’s been a close run thing several times when they have had people around.
She gulps as he takes it off completely and cannot help the way her eyes track down him hungrily. It’s not fair that he got this jacked. He’d always been unreasonably attractive without adding arms the size of tree trunks and hard rock abs into the mix.
“So…erm…I’m just going to head to bed,” she says, desperate to flee this dangerous situation.
“Oh my God!” Jess exclaims. “Doula and April were right.”
“Right about what?” she asks, her arms crossed defensively over her chest and praying that both girls had kept their mouths shut about her predicament.
“They said you couldn’t hold it together whenever you saw me shirtless.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course I can. Your bare chest has no effect on me whatsoever!”
“Yeah?” he says. “Then how come you haven’t raised your eyes above my collarbone since I took my shirt off.”
Rory’s eyes fly up from his chest to meet his. “I…I have…I’ve not been…” she stammers before deflating pathetically. “Okay, I admit it. I find you horribly distracting when you’re shirtless. When did all this happened?” she asks, her hands gesturing to his muscles.
“Going to the gym helps me work through plot holes,” he says, treading closer to her.
“Stop,” she cries, putting her hand out and closing her eyes when it meets his warm tanned skin. “This is so unfair.”
“As unfair as this incredibly sexy dress you wore tonight?”
Her eyes flutter back open at the husky cadence of his voice and she delights in his heavy lidded look of desire. She bits her lip as his hands grip her hips hotly and tug her into his body. She slides her hands up his chest, revelling in the play of muscles under his soft skin and rests them on his broad shoulders.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since Luke spilled that coffee on you back in April."
“You could have done it then,” he says. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
“I think Taylor would have had an aneurism.”
Jess runs a hand up her side and cups her jawline, his thumb brushing over her lips. “Even more reason to have gone with your instincts.”
She sucks his thumb into her mouth and he lets out a groan before bending his head, moulding his lips to hers and licking into her mouth to kiss her wet and dirty. Her hands slid around and down his back, pulling him in even closer. His chest feels just as amazing as she thought it would pressed up against her.