Dandelion- Jess Mariano

♡Chapter 18: This Was Home♡

Parker is sitting at a table with Lorelai and Rory eating dinner as she waits for Jess to start tutoring. Lorelai seems very anxious about this, and keeps eyeing the stairs as though Jess was going to come down them with a clown mask and bags of weed.

But instead, a few seconds later, right as Lorelai and Rory are about to leave, he walks down perfectly normal, smiling at Parker.

"Hey teach." He says with a wink. "You guys done yet?"

Lorelai seems not ready to leave yet. "Just.. not yet." She says, eyeing him warily.

"Okay. Well, I'll be right over there when you are." He points at the counter. "Just can't wait for that learning to begin"

Parker looks down and smirks at his sarcastic tone, while Lorelai just looks very annoyed. But, Jess continues. "Hey, are we going to do some of those 'schoolhouse rock' songs?" He says, wanting to make Parker laugh.

She places her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing as Lorelai gets increasingly angry.

" 'Cause they say, if you just make learning fun..." He says, loving how much he was bothering Lorelai.

"Give us a minute, okay?" Lorelai says through her teeth.

"Well hurry- " he says, starting to turn away. "The mind's a terrible thing to waste." He walks over to the counter and jokingly inspects the donut case to keep himself busy.

Lorelai turns around and she and Rory both shoot a look at Parker, raising their eyebrows at her.

"Yeah yeah, I'll be home early." She says to them.

"Fine. Bye." Lorelai says, turning away as Rory gets up. "Bye Jess."

"Ma'am." He says, feigning respect. Lorelai frowns, and grumpily leaves the diner, throwing a look at him over her shoulder as she goes.

"So, you ready to start studying?" Parker asks him.

"Yep."

"Got your books?"

"Nope" He's giving her short answers, trying to press her buttons a little.

"Where are they?" She tries not to let it get to her.

"Huh. I don't know" he responds.

"Well we can't study without books" she says

"Oh well. Guess we won't do any studying. Want to watch a movie?" He asks, starting to go upstairs. She grabs the back of his shirt and pulls him back. For the next few minutes, they banter back and forth, Parker trying to get him to go get his books, and just giving her any excuse over the moon of why he doesn't have them.

"Get your books or I have to go home" She says, thinking that would help convince him.

"Well this was home once, right?" He says, smiling genuinely. "You could just come back."

"You know I can't do that. Luke and Lorelai would never say yes." She says to him.

"Fine. Come on, we can study upstairs." He says, grabbing her hand and pulling him upstairs with her.

Once they get upstairs, he grabs some stuff off the counter and turns around, holding up a napkin at her. She looks at him confused and a little skeptical of what was happening.

Suddenly, he does a magic trick and all of a sudden he has an apple in his hand. Parker claps slowly, before taking the apple and taking a bite out of it. "Books. Now." She says, although she's smiling.

"Oooo bossy, that's hot" he says, without thinking, and Parker turns away as her cheeks flush. He comes back a few seconds later with arms full of books and placed them on the table in the kitchen.

_____________

"God I miss it here" Parker says, as Jess sits across from her messing with cards.

"We miss having you here, me and Luke don't like doing dishes." He responds, without looking up. Parker loved doing dishes, it always made her hands feel clean, which she loved.

"It was the first place that ever actually felt like a home to me since I was really young" she says quietly, and he looks up. Their eyes meet for a moment before they both look back down at the things they were doing.

"Okay what do you know about the Marshall plan?" Parker asks, trying to get the conversation back on track to studying.

Jess doesn't respond, and instead he spreads cards out in front of her. "Pick a card" he says, smiling playfully.

"We're supposed to be studying" She says, looking at him a little exasperated. "You want to graduate, yes?"

"Is that a no to picking a card? Because if so, that makes the trick a little harder" He says, avoiding the question.

"Jess.." she says, a bit worried.

"Yes. I do want to graduate." He says, but he won't look up at her. "But I can't sit there in a classroom all day everyday, listening to people drone on about wars and bacteria. It's just not my thing."

She smiles at him sympathetically, but he doesn't see it. "Look, all you have to do is catch up a little bit and you'll be fine for next year." She says.

"Yeah yeah everybody keeps saying that" He grumbles.

"Look, you can have a break in a bit, just open the book for now." She says, trying to distract him a little.

__________

Parker looks over at Jess as he writes, wondering what's taking him so long. "You done yet?" She asks him.

"Yep, just finished" He said, handing the note paper to her.

"This isn't Shakespeare" She says, looking at it quizzically.

"It's not?" Jess asks, feigning surprise, as though he didn't just write the whole thing.

"It's the words to a clash song." She rolls her eyes at him.

"Ah, but which clash song?" He asks her.

"Guns of Brixton" She says immediately. "You really have to try to make it harder than that if you want to make it a challenge." She laughs.

"Yeah yeah I should have known" he says.

"Okay here, let me try." She grabs the pen from him, and starts to write down words.

Once she's done writing down the words, she hands in the note paper. "Guess." She says.

"Also a clash song." He says, smiling.

"Of course." She answers. "10 seconds."

"Hey!" He says. "Hold on."

"9...8...7...6...5.."

"All right, right I got it!" He says, and she stops counting.

"Oh yeah? Prove it." She challenges him.

"Police & Thieves." He says. "Hey, want to get out of here?"

"What?" She wasn't sure if she heard him right.

"I'm sick of studying." He answers.

"You haven't done any" She laughs at him as he walks towards the door.

"Is that your car?" He asks, looking out towards the road.

"No, Rory lent it to me for the night, her boyfriend made it for her." Parker says, starting to stack the books up, knowing she won't convince him to do any more work.

"How about this, if you agree to get ice cream, I'll study." He says, leaning very closely to her. He knows that he's making her flustered, and he's using it to his advantage.

"Fine." She gave in. "But you're paying."

"That's absolutely fine with me" he responds, and they walk out the door.