"You and Rory have competition."
--☆--☆--☆--
"We really shouldn't be talking about this," Cassie said, looking around the halls for the subject of their current conversation.
"Why, everyone else is," Sophie reminded her. Currently there was a group of four standing by Tristan Dugray's locker, Tristan, obviously, accompanied by Sophie, Cassie, and Josh. The four of them had been spending more and more time together ever since Cassie and Josh's date.
"She could walk past us any second," Cassie told her, still searching the hallway. "And I don't want to deal with her wrath."
"Don't worry," Josh said, putting both his arms around Cassie in a protective manner. "I'll-"
"If you say you'll protect I'm kicking you in the balls," Sophie said, earning a laugh from Cassie.
Josh had a look on his face that basically said, I'd like to see you try. "Dude," Tristan shook his head at his best friend. "Don't. She'll do it."
Sophie smiled sweetly, and Cassie was quite sure of the fact that she would easily take someone down if she needed to. Sophie is like the definition of sweet until provoked. "Anyways..." Josh said nervously, now wanting to switch conversation topics.
"I heard Paris' dad has a second family in Paris," Tristan said as he grabbed a book from his locker. Once again the halls of Chilton were filled with details of the Geller divorce, leaving the one and only Paris Geller holding her head lower than normal.
"That's ridiculous," Cassie said, shaking her head at the Dugray boy.
"Maybe her sister's name is Rome," Sophie wondered out loud, earning an amused look from Tristan and head shake from Cassie.
"You know sometimes I forget you guys are related," Cassie admitted, "but sometimes you almost seem like siblings."
"You take that back," They said at the same time, in almost a freakish manner.
"Make that twins," Josh said with a laugh. "You and Rory have competition."
"We'll start sharpening our telepathy skills when we get home," Cassie added, still watching in amusement as the Dugray cousins eyed each other in disgust.
"Rory."
The sound of Mr. Medina calling out her sister's name caught Cassie's attention. No one at Chilton, not even Josh, knew about Mr. Medina and Lorelai's relationship. The twins decided at the start they wouldn't tell anyone, no one needed to know.
So when she saw Mr. Medina talking to Rory, Cassie felt nervous. She liked Mr. Medina, as a teacher, absolutely, as her mother's boyfriend, she wasn't sure yet. Cassie hadn't spent any time with him outside of school, and Rory only had one awkward conversation with him. Neither of them knew him, at all.
"Hey, you okay?" Josh nudged Cassie's arm, forcing her to look away from her sister.
"Yeah, totally," Cassie nodded in a casual manner. "I just have to talk to Rory about something. I'll see you later," Cassie quickly excused herself before catching up with Rory. "Hey!"
"Hey?" Rory turned around with a confused expression on her face. "Shouldn't you be gossiping about Paris with them?"
"Already did that," Cassie waved her hand. "So what did Mr. Medina want?"
"He was checking in for the cookie count," Rory answered.
Cassie shook her head in confusion, wondering what that meant. "The cookie count?"
"For parent's day."
"Mr. Medina wanted to talk about the cookie count for parent's day?" Cassie questioned.
"Yeah, apparently he hasn't heard from Mom yet so he was just checking," Rory shrugged her shoulders innocently.
"Oh."
"Oh?"
"Nothing," Cassie put on a smile, knowing Rory needed to figure this one out on her own. "So Mom's for sure coming tomorrow?"
"Yeah," Rory answered with a smile on her face. "Why are you frowning?"
Cassie shook her head, "I'm fine."
--☆--☆--☆--☆--☆--
There weren't many chores that got done in the Gilmore household. There were a few obvious tasks like changing the sheets or doing the laundry. However things like sweeping, rinsing, or cleaning out the fridge didn't happen often.
They were usually pushed off until the very last second when one of the Gilmore finally caved and one of them cleaned. On this night all of them caved, and the three of them were working to clean out the fridge. The smell of moldy food began to fill their kitchen and none of them could take it anymore.
"Pizza," Lorelai pulled one of the two pizza boxes out of the fridge, leaving it hovering over the trash bin.
"From?"
"Tuesday maybe," Cassie guessed as she looked at the box.
"Last Tuesday?" Rory asked, she was always the one to make them throw out old stuff. If she didn't, their fridge would be filled to the brim with old pizza and chinese food.
"Tuesday in the not too distant past."
"Toss it."
"So, you remember Paris Geller?" Rory asked as she sat down at the kitchen table.
"You're very best friend in the whole wide world?" Lorelai asked in a sarcastic tone.
"Her parents are getting a major divorce."
"Really?" Lorelai asked as she tossed yet another item into the trash bin.
"Yeah it's bad," Cassie nodded her head.
"Her dad's like this bigwig are a huge pharmaceutical company, and they're printing all the sordid details about it in the paper," Rory informed Lorelai.
"Ooh, how sordid?"
"It's no Rick Hames incident but Hugh Grant should be feeling pretty good right about now," Cassie answered for Rory as she picked up another box, giving it a quick smell test. A gag left her throat as she quickly tossed it into the trash. "Ew."
"If she was anybody else in the entire world I'd feel bad for her."
"Actually, I kinda do feel bad for her."
"For reasons unknown. Even the Dalai freaking Lama wouldn't like Paris," Cassie argued.
"Well Rory is the nicest kid ever to walk the earth," Lorelai teased.
"The whole school is talking about it, and the weird thing is that the whole dynamic there has changed for me."
"Really, how so?"
"Well, Madeline and Louise, Paris' best friends, they said hello to me the other day," Roy answered her mother.
"Like a normal hello? Not a here's Johnny hello?" Lorelai asked.
"Normal. Friendly. The way they are with Cass."
"Madeline and Louise don't like me," Cassie tried to argue.
Rory shook her head at her sister before putting a day old fry in her mouth. "Yeah but your closest friend in Sophie Dugray, it's different."
"So you're the new heather?" Lorelai asked, looking at her oldest daughter.
"I guess," Rory shrugged.
"My sister, a Heather," Rory smiled, taking Rory's seat away from her.
Lorelai turned, grabbing the second box of pizza they had in the fridge. "Oh, hey, This is this pizza from mystery Tuesday. That one's completely fine," She said looking down at the box that now sat in the trash bin.
"Don't," Rory and Cassie said at the same time. They knew their mother, and they knew what she was thinking.
"It's in the box!"
"Oscar."
"Felix!"
"Forget it," Rory told her mother.
"Fine."
Lorelai threw the old pizza box in the trash with an annoyed look on her face. Cassie shook her head at her mother while Rory moved back to the table, taking a seat across from Cassie.
"So how's Swann's way coming?" Rory asked, tapping the book Mr. Medina had given Lorelai.
Cassie picked up the book, flipping through the first couple of pages. Cassie herself has never been able to make it through Swann's way. She tried initially after Rory first finished it, but she could never make it past the first page. Cassie could be called a bookworm, there's no doubt about that, but nobody read as many books as Rory did.
"Oh finished," Lorelai said as she turned around to look at her oldest daughter.
"You're kidding!" Rory gasped. "It took me forever to read that. I had to renew it 10 times."
"I renewed it 5 times then gave up," Cassie admitted.
"The first sentence-" Lorelai clarified, "I finished the first sentence."
"Aha."
"Sounds accurate," Cassie realized, if Lorelai really had finished the book within a couple days of receiving it Cassie would've given her a medal of honor.
"Yeah - it's just - I'm so swamped right now you know, it's the totally wrong time to start reading the longest book known to man," Lorelai said and her twins nodded in agreement. "Hey, maybe one of you could give it back to Max for me?"
"One of us?"
"Just bring it with you tomorrow," Rory told her mom.
"Tomorrow?"
"Parent's day?" Rory reminded her.
Lorelai let out a knowing sigh, which wasn't very knowing at all. In fact Lorelai had completely forgotten about parent's day. Her mind had been preoccupied with other things to worry about. "I know. I'm just - I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make it."
"Why?" Cassie asked, looking up at her mom with a slightly disappointed look.
"What do you mean?"
"Well I have that thing at the inn and I thought I could get away and now I can't," Lorelai said, lying to her daughters.
"What thing?"
"The thing - the inn thing?" Lorelai attempted to clarify.
"What inn thing?" Rory asked as Cassie crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance.
"You know."
Rory looked over at Cassie who shook her head, allowing Rory to say. "No we don't."
"The thing at the inn with the flags and the little men and the peanuts - the thing," Lorelai said, still lying to her kids.
"Little men?"
"Peanuts?" The twins questioned.
"Forget it, it's not important - I just don't think I can go."
"Okay..." Rory said in an unconivned tone. "Fine."
"So, if you could give this book back to Max tomorrow - that would be great," Lorelai asked, going back to the original topic, Max and the book.
"Why don't you just give it back to him the next time you see him?" Rory suggested.
"Yeah, we can't bring him a book you borrowed during one of your dates... it'd be too weird," Cassie added.
"Because I'm not sure when that would be and he should have his book," Lorelai told them, beginning to get a little upset with her daughters and the world in general.
"You see him all the time."
"Sometimes more than you see us," Cassie added.
"Girls, could you just-" Lorelai dropped the book on the table in annoyance, "give it back to him ok?"
Rory's expression fell as a realization struck her. Of course, this revelation was one Cassie came to earlier that day. "Are you breaking up with him?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Well he hasn't heard from you and now you're asking me to give him the book back," Rory explained.
"How do you know he hasn't heard from me?"
"He wanted to know if you were going to Parent's day and then he mentioned that you guys hadn't talked lately."
"He shouldn't be asking you about me."
"Well he can't ask you, you've been avoiding his calls," Cassie interjected, earning a very annoyed look from her mother.
"Why are you breaking up with him?" Rory asked.
"Because it's not working out."
"But you seemed so happy," Rory reminded her.
"It's not right - that's all."
"So that's why you're not going tomorrow?"
Lorelai shook her head. "No, I'm not going tomorrow because of the thing at the inn."
"That's BS, and you know it," Cassie said, now more annoyed than disappointed.
"Hey!" Lorelai raised her voice as she pointed to her daughter.
"There is no thing at the inn, you're avoiding Mr. Medina and you're trying to lie to us and you promised you would go and - hey, do whatever you want. I don't care, just leave me out of it." Rory said, standing up from the table and going to her room. "And give him the book back yourself," She added before slamming the door behind her.
Cassie stood up from the table, and Lorelai was expecting her to yell as well. "You don't need to lie to us Mom," Cassie said in a softer tone than Lorelai was expecting. "I'm going out for a bit," She said before grabbing her jacket and heading out the door.
Cassie knew exactly where she was going. It was the same place she went to when she was happy or mad, or just needed some comfort. She walked about four minutes after leaving her house, and immediately took a seat at the counter.
Luke looked over at her from the table in the corner where he was currently taking an order for Kirk. He saw the sad, and slightly annoyed look on Cassie's face and he knew what she needed. Luke knew every order for every mood Cassie had. He memorized years ago, and never planned on forgetting.
"Hey kid," He said, filling up a mug with coffee without giving her the usual lecture about how caffeine is bad for her.
"Hey," Cassie spoke quietly, as she cupped the warm mug with her hands.
"What's wrong?" He asked her as he wrote down an order, giving it to Caesar without having Cassie look at the menu.
Cassie shook her head, "Nothing. It's just mom."
"What?" Luke suddenly sounded nervous. "Is your mom okay?"
Cassie smiled, glancing down at her mug for a second. Ever since Luke drove Lorelai to the hospital when Richard got sick, Cassie has had the idea of Luke and Lorelai together stuck in her mind. And she loved it. She always thought of Luke as her surrogate father, since her real dad wasn't man enough to stick around for longer than two hours. And she knew Luke could take care of Lorelai, and really really love her, the way she deserved to be loved.
"Yeah, she's fine," Cassie assured him. "We just got in a bit of an argument, that's all."
"Well you'll work through it," Luke told her. "You three are closer than every other family on the planet. You'll be fine," He said, smiling when Cassie smiled. "I'll get you your food."
"Thanks Luke," She said before the Danes man walked away.