CHERRY. [JESS MARIANO]

Snowman

Walking towards the Independence Inn I noticed a familiar figure in front on me. It looked like they were carrying an armful of paper and god knows what else. They were speed walking as if they always had somewhere they had to be. I knew that walk.

"Paris!" I call out, walking towards her in the snow. The dark sky making it hard to see whether she turned around or not.

As I neared her I could see that she had stopped walking and waited for me. "Good, you're here." She starts before dumping what must be a whole stack of papers in my arm.

We both continue walking as I speak. "What's this? And what're you doing here?"

"This is what we need to go over for the debate next week, and I'm here to pass these to Rory." She open the doors to the inn and walks inside.

Without even bothering to take off her coat she heads straight to Rory. I shake my head at her, she should stop worrying so much. I hang up my coat and pass my luggage to the bellhop, thanking him.

I make my way towards Rory and Paris. She handed Rory whatever they needed for the newspaper. "She uses the Prince version for writing," Paris was explaining as I joined them.

Rory notices me come up behind Paris and I mouth some words to her. 'Invite her,' I mouth pointing to Paris. She takes in my suggestion before nodding slightly.

"Hey, Paris," Rory starts. "Do you have anything going on tonight?"

I make myself known as I stand next to Paris. "I'm sure she doesn't."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asks.

I glance at Rory, encouraging her to get on with the main question. "Nothing, it's just that we're having this big dinner party and I was wondering if you would wanna join us?"

Furrowing her eyebrows, as if not understanding the invitation turns to me for conformations. "They have a ton of extra food," I try, noticing Paris still looked unsure. "We can even go over the debate tonight," I sigh as she nods at my proposal.

"Well, I'd just have to make a call," Paris grabs her cellphone from her coat.

"Good, make it." Rory looks at me with pride that we had actually got Paris to do something other than work. Well, I still had to do the debate with her but that was a minor setback.

We both turn to Paris who was talking in Portuguese to whom I assume is her nanny. She walks away to, hear her nanny better over the chattering of voices.

Looking for Rory, I see that she was engaged in conversation with Dean. I was still pretty mad at him for his whole outburst at the market. So when I caught him looking at me as if he wanted to talk I quickly avert my eyes.

Which did absolutely nothing, since he was still walking over to me. "Hey," he greets me nervously.

"You gonna yell at me again?" I cross my arms in front of the dress shirt I was wearing.

Dean let out a dry laugh. "No," he says.

I look up at him with a sigh. "Alright, say your piece."

"Listen, I'm sorry for getting mad earlier." He apologies as he recounts the events with a grim look on his face.

"You shouldn't have yelled."

"I know, and I'm sorry." He said before turning his head towards the sound of the door closing.

We both see that Jess and Luke came inside while they took off their coats. Rory and Dean's sister came up to us, noticing how annoyed Dean looked.