TROUVAILLE ... l.danes (REWRITE)

chapter fourteen; the present

A  BRIDE-THAT-NEVER-WAS, NEVER-WILL-BE, NEVER-WOULD

two-thousand-and-two

FOR THE first time in sixteen years, Shelley doesn't have a date.

All throughout her years at Harvard, she'd had enough names in her phonebook to rely on when she needed an arm to hold onto for the night. Never actually forced to attend frat parties by herself, or student theatre performances for the paper, or any of the crap that nobody actually wants to go to but you kind of have to if you want friends in your later years. Even in D.C, she'd had Shawn for all these events, his arm around her waist, his voice in her ear, always commenting on something, always trying to pull her away from their eyes, always leading her around the room. She never had to go out of her way to find a date. They always fell right into her hands.

Not anymore. She twists the bouquet of red roses in her hands around and around as she stands outside Luke's, watching him through the windows as she cleans up after his last customers from the lunch rush. He's got his cap on backwards, like always, and the sleeves of his flannel have been pushed up around his elbows to keep them out of the way while he cleans. It's not that big of a deal. Really. But, she can't control the nervous rolling of the bouquet in her hands. It's just Luke. Just Luke that she's asking to accompany her to her cousin's wedding. Not a date.

Absolutely not a date.

The bell tinkles above her as she steps through the door, capturing his attention from the wipes he's using to clean down tables. He grins at her over his shoulder and nods towards the counter, where she almost always sits just to be closer to the coffee. She and Lorelai even have their own seats there now, names carved in the underside with a knife while he wasn't looking. If he found them, he hasn't said anything. Yet.

"Got a secret admirer or something, Juliet?" He nods at the bouquet in her hands. She can already feel the heat rising to her cheeks. Was it just her or was there something bitter in the back of his throat? He rounds the counter, immediately reaching for the fresh coffee pot and one of her favourite yellow mugs.

She's too quick to splurt out a "no!" that makes his eyebrows raise as he pours her a cup of coffee. She tries to laugh it off. It sounds more like a hacking cough than anything else. Luke's confused stare drills into her.

God, when did it get so hard to ask someone out? She's not even asking him out. She's just asking him to go to Sookie's wedding with her, not as some date on her arm to show off to her family to say "hey, look, I can do this too!" but more as an emotional support animal she can pet whenever her stomach starts to churn. Walking down the aisle will be like walking head-on into a massacre. She needs a gun.

Luke's eyes never leave hers as she starts to rip the petals from roses she'd oh-so kindly asked her Mom for on her way here. The confusion gives way to a heavy sense of nostalgia that pricks at the back of their noses but they both ignore the rising tide of feelings they pushed away sixteen years ago as the rose petals are scattered across the counter between them.

"Shell, what are you doing to my counter?"

"I'm just taking you back to the good ol' days, so that when I ask you to Sookie's wedding you say yes."

She smiles up at her, trying to blink like an innocent little lamb afraid to be led to the slaughter. But, confusion is quick to spread across Luke's face and tightens up his features, not as enamoured by the rose petals as she thought he would be. It was meant to be a little bit of fun, taking them back to the day he'd asked her to prom all those years ago, covering her front garden in roses that spelled out 'WILL U GO TO PROM WITH ME, JULIET?' that she'd had to turn down with a pretty strong sense of guilt even if he didn't believe her.