All the Characters are over eighteen.
*
The text had two words and a punctuation mark 'Dinner tonight?'. Rory smiled as she read it, showing it to her friend Lane who was sitting on the bed beside her. "Can you cover for me? I'll tell Mom I'm eating with you and Mrs Kim."
"It's so romantic," said Lane. She clasped her hands together, in what almost looked like prayer, especially as she looked up to the ceiling, though given that Lane's relationship with Our Lord and Saviour was generally strained, it was unlikely that was how she meant the gesture. "Oh how I'd love to have a secret girlfriend like you, that I was hiding from Mrs Kim. I mean you're not hiding her from Mrs Kim, you're hiding her from Lorelai, I'd be hiding her from Mrs Kim. Though I suppose you're also hiding your girlfriend from Mrs Kim as she might tell Lorelai."
"Slow down, Kemo Sabe, can I text back 'yes'?" Rory held her mobile in her hand.
Lane nodded enthusiastically, she seemed more excited about Rory's dinner date than the brunette did herself, at least on the outside. She bounced cross-legged on her bed as Rory typed in the three letters and then as soon as her friend had finished the message launched into the inquisition, "So have you done it yet?"
"Not since you yesterday when you last asked," said Rory dryly.
"So you think tonight?" Lane had pretty much asked the same question every time Rory had asked her to be her alibi.
And Rory gave the same answer, "I don't know." Then she shrugged and gave a wry smile, "But you know Lane I really am seriously thinking about, y'know... having sex."
"We're eighteen, it's all we're all thinking," said Lane with feeling. She paused dreamily, her own thoughts moving in that direction before she continued, "But you'd' do it with her?"
Rory paused, she was someone who always like to consider consequences and this was a topic that demanded thought -- if only to confirm her feelings hadn't changed since the last time she'd thought about it a few moments ago. "Yes, I would."
"Oh my God," squeaked Lane, clapping her hands, "It would be so romantic if she did it after dinner tonight. You'll text me if you're having dessert, just so I can get my story straight if Lorelai asks."
"If dessert is an entendre, I'll let you know," grinned Rory.
*
"So what are you doing on your night off?" Lorelai Gilmore entered the kitchen off the Independence Inn as her chef and best friend Sookie St James put away her mobile in her bag.
The plump woman jumped and put her hand to her heart, "Don't do that Lorelai, you startled me."
"Don't do what? Come in the kitchen? Hello, it's not like I was creeping into your house at two in the morning with a knife," Lorelai grinned to show she wasn't planning to bloodily murder her friend in her sleep. "You're a bit jumpy."
"It's nothing," said Sookie. "Just I've been thinking all day about lunch. I think I put too much cream in the soup, it must have been all ruined and everyone would have been thinking 'this is a sludge and I can't taste the mushrooms'. They're never going to come back -- unless they come back and sue us claiming that the food we served wasn't edible."
"I had some. It was alright..." Lorelai took a look at her friend's horrified face and quickly changed her mind, "...not alright, excellent, exquisite. In fact I overheard someone telling one of the waiters it was a God of a Soup, ready to be worshipped and bowed down to." Sookie looked slightly mollified, though only slightly. Lorelai wondered what further praise she could lavish as whilst the soup hadn't been nearly as bad as Sookie had suggested it might be, it still was a little below the chef's exacting standards, but without risking Sookie having a nervous breakdown there was no way to tell her that. Thankfully Sookie's mobile beeped. It gave Lorelai a chance to change the subject, "Are you going to look at that?"
Sookie already was doing, snatching the phone from her bag, like if she didn't get it straight away the message would expire. A smile came over her face and she relaxed, sliding the mobile back into her bag. She looked at Lorelai, "I might have been over-reacting on the soup."
"Just a little," replied Lorelai, slightly surprised. Sookie never thought her food was ever quiet good enough and she never, ever, ever admitted that she might have exaggerated the disastrousness of what she had served -- at least not without Lorelai pouring copious amounts of alcohol down her friends throat. Lorelai wondered if it had anything to do with the text, it must have been good news. She wondered about asking, but that would be too obvious; still she wondered if it was anything to do with this evening, "So I was asking if you had any plans on your night off?"
Sookie looked coy with a slight hint of bashfulness. It was obvious she was lying when she said, "I was thinking I'd just watch some TV, perhaps read a book."
Lorelai smiled at her single friend, "And you are planning to do all that on your own?"