“Look, Jess! Look!”
Lily bounded into the living room, tugging Lindsay’s hand. Lindsay stumbled in behind her, a grin on her face and her eyes full of laughter.
She belonged there.
The thought threw Jess for a loop. She didn’t belong there, she belonged back in Connecticut, with her parents or another khaki-wearing guy. Not in a house full of ceramic clowns with brightly painted walls.
Lily pointed. “Lindsay got her hair cut.”
“So she did.” Jess put on a good show of nonchalance, but he actually thought Lindsay looked good. It wasn’t a big change, just a little shorter, but it made her look really beautiful.
He didn’t just think that.
They’d only been in Venice Beach for a couple weeks, and Lindsay fit right in with everyone. Sasha liked her, Lily adored her, and Jimmy simply raised his eyebrows whenever she and Jess were in a room together.
Everyone was just the same as Jess remembered them. Sasha still had an unnerving love for practical jokes. Just the day before she’d flushed the toilet while Jess was in the shower. After being assaulted by a stream of icy cold water, he’d thrown a towel around his waist and run into the living room to yell at whoever had done it. Lindsay was sitting next to Sasha, giggling uncontrollably. He’d opened his mouth to say something, but then felt a sudden breeze and realized that Lily had snatched his towel.
Lindsay’s eyes had nearly bugged out of her head. He would have killed Lily, but he had no doubt she’d learned all her tricks from her mother. Instead he simply grabbed his towel from the floor, placed it over the areas he most wanted to be covered, and backed into the bathroom.
“Lindsay, there’s a package for you,” Jimmy called from the kitchen, bringing Jess back to the current situation.
She skidded in seconds after and opened the manila envelope. Pulling out a stack of papers, she skimmed through the cover letter that accompanied them.
Jess walked up behind her. “What is it?” he asked.
“Divorce papers.” Lindsay looked up at him with wide eyes and let out an excited squeal. “I’m divorced!”
“Really?”
Lindsay nodded, grinning. “Dean signed the papers. We’re officially divorced.”
Jess tried not to look too happy. He knew she was relieved, especially after what had happened, but there was no reason to leap for joy just because she was rid of the scuz. Things were never as simple as that. It would still take some time for her to recover from the betrayal and hurt Dean had caused her.
“Let’s celebrate!”
Okay, so maybe he was wrong. Lindsay was in full “celebration mode”. He supposed she could grieve for her lost marriage later.
***
“I love Venice Beach!” Lindsay did an excited little twirl on the boardwalk.
Jess watched, amused, but trying not to show that he was with an obvious tourist such as Lindsay. She’d already done most of the things residents would be horrified by, starting with buying a big straw hat and neon pink flip flops.
Now she wanted to go to Pacific Park. Never mind that she and Lily had already been there twice in the past week, she wanted to go. Insisted on going. Begged to go.
Jess gave up and just trailed behind her.
He did, however, refuse to go ride the bumper cars with her. That resulted in a more humiliating alternative, when she left her pink purse in his grasp and ran off.
He felt so manly. “What next?” he asked, after she had returned from the ride and taken the offending bag back.
“Roller coaster!” she squealed, grabbing his hand and yanking him towards the nearest stomach heaving ride.
A dozen twisty rides later, Jess was in serious danger of reacquainting himself with the breakfast burrito he had inhaled that morning on his way out of the house and the corndog he’d had an hour before.
“Ooooh! Look!” Lindsay pointed towards another ride.
Jess glanced at it long enough to realize that his stomach was in no way prepared to handle another one of those rides. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her in the opposite direction.
“How about the Ferris Wheel?” he suggested. The Ferris Wheel was safe. Nice and slow. Niiiiice and sloooooooow. Slow was good. Jess liked slow.
Lindsay agreed and climbed into one of the brightly painted cars with him. He still ended up holding her purse, but at least this time they were so far up, no one could notice.
“This has been so much fun.” Lindsay turned towards Jess and smiled. “Thank you so much for coming with me.”
Jess grunted. “I didn’t have a choice,” he muttered under his breath.
Lindsay simply continued smiling. He had a choice. Just like he’d had a choice back in Stars Hollow. She knew he liked to act all tough, but she’d seen him fooling around with Lily when he thought no one was looking. Deep down inside, Jess was a big old softie. He’d never let you see it, but he was.
Jimmy had told her about as much a few nights after she and Jess arrived. “I know he acts all gruff,” he’d said seriously, “but the fact that he brought you with him alone shows that he cares.”
That one sentence had given her this warm feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Rory really did a number on him,” Jimmy continued. “I don’t know what she did to him, but he’s different. Just…don’t…don’t hurt my kid, okay?”
Lindsay had nodded solemnly at him. She’d understood so much about Jimmy in that brief moment. Understood just how much he cared about Jess. They were a lot alike, Jimmy and Jess. Jimmy didn’t really know how to show he cared either.
“It’s so beautiful,” Lindsay breathed, staring at the sky.
Jess nodded slightly. He had to admit, seeing a sunset from up on that Ferris Wheel was something else. It was extra special for Lindsay, because the sunsets in California were so different from back east.
Take that night for instance. A normal sunset in Connecticut would involve numerous colors, all swirling around. It would be beautiful, but incomparable to the sky they were seeing at Venice Beach.
Purple. The whole sky was bright purple. It shone pink around where the sun still was, but the sky essentially was purple.
“Thank you.”
Jess turned and looked at Lindsay. “For what now?”
“For taking me here. Here to California, I mean.” Lindsay smiled, leaning over to kiss him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you.”
That too, was beautiful.
But it was only the calm before the storm.