‘Not interrupting, am I?’ Riggs said. He had his jacket on and his bag was slung over his shoulder.
‘We thought you’d left ages ago. Have you been back there this whole time?’ Lorelai couldn’t quite meet anyone’s eye.
‘Dad didn’t want me out front anymore tonight. For obvious reasons.’ Riggs glanced at Grayson. ‘He had me doing inventory out the back but…’ Riggs took a deep breath and Lorelai could hear it shake in his throat, ‘when I couldn’t even do that right, he fired me.’
Lorelai gasped. ‘Hefiredyou?’
‘Yup. So… that’s that, I guess.’ Riggs shrugged.
‘Where thefuckhave you been?’ Joanie yelled at Riggs, storming through the doors that led to the screen. ‘You get one bollocking and then disappear all night?’
‘Joanie…’ Lorelai began but Joanie held up a finger.
‘No, Lollie,’ Joanie interrupted.
Lorelai’s eyes darted to Grayson to check if he’d picked up on that nickname and his raised eyebrows suggested he had. She groaned inwardly.
‘No, I’m done,’ Joanie ranted, in full flow now. ‘I have no more fucks to give. My fuck field is barren. My river of fucks has runneth dry. I am fresh. Out. Of fucks!’
Riggs, who had already been defeated, looked so completely beaten back by her words.
‘Joanie!’Lorelai hissed.
‘What?!’ Joanie spun round to face Lorelai.
‘Riggs just got fired,’ Lorelai explained.
Riggs let his gaze slide to the floor, his head hanging in embarrassment.
‘Oh,’ was all Joanie could say, the wind knocked out of her sails.
‘You can keep staying with us until you find another job,’ Lorelai told Riggs gently.
‘He’s staying with you?’ Grayson finally spoke up.
‘Just for a bit,’ Lorelai said quickly. ‘He had nowhere else to go.’
‘You can stay for a few more days,’ Joanie said. ‘But I want you gone by next week.’
‘Joanie—’
‘No, Lorelai.’ Joanie was firm. ‘Look, Riggs, I’m sorry you got fired, but this can’t have been a shock to you. It’s time for you to figure things out, and stand on your own two feet.’
In her heart, Lorelai knew Joanie was right. Riggs would never find out what his dream was if they kept coddling him. And poor Wesley. For all the time she’d worked at The Duchess, Wesley had talked at great length about how his son would take over and run the cinema one day. It was his dream that the business would be passed on from father to child, generation after generation. His legacy continuing until cinemas became obsolete. Firing Riggs was not only a father firing his son, it was also the final nail in the coffin to his life’s dream.
‘Listen,’ Grayson said to Riggs, ‘I hope you don’t think I asked for you to be fired. I promise it wasn’t like that.’
‘Whatever.’ Riggs made his way around the counter. ‘I’m going for a walk. I don’t know when I’ll be home.’ And then he was gone.
Lorelai awoke abruptly in a bed that wasn’t her own and found herself staring at her jeans, which were flung over the back of an unfamiliar desk chair. She was clammy and her head was pounding harder than it had in a very long time. She wanted so badly to blame alcohol, but she knew by the visions swimming around her mind that it was another nightmare. The blood-red numbers of the alarm clock glared 4 A.M. Lorelai rolled over to see the face of the man she’d spent the night with and couldn’t stop herself from smiling. Michael.
Lorelai had admired Michael during her fresher’s year but had never found the courage to speak to him. He had an understated kind of confidence she envied with her whole being. He was never afraid to show off his knowledge but was also the first to admit when he was wrong. He would throw up his hands and laugh like it didn’t pain him to admit defeat. Lorelai was attracted to him in a way she’d never felt before.
Finally, in her final year, she’d bumped into him at a coffee shop and she had somehow found the right words to say. She had been happily surprised when Michael had known her name, known who she was. He offered her a seat at his table and they’d talked for over an hour before either of them had realised how much time had passed.
It was the beginning of something, even if Lorelai wasn’t prepared to admit it. Being near Michael made her feel like someone else. Someone who wasn’t constantly worried about what people would think of her. Someone who didn’t have a secret to hide. It was easy to forget about all of that with Michael close by because he made her laugh and made her feel clever. He made Lorelai feel normal. He made her feel comfortable and as someone who had never felt hugely comfortable with anyone before, Lorelai basked in that feeling.
But then her nightmares would come, each one worse than the one before it. Night after night she would jolt awake, the images replaying vividly, and her head feeling as though it would split in two. She didn’t know why her nightmares were becoming so vivid, and lingering for so long when she was awake, but she knew it couldn’t be anything good.
