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chapter fourteen: parents' weekend

a/n:

tw(s) — oliver myrtle & tom riley in one room and a scene depicting why rory has an eating disorder

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After their little zoo excursion, Rory spends so much of her time trying to figure out the middle ground between how she feels about the breakup and her feelings (?!?!?) for Rick that she completely forgets about Parents' Weekend until it's too late.

Rachel wakes her up early that Saturday so they can get ready together like they agreed to. Rory struggles to get out of bed as the bleak mid-autumn morning greets her but she manages to, somewhere between a scalding hot shower and a capful of mouthwash that is so strong that her eyes water, wake up enough to pick out an outfit as Rachel goes into the bathroom, leaving her music player at such a volume that Rory is sure she's going to have to apologize to someone for the onslaught of the Bangles at five o'clock in the morning. The outfit she picks includes a red turtleneck, a modest black skirt, and a pair of heels that weren't tall enough to make her father call her any names. (And she knows he's coming. Buckley sat her down at one point for the awkward 'your father RSVP'd but your mother ignored our call' conversation she'd been having most of her life.)

She then, at the behest of Rachel who calls through the door, picks through Rachel's clothes for an appropriate outfit for today. Once she thinks she's found something that won't be heinous but also won't make Rachel look grumpy, she puts in a nice pair of earrings in and an old cameo necklace that once belonged to her grandmother around her neck.

It's then, as she sits at her desk, her hands flat on the surface and eyes squeezed shut, and tries to swallow a panic attack to the tune of Bell Jar, that someone finally knocks on their door.

"I'm sorry," She breathes once she's crossed the room to open it, "Rachel insisted on listening to it. I'll turn the volume down—— Oh, hey. You look nice."

Rick smiles crookedly when she finally makes eye contact and stops rambling.

He does look nice. Annoyingly so. A crisp white collar peaks out from the top of his black cable-knit sweater and the slacks he wears have been ironed; his hair has been swept back from his eyes.

"You too." Rick not-so-subtly glances her over and she fights the urge to spontaneously die. "I just wanted to see if you were alright before this started."

Oh.

Rory leans against the doorway. "I'm okay. Why?"

His expression swims with doubt.

"Adam said your dad's a real wrecking ball of a man." He says. "I just—— I'm here, okay? If you need to talk... or if you need to hit someone so you don't hit your dad."

The last part is phrased like a joke, accompanied by the twitch of his lip, but Rory frowns.

"I would never hit you. Not, like, seriously."

"I'm flattered."

"Adam's right. He is like a wrecking ball. But I'll be fine." She assures him. "Is it, like, weird to say that I'm kind of excited for you to meet him? I've never introduced him to anybody he'd approve of."

That much is true. Henri had been someone that no one but her stepfather liked, and she was barred from even being seen in the same area as the Anderson siblings if they weren't playing a game together, and he hated most of the Ducks, barely tolerating Adam just because of his parents. Rick would, probably, be perfect in his eyes.

"I feel like your father's approval is definitely something that I want to work against."

"Well, duh," She scoffs lightly, "but, like, the strapping young heir to a fraction of an oil empire? He probably won't even insult you. Not even subtly."

He lifts an eyebrow and his lips pull back over his teeth in that goddamn Rick Riley smile. "You think I'm strapping?"

"Yeah."

Rick doesn't get to respond to that because Rachel, who must have finished her shower minutes ago, comes up behind Rory.

"Are you two going to stand here and flirt all morning?"

"Hey, Rach." Rick greets his sister flatly at the same time Rory insists that they weren't flirting, but then allows his concern to bleed into his words. "You feeling okay about all of this?"

"I'm fine." Rachel says brusquely and turns around to go into their room.

Rory glances between the two siblings uneasily. "Look, I am going to go see if any of the guys need help tying ties or buttoning buttons. I'll see you guys later?"

Rick looks grateful but Rachel still has her back turned to her.

"Yeah. Don't forget that we get a separate, smaller thing with our parents before breakfast." (That was another part of Buckley's long, winding talk—— because of how rich and infamous their parents were, they, and the son of some diplomat, had to meet their parents out back.)

"I won't."

Rory slips out of the room so the two of them can have a talk about their father and starts walking down the hall.

"Hey, Rory, wait."

She turns back to look at Rick. "Hm?"

"Your step-siblings aren't coming, are they?"

"No." She shakes her head. "Why?"

"No reason."

Rick steps into their room after she nods, and Rachel makes the volume of her music louder. Rory shoves thoughts of Rick kicking her step-brother's ass for her honor to the back of her mind.

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After spending the last bits of her morning helping her teammates make themselves presentable, Rory rejoins the Riley siblings and the diplomat's kid so they can all be led to where their families will meet them by the most chipper alumni volunteer she's seen yet. Rachel's hand finds hers as they walk and she squeezes it lightly while Rick and the other kid, a few paces behind them, mock their guide in hushed voices. Rory doesn't speak, just smiles reassuringly at her roommate and squeezes her hand in return, because she gets it. Even if she does not know their dad personally, she knows their dad on a basic level, and she knows what it's like to be the child of a man like that.

Rachel seems to appreciate it, though, because she leans her head on Rory's shoulder.

"God, this is going to suck."

"Yeah." Rory hums. "At least it's just a weekend."

But, as soon as they arrive at the gate and see the sheer amount of security, police, and press gathering around, her forced confidence plummets.

"Jesus," Rachel voices her initial feeling, lifting her head but not releasing Rory's hand, "you'd think we were the kids of criminals, or something."

"I'm sure someone in my family's committed fraud."

Rory's light comment earns a laugh out of the diplomat's kid, which makes her feel slightly better.

"This is so going to inflate my dad's ego." She continues a moment later. "God, they're going to make him feel so great, and then seeing me is going to ruin his day."

"I don't know. Maybe finding out that you broke up with your loser boyfriend will make him so happy he'll buy you a yacht."

Rory thinks for a second about Rick's comment but then shrugs. "Yeah. You're probably right."

(Though, there was one aspect about that scenario that would make her father's head explode.)

Their parents arrive in a procession of limos that are led and followed by big, black security vehicles.

A tall, willowy, French-looking man emerges from the first and the diplomat's kid bids them all a polite goodbye before going to meet his father halfway.

From the second, a man with greying black hair, a short blonde in a thick fur coat, and a boy around her age who looks like he'd rather be anywhere else. She doesn't look away as Rachel releases her to run up to the mysterious boy (their brother that Rick didn't like talking about) and engulf him in a hug. Rick, after his fingers brush against hers but flinch away from her attempt to hold them and comfort him, takes his time moseying over.

Rory has to look away as their father barely greets him. That proves to be too much.

Then, finally, as her legs carry her in the right direction without her mind's explicit permission, her father and stepmother step out of the third limo.

It's an odd feeling, seeing her father again.

A kind of suffocating tightness in her chest that makes the urge to run away and hide so much stronger.

But it fades with the stuttering beat of her heart as he removes his sunglasses and smiles at her, seemingly genuine for the first time in months, and sweeps her into a hug. A bone-crushing hug.

He presses a kiss to her head and mumbles into her hair. "I've missed you, Lola."

Tears spring to her eyes immediately.

"I missed you, too."

When they pull away, he holds her face in his hands for a moment and then pats her on the cheek before he lets her go.

"Hey, sweetheart." Krystal says, hugging Rory as tightly as she can with the free arm that isn't holding a baby on her hip and kissing her cheek. "How've you been?"

The reminder of what their last conversation was makes her stomach twist.

"I've been alright." She wiggles her finger in Ellie's face as she speaks, hoping that her stepmother will believe her.

The look on Krystal's face doesn't make her feel good, though.

"Well, that's good." She shifts Ellie on her hip and then gestures to Oliver with her head. "We brought you a care package. One of the things in there is from Knox."

Oliver turns around to snap his fingers. One of the guys lingering around them holds out a bag that her father passes along to her. It's decently heavy.

She glances inside. "Oh, uh, thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"How's Grandpa?"

"He's good." Oliver's smile has changed, slightly. "Let's not worry ourselves with that now, though. This is an exciting thing, and I've got good news for you."

Rory nods. She'll be sure to press Krystal for details later.

"Now, uh, where is that boyfriend of yours? I was rather looking forward to meeting his parents."

Her shoulders sag. (She had conveniently forgotten that everybody else's parents would be there, too.)

"About that... We broke up."

Her father and her stepmother wear matching looks of surprise.

"I broke up with him." Rory amends. "I don't want to talk about it. Exciting events and good news is what this is all about, right?"

Krystal rubs her back but Oliver nods, conceding.

"But, uh, on the bright side. I'm making friends."

When she glances their way, the Riley family is still by their car, too, and they're looking at them. Mrs. Riley waves at her.

"Rachel and Rick Riley, for example." Rory makes a sweeping gesture toward them.

That piques Oliver's interest.

"Riley? As in——"

"Yeah." She nods (and tries not to be disappointed at how much more interested he is in that than he was in seeing her to begin with.) "As in that Riley."

Suddenly, he's smiling again. "I knew you'd find your own here. Come. I want to meet the man."

Rory and Krystal are left behind as he starts walking toward the Riley family. They exchange a look in his absence, a variation of the same one they always share when he says something particularly off-color.

"I'll tell you about the breakup, later, if you tell me about my grandfather."

Krystal nods, accepting the deal, "We should catch up before he embarrasses you in front of his friends." She then looks down at the bag in Rory's hand. "I'll hold onto that for you. Ellie missed you."

Now, Rory doubts her sister's capacity for missing her, but she makes the trade anyway, smiling as the baby rests her head against Rory's chin and makes a cooing noise around the pacifier in her mouth.

Oliver and Mr. Riley are too engrossed in whatever they have to talk about to acknowledge their arrival, but Mrs. Riley makes quick work of introducing herself.

"Hi!" She says, smiling wide as she held Rory at arm's length and leaned in close to press air kisses to her cheeks. "It's so nice to finally meet you! My kids have told me so much about you."

(Rick, cheeks twinged pink, suppresses a groan.)

"It's nice to meet you, too."

"Oh, you're just as pretty as your picture—— Hi, my name is Jess. You must be Oliver's wife."

Rory shamelessly abandons her step-mother as her closest companions' boisterous mother moves on to making small talk with her. Eyes slightly wide, she makes eye contact with Rick as she takes a step around Jess, and he smiles sympathetically as he grabs her arm to pull her closer to the rest of them.

"Rory, James. James, Rory."

Rory extends a hand to the boy that sticks to Rachel's side like glue as Rick introduces them. He glances at it before shrugging and shaking it.

"You took my spot on JV and then graduated out of it, anyway."

"Oh." She forgot about that, too. "I'm sorry?"

Rachel hits him on the arm. "Ignore him. He's just being a dick because he doesn't want to be here."

Rory nods, flustered because this is overwhelming.

"This is my sister." She says because she doesn't know what else to do. "She can't, like, make snarky comments to people she's just met, but she does drool a lot."

James gives her a withering look but Rick laughs and Rachel rolls her eyes at him before stepping forward to coo at the baby.

The two families, fashionably late, are escorted into the cafeteria and, thankfully, get a table far from the Ducks. Oliver and Mr. Riley sit across from one another, as do their wives. Ellie, in a high chair, sits between Rory and Krystal, and Rachel sits on Rory's other side, across from James, who sits next to Rick.

With a set menu, there's nothing better to do than make small talk—— the women making small talk with the kids while the men talked amongst themselves, that is.

Basic questions are asked and casual lies slip between the kids' teeth, but Rory is much more interested in Mrs. Riley than she is in the topic of conversation.

Jess Riley is a fabulous woman, Rory notes. Her freshly manicured nails sit at the ends of fingers adorned with rings and each of her wrists have a bangle around them; she's dressed smartly underneath the fur coat that she quickly abandons to hang on the back of her chair, and the dainty cross around her neck glimmers in the light.

Rory thinks that she might have recognized Mr. Riley anywhere. Those piercing eyes, the sharp cheekbones, the crookedness of his smile. Everything that she finds so endearing, so attractive, on Rick, she finds to be just as intimidating on Mr. Riley.

While Rachel and James certainly do, Rick bears no resemblance to his mother.

Rory looks for it, anyway. She wants so desperately for him to look like the parent that's nice to him.

Satisfied with the answers that they've gotten, or bored with prying for answers that they know aren't truthful, the women turn to each other and start to talk about child-rearing.

James sits forward in his seat, sending a sideways glance his mother's way and then briefly over Rory's shoulder before whispering to her. "There's a guy glaring daggers into you."

"What does he look like?"

"Why?"

"Because it's probably either my ex-boyfriend or my ex-boyfriend's friend who has a huge crush on me, and that really changes what the next few minutes are like for all of us."

James' face pinches up into an indiscernible expression and Rick, rolling his eyes, follows his little brother's gaze.

"It's Conway."

Rory purses her lips and turns to look. Charlie, at the sight of her narrowed gaze, slinks away to his table.

"You're so much more interesting than I thought you'd be."

James winces following a noise that sounds very much like Rachel kicking him under the table.

"I don't want to be interesting." Rory says tiredly. "I want to be boring. I would very much appreciate the opportunity to be incredibly boring."

"Being boring sounds lame."

Rick grins in a sickly sweet way that Rory knows means he's about to say something mean. "We know. You'd die if all of the attention wasn't on you all of the time."

Another loud thump beneath the table. Rick's face gets tight around the edges but he doesn't wince.

Rory watches them. She's never had anything close to a sibling who was her age—— her cousins were mostly in their late teens or early twenties by the time she was born, and Knox's children were a few years too old (and too unkind) to spend time with her, and she has a solid fifteen years between herself and Ellie—— so all of their pussyfooting around perplexes her. It isn't quite mean but it's not kindness either, a middle ground that she's always been denied, and she doesn't know how to feel about it.

Rick, as if noticing her discomfort, grabs the pitcher of orange juice left on the table and refills her cup.

Rory smiles at him over the rim of it.

The food comes a few minutes later. Large portions of eggs, bacon, and pancakes get placed in front of all the families and it's enough to earn a brief hush across the room. Rory's, admittedly empty, stomach twists at the sight of it and she shoots a look in her father's direction before she even thinks of picking up her utensils.

She feels lightheaded as she cuts into the pancakes (with no syrup, mind you), and then, as she lifts the pieces to her mouth——

"Do you really want to eat that?"

Rory pauses and turns to look at Oliver, who seems to have used his sixth sense for whenever she's doing something he doesn't approve of and has stopped his conversation. He's already looking at her, his eyebrow raised expectantly, but so is everyone else.

"Oliver." Krystal hisses quietly and then turns to face Rory. "Eat whatever you want, sweetheart."

The damage has already been done, though, and she puts her fork down. "It's fine."

"Rory——"

"It's fine." Rory speaks over Rachel. "I'm not that hungry, anyway."

This proves to be the last straw for Rick. He stands up from the table rather abruptly, his silverware clattering and his chair scraping against the floor. Rory's blood goes cold at the thought that now everyone in the room might be looking their way.

"Rick, what's wrong? Where are you going?" Jess asks, frowning.

Rick shrugs and sniffs, face impassive as he pushes his chair in. "Bathroom."

Those are his departing words as he walks away from the table, leaving Rory to stare after him until he turns the corner out of the room. Once he's gone, she returns her attention to the rest of the table, and finds that they are all looking at her again.

Maybe he's actually going to the bathroom? She wants to say, but the joke dies on her tongue when she makes eye contact with Rachel.

"I'll, uh, be right back..."

She puts the napkin in her lap on the table and, much more quietly, pushes her chair out.

No one stops her and, as soon as she's out of the general line of sight, she picks up her pace into almost a jog.

After several minutes of searching, Rory finds Rick in a courtyard, hidden from all the press and from all school staff by the trees and hedges. He's sitting on a bench, the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes, and she takes a deep breath before she approaches.

"You're going to get wrinkles, pulling at your eyes like that."

He runs his hands through his hair and takes a deep breath, too, as he looks up at her. "I'm not exactly worried about wrinkles."

Rory purses her lips.

"Sorry." Rick's shoulders sag. "I don't want to... I know that was really inappropriate, but between my dad and yours—— it was too much."

She nods. She doesn't like his dad much, either.

Rather than accept an apology she's not sure he should be making, she sits down beside him.

"You should smoke."

"You don't like it when I smoke——"

"I'm giving you permission." Rory cuts him off. "You're all twitchy and mean. Light one up before you ruin our friendship."

Rick, for the first time since the parents arrived, smiles. Not a grin. Not a smirk. That wide, boyish smile that crinkles around his eyes that she has come to love.

"You're giving me permission? Are you the boss of me, now?"

"Mhm." She adjusts her sleeves and then crosses her arms over her chest in her best imitation of any of the stuck-up girls that follow him around like he's the second coming, or Leo DiCaprio himself, or something. "Someone has to keep you in check."

It makes him laugh. She smiles, slightly, because it feels good to make him feel better, especially with all the effort he's put into making her smile as of late.

They fall into a comfortable silence as Rick pulls a roughed-up box of cigarettes from his pocket and takes one from it. Rory pretends to stare into the courtyard but observes him out of the corner of her eye as he puts the cigarette between his lips and pats down every pocket on his body, his hair falling over his face in little wisps as he bends his neck to look.

She doesn't actually turn to him until he snorts another laugh, though.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't have a lighter." His words get muffled by the cigarette still on his lip but she could hear the slightly peeved tone quite well. "I don't suppose you have one?"

"No..."

After a second's deliberation, Rory turns over her shoulder to the member of the security detail that followed her. The man, who can't be much older than twenty, seems to be surprised by how quickly she caught him, and his shoulders fall, slightly.

"Hi. Do you have a lighter?"

He produces a little metal butane lighter from his pocket after patting them down for a second and hands it to her as Rick's smile returns.

"You're great," He says as he lights the cigarette, finally. The acrid smell makes her nose wrinkle at first but then she settles, "anybody ever told you that?"

"You... occasionally. When you're not busy being an asshole."

He laughs again, and she smiles some more.

Rory turns to him again after a brief minute of comfortable silence. "Your brother is..."

"Annoying?"

"I was going to say pretty, I think."

Rick's face screws up like he's disgusted. "God, don't say that. He'll hear you. Nobody needs his ego to get any bigger."

She almost makes a joke about how rich that is coming from the boy with the biggest ego she's ever seen, but she doesn't. Instead, "Your whole family is kind of gorgeous. Hey, maybe if this hockey stuff doesn't work out, you can be a model."

"A model?" He parrots back, eyebrows at his hairline.

"Yeah. You can model our gear."

"No offense, Ror, but being indentured to your dad sounds like hell."

"I'm doing just fine." She jokes breezily. "At least you'll get paid for it."

Rick rolls his eyes but the corner of his lip gives him away.

They get quiet again as he smokes away his tension and she tries to grapple with all the emotions that swim around in her head.

"My mother's worse." Rory supplies after a few minutes as if that will make him feel any better. "She, uh, she was a French runway model before she got pregnant with me. If you think my dad hates me and is too concerned about my weight, you'd probably have an aneurysm if you met her."

Rick looks at her sideways. "You make a lot of excuses for people."

"I know."

"It's annoying."

"I know."

She smiles lopsidedly and he shakes his head.

"I could tell, by the way." He says and then hums around the end of his cigarette. "That you were French."

Rory's eyebrows pinch to the center of her forehead. She knows for a fact she doesn't have an accent—— being raised solely by American nannies erased any chance of that.

"You say your a's funny sometimes."

"What?"

"Pah-stry. You say pah-stry."

"... Is that not how you pronounce it?"

"No." He smiles. "Not when you're American."

(I pay attention when you speak, he'd said.)

(Her face flushes at the reminder.)

"Thank you." She says quietly.

"For what?"

"For, uh, giving a shit." Rory turns to look at him even if she wants nothing more than to run away. "And for being the first person to ever have that explosive of a reaction to anything my father's said about me."

Rick stares at her for a moment.

"Don't mention it."

When she rests her head on his shoulder and puts one of her hands in his free one, he doesn't complain.

He just squeezes it.

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The next thing on the itinerary after breakfast (and a brief interlude to do whatever they deemed necessary) was a hockey game. JV to be exact. So, after a brief tour of the dorms that only Jess and Krystal were interested in, the kids led their parents and guardians to the path that would take them to the rink. They met up with the Banks family on the way, Mr. Banks sweeping Mr. Riley up in a conversation about stocks or something else of that caliber and Adam's brother and his wife (who were both closer in age to Krystal) linger behind to talk to the women. Adam, Rachel, Rick, and James are all in a line behind Rory as her father slings his arm around her like what he said to her over piles of food wasn't completely uncalled for.

"Have you been checking the news lately?" He asks, a strange look in his eye.

Rory's knees buckle under the weight of him.

"No, I haven't." Which is the truth. She hasn't. She's too scared to find out that her grandfather died from a news outlet.

"Oh, good." Oliver smiles again. "Haven't ruined my surprise, then."

Before Rory can ask him about that, he turns to look over his shoulder.

"You. Boy. Yes, you, come here—— you ought to hear this, too."

(Behind her, Adam mutters 'Boy?' indignantly but speeds up to stand on Rory's other side, anyway, as Rachel laughs at his expense.)

Oliver gets quiet, then. He stops them in the middle of the path, uncaring of the people around them, and pulls them to the side.

"I wanted to let you both know, before you hear it from anyone else that is," He says, putting a hand on each of their shoulders, only fueling Rory's anxiety about all of this even more, "that Myrtle Enterprises has just bought out Hendrix."

Rory's eyes grow comically wide. Though she cannot see him, she's sure Adam wears the very same expression because Oliver, who has never been good at reading emotions correctly, only smiles wider, too.

"I know. Amazing, isn't it? Spent my whole summer going back and forth over it."

Oh, my god.

"That's——"

"Wonderful." Rory cuts Adam off with a sickly sweet smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Really, dad. That's great."

He pats the side of her neck. "I knew you'd see the good side of it." Then he straightens to his full height. "Don't worry about that bloke you two like. We're letting him keep his job—— you do want him to keep his job, don't you?"

"Of course, I do."

Is this legal?

Is discussing this with two teenagers—— is asking them whether or not an employee should be allowed to keep his job—— legal?

(Oh, and Rory almost laughs as the thought dawns on her, what I wouldn't give to see the look on Don Tibbles' face right now.)

"Good. Now, c'mon, then. We've a game to watch."

Rory watches him walk away with a pinched face. As soon as he's gone, the other kids approach them with varying looks of concern.

"What was that about?"

"Nothing." Rory swallows. "My father is making insane business deals."

Rick nods, looking at her a little strangely, but doesn't say anything more.

Thoughts of what it means for the family company to be on its way to monopolizing the manufacture and trade of hockey gear in the United States (at least) plague Rory for the rest of the walk. Something about it makes her so uneasy, an awful feeling that sits heavy in her stomach and makes her heart race; there's nothing good about the fact that Oliver has this much control as an interim CEO and there's nothing good about the fact Bombay's fate lies in their hands, now. Sure, this is a net gain for her—— all of the money made from this is going to, one day, end up in her pocket—— but she can't shake the feeling that this is not a good thing.

She's so distracted by her tumultuous inner monologue that she fails to notice the hushed words Rick exchanges with Bobby and Cole in passing, and Buckley taking it upon himself to lead Oliver and Mr. Riley (and their families, of course, as well as the Banks' who were allowed to ride the coattails) to their seats.

"Very close to the ice." Oliver hums as Buckley gestures for them to fill in the spot in the stands.

Rory knows that this is an insult. That's what brings her out of her head—— her father insulting her principal.

But Buckley obviously doesn't catch on.

"Well, we only want the best for the head of our alumni association, and such an auspicious contributor to our school."

Rory's heart falls to her stomach. Adam looks at her with his eyebrows pinched to the center of his forehead.

Oliver, meanwhile, looks at the bumbling principal with a hardened gaze. "Yes, well, erecting a building in one's honor is the typical response to such a thing."

Buckley's face falls but Tom laughs heartily.

As she passes him while following her father into their seats, Rory peeps an apology to her principal, but he waves her off kindly.

"What did he mean by contributor?" Adam asks in a whisper once they're seated.

"I don't know." She lies.

Before he can pester her further, the game starts, and the JV warriors enrapture him with their ability to gain (and then lose, somehow) a nine-point lead.

Rory, meanwhile, hardly pays any attention to the game.

She has much more important things on her mind...

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a/n:

word count — 5158

thoughts???

this is the part of the book where the plot starts to get really really insane. thank you to the three of you who have stuck around long enough to see it!

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you