Laura sounded upset on the phone. He’d tried to explain that he needed to work on cleaning up the club. It was bad enough the place had had to stay closed on Friday night. On Saturday night too it would have been suicide.
“I’ll make it up to her. I’ll see her on Monday.”
“My mother is taking her to the movies.”
“What, the whole ****ing day?”
“After school she has a play date.” Even over the phone Luke detected an evasive tone.
“Who with?” he barked.
“Serena Baldwin.”
“I see. She has a play date and you have a real date with the ex-hubby.”
“It’s none of your business.” Satisfaction lied underneath her curt tone. Ever so subtle but it was there.
It isn’t thought Luke suddenly. He despised Scott Baldwin but the thought of him with Laura no longer made his blood boil as it had at first. He can provide, he’s helping her out in her business, supporting her after the crisis. Semi-conscious thoughts he couldn’t place. All that he knew was that Baldwin was almost a relief. Not even pins under his fingernails would get him to admit that out loud but the feeling was there.
“I’ll see Lesley Lu on Tuesday.” He could positively see Laura give the receiver a puzzled look trying to understand how it could be that Baldwin’s name had failed to ignite him.
“Fine,” Laura said and hung up.
Luke was in the process of removing shards of glass from his palm when he felt a sudden kiss on his unshaven cheek.
He turned to face the woman. She pressed her lips on his briefly then fell in his arms.
“I missed you!” she cried out.
“You saw me yesterday,” he protested. He sighed with relief when she finally let go of him.
She took his hand making him wince with pain. “Yes but you didn’t let me stay long,” she complained. “I hated leaving you all alone.”
He withdrew his hand. “I was in the middle of something, woman,” he said through gritted teeth.
“What’s wrong with your hand? She stared at the rough palm where droplets of blood were standing out. “Should I kiss it to make it better?”
“It’d help more if you removed the glass. Here, you can see better than me.”
Luke stared at her blond head as she diligently cleared his palm with careful fingers.
“Thank you,” he said gruffly when her green eyes met his indicating that she was done.
“Is it better now?” she said softly.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh. He looked around him. “Good work, people,” he called out leaving everyone in the place with their mouth hanging open. Luke telling them they did something right? What came next? Actually paying them at the beginning of the month?
Felicia nodded in agreement remembering what the place had looked like the previous night. “You’re open for business tonight,” she said with wonder. “To be honest I hadn’t thought you’d manage to have the place ready.”
Luke shrugged.
She pressed her face in the hollow of his neck. “I’ll stick around to help you,” she announced tenderly.
Luke pulled back. “There’s no need.”
“Oh, come on!”
“You know how horrible I am at firing people. Most of the time we’re more than the customers.”
“Not on Saturday night!” She nuzzled on his neck missing the annoyed expression on his face at the attention the public display was getting from his employees. Her lips met his in a kiss that tasted of toothpaste and coffee, not unpleasant but making him yearn for kisses tasting of alcohol. Alcohol and blood and the taste that was Alexis… His wounded lip hurt. It had been only yesterday. He pulled back breathing deeply. He caught Claude’s eyes who pointed discreetly to the right with an embarrassed look on his face.
Luke turned to face his son’s icy stare. Instinctively he broke contact with Felicia who was about to complain when her eyes fell on the young man.
“Lucky,” Luke started.
“I came to see if you needed any help with cleaning up in here. It looks as though everything is under control.”
“Yes. But you don’t have to leave.” Luke said quickly. Please don’t leave, he thought desperately.
Just a man, thought Lucky. Not my childhood hero, he hasn’t been that in many years. Those were emotions he had discussed with Doctor Collins. The psychiatrist had told him that it was a normal stage of our relationship with our parents. He had admitted that in Lucky’s case there had been extreme circumstances, skating carefully around Luke’s rape of Laura that the kid had tossed in his face in a fit of irrational anger.
Collins was missing on vital information that would have helped him understand Lucky’s current frame of mind yet he made up for it using his intuition and he’d undoubtedly helped Lucky sort out his feelings for the complicated man standing before him who despite his many failings loved him with all his heart.
Felicia disappeared murmuring something about the restroom.
“How have you been?”
“Fine,” Lucky said simply.
“Where have you been staying? Your mother didn’t know.”
A respectful vacuum had been created around the two men. Luke’s people kept their distance, leaving anything they wanted to talk to Luke about for later and doing their best to avoid staring.
Lucky shrugged. “I was at Liz’s. I might move in with Nik, I mean we, Liz and I.” It will be easier to give him the stuff this way, said the little scared voice in Lucky’s head. You have to start giving it to him again or Helena will know. It’s perfect that way, you won’t have to find a way to take at least one meal with him every day…
Lucky’s expression alarmed his father. He gave out a strained laugh. “Are you sure that’s wise? The little bloodsucker had been making eyes at Lizzie while you were gone,” he drawled.
Contempt shone in Lucky’s eyes. “I’d appreciate it if you don’t pay me any visits at the cottage,” he said coldly.
“Why would I want to visit?” Luke said gruffly. “You’ve made it clear that you want nothing more to do with me.”
Lucky laughed humorlessly. “I was referring to your snooping around.”
It was so cold in the club. Luke was in a T-shirt and only now he realized just how cold it was. Would the stranger standing before him ever become his cowboy again?
“I have no reason to bother with the Little Prince but Bat and the old hag are game.”
Lucky nodded. “Knock yourself out, Dad,” he murmured and turned to leave.
Luke drew in a sharp breath. “Is there anything you need?” he blurted out. “Money…”
The young man did not turn. “No Dad. I’m fine. Tell Felicia she can come out of the bathroom now.”
That went great, thought Luke staring at his son’s departing figure. How had he managed to say all the wrong things? He knew that nothing he said would make Lucky turn on Nikolas now. And considering he had woken next to one of these bloodsuckers just this morning… he’d been one to talk. And the truth was… damn that truth… the Princeling didn’t bother him all that much anymore. He no longer spelt betrayal and Gothic passion between his Angel and Stefan. He was just a kid. And since we were telling the truth here… Did the Bat bother him that much anymore? Pathetic, guilt-ridden Bat who’s little sister had given up on him and was screwing his archenemy…
He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder and turned to meet red-rimmed eyes. Anger swallowed what had nearly been a twang of sympathy. That bastard. Felicia would be at home with the Commish now, working on saving her marriage. Maybe she’d sneak out from time to time for a quick roll between the sheets, that wouldn’t be bad…. But being around him all the time, whining over how her girls hate her, not blaming him but making him feel responsible nevertheless and at the same time measuring his… his… Dad potential which was beyond ridiculous considering how things were with his kid s at the moment… One **** should not have gotten him all this. And it wouldn’t have had not Mama’s boy decided to pick that particular night to let Mama think she’d poisoned him and blame it all on Spencer.
What a ****ed up psycho! thought Luke vehemently. Why me? Wouldn’t it have been a lot ****ing easier to point the finger at dear old Mom?
His expression had spooked Felicia. “Did things go badly with Lucky?” she whispered.
“Lucky is not Maxie. He knows his Dad is also a man,” he snapped.
Felicia lowered her eyes.
“Oh don’t give me that, woman! You can sow a big red A at the back of you clothes for all I care. I’m sick of this! My son doesn’t care about you. Don’t give me tat look like you understand things between Lucky and myself ‘cause you don’t understand ****!”
Felicia looked around her and then back at Luke with wounded eyes. Luke couldn’t meet them. He hadn’t meant t raise his voice to her like that.
“I understand that you’re upset,” Felicia’s voice was trembling, “but the way you just spoke to me…”
Tears. He hated tears. They were his undoing, women’s not so secret weapon against him.
He took Felicia in his arms trying to show her how sorry he was so that he wouldn’t have to say it.
It’s not your fault, he thought. It’s not your fault that you expected too much from me. That you have missed my “keep away” sign. It’s not your fault that your hair is the wrong color. The wrong color? How could blond suddenly be the wrong color? Did he really long for hair the color of chestnut and eyes that could look right into his soul?
“Look, darlin’, you’d better go home. I’m not good company today.”
His armful of weeping Felicia Scorpio-Jones made an incoherent sound.
“What was that?”
She broke free. “I don’t want to be around you only when you’re feeling well.”
Quickly he handed her a bunch of napkins. He was grateful for the respite as she was dabbing at her eyes and discreetly blowing her nose.
He took a deep breath and started improvising. “Look, not feeling well is not an option when it’s Saturday night and people have come to your club to unwind I need to do my thing, you know and having you around would be…”
“A distraction?”
Just leave. Please. Leave me the hell alone. “I don’t want you to get this the wrong way.”
Felicia shook her head ruefully. “I don’t know what way to take it. I understand you need your space,” she said with resignation. “You know where to find me.”
He made no effort to stop her. Not even a half-hearted attempt for show. He didn’t even disguise his relief at seeing her leave at last.
Alexis stared blankly at the television screen where a blonde was describing how a contraption that looked like something out of a medieval torture chamber had given her “perfect abs” At her coffee table, a little white and pink capsule was waiting patiently next to a glass o milk. She could afford to wake up late the next morning. It was Saturday night after all. A glance at her watch showed that it was actually 4:00 in Sunday morning.
She didn’t want to give in to the little pill, surrender to the artificial dreamless sleep now that it would be dawn in just three hours.
In the apartment next door, Sonny was staring at his wife’s face, so peaceful in sleep it was almost childlike. He turned a little to the side breaking contact with her. She rolled towards him her naked body pressing on his.
He had expected a scene when he made it upstairs to the bedroom after Alexis left. But Carly had been submissive and sexy and had used the only thing that worked in their marriage no matter what had happened during the day.
She whimpered and gave out a heavy sigh. Sonny leaned and kissed away the bad dream.
A few floors down, Johnny was back at school which was ridiculous since his classmates were all in their teens but he was his age and he was even packing, he could feel the bulge in his jacket. Mrs. Pearce was giving all the guys an ample view of her well-shaped behind, dressed in a tight black skirt. If you looked really hard you could see VPLs or make that BVPLs, Barely Visible Panty Lines as his friend Alex had pointed out with a s******. And the woman turned and it wasn’t Mrs Pearce at all with her steel grey eyes and hook nose, it was Ms Davis, Alexis, with her perfect nose and soulful brown eyes and she was holding a piece of chalk in her hand and wanted him to come up and solve the equation and he wanted to tell her that it might as well be Chinese written on the board for all he knew, he was 28 and in the years since he’d left school he’d had no use for algebra. Furthermore, he couldn’t get up. He’d been thinking of VPLs and VPLs can do a lot to a guy and he didn’t want the whole class to know. Perhaps she would understand though, she wasn’t Mrs Pearce, her voice was gentle and her eyes kind and yesterday she had spent the whole night out with someone other than her fiancé. She was real and human but damn that equation and everyone in class pointing at him and laughing as he got up. But it didn’t make sense. He had no business back at school, Ms. Davis was a lawyer not a teacher, logic finally managed to pull him out of the dream with a jerk and a strangled cry.
He stared at his bedside table. 4:00 the red digital display informed him. In two hours he’d have to get up. He debated between a cold shower and manually solving the problem his dream had left him with and decided that he’d rather not catch his death.
Down at reception Reynaldo was eyeing suspiciously a tall lean figure in the shadows. The man was looking up with his arms crossed over his chest.
Luke knew that the bodyguard had spotted him. It made no difference. Even unnoticed he wouldn’t have paid Alexis a visit although there was light in her apartment. How would it look if he showed up, tired and drunk babbling about the contempt in his cowboy’s eyes and holding on to her as if she were a life-jacket? It would have been easier if the light was off though. Getting past Sonny’s goon was no problem. And Alexis too was awake and alone.