Only in Your Dreams
"Rose!" Vicky handed the baby back to Ronny and skipped over to Rose. "You're so big! When are you due?"
"Um, a little less than two months," Rose answered. "We're very excited. Dax especially." Rose turned her gaze to Mack. "Hey Mack." She was slightly breathless as she said his name.
"Hi," Mack replied, flashing her the first genuine smile he'd given since he'd started this whole strange day. "You look good. Happy birthday." He got up and crossed the room to her and snatched her up in a big bear hug. Ronny snickered.
When he released the former pink ranger, she sighed very softly as she set about getting a snack platter from the fridge. The other three women nibbled at it, but Mack was too preoccupied to eat. She was just as beautiful now as she'd been then. But there was one question on Mack's mind-how on earth had she ended up with Dax?
"The boys look like they're playing football. They'll need a referee. Shall we, ladies?" Ronny asked her friends. Vella and Vicky agreed and followed Ronny out to the backyard. This left Rose and Mack very much alone.
"So a baby, huh?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Rose asked, a little coldly. It caught him off guard, that she'd be so nasty towards him. Mack wondered what he'd done to screw up their friendship.
He tried again. "Boy or girl?"
"Boy. Dax wants to name him Steven Quentin after his favorite directors. I like Matthew, personally." Rose looked out of the window to the yard. The little boys were still shrieking with laughter as they tossed the little football around. Vicky was holding Vella's baby Mina, looking at her lovingly. "Vicky's going to be a great mother when the two of you settle down." Her voice was bitter.
"You're going to be a great mom too."
"I wonder sometimes…" Rose smiled sadly and turned her attention back to the man in red. "I wish the baby was yours," she whispered. "I know it's wrong, and it's not fair to Dax, but that's the truth."
"Then why aren't we together?" Mack asked quietly. "I always loved you, Rose. Always. And if you want it to be our baby inside of you then you obviously didn't reject me…"
"If either of us rejected the other it was you." Rose's voice was cold again. "I'm still so angry with you for hurting me like that. I don't understand how you could. I thought I meant more to you than that. But I always was a dreamer."
"This is going to sound crazy, Rose, but I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know any of this: I don't know how you married Dax or how I got a Barbie doll as a girlfriend, or how I hurt you. When I went to sleep last night I was eighteen. I woke up this morning and I was twenty-five."
"That doesn't make a bit of sense. Don't be ridiculous."
"It's true," Mack protested. "It as your last night in the mansion. I took you out to dinner at the Italian place near our favorite book store. You told me you felt more at home at the mansion than anywhere else."
Rose nodded. "I remember. I remember hoping that you were finally going to tell me what I'd been waiting to hear for seven months."
"I wanted to." Mack reached out and took her hand. "And you brought me my copy of The Baron's Betrayal. You hugged me and told me you were going to miss me. I went to bed and woke up in that apartment."
"You wanna know what happened? You left me a note saying you loved me and that you were sorry but that you had to go. That you'd come to London as soon as you could so we could be together.
"You never called. You never wrote. You came home three years later with her." Rose sneered the word and shot a dirty look to Vicky's form on the other side of the glass. "Then I ran into Dax one day, and we were both so lonely… When he kissed me I didn't stop him, and we've been together ever since."
"Do you love him?"
"Not like I should. But it's enough. It's enough."
"Do you think whoever I am now loves Vicky?"
"Not like you should."
"I'm sorry." He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tightly. "I really mean that."
"I know that, Mack. But that doesn't change you having a girlfriend and me being married and pregnant."