Disclaimer: Still own nothing!

Chapter 9

If cloud nine existed, I was pretty sure I was on it.

Someone could write a hallmark movie about my life and I wouldn't even give a damn, that's how happy I was.

Alice held Lou until she woke up, fever creeping back up again, and wanting her daddy. We switched things around and I ended up with Louise curled on my chest, dosed up and diaper on, as Alice made us something to eat.

I should have been embarrassed that in the wake of Lou's temper tantrum my house looked like a hurricane had blown through it, but instead I was fighting off the shit eating grin I could feel sneaking up.

"I didn't know what you liked on your sandwiches soo..." Alice said as she slid in to the seat next to me, balancing two plates and two cans of soda precariously in her arms.

I laughed and moved so that I could sit up a little and help her, laying Lou down on the couch beside me.

I laughed when I realized she had put just about everything you could have on a sandwhich on the sandwich she handed me and I crinkled my nose. "Pickles?"

"Yes?" she asked questioningly and then sighed dramatically, reaching over and switching plates with me. "pickle free."

I laughed and sat back, "I actually like pickles."

She stuck her tongue out at me and we fell in to comfortable silence as we ate together.

"Can I…" she started but stopped and shook her head.

"What?" I asked, laughing lightly.

"It's not my business." She said, pursing her lips.

"Lou's mom?" I asked, knowing where the conversation was going and dreading it already.

"Yes, but like I said, not my business."

I sighed and wiped my hands on one of the napkins she had provided and I wondered where she had found them in my kitchen.

"I was in a band."

Alice choked on a chip and I threw a glare in her direction. "Sorry, go ahead."

"I was in a band. It started out as some shitty little high school gig with me and my buddy Vincent and a few other guys. Then he invited his cousin Laurent to hang out and play with us. When we graduated Vinny went to Stanford and Laurent and I took the band on the road. We ended up meeting this chick named Maria. Raging bitch but a great singing voice. She kind of invited herself in and we just let it happen."

"So Maria is….."

"No." I said, taking another bite and taking my time to chew and swallow. "No, Maria's best friend was named Lucy. Tall, blonde, and really great with numbers. Maria asked her for some help with touring, you know, shit like that and she stepped in. I don't know, somewhere along the way we just started hooking up. The rest of the band hated it but it was just sex. It wasn't supposed to be anything else. We were doing really fucking great, we were slated to open for some big bands and had a few labels eyeballing us, it was just, we were damn good. Then Lucy says she's pregnant. Some, antibiotic fluke or something, I don't know.

So she went back home while we were on the road. She hated it. Every minute of it. I would get frantic calls saying she just wanted to die. The doctors said it was pregnancy depression or something like that. I decided that I should be home with her. So I quit the band and moved home. She was about seven months along or so. She didn't take it well. She hated me for being there and not on the road. I don't know what it was. Anyway, she was thirty two weeks along or so and she went in to labor. Lou came out all tiny and helpless and she refused to even look at her. She said she didn't want her. She begged me to just, sign some papers. She called it 'getting back to our lives' or some shit like that. She had even called an adoption attorney ahead of time. "

"But you didn't…" Alice said and I looked to see her staring at me in wonder.

"Nah. They put her in that damn incubator thing and I called Rose and Emmett. They were the only people I knew. They came all the way from Washington to Texas that day and told me that we could come back with them. We wouldn't be alone. I went to tell Lucy and she had checked out against medical advice. She was just gone."

"That's terrible." Alice whispered her plate of food long forgotten.

I shrugged. "It was actually the best thing that happened to me. If she had stayed I might have done something stupid, like marry her. Plus she gave me Lou, I couldn't ask for anything better."

She smiled then and leaned over again, and this time I met her kiss with my own.