"Golden Boy, your daughter it threatening to torch the place again." Normal muttered as Alec pedaled in.
Alec leaned his bike on the wall and went over to the stairs. "VADA!"
Vada appeared, flustered and frustrated. "The damn plugs upstairs won't work."
Alec rolled his eyes. "I'll get Fix-It to come over."
Vada smiled at her father and leaned over the banister to kiss his forehead. "I'll get my stuff out of her way."
"Why are you such a good father?" A female voice asked huskily from behind him.
"Comes with the job." Alec whispered, turning around to sweep Max into his arms. "I mean, kids happen to be very good chick magnets."
Max's features darkened, and he grinned, bringing her up to kiss him. "But there's only one particular chick that I wanted."
Max raised an eyebrow, now standing upright. "Wanted?"
"And I want more and more of her every day." Alec kissed her once more. "Because she kicked my ass, I found the love of my life."
"So, you finally admit I kicked your ass?" Max asked playfully, her arms casually circling his neck.
"Only if you admit you found that ass dead sexy." Alec retorted.
"Yeah, I wanted to die, alright." Max drawled.
"Bip, bip, bip." Normal shouted and Alec and Max unhappily parted.
"Call Fix-It." Alec whispered into her ear. "For some odd reason, those kids don't seem to like me."
"Maybe because you acted like such an asshole back then." Max suggested in a low tone.
"There you go with your fixation on my ass. I know I'm dead sexy, but honestly.." Alec drifted off and followed Max towards the payphones. He stood behind her, his arms around her waist and his head on her shoulder. "Hold me, Max."
Max rolled her eyes playfully. "Why aren't you ever serious?"
"Would you love me if I was?" Alec asked, the puppy dog look on his face.
Max shook her head with a girlish smile. "I guess not. Hey, Josh, it's me. You're using the cell I gave you, right? Good. Tell someone to drive Fix-It down to Jam-Pony, but not Christian. Or Tristan. Get Matt to drive. The keys are in Vada's bedroom behind the picture of me and Alec. Yeah, he's with me. No, Josh, we're not.."
Max was blushing. She hung up the phone and walked away with an embarrassed smile.
"I'll have to thank Joshua for the suggestion." Alec whispered as he was tossed a package. "Bye, Maxie!"
"I am done. Fix-It is a goddess, and I simply look like one." Vada announced from the top of the stairs. Max leaned back in her chair and smiled approvingly.
Vada's normally wavy hair had been straightened and she pulled out a dress she had shown Max a month before. "This dress represents my freedom- when I ran away from the birthday party my foster parents threw for me."
Dark pinkish red was a good color for her. Her daughter patiently walked down the rickety stairs as if she were a princess on a spiral staircase rather than a transgenic disguised as a mere teenager walking down the attic stairs.
"Where's he taking you?" Max asked as she fixed the clasp on Vada's necklace. It relieved her to see no barcode on the back of her neck.
"Dancing." The third thing she loved most in the world. About to be bumped down to fourth.
"That ought to be wonderful." Max whispered. "Not an Alec-worthy date, but hey, not everyone can be your father."
"Thank God." Vada muttered and Max smiled.
"You're welcome, Vada." Alec appeared. "What have my two favorite girls been up to?"
"Max has been saying that your dates are wonderful, Vada's going dancing with her date, and that's about it." Normal updated. Max glared at him.
"Wonderful, huh?" Alec whispered, his arms slipping around her waist.
"Get a room." Vada drawled, disgusted. "God, my parents are so weird."
"Like you have any self-control." Matt said, not looking up from his magazine.
"Shouldn't you be driving Fix-It back to TC?" Vada asked with a sickly sweet smile.
"Self-control? My daughter has loads of it. Well, loads more than I've got." Alec said defensively.
"Feline DNA, Alec. Sound familiar?" Matt looked up to see their reaction. Alec and Max were both blushing, not looking at each other, and Vada was glaring.
"Go home, Matt."
"Are you sure you know the steps?" Vada asked, one eyebrow cocked up innocently as they stood in front of the double doors of the ballroom at the Adolphis Hotel. She didn't look at him, but he knew she was teasing by the way she squeezed his hand.
Christian handed over the tickets and gently put the stubs back into his pocket. "I'm promising you. I was your back-up on your New York mission."
Christian looked up, hoping that empty feeling wasn't in Vada's eyes. Instead, she had a small smile on her face.
"It's a good thing you weren't. Otherwise I might be married to the richest man on Broadway." Vada kissed him softly on the cheek. "Shall we?"
"Natalia, darling!" Vada froze, turning around slowly. On the whole, the night had been great. Christian hadn't lied, he was quite a good dancer.
"Oh, hello." She whispered, giving her former co-star a half smile. "How long has it been, Jessie?"
Jessie, a blonde creature with a frighteningly wide smile, hooked her arm into Vada's. "Almost five years, no? How old were you then, seventeen?"
Christian laughed. She had been thirteen.
Vada poked him in the stomach with her elbow and nodded. "What are you doing in Seattle, love?"
Jessie giggled and flashed Vada a very large engagement ring. "My boyfriend, Johnny Fox, proposed and his family is here, so we decided to have the wedding. Are you on vaca?"
Vada looked back at Christian, who found this whole ordeal highly amusing, and then nodded. "Jimmy and I just had to visit my father, who remarried."
Jessie gave her an amused look of pity. "Oh, I hate when I have to do that.. Anyways, have you seen Tony's fiancée?"
Vada's eyes widened. "Tony's ali—getting married?"
Jessie threw back her head and laughed. "Where are you living, Natalia, dear?"
"Cali." Christian answered smoothly. "Who's Tony, darling?"
Jessie's eyes lit up with a scheme. "Tony's her ex, Jimmy. Her ex-boyfriend who was the star of the show. You do know she was a Broadway chorus girl, right?"
Christian nodded from behind Vada, sliding his arms around her waist and propping his chin up on her shoulder.
"Anyways, he can't sing anymore because of the explosion—he got shot in the diaphragm, you know. People thought he was dead and you plain just disappeared.." Jessie eyed her as if expecting her to explain her disappearance.
"Oh, well, we all thought Tony was dead until the news of his, er, mortality reached us. Daddy moved us to Seattle and never took us back.. Too traumatic, he said." Vada explained away. Her voice began cracking. "So, who's the lucky girl?"
Jessie giggled evilly. "Hardly lucky. The marriage is arranged by his uncle and while she loves him, he still loves.."
Jessie winked and Vada grimaced.
"Are you alright, Natalia?" Jessie asked in a somewhat concerned tone. "Oh, there's Johnny! Will you be in town in a week?"
Vada shook her head, the sick look still on her face.
"Oh, that's too bad. I'll send you pictures then." Jessie waved goodbye and Christian led Vada over to a chair.
"You alright?" Christian whispered and Vada shook her head.
"Christian, I loved that guy." She said after a moment. "I thought I had killed him. And now, he's getting.. Married."
Christian brought his hand up to cup Vada's chin gently, turning her head to face him. "If he really wanted to find you, he would have. You're over him, right?"
Vada gave him a half-smile. "I will be."
Christian kissed her softly. "Let's go home."
Jessie watched her former co-star leave with that boyfriend of hers and decided that what she was about to do was right. She pulled an eyeliner pencil out of her handbag, and picked up the phone from its cradle. She dialed the familiar numbed with the eyeliner pencil and waited patiently for someone to pick up on the other end.
He picked up on the second ring. "Hello?"
"Tony, this is Jessie. You will never believe who I just ran into at the Adolphis in Seattle."