Chapter 19

Author's note- I was planning to make this a short fic but I got carried away. It looks like it will be about 23 chapters when it is completed. I hope you will keep reading along as I conclude this story.

Dillon called Lulu as soon as Clark left his home. She was still in bed, half asleep, when she answered.

"Lu, wake up!" Dillon said, happy and excited. His voice was manic like when he was a teen.

She smiled at the enthusiasm. That was so Dillon. "What's going on? Some great movie on TV that I have to get up and watch?"

"No. Our son is in town."

Lulu laid back on the pillows, slightly stunned, she pressed the phone to her ear harder. "Clark is here? How do you know?"

"He just left my house. He came on his own, Lulu. It was ... amazing, really. He came home to us."

Tears formed in her eyes.

"Is Clark there now?" she asked

"No. But he agreed to come back for dinner tonight. You should come."

"I don't want to crowd him or force myself into his life. I'll let him come to me."

"Are you sure?"

"I think I have to if we are ever going to be close. This has to be on his terms. But call me, please, no matter how late it is and tell me how the dinner went. Okay?"

"I'll come by your place after. If that is okay with you?"

"I'd love to see you, Dillon. Some things change in twenty years but how I feel about you," she smiled and said "not so much."

Now he was the one smiling. "Good."

"Yeah?"

In a low voice he said, "Yeah, Lu. See you tonight." Then he gently hung up.

Clark didn't go and visit Lulu that day. He wandered around town and tried to picture her

as a kid going to the elementary school he passed, as a teen working at Kelly's like Katie did, as a eighteen year old who was pregnant with him sitting on a bench in the park. He saw her everywhere and wondered if he was anything like her. What part of him came from her?

She had brought him into this world. It was 100 percent her decision to not abort him and to not raise him. He was who he was because of the family she chose for him. His parents, Miranda and Harris, raised him and gave him his morals and a foundation. Katie gave him back his health. But Lulu had given him his life.

How could he hate her? Yet he felt... something. Something like anger but not quite. Disappointment maybe. That she hadn't looked in his eyes when he was born and said, "I can't give you away. You're mine."

Though he wasn't trying to punish her now he also didn't feel up to seeing her so he kept walking.

Dillon walked into Lulu's hotel room, grinning from ear to ear. He sat down on her bed and patted the spot next to him, motioning for her to join him.

He placed his hands on both sides of her face and said, "Thank you for giving me that amazing boy as my son."

She matched his grin and said, "The dinner went well?"

"Great!" he said, taking his hands away from her face. She missed his touch immediately.

Dillon added, "He fit right in. I only wish Grandfather had lived to see Clark come home. But nothing can bring me down tonight. Our kid is alive and happy and he wants to get to know us, Lu. This is really happening. And I feel..." He looked at her and she could she he was bursting with excitement and love. It was almost to much to feel, that's how big this moment was for both of them.

"So do I. This is the happiest I have ever felt, Dillon. And it's all because I fell in love with you when I was too young to let my brain tell my heart it wasn't a good idea. I thought Clark came at the wrong time, we were too young, but if I was older... I would never have let myself love you. And I...

Dillon..."

He gave her a tender look and whispered, "Tell me, Lulu."

She was lost in memories when she said, "I don' t regret loving you, Dillon. It's the best mistake I ever made."

"Why was it a mistake?"

She could stop here, she knew that. But all she wanted, in this moment, was to show him her heart.

Lulu looked into his eyes and said "I wasn't smart enough to get over you at 18. You stuck with me. You are still with me."

Dillon wasn't sure, before tonight, if this was going to happen. All he knew was he wanted her, more than he ever had when they were young. Because he knew now what it was to live without Lulu Spencer in his life.

He reached for her, "I was scared to let myself love you then."

His lips softly touched her.

He added, "I'm not scared anymore."

Then Dillon pulled back. Giving her space. Letting her decide.

But she just looked at him. Her heart was in his hand and he knew it.

He added, "It wasn't a mistake to love me then. But I won't hold you to anything you just said."

"If you're waiting for me to back out..." she said

"I want to love you, Lulu Spencer. To love you the way you always wanted. If you will allow me to..."

He kissed her again, their lips joining in a heat filled tussle.

In a ragged voice, she whispered, "I can't say no to you."

"Then say yes."

She pushed him back onto the bed, "Yes."