Chapter Thirteen

Isabel

Danny thought about answering the door. It was a serious undertaking, thinking about opening a door to the person knocking on the other side. The way he figured it, it was one of three people.

Rusty, either to say that the job had gone as planned, or it hadn't. Either way, he was instructed to get things done, to get the ball rolling. After he explained what had happened that day, they would continue on to discuss his relationship… with Lily or Isabel, he was never entirely sure of.

Lily, to say that the day had gone successfully and prove herself or to complain about the way things had gone. He had left her out on the little detail that he had told Rusty to do whatever necessary to get the code, and that surely would have upset her…

Tess, to reconnect after several days of being apart. This was the only real occasion he wanted to open the door for. To reconnect.

The knock sounded again, this time accompanied by a voice. "Danny! Open up!"

It was Rusty.

Danny stood close to the door, contemplating whether he should allow his partner to enter or secretly pretend to not be in.

"I can see your feet under the door, Danny. Let me in…"

Danny smiled, taking one more sip of wine from the glass in his hand before actually placing his hand on the handle.

Rusty greeted him, a nod of the head accentuated by the purple crater bulging from his eye. "Got any peas?"

Danny tried to suppress his laughter, never thinking that Linus could hit hard enough to cause such damage. He looked at the swollen socket with great interest, almost seeing the shining bruise pulsate and throb. "What?"

"Peas. Frozen peas? For my eye…"

"I can't say that I do," he responded, managing to push his giggle fit down into his stomach. "No steak either, if you're going for the old methods when ice wasn't so nicely shaped into a small cube."

Rusty glared at him, only one eye open enough to do so. "You're such a fucking comedian, Danny. Really, just a laugh riot."

Danny shrugged as Rusty pushed past him into the room. "I try to keep myself entertained."

He watched Rusty throw himself onto the couch, reaching his arms up on the back of the couch and putting a foot on the coffee table. "So… tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Danny confirmed, pouring Rusty a glass of the hardest, rawest alcohol he had at his disposal. Rusty quickly gulped down the liquid, holding the glass of ice to his eye.

"I hated this plan," he sighed.

"Didn't go as well as you hoped?" Danny walked over to the television, flicking it off with the remote. He figured the conversation was going to take a little longer than he would have liked, but Oprah was on TiVo.

"I kicked Lily in the head," he grunted, rolling onto his side.

"You what?"

"Lily was standing by the desk, and Linus slugged me hard enough to knock me over the desktop. Therefore…."

"You kicked my daughter in the head?" he asked one more time.

"… I kicked her in the head. What does the love guru have to say about that? Hmm? Is it a sign from the heavens?" he kidded, meanly. "Your foot will make contact with the face that you are meant to be with!"

Danny shook his head, choking on the sip of wine he had taken to prevent himself to laugh. It didn't work. "We'll have to plan this down to the 'T'. I want you to lock down a timeframe before you hit the hay."

"How am I supposed to know when he's gunna…"

"Lily."

Rusty sighed. "I thought you'd say that."

"What? You can't work with Lily anymore? Did you purposely kick her in the head or something?"

Rusty threw his head back, staring up at the ceiling in disgust. "No, it's not that…"

Danny paused, his smile slowly disappearing across his face. "You didn't!"

Rusty weakly shook his head. "No, but I dreamt we did."

"Ick!" Danny spat. "Do you really think I want to hear about what you and my daughter do in your dreams? First you kick her in the head and…. ICK!"

"You asked."

There was another knock on the door. A knock that Danny jumped to answer. The list of people it could be was narrowing down, and he was that much closer to Tess walking back into his life.

It was Lily.

She waved to him, a bright smile on her face. It was not a happy smile, however. It was more of a let's-get-down-to-business smile. "You and I have some things to discuss, mister."

"Like?"

"Like, how you completely forgot to mention the drama that was supposed to occur today. For a second, I was convinced that Rusty was actually calling Linus a fuck nugget. I have to admit that it was pretty funny, but I'm not really sure what a fuck nugget is and…" She pushed past him and walked into the living room. She spotted Rusty instantly, who took some time to notice her presence. She froze. She wanted to turn and run, but Danny was standing in front of the door. "Rusty."

He jolted up, twisting his neck in a painful fashion as he whipped in her direction. "Lily."

She saw his eye, the oozing orifice that screamed in its own agony upon sight. "Oh. My. God," she gasped, rushing to his side. Lily threw herself into the couch cushions beside him, her hands encompassing his face. "Does that hurt as bad as it looks?" she asked, giving his injury a once over.

Rusty winced, trying to wrench his head away from her grasp because to feeling to lean into her hands was too overwhelming. "It looks nastier than it feels."

Lily looked to her father, all three of them submerged into the room. "Do you have any peas? Frozen ones?"

Danny rolled his eyes, the child inside of him rejoicing at the sight of Rusty and Lily together and interacting. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

"There's something in frozen peas that helps the swelling…" Lily explained, carefully rubbing her thumb over his eye.

"Who says?"

"Television," Lily and Rusty answered in sync.

Lily relaxed, her arms returning to her sides. She smiled at him. "I have some upstairs. Come with me."

Rusty hesitated, then moved to get up from his seat. Lily latched onto his arm, pulling him towards the door. "I have a black eye," he chided, "I'm not blind."

Her hands clenched into fists. "Sorry."

They silently made their way down the hall, towards the elevator that led up to her top-floor apartment. Inside, she sat him at the island counter in the kitchen and produced a bag of frozen peas from her freezer. Delicately, she applied the peas to his face. He accepted them from her almost too readily, causing her to back up and sit on the other side of the island.

"So… how's your head?"

"What?"

"Your head… from the… yeah…"

Lily nodded. "Oh, I'm fine."

"Sorry about that, by the way," he mumbled.

Lily nodded again. "Seriously, Rusty, I'm fine. Forget it. It's not like you kicked me in the head on purpose. You may have wanted to, but…"

Rusty grunted as he pressed the peas harder into his eye. "I would never want to hurt you, Lily," he replied after a period of silence. He meant it in both meanings. Physically and emotionally.

She paused herself, taking time to figure her answer. "But you did." She meant it in both meanings. Physically and emotionally. Past and present.

He ignored her response, looking in a different direction. Anywhere but directly at her. "Tomorrow, then?"

"Tomorrow night," Lily confirmed, her small voice shrinking even further. "He already texted me his plans so I can schedule things and conform him to a trip him and the wife are planning on taking."

"A guy that sleazy has a wife?"

"Twenty-or-something actress who likes the feel of diamonds around her neck and wrists," Lily shrugged. "Being married for strictly material purposes is popular these days. Besides, it beats being poor any day."

Rusty frowned. "You would rather be trapped in a loveless marriage than have a shitty apartment and food stamps?"

Lily's smile returned, a coy smile. "No, but that's why I do what I do. The same as you?"

He couldn't help but smile back at her. He had yet to tell her about the crumbling hotel he currently owned as was residing in. "Yeah, the same as me." In saying those words, Rusty remembered Jenna White from the plane, and instantly felt sorry for her. It was amusing to see her failing at things that he had mastered in his years of life, but it was sad to think that she had no real future. She, undoubtedly, was headed down the same track as the supposed Mrs. Hollings.

"You've done good for yourself, Lily," Rusty commented.

She bowed her head. "You've haven't done too bad yourself, Rusty." She said it without really knowing.

It felt good to her, to be sitting and carrying a conversation with her ex-lover that still held much of her attention. A good conversation. One where they weren't fighting, screaming, or chasing each other in some sort of rage. It felt good to get along again. It had taken them so long…

Her hand was in the middle of the island, within his reach. He reached out to touch her, to cover her hand with his, but she withdrew.

Lily stood, walking over to him. She hovered over him sitting on his stool, peeling the defrosting package of peas from his eye. "The swellings going down already," she noticed, her steely blue eyes melting into a cool grey.

"You make a great doctor," he joked. He didn't give her time to hesitate or fall away from him. He wrapped his arm around the small of her back. She allowed him, leaning her stomach into his chest as her upper body towered over his seated position.

Her smile widened. "I forgive you for kicking me in the head."

Rusty laughed out loud, sorry he could only see her out of one eye. "Technically, that was Linus's fault."

She bent forward, kissing his eyebrow above his broken eyeball. Rusty's hand slid lower, the muscles in her bottom tightening at his familiar touch. "You're a horrible person, Rusty Ryan. Taking advantage of a poor, innocent girl like myself."

"Ah, but you love it."

"I love you. I always have."

Rusty couldn't respond. His brain couldn't, at least. He stood, his body moving without thought. His mouth encompassed hers, his arms lifting her from the floor as he passionately rejoiced that he had heard the words he so desperately wanted to hear from her. I love you. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, teasing hers and coaxing it from behind her lips.

She pulled her head away, her fingers entangled in his hair. Pausing, teasing him in a way that she knew drove him crazy, her teeth tugged on his lower lip. He set her back down on the ground, leaning in to kiss her again. She leaned away, flirtingly fleeing from his grasp. His hand encompassed her face, her jaw in his palms as the pads of his thumbs stroked the soft spot on her cheeks. "Stop running from me," he instructed, commanding her to accept him.

She didn't need to be told twice.

As she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him as close to her as she could, there was a knock on the door.

Rusty and Lily instinctively stepped away from each other, like two teenagers being caught on the front porch. "Damn it, Dad," Lily grunted as she reached for the handle. "What the hell do you want…?" she questioned as she wrenched the door open. Her jaw fell. "Oh… um, Rusty?"

Rusty walked to the door, ready to put his arms around Lily from behind. She stepped away from him, shaking her head as her gaze moved to the portal. He turned.

"Hello, Robert."

"Ugh… Hi, Izzy," he sighed, scratching the back of his neck.

Danny and Tess stood in the hallway behind Isabel, Isadora in her father's arms. Tess frowned towards Lily, knowing her husband's daughter well enough to know that they had interrupted something. Something ground-breaking.

Lily collected herself. She stuck her hand out to Isabel as a sign of goodwill, although she really saw none. "Nice to meet you, Isabel. My name is Lily."

Isabel politely grinned. "You were the woman that I talked to?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Lily felt Rusty's regretful gaze on her. She could not vocally answer, but nodded instead.