Chapter Nineteen
Lucky blinked rapidly. "What?" He wasn't
sure if he'd heard Dillon's question correctly.
Dillon
repeated himself. "Are you in love with Emily?"
"Em is
married." Lucky reminded Dillon, who nodded patiently.
"I
know," he said. Lucky looked at him curiously.
"So, why would
you ask that question?"
Dillon sighed. "Look, I don't want
to put you on the spot or anything, it's really none of my
business. But, you know, Emily is my cousin and she's actually been
family to me, not just someone who felt cursed to share bloodlines or
whatever."
Lucky exhaled loudly. "Look Dillon, the truth is,
there's a very simple answer to your question, but there's also
more than just a simple answer, you know?"
Dillon was perplexed.
"I think..."
Lucky smiled. "Anyway, after the song and dance
I just made you do over Georgie, I think I owe you the whole truth on
this one. And let me tell you, this question really knocks mine out
of the park."
Dillon laughed, in spite of himself.
"Okay,
so how about a cup of coffee?" Lucky suggested. "My
treat."
Dillon nodded. "Okay."
They headed down to the
cafeteria in silence.
Once they got there, Lucky paid for two cups
of coffee and led Dillon over to a table where they could talk. He
looked the younger man straight in the eye.
"Do you have a best
friend?" he asked Dillon.
"Well..." said Dillon slowly. "I
never really thought about it, but Georgie is my best friend."
Lucky
smiled, happy to hear Dillon say that. "But you and Georgie have
only known each other a short time, right?" Dillon nodded. "What
about a best friend that you've known for, like, half your life?
Any of those?"
Dillon shook his head. "I've spent my life
moving around."
Lucky nodded, knowing. "I spent the first ten
years of my life moving around too - my family was on the run." He
noted Dillon's curious look. "It's a very long story." Dillon
nodded.
"Anyway," Lucky continued, "Port Charles was my
first real home. I made one friend - my cousin Sly - but that was it.
Then one day when I was twelve, I went over to the Quartermaines and
there was this little girl with brown hair and sad eyes-"
"-Emily."
Dillon cut in.
"That's right. Emily Bowen."
"Bowen?"
"What?"
Lucky asked. "You thought the Q's just went around looking for
orphan kids who happened to have the name Quartermaine?" Dillon
held up his hands in protest.
"Point taken. I guess I just never
knew what her last name was before she was adopted," he said. Lucky
nodded.
"Actually, most of the time she goes by Emily
Bowen-Quartermaine, although I guess now that she's married it's
Emily Quartermaine-Smith..."
"Anyway," Dillon interrupted,
"keep going."
"Right. Anyway, I met Em when she and her mom
- her birth mom, Paige - moved in with the Q's. Have you heard
about Em's first mother?"
"She died of breast cancer, right?
Like Em has?"
Lucky nodded, looking grim. "That's
right."
Dillon noted the worry on his face. "But, Emily is
going to be all right now, right? I mean, her fever broke, she's
beating the meningitis..."
Lucky patted Dillon's hand, a
little awkwardly. "She's doing much better. And Em is a fighter.
She's just going to need all the support she can get."
Dillon
nodded. "No problem."
Lucky went on. "So, Monica and Paige
had met at this cancer treatment center in Arizona, which is where
Emily is originally from. They had become best friends, but Paige was
terminal, so Monica invited them both to live with the Q's, with
the offer to adopt Emily after Paige died." He looked at Dillon,
who nodded silently. "Anyway, that day that I went to the
Quartermaines and met Emily, something about her just grabbed at me,
you know? I just felt immediately protective toward her. Who knows?
Maybe it was the fact that Edward had such a soft spot for
her-"
"Edward? A soft spot?" Dillon was incredulous. Lucky
laughed.
"Yeah. You wouldn't think it, but watch him sometimes
around Em. The old man actually cracks that cement face of his into a
smile."
Dillon grinned. Lucky went on with the story.
"See,
Em and I became close friends, best friends really, but it was tough.
When you're twelve, and you're just friends with a girl, nobody
believes it. We had to endure a lot of crap."
"Like what?"
Dillon wanted to know.
"Oh, you know. 'Lucky and Emily sittin'
in a tree...' My dad always used to give me some line about Em
making my palms sweaty..."
"Did she?" Dillon smirked.
"Did
she what?"
"Make your palms sweaty." Lucky laughed
nervously.
"Honestly, at that age - yes." Dillon raised his
eyebrows.
"And did she..." Lucky nodded.
"Yeah," he
conceded. "She told me years later that she'd had a crush on me
too."
"So.." Dillon asked. "Did anything ever go down with
you two?"
Lucky chuckled. "Um, no. I was twelve and stupid,
plus I'd never had any stability in my life, so I had no idea how
to do something like that. And Em was having trouble adjusting to
life as a Quartermaine, so she really just needed a friend more than
anything. Not that it stopped people from trying."
"Trying?"
Dillon asked.
Lucky laughed, realizing Dillon's place among the
Quartermaines. "Yeah. Actually your older brother and
ex-sister-in-law pulled a nice trick at a family barbeque to get
Emily and I dancing together."
Dillon laughed. "All right
Ned," he joked. "So that's it, nothing more than a
dance?"
Lucky smiled. "Em and I have almost always been close,
very close. We even ran away together once."
"Ran away
together!"
Lucky laughed at Dillon's reaction. "You sound
like my cousin Sly did when I told him Em and I were leaving together
- 'Emily!' - but it wasn't like that. She wasn't sure if she
wanted to go through with being adopted and she has or had a
biological aunt somewhere so she asked me to help her find her. And
the one thing I did know about women or girls was that you should
always protect them and keep them safe, so I wanted to make sure that
Emily was okay."
"But you were twelve," Dillon pointed
out.
"Even so," Lucky told him, "I've always felt
protective over Emily." It dawned on Dillon.
"Like
a...sister?" He asked. "So that's the answer to my
question."
"Well," Lucky said, "not the whole answer."
"Eh?"
"I would protect Emily in the same way I would
protect my own sister, yes," Lucky conceded. "But I see her
beauty as a - as a man."
Dillon looked confused. "So what does
that mean, you're attracted to her?"
"Not exactly," Lucky
said. "It means that I can understand, empathize even, with what
would make a man fall in love with her, do you understand?"
Dillon
nodded slowly. "I think so."
"In answer to your question,"
Lucky said slowly. "I love Emily. I love her very deeply and very
truly, and I have no reason to think that said love will ever change.
As a matter of fact, there is almost nobody in the world who I love
more than Emily. But no - I am not in love with her. Does that answer
your question?"
"Yeah." Dillon was silent for a few seconds.
"Why didn't you just say that?"
"Because you answered my
questions," Lucky told him. "And because I like remembering the
early days of Lucky and Emily. You know, she's a big part of my
story."
"It's a nice story," Dillon said quietly. He
wanted to ask more, to hear more stories, but Lucky spoke up
again.
"Look, you said that Georgie is your best friend, right?"
Dilon nodded.
"And your girlfriend?"
Again,
nods.
"Well, here's one thing I can tell you," Lucky leaned
toward him. "No matter what ends up happening with you and Georgie,
you have to always treat her right, always look out for her, always
do right by her."
Dillon nodded, serious. "I will," he
promised.
Lucky nodded back. "Good." He stood up. "I gotta
go."
Dillon stood too and shook Lucky's hand. "Lucky, thanks
for telling me all that." Their eyes connected and they nodded to
one another.
"Anytime." He put an amicable hand on Dillon's
upper arm. "Take care man."
"Yeah, you too."
Lucky left
and Dillon sat back down at the table, thinking. Lucky and Emily had
known each other for what - ten years? Dillon wasn't sure of
Emily's exact age, but he knew she was in her early 20s. Would he
still know Georgie in ten years? They would both be in their late 20s
by then, maybe ready to be married and start families. Em and Lucky
had never been a couple, but their love for one another was no less
special because of that. He remembered Lucky's words: "No matter
what ends up happening with you and Georgie, you have to always treat
her right, always look out for her, always do right by her."
Dillon
closed his eyes, envisioning the
future:
"Mr.
Quartermaine, Mr. Scorcese's office just called to confirm the
meeting tomorrow morning."
Dillon looked up from his chair where
he was reviewing dailies from his latest film. "Thanks Mark."
His assistant, a skinny grad student with a goatee nodded and
went to walk away, but then turned back. "Oh, and Mrs. Quartermaine
is waiting in the office with your daughter."
Dillon smiled
brightly, his face lighting up. "Thanks Mark." Turning off the
monitors, he rushed up to his office. When he opened the door, he was
immediately greeted by the sight of a blond-hair little girl in a
yellow dress, sitting on the floor, playing with a doll.
"Katie
baby..." he called out softly.
Katharine Ingrid Quartermaine
looked up at her father's smiling face. She struggled to her feet
and toddled to him on two-year-old legs.
"Daddy!" she called,
as he swept her up into his arms.
"Look at this pretty girl!"
Katie giggled.
"I'm cute, Daddy."
"Yes, Miss Kate, you
certainly are."
"Mommy's pretty," the little girl
specified.
Dillon shifted the toddler to his hip and looked at his
wife, mesmerized. He started to move toward her. "Mommy's
beautiful," he murmured, his voice sounding far away. He reached
the smiling woman and took her in his arms, kissing her.
"Ick!"
cried out Katie, still perched on Dillon's hip.
Dillon and
Georgie pulled out of their kiss, laughing and tickling their
squirming daughter.
"Ick, huh?" Georgie teased. "Just you
wait until you meet a boy who's as handsome as your daddy and then
we'll see who's saying ick!"
Dillon tossed Katie up in the
air, as she shrieked with
delight.
"Hey!"
A voice came from behind him. "You were supposed to meet me by the
nurses' station!"
Dillon whirled around. Standing behind him,
grinning, was Georgie. She was dressed in her streetclothes.
Dillon
jumped up. He bowed exaggeratedly, kissing Georgie's hand. "Can
you ever forgive me, fair beauty?"
Georgie bit her lip to keep
the giggles from escaping. "I suppose," she said airily. "On
one condition..."
"And what would that be?" Dillon queried,
looking into her eyes as they moved closer.
"That you kiss me,"
Georgie whispered. Dillon smiled. He kissed her right cheek.
"Like
this?"
Georgie smiled and shook her head. "Not exactly."
He
kissed her left cheek. "How about that?"
"Nuh
uh."
"Hmmm..." He kissed her chin. "Mmmm?"
"Nope"
"Wow,
I'm really sucking at this. How about..." He kissed her
nose.
"No."
"What about this?" He kissed her right
eyelid.
"Not yet."
"And I suppose..." He kissed her
left eyelid.
"Nope, doesn't do it either."
"Well, what
about this?" He kissed her forehead.
"Nope."
"Damn.
Well, what about..." He bent his head to kiss the right side of her
neck.
"Not quite."
"Well then, how about..." He bent
his head the other way to kiss the left side of her
neck.
"Mmmm...you're getting warmer..."
"Well then, how
about..." He held her head, finally, deliciously, kissing her lips.
They kissed softly, languidly, forgetting that they were standing in
a hospital cafeteria. Anticipation had fueled their passion and
Georgie moaned against Dillon's lips, wrapping her arms around his
neck. He held her around the waist, feeling her lips massaging his.
Dillon felt his knees go weak and he edged back toward the chair,
sitting down, pulling Georgie into his lap. Their lips never left
each other. He stroked his thumb down the side of her cheek, feeling
her silky skin. She shivered with excitement, still feeling his
kisses all over her face.
Dillon slid his tongue into Georgie
mouth and she opened her mouth, welcoming him in. The kisses grew in
heat. They ran their hands sensuously through each other's hair as
they made out, Dillon holding Georgie on his lap with one arm that he
had wrapped around her waist.
After several moments, the kissing
slowed down, then drew to a stop. They rested their foreheads against
one another, eyes closed, hearts pounding. Coming out of her reverie,
Georgie looked around, remembering where they were.
"Dillon,"
she whispered urgently.
"What?" he asked. She pushed her head
forward to indicate their surroundings. Fortunately, no one they knew
was there, but Dillon could definitely see a few people giving them
sidelong glances.
"Crap," he muttered. He helped Georgie to
her feet. "Come on, let's get out of here."
"Yeah," she
agreed.
They hurried out the doors, down the hall and into the
stairwell. Once the door closed, they both collapsed, giggling
uncontrollably. When they gained control, Dillon pulled Georgie up
and they started to descend the stairs, but he paused, looking
strange. A bitterness, or the memory of a bitterness, saturated his
tongue. He thought back to recall where it had come from. He
paused.
"Georgie?" She turned to look at him.
"Yeah?"
"What
the hell does your neck taste like?"
