Chapter Nineteen

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?"