The next few months became routine for Lulu. She attended Yoga with Spinelli. He had breakfast waiting for her every morning when she came downstairs. She talked frequently with him and Jason at the Penthouse. She spent time with Maxie, Logan and Johnny. She spent time with her family, but left when she began to feel pressured. She wasn't getting her memory back and was beginning to accept the increasing likelihood that it might never come back.

Logan scared her sometimes and she tried not to be alone with him too much. Johnny was scary, too, but not like Logan. She never got the feeling that he could turn on her any second. Whenever possible, she always made sure Spinelli, Maxie or both were with her when she was with Logan. She kept Johnny and Logan apart instinctively because she new they hated each other.

She liked all three of the single guys in her life; Jason was OK, but didn't count in Lulu's mind as a single guy because he was too old, more like a big brother. But it was Spinelli she was coming to love. She didn't know yet if it was romantic love, but she did love him.

Johnny and Logan sensed her feelings. Johnny seemed sad, but resigned, and Logan seemed to get angrier and angrier every time he saw Lulu and Spinelli together.

Maxie began to sense Lulu's changing feelings for Spinelli, too. She had to fight to keep from showing her resentment. Spinelli had wanted her for months and Georgie had wanted him. Georgie was dead and now Lulu was falling for Spinelli? Maybe she wasn't there yet, but Maxie was sure that was where she was headed.

Lulu felt sad every time she looked at Carly. Her son, Michael, had been shot shortly after Logan had come home from the hospital and Lulu felt nothing for them but sympathy. She knew she should feel more because they were family. She was coming to love them, but she just couldn't feel anything more than human empathy for Michael. The love just wasn't there.

"Can I ask you something?" Lulu asked Maxie one day at Kelly's.

Spinelli had gone to order for them. They took turns treating.

"OK."

"Whenever you talk about your baby, you call it Coop's baby. Why don't you ever call it yours?"

"I never noticed that," Maxie said, surprised. "I guess it just doesn't seem real to me yet. I'm preparing for it, but it still seems like it's happening to someone else, even with the morning sickness and all the weird changes my body's going through."

After dinner, when Maxie went to get up, she started to feel dizzy. Something was wrong, but before she could say anything, she fainted. Mike called an ambulance and Lulu and Spinelli rode with her to the hospital.

"No," Maxie said, gripping each of their hands when Mack tried to make them leave, "I want my friends to stay!"

"All right, Honey; I'll go talk to the doctor."

"I can't lose my baby," Maxie said, starting to cry when Mack left.

"You won't," Lulu said gently. "The doctors are gonna help you."

"And we'll do everything we can to help, too, with the rest of your pregnancy," Spinelli promised.

He had been there when the baby had started to move. Maxie had excitedly taken his hand and put it over her belly. They had smiled with fascination as he felt the baby's movements. Judging from the strong kicks, he thought Maximista's little one would be as strong-willed as his or her mother.

He had begun calling her that a few months ago. It signified beauty and sexual allure. She found it flattering and liked it much better than The Bad Blonde One or The Wounded Blonde One.

Dr. Lee put Maxie on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. At Lulu's insistence, she and Spinelli would be there to take care of her when Mack or someone else could not.

"I noticed something," Lulu said on the way home. "Maxie called it her baby when she said she couldn't lose it."

"I noticed that, too. I think it's the first time. I think she finally realized this baby is hers, too, not just The Clean Cut Cadet's."

They knew it was a huge admission for Maxie. She'd been self-centered for most of her life and now she had a life growing inside her, a living being that was part of her. By saying "my baby" she had acknowledged that she was not the only one who mattered anymore. Her and Coop's baby was more important than Maxie. She was growing up.

Mack didn't like the idea of Spinelli being in his house, but Lulu and Maxie would not take no for an answer. Spinelli had been a good friend to both of them and they needed his help, physically in Maxie's case, and emotionally in both their cases. Spinelli kept their spirits up and gave them hope when they felt like everyone else was giving up on them.

Logan and Johnny had been participating in the interaction between Lulu, Spinelli and Maxie, but Johnny felt like a fifth wheel. The only reason Logan was participating was to try to get Lulu to notice him again. But to his annoyance, which was quickly becoming resentment and fury, she was paying more and more attention to Spinelli. Logan decided he was going to have to do something about that very soon. He just wasn't sure what; he knew he had to be careful. He couldn't hurt Spinelli or Lulu would never forgive him.

Logan faked concern when he heard about Maxie and started coming over to help with her. Maxie seemed to sense that Logan was faking everything. Spinelli seemed indifferent, and why shouldn't he? Logan knew Spinelli was very much aware of the attention Lulu was giving him now. The only thing that confused him was why Spinelli wasn't trying to get Lulu to fall in love with him anymore. Logan began to wonder if Spinelli was in love with Maxie. Surprised by that thought, he decided to see if he couldn't try to somehow facilitate a romance between Maxie and Spinelli. Lulu would be crushed and Logan would pick up the pieces of her broken heart.

"Spinelli seems to like you," Logan said to Maxie one day after Lulu and Spinelli went home.

"We're friends."

"Yeah, but he seems to pay a lot of attention to you now. A few months ago he hated you."

"We talked about that and we sorted everything out. We're good friends now."

"Do you think it could ever be more?"

"Spinelli's like a brother to me, and don't think I don't know what this is about. You want Spinelli away from Lulu."

"You wanted everyone away from Lulu before."

"She doesn't even have a memory now; I can't hate her for something she doesn't even remember."

"Is that true or do you just not wanna disappoint Spinelli?"

"It started out that way, but I actually like her now. She doesn't remember what she did to Georgie. Besides, Georgie let it go a long time ago; I'm the one who kept it going. If Spinelli and Lulu end up together, I'll be very happy for them."

She was surprised to find that she honestly meant it.

"Lulu is not gonna end up with Spinelli!" Logan screamed. "She's gonna be with me!"

"Your true colors are showing."

"You owe me."

"I owe you?"

"Yeah, you cost me Lulu in the first place; now you're gonna help me get her back by playing up to Spin-"

"I'm not hurting Spinelli so you can be with Lulu. If she chooses you, she chooses you. If she chooses Spinelli, she chooses Spinelli. She may not choose either of you. But no matter what happens, I'm not gonna do anything to make or break it."

Logan stormed out of the house. He would just have to try to find another way to pull Spinelli and lulu apart.

"Logan doesn't seem very happy," Lulu said during their traditional breakfast the next morning.

"He's not bothering you, is he?"

"He's not exactly bothering me. It just still feels like he's trying harder with me than he is with you and Maxie."

"He is because you're the one who's important to him."

"Yeah, I think he's only trying to be friends with you guys because it's what I want."

"How do you feel about him now?"

"I don't love him. I'm not even sure I like him. I feel sorry for him because his dad left before he was even born, but when we're alone he acts like I'm supposed to save him."

"Save him from what?"

"I don't know; maybe his life choices, what happened in Iraq? He won't even talk about that, but he keeps telling me I'm the only good thing in his life and that I make him wanna be a better man."

"He's told you that before."

"He told me about all the talks we used to have. But it feels like he's pressuring me to be his savior. It's even worse than people trying to pressure me to remember because I can't ever save him; he's the only one who can do that. But when I tell him that he just gives me this sad look like I don't know what I'm talking about. He says he can't do it alone."

"He has to wanna do it for himself, not for you or anyone else, and he can't expect you or anyone else to do it for him."

"I've tried to tell him that, too. I've even suggested therapy, but he flatly refuses; he gets angry with me every time I mention it."

"Has he hurt you?"

"No, he just glares at me and tells me to forget it. I think he's jealous of you, too."

"Why?"

"I pay more attention to you than I do to him. I can't help it; I like you better."

"Really?"

"You don't make me nervous and you never pressure me to do anything."

Someone knocked at the door and Lulu opened it to Scott Baldwin.

"There you are," he said to Lulu. "I wanna remind you of something. Since you're pretending not to remember, I guess I have to. You have everyone fooled, even my son, but not me."

"What do you want?" Spinelli asked, standing protectively beside Lulu.

"You and I had a deal," Scott said, ignoring Spinelli. "I agreed to give your mother's guardianship back to Nikolas if you agreed to give Logan a second chance."

"She followed through on her part of the bargain; your son blew it when he tried to frame an innocent man for the Text Message Killings. He would have let more innocent lives be taken just so he could keep Lulu away from Johnny Zacchara. It didn't work and your son got what was coming to him. He never should have grabbed her; if he hadn't done that she wouldn't have hit him."

"Shut up!" Scott screamed.

"You shut up," Lulu said angrily. "You don't get to come here and talk to him like that. Now get out of here before I call Jason."

"I'm already here," Jason said, coming downstairs. "Turn around and leave, Baldwin."

"Or what?"

Jason touched his gun.

"Or you'll be dead and I won't be convicted because I'll be telling the truth; I shot an intruder. Spinelli and Lulu are witnesses; you were threatening them and they'll back me up."

Spinelli and Lulu nodded.

"Even Logan says I kept up my end of the bargain," Lulu said, "so you can't hold that over my head anymore. Go away."

"You're faking your memory loss to get out of paying for hurting my son and I'm gonna prove it and then you're going to jail."

"Your son is not pressing charges," Spinelli said. "You have no case without him."

"Get out," Jason said impatiently to Scott.

"You know, you're really pathetic," Scott said to Spinelli. "You honestly think she's gonna fall for you, don't you? If she didn't love you with a memory, why would she love you without one?"

"You can't have it both ways," Jason said. "You can't say she's faking one minute and then use her memory loss against Spinelli in the next. Get out before I count to three or your brains are gonna be all over that wall!"

Scott glared at all three of them until Jason began to count, then he turned around and ran toward his car. As Lulu closed the door, she was grateful that her two best male friends had been there to stop Scott from forcing her to be with Logan based on a promise she didn't remember.