Lucky raised his hand to knock on Cruz's door. Lance had asked the other night for Cameron to come spend the night and his cousin was a little too eager to allow two hyper active children to spend all night eating sugar. He somewhat suspected Lucas and his husband Dillon were having some sort of fight and the sleepover was a punishment for Dillon's misbehavior.

Pounding on the door, Lucky whistled the last bit of the Beatles tune he had heard on the way over here. "Open up man! I have to talk to you!" he called into the open window.

Cruz threw the white dishtowel over his shoulder when he heard his friend's voice through the solid would door. He couldn't remember the last time Lucky had actually come over, so immediately, he thought something must have been wrong. He reached for the handle and wasted no time opening the door.

Noticing the dishtowel, Lucky smirked. "Nice look there. I bet you bag all the babes like that." Not waiting for an invitation, he walked right in and headed for the living room, settling on the brown leather couch.

"You're awfully chipper after that interrogation." Cruz snuck a sideways glance at his friend, slapping him in the back of the head with the towel.

Lucky rolled his eyes. "I have decided that my mother needs fewer friends."

"What brings you by?"

"Lulu."

Cruz's eyes widened at that. The kid had fallen hard for him over the summer and, despite his best efforts, he couldn't get her to see that he wasn't interested. Lucky must have figured it out. "So, you know."

"About her brilliant decision to volunteer to work for you? I told her she could just wait a few years and still work for no pay with you."

"Work for me?" Cruz's face contorted, but he was managed to force a smile to avoid suspicion.

"Yeah, I don't know why she would want to intern with you..." Lucky's voice trailed off as he noticed his friend's face. Cruz covered it well enough, but Lucky had always been the better poker player of the two. He knew Cruz's every tell. The twitching eyebrow was a dead giveaway. Cruz was confused. "She did talk to you about the whole interning at your magazine in the fall plan right?"

"Yeah, of course. I'm just surprised she told you about it."

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Well, I haven't given an answer yet, and I didn't want to put you in the middle."

"This probably explains why she wanted me to come over here tonight." Lucky concluded. Typical Lulu move. This was probably payback for some comment he made at her expense. "She asked me to come by to tell you the deadline was in two weeks. Why she couldn't pick up the phone herself and call you I have no idea."

"I turned it off, so even if she did..."

"She'd have gotten that voicemail you never check."

"Pretty much." Cruz laughed. "Do you want a beer or something?"

"Sure. Whatever you got." Lucky moved over towards his friend's CD collection while Cruz headed towards the kitchen.

"Corona." Cruz replied. He had severely cut back on his drinking since Bobbie had come into his life. She didn't like the taste on his lips and he had lost his taste for anything stronger than a Corona.

"You wussing out on me man?"

"Nah. I do all my heavy drinking at the beginning of the week." Cruz lied, smirking.

"Well if I had your staff issues I'd drink that early too." Lucky raised the bottle in a mock toast.

Cruz clinked their bottles together and took a rather uneventful gulp of his beer. He didn't know how to be around Lucky and not tell him what was going on. Just as that thought hit him square between the eyes, he reminded himself that Bobbie had asked him not to say anything. Besides, he had already survived one near-death experience with Patrick over the Robin thing. No telling when his luck would run out.

"So Mom was ecstatic you finally showed for a dinner man." Lucky took an unsatisfying swig of his beer. Cruz normally had a fully stocked bar. What was up with this?

"I miss seeing her. If I could get away with it, I'd never go to work and just let your mom cook for me for the rest of my days." Cruz didn't let himself consider the truth in that statement. How many secrets had he kept from his friends over the years? Why were some easier to keep than others?

"So would my dad. Why have you been so scarce lately? My dad used to think he had adopted you at some point but you haven't been around in months." Lucky knew his friend worked hard, but Cruz had rarely missed an opportunity to have Laura cook for him before. The more Lucky thought about it, the longer he realized it had been going on.

"I've been running a company all alone for starters." Cruz wondered if his excuse sounded as hollow to Lucky as it did to him. "Any spare minute I have had I've devoted to sleep."

Lucky cocked his eyebrow. "And how did my mom and Aunt Bobbie know about your nomination thing before Patrick and me?" He paused, taking another swig. "Mom I can understand, but how did Aunt Bobbie know?"

"She just happened to be there when I got the news. She came by to thank me for having you drop off that ad approval for her last week." Cruz answered.

Lucky shrugged at the explanation, satisfied for the moment. "Well I know Mom made you a cake and all last night, but congratulations man."

"Thanks." Cruz was rather proud of himself. Maybe one of these days his magazine would attract a most valuable staff. At this point, he would have settled for a full staff.

Lucky hoisted his bottle up for a toast. "May you win and it bring you a staff that actually shows up to work."

"Here, here!" Cruz watched Lucky finish his bottle and a thought struck him. "What was going on with your mom? I heard her tell Luke that she wished everyone would have shown up for dinner."

Lucky rolled his eyes. "She is trying to play matchmaker. My wonderful mother apparently thought I was going to bring a date with me."

This was the first Cruz had heard of this and he couldn't help but ask, "Who is she?"

"Elizabeth Webber. Audrey Hardy's granddaughter." Please don't ask how we met, he prayed. Just don't ask. "You met her once. Sort of. Robin's friend from the pool party."

"The one you were falling all over? Yeah, I remember her. Pretty brunette. How did your mother even find out about her?"

"I might have stopped over at Audrey's house and I think Audrey may have seen us talking."

"That must have been some pretty intense talking if she called Laura on you."

"Possibly more than talking." Lucky headed towards the couch to sit down. He might as well get comfortable.

"How much more?"

"Kissing."

"And you're just telling me this now?"

"Check your voicemail. I've been trying to get in touch with you."

"The damn thing is so full, I can't figure out how to check it." Cruz argued. "You could have come by." Shut up, a silent voice warned. Just shut up.

Lucky shrugged. "You're never home and Cameron's been having issues with sleeping lately."

"Did you run out of Monster Spray?"

"No. He's got new Monster Spray repellant monsters. I don't know how but I swear my dad is responsible for this."

"You turned out all right." Cruz pointed out. He redirected the conversation. "How serious was this kiss?"

"The first one wasn't that intense..."

"The first? How many have there been?"

"Once in her grandmother's den and the other night in my truck. Would have been one more at Jake's if it hadn't been for Lulu."

"Are you dating her?"

"Do I say yes if we haven't actually been out on a date yet?"

"Good mannered Lucky Spencer has groped a girl twice without actually feeding her?"

"There was no groping." He paused remembering the feel of her skin underneath his fingers. "Well not much." He amended. "And that time we had dinner beforehand."

"She seems awfully skittish. What did you have to do to change her mind?"

"Not piss her off every time I talked to her? And my mom and her grandmother sort of tricked us into spending the day together." Lucky reached out and smacked Cruz's arm. "That's for the lame code of behavior you and Patrick made up while we were in college."

"Well, someone had to point you in the right direction."

"'Don't call her right away' you two told me. 'Don't seem to eager.' That brilliant logic almost made her not come the other day."

"When are you seeing her again?"

"Next Friday."

"What's your endgame?"

Lucky shook his head. "I don't know that I have one. She's different than the girls I've dated since..." he left his voice trail off.

"Since?" Cruz pressed.

He fixed Cruz with a glance. "Since Jess okay?"

"Different how? Different in the fact that she didn't fall all over you when she found out what you did for a living?"

"That. And the fact that she knows Cameron and he already loves her."

"You sound...almost invested in this whole thing."

"I do?"

Cruz nodded slowly. "Yes you do." One of Lucky's statements came back to him. "Wait, did you say you are seeing her next Friday? As in this coming Friday?" Seeing his friend nod with a look of complete confusion, Cruz let out a low whistle. "I thought Daphne Vega's CD was coming out soon and you were in full press mode with her. Doesn't that normally mean you would see her on Friday night?"

"I'm seeing her on Saturday. Daphne's a nice kid and she understands." Lucky shrugged his shoulders. "Her boyfriend's actually relieved. There was some family wedding they were supposed to attend together that night."

Lucky was changing his press routine? Something that had worked like clockwork time and time again? Cruz thought back to the other girls Lucky had briefly dated. He couldn't ever recall Lucky changing something as important as his new artist launch routine just to see a girl. He didn't change much period. The last time...Cruz snapped his head up with a jolt. The last time Lucky had major changes in his life for a girl, it had been Jess. And how well Cruz remembered the disasters that followed after those changes. Not that Cameron was a disaster, he amended, but his parents should have never been together as long as they were.

And this Elizabeth had already met Cameron? Another change from the great routine of Lucky Spencer. Cruz could count on his hand the number of ex-girlfriends who actually knew about Cameron's existence period, much less had met the kid. Lucky had been very clear that he did not want to confuse Cameron with a bunch of women running in and out of his life.

"Damn, this is different." Cruz shook his head. "This sounds serious."

"Serious?" Lucky stood up and rose towards the massive CD rack. "It's not serious. We haven't even gone out." He thumbed through the titles, looking to see if Cruz had any new ones from his last visit to the townhouse.

"'We haven't gone out' he says. Yet you're changing routines and she gets to meet your kid. You dated Katherine for six months before you dropped the Cameron bomb on her!"

"Elizabeth was Cameron's teacher. Technically I met her because of him." Lucky paused as one caught his eye. He pulled it out to make sure he was seeing things correctly.

"You're dating your son's teacher? And you said I was insane for the Patrick/Robin thing!" Cruz finished off his beer with a final swig and headed towards the bar. News like this required something harder than Corona.

"Hey I said you were suicidal and insane. There's a difference."

Lucky didn't even look up to respond to Cruz. His attention was focused on the CD in his hand. What the hell was Cruz doing with the soundtrack of Hairspray? Cruz didn't do soundtracks. He did Broadway even less. So why was it sitting there, between Harvey Danger and Incubus?

In all the years he had known Cruz, Lucky never remembered him liking anything other than hard rock and alternative music. Sure he would listen to other genres just to placate his friends but, if given a choice, Cruz wanted to rock out. In fact the last time he could even recall Cruz venturing out of the rock section at the music store was when the girl he was interested in only listened to opera.

Lucky drew his eyes closer together in concentration. He had laughed every single time Patrick had even suggested that Cruz was seeing someone behind both their backs. It was crazy. Cruz was a newsman. It wasn't in him to sit on a story. But now Lucky was curious. The CD case was dusty with fingerprints. It wasn't one that just sat on the shelf for show. Opening the case, he felt his curiosity grow deeper. The CD was not in its case. Was it in a CD player somewhere?

Lucky couldn't help but wonder. Could Patrick actually be right?