"A flat screen TV?" Lucky questioned.
"Can't you buy that on your own?" Elizabeth shook her head. "No when you cash in a favor it has to be a good one. Something that you can't provide yourself." She rolled her eyes. "Must I teach you everything?"
"I recall a few subjects you seem to think I've mastered." Lucky retorted in a knowing voice, causing Elizabeth to blush. She did have a point about the favor. Talking down his hysterical cousin's girlfriend was not in his job description. Suddenly an inspiration stuck him. "Free baby-sitting for a year."
"Now you're thinking." Elizabeth nodded approvingly. "And throw in some play dates with Lance and Morgan while you're at it."
"At Chuck E. Cheese."
"Do you want him to still like you after he's done repaying you?"
Lucky had to admit she had a point. Patrick may owe him but he was still family. If he made this too much fun, Christmas was going to be downright uncomfortable. "Ok fine. McDonald's play land."
Elizabeth leaned over and kissed his cheek. "For being so reasonable, I'll even let you throw in ice cream."
Lucky wiggled his eyebrows and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her to his lap. "Oh you will, will you?" She began to squirm against his hold as he began to tickle her sides. Elizabeth managed to break free long enough to fall back further on the couch. Not one to give up easily, Lucky continued his advance, capturing her with little effort on his part.
They continued to wrestle around the couch, flipping positions, until Elizabeth grasped at his hands, panting for breath. "Mercy. Mercy." She begged.
Lucky leaned over her, pushing her hips down into the cushions with the gentlest of pressure. Their eyes locked together, noticing for the first time just how their bodies were aligned. He lowered himself closer to her as she began to run her hands up his arms towards his shoulders. A millimeter from her lips, he paused.
"Do you really want mercy?" he whispered.
"Over-rated concept." Elizabeth managed to get out, lacing her finger in his hair.
"Damn good answer." He crushed his mouth to hers with abandon. It had been far too long since he had really thoroughly kissed her. Her fingers ran through his hair as they re-acquainted themselves with how each one tasted. Their tongues tangled together, a battle of dominance and submission raging between them.
His hands snuck under the stripped button down shirt she wore, squeezing the flesh he found there, pushing the fabric up by inches as he moved his hands to her waist before moving them back down to her hips and dipping his fingers lightly under the waistband of her jeans. He broke away from her mouth and immediately began to suck and nip at her neck.
Elizabeth's breaths were still coming in pants, but now for entirely different reasons. She looped one leg around his hip, trying to steady herself. When she felt his fingers trace a path from her hips to just below her navel, she couldn't repress the moan that escaped and she felt herself being pushed deeper into the cushions. "God...Lucky..." She pulled his face towards her, managing to rise up enough to capture his lips with her own. Pulling back, she managed to speak one word. "Cameron."
"He's asleep." Lucky bit at her earlobe.
"You're sure?" She could barely concentrate on forming the words. With one hand, she scratched at the back of his neck.
"Yes." He resumed his attention to her neck, steadily working his way down to the first button of her shirt. Her hands slipped underneath the blue t-shirt he wore.
"What is this garbage all over my newspaper?" Tony Grimes shouted, throwing the door open in an obvious rage, flinging the rolled-up, aforementioned paper at the couch.
The newspaper bounced off of Lucky's head with a resounding thump. Rubbing his head, he untangled himself from Elizabeth as quickly as he could manage it. Elizabeth managed to sit up, but scooted herself behind him, trying to block Tony's view of her straightening out her shirt.
"Tony, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I don't want to discuss it in front of her." Tony countered, folding his arms and nodded in Elizabeth's direction.
"Too bad. I guess you'll be leaving then."
"Lucky really, I can just go..." She was stumped. Somehow she got the distinct impression suggesting she could check on Cameron or wait upstairs would not help Tony Grimes' obvious foul mood. "To the kitchen. I can go to the kitchen."
Turning to look her in the eye, Lucky shook his head. "Elizabeth this is my house and he's the one that wasn't invited. You don't have to go anywhere."
"This has nothing to do with you, Miss. This is about my grandson." Tony griped at her.
"Whatever you want to say about my son, you can say in front of Elizabeth. If it's what I think this is about, she's involved anyway." Lucky picked up the paper that had fallen on the floor.
"Perhaps relocating Cameron until this whole thing blows over is the best thing to do." Tony suggested, though his tone said he had already made up his mind.
"I suppose you think that means letting him leave with you?" Lucky snorted. "Over my dead body."
"Ironically, it's over my daughter's that I have the ability to take Cameron away from you." Tony pointed out coldly.
"Don't you even try it." Lucky's eyes hardened into two laser cut emeralds.
"I have no intention of fighting for custody, but I deserve an explanation." Tony gave in.
"Someone at L&B was talking too much about my leave and a reporter overheard. They don't know who Cameron is and they will give up before they find out anything more."
"You don't know that. You've said that since you got involved with Jess. Now everything is out of hand." Tony accused harshly.
"This isn't my fault."
"Whose is it then, Lucky? Can you answer me that?"
"It was an accident." Elizabeth offered. "No one planned for that to happen."
"Did you become a detective when I wasn't looking? Because I don't remember you being there when that flat foot showed up at our house and told us that our daughter was dead." Tony didn't understand why they were wasting his time when this new squeeze would be gone as quick as all the rest.
"Jess was in a car accident." Lucky pointed out. "Key word is accident."
"How long until Cameron becomes a casualty to your fame game too?"
"Cameron is always my top concern."
"You'll forgive me if I have a hard time believing that." Tony replied dryly.
"You'll forgive me if I don't give a rat's ass." The other man had never believed a word he had ever told him. Lucky had accepted long ago there was never going to be any changing Tony's mind.
"I just need to know that you can make this go away. You promised me that after Jess died you would give Cameron the kind of life he deserved." Tony reminded him.
"He'll have it. Something else will get everyone talking and this will be long forgotten."
"I hope so...for Cameron's sake." Tony walked out before the young couple could pass judgment on him, any more than they already had.
Lucky sank back on the couch, resting his head on the back cushion. Closing his eyes, he put his hands behind his head. "I thought I locked that door."
"You did but you had to unlock it to let Patrick in." Elizabeth sat down next to Lucky resting her hand on his knee.
"That's it. I'm adding three more months to his free babysitting."
Elizabeth chewed the bottom of her lip. Hesitantly she started to speak. "So, that was..." Her voice trailed off as she searched for the right word. "Intense. That was intense."
Lucky snorted. That wasn't intense for Tony. That had downright been a walk in the park holding hands in comparison to some other conversations he had with Jess's father. If Elizabeth thought that was intense, he would have loved for her to hear the blow by blow account of the discussion they had when he showed up after Atlantic City. "That was Tony."
"Has it always been like this between you?" She wasn't sure how far she should push this conversation. Did she really want to get into his relationship with Jess's father when she hadn't figured out how much she wanted to know about his relationship with Jess? However if the man was going to throw items at her when he saw her, she should at least have some idea of what was ahead.
Lucky paused to consider his answer. Sighing, he looked into her blue eyes. "More or less. We've never been the best of friends. I think he hated me from the second we met and it's gotten progressively worse since then."
"All dads are tough on their daughter's boyfriends." Elizabeth gently reminded him. "Has your dad ever approved of anyone Lulu dated?"
"No." Lucky admitted with a chuckle. The day Luke actually approved of anyone, Lulu should run for the hills. Luke's approval would be the green light his mother needed to start planning her only daughter's wedding. "But none of them have gone and got her pregnant either."
Elizabeth could just imagine her own father's reaction if she had become pregnant during college. The phrase "shotgun wedding" would most certainly become a reality. "That does put a different spin on it."
"He probably would have calmed down about Cameron eventually if we hadn't also decided not to get married." Lucky closed his eyes at the memory. Sometimes late at night, he could still hear the curses Tony had thrown at him that day. "Doesn't matter to Tony that it was both of our decisions and it was the best one for everyone. The fact Jess was an unwed mother, to him, is my fault and a glaring example of my emotional immaturity and self-centeredness." Tony could actually write an entire book and give master level classes on how to insult the father of your grandchild, but Lucky was only going to stick to more polite terms the other man had called him. It was safer that way.
They weren't getting married? Elizabeth's brow crinkled in confusion. Lisa had seemed so adamant that Lucky and Jess had been days away from announcing their engagement. Maybe he was just referring to their initial decision when they found out about Cameron. "He had to know you had your reasons."
"Apparently being over for good didn't qualify as a reason for Tony. He brought it up her entire pregnancy."
"And when Cameron was born?"
"Oh he loves Cameron." It would be easier on him if Tony had taken no interest in his grandson. But for all the other man's faults, he was a good grandfather. "But it didn't mellow him. He was worse almost. Every decision we made, he questioned." Lucky paused and amended his statement. "Alright every decision I made he questioned. Not moving to Jess's town. Staying working with Ned and not joining him in his company. It didn't matter what I did, it wasn't' enough. It won't ever be enough for him."
"He probably just hated to see his daughter was growing up. You and Cameron were the most visible proof of that."
"No he hated me before Cameron. Had we not had Cameron he would have been thrilled that we decided to call it quits."
"But you reconsidered..."
Lucky shot her a quizzical look. "For like a minute when we found out about Cameron. But that was it. Nothing had changed."
Now she was truly lost. "But I thought...I mean Lisa...you didn't reconsider?"
"No. Why would you think we did? How would you even know we did?"
Why did he always catch her looking like a total moron? And why did he always make it impossible for her to finish these types of conversations with any sort of grace or dignity in tact? If she didn't know better she would swear it was a plan of his or something. An evil plan to make her look ridiculously stupid so he could look smarter than her at all times, as if he had some sort of brain damage. She glanced down at the floor, becoming fascinated by the contrast of her black shoes against the beige carpet.
"Elizabeth?" Lucky reached out a hand to make her look at him, but she guessed his intent and moved her chin quickly. He decided to grab her hand before she could realize what he was planning. "Elizabeth? Who told you Jess and I thought about getting married?"
Elizabeth looked away from him and stared at a picture on the far wall. She sighed realizing yet again, she was the one to look completely ridiculous here. "That day I found you in the courtyard. I talked to Lisa before finding you."
"Lisa?"
"Yeah turns out she's a little nosy when it comes to who is dating her grandson's father. And she wanted to make sure I understood this great love the two of you had and how important Cameron was because of that." She decided to leave out her impression of the other woman inferring she would never measure up to Jess's memory.
"Lisa told you we considered getting married?" This didn't make much sense. Lisa hadn't been thrilled with their decision. None of their parents had but his dad and Lisa had been the first ones to come around to the decision.
"She said that right before Jess's accident you two hadn't been fighting as much. Jess had said something about an announcement she had for them."
Lucky shook his head. Typical Jess move, leading up to life changing news with cryptic, vague statements. He could remember well when she started to tell him about her pregnancy. He sighed. "Jess was planning on going to graduate school. We had been fighting because she wanted to go to the University of Oregon and take Cameron with her. Right before the accident, she gotten a great offer from NYU she was going to take. That's why we stopped fighting."
Why did he always have an explanation that made her feel ridiculous? Graduate school? The announcement had been about graduate school? "So you two weren't considering getting back together?"
"No. We were over long before Cameron came and he didn't change the reasons we broke up."
"Oh." Elizabeth could feel the blush rising on her cheeks. She had imagined this conversation as embarrassing but this was surpassing every disaster fantasy she had come up with. Maybe just this once he would let her change the subject. Did the phrase 'how about them Cubs?' work in real life?
"Elizabeth? Have you been worried about this since then?" Even though she shook her head, Lucky knew she was lying. It was her eyes, he decided. She couldn't hide anything there. They would always give her away. "Why didn't you just ask me?"
It was on the tip of her tongue to be a smart ass about Cameron being in the hospital at the time but it wasn't even close to time to bring that up in any sort of joking manner. "See this is why we always failed on my rules. I always conveniently convinced myself they didn't matter."
"What else did you convince yourself wasn't important?" He held up to stop the protest he could see forming on her lips. "I already know there's something else so you might as well tell all now."
How was it that when he who screwed up, he couldn't figure it out to save his life, yet when it was her, he could figure this out in less time to solve a badly plotted murder mystery? "Why did you break up? When?"
"We broke up right after graduation. About a month before she found out she was pregnant. Why did we break up?" Lucky shrugged. "At the time it was just what we did but this time I think we both knew it was over. We didn't share any interests anymore. Any time we did spend together we were fighting. It was just time."
"Did you love her?" She hadn't meant to ask it. It had just slipped out but there it sat. And now she had to sit in agony as he considered his answer.
Had he? It wasn't the first time he had considered that very question. He knew Cameron would most likely ask him that one day when he was old enough to understand. He couldn't deny he had been attracted to Jess. She had been beautiful, vivacious, impossible to ignore. When they weren't busy pissing each other off, he had found her funny, charming and could even admire her stubborn nature. But love her? Lucky couldn't deny he had said those words to her, but had he meant them or just said them because it was what was expected of him? "I thought I did. And maybe I did in a way."
Could she live with a "loved her in a way"? Judging by the relief that flooded through her when Lucky made that statement, Elizabeth realized she could more than live with it. The other questions that had been plaguing her since her conversation with Lisa faded to the back of her mind as meaningless. She wouldn't ask them and she knew they wouldn't keep her up at night. Trying her best to keep the grin off her face, she nodded at him and met his eye for the first time since they started talking about Jess. "Ok."
"Anything else?"
She shook her head and moved closer to him. "Nope. I'm good."
"You sure?"
Inching closer to him, she bit her lip as she looked into his eyes with mischief in them.
"Well maybe there is one thing." She leaned towards his ear and whispered to him, "What exactly were we doing before Tony came in?"