Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Elizabeth worked at sorting out which of her clothes would go where. Even though it wasn't as if she had tons of furniture to bring with her, Lucky had insisted that she "take it easy" on Moving Day and focus on the non-heavy lifting tasks. She wasn't completely convinced the little joke Dillon had played on him hadn't worked too well. He was probably going through all her boxes right now looking for secret stashes of potpourri and satchels.
So while Lucky moved the few heavy boxes she had, she sat in their bedroom trying to figure out where everything would go. Their bedroom. She felt, rather than saw, the goofy grin start to form on her face. It was a good thing Robin had been stuck in the bakery today with Lucas out on a case or Elizabeth was sure she would never hear the end of it. This was their bedroom. Not his. Not some room at Kelly's but theirs. It was both unsettling and completely wonderful to realize this was home now. This was where she lived.
"What'cha doing?" Cameron's voice interrupted her musings from the doorway. Turning her face slightly, she spotted him leaning against the door, a ragged bear trailing behind him in his left hand. His right hand scratched at his nose as he took in the scene with his inquisitive eyes. This was reality too, she reminded herself. No more hiding from Cameron.
"Unpacking." Elizabeth said lightly, keeping her hands busy with the task. "Want to help?"
Shrugging his shoulders, Cameron made his way into the room, dragging the teddy bear along the ground. Sitting down just outside of the circle of clothes she had around her, he stayed quiet for a few minutes before giving her a puzzled look. "You have a lot of clothes."
Trying to keep her laugh back, Elizabeth smiled at him. Lucky had said something very similar earlier today while bringing up suitcases and boxes. "It's a girl thing Cameron. One day, since you are so very smart, you'll understand."
Cameron squished his face in obvious disgust. "Eww. I don't want to know about girl things."
If you are anything like your father, you'll be way too knowledgeable about them Elizabeth thought. Instead of voicing her inappropriate musing she opted to merely smile. "Some day you may just change your mind."
"Nope girls are yucky. They have cooties." Cameron explained seriously.
"How did you find out about cooties?" It wasn't an uncommon word for her to hear at school, but she had never heard Cameron use it before.
"Lance." Cameron stated matter-of-factly. "He's six so he's smart."
Trying not to laugh, Elizabeth reached out and ruffled his curls. "Well that is certainly true." The fact that Dillon and Lucas's son was being considered an expert at male-female relations struck her as funny. And even though she didn't know Dillon very well yet, she had a feeling he would find it just as amusing as she did.
They fell into silence as Elizabeth continued sorting her clothes into piles. The original plan had been to separate by season, but that had fallen by the wayside. Port Charles's weather was anything but confined to actual seasons. She and Robin had joked once if they hated the weather, they could just wait an hour and it would change. Now the plan was to separate into similar peeves. T-shirts in one section, jeans another. Once she had her main sections then she could work on sub-dividing them. And people thought Robin was the neurotic one, she scoffed mentally. They didn't know the half of it.
"Elizabeth? I got a question." Cameron's soft voice cut through the silence.
"Hmm? Go ahead Cams." She encouraged distractedly as she refolded a pair of work pants.
"When the baby comes, I'll be a big brother right?"
"Yes." She picked up a long sleeve shirt, folding it before placing it in the pile slightly behind her.
"What will the baby call Daddy?"
"Well the baby won't be able to talk for awhile but when it's time, I guess Daddy." Elizabeth paused to meet Cameron's eyes. His face was still scrunched up in concentration and it appeared to be clear there were still a few more questions bothering him.
"What will the baby call you?"
"I guess Mommy when the time comes." She couldn't help it. The goofy grin made reappearance on her face at the mere idea of being called Mommy by someone. Going on three months to get used to the idea already and it still seemed to be part of a dream to her, she mused.
Cameron nodded as if she answered in the exact way he had expected her to. It was impossible to miss the lost look on the little boy's face as he started to pick at the fur of the teddy bear sitting in his lap.
"Cameron? Is there something else?"
For several minutes, the four-year-old looked as if he was debating with himself in the intense manner only young children could manage. His nose was scrunched up in concentration and she could clearly see him try to work out a solution to whatever it was that was perplexing him. Cameron would look at his bear, look up to the sky, back to the bear, and then to the ground. Finally it seemed he reached a conclusion. "When the baby comes, what am 'posed to call you?"
The absolute frankness in his question made Elizabeth stop with her sorting and face him. What was he supposed to call her? What was wrong with using her name like he had been doing? It was better than, "Hey you." "Cameron? What do you mean?"
"The baby is going to call my daddy, 'Daddy.' But I can't call you 'Mommy,' because I don't have a mommy. So what am I 'posed to call you?"
Where was Lucky when he was really needed? Why was she the one to answer all this little boy's questions about his family dynamic? Was it too late to reconsider this whole living together plan? Cameron had a mother, he just didn't remember her. But good luck explaining that to a preschooler. "Cameron you have a mom. And why can't you just call me Elizabeth like you've been doing?"
"No I don't." Cameron said matter-of-factly. "And I can't call you Elizabeth because that's what I called you when you were my teacher. And teachers aren't mommies."
She bit at her lips to keep the laughter back. It wasn't the first time she encountered a child's belief that teachers just lived at school and did nothing but teach all day and night. It would be the first time she would have to have this conversation surrounded by laundry. "Cameron plenty of teachers are mommies."
"Nuh-uh. They are in school all day with us." He stuck out his lower lip stubbornly, a move she had seen his father do time and time again. "I can't call you Elizabeth. I gotta call you something else."
"Well I think it's fine if you want to call me Elizabeth still, but if you want to call me something else, that's fine too." As long as it wasn't something along the lines of Evil Stepmother, she could deal she told herself.
Cameron pursed his lips together in concentration. "Robin calls you Liz sometimes."
"Yes she does. So does my grandmother and brother. Do you want to call me Liz?"
"No. Too many people use that." Cameron pouted.
Oh he was his father's son through and through alright, Elizabeth mused silently. "What about Lizzie? Nobody has called me that in years and it could be a just you and me thing."
Cameron nodded eagerly. "I like Lizzie."
"Good. That's settled then."
Maxie had told Mac that she couldn't breathe. She needed a break. She needed to be away from Alexis' room for just a few minutes. He could text her if something changed. Alexis was stabilized. Her condition hadn't worsened. During surgery, they had severed the infected lung and had to remove it completely. They were keeping her on some pretty strong medication. Mac had breathed the word, "Chemotherapy" more than once tonight. Robin hadn't even stopped by today, but Maxie could cut her some slack on account of her looking the worst of any of them. It was obvious she wasn't sleeping so, when Mac had suggested she meet with the teachers at Morgan's school and then go straight home to bed, Robin hadn't argued.
Maxie checked her watch. It was well past seven in the evening. Where had the afternoon gone? Oh right, she had worked it. Off to work and then back to the hospital. It had been this way for days now. This was the time they should be focusing on wedding invitations and bridal showers, china patterns, and wedding vows. She shook her head. This was exactly what her walk was supposed to be blocking out! By miracle of memory or just plain unconscious planning, Maxie found herself in front of Ric Lansing's office.
This was just the kind of distraction she had been seeking. Ric was so self-involved he probably wouldn't notice that she had been crying earlier. They hadn't spoken since the mouse incident, but she knew she was to blame for that. It had been downright embarrassing to call him after causing such a ruckus over something that was small enough for her to step on. He didn't seem the type to hold grudges, or maybe he was cursed with having a short attention span. Whatever the case, this was the best idea she had had all night.
She thought about knocking; after all, he could be in a meeting with a patient. Immediately she dismissed the idea. There was something so absurd about knocking that she couldn't stoop to. He was the one who kept insisting that they were more than they seemed: This was her chance to prove just that. Besides, she wanted to make a hell of an entrance so that, no matter what he was doing, he would immediately turn his focus to her. Maybe she was a little self-involved as well. Turning the handle to the right, she pushed in and the door gave way. At least this meant he was around, otherwise she would have encountered a locked door.
Smiling at the possibility that he may have been expecting her tonight, she craned her head to the left to see if she could see him before he spotted her. He was just a flash of black hair once he rounded the corner, their eyes meeting ever so briefly. His fingers latched around her right wrist and he yanked her into the office, propelling her backwards to shut the door and hold her against it. Surprised, she didn't let him deepen the kiss, not even when his hands slid up to her face. She had never seen him so uncontrolled. It was at once exciting and terrifying.
She tasted like licorice. Sweet, but not too sweet. He had been about to go home when her blonde head poked its way in through the door. The urge to grab her and kiss her senseless had been overpowering. It had been far too long since he had kissed her thoroughly, an oversight he was determined to correct. Seeing her slight hesitation, he winked at her, leaning ever closer to her. "Miss me Maxie?" he breathed.
Maxie pressed her forehead against his, trying in vain to catch a full breath. Who did he think he was, kissing her like that? She touched her fingers to her lips and found that his taste still lingered there. "Uh...um...you startled me. Where the hell did you come from?"
"Born and raised in New York City sweetheart." He teased.
Maxie laughed and released a sigh of relief at how good it felt. "Yes, I missed you." She admitted quietly.
He was startled she owned up to it. He had been more than prepared for another insult to come flying his way. It was what they did. They bickered until they couldn't fight this attraction a single second more and then they attacked. "Then what took you so long to get here?" he wondered softly, kissing her again, pulling her close to him.
"Can we not talk about it?" Maxie asked, meeting his aspiring demands with a few of her own.
"I find talking highly over-rated."
"I figured you would." Maxie smiled, pushing him into the desk, her haste causing several items to go flying off the countertop. "What am I doing?" She asked aloud, ending the kiss immediately. He must have thought she was joking because he nuzzled her braid to the side and kissed her cheek.
"If you have to ask that, something is very wrong here."
The look she gave him was one of wry amusement. "We have to slow down. There are things to consider..."
"I agree." He kissed her earlobe softly. "For one thing this desk is not comfortable enough."
"I hardly know you." Maxie rationalized. She wasn't sure which of them she was arguing with.
"And this is a problem now because?" he drawled. Barely knowing each other hadn't stopped them from sharing some intense kisses when they were working on Lucy's dress or on New Year's Eve.
"Because it's a very real possibility now and it wasn't before." Maxie told him. He was doing his best to distract her with tender kisses to strategic places and he was damn near succeeding.
"So you admit there's a possibility?"
"I'm saying if there was, there's still no way I'm jumping into bed with a stranger." Maxie clarified.
He noticed her backtrack, but chose not to comment on it. "What do you need to know?" He dropped his lips to the point behind her ear that seemed particularly designed to make her come undone.
"A lot more than I know now. Other than your name and profession, you're a stranger to me."
"Only because you never asked." He pointed out. "You kept insisting we were nothing. Nothing was going to happen and nothing had happened."
Maxie chewed on her lip. "I still don't know if anything should happen."
Ric traced her lower lip with his finger. "Why are you so determined to fight this?"
"Character flaw."
Sitting up on his desk, he pulled her between his legs. Resting his head on her forehead, he laughed lightly. "What am I going to do with you?"
Maxie closed her eyes as a shiver ran through her. He was too good at the seduction game. And her body was responding exactly how he wanted it to. She could hear the difference in her breathing, feel her nipples pinching into tight little points, and her knees were getting a little shaky. She leaned into him and he kissed her again, his technique luring her away from logic and reason. "Damn you." She whispered, her eyes shooting open.
"Just let yourself enjoy this Maxie."
"Are you married?" It seemed the most pressing question at the moment.
"I'm legally separated. In the process of getting a divorce."
"So you still have a wife?" Maxie wasn't quite sure how she felt about that, so she didn't know why she was asking him to elaborate.
"It's all a mere technicality at this point. I haven't even seen her since I moved to Port Charles. We only communicate through our lawyers."
"Do you still love her?" Stop it Maxie! God! What was wrong with her?
"No." His marriage had ended long before he moved out. He had accepted that months ago. Ric knew he would always care for Kate, but love her still? No he most decidedly did not.
"How long have you lived in Port Charles?"
"A little over two years now."
"Do you have any children?"
"None that I am aware of." He joked.
"Do you do drugs?"
"Other than you?"
Maxie blushed. "Answer the question. I need to know if you're living a clean life." She sounded like her mother and she hated it, but better to be safe than sorry.
"No drugs. I drink occasionally which you know. I don't live like a monk, but I'm tested regularly. Completely clean."
"Does that seem like a weird question?"
"Only if you are asking someone there is no possibility with."
"Do you have any questions for me?"
"Let's see I know you aren't married. You live with your father, who's the chief of police. You have a party girl reputation, but after seeing you on New Year's Eve I have to suspect that is more talk than anything with you." He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "Are you living a clean life?" he asked smiling at her turn of phrase.
"That is one thing I am doing. After my cousin contracted HIV from her first boyfriend...well let's just say she was better than any seminar. I got the party girl reputation in middle school, but I think Lulu Spencer started it. She's always hated me. I do live with my father. My sister is studying in Paris for the semester. I'm not married, never wanted to be. My parents provided plenty of reasons to never agree to that sort of arrangement." Maxie replied with a nod of her head.
Using his fingers to trace the lines of her face, he let his other hand trail down along her sides until it rested at her waist. "So now we are no longer strangers." Ric teased with a slow grin.
"You know, I was just thinking the same thing." Maxie met his grin and leaned in to kiss him, only the sound of her phone beeping stopping her. "Hold that thought." She flipped open the phone and saw that there was a new message from Mac. "I have to go."