Many thanks to Batel, Demon, Londyn, and Harpon for expressing a desire for the story to continue. Others, thank you for reading, but please take a moment of your time to review. There are 31 of you who have this on alert, I'd like to hear from you. Good, Bad, Ugly, I don't care. Just share your thoughts.
With continued interest, I will try my best to remain motivated to write and finish this.
Not even reread and certainly not edited.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Confessions
- "So, what are we going to do while we wait for that drama queen of yours?" Diane called out to the… couple… as she searched the liquor cabinets for a drink. "I really wasn't planning on staying here very long since, I like to shower after—"
Alexis turned from the door from which she hoped her daughter would miraculously re-enter to her best friend.
- "Don't you think you've had enough to drink to last you at the very least a month, Diane?" Noticing that the woman had found a bottle of wine, Alexis quickly grabbed it from her hands. "And excuse me while I gag on hearing about how you like to shower after waking up naked next to a man you barely know… well, except for the fact that he fathered with your BEST FRIEND a child who lives to torment her mother!"
- "Alex—" Mathieu moved to her side. "It's okay. Samantha will be back shortly."
But putting the bottle onto the dining table, Alexis thought perhaps taking a cab home would be far more conducive to the return of her own hangover than remaining in the same apartment with the… couple.
- "You know what?" She began to pace the room. "No… why don't you leave, Diane—"
Or she could have saved her money seeing as her daughter had her car anyway.
- "Take a cab home… or to Max." She snapped her fingers. "You remember him, right? He's your boyfriend! The one you ride like a damn billy goat—"
Grabbing the bottle of wine before Alexis could stop her, Diane rolled her eyes.
- "Oh come now, Alexis! Who the hell rides a billy goat?" Like an expert, she quickly uncorked the bottle. "If you're going to insult me, the least you could do is be a little bit witty about it!"
Mathieu held the side of his face as he watched the woman pour herself a drink.
- "It is ten o'clock in the morning, Diane—"
She stared at him as though he had several heads. Although, given the head she had scene earlier that morning, he would have done well sharing some of his wealth.
- "Where are you from again, Mathieu?" She pointed her glass at him.
- "France." He responded in almost a questioning manner as he recalled her previous evening's sad attempts at conversing with him in the language.
And taking a large gulp of the contents of her glass, she smiled widely.
- "Well, since this is a Cabernet which clearly hails from your land, it's four o'clock in the AFTERNOON! And this, my non-Napoleon complexed friend," she looked down at his pants, "is a cure to my hangover."
Moving to the far end of the dining table, she protectively held the bottle to herself.
- "Haven't you ever heard of drinking the hangover away?" She took another sip. "That's what I'm doing."
- "But then you will only become intoxicated again." In watching the woman in action as she hoarded the bottle of wine to herself, Mathieu found himself further perplexed as to how he had ended up in bed with her. "It is a cycle. And your liver—"
Diane rolled her eyes.
- "Sir, my liver is made of the same material that my flask is." She moved to the sideboard to grab him a glass. "Besides, this is how I get my daily portion of fruit. As a doctor, you know very well that we need a balanced meal." Holding out the filled glass, she smiled. "Here's your first serving of fruit, my friend."
Mathieu reluctantly accepted it.
- "Er… Thank you?"
She nonchalantly waved her hand as she looked over to a clearly annoyed Alexis.
- "Hey cranky pants," she called out to her best friend. "Would you like me to start you off with a serving of dairy courtesy of a white Russian?"
And watching as Mathieu took a sip from the glass in his hands, Alexis threw her hands up in annoyance.
- "Mathieu, seriously? Weren't you just telling her it's ten o'clock in the morning?"
He slowly nodded in the same guilty fashion attributable to their daughter.
- "Well, it is not in my nature to allow wine to go to waste." He coyly smiled at the woman. "I'm French, Alex."
She was not amused. It was clear to her that he was attempting to flirt. Despite how much he now insisted that he had changed since their teenage years, she still saw in him, that charismatic teen with whom she had… fallen in love.
- "Well, if you plan on joining her and reenacting last night's festivities for me, I suggest you put that glass down." She thought about the videos she had scene on her date with Mac the previous evening. "I would actually prefer to be traumatized by watching Pinocchio have at it with a fairy—"
Diane disapprovingly shook her head.
- "That's just inappropriate Alexis! This isn't Texas or anything, it's legal here to—"
Alexis glared at the woman.
- "I WAS TALKING ABOUT AN ACTUAL FAIRY!" She grabbed a bottle of water before moving to the couch. "I swear, you're going to be the death of me!"
Watching as she threw herself onto the couch, Mathieu was slightly amused; Alexis was jealous of what had occurred between Diane and him. Perhaps he had a chance after all.
- "Alex, s'il te plait!" Ensuring to leave the glass of wine at the table, he sat down beside her. "Nothing happened—"
Feeling his arm wrap around her, Alexis resisted the urge to lay her head onto his shoulder like she had done many times before in their teenaged years. Instead, she shifted toward the edge of the couch.
- "Mati, I don't care if anything happened between you two." She lied.
- "You're lying!" Diane called out to her.
Mathieu hoped that in spite of the redhead's long road to intoxication, there was truth in her words. He felt it in his heart that somewhere in this woman who now called herself Alexis, Alexandra and her love for him continued to exist.
- "Are you?" He did not care that she was supposedly dating Mac. His only concern was with what they had, or continued to have. "T'es jalouse?" He asked if she was jealous.
Alexis hated being put on the spot. She needed to have a moment to herself so that she could think.
- "Why would I be?" She corrected herself. "Why should I be? We're not together anymore, Mati. It's been thirty years!"
Without either party noticing, Diane had managed to tiptoe over to where they sat. Leaning over the back of the couch, she looked her best friend over.
- "Right now, you're greener than a leprechaun on St. Patrick's Day, Alexis." She ran her hand over the woman's cheek. "Right about now, you're singing to yourself How Deep is Your Love. And you—" She looked over to Mathieu whose face wore the signs of a hopeful man. "You're singing the original version of those dastardly BeeGees' song, How Deep is Your Throat—"
Alexis had almost found herself lost in her thoughts of whether or not she truly was jealous until the woman's final statement.
- "Oh my God, Diane!" Without excusing herself from Mathieu's company, Alexis grabbed the redhead by the arm and dragged her into the kitchen. "What the hell is wrong with you? I know you've started drinking, but we all know that it takes more than a couple of glasses or a bottle to get you drunk!"
Diane pursed her lips as she stared at the woman she had known for over a decade. Alexis was great at being elusive with those who did not know her well, however with those on the other side of her social circle, she was as clear as glass.
- "Oh please. Look at how you stormed out of the hall when you found out that Mathieu and I spent the night together—"
Alexis squeezed the bridge of her nose as she took in a deep breath.
- "I thought nothing happened?"
- "I thought you didn't care?" Diane countered. "If it doesn't matter so much, why the hell are you concerned if I played stick ball with the very well endowed—"
Raising a brow toward the woman, Alexis pointed let out a sigh.
- "I don't care, Diane!" If she repeated it enough times, perhaps then it would be true. "I'm just… there's a code among friends that you don't—"
Diane rolled her eyes as she completed her sentence.
- "Sleep with your best friend's ex, I know! Your teacup daughter already went through this with me." Before Alexis could stop her, she held her hand out so that she could continue. "Look, after what I saw this morning, if I had taken a ride on that disco stick, I would've remembered. I mean, aside from walking like a gimp for the rest of my days," she looked Alexis up and down, "that explains a lot about you, by the way—"
- "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Finding a lone banana in a bowl filled with oranges, Diane smiled.
- "It means that that man left his mark on you in more ways than that not-so-orange Snooki you shot out of your hoo-ha—"
Alexis covered her face.
- "Gee, thank you. You're… you're a real treat, Di."
The redhead wrapped her arm around her.
- "Listen, you owe it to not only yourself, but to those two men, to figure out what the hell you want, Alexis! I've no doubts that Mac is a great guy. He's sweet, you've known him for years, and well, he's not bad to look at. Buuuuut," she handed her the banana, "there's that little problem—"
There was no denying that Mac's problem was also her problem.
- "Sex doesn't define a relationship—"
Diane scoffed at the notion.
- "Surely you jest, Alexis! Even the bible tells you to go forth and multiply—"
Alexis handed her back the banana.
- "I'm not having anymore kids—"
And slowly unpeeling the fruit, Diane smiled.
- "Well, find something else to multiply." She thought to herself as she took a bite. "I don't know, create new sex positions or something." She swallowed. "You can't exactly do that with," she then waved the limp banana peel at the woman, "you know."
Alexis made a face.
- "God, you're vile."
Diane snickered as she stuffed the remainder of the banana in her mouth.
- "A man can have but so many nervous… flops… before you A, realize that your carbon footprint is bigger than his…" she cleared her throat as she once again waved the banana peel in Alexis' face, "natural state."
Smacking Diane's hand away from her face, Alexis moved to the kitchen's island.
- "Both Sam and you have made comments about my battery usage—"
Throwing the banana peel into the garbage, Diane took a seat at the island where Alexis stood.
- "And then, my very best friend, there's B; you realize that maybe, just maybe, he's really not that into you," she sympathetically smiled at the woman, "but instead the ideaof you, Alexis."
She hid her face in her hands. The truth was standing in front of her face. The problem was that she was too blind to see it.
Sam slammed her mother's car door shut as she stormed up to the man's front door.
- "MAXIE!"
She rang the doorbell enough times to not only aggravate her best friend's inevitable headache, but to announce her arrival.
- "I know you're in there!" She pounded on the door. "Open the door!"
As she made to use the doorknocker, the door flung open to reveal her mother's… beau.
- "Mac, hi." She attempted to smile politely at the man about whom she knew more than she had ever cared to know. "Maxie wouldn't happen to still be here, would she?"
Stepping aside, Mac flagged the young woman into his home.
- "I think you already made it clear to the neighborhood that you're aware she is." He pointed to the living room. "She's in there—"
- "Thanks."
As she moved toward the room, he grabbed her by the arm.
- "Um… if I were you, I wouldn't sit on anything," he lowered his voice, "Spinelli—"
That was all she needed to hear.
- "Count yourself lucky you don't live with them, Mac." She shuddered. "The things I've heard and seen—"
He quickly covered his ears.
- "You know what? I'm going to pass on that information."
Sam smiled sympathetically at the man as she entered the room where her best friend lied in the fetal position on the couch as though she were dying.
- "Hey Maxie!" Knowing that the woman was hungover, Sam ensured to speak as loudly as she could. "How's it going? Huh? We went a bit overboard last night, didn't we?"
With the realization of what she had done weighing on her mind, Maxie attempted to hide under the blankets and her pillow.
- "Yea, I guess you could say that." She winced with each word spoken.
- "I know! I threw up I don't even know how many times last night, Maxie!" She sat on the couch next to where the woman lied. "Poor Jason, he was left cleaning up after my messy aim!"
The blonde continued to groan.
- "Seriously, I don't want to hear about that, Sam!"
But Sam was not done with her.
- "You know what was even funnier?" She yanked the blanket off of the blonde before grabbing the pillow. "When I was calling around looking for my mother—" From the corner of her eye she noticed Mac enter the room. "Hey Mac, were you the one to give my mom a ride home?"
He did not know how to answer her question. As far as he knew, Alexis had pushed him out of Jake's in order to pick her up since her car had been left at the lake house. From what he noticed, Sam had driven Alexis' car to his house. Therefore…
- "Um…" he scratched the side of his face as he uncomfortably shifted from one foot to the other. "Well—"
Given the look on his face, Sam mischievously smiled.
- "Oh, guess not—"
Therefore, she was being, as Alexis said, herself.
- "No one was getting a ride anywhere last night—" Sam winked at the man.
However, Mac was ready to counter her wit.
- "Well, she didn't exactly have her feet on the ground—"
- "DADDY!" Maxie's face turned visibly green. "My God, I don't want to know this! Not after the night I've had!"
Before Mac could respond, Sam quickly spoke up.
- "You know, since you were so concerned with where my Dad was this morning, would you happen to know where I found him, Maxie? OOOOOR who he was found with?"
- "Hmm… I have no idea, Sam." Maxie feigned ignorant. "I mean, I was with you for most of the night. Don't you remember?"
Sam shook her head.
- "No… no, I don't—"
The hungover young woman attempted to sit up without the world spinning around her.
- "Yea, yea, Sam. We took all those shots together… and then, um… we like… we took more shots… and Jason," she looked up at the ceiling as she attempted to capture the woman's boyfriend's demeanor, "he… he… stared… and… um… blinked… disapprovingly."
Sam scratched her neck as she slowly nodded.
- "You know, I remember that!" She lied.
- "You do?" She cleared her throat. "Yea, of course you do! We were totally like… glued to each other. I'm pretty sure we used the bathroom together too. Jason," she playfully punched Sam's arm, "he was… he was totally turned on."
Considering the obvious exaggeration in his daughter's explanation of the previous evening's festivities, Mac's curiosity was now peaked as to what she had to do with Mathieu.
- "Wow. In all the years I've known Jason, I don't think I've ever seen him show any type of emotion, honey." He sat on the arm of the couch. "Wow, and what exactly did Mathieu have to say about his daughter being incredibly… trashed?"
Sam nodded in agreement.
- "Yea, what did my Dad have to say? You spoke to him, right?"
And finding herself to take the pressure of both her best friend and father interrogating her in her diminished state, Maxie let out a heavy sigh.
- "You… you can't get mad at me," she looked from Sam to Mac, "I did this for you especially, Daddy. I… I just didn't think it completely through… you can't blame me though! I was REALLY really drunk, and well… um… you LEFT me, Daddy! This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't run off to play nursing baby on Alexis' milk jugs!"
Sam grimaced at the image.
- "Let's not talk about my mother's… jugs, please." She shuddered. "The only milk they're producing is curdled and probably useful for GH's supply of penicillin or something." She quickly pointed a finger at Mac. "And don't go telling her that! We all know you have foot-in-mouth disease like your daughter here. As far as you're concerned, my mother's boobs are the best thing since donuts."
Mac held his hands up.
- "They are, Sam! Your mother has beautiful—"
Maxie gagged in disgust.
- "Can you two please stop!" She covered her mouth. "You're making me sick here!"
Flashback
Approximately thirty minutes after Coleman disappeared in the back with Kate, and Robin and Patrick snuck out as quietly as they had entered, Maxie thought it best to check on the 'happy couple' she had manufactured for the evening.
- "Hey Mathieu! Diane!" She attempted to sound casual. "How's it going?"
The suave Frenchman smiled at the intoxicated blonde who had gone from twins to triplets since the last time he had seen her.
- "I am… well—" He could not find the words to explain how he felt. He wanted to point to the area that gave him the most confusion, but he did not want to scare the young woman. "Er… Samantha can't—"
Maxie turned to the table. As she had been when she first stopped by to check on the man, Sam was slumped over on Jason. It seemed that the umpteenth round of shots had finally done her in.
- "Oh, um… she's… well, she went to sleep." She found her mouth watering the longer she stood and allowed the world to spin around her; her stomach threatened to reject all that she had consumed. "Um… I'm gonna sit."
And as she aimed for the booth, she realized that her aim was off; she hit the floor.
- "That… that wasn't exactly where I was—" her seat on the floor, however, led her to a discovery. "Um… Diane?" She took her shoe off so that she could poke at the woman. "What… what are you doing?"
Although her memory of what had occurred a mere five minutes earlier appeared to have disappeared, any attempt at recalling where the woman had been the first time she had arrived at the table would have been for naught.
- "I… I don't think you should—" she stopped. She became fascinated with the sight that had held the redhead's attention. "Wow… I… I feel like that's just… it's unnatural… but GO Alexis!" She looked up at the man who had since passed out. "Although now I'm confused how something that big could create something as small as Sam."
Jason, as one of the two remaining sober persons in the bar, kept an eye on the surroundings. When he noticed Maxie land on the floor and stay there, he tapped Spinelli.
- "You might want to go—" he pointed toward the man's non-wife, "go find out what's going on over there."
Spinelli quickly got to his feet as he ran to help the woman.
- "My little sun flower! You have withered onto the floor. Perhaps some hydration would help restore you to your beauty."
Maxie waved at the man to join her.
- "Spinelli, look—"
As the man knelt beside her and followed the direction of her finger, his face paled.
- "Um… Brusque Lady of Justice, I do not think it appropriate for thy unshielded eye to fall upon…" he swallowed hard, "well, Fair Samantha's—" he scratched the side of his head. "Um… what… why…"
Maxie covered her face in shame.
- "I… I might have given him…" she pulled out the bottle of pills she kept in her jacket pocket.
Spinelli gasped.
- "False apothecary!" He took the bottle from her hands. "Maximista, why would you—"
- "What's going on here?" Jason approached the couple. "Spinelli, why are you leaving her on the—" His eyes narrowed in on the bottle in the man's hands. "Do I even want to know what that is, and whether or not it's connected to why you two—"
As Diane attempted to move from the floor, she smacked her head underneath the table.
- "Son of a bitch." She slurred loudly.
The exclamation caught Jason's attention. Before Spinelli could stop him, Jason bent to see the cause of the sound. His eyes widened.
- "What—" Knowing the situation had Maxie written all over it rather than pervert, he grabbed the bottle from Spinelli's hands. "Please tell me you didn't drug this man."
Maxie bit her lip.
- "What if I told you it was—"
Jason shook his head.
- "Don't say another word."
End of Flashback
- "And well, that's all I remember—"
Spinelli poked his head out from the kitchen.
- "Fair Samantha, Stone Cold was so kind as to carry to the car and then transport to Mr. Sir's former abode the Brusque Lady of Justice and the Well-Endowed Monsieur—"
So as to be as far from his daughter as possible, Mac paced the room.
- "WILL YOU GET OUT OF HERE!" On a normal day he hated Spinelli's nicknames; given the cause of Mathieu's name, he found the names all the more irritating.
Sam, on the other hand, was at a loss as to her feelings. While she wanted to strangle her best friend, she also wanted to laugh; this had been perhaps the most outrageous thing the young woman had ever done.
- "So wait, let me get this straight, you… you drugged my father." She stared in disbelief at Maxie. "Um… you're going to have to excuse me for a second, but… um… why exactly would you do that?"
Mac stopped pacing as though his continued movement would obstruct his ability to hear his daughter's explanation.
- "That's a great question, Sam." He too turned his attention to the young woman. "It's one thing to try to sneak Viagra into my meals and drinks, but I'm going to need a little help figuring out your logic in doing such a thing to Mathieu." His disdain for the man was clear in the way his name rolled off his tongue.
Maxie felt like a young child being scolded.
- "I saw the way he was looking at Alexis all night, and well since he's been in town." She stared at her father.
- "So you manufactured for him a full fledged hard on large enough to leave Diane speechless." Sam cocked her head to the side as she stared incredulously at her. "Yea, if my mother had come back from wherever the hell Mac took her," she looked at the man, "and where in the world was that anyway?"
Mac's face reddened.
- "To one of the rooms above Jake's."
- "Wow." Sam furrowed her brow. "Um, okay then. I mean… um… alright." She turned her attention back to Maxie. "Please, continue your explanation of why giving my father a bone when my mother was just upstairs would've helped Mac's situation."
Maxie mustered her best apologetic and sympathetic face she could as she looked at her father.
- "Daddy, I didn't want him to have a chance to steal her from you—"
- "What is this, first grade?" Sam scoffed at the woman's explanation. "My mother is a one-man woman, Maxie. She's chosen to date your dad; she's happy with him. My dad isn't a threat to their relationship, or whatever it is they have with one another—"
But unlike her best friend and father, Maxie had an eye for relationships and chemistry; with every moment Alexis and Mathieu spent with one another, sparks flew.
- "Not to hurt you or anything Daddy, but have you noticed that you're not exactly whipping Alexis or anything back and—"
Sam shook her head in disagreement.
- "Sadly, I think that's the problem, Maxie. He's able to whip, he just can't…" She could not think of a witty comment to counter the statement. "Let's just say if this were a game of darts, Mac wouldn't be able to hit any part of the target. He'd just bounce off the wall and land sloppily on the floor."
- "Mac's standing in the room, you know." His impotence had become so much a part of the group's everyday conversation, he had become used to it. "Look, it's not that I don't want to… you know… with your mother, Sam… it's just… I don't know…" But he did know; he simply did not know how to explain it to the women. "I don't want to become so invested in this relationship only to find out—"
Sam finally understood.
- "That my mother actually wants my dad." She smiled sympathetically at the man. "You're falling in love with her, aren't you?"
Walking out of the kitchen, Diane grabbed her bag from the chair before making her way to the door.
- "My big and manly Max is downstairs; he'll take me to my car." She winked at Alexis. "I'll leave you two to your privacy."
Alexis glared at the woman.
- "We don't need privacy, Diane!" But she was grateful to see her leave. "Do me a favor and don't ring my doorbell so that you can further traumatize my baby, please."
- "Alexis, please! I have much to teach young Molly—"
That was the problem.
- "Don't." Alexis shook her head. "Get your car and leave. Even if you see them, do not impart your wisdom on them."
And with a roll of her eyes, the redhead opened the door.
- "Fine! It's their loss." She exited.
With a bit of a flushed face, Alexis slowly approached where Mathieu sat.
- "So, last night was a bit more than any of us expected, wasn't it?" She nervously smiled in the way that caused both of her dimples to be well defined. "Kinda wild, huh?"
He could not help but return a smile to her. Despite the amount of times in she had claimed she had changed from the time they were kids, he still saw her, his Alexandra. The only difference, however, was that time and experience had matured her and made her far more confident than the dejected teen he had once known.
- "It was very shocking to wake up with Diane," he laughed. "It was not in my plans when I went to Jake's last night—"
- "What was in your plans?" She was not sure what she wanted to hear from his response. The question had simply come out of her mouth.
- "Honestly?" He wished that he had a romantic response to give her, but he did not. "I went to meet Samantha—"
Alexis recalled that explanation.
- "That's right! You two like to get to know one another in a bar." She shook her head. "What's wrong with dinner and drinks?"
He stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged.
- "From what I know, Alex, she comes from dinner with you before she has drinks with me." He tapped her knee. "Besides, it's relaxing at Jake's. She can be herself, and we are not rushed out—"
- "That's because Coleman wants to milk you for every penny you're worth."
Having come to learn of the bartender's ways, he nodded.
- "Pas de question." He covered her hand with his own. "You did a wonderful job with that daughter of ours, Alex. She's wonderful—"
Although she would have loved to take all the credit for the woman Sam had become, she could not. Most of the credit rested with her daughter herself.
- "As much as I like to joke and say that I was the one who made her into who she is today, I'm not Mati." She thought of the insecure young woman who had cried in her arms that she was nothing without Jason; there was so much pain that lived in her tiny body. The self-destructive gene that was intertwined between nature and nurture threatened to suffocate her baby on more than one occasion, but it did not. In spite of their ups and downs, and the loss of her relationships throughout the years, Sam had picked herself up and decided she needed to change. Alexis was beyond proud of the woman her daughter had become. "She's been to hell and back on more than one occasion. She's been taken to levels that still make me shudder at times. She's done things—" She stopped. "She's incredible, Mati—"
With every word Alexis spoke, he could feel the love and pride she felt for their daughter. He envied it because he knew it came from a time and place he had not lived with them.
- "I know—"
And she recognized that fact. While he would undoubtedly love their daughter, he would never understand her the way she had.
- "We haven't always had the best relationship. We've had quite the bit of baggage thrown at our feet, but I'm proud of where we are." She ran her fingers through her hair. "She makes me want to strangle her… daily. And she can make me furious in a way that no one else can, but my goodness, I often forget that I didn't have her for so long."
She gave his hand a squeeze.
- "I promise you, Mati, you're going to get that relationship with her. You're going to experience the wonderful Sam, the pain in the ass, the one that terrifies you half to death, and even the one that threatens to, or even does break your heart." She reached for a pen; she needed something to fidget with. "When you experience all of that, and you will, then you'll fully know her."
He could have listened to her speak about their daughter all day and all night; it was what they had dreamt about as teenagers. He fell in love with her with every word uttered.
- "And what about you?" He spoke to her in French. "When will I know you… Alexis?"
She wanted to believe he meant as friends, but in her heart, she knew he meant otherwise.
- "I'm with Mac, Mati." She scooted away from him. "You know that."
That meant nothing to him.
- "I do, but—" He cleared his throat before continuing. "I saw the way you reacted when you saw Diane and me—"
She focused more intently on the pen in her hand.
- "I mean, how would you have liked me to react to seeing my best friend with the father of my daughter who also happened to be my very first love?" She stared at him. "If it had been anyone else, I assure you I wouldn't have had the same reaction, Mati."
He was not convinced.
- "If I had returned to your life before you decided to give Mac a chance, would you have made this same decision? Would you have made me your friend, and him your boyfriend?"
Thinking of the dreams she continuously had of a life they could have had raising their daughter, as well as Kristina and Molly, Alexis did not have an answer to his question. She did not know.
- "What difference does it make? That's not the way it played out, Mati."
It made all the difference in the world.
- "Are you in love with him?"
- "I… I love him very much—" She knew there was a vast difference in what she had said and what he had asked. Once again, she did not have an answer to give him. "He might not be the person I happen to share a child with, Mati, but he's seen me through a lot, even when we weren't really friends. He's—"
Mathieu could not take it anymore. Taking the pen from her hands, he wanted her to focus on him and what he needed to finally say.
- "Do you… are you in love with me?"
She felt tears well into her eyes. This was not the way it was supposed to be. She had not returned to the dating world to have her world flipped upside down as her past love threatened what very well could have been a long-lasting future love.
- "Mati—"
He knew she had not attempted to sort out the feelings she had for him; however, he could not stop.
- "Regardless of what you call yourself or who you claim to be now, I have never stopped loving you." And although he hesitated to continue, he knew she would not fully understand until he said the words. "I love you, Alexis."
He held her face in his hands.
- "I have always loved you… I always will."
He placed a gentle kiss onto her lips.
- "Pour toujours."
Alright, Team Mati or Team Mac? What say you?