FIC- General Hospital (Lulu/Cruz, 7/20?)
So...I wasn't able to restrain myself. Must work on self-control.
Title: Save Yourself
Rating: R-ish
Summary: Could you save yourself, for someone who could love you for you?
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Lulu checked through her beach bag one more time as she heard Lucky honking downstairs. She waved out the window to let them know she was coming down, and took one last look in the mirror, opening up her white cover up to take a look at herself. Was she being silly? She’d taken out of her bills money to purchase all new clothes for the day: bathing suit, sandals, cover up, shades, even stuff to put on later in the day.
No, she was just going to the beach with her family to hang out with friends, and get some sun on her day off. She had every right to treat herself a little. She took a deep breath and grabbed her bag and ran downstairs.
“Wow, look at you!” Elizabeth said, turning around from the front seat. “New stuff, huh? Let me see your bathing suit, what color is it?”
“It’s, uh...red,” Lulu said, slipping on her sunglasses, and blatantly ignoring her sister-in-law’s request. Traffic was light and they shot up to Montauk fairly quickly, playing a modified version of the license plate game, since Cam couldn’t read everything yet. He just picked out different colors and styles.
By the time they got up to the beach house, the party was in full swing. Cars already lined the streets and Robin Scorpio and Patrick Drake pulled up at the exact same time, and Robin just about squealed over AJ, and Patrick helped Lucky bring in his family’s assorted stuff, which included a small cooler with snacks, drinks and food Elizabeth had packed to help out Felicia, a net full of sand toys for Cameron, a playpen, an umbrella, a diaper bag, two beach bags, and three chairs. “Do you guys need some help?” Lulu asked, slinging her own light bag over her shoulder.
“No...We...Got it,” Lucky grunted, struggling under his burdens. Cameron ‘helped’ by dragging a shovel out of his toy net, to lighten the load.
“Lulu!” Maxie Jones called out, running down from the house with Georgie, and Lulu was ‘attacked’ by two giddy teenaged girls throwing their arms around her. “So glad you could make it this year!”
“Yeah, um me too,” Lulu answered brightly.
“Come on, you can dump your stuff in our room, and then we’ll head down to the beach,” Georgie pulled Lulu’s hand into the house.
* * *
Cruz had seen Lucky pull up and almost dropped the cooler he was carrying when he’d seen Lulu get out of the car, holding Cam’s hand. She was in some sort of flowy white cover-up thing that swirled around her thighs and parted across her chest revealing a generous swell of soft curves. He knew he couldn’t put off saying hello to them forever...But that didn’t stop him from dilly-dallying with the coolers on the deck.
“Hey partner, there you are!” He almost winced when he heard Lucky’s voice across the deck. Cruz turned to see Lucky and Cam crossing over to talk to him and almost sighed before putting on a big smile. “Why don’t you come on inside, I’ve got someone I’ve wanted you to meet.”
Cruz nodded, his face almost cracking from smiling so wide as Lucky led him into the house where Elizabeth was setting up some of the kids’ stuff at a little ‘mommy station’ that Felicia had created for all the moms with young kids. “Look AJ!” she cooed to her daughter. “Cruz, we’ve been telling AJ all about you and she’s just been dying to meet you.”
“She has?” Cruz asked, leaning close over the tiny little girl.
“Yeah, we told her that Mommy and Daddy would still be frozen to the living room floor if Cruz Rodriguez hadn’t moved us along to the doctor so our AJ could get here,” Lucky said, lifting AJ out of her carseat. “You wanna hold her?”
“Oh no,” Cruz shook his head. He didn’t think he’d ever held a baby younger than a year old and he couldn’t even remember when that was.
“Oh come on, you’ve got to,” Lucky said, already arranging her in his hands. “Just hold her head and under her butt.”
Cruz was doing that but little AJ was still fussing. “Shh, um, it’s okay...” Cruz whispered, but AJ still squirmed and he could see a squall building up in her lungs. “Lucky, maybe you should-“
“Lucky! Can you come out here please!” Elizabeth called from the deck already having to break up the first shoving match of the day between Cameron and another little boy.
“Lucky, what am I supposed to do-“ and just as her father left her sight, AJ let out a weak little cry, her little face scrunched up, and Cruz momentarily panicked and looked around, but all the other mommy types were occupied with their own children or getting food out in the kitchen. “Shh, shh, don’t cry, querida, shh...”
“You’ve got to cuddle her.” It was that voice that Cruz had been half dreading, half holding his breath to hear for the past two weeks, ever since Lucky had casually mentioned that his sister was coming. He lifted his gaze from the floor traveling all the way up the length of her tanned, bare legs, and with a hard swallow finally looked Lulu in the eye for the first time in almost a month.
God, she was beautiful. In some ways this was worse than seeing her up on that stage New Year’s Eve. Now she was practically naked, and he was in a room filled with everyone he knew, including her family and holding her baby niece in his arms, and he still wanted to back her up against a wall and just rip that scrap of nothing from her body. “Huh?”
“You’ve got to...She likes to be held close,” Lulu said, re-arranging AJ in his arms, placing her head in the crook of his elbow and tucked his other arm around the baby’s butt and thighs. “Yeah, like that. Just cuddle her into your chest, see?” The baby had settled right down, and now she was looking curiously up at him, and he could almost see the beginnings of a smile on her face. She sure was a little looker.
“Yeah, you’re a natural, Cruz,” Lulu said, and he looked up and she winked at him. She actually winked, and Cruz knew he was in trouble.
“Yeah look at that, she likes you,” Lucky said, strolling back with a chastened Cameron in his arms.
“You ready to go down to the beach?” Georgie said, the Jones sisters flanking Lulu on either side.
“Um yeah,” Lulu allowed herself to be pulled along, glancing over her shoulder at her brother, Cam, and Cruz. Cruz was sitting down and really getting comfortable with AJ in his arms and Lulu was afraid that if she kept watching him be all cute, she was going to sit next to him all day and stare like some drippy freshman girl mooning over the senior quarterback.
* * *
“Oh my God, I think I’ve died and gone to Heaven,” Danny Jenkins was leaning over the railing next to Bobby Jamison and standing far too close to Cruz at the grill. Everyone had to take a turn at the grill or playing bartender or lifeguarding the kids on the beach. Teamwork, it was what Mac preached at the station and with his family too.
“What are you babbling about now, Jenkins?” Cruz muttered as he methodically flipped burgers and turned hot dogs.
“Blond down there. Red bikini,” Jenkins drooled, and Cruz’s eyes snapped to attention where he knew Lulu was rubbing lotion up and down her arms and languorously stretching her legs out in the sun. She was worse than any Playboy pin-up, and Cruz had a feeling she knew it.
“My god...” he said again, this time with an emphatic thrust of his hips, and Cruz couldn’t take it any more and smacked him up the backside of the head.
“Owww,” Jenkins whined. “What was that for? Ow!” He yelped as he got another smack, this time from Lucky.
“That was for acting like a friggin’ dog about my baby sister,” Lucky answered, crossing his arms over his chest so that his biceps bulged.
“Oh Lucky, I uh, didn’t know,” Jenkins stammered.
“Yeah and that goes for you, too, Jamison,” Lucky said pointedly to an awed Bobby Jamison, who hadn’t said a word.
“Oh, I, um...” he sputtered.
“That, guys,” Lucky said, slapping his hand around Cruz’s shoulders. “That is how you look out for your partner. You don’t let anyone talk about the women in his life like that.”
“It’s uh...no problem,” Cruz mumbled. I kissed your sister like my life depended on it.
“Yeah, buddy,” Lucky said, striding away to help Cam build a sand castle.
“Oh my God, who’s that other blonde, and the other one with the rack,” Jenkins had moved onto new prey.
“The commissioner’s daughters,” Cruz said. “Don’t even think about it.”
Down on the beach, Lulu turned onto her stomach and reached behind her to untie her bikini top, and Cruz almost passed out. It was official- she was trying to kill him.
* * *
Lulu tried to relax in the sun, tried to half-heartedly keep up with Maxie and Georgie’s gossip about PCU, but her whole body was humming because she knew Cruz Rodriguez was glaring at her from the deck. Even turning onto her belly didn’t help. What was his problem? She felt like the plague. Doesn’t matter. You’re not here for him, you’re here for-
“Auntie Lu!” Cam called from the shoreline. “Look at me!” Lucky had showed him how to slide his boogie board along the wet sand and he was getting pretty good at it.
“Good job, buddy!” She shouted, being careful to hold her towel over her breasts as she leaned up.
“Hey Dad! When can we take the boat out?” Georgie called up to Mac on the deck.
“Yeah, it’s almost low tide,” Maxie chimed in, and then turned to Lulu. “At low tide, there’s a big sand bar a couple hundred yards in. You get better sun out there, and a little more privacy,” she said, nodding towards the deck and waggling her eyebrows.
“I’ve got my hands full up here,” he answered, then turned to his boys. “Any of you up for driving the boat?”
“I can!” Danny Jenkins piped up.
“I don’t think so, rookie,” Mac said. “You’ve never done it before, but...Cruz? You drove the boat some last year didn’t you?”
Cruz had been purposely looking away from Mac. It was all too much- being close to her but not really being allowed to be anywhere near her. “Yeah,” he answered.
“Well, you wanna take the kids out on the boat?”
Great. Now I’m the goddamn chaperone.
But one couldn’t exactly refuse the commissioner. “Sure.”
Danny Jenkins and Bobby Jamison were already on their way down to the pontune, along with Stevie Martinez to join the three teenaged girl on the boat. He’d be the oldest guy by at least six years. Wonderful.
* * *
The beauty of a pontune, Lulu noticed was that you could get just as wet as if you were actually swimming in the ocean. It was more like a big raft, and one of the guys kept the cooler safe and dry, and the girls just bounced along the back of the boat, enjoying the wind and the spray.
The only person who didn’t seem to be enjoying himself was Cruz. He was driving the boat like he was an elementary school busdriver. Stiff, and unsmiling, and so very unlike the kind, funny detective she thought she knew.
Well, that was just too bad. There was no reason to ruin her day off just because he wanted to keep that perpetual scowl on his face. She turned to the boy sitting next to her- Danny was his name- and smiled. It was too loud to really talk but he grinned back. He was kind of cute, though his boyish blond good looks seemed washed out when she looked back up at Cruz and the dark brilliance of his eyes, the warm golden tone to his skin.
Lulu sighed and sat back, closing her eyes to the sun’s rays. It was hopeless. She had to be honest with herself and just admit that she had come here for Cruz- she missed him.
When they reached the sandbar, the boys hopped off and secured the boat and Maxie and Georgie hopped off too, to continue their day of frying in the sun. “You coming, Lulu?” Maxie called.
“I’m comfortable,” she mumbled, still stretched out on one of the benches lining the perimeter of the boat. She half-opened one eye, and the girls shrugged and made for the sand.
Lulu turned her head. Cruz was still sitting in the driver’s seat. Not looking at her, but not making any move to get off the boat. Lulu looked closer. His knuckles were pale where they tightly gripped the steering wheel. She cleared her throat. “Hey, Detective.”
He sighed and looked down at her. “Hey, Lulu.” And then he turned his gaze back to the ocean.
“God, it’s like pulling teeth, isn’t it?” Lulu huffed, sitting up.
“What is?” Cruz said, dragging a hand through his hair. He only did that when he was aggravated- or nervous.
“Can you even look at me?” Lulu said, her voice rising, and he did turn to her.
“Keep your voice down,” he said, leaning close, and Lulu saw the hot anger in his eyes.
Now she looked away, curling her knees into her chest. “What am I supposed to think, Cruz? I haven’t seen you since the night AJ was born-“
“I saw you at Carmen’s that night.”
“Yeah, and you couldn’t get out of there fast enough!” Lulu glanced over the side of the boat, but the rest of their company was busy sunning and flirting on the beach. “You know...I saw Frank Boudreauz at the café one night.”
He did know. He knew every night she was at the café, making it a point to go in and talk to her- grab her and kiss her again- every night, but every night, he would chicken out. And when he’d seen Frank Boudreauz exiting Carmen’s that night, and then glanced in the window to see Lulu taking shaky breaths, he’d followed the bastard around the corner and slammed his fat face against the wall. Police brutality his ass. "Don’t you ever go in there again. You ever see that girl, you cross the street. You never even think of her.”
But he didn’t tell her any of that. “He’s not going to bother you again. He’s behind bars, for good this time.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you have him behind bars before?”
Cruz sighed and sat next to her. This was always easy between them- detectiving, good guys and bad guys. “We got a direct connection between him and a teenage overdose- she had worked for him at the Oasis, and she was only seventeen. Her uncle was a Barrington. The lawyer could run circles around anyone on Sonny Corinthos’ payroll.”
“Sonny, really?” Lulu asked.
Cruz shrugged. “We couldn’t make the connection, but everyone knows. Everyone always knows. At least it’s one less scumbag on the street, it’s all we can ever ask for.” He turned to Lulu. “I know that Sonny was a friend of your dad’s when you were younger, but make no mistake, Little Spencer, he’s a bad man. Don’t ever ask him for help, don’t ever go to him for a favor...”
“I know, I know,” Lulu said, covering his hand with hers. The last thing she needed was another ‘dad’ lecture from him. “Is that why you were so busy?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Had to get him off the street. I was sick of looking at all these pictures of dead teenagers.” He didn’t add that it kept him awake at night, worrying that she might be next. Not that she was stupid enough to get involved with that junk, but god, anyone could ever slip something in her drink. He tapped her on the nose. “I...I know that proving your mother’s innocence is important. I wouldn’t abandon you on that, and...I believe in it. I won’t let her stay labeled as a murderer.”
Lulu granted him a slow, sweet smile, that he hadn’t seen since the night that he’d taught her how to shoot his gun, and his heart almost stopped. “Thanks, Detective,” she said. “I thought...I thought you might have been avoiding me, because...Because, well...”
Cruz swallowed hard. He was hoping she wouldn’t go there. Things were complicated enough as they were. But he wouldn’t leave her twisting in the wind, not again. “Because I kissed you?”
She shyly averted her eyes, and god when she did that, her eyelashes just fluttered over her cheekbones, and she looked like the prettiest, most delicate little thing he’d ever seen. “Well, afterwards, you...You didn’t seem to want to think about it.”
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
Lulu’s eyes snapped up to his, and she could see all the passion and resolve of a man in his eyes. “Cruz, I-“
“Lulu, are you ever going to get down here?” Maxie called from the beach.
“Go on, Little Spencer” he said, with a crooked grin. “We’ll talk later.”
She rose and slowly headed off the boat, looking back at him, but he just smiled and tipped his finger over his forehead in a mock salute. God, that was sexy. Like something out of a Carey Grant movie.
And Cruz leaned back, watching her leave the boat. He reached into the cooler and cracked a beer open. There was almost no point in fighting Little Lulu Spencer. She would always get the better of him.
*music used in this section: I Know (Tegan & Sara) & Fidelity (Regina Spekter)
Title: Save Yourself
Rating: R-ish
Summary: Could you save yourself, for someone who could love you for you?
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Lulu checked through her beach bag one more time as she heard Lucky honking downstairs. She waved out the window to let them know she was coming down, and took one last look in the mirror, opening up her white cover up to take a look at herself. Was she being silly? She’d taken out of her bills money to purchase all new clothes for the day: bathing suit, sandals, cover up, shades, even stuff to put on later in the day.
No, she was just going to the beach with her family to hang out with friends, and get some sun on her day off. She had every right to treat herself a little. She took a deep breath and grabbed her bag and ran downstairs.
“Wow, look at you!” Elizabeth said, turning around from the front seat. “New stuff, huh? Let me see your bathing suit, what color is it?”
“It’s, uh...red,” Lulu said, slipping on her sunglasses, and blatantly ignoring her sister-in-law’s request. Traffic was light and they shot up to Montauk fairly quickly, playing a modified version of the license plate game, since Cam couldn’t read everything yet. He just picked out different colors and styles.
By the time they got up to the beach house, the party was in full swing. Cars already lined the streets and Robin Scorpio and Patrick Drake pulled up at the exact same time, and Robin just about squealed over AJ, and Patrick helped Lucky bring in his family’s assorted stuff, which included a small cooler with snacks, drinks and food Elizabeth had packed to help out Felicia, a net full of sand toys for Cameron, a playpen, an umbrella, a diaper bag, two beach bags, and three chairs. “Do you guys need some help?” Lulu asked, slinging her own light bag over her shoulder.
“No...We...Got it,” Lucky grunted, struggling under his burdens. Cameron ‘helped’ by dragging a shovel out of his toy net, to lighten the load.
“Lulu!” Maxie Jones called out, running down from the house with Georgie, and Lulu was ‘attacked’ by two giddy teenaged girls throwing their arms around her. “So glad you could make it this year!”
“Yeah, um me too,” Lulu answered brightly.
“Come on, you can dump your stuff in our room, and then we’ll head down to the beach,” Georgie pulled Lulu’s hand into the house.
* * *
Cruz had seen Lucky pull up and almost dropped the cooler he was carrying when he’d seen Lulu get out of the car, holding Cam’s hand. She was in some sort of flowy white cover-up thing that swirled around her thighs and parted across her chest revealing a generous swell of soft curves. He knew he couldn’t put off saying hello to them forever...But that didn’t stop him from dilly-dallying with the coolers on the deck.
“Hey partner, there you are!” He almost winced when he heard Lucky’s voice across the deck. Cruz turned to see Lucky and Cam crossing over to talk to him and almost sighed before putting on a big smile. “Why don’t you come on inside, I’ve got someone I’ve wanted you to meet.”
Cruz nodded, his face almost cracking from smiling so wide as Lucky led him into the house where Elizabeth was setting up some of the kids’ stuff at a little ‘mommy station’ that Felicia had created for all the moms with young kids. “Look AJ!” she cooed to her daughter. “Cruz, we’ve been telling AJ all about you and she’s just been dying to meet you.”
“She has?” Cruz asked, leaning close over the tiny little girl.
“Yeah, we told her that Mommy and Daddy would still be frozen to the living room floor if Cruz Rodriguez hadn’t moved us along to the doctor so our AJ could get here,” Lucky said, lifting AJ out of her carseat. “You wanna hold her?”
“Oh no,” Cruz shook his head. He didn’t think he’d ever held a baby younger than a year old and he couldn’t even remember when that was.
“Oh come on, you’ve got to,” Lucky said, already arranging her in his hands. “Just hold her head and under her butt.”
Cruz was doing that but little AJ was still fussing. “Shh, um, it’s okay...” Cruz whispered, but AJ still squirmed and he could see a squall building up in her lungs. “Lucky, maybe you should-“
“Lucky! Can you come out here please!” Elizabeth called from the deck already having to break up the first shoving match of the day between Cameron and another little boy.
“Lucky, what am I supposed to do-“ and just as her father left her sight, AJ let out a weak little cry, her little face scrunched up, and Cruz momentarily panicked and looked around, but all the other mommy types were occupied with their own children or getting food out in the kitchen. “Shh, shh, don’t cry, querida, shh...”
“You’ve got to cuddle her.” It was that voice that Cruz had been half dreading, half holding his breath to hear for the past two weeks, ever since Lucky had casually mentioned that his sister was coming. He lifted his gaze from the floor traveling all the way up the length of her tanned, bare legs, and with a hard swallow finally looked Lulu in the eye for the first time in almost a month.
God, she was beautiful. In some ways this was worse than seeing her up on that stage New Year’s Eve. Now she was practically naked, and he was in a room filled with everyone he knew, including her family and holding her baby niece in his arms, and he still wanted to back her up against a wall and just rip that scrap of nothing from her body. “Huh?”
“You’ve got to...She likes to be held close,” Lulu said, re-arranging AJ in his arms, placing her head in the crook of his elbow and tucked his other arm around the baby’s butt and thighs. “Yeah, like that. Just cuddle her into your chest, see?” The baby had settled right down, and now she was looking curiously up at him, and he could almost see the beginnings of a smile on her face. She sure was a little looker.
“Yeah, you’re a natural, Cruz,” Lulu said, and he looked up and she winked at him. She actually winked, and Cruz knew he was in trouble.
“Yeah look at that, she likes you,” Lucky said, strolling back with a chastened Cameron in his arms.
“You ready to go down to the beach?” Georgie said, the Jones sisters flanking Lulu on either side.
“Um yeah,” Lulu allowed herself to be pulled along, glancing over her shoulder at her brother, Cam, and Cruz. Cruz was sitting down and really getting comfortable with AJ in his arms and Lulu was afraid that if she kept watching him be all cute, she was going to sit next to him all day and stare like some drippy freshman girl mooning over the senior quarterback.
* * *
“Oh my God, I think I’ve died and gone to Heaven,” Danny Jenkins was leaning over the railing next to Bobby Jamison and standing far too close to Cruz at the grill. Everyone had to take a turn at the grill or playing bartender or lifeguarding the kids on the beach. Teamwork, it was what Mac preached at the station and with his family too.
“What are you babbling about now, Jenkins?” Cruz muttered as he methodically flipped burgers and turned hot dogs.
“Blond down there. Red bikini,” Jenkins drooled, and Cruz’s eyes snapped to attention where he knew Lulu was rubbing lotion up and down her arms and languorously stretching her legs out in the sun. She was worse than any Playboy pin-up, and Cruz had a feeling she knew it.
“My god...” he said again, this time with an emphatic thrust of his hips, and Cruz couldn’t take it any more and smacked him up the backside of the head.
“Owww,” Jenkins whined. “What was that for? Ow!” He yelped as he got another smack, this time from Lucky.
“That was for acting like a friggin’ dog about my baby sister,” Lucky answered, crossing his arms over his chest so that his biceps bulged.
“Oh Lucky, I uh, didn’t know,” Jenkins stammered.
“Yeah and that goes for you, too, Jamison,” Lucky said pointedly to an awed Bobby Jamison, who hadn’t said a word.
“Oh, I, um...” he sputtered.
“That, guys,” Lucky said, slapping his hand around Cruz’s shoulders. “That is how you look out for your partner. You don’t let anyone talk about the women in his life like that.”
“It’s uh...no problem,” Cruz mumbled. I kissed your sister like my life depended on it.
“Yeah, buddy,” Lucky said, striding away to help Cam build a sand castle.
“Oh my God, who’s that other blonde, and the other one with the rack,” Jenkins had moved onto new prey.
“The commissioner’s daughters,” Cruz said. “Don’t even think about it.”
Down on the beach, Lulu turned onto her stomach and reached behind her to untie her bikini top, and Cruz almost passed out. It was official- she was trying to kill him.
* * *
Lulu tried to relax in the sun, tried to half-heartedly keep up with Maxie and Georgie’s gossip about PCU, but her whole body was humming because she knew Cruz Rodriguez was glaring at her from the deck. Even turning onto her belly didn’t help. What was his problem? She felt like the plague. Doesn’t matter. You’re not here for him, you’re here for-
“Auntie Lu!” Cam called from the shoreline. “Look at me!” Lucky had showed him how to slide his boogie board along the wet sand and he was getting pretty good at it.
“Good job, buddy!” She shouted, being careful to hold her towel over her breasts as she leaned up.
“Hey Dad! When can we take the boat out?” Georgie called up to Mac on the deck.
“Yeah, it’s almost low tide,” Maxie chimed in, and then turned to Lulu. “At low tide, there’s a big sand bar a couple hundred yards in. You get better sun out there, and a little more privacy,” she said, nodding towards the deck and waggling her eyebrows.
“I’ve got my hands full up here,” he answered, then turned to his boys. “Any of you up for driving the boat?”
“I can!” Danny Jenkins piped up.
“I don’t think so, rookie,” Mac said. “You’ve never done it before, but...Cruz? You drove the boat some last year didn’t you?”
Cruz had been purposely looking away from Mac. It was all too much- being close to her but not really being allowed to be anywhere near her. “Yeah,” he answered.
“Well, you wanna take the kids out on the boat?”
Great. Now I’m the goddamn chaperone.
But one couldn’t exactly refuse the commissioner. “Sure.”
Danny Jenkins and Bobby Jamison were already on their way down to the pontune, along with Stevie Martinez to join the three teenaged girl on the boat. He’d be the oldest guy by at least six years. Wonderful.
* * *
The beauty of a pontune, Lulu noticed was that you could get just as wet as if you were actually swimming in the ocean. It was more like a big raft, and one of the guys kept the cooler safe and dry, and the girls just bounced along the back of the boat, enjoying the wind and the spray.
The only person who didn’t seem to be enjoying himself was Cruz. He was driving the boat like he was an elementary school busdriver. Stiff, and unsmiling, and so very unlike the kind, funny detective she thought she knew.
Well, that was just too bad. There was no reason to ruin her day off just because he wanted to keep that perpetual scowl on his face. She turned to the boy sitting next to her- Danny was his name- and smiled. It was too loud to really talk but he grinned back. He was kind of cute, though his boyish blond good looks seemed washed out when she looked back up at Cruz and the dark brilliance of his eyes, the warm golden tone to his skin.
Lulu sighed and sat back, closing her eyes to the sun’s rays. It was hopeless. She had to be honest with herself and just admit that she had come here for Cruz- she missed him.
When they reached the sandbar, the boys hopped off and secured the boat and Maxie and Georgie hopped off too, to continue their day of frying in the sun. “You coming, Lulu?” Maxie called.
“I’m comfortable,” she mumbled, still stretched out on one of the benches lining the perimeter of the boat. She half-opened one eye, and the girls shrugged and made for the sand.
Lulu turned her head. Cruz was still sitting in the driver’s seat. Not looking at her, but not making any move to get off the boat. Lulu looked closer. His knuckles were pale where they tightly gripped the steering wheel. She cleared her throat. “Hey, Detective.”
He sighed and looked down at her. “Hey, Lulu.” And then he turned his gaze back to the ocean.
“God, it’s like pulling teeth, isn’t it?” Lulu huffed, sitting up.
“What is?” Cruz said, dragging a hand through his hair. He only did that when he was aggravated- or nervous.
“Can you even look at me?” Lulu said, her voice rising, and he did turn to her.
“Keep your voice down,” he said, leaning close, and Lulu saw the hot anger in his eyes.
Now she looked away, curling her knees into her chest. “What am I supposed to think, Cruz? I haven’t seen you since the night AJ was born-“
“I saw you at Carmen’s that night.”
“Yeah, and you couldn’t get out of there fast enough!” Lulu glanced over the side of the boat, but the rest of their company was busy sunning and flirting on the beach. “You know...I saw Frank Boudreauz at the café one night.”
He did know. He knew every night she was at the café, making it a point to go in and talk to her- grab her and kiss her again- every night, but every night, he would chicken out. And when he’d seen Frank Boudreauz exiting Carmen’s that night, and then glanced in the window to see Lulu taking shaky breaths, he’d followed the bastard around the corner and slammed his fat face against the wall. Police brutality his ass. "Don’t you ever go in there again. You ever see that girl, you cross the street. You never even think of her.”
But he didn’t tell her any of that. “He’s not going to bother you again. He’s behind bars, for good this time.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you have him behind bars before?”
Cruz sighed and sat next to her. This was always easy between them- detectiving, good guys and bad guys. “We got a direct connection between him and a teenage overdose- she had worked for him at the Oasis, and she was only seventeen. Her uncle was a Barrington. The lawyer could run circles around anyone on Sonny Corinthos’ payroll.”
“Sonny, really?” Lulu asked.
Cruz shrugged. “We couldn’t make the connection, but everyone knows. Everyone always knows. At least it’s one less scumbag on the street, it’s all we can ever ask for.” He turned to Lulu. “I know that Sonny was a friend of your dad’s when you were younger, but make no mistake, Little Spencer, he’s a bad man. Don’t ever ask him for help, don’t ever go to him for a favor...”
“I know, I know,” Lulu said, covering his hand with hers. The last thing she needed was another ‘dad’ lecture from him. “Is that why you were so busy?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Had to get him off the street. I was sick of looking at all these pictures of dead teenagers.” He didn’t add that it kept him awake at night, worrying that she might be next. Not that she was stupid enough to get involved with that junk, but god, anyone could ever slip something in her drink. He tapped her on the nose. “I...I know that proving your mother’s innocence is important. I wouldn’t abandon you on that, and...I believe in it. I won’t let her stay labeled as a murderer.”
Lulu granted him a slow, sweet smile, that he hadn’t seen since the night that he’d taught her how to shoot his gun, and his heart almost stopped. “Thanks, Detective,” she said. “I thought...I thought you might have been avoiding me, because...Because, well...”
Cruz swallowed hard. He was hoping she wouldn’t go there. Things were complicated enough as they were. But he wouldn’t leave her twisting in the wind, not again. “Because I kissed you?”
She shyly averted her eyes, and god when she did that, her eyelashes just fluttered over her cheekbones, and she looked like the prettiest, most delicate little thing he’d ever seen. “Well, afterwards, you...You didn’t seem to want to think about it.”
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
Lulu’s eyes snapped up to his, and she could see all the passion and resolve of a man in his eyes. “Cruz, I-“
“Lulu, are you ever going to get down here?” Maxie called from the beach.
“Go on, Little Spencer” he said, with a crooked grin. “We’ll talk later.”
She rose and slowly headed off the boat, looking back at him, but he just smiled and tipped his finger over his forehead in a mock salute. God, that was sexy. Like something out of a Carey Grant movie.
And Cruz leaned back, watching her leave the boat. He reached into the cooler and cracked a beer open. There was almost no point in fighting Little Lulu Spencer. She would always get the better of him.
*music used in this section: I Know (Tegan & Sara) & Fidelity (Regina Spekter)