Nancyfan.com: A Nancy Lee Grahn Website -- Game Day by Cowgirl

Alexis rolled over and opened her eyes, quickly shutting them. "Oh God," she mumbled and carefully pulled herself into a sitting position. She opened one eye and then the other, squinting as she made her way to the window and violently pulled the curtain across the brilliant beam of sunlight that had invaded her room. "Sonny," she thought. Only he would be amused by pulling her curtains wide open knowing she was going to wake up with a whopper of a headache. She dragged herself to the bathroom and braced herself against the sink. She cautiously looked at her reflection in the mirror and winced. Her eyes were blood red and puffy and her tongue felt like someone had dragged it across sandpaper several times. She splashed her face with water and shuffled back to her bed, literally falling across it. She jumped about ten feet as the phone, sounding a hundred times louder than normal sent a tiny but painful lightening bolt through her brain. She swung her hand towards it and knocked the receiver off of the cradle. Groaning she crawled over to wear it laid and picked it up. "What?" she asked of whomever dared to interrupt her hangover.

"I think we've been spending too much time together...you're starting to answer the phone like me."

Alexis rolled her eyes and winced, as even that was painful. "What do you want, Corinthos?"

"I just called to see how you were feeling this morning...no I'm sorry...this afternoon, but by the sweet sound of your voice I can tell you don't feel so good."

"Because things like hangovers and falling off boats and breaking up fights between you and your playmates only happen around you."

"Hey," he said sincerely. "Seriously, are you okay? I've never seen you that drunk before."

Alexis rolled her head around and sighed. "Other than feeling like I got beat with an ugly stick, yes, I'm fine."

Yes, of course I do. Alexis' brain screamed, but she fought it. "I don't know...I'd be pretty lousy company."

"It is. I know a sure fire way to cure just about anything that ails a beautiful woman."

Alexis hung up the phone and forced herself to take a shower. She stood in the hot steamy water, one hand propped against the tile, holding herself up, and thought back to the previous night when they had been at Luke's and Sonny was teaching her to arm wrestle. They had tired of that quickly and had proceeded to desecrate several of Luke's tables, the bar, Luke's desk and Luke's office couch. When they had finally expelled all of their sexual energy for the time being, they had made their way back to the bar where Sonny poured two shots of tequila.

"I've been drinking rum," Alexis protested when Sonny offered her one of the shots. "I shouldn't mix."

Sonny grinned. "Come on, just one little shot with me. Kinda like a victory drink for messing up Luke's place."

She glared at the drink and then at Sonny. "No. Kristina and Ned are over at my place fen shuaing Kristina's bedroom and I told her I probably wouldn't be home until after midnight."

Alexis downed her second shot and stood up, walking around the room. She made her way over to the dartboard and stopped, pulling the darts from the corkboard. "You ever play?" she asked holding one of the darts.

Sonny nodded, grabbed the bottle of tequila and joined her. "A little. You wanna play?"

Alexis smiled. "You just can't accept the fact that I beat the pants off of you that night."

Sonny laughed and moved closer until he was pressed up against her. "No, I like when you beat the pants off of me...I just hate it that you won at pool."

"Yeah, in cricket, you use only the numbers fifteen through twenty and also the bulls eye on the board. The object is to get three hits on each of those numbers to close out that number."

Sonny rubbed his chin and grinned. "We'll see," he smirked and threw his first dart. It landed on the twenty spot and three dots lit up next to the number twenty on the scoreboard. He turned to Alexis. "See, I just got a triple. If you hit that thin area in the middle of the twenty area it counts as a triple. The one along the outer edge is a double and the biggest space right under the number is a single."

Alexis stepped up to the tape-line and raised her hand to throw. She let the dart fly and it hit the very top of the dartboard then hit the floor. She looked at it and turned to Sonny. "I don't think I'm very good at this."

Sonny laughed. "We just started, give yourself a chance," he said as he watched her other two darts do the same thing. He stepped up and took his shot hitting another twenty.

Alexis stood up. "Hey, why did the machine just give you twenty points?" she asked as she downed another shot.

"Because I already have twenties closed out. So any twenty I hit until you close all your twenties out is twenty points for me."

An hour and several holes in the wall around the dartboard later, Sonny was about to win his fifth game in a row. "You know," Alexis said with slightly slurred speech. "I th..think I'm getting the hang of darts."

Sonny turned and looked at Alexis who stood trying to keep herself upright by gripping the table. "Are you okay sweetheart?" he asked, concerned.

He set his dart down and moved to her. "Hey, looks like we've polished off that bottle of tequila. Why don't we go home."

Alexis swung her arm out in a wide gesture. "Why?" she asked a little too loudly. "It's early."

"So what?" she yelled with another swipe of her arm. "I want to play more darts. I think I'm getting good at it," she said and swaggered over to the dartboard, pulling the darts out with great effort.

Sonny watched her as she marched back to the line and proceeded to throw the darts everywhere but at the dartboard. "All right, baby. One more game." Alexis turned and staggered up to him, studying his face.

Sonny put his hands on her arms. "Honey, you're drunk. I think I should take you home."

Sonny stopped and looked into her glassy eyes. "Because you are my sweetheart and my baby and my honey, okay?" he said, confident that she would never remember his answer in the morning.

Sonny rolled over in his sleep and sighed contently when he made contact with the warm body next to his. He casually stretched out his arm until it fell across her and snuggled up close to her backside. Though she was still asleep, Sonny could feel her inch backward into his form. She brought her arm up and laced her fingers through his. Sonny raised his head and looked at his sleeping angel. He smiled as he remembered how hung over she had been earlier that day. She gave no indication that she remembered what he had said to her at the bar the previous evening. Part of him was glad, because that would complicate things and part of him was sad because maybe if she did remember, it would lead to a more serious discussion of how they felt about one another. He had come over to her apartment and brought her comfort food, guaranteed to soak up the alcohol that was still swimming in her system. He had then left her alone as she took a long nap and returned later with dinner. After dinner Sonny had asked her to come back to his place for a while.

"Yeah, we can, but then I want to hold you in my arms and fall asleep with you."

"Yeah, and then I want to wake up with you in the morning and make you breakfast and we can't do all of that here because at any moment the red headed whirling dervish is going to come blasting in here, probably dragging Ned with her."

He chuckled to himself as he returned to watching Alexis sleep. Alexis must have sensed him watching her for she raised her own head up and turned it to look at him.

Sonny chuckled. "You're cute when you sleep." Her head came back up. "Why is it that all of the sudden everyone starts using my name and the word cute in the same sentence? First Kristina and now you."

Sonny untangled his fingers from him and ran his hand over her shoulder and down her back where he traced circles on her skin. "Kristina called you cute?"

Alexis turned and laid on her stomach allowing Sonny further access to her back. "Not me per say...oh, forget it."

Alexis wiggled her back. "More rubbing and less talking." Sonny restarted his ministrations of her back. "Come on...what did mighty mouth say this time?"

Alexis folded her arms under her chin and closed her eyes. "She said we were cute together."

Sonny rolled Alexis onto her back and looked into her eyes. "Do you think we're cute together?"

Alexis sighed and rolled her eyes. "I think we have a good relationship. We get along well with one another and we have fun together."

Alexis tried valiantly to fend off his assault. "I think you and I..," she stopped, her expression growing serious. "I never know quite how to finish that sentence."

Sonny stopped his tickle assault and plopped down onto his back. "And which sentence would that be?"

Alexis sighed and stared at the ceiling above her. "Any sentence that starts with you and I, includes you and I or ends with you and I when you and I is referring to you...Sonny and me...Alexis."

Sonny made a gesture in the air with his hand. "So, you basically don't like to think about where all this is going?"

Alexis rolled her head to the side and looked at him. "And where are we supposed to be going?"

Sonny let out and exasperated sigh and sat up. "Don't you...don't you ever think about what we're doing and what it means?"

"I...yes...of course I do," she said sitting up next to him. "I just don't know how to categorize it...it's confusing."

Alexis snapped her head back to him. "Because...I think that you and I have gotten very close over the last couple of years and naturally when a man and a woman get close there's...emotions and feelings that arise and sometimes there's a need to explore them."

"Right. When we first became involved, and I mean when I became your lawyer, neither of us saw one another in any other light other than attorney and client."

Alexis blew out a gust of air from between her lips and rubbed her eyebrow with a fingertip. "This is difficult to dissect. We were client and attorney, then I became your tenant...eventually you became my best friend."

Alexis looked at him, giving him a tiny smile. "Somewhere along the way we became attracted to each other. Physically attracted and we acted upon it."

"I don't know for sure," she gestured with both hands. "Maybe it means that we're so comfortable with one another that this arrangement is acceptable. No strings, no commitment, just two people who mean a lot to one another, enjoying one another."

Sonny leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. "So basically we're using one another."

Sonny said nothing, but Alexis could tell by the look on his face that she had hurt his feelings with her question. "Sonny, if Carly called you up today and said she wanted to get back together, to work things out...what would happen with our situation?"

It was a blunt question, but one Sonny knew she had a right to ask. "My relationship with Carly isn't like that anymore. I don't want to get back together with her."

"Yeah, it's the truth. If you're asking me if I would choose Carly over you the answer is no."

"Look," he said turning his body to hers. "You want to know something? I think I understand and it's fine. I have no problem with keeping things the way they are."

Sonny swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, reaching for his robe and pulling it on. "How come you're the one who gets to ask all the hard questions and I get to answer them when you never give me any inkling as to how and what you're feeling?"

Alexis looked at him for a moment and said nothing. A silence hung in the room for what seemed an eternity before Alexis spoke. "You know how I feel Sonny," she said calmly.

"No, no I don't and I was trying to find out when you turned this into a discussion about me and Carly. Carly has nothing to do with this. You don't think that if I wanted to I couldn't call up Carly any time I wanted to and she'd be here in my bed in a heartbeat?" He ran a hand through his hair. "But that's not what I want. I want to be with you."

Alexis stood up and went to him. She opened his robe and stepped into it, pressing her body against his, wrapping her arms around his waist. "You want to know if I have feelings for you?" she said looking up at him. "I do. I have many, many different kinds of feelings for you and they're very strong feelings, otherwise I wouldn't be here right now. You know that. The problem I'm having is sorting out those feelings, finding out what they mean and how I should react to them and how I should act on them," she reached up with one hand and caressed his cheek. "This isn't about having a warm body to have sex with. I just need a little time to...to think this through. Thinking is how I operate and you know that about me. Just give me some time, okay?"

Sonny looked down into her face. He wanted to be angry with her, he wanted her to tell him what she felt about him, but looking down into her soulful brown eyes he couldn't help but want to give her anything she asked for. His heart always swelled when Alexis Davis looked at him the way she was right that moment. He put a palm to her cheek and sighed. "We...you and I are about as unconventional as they come, aren't we?"

He hugged her to him and she leaned her cheek against his warm, smooth chest. "I'm going to make us something to eat," he said as they reluctantly pulled apart.

Alexis nodded and watched as he left the room. When he had gone, she sat down on the bed and flopped onto her back, letting out a sigh.