Losing Balance
by Lionel

chapter 25

When they stepped out the front door of the club, the cool damp air of the night hit them with a blast. Alexis shivered, and Lorenzo wrapped his arm around her as they walked to her car. "It feels nice," Alexis murmured. "The fresh air. I can breathe again."

The sky was still dark, and Lorenzo thought Alexis would fall asleep on the way home. Instead, she stared out the window as he drove. She almost seemed to be sleeping with her eyes open, but periodically she pulled her lower lip between her teeth. "What are you thinking about?" he asked finally.

Alexis smiled at herself, and looked over to him. "My old car," she confessed.

"The De Tomaso? Tell me about it." He met her eyes for a moment and smiled at her with affection.

Alexis shrugged her shoulders a little. "I had it when I lived in New York. It was a crazy, impractical car to have, especially in Manhattan. Not like me at all. But I loved it."

"How did a girl like you end up with an old race car like that?"

Alexis smiled mysteriously. "It was a gift," she said without elaboration.

Lorenzo felt a pang of jealousy that someone else was responsible for the rare dreamy look on her face. Lorenzo's investigators had turned up plenty of information about Alexis's life in New York, but he hadn't seen anything about the car in their report. He focused his eyes on the road and waited to see if she would continue.

Alexis looked out the window and turned wistful, remembering. "I kept it in a garage on the west side, and once in a blue moon I would get to take it out. Sometimes I would come home from work at three in the morning and just go drive around the city. It was my private indulgence. My little secret."

"Where did you take it?" Lorenzo asked. He glanced over occasionally as she spoke, rapt and encouraging. It was nice to listen to her talk about memories that weren't agonizing.

Alexis shrugged slightly. "Wherever. New York is a whole different world when the streets are quiet. Usually I stayed in Manhattan. In the middle of the night you can get from one end of the island to the other in twenty minutes. The West Side Highway is like a runway, with all those eerie lights. You can just fly. Sometimes I liked to take the avenues - Madison up and Fifth down - and watch all the traffic lights rolling green out in front of me; you can really see the neighborhoods change over as you go. The city is still full of energy, even in the middle of the night, but it feels different. It feels hidden away behind all those windows and doors. It's more personal somehow."

Alexis peered out the windows of the car, looking for the eastern sky. "This time of night was my favorite. Just before dawn. There's that moment when you first see that the sky is beginning to lighten, that the night is being pushed away. It always catches me by surprise. Always. I feel this sense of . . . awe, I guess, transcendence even. I've made it through another night, and, by god, there really is going to be another day. I watched a lot of sunrises from my office window."

"And if you were out driving? Where did you go at sunrise?" Lorenzo asked quietly.

Alexis ran both hands through her hair with end-of-the-day carelessness. "If it wasn't too cold and I wasn't too tired, I drove out to Rockaway Beach. It's one of the few places in New York where you can see the sun come up over the water. Otherwise I would just take the FDR Drive home. I love the way the dawn lights up the Brooklyn Bridge."

Lorenzo reached over and took Alexis's hand. "Let's watch the sun rise over the water together." He tried to sound casual, but even to his own ears his proposal was fraught with unspoken significance. He felt as eager and nervous as if he were asking a crush to the prom.

Alexis looked at him sharply. "Now?"

"Yeah."

Alexis hesitated, as temptation and good judgment battled in her weary brain. She took refuge in reason. "You can't do that around here. The water is all to the west."

"No, it's not. We'll go out to Point Abino."

"In Canada?" Alexis asked in surprise.

"Sure. It's only twenty-five minutes. We'll get there in plenty of time." Lorenzo stole a glance at Alexis.

Alexis narrowed her eyes suspiciously "I bet the kids call it Makeout Point."

Lorenzo laughed. "I don't know. I don't think kids use that term anymore. But don't worry. I promise not to put the moves on you."

"It's not your moves I'm worried about." Alexis rolled her eyes ominously and smirked. Then she grew more serious and shook her head. "Really, I can't. I need to get home. Kristina and Jax will be up in an hour. I can explain working all night at Luke's, but I don't think I can explain a joy ride to Canada with you." Alexis saw the disappointment on Lorenzo's face before he could hide it, and she felt guilty. "I'm sorry."

Lorenzo nodded, conceding defeat. "It's okay," he said quietly. He was silent for several minutes, then finally spoke again. "So what happened to your car?"

"I left it behind when I left New York."

"You sold it?"

"No. I still have it. I still carry the key on my key chain, and I still pay the garage bill every month. But I haven't driven it since I left New York. I thought I would get back to the city more often than I do. I should really get rid of it. "

"Why didn't you bring it here with you? The country roads around here are great to drive on in the summer."

Alexis shrugged. "I don't know. It was part of a different life. I guess I wanted to keep my little secret private. I didn't want to have to explain or justify it to Stefan or anyone else."

They reached the lake house, and they found Lorenzo's men already stationed around the property. Marcus waved a hand in greeting as they parked. Lorenzo stepped out of the car and walked around to the passenger side to help Alexis out. He took her hand, and once she was standing they stood still for a moment, watching each other. There was something to be said, but they were both too tired to know what it was.

Alexis finally broke the gaze between them and looked around her, taking in the darkness and quiet still enveloping the lake house and the light beginning to grow in the eastern sky. She chuckled lightly, and Lorenzo's brow wrinkled in surprise.

"Come on," said Alexis, and she took Lorenzo by the hand and led him down the path leading around to the patio. They sat down side-by-side in the Adirondack chairs, facing the water. The western sky in front of them was still dark. "It's not Rockaway Beach, or even Point Abino, but it has its charms."

Lorenzo knew he should encourage Alexis to go inside and get some sleep, but he wasn't noble enough to refuse her consolation prize. He turned in his chair to face Alexis instead of the water. "You miss New York, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do," Alexis admitted.

"Why did you leave?"

Alexis shrugged slightly. "My brother needed me."

"So you just walked away from your life in New York to come to this backwater?"

Alexis pursed her lips. "I wouldn't have had a life in New York or anywhere else if it weren't for Stefan. I always knew I would come when he called."

"Still, it must have been hard to leave everything behind."

She shrugged again. "It was and it wasn't. I liked my job, and I had worked very hard to get to the position I was in. But in some ways I'm glad Stefan gave me a reason to walk away from it. If he hadn't, I would probably still be there today, working too hard and chasing the same rotten carrot. I might never have known my sister. And I wouldn't have my daughter."

"And now? Why don't you leave Port Charles? It's pretty provincial for someone like you."

"Oh, I don't know. I've thought about it. Maybe go back to New York or Europe. But I've been here almost eight years now. I guess it's become my home. And now that I'm a mother, I can appreciate its simple charms a little better. It's okay that the best restaurants are mediocre and the symphony is third-rate. New York is just a quick flight away. I don't need to be on the fast track anymore. And the people who are important to me, the people I have left, are here. Jax, Ned to some extent."

"Sonny?"

Alexis shook her head. "He's not in my life anymore."

"Are you sure there isn't a part of you that wants to keep Kristina near her father?"

Alexis frowned at Lorenzo, but relaxed when she saw the gentle expression on his face. "No, I really don't think so. I've worked at severing ties with him. I'm not trying to keep him close. If I have my way, Sonny will never find out about her."

Lorenzo hesitated before speaking. "Do you really think that's realistic?"

"I don't know. Maybe not." Alexis bit her lip, looking out at the water. "A lot of people know now. Maybe it's just a matter of time before he does." She looked back at Lorenzo, frowning slightly. "I really don't want to think about Sonny right now, Lorenzo. Helena's enough to handle. One fight at a time."

"Okay. What do you want to talk about?" His eyes crinkled in a smile.

"You."

"Me?"

Alexis nodded. "You. You know everything about me. I don't know very much at all about you."

Lorenzo groaned slightly. "It's too early in the morning for my life story. What would you like to know?"

"Anything. Why are you still in Port Charles? It doesn't fit you any better than it does me."

"It works for me. I travel a lot anyway."

"That's not an answer," Alexis chastised.

"My answers aren't very pretty, Alexis."

"But they're yours. Truth is important to me. There's no point in hiding who you are from me, Lorenzo. I can either live with it or I can't," she said honestly. "Just don't tell me anything that will make me an accessory, please."

Lorenzo picked up her hand and gently wrapped it between his two hands, warming her fingers. "It's too late. And you're shivering. I promise I will tell you whatever you want to know, but not now. You need to get inside."

"Just a few more minutes. It's almost day." Alexis leaned her head against the back of the chair, her eyelids heavy, and pulled her hand from Lorenzo's grasp. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself to ward off the chill. "You can't give up when you've made it this far."

Lorenzo laughed lightly and leaned his own head back. Above them the sky had turned a pale pink-blue as the cloak of dawn slowly unfolded, and the western sky across the lake had turned dusty gray. The last star had faded into the night, and the first morning bird calls came from the surrounding trees. Out in the lake the osprey nest was now visible on the channel marker.

A few minutes passed, and Lorenzo looked over at Alexis. A peaceful smile graced her lips and her eyes were barely open. In the soft morning light, she seemed to glow. She looked no more than twenty, and it was easy to see the girl she had once been. Lorenzo felt a rush of irrational regret for all the time that had passed before he knew her, for every sunrise he had ever spent anyplace other than with her, for every time the sun's first rays had brushed over her and he hadn't been there to see it. "I should have been there," he whispered to himself urgently.

Alexis's eyes fluttered open for a moment. "Where?"

Lorenzo smiled warmly at her. "On the beach. Making love to you until dawn."

"Mmm. I wish . . ." Alexis's words trailed off and her eyelids drifted closed just as the sun's rays began to reach the sky at the other end of the lake.

Lorenzo watched as her eyelids settled down and her face relaxed into a deep sleep, and then he stood and lifted her up into his arms and carried her toward the house. As he neared the sliding glass door leading into the living room, it slid open in front of him, and Jax stood behind it.

Jax had tossed and turned all night waiting for Alexis to return, and he had finally given up on sleep and left bed at five. He had looked out the kitchen window when her car pulled into the driveway and he had seen Alexis lead Lorenzo around to the water. Sitting at his desk trying to work, he hadn't been able to keep his eyes from wandering out to the patio, his heart aching in anticipation of what he might see there.

Lorenzo stepped into the living room with Alexis in his arms, and Jax silently led him down the hall, past her room with its untouched bed, into his room and the bed that they had shared at the start of the night. Jax pulled away the tangled bedcovers, and Lorenzo gently set her down. When Lorenzo began to untie the belt of her coat, Jax stopped him. "I will take care of getting Alexis to bed, Mr. Alcazar," he said coldly. "Would you please wait for me in the living room? I would like to have a word with you."

Lorenzo suppressed his resentment and frustration, reminding himself that Alexis had chosen to share this man's home and bed, and with clenched jaw he stepped away from the bed and reluctantly left the room. Jax carefully removed Alexis's coat and skirt and shoes, then pulled the covers up over her. She sighed contentedly and pulled the covers all the way up to her chin, snuggling deeper into the bed. Jax leaned over and kissed her, a soft full kiss, and in her sleep she kissed him back. Eyes still closed, she smiled happily and murmured, "I wish you were there."