Risk
Chapter LXXII
"What about this one?" Emily suggests. She's up to the sixth suggestion and every single one Lucky had found a flaw.
"It's a coffin on wheels." Lucky says shortly.
"That was scarcely helpful." Nik glances over at his brother.
"Nik, you might have been stup... you might have wanted a jag the first time you bought a vehicle but really lets be just a little practical."
"Spencer recommending practicality." Nikolas pulls out his dayminder to make a note only half kidding.
"How long was the jag in the shop after you got it back from the cops when Zander and Em were on the run? I seem to remember a ditch?"
Emily winces. "Sorry about that. I really owe you for that one."
"Please don't worry about that." Nik waves a hand. it was nothing compared to getting out the dead guy smell from the trunk. "We are here to pick out a vehicle for you."
"Look, Lucky, why don't you pick out the car you think I'll like on this lot." Emily finally suggests realizing they are going to be here all night if Lucky kept blowing off her suggestions and she kept going along with him. She should have just left the both of them out of it but she'd been so excited when she passed her written driver's test. And even being so fussy it was still better than going car shopping with her parents or even, she shudders, Grandfather. If she waited for them to agree on a car she'd never have a vehicle to take her behind the wheel portion of the test.
Lucky climbs into the back of a nearby pickup truck and takes the high ground looking around the used car lot. Course a Quartermaine, even an adopted one, could afford a new car, any new car. The used lot had been his idea. Maybe a Spencer thing considering the old truck he drives and the caddy that his father still drives. A car isn't just a car... it's a love, and it's got character and personality. Not something readily found in new cars. And Em, God love her, according to Zander is a lead foot. There are lots of factors to consider. "That one." Lucky points to the back of the lot.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me." Nikolas protests even as he eyes the car with some lust while wincing at the color. "Lucky, that car is older than Emily is. Hell it's probably older than I am."
Emily walks to the back of the lot. There is only one car on this row that would have drawn Lucky's eye and she walks over to it slowly. "Oh boy."
The lot attendant finally comes up on the trio standing over the car. "It's a beauty isn't it? Just got it in."
Lucky wipes a finger over the windshield and comes off with a fingerful of dust. "Just got it in... right. I can't even tell what color it is."
"Well it's got custom paint, custom interior. Why don't you have a seat and check it out..."
"You'll never be able to get parts for it. I can't get parts for my jag now." Nikolas protests again.
The lot attendant perks up at the mention of a jag. There is only a certain number of people that would be interested in a sweetie of a car like this one and they didn't really get out to auto row that often. If he could ever get his boss to go online there is the market for a car like this.
"You got the keys?" Lucky asks the attendant. The guy tosses the keys to Lucky. Lucky unlocks the drivers side and opens it. "Climb in, Em."
"I don't know about this." Em hesitates but finally climbs in. Then sighs. The car fits like a glove and right then and there she decides she wants it. Nothing had felt this good since before she broke her back. Fact is feels like it was meant for her.
"Start it up." Lucky orders.
"It's got a hardtop and a ragtop so there is no problem with a convertible in a New York winter." The attendant starts his patter.
With a cough and then a throaty purr the car springs to life. Em looks down at the automatic transmission and sighs with relief at least she doesn't have to think about shifting. Lucky comes around to the other side and glancing at the attendant. "I got shotgun so if you are coming on the testdrive you're riding behind the seats." After the salesman folds himself into the back of the car which is designed for storage rather than an actually person, Lucky looks over at Nikolas. "Meet you at that self service carwash over on Elm."
Nik nods and then starts shaking his head on his way over to his car.
Stavros is waiting in front of Deception as Carly comes out after a full day rather than a half day at the office. Even Nikolas had left the office before her... course he'd gotten a call from Lucky down in the photo lab and taken off with not even a reminder to clean up her mess in their shared Deception offices. Things were hectic with the development of the bath line and since it was her baby she didn't want Laura's fingers anywhere in the pie. Laura had gotten credit for everything so far even if they were all her ideas but this... everyone would know from this just what she could do. There wouldn't be any questions or asterisks or being the wizard behind the curtain.
Carly rises up on her toes and gives Stavros a quick kiss on the mouth resting her hand on his chest to keep her balance. "How was your day?"
"You're about to find out." Stavros has a glint in his eye that gives Carly pause.
"What have you done?" Carly asks suspiciously. She knows that the boys have been up to something, scheming on something for days!
"You'll see.... eventually." He leans in and tilts her head up with his thumb and then presses a lingering kiss on her mouth that has her breath quickening and her eyes closed. "Do you trust me?" Stavros whispers in her ear.
"About what?" Carly murmurs nuzzling his neck.
"Do you trust me?" He sees her about to open her eyes. "No, keep your eyes closed." Carly opens one anyway just looking thru the lashes at him. Stavros tsks. "It's a good thing I came prepared." Reaching into his pocket he pulls out a silk scarf already folded and ties it around Carly's eyes.
"Stavros, come on... this is going too far." Carly hears a giggle coming from the direction of the car. "Michael? Is that you? I bet you think this is funny." She reaches out with one hand toward the giggle she'd heard.
"You shouldn't have peeked, Mama! You'll spoil the surprise!" Michael grabs Carly's hand and pulls her to the car.
"What did you do? Dye your hair blue or something?" Carly allows herself to be led to the waiting limo and gingerly takes a seat, sliding over to make room for Stavros.
"It's a surprise." Stavros climbs in next to her and reaching around grabs the seat belt, making a motion to Michael to do his own as well. He pulls the belt around Carly making sure that it holds her snug low on her hips and lays flat between her breasts. He whispers in her ear gratified by his lover's involuntary response to his careful ministrations. "We're going to have to have a little chat later about your peeking."
"The same way chat we had about talking in your study back Switzerland?" Carly murmurs remembering when the relationship she and Stavros have changed and trying to keep her voice low-- just between her and Stavros.
Stavros remembers the little ears present and distracts Michael from this conversation with his request. "Will you tell your tutor we are ready?"
Michael grabs for the phone between the back of the limo and the driver. "Mr Kris? Mama has her seat belt on now. Okay." Then Michael hangs up the phone. He looks at Stavros and grins. This is going to be so much fun.
"Where are you?" Jason asks with a frown. "Yeah, I can ask him." Jason covers the mouthpiece on his phone and opens the door to ask Johnny. "Do you know anything about cars or do you just sweep them for bombs?"
"I do okay." Johnny shrugs.
"He says he does okay. Right." Jason writes down an address. "We'll be right there."
"Where are we going?" Johnny falls into step with Jason.
Jason punches the button on the elevator. "Em thinks she's found a car and wants someone who knows something about cars to look it over. She's at the carwash on Elm."
"She must have passed her driver's test." Johnny comments just watching the numbers on the elevator go down.
"I didn't know she was trying for it."
"Yeah, she was studying in the car on the way to therapy. Said she was gonna hit motor vehicles after she was done when she was too tired to be nervous." They walk in a comfortable silence to the car and are soon at the carwash on Elm. "Oh you have to be kidding me." Johnny pulls into the parking lot. He sees Nikolas and Lucky arguing with the salesman while Emily leans against the drivers side of a low slung car. "It's purple."
Jason grins. "Yeah, but it's a Mercedes."
"That's an abomination! How could anyone do that to a Mercedes?" Johnny protests. He pulls in unnoticed by the arguing group of guys over by the carwash.
"Pop the hood." Jason tells Em. Em climbs back in the car and hits the release. Jason and Johnny start tearing the car apart right there in the parking lot of the carwash up to and including taking off the tires to check the brakes.
"Ohmygawd! what are you doing?!" The sales man blanches as he looks around Lucky to see the Mercedes being parted out right there in the parking lot! "Stop that!!" He races over pulling out his cell phone to call the police.
"Well guys?" Emily asks Johnny and her brother.
Jason shrugs. Johnny answers. "The color is abomination. Who ever did that should be shot." He growls and since he was working on the car his jacket is off exposing the firearm under his arm.
Emily gets a phone call on her cell. "What did you find out online? Okay thanks. I'm going to swing by your place before I head out to the mansion." Em snaps the phone shut. "Ten grand."
"Excuse me?!" The salesman blusters. Looking from Em to the bodyguard's sidearm.
"I'll give you ten grand."
"It's a classic! Sixteen." The salesman counters.
"It's old. It'll be impossible to get parts for and you heard him-- the color is abomination." And I absolutely adore it. It's the same color as a grape pixie stick. "Eleven."
"Em, if you want the car..." Jason shuts up as Emily glares at him.
Michael jumps out of the limo before it has barely stopped and races away leaving Carly and Stavros in the back. Stavros reaches around her and unfastens the seat belt and then takes her hand to assist her from the vehicle. He leads her carefully along a smooth path that is scented with flowers. Carly hangs on to his hand with both of hers, her steps hesitant. "Are we in the park? I smell flowers. Some kind of picnic?"
"You'll see."
"Stavros..." Carly protests plaintively. "You're driving me crazy!"
"You're almost there." Stavros comes to a halt and going around behind Carly he runs his hands up her arms until they are resting on her shoulders. "Are you ready?"
"Ready to kill you."
"Ah... my kill, kill, kill attitude is rubbing off on you." Stavros teases.
"Stavros!"
Stavros reaches up and carefully unties the scarf letting it fall away. "What do you think?"
Carly blinks at the sudden daylight and then her jaw drops. "Oh my gosh."
"Mama! Mama! Come see!" Michael comes running out of the sprawling mansion.
"It isn't on the river." Stavros says with a sigh. "...but I think the view makes up for it."
Carly turns around and looks back toward the town that is below them as the mansion is set up on a hill above Port Charles. Everything. You can see everything from here. "I guess this is a whole new version of taking the high ground." She says wryly.
"Come on, Mama!" Michael says impatiently. "I want to show you my favorite spot!" He grabs her hand and drags her thru the entry way barely giving Carly time to wave at the staff she recognizes from Greece or the objects that she and Stavros had bought together in Istanbul but instead drags her up and up to the second floor of the mansion and out onto a covered porch where a telescope is set up. There are marks made with tape on the railing. Michael lines up the telescope with one of them and then steps back. "See!"
Carly looks in the telescope closing one eye to bring things into focus. It's Wyndemere. Shaking her head and looking up she sees the other marks on the railing and carefully starts lining up the telescope to each one. Nik's cottage, The Quartermaine mansion, The new Jack's estate, her office at Deception, the Harborview Towers. "Michael, it's rude to spy on people."
"It's not spying!" Michael says quite affronted that his mother doesn't like the telescope as much as he does. He takes the telescope back over and points it to Wyndermere again. He carefully lines it up. "See! Lucas left a message for me in his window!" Carly looks again. Sure enough there is a sign in the window that says Riding on Sat? "Lucas has a telescope on his balcony too! Stefan gave it to him. Can I go? I mean may I?"
"Let me talk to Grandma before I say yes." Carly knows she isn't going to win this one. Michael goes running off to visit with the cook from Greece who'd just flown in that morning and who is already making the supersour sauce that Michael adores.
Stavros comes out of the house and onto the porch. Coming up behind Carly he gathers her close to him. "You should let him. We could... christian every room in the house in his absence."
"Might have been easier without the full staff." Carly reminds.
"They won't disturb us." Stavros turns Carly around in his arms and she clasps her hands behind his neck. "Do you like my surprise?"
"You don't have a little piece of tape marking where Laura's house is." Carly looks up at Stavros. It's a statement but there is a question there.
"No, I don't."
"I love my surprise."
"Oh Good Lord! Who killed Gilbert Grape?" Forewarned that they are coming, Gia shakes her head as she sees Emily carefully pull into the parking space set aside for Gia's apartment in the Harborview Towers. "This is the '78 Mercedes that you had me try to find a bluebook for?! And I do mean try the bluebook doesn't even go back that far!"
"Don't you just love it?" Emily climbs out of the driver's seat and pats the hard top of the Mercedes convertible. "It drives like a dream."
Nikolas climbs out of the passenger seat. Since Lucky had copiloted during the testdrive it seemed only fair. Besides Lucky's truck is a pain to drive-- as idiosyncratic as it's owner. "Hello Gia."
"Nik." Gia says overly casual and walks over to the drivers side of the Mercedes leaning in the window to check out the interior. After the limo and truck that had been following Em back to the parking structure park and the occupants walk over, Gia pops back out of the car. "And you guys went along with this?"
"Lucky picked it out." Nik walks around to stand beside Gia. "And of course Emily fell in love with the color."
"It's sound." Johnny says reluctantly still offended by whoever had painted the car. To each their own.
"It fits me like a glove." Emily pats the car affectionately. "But I better head back to the mansion and get ready for the next round of explosions. I wonder if Grandmother still has a valid driver's license. She could be my copilot and we could take it on another test drive."
Just then both Nikolas and Gia's cellphones go off. Nik frowns not recognizing the number on the caller ID. "Hello?" He relaxes a little at the voice on the other end.
In the midst of her own phone call. "Dinner? Sure I guess." Gia shrugs. "He did what? You have got to be kidding me." Gia looks over at Nikolas. She covers the mouthpiece on her phone. "Were you in on this?"
Nik covers the mouthpiece. "I think I'm finding out about it now." He answers wryly. "Yeah, I'll be there. Whats the address and what time?" He makes a mental note of it and then hangs up.
Gia also hangs up. "Oh lets celebrate!"
"What?" Emily asks the question that Lucky, Jason and Johnny are all wondering. "My car?"
"Nope, although that too. Carly and Stavros finally have separate phones."
A few hours later, Stavros comes up behind Carly as she is putting on the finishing touches on her makeup before she puts on her lipstick. She is running late after being dragged over every inch of the house by Michael and Stavros who appeared to be in competition to show her the most fascinating aspects of the new house. "I should have consulted you before inviting everyone over." He admits reluctantly as he kisses her bare shoulder.
"I'm just gonna have to assume that there is a method to your madness." Carly teases crossing her eyes looking at Stavros using her mirror. Then she taps her chin. "Let me see... What could it be? Oh that's right. Mr and Mrs Jacks get back on Monday. And if you postponed the family get together then you'd have to invite them. You know that Michael wants to go riding with Lucas tomorrow and you figure this way Mama will invite Michael to spend the night. Oh and you don't want anything to interfere with Nikolas' tour of Deception distribution sites that is coming up next week."
"If you mean I don't want anything to interfere with my son and Gia being away alone for a week... You are correct." Stavros starts nibbling on the space right below her ear... his beard sending a tickle down her spine. She angles her head out of the way and hunches her shoulders a little.
"It's just business." Carly grins at him. "Just ask either one."
Downstairs already dressed for dinner, Michael waits with his tutor, Kris Windsor. Michael's tutor had informed him of his responsibilities as host. Mama had put him in charge of greeting their guests since they'd taken so long looking at the house and garden; and she still had to get ready. Stavros is counting on him. He'd said so. As soon as the doorbell rings, Kris looks over at Michael and nods at him. Michael stands up extra straight and nods back. Kris opens the door to Gia and Nikolas who'd taken separate cars but still managed to arrive at the same time.
"Good evening. Thank you for coming. Mama and Stavros will be here in a minute. May I offer you something to drink?" Michael says all at once only pausing for half breaths and then looking over at Kris who gives him a nod and discreet thumbs up. Michael breaks his polite gentleman manner and grabs Gia by the hand. "Come in the front room! Stavros bought a piano, and we can play again just like on the island." He looks back at Nikolas. "You too. We'll all play." Michael orders.
Nikolas looks back over his shoulder at Kris and grins. "Well he had me going there for a few seconds at least."
"Yes, pretty girl comes before pretty manners every time." Kris says wryly. There is a knock on the door. Kris opens the door again.
This time it is Nikolas who does the greeting. "Stavros and Carly have been delayed. Michael would have greeted you but he is in the front room making time with Gia."
Bobbie laughs and steps over the threshold. She can't help but look around her. "So did you move out of the cottage?" She looks at Nikolas.
"Nah." Lucas counters. "Carly and Michael live here now." Lucas goes running off to the sound of the piano music. Figuring that is where the action is.
Nik shakes his head. "I just found out today... a few hours ago."
Carly comes down the stairs in a practiced stroll. "And I think I found out less than twenty minutes before that! I didn't move anywhere. Michael and Stavros did all this while I've been at work." Carly makes a price is right type move indicating the whole house. "I didn't even get to pick out so much as a lamp."
Stavros takes Carly's hand and tucks it under his arm. "Many of these things we picked out together in Istanbul. And of course there is the vase she brought me back from Italy." He looks around. "It still needs a woman's touch." He lifts the back of her hand to his mouth and presses a brief kiss there."
"Nikolas, where are you?!" Michael hollars from the front room. "We're playing piano!"
Carly shakes her head. "I think we're being paged." Everyone goes into the front room where the drapes are pulled back to show the lights of Port Charles below. Carly and Bobbie check out the view and keep an eye on the boys. Gia plays piano with Michael on one side of her and Lucas on the other. Nikolas stands by the baby grand keeping an eye on them all. Stavros goes over to the beverage cart and takes a predinner drink from Kris.
Stefan stands next to his brother but not too close. "Interesting timing."
"Caroline and I discussed this right after returning to Port Charles."
"Not the house. This is not a surprise. I didn't see you satisfied in such cramped quarters for long. Neither is the timing of this little gathering. Alexis will be back on Monday." Stefan makes it a controlled statement with no evidence of question.
"I have no idea." Stavros laughs. "The jet is picking up Natasha and her husband... but where they decide to go after this honeymoon is up to Mr Jacks."
Carly turns away from the view and walks over to Stavros taking the drink from his hand and taking a sip. "Are you baiting Stefan again?" She tsks.
Bobbie walks over as well shaking her head. She looks at Stavros with ill masked distain. "I guess this means you are sticking around for awhile."
"My business here isn't finished yet, Sister." Stavros hands her a drink. Then with a half bow he goes over to join the kids by the piano.