Love Drunk: Chapter Thirty Eight

Can Dexter stop Lainie from leaving now that she's put her move forward? It seems as if they're going round and round in circles but...what if Dexter had said something the day they met? Would things be any different? Dexter is about to find out in a rather painful way...

Dexter stood in shock, why was she doing this to him??? "A WEEK???"

"Yes a week Dexter!" Lainie sighed impatiently and frowned at him.

"Why?"

"You know why Dexter! Because the longer I stay here the more I want to strangle you!!!" She spat as she headed for the door but he spun her around again, preventing her from leaving.

"Freckles don't walk away from me!!! Why..."

"It's for the best you know that! The sooner I make a fresh start the better for all of us!"

"No..."

"Why are you so bothered anyway? With me out of the way you can sh*g your way through the entire female population of every country you visit on tour!" Dexter's heart sank to the pit of his stomach.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know exactly what I mean, n'est pas?" She gave him a sarcastic look as the penny dropped, she knew about Faye!

"Freckles that..."

"You slept with a girl while you were on tour! You got over Jenna pretty quickly eh?"

"Freckles no..."

"STOP CALLING ME FRECKLES!!!" She screeched and screwed her eyes shut. "Look it's none of my business, you just come back from your tour all over me and...kissing me, talking about how we should be together as a family whether it be here or in Bridgeport, when all the time you'd been with someone else! Not that we...I mean...all that connects us is Keira! It's not as if we're married or anything! Why should I be any different from Selena or a French girl or even Jenna or Rosalie? I'm female so I'll do!" Dexter could see how much this had hurt her, how much she wanted to cry.

When he slept with Faye, he hadn't really thought it through properly! But he never expected her to find out! "Who told you?" Was all he could answer.

"Does it matter Dexter?" She replied irritably.

"Yes!"

She looked him straight in the eyes and told him, "Your brother!"

"That son of a...he is soooo dead!" He growled and balled his fists.

"He didn't mean to tell me, it was an accident. Not like it was a secret anyway!" She shrugged, "Or was he supposed to hide it from me? Like you hid your feelings?" Dexter's eyes widened.

"My feelings???" He looked at her in shock, his voice almost a whisper.

"Yeah your feelings!"

"Gimme a clue here freckles!" Dexter shook his head looking confused and worried at the same time.

"For me? Or is it all just an act?" He seemed insulted by the accusation.

"No it is NOT! Did it feel like an act just now? Huh? Freckles I love you! I've never hidden that, you were just oblivious to it! I'm in love with you! I have been since our hands touched that day you moved in!"

"I know!" She smirked.

"You..." Dexter spluttered as Lainie began to mock his voice.

"Today I met the girl of my dreams! She is nothing like any of the girls I dated before, and yet...she's everything I ever wanted! I think...I think I might be falling for her! Her name...is Lainie!" Dexter gasped in shock.

"My...my journals!!!"

"Yes your journals! You can write it down pretty boy but you can't say it!!!" She laughed bitterly.

"You read my private journals? You violated my personal space?" Lainie laughed in surprise.
"Your what? Dexter they were under our daughter's crib!"
"They were private and they contained my feelings, my emotions and nobody but me was to read them!!!"
"Private so you could write about all your conquests?"

"NO! You have been the only woman in my heart since you came here! I was pretty numb over Rosalie when you came into my life! I fell for you...HARD!" he shook his head sadly, "But I couldn't tell you! And when I did you just threw the friend card in my face! I watched you with other guys and it ripped me apart! Seeing you kiss Rob, swoon over David...gush and fawn over Alex!"

"Yeah about that..." Lainie glared angrily at him, "Telling Rob to dance with me? Scheduling your gallery exhibition to coincide with my grand opening??? It's like you had it in for me and you wanted me to suffer!"

"I was screaming at you, look at ME! See ME! Love ME! But no, you always saw past me to someone else! So yeah I may have lashed out in jealousy, but I've stood back and let you trample all over my heart for far too long!"

"ME trample over YOUR heart??? Dexy you got engaged to another woman after we kissed! I kissed you and you reciprocated, you were into it big style! Then you turned on me and branded me a home wrecker! Now she's gone, you've had your way with some girl in Paris and you're STILL all over me like a rash! Treating me like something you own or have a right to use and abuse! But I was invisible when Jenna came along! And now you think you can just press rewind and we're back in that lift!"

"I absorbed myself in Jenna to forget YOU!" he shouted back. "I kissed you back because I WAS into it, I always have been into you Lainie that's the point! The night in the lift? Best night of my entire life! Making love to you? Showing you how I felt the only way I could without actually saying it! And still you pushed me away!!!" Dexter blinked away more tears that threatened to fall.

Lainie didn't seem to have any sympathy as she muttered, "You could have told me how you felt! Saved us a lot of heartache and pain and..." Dexter interrupted her,

"ME? What about you? If only you'd been honest in the first place! Why didn't YOU say how YOU felt? Huh???"

"Because..."

"Yeah???"

Lainie shouted angrily, "BECAUSE I WAS SCARED!!! OKAY??? I was scared you didn't...I mean look at me!" She felt the tears form in her eyes as she struggled to look at him, "Look at YOU!"

"I don't understand..." Dexter shook his head in confusion.

"You're a global superstar and I'm just a frumpy cook!" Dexter let out an unexpected laugh.

"Freckles! You're beautiful! I can't even look at another woman and feel what I feel for you!"

"Dexy don't!"

"It's true! I've tried, I've slept with women to forget you! It doesn't work! I thought I'd fallen in love and got engaged, she saw through me and left! You're the one freckles! You're the one!" Lainie looked at him with a sad expression.

"Dexy, that's why I'm leaving!"

He took hold of her and stared deep into her eyes, "No freckles! Stay here with me! Let's make a go of it! Let's get married and give Kee Bee a brother and a sister and then more brothers and sisters! I love you Evelyn, always have and always will! If you leave, you'll kill me! I'll be hollow inside and I will die!"

"Dexy no..." he leaned in to kiss her again but merely brushed her lips with his own as she whimpered, frustrated over his teasing and pulled away.

"Freckles, marry me!!!"
"You're just saying this because you're scared of losing Keira! You don't want me!" she shook her head and looked at the ground sadly.

"Did my actions today not tell you otherwise??? I LOVE YOU EVELYN!!!" he shouted in desperation. "You have no idea how much have you?" Lainie turned her back on him and mumbled something he couldn't make out. "Freckles I love you! I've always loved you and I wanna marry you!"

"We're leaving Dexter and that's final! If you truly did love me, you would have fought for me, you would have told me way before now! You would have claimed me for yourself! We had a child together for god's sake, it doesn't get any more connected than that! But you didn't, you let me wander aimlessly from guy to guy when I could have been with you!" Dexter struggled to find any kind of reassuring words. All he could think about at that moment was the day they met.

"When I touched your hand, when I looked into your big blue eyes and melted at the sight of your freckles and your little button nose..." she talked over him, echoing what he was thinking.
"You should have told me then!" She turned to face him.

"THAT was your opening! THAT was when we had a chance, but now? Now we're all over! It's too late!!!" 

Dexter reached out to her as she left him in the kitchen...

...but the swinging door flew back in his face and knocked him to the ground...

...and all was black!!!

Dexter opened his eyes and he was on the balcony outside his flat. He watched the two new girls taking their boxes and bags inside the flat above the old bistro. He wanted to go and help them but he felt they'd take it the wrong way. Past experiences of offering a damsel in distress some help was often refused with a swift slap to the face or kick in the sore bits! So he just watched, as a voice behind him gave him a sense of deja vu!

"What's occuring little brother?"
"Nothing, just...well I was gunna go offer my services but I think they're more than capable of getting the job done on their own!" he chuckled quietly as the girls argued. Suddenly a thought occurred to him, "I think we should go say hi later, what do you say?" Ash sighed and groaned at the same time.

"Dexter, I think you should keep your brain in your head and out of your jeans, you get me?"
"I get you!" he replied, not even remotely offended by this remark. "But I have a feeling that me and that little blonde are meant to cross paths!"
"Sure you do!" he could hear his brother rolling his eyes, "Because you're Dexter Maloney, ladies man extraordinaire!"

Dexter gave the girls a little while to settle in and gathered his brother and Drew together to go and greet their new neighbours. He was nervous, he didn't know why, but he had to get over it quickly!

As he stood back and let his brother do all the talking, he was falling in love! The cute, clumsy girl he had his eye on from the balcony was even cuter close up! She said her name was Lainie, short for Elaine perhaps? She had big blue eyes and such adorable pouty lips, but that wasn't what made her so beautiful! It was the freckles dotted on her cheeks and all over her little button nose! Yes...

...Dexter William Maloney was falling in love!

As their hands touched and he felt the sparks of electricity run down his entire body, a voice inside him told him to make a move! Despite being uncharacteristically quiet and bashful, he listened to that voice and he uttered the words, "Do you fancy coming over for a coffee later?"

The girl looked at him with a surprised expression, but she was pleasantly surprised. She felt the same as he did, he could feel it! "Sure! I'd...yeah that would be lovely!" she laughed softly, shyly, it was a cute laugh! Cute like her!
"Great!" he grinned with relief.

Their coffee date was the beginning of a beautiful friendship! Dexter felt a connection with this girl like nothing he'd felt before! They talked all night until it got light outside and he walked her to her door. She had told him that she planned to turn the old bistro into a diner, and he offered to help her with anything she needed.

She inspired him, she brought his creative juices flowing back! He was painting, he was writing...he was in love! Lainie Robertson was the girl he'd been searching for all through University and beyond!

Their friendship kicked up to the next level the night they got back from a gig. Dexter and the boys had to change their name, with a little help from Lainie, from Deadly Nightshade to Sweet Cacophony! That night Jeremy, their former keyboard player had tried to force a kiss on Lainie to wind Dex up, it worked and he saw red and hit him as hard as he could. When they arrived at Lainie's flat, she was so overcome by his act of chivalry, she kissed him!!!

From that moment on, Dexter vowed never to let her go! "Freckles? I love you, you know that right?"
"Yes Dexy, I do!"
"I think I might have broken my hand when I hit Jeremy, it kinda hurts like hell!" he winced as she giggled.
"Oh Dexy! I love you too! My hero!"

He painted her many times, fully clothed, partially clothed, totally unclothed!!! He just couldn't get enough of his freckles! He couldn't imagine his life any other way! Dexter and Lainie, it was true love!

So when she announced one day that they were not going to be alone for much longer, he was over the moon! "I'm pregnant Dexy! I'm going to have your baby!"
"Freckles! That's...well that's the best thing I've heard in a very long time!" he beamed.

She had told him how worried she was about telling him especially when his band was doing so well and had bagged a recording contract. That morning she had taken a test and it was positive. She took another two and they were the same!

Dexter admitted that becoming a father was the last thing on his mind, but when Lainie told him she was carrying his child, he couldn't wait to make her his wife!

Lainie agreed to marry Dexter once the baby was born. There was much preparation to be done! Dexter couldn't stay away from his pregnant fiancee, nor could he keep his hands off of her little bump that was growing fast! "I put that in there!" he laughed softly, rubbing her swelling abdomen tenderly.
"Yes you did Dexy, you clever boy!" she laughed back and stroked his cheek.

At the scan, they discovered they were having a girl! She was healthy so far and Dexter had a name already planned!

Things were going so well for Dexter and for Lainie, his band had a number one single and their album was about to be released. Lainie had a five star review for her diner and she was thinking up new dishes every day, pregnancy brought out the professional chef in her!

 But things became rather scary when Lainie went into labour three weeks early. Dexter himself was a premature baby, he was eight weeks early so they weren't too concerned as their daughter obviously took after her father!

Keira Roxanne Maloney was born a few hours later and Dexter fell in love for the second time!

Keira was Dexter's world! He had a wedding to plan and a baby to raise along with a European tour with his band! Things couldn't be better!

But things weren't as good as he thought. He was constantly feeling like he was in a dreamlike state. Lainie would weave in and out like his volume was wonky, like his aerial had been knocked or nudged in the wind. His life functioned like a dodgy television and it worried him!

"Kee Bee!" he sighed and snuggled his daughter, "I think I'm sick honey! Daddy has the flu or something!"

Scared to go to the doctors as his vision and hearing got worse, the band's tour was coming up and he had no idea how he was going to get through it!

Dexter was terrified to tell anyone about his predicament. Sometimes it felt as if he wasn't in his own body, like he was watching things from the outside.

But when Lainie became a silent blur right in front of his eyes one day, it was all he needed to tell someone!

He'd confessed to his brother what was happening to him, the loss of hearing, the blurred vision, the feeling of not being there but in a dreamlike state. Ashton thought it was lack of sleep and worry, he was a very hands-on dad and he was heavily involved in the preparations for the wedding! Ash put his problems down to that, and Dex tried to believe it too.

With the tour over and the wedding coming up, Dexter had to be fighting fit for his bride-to-be! He pretended that everything was solved but in reality, things were just about the same!

Lying in bed with Lainie, he would often see a completely different person! A woman with lighter hair than Lainie and a butterfly tattoo on her back! Was he going crazy? Was it a brain tumour??? His visions and his physical problems were scaring the life out of him! "Freckles? Is that you?"
"Dexy!" the girl would mumble, "Go to sleep!" She sounded like Lainie, called him Dexy like Lainie...

...but she was NOT Lainie!!! What was going on in his brain???

Lainie wasn't blind, she knew there was something not right with her fiance. "Dexy? Who's Jenna?" Dexter was just as clueless as Lainie, he had no idea who Jenna was!
"Who? What are you talking about freckles?"

"You said the name Jenna in your sleep last night, and the night before that, and the night before that..."
"Freckles I did not! You know why? Because I don't know a Gemma! No Kee Bee, daddy does not!"
"JENNA Dexy! Not Gemma!"

"Jenna...no...please don't leave me!"

"Jenna...Jen I love you!"
"I love you too Dex!" Dexter's mind was in overdrive. Who was this Jenna?

On the day of their wedding, things were becoming clearer for Dexter, and he wished that they weren't. "This is not my life!" he said to himself as he looked in the mirror.

Lainie was getting ready, looking so beautiful in her dress, when Dexter burst into her room. "Dexy it's bad luck to see me before the ceremony!"
"Freckles, something is very wrong!"
"What is it? Is it Keira???"

"No, it's me! Freckles, this isn't real! You're not real!
"What? Dexy is this a joke?"
"No! I wish it was but...I'm starting to remember! I...I'm dreaming, or I'm in another coma or something but this? This is NOT REAL!!!" he cried and screwed his eyes shut as the tears he held back threatened to blind him.

"Dexy you're scaring me, what do you mean ANOTHER coma? You've never been in a coma!"
"I was, once! In the real world! In the world where you and me...are not together!" Lainie laughed nervously.
"That's stupid! We belong together, in this world and every other! We're soul mates!"

"No freckles, I mean yes we are soul mates but in the real world...I'm an idiot and you don't believe in us! Oh my god you're so beautiful!"

"Dexy stop being weird and marry me already! We've been through way too much for you to flip out on me now!" Lainie dismissed his confession, "You're getting last minute nerves, but we've been together for over three years! We've waited a long time for this!"

"Lainie? I love you, just remember that okay? Whatever happens, remember it!" he sobbed as she became a blur before his eyes.
"Wake up Dexy!" She shouted in a muffled voice.
"What?" He closed his eyes to focus...

...and when he opened them again, he was on the kitchen floor in the diner. "Dexy? Oh please wake up!!!"
"Freckles?" he mumbled and attempted to get up, but the pounding in his head made him feel sick and he lay back down again.

"Dexy I'm so sorry are you okay? You've been out for at least fifteen minutes! I left you in here and when I came back in to apologise, I found you on the floor! Oh Dexy talk to me!"
"Is he okay???" Ash's voice echoed around the kitchen as Lainie began to weep.
"I don't know! I've hurt him really badly Ashton! Oh god!"

"Freckles?" he mumbled again as his stomach lurched and the urge to vomit overwhelmed him.
"Yes Dexy?"
"Leave me alone!" he growled and fought back the nausea as he raised one arm, "Ashton? Help me up please?"

As his brother helped him off of the ground and the room began to spin, Dexter looked Lainie in the eyes, "Go to Bridgeport, have your career! See if I care, but remember this..."

"...no one will ever love you the way I do! No one will come close to me! And I'm not just sayin' that because I'm full of myself because I'm not! I have my own hang-ups and problems like anyone else! I'm sayin' it because it's true! You and me? We're soul mates and as long as we both live and breathe?" Lainie stood fixed on the spot as his eyes bore into hers.

"We will NEVER be happy with ANYONE else!" he spat and headed for the back door.
"Dexy...don't!" she whispered shakily.

"Have a safe trip...and a nice, loveless life! Goodbye freckles!" And he was gone.

Ash followed him out and called to him "Don't you think you should go to the hospital? You might have a concussion and after your previous head injury..."
"Ashton my heart is shattered into a thousand tiny pieces! Do you honestly think that a bump on the head is going to matter? And by the way, thanks for dropping me in it! Telling her about Faye? Smooth big bro, real smooth!"

Ash shouted back, "I...I'm sorry! But...it's not over Dexter! She's not gone yet there's still time to convince her..." Dexter cut in,
"Nah I'm done! But she is NOT taking my daughter!"

Dexter called Lainie that night to tell her he intended to fight to keep his daughter. "You can't do that!" she cried.
"Really? Well guess what? I'm gunna! If you're leaving? I'm keeping Kee Bee Evelyn!!!" he knew he didn't have a chance in hell of keeping her but he was secretly hoping Lainie would give in!

"Hire a lawyer and have at it then!" she screamed and slammed the phone down.

Dexter stood in his room looking at Keira's empty crib. It was pointless, Lainie was going whether he liked it or not. Nothing he could say would ever change her mind! So he gave up, and made peace with the fact that he was losing his daughter and his true love to a city he despised! Remembering the life he had with Lainie while he was unconscious, he accepted that it was never going to happen...

...and it made him want to die!!!

Two more chapters to go! ;)