Lou couldn't spend another day sulking around her very clean, but very empty house.
She'd spent the previous day scrubbing every toilet, every flat surface. Re-positioning every hanger in her closet. It didn't help. She was still so fucking alone she could hear the house creak. And Debbie was with Tammy. And it was all her fault.
"Gawwwwd," she groaned over her cup of coffee. Stupid. She was stupid. Debbie just wanted to have fun at that bar. Let loose a little. Their lives were hard right now, with the heavy shooting schedule.
Why couldn't Lou have seen that? Why did she have to turn it into something underhanded, as if Debbie was some big walking ulterior motive?
She turned on the sound system, cranking it up with Debbie's playlist. Who puts Stevie Nicks and Taylor Swift on the same playlist?
Lou smiled as "Red" filtered through the speakers. She poured herself a cup of coffee and stood at the window overlooking the pool, thinking about the time she'd caught Debbie dancing in the kitchen while she wiped down the counters.
Debbie wasn't embarrassed, because when did Debbie ever get embarrassed? No, she had taken Lou's hand and danced with her, twirling her around until they were both dizzy and had to hold onto each other so they didn't fall over. Debbie was sunshine.
Lou blinked away her tears. And blinked harder when she saw movement in the guesthouse. She almost dropped her coffee cup when she saw Debbie step out and shuffle toward the main house in her robe and slippers. Lou set her cup down and stood at the table, trying to look casual. She put a hand on her hip. No, that didn't look casual. She stuffed both hands in her jeans pockets.
Debbie opened the door and stood there for a second, staring at Lou.
"You look like hell."
"So do you." Lou furrowed her brow, because Debbie really did look like hell. "When did you... um..."
Lou watched Debbie pour herself a cup of coffee and shuffle back outside. Her heart was beating so hard, she covered her chest with her hand.
Debbie was home. And Lou wanted to cry again -tears of joy this time. She took a few breaths and pulled the elastic out of her hair, just in case she really did look like hell. She smoothed her hair down and tied it back up again, then went outside.
She knocked on Debbie's door and poked her head in. "Are you okay?"
Debbie was already back in bed, sipping on her coffee. "Don't come too close. I think I'm coming down with something."
Lou ignored the advice. She sat on the bed and checked Debbie's temperature, resting the back of her hand on her forehead.
"You're burning up."
"First class was full, and you know they put all the sick people in economy." Debbie shivered. "I feel cold. Do you think it could be Ebola? Or bubonic plague?"
Lou suppressed a giggle. "Now who's being dramatic? I'll be right back." She stepped outside, smiling from ear to ear. Debbie was back and she was making her usual silly jokes. What a relief.
A few minutes later, Lou came back with a box of supplies and Amita's medical kit. She put a temperature strip on Debbie's forehead. "What symptoms do you have? Headache? Nausea?"
"Headache, chills, achy muscles," Debbie said, using the sickliest voice she could conjure up. What do you think it is, nurse?"
Lou looked at her watch while she pretended to check Debbie's pulse. "It's that time of year. Maybe you caught something on the plane." She took the stethoscope out of the bag and pushed Debbie's robe aside, then slid the stethoscope under her t-shirt.
Debbie looked down at her chest. "Are you trying to feel me up, nurse?"
Lou put a finger on her mouth. "Shh..." She listened closely to Debbie's heartbeat, then took the stethoscope out of her ears and threw it around her neck. "It sounds like bacterial meningitis. You have one, maybe two days to live."
"But... I'm... pregnant."
Lou nodded and tried not to laugh out loud. She put her hand on Debbie's shoulder. "The baby will survive, but you won't. Who should I call to collect your bastard child?"
Debbie sat up and grabbed Lou's sleeve. "I have no one, Nurse Miller. No one! Who will take care of my baby?"
Lou gave Debbie a pretend slap across the face. "Calm down. You'll upset the baby. I will take care of your child. It will have a good life with me. I will love it like my own bastard child. Come to think of it, I might even be the father."
Debbie grabbed onto Lou's shoulders. "Oh, thank you, nurse! I can die content knowing that my bastard child will have both a mother and a father!"
Lou pushed Debbie back down onto the bed. "Just relax now, honey. I'll go get a knife."
Debbie grabbed her head and started writhing on the bed. "Oh god!"
"Just relax honey."
Debbie covered her mouth to stifle the giggles. Lou picked up the cup of coffee. "I'll get you some orange juice. Coffee isn't what you need right now."
"And an extra blanket? I'm freezing."
"And something to reduce the fever." Lou stood there for a moment. Debbie looked like hell, with her bloodshot eyes, pale skin and chapped lips, but it didn't matter. Lou's heart felt full again. And her big, empty house was no longer empty.
Just like Debbie had done on several occasions to her, Lou bent down and gently kissed her forehead. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back."
"I'm in no condition to travel... in my condition," Debbie mumbled, her eyes slowly closing.
Once Lou had Debbie medicated and tucked in under an extra blanket, she went to the other side of the bed and lay down next to her.
She grabbed the remote off the table and turned on the television. "What'll it be? Doctor Phil or Days of Our Lives?"
Debbie rolled onto her side, facing Lou with her eyes closed. "Neither. And you don't have to stay here with me."
Lou rolled onto her side and ran her fingers through Debbie's hair. "How many nights did you lie next to me and talk to me until I forgot about the pain and fell asleep?"
"Many."
"Okay, then. Let me be here for you."
"You paid me to be with you."
"I'll send you a bill."
Debbie opened her eyes. "I can't afford you."
"What are you talking about? You're a regular on a hit show now. And you're getting a raise. Things are looking up."
"It'll end. They won't keep me forever, so I need to be frugal."
"Are you forgetting about all the publicity? You won't struggle to find work anymore, Deb. Hell, your old soap would take you back in a second." Lou paused, hoping that was the opening Debbie needed to tell her what the hell happened in New York.
Did she go talk to her old producer? They'd offered her what sounded like years of future work, which was more than Lou could offer. She had no idea how long the producers would keep Debbie on Jordan's Appeal. For all she knew, it would only amount to the rest of this season and then they'd move on with another storyline.
Debbie closed her eyes again. "I just want to sleep." Her phone beeped, but she didn't open her eyes. "Can you look at that for me?"
Lou grabbed the phone off the table. "You have a text. It's from Tamara. She says, I'll be in L.A. on Friday. I'm not giving up on us." Lou's eyes widened. "Wait, is that Tammy? Your ex?"
Debbie's eyes popped open and they stared at each other for a second. "Shit," she finally said.
"Double shit," Lou added.
Debbie threw the covers back and sat up. "She could ruin everything."
Lou grabbed the covers and urged Debbie to lie back down. "Where do you think you're going? You need to rest."
Debbie plopped back down on the bed and grabbed her forehead. "You're right. I'm in no condition to... I'm not even sure where I was going. God, my head hurts."
Lou held Debbie's phone up. "I could text her back for you."
"And tell her what?"
"To find another sugar daddy."
"It wasn't like that."
"No?" Lou said with the raise of an eyebrow.
"We were good. Happy. Content."
"Until you lost your job."
"Isn't money why most people divorce?"
Lou shrugged. "Yeah. Money and sex."
"Tammy and I were no different. We broke in half because the financial stress was too much."
"She left you," Lou flatly stated. "Things got difficult and she left you."
Debbie winced at that. "Thanks for reminding me."
"She walked out on you when you were at your lowest."
"She's not a bad person," Debbie said. "Stop trying to demonize her."
"Don't tell me it was complicated, because that's just..." Lou shook her head as she tried to find the right word.
"Why do you care?" Debbie asked in frustration. "I'm not taking her back. At least not until we've completed our mission. Is that what you're worried about?"
"No, Debbie, I'm worried about you. How the hell could you ever trust her again?"
Debbie shook her head. "It never mattered. Tammy was incapable of doing anything wrong in my eyes. She owned me."
"Wow." That felt like a pretty big admission. Someone owned Debbie Ocean? "She still does, apparently, but you're so in control with me, I can't picture you being owned by anyone."
"Tammy was my first love. My first everything."
"You're thirty-four years old. Get over it and find someone who loves and respects you enough to stick around when the going gets tough."
Debbie closed her eyes. "Could you harass me about this later, when I can fight back?"
"No. I have a captive audience and I'm going to tell it like it is." Lou didn't want to start another fight, but she couldn't stand the thought of Debbie being with that woman.
Debbie threw her arm over her face. "God, I hate you right now."
Lou softened her tone. "No, you don't. You hate that I'm right."
"The divorced woman lecturing me about love? Epic."
"I can lecture you because I know all about betrayal, Deb."
"Who was she?"
Lou rolled onto her back and sighed. "I don't remember her name, but she was an angel."
Debbie's eyes popped open.
"I was talking about him, not you."
She slowly blinked. "You're the one who cheated?"
It took a moment for Lou to answer. "Not exactly."
Debbie propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Lou. "Oh. My. God."
Lou looked away. "Don't judge me until you hear the story."
"Who says I want to hear it? Maybe I just want to judge you without knowing." Debbie plopped back down on her back. "Fine. I'm too sick to argue. Tell the story."
Lou hesitated. "I haven't ever told anyone the whole story. Linus knows bits and pieces, but not the details."
"It's fine," Debbie said. "I'm delirious, so I probably won't even remember it in the morning."
Lou sat up and crossed her legs. She picked at the blanket for a moment, removing the little nubs that build up over time. "Fine. I'll tell you. My husband, and god, I hate calling him that, even though we were married for five years. Anyway, he had a big party which is one of the reasons I never host parties now. Anyway, we were all way past drunk and he brought this beautiful girl into the bedroom and I stood there, just staring at her. She was..." Lou's voice trailed off. She squeezed her eyes shut. "He played me and I fell for it."
Debbie sat up. "What do you mean?"
"God, it's so embarrassing. I was drunk as hell but I was so into her. I remember running my fingers through her long, brown hair. It was so soft, and she was so pretty. Her skin felt like velvet and her lips..." Lou cleared her throat. "Anyway, I knew what it meant. I'd known for a while, years probably, that I... you know... like women. The problem was, my husband also got his confirmation that night. He watched us. He watched the way I was with her. It hurt like hell to watch -that's what he told me the next day."
Debbie rested her hand on Lou's back. "He put you in that situation so he could test you?"
"I guess he had his suspicions. Maybe he saw the way I looked at women. According to you, I'm not very discreet about it."
Debbie slowly shook her head. "No, you're not. Your sex eyes give you away."
Lou chuckled. "I'll have to work on that." She turned to Debbie. "I want what I felt that night with her, but I also want the morning after. I want the love that goes with it. And I don't want to have to hide it."
"I understand," Debbie said. "Everything in that department has gone to hell for me, but I understand wanting it."
Lou focused on her hands for a moment. "He's going to out me. He's just waiting for the right moment... when it will hurt me the most."
Debbie looked up at the ceiling. "So, let me get this straight. He's the one who brought a woman to your bed. And now, he's plotting out how to mess with your career? Your life?"
"He's probably writing a tell-all book as we speak, that's how much he hates me."
"You know, this may be none of my business, but your ex-husband sounds like a world-class douche bag."
Lou laughed. "You got that right."
Debbie leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes. A few seconds later, they popped open. "Lou?"
"Yeah?"
"Our plan is perfect."
Lou turned so she was facing Debbie. "How so?"
"Instead of you doing this big coming out thing, where you'll have to answer pointed questions about your past, you can just let the rumors fly and it won't matter. That woman will probably try to make a few bucks with her story, but no one will care, because YOU won't care."
That wasn't altogether true and Lou knew it. "My mother will care. She doesn't do scandal very well."
"Your mother will get over it. Besides, mothers love me. Especially soap-loving mothers."
Lou wanted to believe it was true. She wanted to believe everything would be just fine. But she knew her mother. And where did Debbie get off? "I don't understand you. I mean, you care about what happens to me and you give me advice, but I'm not allowed to do that with you?"
"It's not that," Debbie admitted. "It's just... I don't want to admit that the love of my life screwed me over, because what does that say about me?"
"The only thing it says... is that you loved her with your whole heart. Not everyone can say that."
Debbie slid back down on the bed and covered her face with her arm again. "And now, I'm scarred for life."
Lou lay down next to her, propped up on her elbow. "Yeah, I wish I could've known you before she did this to you. I'd probably like you a lot more."
"Fuck you, Lou."
"Fuck you, Debbie."
Debbie took her arm away from her face. Her eyes were teary. "You really don't like me?"
If you weren't so sick, I'd kiss you.
Lou rested her hand on Debbie's stomach. She could feel the heat from her flu-riddled body emanating through the t-shirt. "Eh, you're okay," she said, gently rubbing circles on Debbie's stomach. "Just rest now, okay?"
"Promise not to murder me in my sleep?" Debbie joked.
Lou smiled. "I'll be right here if you need me."