He stood in the doorway of her room, watching her and smiling. She was surprised to see him even though she knew he had seen her downstairs. He got all that from her eyes. How he loved her eyes, they always told him everything he needed to know. Right now they were telling him to be gentle, she had already been through too much.
"Nice place," he commented still in the doorway. "Mind if I come in?"
"Oh um, yeah, sorry." She moved out of the way, allowing him to enter. Dammit, why was she acting like a nervous schoolgirl? This was Michael, her best friend the one person in the world she didn't need to be nervous around. "So what have you been doing since the last time we saw each other?" Okay that was possibly the worst thing she could have asked. He laughed.
"I don't think you really want me to answer that." He told her still laughing. "How about if we discuss something a little safer. What have you been doing since the last time we saw each other?"
"Why do you assume my past is a safer topic for discussion?" She challenged.
"Fair enough. Well, why don't you fill me in on why you decided to move to a town populated by your ex's?"
"What?"
"Jasper Jacks." He said, knowing he shouldn't.
"How do you know about Jax?" She asked suspiciously.
"I've kept informed." He shrugged.
"And just how much do you know Michael?"
"I know you married him seven years ago and divorced him roughly a year later."
"What, have you been having me followed for the last ten years?"
"I care about you Tash, I just asked around to make sure you were all right." He couldn't tell her he had asked Benny to put together a file on PC's newest D. A. He would have done it even if it wasn't Natasha but because it was her he had read the file with great interest wanting to know everything he had missed.
"Jax and I are still friends, I have no reason to avoid living in the same town as him."
"And Ashton?" He knew he shouldn't have said it. Her eyes told him he had gone too far.
"What do you know about Ned?"
"Just that you were dating him, until recently," he answered deciding to downplay his knowledge.
"Ned and I have been over for months, there is no reason for me to avoid him either."
"And me?" He asked starting to enjoy their verbal back and forth.
"Well, first I object to you defining yourself as "one of my ex's." Second, I had no idea you lived here until after I had accepted the job."
"Would it have made a difference?"
"Are you asking if I would have accepted the job if I had known that you were, I mean are, Sonny Corinthos? Of course it would have made a difference. Do you honestly think I would have taken the job if I had known?"
"I'm sorry, I had to ask. So tell me about your time as a Jacks, somehow I can't picture you eating moose meat in Alaska." He was trying to lighten the mood and Alexis was more than willing to let him.
"Jax has always been very good to me and he gave me something I never thought I'd have, a family. His parents were so welcoming to me and even after the divorce we are still close. His mother still sends me recipes she thinks I'll enjoy."
"But Tasha, you can't cook."
"That doesn't make it any less sweet of her. Besides how do you know I still can't cook? It has been over ten years since we've seen each other."
"Ah, but you're talking to the man who spent almost a year trying to teach you."
"In other words you know first hand just how hopeless I am."
"You're not hopeless you just... You analyze everything too much, you make things more complicated than they have to be."
"Are we still talking about cooking?"
"Maybe." They both knew they weren't.
"The situation between us is complicated Michael. My job is to find a way to put you in jail."
"Natasha as you may have noticed from my record, or rather lack there of, I have never given the police a reason to arrest me. I have no intention of changing that situation and as long as I don't there's no problem."
"But Michael..."
He touched his finger to her lips, partly to quiet her and partly because he could not resist touching her. Pulling her gently into his embrace he stroked her hair just as he had when they were children.
"It's going to be okay Natasha, I promise."