Why Don't You Sit Right Down and Stay Awhile?

[Dixie Holden-Greene]

((For Derek, again - couldn't fit the name in the subject title. xD))

Why don't you sit right down and make me smile?

It was odd to think that Dixie was losing her company; even odder to think that she was losing it because she couldn't focus correctly on her designs. If only she could whip out some good designs, she might be able to hook some potential buyers and go from there. She didn't know how this happened; maybe she just lost focus? Lost passion for it? Her shops in Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, and her main headquarters in Paris and Italy were doing just fine...they had constant customers, and people were always ordering things that were sold out in the stores. But somehow the numbers weren't adding up and she was going to lose Lovely Lumos! Dixie was determined to make the last few months she did have her company the best ones she had ever spent. After she had taken Jamie from Adam, she had bounced from Paris, to Milan, to Hogsmeade, and now she was in Diagon Alley. She had visited with her employees, joked around a bit, and just got reacquainted with everything again.

Sometimes, Dixie felt like she was losing touch with the actual working of Lovely Lumos!. She spent so much of her time in board meetings, talking to potential buyers, supervising the models, and trying to bring up new designs...that the retail aspect of the label just went unnoticed by her. She hated that. She hated slipping out of touch with reality, or the harder aspects of Lovely Lumos! She had used to pride herself on being one of those bosses that knew all of her employees on a first name basis, but things had just happened and Dixie couldn't focus on people...she had to focus on herself and Jamie. The finalization of the divorce had taken its toll on her, and yes - while it was probably a bad idea for her to neglect her company and her employees - she couldn't help it. There was nothing in the world that mattered more than Jamie, right now. And yes, it might be a bit selfish of an action because she needed Jamie more than she did anyone else at the moment...but she supposed that was just how it happened.

Currently, Dixie wasn't going to let anything bother her. She and Jamie had just spent the day at the muggle zoo, then stopped at the Leaky Cauldron for a bite to eat, and now they were on their way to Lovely Lumos! the Diagon Alley branch where she could hopefully pop in on her employees and get a bit of work done with Jamie safely beside her on his play mat surrounded by the countless toys Adam had bought him over the summer. The two year old was situated on her hip, and Dixie had her arm around his small torso, her other hand holding one of his as she sang and danced through the open door of the shop. If there was someone in there, she noticed no one. Her eyes were glued on her child, her smile only for him. With her broken heart, Jamie had been the only man she needed recently. Truth be told, Dixie wasn't sure she would ever be able to move away on from Adam - she sincerely hoped she would, though. It wasn't healthy for her to dwell in the past like that.

In fact, the only man she had constant contact with (besides Mack's fiance) was her gay assistant, and that could hardly be considered scandalous. So, imagine her surprise when she whirled around with Jamie on her hip and spotted Derek (who Dixie knew only as Erik) leaning against the check out desk. She stopped mid whirl, stumbled a bit, and then regained her composure. Jamie's giggle died on his lips, and he turned his head to see who his mother was looking at. Dixie hadn't spoken to Derek since the day after she had gotten drunk in the bar and spilled her life story to him. In fact, she didn't think she'd ever have a reason to talk to him again - or a chance to. Not that she was looking for one, anyway. After a quiet moment, Dixie smiled at him brightly; "Hi.." she couldn't think of what else to say, and so she shifted Jamie onto her other hip and approached him, "I didn't think you'd have a reason to stop by again," she smirked, "returning something?" Seeing as this was a woman's clothing store, it was obvious it was a joke.

[Derek Alsbrow]

Derek was good at staying out of sight and out of mind, while he got work done that was of vital importance to him. The woman he had met at the bar that one night, Dixie, was someone he was not about to let out of his sight. She had been friendly, and hadn’t suspected anything about his real reason for being in that neck of the country. How would he explain that? She was his brother’s ex-wife. He had begun piecing the things together over time, and after seeing his brother for the first time while hidden in shadows, he knew the striking resemblance he had to her ex-husband. It likely scared her a bit, but of course she had been drunk the first time they had met, and there was no way she would have spilled the secrets of her life to a stranger without something of influence. It didn’t matter to him at the moment if he got a shot with Dixie or not. What mattered to him was getting to Adam and getting his share, first and foremost.

There was something about her, though...wasn’t there? He found her attractive of course, but it was more than instant attraction. He enjoyed her company, and even though their first encounter was less than stellar, he found himself wanting more time to get to know her. It was for exactly this reason that he stood outside her shop, Lovely Lumos!, to see her, to find out more about her. He had hated lying to her already, but he didn’t want her to see the truth yet. He was protecting her from something more, wasn’t he? It was what he believed in his mind, and that was fair enough to him. Derek entered the shop silently, stopping the bell on the door from ringing with a simple spell. Undoubtedly she would be right there behind the counter and be surprised to see him. But Dixie wasn’t there. He walked in a few steps, leaning against the counter and spotted her turning around with the child on her hip, just like their second encounter outside of her apartment.

He liked how she smiled at him, it was something he hadn’t seen in years and he welcomed it. “Hello,” he said more cautiously than he wanted. She questioned his visit, and he chuckled. “Well I figured I would see how you were doing, and no, I’m not returning anything, how absurd.” Surprisingly, Derek found the boy to be somewhat distracting, and wished there was some way he could get Dixie to put the boy down, somewhere so they could have a good conversation. “I came by because I didn’t realize you owned this fantastic place. I had to see it for my own eyes, and I was hoping to run into you once more. I figured it would be an honor to see your lovely face again.” Suddenly in his mind, he had an idea of how to be rid of the child. “Seems like the boy is getting a little tired, eh?” he said smoothly, and spoke a spell under his breath as Dixie turned away to look at Jamie. The spell was simple, and would undoubtedly put the child to sleep right away.

[Dixie Holden-Greene]

There was something so off about having him in her shop. Sure, it was a shop – the weirdest of people came in all the time, but this was different. Perhaps it was the similarities he shared with Adam, the similarities that she didn't want to have to deal with. Perhaps it was her inability to really forget her foolishness that night in the bar, the night where she spilled her entire life story in under a minute to this complete stranger. Maybe she wanted him to just go away and never come back again, maybe it would be better if he did. She wouldn't have to face her humiliation then if he did that. She wouldn't have to be reminded every time she saw him how foolish and naïve and just plain stupid she was to drink so much and talk even more. Dixie was normally a smart woman. Someone who had her head on her shoulders tight enough and in the right place to not have to deal with things like getting drunk in bars and spilling her guts to some random guy.

But at least Erik had been nice enough to take her home. He hadn't made a move. He had gotten her into a taxi, and into her apartment that she hadn't stepped foot in since her marriage. She had passed out immediately, woken up the next morning for a meeting, and then had run into him again – this time completely sober. It had been an odd experience to see him again. She hadn't made the physical connection with Adam, then again – she had been completely plastered, hadn't she been? She hadn't been in her right mind, and thus hadn't made note of the similarities; or at least, she hadn't made note of them very well. But in broad daylight and sobriety, it was hard not to see how much this Erik guy and Adam looked alike. She tried to shove the thoughts from her mind. It was disturbing. Her heart still ached after the divorce had been finalized for months now. She doubted she would ever be able to completely get over Adam. He was, after all, her first love.

Dixie wasn't likely to get over Adam anytime soon if she did at all. With her smile on her lips unfaltering, Dixie looked at this man in front of her as he responded how it would be absurd of him to have anything to return. She shrugged slightly, feeling a bit offended maybe that it hadn't been obvious as a joke; "You never know, you could have bought something for a girlfriend of sorts…guys come in all the time to do that," Dixie didn't know what it was, but she felt like she had to defend her store – her billion dollar clothing line. Or, what was her billion dollar clothing line. It wasn't worth so much anymore, was it? Otherwise she wouldn't be losing it. She listened to him explain why he was at Lovely Lumos! and Dixie smiled even brighter, before it dimmed. She cast a glance around the shop, pursed her lips gently, and sighed, "I own it for now. I won't in a month. I suppose…enjoy it while it lasts." With that last statement, she turned and looked at her son with a watchful eye. He seemed wide awake, but as Erik mentioned that he looked a bit sleepy – Jamie suddenly let out a big yawn and laid his head to rest on Dixie's shoulder.

"How strange," she remarked with a glance at Erik before whirling around gently and moving to the back of the shop to put Jamie down in the crib she had left before moving to Paris. He rolled over onto his stomach and fell asleep promptly. Still a bit dumbstruck, Dixie moved back out into the main area and looked at Erik wearily. She was a mother, and a paranoid at that. Maybe he did something to make Jamie tired? Oh, but that was an insane thought, wasn't it? She sighed, pushed it from her mind. Jamie just had a big day, that's all. Giving him a smile, Dixie pulled out her wand and summoned two cups of chai tea from the back, offering one to him. It felt like a betrayal. Chai tea was her and Adam's thing. But there was no more her and Adam. It was just Dixie. Adam. Dixie. Adam. Not Dixie and Adam. That didn't exist anymore. "I try to stay sober nowadays," she smirked and sipped her tea gently, her eyes focused on this man in front of her.

[Derek Alsbrow]

Derek had to remind himself that he was posing as someone else at the moment. Sooner or later it would come out that he wasn’t who he had said he was, but currently Dixie wasn’t questioning his motives or thinking he was really her ex-husband’s brother. It would be recognized soon, he was sure of that. Dixie wasn’t the type to miss details such as that, as far as he could tell. He was there to see her, and that’s what he was focused on right now. It was also why he chose to take a chance at going to see her, and why he had put a spell on the baby, so that he could get her to himself and see how she reacted to being alone with him while she was actually sober.

She responded to his quip about not having anything to return, wondering aloud if he could have been buying something for his girlfriend. He chuckled again. “No, I’m on my own.” Derek didn’t want to come across as a jerk, so he cranked up a little charm to try and make the woman in front of him smile. “I’m sure you could sell them more expensive things, right? Since most of them coming in here don’t know what they’re looking at.” It was a bit odd to him that she was sort of defending herself and her business, but he pushed it aside, at least until she brought up the fact that she wouldn’t be owning Lovely Lumos! in a month. “What?” he said, acting surprised. He was surprised, just probably not as much as he was letting on. He was more concerned than anything else. “What’s happening with your business? This place seems to be doing pretty well, as far as I can see.” He took a step closer as she put the baby down in the back, smiling slightly as his spell had worked.

She came back, and handed him a chai. “Oh wonderful, my favorite. How’d you figure that one out?” As he spoke, he was making his way a little bit closer to her subtlety. She made a joke about staying sober and he chuckled slightly. “Well you were pretty gone that night, so I’d recommend sticking with the chai.” He took a sip of his drink and thought to himself how he could make a move without scaring her off. He thought for a minute and pulled out his wand. “Since we didn’t get to really talk much last time, how about I set the mood for conversation to come through?” He lifted his wand and made some piano keys appear nearby, playing a soft tune that would be perfect to dance with. Looking at Dixie, he held his hand out, slipping his wand back into his cloak. “Care to dance?” It was a chance he had to take, but it was something he was hoping she would decide to take him up on.