Opened my eyes today
And I knew there was something different
Saw you in a brand new way
Like the clouds had somehow lifted
And if yesterday I heard
Myself saying these words
I would swear it was a lie
I don't know why but suddenly I've fallen
Was I so blind I was loving you all this time
Now I'm hoplessly addicted
                  ------"Hoplessly Addicted"- The Corrs

     It seemed all too simple.  Life couldn’t be that simple.  It wasn’t meant to be easy.  And even if it suddenly were, there were no indications that somehow all the rules had changed.  The facts were they hadn’t.  But here she was standing there, just moments after she walked out the door. 

“Ali…”

She kissed him then. 

     Caught off guard Shane blinked and hesitated only for a second before instinct took over and he started to kiss her back.  She clutched the front of his shirt when her back hit the wall.  Her fingers sliding tantalizingly against the nape of his neck as he kissed her endlessly.  A long drugging kiss that shook her to the core that made her want more and more, as she found with each movement of their lips together that close was not close enough. 
     And then he stopped it.  Now he was the one that understood.  With his hands on the wall, Shane leaned his head against it, trying to regain some composure, and finding it difficult.  The kiss had burned with all the passion and desire that flowed between them.  It was like no kiss they had ever shared, harsh with need, and laced with hints of anger.  He looked down at her, their breaths still ragged, unmoving until the sound of a zipper sliding down caused him to step back a little, unsure of what exactly they were getting themselves into.

“What are you doing?” Shane managed weakly as he watched her finger the straps of her dress.  It fell in one small motion, landing softly in a puddle at the base of her feet.  She stepped out and pulled him towards her, intertwining their hands, feeling their wedding rings collide with one another.  He remained unmoving as Aliesa took one of his hands and placed it on her bare waist, before moving it to the clasp of her bra.  “Shane…” she whispered looking intently up into his hazel eyes, aware that they had turned almost a shade darker.  She let her lips slide back to his.  “Make me real…”

     What do you do when you find out that maybe everything you’d convinced yourself of was wrong?  That maybe you’d been ignoring the right thing all along?  What do you do when you’re faced with the reality?  That whatever you thought before was nothing like what this was now.  What do you do when you know that in one spontaneous impulse you have decided what you couldn’t commit to before?  That you thought you had fallen but you hadn’t realized until that moment you were way more than that; you’d been drowning the entire time.  What do you do when you’re uncertain?  Because when he asked her what it meant and she asked him if things changed, the answers were unknown.  What do you do? 
     Was it complicated?  Damn straight.  Was she going to mess this up?  Maybe.  Was he?  Possibly. Was it worth it?  Hell yes.  If anything else, even amongst the questions and doubt, that’s all that really mattered in the end wasn’t it?  It was worth it to know what this whole thing was going to turn out to be.  In the end the smiles would make up for the tears.  In the end all those face-to-face conversations would replace those long distance phone calls.  In the end the person would replace those pictures.  In the end things would be simple.  Because you know in the end love is simple.  It’s just that.  Love.
     For the first time in a long time, things were as they should be.  It felt right.  Not perfect.  Right.  And you didn’t mess with right did you?  No way.  Especially when what you had started out with was wrong.  No need for perfection.  Perfection was an illusion, and Aliesa had finally discovered what Shane had already figured out long ago, they were anything but.  They were real, so very real.  They were as real as anything she had ever known. 
      So what do you do then?  What do you do when you’ve got two people dealing with their careers, with their mistakes, with their feelings, and with their options?  Well, you do the only thing you can do.  You try.  Try to see if this would last.  Try to see how far you could go with it.  Try to see if you could cope.  Try to make this ending not like the ones you had before.  Try to prove to each other that this was the right decision.  Try to acknowledge that in the end though it might have started out as an accident, maybe it wasn’t one after all.  Try to make this relationship work.  Because despite the pain, despite the hurt, you couldn’t deny that you needed it to.  It was as plain and easy as that Aliesa Montaine needed Shane Filan, and Shane Filan needed Aliesa Montaine.  So that’s what they did try.  There was no other way.  There was no other option.  You stuck.  You kept.  You breathed. 

    Inhale.  Time to reflect.  Time to bask.  Time to live. Aliesa had made up her mind.  She had finally succumbed to what she had fought all along.  And so was it no wonder that amidst it all she needed to leave the scrutiny?  Disappear?  Not really.  Not surprising.  She wanted to relish in the fact that this was no pretend; there were no cameras, no photographers, and no practiced smiles.  She wanted normalcy in their chaotic world for once.  She wanted her breathing room.  She wanted Shane and Aliesa, and she was going to get it. 
 

“Karelin Marie!”

“Aliesa Evelyn!”

“K.  I promise nothing will happen to your house.”

“That’s what you said the last time and you burned down my kitchen.”

“I did not burn down your kitchen!” Aliesa protested.  She bit her fingernail.  “I just singed a couple of potholders.”

“You caused a grease fire in my oven Alie M.”

“I put it out didn’t I?”

“No.”

“K you’re not even going to be in Seattle by tomorrow!  The three of you are going to Hawaii!  Don’t you need a house sitter anyway?”

“No.”

“Pretty please.”

“No.”

“Cherry on top.”

“You have your own house!”

“But they’ll look for us there.”

“How about disappearing to some remote island then?”

“We spend way too much time in hotels already!  This is my time for normalcy!  Come on!  I swear your house will look exactly the same as you left it.”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly the same…”

“Well.  I suppose since you’re technically not going to be—”

Aliesa’s squeal of delight cut her off.  “You are the best!”

“Alie M that house is brand new.  I don’t care if we are related, you burn it down and I will come after you,” Kara warned on the other side of the line. 

“It will be exactly the same,” Aliesa repeated her earlier statement. 

“You’re watering my plants.”

“Tell Lily and Dave I said hi.”

“Feeding the dog.”

“Love you.”

“And do not go near my oven.”

   Hyperventalation.  So like them.  Before her, in glossy black and white was a Rolling Stone photo inlay of Aliesa and Shane smiling at each other like they had just shared some big secret that nobody else was going to be let in on.  It was fitting.  They’d gone off and disappeared and hadn’t told anyone.  It was one thing for Aliesa to slip away in between tour dates and miss an interview, but when Shane hadn’t shown up for his promotion either, all hell had broken lose.  Coupled with rumors that this pop marriage was on the rocks and they were headed for separation and gossip columns that said Aliesa was pregnant, this was insanity.  She slammed down the magazine.

“Shit.” 

Shannon pressed her head against the wood of her desk, feeling the beginning of a headache take shape courtesy of two pesky popstars.  This was so god damn usual.  Her hand shot out fumbling for the aspirin bottle.  Of course she was unable to locate it before the damn buzzer rang again leaving her no time for recovery.  What was new?  She pressed the button to answer without lifting her head.  “Yeah?”

“Shannon, Karen from Entertainment Weekly is on deck.  Jeff from The New York Times is on line two.  I’ve still got Ron from Rolling Stone on hold on one.  Nora from MTV is on line three.  She’s been waiting for a while and she’s getting antsy.  Gemma from The Daily Mirror is on line four.  Chris from People Weekly is on five.  Mike from the Associated Press wants to know if he can get any comments from the other guys.  I’ve got Entertainment Tonight on six asking if there is any possibility they can get the first exclusive.  Aliesa Montaine’s manager Jeanne is on seven and you’re going to get a kick out of this…I’ve got all the members of Westlife minus Shane of course on line eight.”

Shannon let out a heated sigh.  She lifted her head and leaned forward towards the speakerphone.  “Everyone gets the standard no comment.  If they push say that if we have a statement we’ll make one later and they’ll know it.  You can tell ET we’ll contemplate their offer but right now we don’t have anything to give them.  I’ll talk to Jeanne, but after the boys, so tell her to hold on a minute but that I probably know just as much as she does.  And Gina when the lines free up IF they free up can you get me a coffee, black, I’m dying here.”  Shannon’s eyes landed on her elusive aspirin bottle, finding it hidden underneath that issue of Rolling Stone she had slammed down earlier. No wonder she couldn’t get it before.  She snatched it.  “You haven’t by some miracle gotten a hold of Shane or Aliesa have you?” she asked messing with the cap.  Damn child safety proof for making it more difficult for her to open the darn thing in her state of mind.

“Nope.  Still not answering their cell phones.”

“You tried both sets? Shane carries two.”

“Just getting voicemail.” 

Shannon stopped fiddling with the bottle cap for a moment at the update.  “Well keep trying.  One of them is going to have to stop ignoring me sooner or later.  And when they do make sure to put them through immediately.  I don’t care who’s on hold or who I’m talking too.  I’ll be damned if they disappear without warning and leave me here with all the dirty work.  I think I’m going to have a heart attack and I am way too young to die.”  She worked at the cap again, finally able to twist it open after her first several attempts.  She tilted that aspirin bottle quickly.  Nothing.  It was empty of course.  Her day was just getting better.  She contemplated banging her head on her desk.  But that would make the pain worse wouldn’t it?  Damn it.  “You know what Gina?  Now that I think about it, cross them off my Christmas list.  I’ve done enough for those two the past eight months to never have to buy them a thing again.  I’m the one they should be buying for.” Shannon trashed the bottle.  “And locate some aspirin too?  Pronto.” 

Her assistant chuckled.  “You got it boss.”

Shannon placed her headset back on preparing for the onslaught of talking she was going to have to suffer through. “Now explain to me how in the hell it is possible that all the other Westlife guys are on line eight?”

     Oxygen.  He still had to remind himself to breathe whenever he watched her sleep.  It never failed.  Even in the beginning it couldn’t be helped.  Somehow the air would just catch in his throat as soon as his eyes fell on her.  With her hair spread all around, those long eyelashes pressed against that smooth skin, her chest rising and falling with every breath, god she looked like an angel.  Oxygen.  Every.  Single. Time. 
     He couldn’t comprehend how one person could affect him like that by just being.  But she did.  And she was there lying in his arms.  She was his.  His angel.  He couldn’t help but pull her tighter to him, breathing her in.  Vanilla.  It was always vanilla. 

“Almost there?” her voice broke through suddenly, as she stirred in his arms. 

Shane brushed back the stray pieces of hair that had fallen from her face at the movement.  “Almost,” he answered softly, lightly tracing a finger down her cheek just to make sure she was really here with him.

Aliesa yawned a little.  “Shannon is probably going insane right now.”

Shane chuckled.  “Probably.”

“You think we should call?” she asked softly, still a bit tired.

“Maybe when we get there, then it’ll be too late to go back.”

Aliesa absently played with his shirt.  “You know she’s going to kill us for just disappearing like this without warning anybody.”

“Well she’ll just have to wait to do it.  I haven’t seen you in a month.”

Sighing she snuggled closer to him.  “Feels like longer.” 

“Know what that means though?”

She lifted her eyes up to meet his.  “What?”

“I missed you more.”

Aliesa blushed at the words.  “You think you are so smooth.”

He leaned down.  “Red and you fit together Ali,” he whispered right before she swatted him playfully. 

“Now I’m remembering why I didn’t miss you.”

“But you did miss me.”

Aliesa smiled then, her eyes drifting to their hands, lying there side by side.  She reached out to trace his wedding band with the same finger that held hers.  Real.  Shane and Aliesa.  The thought made her feel warm all over.  “Shane?”

“Hmm?” he responded as his fingers lightly trailed up and down her arm.

Aliesa pressed a cheek against his chest.  “I love you.” 

Complexity finally gave way to simplicity.   “I love you.” 

He kissed the top of her forehead.  “I love you too.”

And it was true, in the end, nothing else mattered.

       Exhale.  Freedom.Truth.Reality.  That's where they found it.  It was waiting for them when they arrived, resting on the kitchen island, propped up against a single black video cassette tape, and surrounded by an array of take out menus.  A simple black pen scrawl across the front.  A quick note. 

Two things about yourself you should know Alie M. 

1) Despite what you might believe you’ve never been able to hold your alcohol 

2) You’ve never been able to keep a secret from me to save your life.  Even with Shane’s help you’re still awful at it. 

So knowing that let me share two things about me.

1) I’m not stupid. 

2) I’m just as good as pretending as you are. 

Yes.  You read right.  I know all about what happened in Las Vegas Aliesa Evelyn Castilea Montaine Filan.  Don’t be so shocked.  And yes before you think it I had every intention of saying something when I got there, but after I saw you two together I changed my mind. 
     So I left this tape for you.  I thought you might want to watch this.  I was actually going to send it just in case you stayed stubborn. It shows what you should have already known from day one and just finally figured out.  Good thing you took my advice for once and got out of denial.  I was afraid I was going to have to give you another metaphorical speech.  Though you know you might hear one from mom.  Since I’m on a roll here, more advice from one sister to another… You better let them meet Shane soon or you’re never going to hear the end of it. 
     Remember don’t forget to water the plants and feed the dog.  And call Shannon will you?  She seems frantic.  I told her I had no idea where you were.  You so owe me.  Give my love to Shane.

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