40 - There's No Place Like Home

[11:57 PM]JON: Where r u?

Because she sure as hell wasn't in the little cabin on whose patio he currently sat – tired, cranky and being eaten alive by mosquitos.  Jon was certain he’d had worse days in his fifty-three years, but it was hard to think of one as a rustling in the dark woods prompted the notion that he was about to become a bear’s midnight snack.  It would be a fitting end to the day. 

At least you managed to find the damn place in the dark. 

That was a small mercy and it nowhere near compensated for the shitty time in the studio – or the meowing cat that circled his ankles.  .

“Get the fuck away from me, cat.”

It was hard to be sure, since the only illumination was the single bulb in the porch light, but the cat might have evilly narrowed its eyes.  The damn thing definitely growled when Jon lightly escorted it down the flagstone path with his foot.

He would like to blame one of the others for the underwhelming lack of studio progress today, but he couldn’t.  Jon knew he was the one who screwed the pooch. 

Cassidy and Dave had done exactly what he asked when he asked, without question, despite that being a total departure from his keyboardist’s normal personality.  A good studio session was filled with bickering – most of it pointless – but even the ordinarily indomitable Obie had been content to let Jon be the train wreck engineer. 

Somebody should have been questioning him, for God’s sake.  The only thing that had been worse than his judgment today was his voice.

You’re out of practice.  You couldn’t do a six hour rehearsal, followed by full studio day even if you were vocally conditioned.  To try and do it after you’ve let your cords deteriorate into fat Elvis mode is suicide, but your arrogant ass had to try it anyway.

Arrogance wasn’t a foreign concept to him, but it wasn’t the right label for his motivation today.  Jon was inspired by enthusiasm.  After the way he and Cassidy had so easily melded voices last night, he’d just known they would produce recorded gold at Blackbird.  Add in some objective critiquing from his friends and it should have gone from gold to highly polished diamonds.

Yet, once again, he’d fucked up a sure thing.

Maybe the company of his friends had jacked up the chemistry.  He couldn’t blame Obie, since the sound engineer had been present for the initial melding of voices; it was David’s very notable presence in the recording booth that had been different. 

Last time, it was only Jon and Cassidy sequestered in the glass cocoon and they had effortlessly – and flawlessly – dialed into one another.  Building lust could have been responsible for that near-psychic hyperawareness – a lust that had been repetitively sated since then – but he was still vividly aware of every breath she took, so that logic didn’t ring true. 

Whatever the case, something had screwed with the dynamic.

That would be you and your fucked up head.

This little bout of introspection upgraded his crankiness to cantankerousness and, when his phone finally chimed, Jon impatiently tapped the incoming message.

[12:00 AM]CASSIDY:  Laundromat.  Where are you?

Laundromat? 

That spurred half a dozen questions that he’d like to know the answer to, including why she would be there at midnight, but they were all ousted by the realization that she had to go to the laundromat at all.  It had been years – decades – since he’d done his own laundry and, even at that, had bitched about having to do it in the comfort of his own home.  The image of Cassidy gathering all of her clothes and taking them out to a laundromat was a Technicolor illustration of how very different their lives were.

It was also an image that delivered a heavy blow to his conscience and left him with a decision to make.  Did he simply move forward and pretend he’d never had this moment of clarity?  Or did he walk away with the idea that the chasm between his world and hers was too wide to bridge?  Or…  Did he become an architect and contractor, then simply bridge the gap?

That requires more active brain cells than you have after being awake for a consecutive forty hours. 

[12:02 AM]JON:  Ur place.  How long before u get here?

The message was barely dispatched when her name appeared on an incoming call.

“Yeah,” he answered and crossed his legs, inadvertently kicking the duffel bag that lay at his feet.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane?”

Yes.  As a matter of fact, he was.  He had been until a legion of aviation gremlins decided Jon was just fine right here in Nashville. 

“I sat on one for two fucking hours waiting for mechanical difficulties to be resolved before I got good and pissed off.”

“And, naturally,” Cassidy’s drawl washed over him with the softness of a summer breeze.  “When you’re pissed, you come lookin’ for me.”

He didn’t exactly plan it that way, but Jon couldn’t deny that there might be a grain of truth in her quiet accusation.  They both knew it had already happened twice in the past week.

Seeking solitude when he was pissed would be of more benefit to all parties, rather than his seeking it only when he was unhappy with himself.  Too bad for Cassidy that his mind didn’t work that way.

“I was on the way back to an empty bed at the Omni and the thought of it pissed me off even more, so I came to sleep with you.”

One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  Five.

That’s how many heartbeats of dead air hung between them.  It took four of them before Jon’s words replayed in his mind loudly enough to hear them as she must have.  One more heartbeat allowed him to follow her obvious string of thoughts, and…

“Sleep, not sex,” was his gruff clarification upon realizing that his original choice of words was dangerously ambiguous.  “Just sleep.”

“Makes me glad I bit my tongue,” she muttered before reverting to a normal speaking voice.  “My clothes are gettin’ ready to go in the dryer.  It’ll be at least an hour before I get home, but the door’s unlocked.  Go on in and make yourself comfortable, baby doll.”

“Sounds good, thanks.”  It sounded better than good, he thought, pushing himself out of the patio chair that sat next to her pot of gold.  He picked up the Takamine from the other patio chair and put the case strap over his shoulder, then bent for the duffel to add that strap, too.  There was just enough of a glow from her porch light to see that he wasn’t going to trip over that damn cat, but...  “Jesus Christ.”

“What?”

Right in front of the door was a beheaded rodent of some sort.  Didn’t she say the cat brought chipmunks?  He wasn’t a frigging zoologist, but it could be a chipmunk. 

“Cat left you another present, so watch your step.  It’s not gonna see you coming without its head.”

Her amused chuckle washed over him like a soothing balm and Jon couldn’t hold back the reluctant smile that pulled at his mouth .  It was so damn much easier to enjoy her when they could just be without the interference of outside life.  When he wasn’t worried about censoring himself, Cassidy was…  She was just Cassidy – the oasis in his fucked-up desert, if he’d get over himself and allow it.

Then fucking allow it, already.  Just friggin’ enjoy her for the sake of enjoyment.

That sounded better than anything he’d heard lately – from either inside or outside his head.

“Thanks for the warnin’,” came softly spilling from the second best thing he’d heard.  “I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Yeah.  Be careful.” 

He pushed the phone into a pocket and found that the knob turned easily under his touch, as promised.  Stepping through the doorway of Cassidy’s domain, his first glimpse of the Wizard of Oz quilt on her bed bathed him with a peculiar serenity and Jon was immediately assailed with an unexpected sense of homecoming.

It was completely irrational since he’d never slept the first night here, but he was hovering beyond rationality at this stage of the game.  The only thing he needed to know was that Dorothy and her friends had just kicked all lingering crankiness back out into the wooded night. 

There’s no place like home, huh, Toto?

###

When Cassidy parked her Jeep at the end of the path, it was far later than the time she had estimated to Jon.  The shortage of dryers at the Wash Tub had left her waiting for another patron’s clothes to finish before she could even start her own, so the drying, fluffing and driving had put her home an hour late. 

At least she’d had enough foresight to set aside tomorrow’s garments from the rest of the pile while she was folding clothes at the laundromat.  It saved her from hauling the bulky bags through the woods in the dark because the single outfit tucked easily into the overnight bag, and that was another blessing.  The overnighter had been had been tossed in the backseat after her shower this morning, since she had expected to spend the night in Nashville with Jon.

“Mroww.”

“Tucker, what are you doin’ sittin’ on my porch?” she quietly demanded of the cat who was starting to grow on her. 

“Mrow.”  He lifted one orange paw and stomped down on the beheaded chipmunk that Jon had warned her about.  

“Yeah, I see you brought me somethin’, but I ain’t ruinin’ my shoes just to kick it off the porch.  Take it elsewhere, would ya?”

“Mrow.”

She shook her head at the silly creature and opened the cabin door, in search of the end to her very long day.  The handsome man inside was just a bonus and, when she spotted him lying atop her favorite quilt, a ball of sunshine dawned in her belly.  It was warmer than the room’s lamplight and spread its soothing rays to every corner of her being.

Honey, I’m home.

She’d spent much of the last two hours telling herself that his unexpected return wasn’t significant.  It was squandered time because, significant or not, he looked good lying her bed and she was delighted to find him there.

He was still fully dressed in what she’d come to think of as his standard uniform of a black t-shirt and jeans, with dark-socked feet crossed at the ankles and masculine hands folded over the phone in the center of his chest.  She assumed that he must have been listening to music, since he wore a set of headphones, but closed eyes and relaxed features suggested that he was now asleep.

Jon didn’t look good in her bed – he looked spectacular. 

The truth was that the man would look just as spectacular in anybody’s bed, shower, living room or doghouse.  As she’d told him that first night, he was blessed with some of God’s finest parts and her appreciation of them probably wasn’t any greater than that of a million other women.

But he’s not in their beds, he’s in yours.

Cassidy gingerly dropped her purse and bag on one end of the loveseat and stepped out of her heels.  Chances were that he was finally enjoying the sleep of the dead, but she still didn’t want to create an unnecessary ruckus by clomping over the hardwood floor as she decided what to do about him.

It was a mild night, meaning that he likely wouldn’t get cold sleeping on top of the covers.  His clothes weren’t tight, so there wasn’t any point in waking him up to get undressed, no matter how much she enjoyed the feel of his body against hers. 

The only thing that really concerned her were the phone and headphones.  If he rolled over, the phone could easily hit the floor and the over-ear headphones would quickly become uncomfortable. 

She leaned carefully over him to ease the two speakers away from his head and lift them free.  While doing so, she discovered that the music was still playing and smiled at the sound of her voice singing “In These Arms”.  David or Obie hadn’t wasted any time getting it to him.

“Hey.”

Cassidy started with surprise, pulling the headphones into her chest and finding that Jon’s eyes were open.  Sort of. 

“Hey, baby doll,” she gently murmured, now reaching to dislodge the phone from his grip.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.  Just tryin’ to get you comfy.”

“Gimme,” he mumbled, taking the phone and executing the motions to stop the music before he handed it back.  “Thanks.”

Both headphones and iPhone were put on the nightstand, and she returned her attention to the sleepy-headed rock star.  “Since you’re kinda awake, you wanna get undressed?  Or you gonna sleep in your clothes?”

“Want you undressed.”  Far from being provocative, the words were weighted with fatigue and voiced from behind closed eyes. 

“Then you oughta be the same.”

“Mmf.” 

She assumed that was an agreement, because blind hands searched for his belt buckle – also known as Cassidy’s kryptonite.  Belts hadn’t always fascinated her, but Jon’s wide, square hands manipulating an equally wide and square buckle to slide that broad strap of leather free…

“Makes you horny, doesn’t it?”  Okay, so maybe his eyes weren’t closed.  “Someday I’m gonna tie you up with it, but not tonight.”

That threat/promise had her tingling in parts that were supposed to be too tired to tingle.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Hands that she found nearly as seductive as the belt paused over his zipper and Jon’s eyes met hers for a moment.  He then bent at the waist to sit up and swing his feet off the bed, prompting Cassidy to take step back so that he had room to stand.

“I appreciate that about you.”  He grabbed onto the collar of his shirt and pulled upward, providing an example of perfect musculature when his torso bunched, rippled and relaxed with the motion of removing the black cotton and letting it drop to the floor.  “Not having to guess what you’re thinking.”

God’s very finest parts.

“Honey, I don’t give voice to every thought,” she intoned humorously.  “You wouldn’t be quite as appreciative if I did.”

His pants fell to the hardwood in front of the night stand, revealing another set of exceptional muscles.  The toned backside and thighs strutted their stuff when he bent to strip away his socks and turned to fold back the covers on his side of the bed. 

“I welcome anything that isn’t a guessing game.”  He turned to peer questioningly over his shoulder before sliding into the sheets.  “You gonna get in bed before I fall asleep again?”

“Yeah.”  Cassidy’s clothes were discarded in short order and she reached for the light switch that would extinguish the lamps.  “I would’ve welcomed the same last time we were here.”

Jon invitingly flipped back the covers on her side and, when they lay face to face, muscularly impeccable arms found their way around Cassidy’s curves to envelope her.   She silently sighed with pleasure when those same arms pulled her close and fitted their nude bodies together.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her forehead.  “Not for the shitty deed I already apologized for, but for what prompted it.  I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“Let what happen?” 

Her hands massaged lightly along the curve of his spine while his skin warmed hers.  As sexually appealing as she found him, this simple contact was far more appealing tonight.   She would sleep well feeling his heart beat against hers and knowing that he was – for the moment – content.

“Tomorrow, Dix,” was Jon’s quiet promise when dipping to touch their lips together.  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”