63- Better Now

Dinner at Dublin House was nearly complete.  In the middle of the table, the boys had accumulated a mountain of chicken wing stained napkins, Dorothea was down to her last bites of salad, and Jon’s tuna burger lay half-eaten on the plate while relative silence encompassed the room.  The restaurant was free of Celtic musicians tonight, which Jon found to be unfortunate.  Had the air been filled with the rollicking sounds of flute, fiddle, mandolin and bagpipe, then he wouldn’t have been expected to carry on a conversation – or to justify the excess attention to his phone.

“Jon, for the last time, put down the damn phone,” Dorothea instructed from across the table, where Romeo sat with her while he shared this side of the booth with Jake.  “Whatever it is can wait.  You haven’t been home in two weeks, so it would be nice if you actually paid attention to your family.”

He glanced at his sons whose faces were buried in their phones.  They sure as hell didn’t crave his attention and he had other things on his mind.

“You know I’m in the middle of this Titans thing.” 

His tone wasn’t quite as neutral as it should have been and it had nothing to do with the Titans.  Jon was on edge because he still hadn’t heard whether Cassidy had safely made it to New Jersey.  Theoretically, she should have landed at Newark two hours ago and gotten to Dave’s place about an hour after that, yet neither of them had sent a message to confirm her arrival and he was becoming irritable.

“You’ve waited fifty years for a damn team; you can wait another hour.”

He cut her a look, which she met with a hardness that told him she didn’t give a rat’s ass about the Titans or anything else that might command his attention.  She wanted him to act like the picture-perfect husband/father that the world had dubbed him and she wasn’t above kicking him in the shins to make it happen.

It struck him again how different that she and Cassidy were.  Dorothea was barely tolerating anything Titan related, whereas Cassidy had immediately asked about any progress on the purchase when he talked to her for the second time this afternoon. 

That was when she’d thrown around phrases like “crazy uncle”, “gun” and “looking to take it out on me”.  Phrases that made him crazy and fed the restlessness that was becoming unbearable. 

Closing the case on his phone, he pushed it back into his pocket and leaned forward with his forearms on the table.   

“I’m going to Lema’s later.  Lexi’s out of town and I want to take the chance to run some of the new material past him.”

Again, stony brown eyes connected with his. “No.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

Her maternal gaze slid over their sons, who appeared to be oblivious to their surroundings, but raising two other children to adulthood had taught Jon and Dorothea better.  Instructions to eat their broccoli wouldn’t even register as spoken words but, if Mom and Dad were going to argue, they would be able to give the post-game color commentary with exact quotes.

“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” was her way of not scarring the children as she dug into her purse for something.

“Mhm.”

It didn’t matter to him when they talked about it.  He was going to David’s tonight.  Period.

“Hey, Dad.  Can we stop by the cupcake place after dinner?”  His youngest child turned brown eyes on him that were so much like his mother’s when she wasn’t being a pain in the ass. 

“We’ll have to go another time, Romeo,” Dorothea informed him after looking at her watch.  “They close at seven and it’s five ‘til now.”

That was the perfect excuse for Jon. 

“It’s just down the block,” he contradicted, putting his credit card on the table.  “You stay here and pay for dinner and us guys will run for it.  Want anything?”

He was going to have to come up with a simile for Dorothea’s eyes.  Romeo’s were soft and brown, like chocolate, but hers right now were hard and brown.  Like…

Day old shit.

Coughing away the laughter that wanted to follow that romantic little thought, he slid out of the booth.  “C’mon boys.  Get a move on.  Dorothea, we’ll meet you in the car.”

“Get me a honey vanilla,” she called after the three of them. 

He raised a hand to indicate that he’d heard her and made a break for it, following his boys out into the cool April evening. 

###

“What do you have against staying home?”  Dorothea asked him for the third time, this go-around coming from the depths of their closet as she changed clothes. 

Jon thought it was a shame that the monstrous cupcake she ate on the ride home hadn’t sweetened her attitude toward him.  Outside the closet where his wife couldn’t see him, he stood with his feet spread wide and his fingertips stuffed into his pockets, shaking his head and rolling his eyes like a teenager.

“For the third fucking time, I have a goddamn album to put together and it’s been tough as hell to do. I need some input.”

“Well, run it by me,” she suggested, passing through the doorway from closet to bedroom in a pair of black yoga pants with a matching tee.  “I’ll give you some input.”

“While I appreciate the thought…”  He didn’t, really, but he managed to put acting classes to good use.  “…the input is more meaningful if it comes from someone who knows music.  You’re tone-deaf.”

Propping hands on her hips, she narrowed her eyes.  “You realize that if you actually want to stay married, it would help to act as though you can stand to be in the same room with me.”

Oh for Christ’s sake.

Of all times for her to decide to demand attention.  Of all… fucking… times.

Man up and then get the fuck out of here.

Stifling the sigh and the annoyance that wanted to breathe free, Jon slowly approached to loop his arms around her.  Looking down into her face, he assured, “I want to stay married, but my brain is in overdrive, I have a million things that need accomplished and it’s making me hyper.  If I stay home, I’ll drive both of us crazy.  Lema’s already crazy, so he won’t even notice.”

She studied him for a moment before visibly relenting and tilting her face up for a kiss.  It was to his credit that he didn’t hesitate, even though her silent request was now considered something out of the ordinary.  Jon simply dropped his lips to hers for a light but lingering touch.

It was about as arousing as kissing the back of his hand.  If she ever decided she wanted to have sex, Jon had no idea how he was going to get his dick up.

Don’t put that idea out there in the universe.

“When will you be home?” the woman in his arms asked with resignation.

Releasing her, he withheld his smirk of victory.  “Late.  Depending on how it goes, we may pull an all-nighter.”

###

“Jesus!  Why in the hell are you wasting time yelling at me?  Yeah, well fuck you.”

On the piano bench next to Cassidy, David tapped the screen to disconnect the call that had interrupted their talk disguised as a piano lesson.  After smacking the phone down onto the baby grand’s gleaming surface, he picked up his cocktail glass and took a grumbling swig.

“Um.  Is everything okay?”

His head swiveled to the side so that she could see the disdain staining his features.  “Your boyfriend is pissed because nobody told him you got here.  Hope you’re ready to deal with that shit, because he’s coming up the driveway.”

Cassidy laughed quietly and began to extract hairpins from the twist that was beginning to tug uncomfortably at her scalp.  Running a hand through her hair, she shook it and drawled, “Honey, Jon’s spent a good part of our friendship unhappy in one way or another.  It’s nothin’ new.”

“Why in the hell do you put up with it?”

That was a good question, she supposed as the highlight reel in her head began to roll.

The first night that he’d manhandled her, angry over the meeting with Clay’s family.  The time when he was unhappy about being summoned home and asked her to help him forget that unhappiness.  When he asked her to trust him that first time at the cabin.  Two nights ago when he’d woken up in a mood and immediately reached out, seeking solace in her body. 

“I like that he looks for me when he’s had his fill of bein’ unhappy,” Cassidy quietly confided, recognizing it for the truth that it was. 

Blonde curls shook along with his head.  “You two have a fucked up relationship.  You realize that, right?”

Did they?  She didn’t think so.  No more than any other man and woman, anyway.  People were complex and putting two of them together only compounded the complexities.

“Oh, I don’t know about that.  Woman enjoys takin’ care of a man and he lets her.  That don’t sound all that strange to me.”

Long, limber fingers danced over the ivory keys, making beautiful music out of a seemingly random pattern.  “Whatever you need to tell yourself.  He should be here any minute if you want to go wait by the front door.”

She twisted her torso toward him to curiously inquire, “What is it you’re expectin’ me to do?  Jump on him like a bum on a baloney sandwich?  Because, honey, you got the wrong girl for that.”

“You think so?”  One inquisitive eyebrow eked up his brow and his fingers never slowed over the keyboard.  He clearly had seen his fair share of women fawning over Jon.

“I know so,” Cassidy firmly asserted.  “My grandmother taught me that a Southern lady doesn’t throw herself at a man – ever.”

Besides, she had just seen him yesterday.  Give it another week and maybe she’d be a bit more eager, but tonight she wasn’t inclined to assault the man with an overzealous greeting.  It would be enough to see him.

“That explains why I didn’t like touring the South,” he observed dryly over the strains of Beethoven effortlessly drawn from the baby grand.  “I never got laid.”

He was such an interesting character.  Cassidy almost felt compelled to tell him the rest of her story, but ultimately decided that he was better off not knowing.  Thus far, he’d only learned that she was in possession of a family heirloom which an obsessive relative would like to have.  He didn’t know what it was or why she was hiding from said relative.

“You never got laid because all the women were after me, dumbass.”

Both she and David swiveled their heads toward the sound of Jon’s voice.

“Fucking lead singers,” David grumbled.

Despite what she’d said and rationalized, Cassidy was tempted to spring up and greet him with a tight hug, because David was right.  Jon wasn’t happy.  It wasn’t that he was angry, for there was no telltale muscle ticking in his jaw.  It wasn’t even that he was covered by the gray cloak of depression.  He was simply… intense.

Approaching on soft-soled shoes that were the same dark blue as his dress shirt, eyes that were several shades lighter studied her closely while his mouth didn’t quiver a fraction of an inch either up or down.  It was merely flat as he stepped close, and she rose to meet the hand that reached out to brush errant strands of copper away from her cheek.

“You okay?”

The blatant concern in his voice, touch and the furrows of his forehead struck a deep chord within Cassidy, making her feel… cared for.  It was a feeling that dug deep, seeking to plant itself with everlasting roots and she pushed aside the accompanying fear to produce a radiant smile that would mask it.  “I’m fine as frog hair.  How are you?”

He didn't crack a smile, but the furrows in his forehead smoothed when he gave a single nod and replied, "Better now.”