78 - Round Trip Ticket

“I love you,” Cassidy whispered while holding him a fierce hug.  “No matter what.”

Holding her just as tightly, Jon dropped his face into the crook of her neck and murmured, “It’s not goodbye, Dixie.  It’s just ‘see ya later’.”

“Of course it is, silly man.”  Delicate limbs were reluctantly peeled from his torso, and the petite beauty retreated two steps with a smile big enough to detract from rapidly blinking eyelids.  “I just felt like tellin’ ya.”

“Yeah?”  Jon caught the front of her shirt before she backpedaled too far.  “You’re not worried that I’m gonna walk down that path and out of your life?”

“Well, I wasn’t until you said that.”  The perfect bow of her mouth was twisted with displeasure.  “You can’t just say ‘I love you’ and go do what you’ve gotta do?  It has to turn maudlin to make you happy?”

A spring of affection bubbled up inside of him, flowing through his veins with the effervescence of champagne.  He did love her, more than anyone would believe possible after such a short time.  Her stubborn little chin jutting out while sassy fists perched on her hips captivated him as surely as a bikini on her sweet little body would. 

Jon’s loose fist came up so that his thumb could glide over one porcelain cheek.  It would only be a short time before he devised a way to make this work, and they would likely see one another again in a few days.  He’d only been teasing with his comment, but he wasn’t teasing anymore.

“I love you, Dix,” he declared earnestly, giving her the actual words for only the second time and going a step further.  “You’re what makes me happy.”

Leaning into the easy caress, her lashes drifted closed for a prolonged moment before she quietly approved, “That’s better.  Thank you.  Now get outta here.”

After one more bone-crushing hug and a soul-searing kiss that would have to last them both through the uncertainty of the coming days, Jon pushed his way down the path toward his rental car.  Behind him, he almost thought he heard a gentle crooning of the song she sang that first day at Tully’s, “I Will Always Love You”, but maybe it was his imagination.  In any case, he didn’t acknowledge it because that truly would be maudlin.

He was finding it harder than expected to walk away from her this late Thursday morning.  That was likely due to his lack of enthusiasm at facing what lay ahead of him, but it didn’t diminish the pall of gloom nipping at his heels.  When this thing was settled and over, he would feel better.

If I only knew how to settle it, I’d be in business.

The trunk lid on the mid-size sedan clicked open in response to his thumb on the key fob, and Jon tossed his duffel inside before slamming it shut.  He circled to the driver’s door with unrest gnawing at his stomach. 

In one hour, he wouldn’t be sitting behind the steering wheel of this car and guiding it down the dirt road toward the highway.  He would be at a table with the Adams family where contracts for the biggest purchase of his life would be laid out, awaiting signatures.  On the surface, his dream was on the verge of becoming reality.

Only he knew that signing those papers wouldn’t be the end. 

When he got home tonight and looked into his wife’s face…  When he weighed nearly twenty-six years of marriage and the elation of being an NFL owner against what he might see in her eyes…

“Siri.  Call Lema.”

He needed someone that would listen to him think out loud, and the only someone who had an inkling of understanding about this cluster fuck was his old friend.

“Hey, man.  What’s up?”

The car nosed onto the freeway ramp and Jon pushed the accelerator, knowing he had thirty minutes to spill his guts and receive whatever unconventional wisdom David might have to offer.  It wasn’t going to be enough time unless he cut through all the niceties and got right to the point.

“I’m on my way to buy a football team that I might have to turn around and sell tomorrow because Dorothea is the one who turned Cassidy in and I’m not sure I can stay married to the woman who threatened to purposely kill my football deal if Cassidy didn’t disappear.”

“Ah.  Just another day at the office, then.”

Despite himself, Jon couldn’t withhold the chuckle that escaped.  Jesus, his friend was crazy, but who else could have listened to all that and not think Jon had completely lost his mind?

“Something like that,” he laughed.  “I’m looking for advice on how to keep it all.  Psychotic suggestions are welcome, as long as they stay mostly on this side of legal.”

“So you don’t want to set fire to your house to keep Dot from getting it?  Oh.  No, wait,” he interrupted himself thoughtfully.  “That’s an earlier scene in this love story, and repetition isn’t a good way to keep the readers hooked.”

Mile markers were flying by too fast for Jon to passively endure the other man’s peculiar ramblings.  He’d be twice as patient with them next time, he promised himself.

“Tick tock, Lema.  I’m twenty minutes outside Nashville and would like to have a game plan before I sign my children’s inheritance away.”

“Yeah, yeah.  I need one piece of clarification here, though.  She threatened to kill your football deal if Cassidy didn’t disappear?  What’s that all about?  Because your girlfriend’s on my shit list right now for using and losing you.  Are you still together?”

That was a story Jon might be interested in hearing when he had more time.  The road sign indicated that his exit was only twelve miles away.  “Reader’s Digest version is that Cassidy said she wanted to break it off.  When I finally got in her face and pushed back, she told me she’d only done it because Dorothea was going to screw over my football deal if Cassidy continued to be a presence in my life.”

“I see.”  There was a pause that seemed interminably long.  “I guess I owe her an apology then.”

“I’m thrilled she’s off your shit list,” Jon sighed.  “But call her after you tell me what the fuck your chaotic mind comes up with as a solution to my problem.”

“Right.  Uhh…  So you need all your assets to make this football thing a go?  Divorce is not an option in any way, shape or form?”

If he could make that work, it would’ve been done already and he wouldn’t be regretting the flushed antidepressants right now. 

“I need it all,” he confirmed, as much as he hated it.  “Marriage and football are one and the same in this scenario.”

“But you don’t want to get rid of the muse.”

“Correct.”

“Well,” David sighed heavily.  “All I can say is I hope you have something to blackmail the little missus with.  And if she’s going to let Cassidy live in the guest house, the minimum requirement is live footage of her fucking somebody in your bed.  Preferably with you asleep on the other side.”

Motherfucker.  He was screwed.  There was no blackmail material.

“Goddammit.”

“I’ll take that as a no?”

“That’s a no.”

Everything was completely silent as he braked the car at the end of the freeway exit.  Somewhere, there was a shoe waiting to drop and he hoped it didn’t land on his head and kill him.

“You’re absolutely sure?” Dave pressed.  “Wasn’t she out of town a couple weeks ago?  Any chance she rendezvoused with somebody then?”

He’d suspected it at the time, but he had no proof.  Jon didn’t even know where in the Poconos she’d gone.

Unless...

Maybe she hadn’t gone to the Poconos.

Maybe she’d inexplicably been in SoHo - just like she was yesterday.  What were the chances?  

You’re grasping at straws.  You realize that, right?

Yes, he realized it, but desperate times called for desperate measures and all that shit.  It wouldn’t hurt to check it out.

“Maybe,” he told his friend and whipped the car into a Taco Bell parking lot.  “I’ll call you back later.  Thanks, man.” 

Jon reached over to tap the red button that would end the call and immediately instructed, “Siri, call Tony.”

A few months ago, while his brother was on this East Coast for Christmas with the family, Jon had him replace some malfunctioning security cameras in the SoHo place.  While he was in there, Tony had offered to upgrade the system for him with some fancy tech gadgetry that Jon had no interest or use for at the time.  He did, however, recall hearing something about archiving the footage online.

“Hey, big brother.  Long time no talk.  What’s goin’ on?”

“Tony, I’m strapped for time, so I need you to do something for me.  No questions asked.” 

As his brothers always did, and always had done for him, Tony immediately stepped up.  “Name it.”

“Dorothea was in the apartment sometime after noon yesterday.  Check the security footage and see if there’s anything out of the ordinary and, if there is, look at the weekend after Easter.  Starting Friday night through Sunday night.”

“Consider it done,” his brother reassured with confidence.  “Shouldn’t take too long but, if you can give me an idea of what I’m looking for, it will speed things up.”

For some anonymous security guy on the payroll, Jon would’ve told him point-blank to just check the fucking video and stop asking questions.  For his brother, however…

“Dorothea fucking around on me.”

“O-kay.”

“Not a word to anyone.”  The caution was needless, but he was compelled to offer it just the same.

“No shit,” Tony drawled, and Jon could hear him tapping and clicking on the computer that had undoubtedly been nearby.  “Hey.  The internet says you’re having an affair with some redhead.  Good lookin’ broad.  Who is she?”

There were a number of ways to answer that question.  The woman he loved, his mistress, his muse, the woman his wife narced out to the cops, Obie’s protégé, an aspiring vocalist or any of another half-dozen descriptive tags would do the trick, but Jon didn’t feel like inviting more questions.  That left him neutrally offering, “Her name’s Cassidy.”

“Well, if they’re gonna stick you with somebody, at least she’s hot.”

She was more than hot.  Cassidy’s looks didn’t begin to touch the woman she was.  Loyal, honest, funny, sweet, thoughtful, loving, considerate, wise, smart, independent, feisty, stubborn…  All those still weren’t enough to describe the woman who had restored his battered heart and soul.

“Got anything yet?”

The amused chuckle was plainly audible, even all the way from his brother’s house in California.  “The fact that she’s not a subject for discussion tells me the rags might have gotten this one-  Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh?”  Jon sat up in the driver’s seat, bringing his wrists to drape over the steering wheel.  “What’s 'uh-oh'?”

“Uh.  I found what you were looking for.”

He didn’t know whether to be happy or sad that his suspicions had just been proven right.  “Details.”

“Yesterday about one o’clock,” Tony fired off without inflection.  “There’s a guy feeling her up in the foyer and clothes are starting to drop.”

“Do you know the guy?”

“Never seen him before.  Fast forwarding…”

He supposed it was good that Tony didn’t know the guy.  Maybe that meant he wouldn’t know the guy.  He’d really rather not know the guy. 

“Yeah, bro.  I’ve got exactly what you were looking for in the master bedroom.”

The churning sensation in his stomach was making Jon a little sick.  To know that he could watch his wife fucking another man…  To know that, no matter how ill it made him, he was going to watch her fuck him…

“I know you’ve told me how to access that, but email me the instructions again and check the other days I asked about.”

“Yeah.”  Tony’s smoker’s cough rattled briefly in Jon’s ear.  “You okay?  I get the feeling you were expecting it, but still...”

Jon had told Cassidy his head was fucked up.  She had fucked it up a little more, but not necessarily in a bad way.  Then the complicated nature of their relationship had tossed in its two-cents.  Now, though?  Now, he knew the true meaning of fucked up.

Right now he wanted to breathe a sigh of relief that he had the “blackmail” material that would enable him to have his football team.  Also right now, his old, scarred heart was taking another brutal hit.  It would’ve been easier if he hated her but, because they’d been close up until the last few days, he was torn between laughter and tears.

Was he supposed to rejoice or get angry?  Should he get drunk in celebration or misery?  Maybe laugh angrily while drowning his sorrows in a case of wine and toasting good fortune?

Or… 

Did he sit here blindly staring at a taco advertisement while he went completely numb and unfeeling?  Because that’s what was happening, and the realization was so depressingly familiar that Jon’s head bounced against the headrest in defeat.

His ticket to restored mental health was evidently a round trip one and, after a nice visit to the land of normalcy, he was now being dispatched back to his point of origin.

Depression, last stop.  Everybody out.

“No, I’m not okay.”