34:Watching

This cookout with the Bongiovi family was a far cry from the last one, Charlie thought as she bounced Lucas on her knee.   There was a world of difference when Jon wasn’t glaring at her from across the table the entire time or stewing in his own anger.  That’s not to say that he was warm and fuzzy toward her, but he was semi-friendly and his lack of animosity bled through in his interactions with everyone else.

He laughed and chatted with a contented ease that she’d never seen in person, and that smile of his beamed like a beacon in a face that was even more sunned than it had been this morning.  The slight pink undertone of his neck, face and chest contrasted sharply with a pale blue shirt and made the silver of his hair and whiteness of his teeth more prevalent.  Even the little bit of stubble on his face was more noticeable than it would’ve been otherwise.

The beach agreed with him.  The Hamptons agreed with him, and even though she still had yet to see the interior, Charlie caught herself hoping that he wasn’t going to sell the house here on Lily Pond Lane.  Her own cache of fond memories was growing by the day.  She couldn’t imagine how many he held. 

Feeling bad about forcing his hand on this now, aren’t you?

Looking around at the contentment of all his family members, yes.  She was.  It was so much easier when there weren’t faces, people and personalities attached to the negotiations.  If she had seen this place and how happy it made this group of individuals, she never could’ve done it. 

“Miss Charlie,” Micah Jane demanded sweetly from Charlie’s elbow.  “Will you play dolls with me?”

“Now, baby,” Lilah interceded before a response could be given.  “Isabella said she would.  You just have to give her a minute to finish her ice cream.”

“But I want Miss Charlie to be Tinkerbell.”  Pudgy toddler hands held up a doll that didn’t bear the faintest resemblance to Tinkerbell, other than her blonde hair.

“Tell you what.”  Charlie leaned down and quietly offered, “If you’ll go ask Noah to let Nana out of her condo, you can run her around the yard for me.  Once you do that, I’ll be finished playing peekaboo with your brother and would love to be Tinkerbell.”

The little girl’s head whirled around to look at the group of young adults hanging all over the picnic tables next to the house.  “Who is he?”

Pointing to her oldest son, she directed, “See the boy in the white shirt?  That’s Noah.  Tell him his mom said, okay?”

“Okay!”

Off she went and, although Charlie was unaware that Lucas had been paying attention, he immediately squirmed to get off her lap.  “Nana!”

With Lilah’s approving nod, she let the little boy go chasing after his sister and subsequently, the dog. 

“I’m so glad you brought Nana with you tonight,” Tony’s wife commended, leaning back to cross her legs and twirl a paper umbrella in her iced tea.  Charlie found it kind of weird to put a drink umbrella in iced tea, but hadn’t commented.

“I just couldn’t stand leaving her alone all evening.  She’s happy in her crate and would be content just being around people even if she didn’t get out to socialize.”

Her eyes slid to the group of men raucously laughing over something at the other end of the table as she reached for her wine glass. 

In their sole moment alone this evening, Jon had offered her a martini, but her regular drink wasn’t appealing in the wake of the previous night’s overindulgence.  She declined, resulting in his quiet tease that she’d never taken him on without at least one martini under her belt.  Charlie suggestively replied that she was feeling adventurous tonight, and the grin that drew from him…  Well, it set her panties on fire.

“He’s been watchin’ you as much as you’ve been watchin’ him.”

Deliberately schooling herself to not jerk her attention from Jon to Lilah, Charlie turned gradually to the woman seated to the right of her at the table.  “Excuse me?”

Amusement crinkled the corners of Lilah’s bright eyes.   “Honey, the air around you two crackles in a whole ‘nother way tonight than it did the last time you were here.”

The observation incited a string of curse words in Charlie’s head.  She had gone to great efforts to maintain distance between herself and Jon tonight, keeping things on a neutral plane.  Either she’d done a lousy job of it or Lilah was fishing. 

“I’m sorry,” she deflected with an apologetic smile while determined to stay relaxed and unaffected.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mhm.”  The neutral hum was rife with skepticism as the Lilah fiddled with her gold hoop earring.  “You and your family fit in real well with this group.  I’ll just leave it at that and take my nosiness down a different road.  You’re as sassy with your brother tonight as you were Jon last time.  Everything okay?”

Luke was still on her shit list and would be for the foreseeable future.  Charlie had flatly provided Jon’s address and walked out the cottage door without offering to let him ride with her and the kids.  Even after he called after her that he’d pick up the wine, she’d succumbed to nothing more than an indifferent wave of acknowledgement. 

When she arrived tonight, the Bongiovi men were hanging around the driveway to make up for their last missed opportunity to check out her car.  Their inquiry about Luke’s whereabouts was satisfied with a generic platitude about him running late.

She was slightly more forthcoming with Lilah.   

“We argued today,” she nonchalantly explained away the conflict with her brother.  “You know how it is with siblings.  It’ll blow over sometime, but not yet.”

“I’m an only child, so all I know about siblin’s is those three.”  The ponytail that was secured with a glittery elastic band slithered over her shoulder as she nodded in the direction of Jon and his brothers.  “They’re always fussin’ about somethin’, but God forbid somebody else fuss at one of ‘em – especially Jon.  Tony and Matt are ready to rip a new eye socket in whoever dares.”

The imagery had Charlie wincing with the brutality.  “I’m surprised I don’t have three, in that case.”

“Oh, I’d say you’re safe,” A gentle hand came over and patted her thigh.  “You’ve not done it in front of them, and they think he’s exaggeratin’.”

“He’s not.”  Not even a little bit.  “Fuss” was a very mild word for what she did.

“Let’s not trouble them with unnecessary details like that, hmm?”

One side of her mouth quirking up, Charlie found her curiosity piqued.  It might be interesting to know something about Jon other than his penchant for sexual dominance.  “Why are they so protective of him?”

“He’s given them the world without a second thought and they repay it anyway they can.”  The other woman’s smile was fondly indulgent.  “Oh, he’ll blow up with empty threats about their paychecks every now and again, but he takes care of his family.  All of ‘em, which is why his nose was so far outta joint over that divorce business.  The implication that he’d leave Dorothea in a bad spot was a harsh blow to his integrity, just so ya know, and they were all unhappy with me for invitin’ you to dinner.”

Charlie still had trouble understanding why that invitation had been issued in the first place.  Yes, Lilah had said she wanted to get to know her, but with her admission that the entire family was unhappy about it…  It seemed like an awful small limb to go out on to acquaint herself with a stranger.

“I’m still not really sure why you did that.”

Slight shoulders shrugged up as children’s laughter drifted on the evening breeze.  “Sometimes I know things that I have no reason to.  I act accordin’ly.”

She liked Jon’s sister-in-law but was starting to find her somewhat peculiar.  She was also starting to see a why this was Jon’s Vivi.  Lilah wasn’t quite the same as a pit bull, but still carried her own brand of tenacity.  German Shepherd, perhaps?

“What kind of things do you know, Lilah?  Things that would prompt you to invite me to a place I wouldn’t be welcome?”

One side of Lilah’s mouth tucked into a tight smirk as amusement glittered in her eyes.  “The men in this family prefer I keep ‘that psycho shit’ to myself, so I’ll just repeat what I told you before.  I thought Jon was wrong about you and wanted the chance to prove it.  That’s all.”

J J J J J

Jon found his eyes catching on the counselor again, this time as she tucked a short skirt around her thighs to sit at the child-sized table covered with dolls.  Lifting her dog onto her lap, she beamed at his nieces and said something that made them both giggle, luring Lucas over to see what he might be missing.

The rest of the family seemed to get along well with her.  It was only between the two of them that there was the undercurrent of tension, and it wasn’t as bad tonight as on previous occasions.  Her bitterness seeming to be pointed at Luke for some reason.

After Jon's initial drink offer to her, they were keeping a polite distance from one another with both of them interacting with different people throughout dinner and dessert.  It didn’t keep him from watching her and picturing that fluttery little skirt hiked up to her waist, but he doubt anybody noticed.

Now, he was kicked back with a glass of wine and shooting the shit with his brothers and hers in the fading daylight.  Lilah and Desiree were in the kitchen putting away leftovers, his two youngest and Matt’s boy were running around the yard with Nerf guns and all the college kids were congregated over by the pool.

Tipping his chin toward Luke, he finally probed, “What’s the deal with you and your sister?  I’m usually at the top of her homeland enemy list, but it looks like you beat me out tonight.”

The other man’s smile faded into a flat line in his scruffy face and he shoved his wineglass onto the table, its base scraping audibly against the wood.  “Eh.  I pissed her off today.  She doesn’t appreciate my point of view on how she lives her life.”

It was Jon’s smile that faded now, and the sudden raucous laughter coming from the pool had him glancing briefly in that direction.  When the counselor left to spend the night with him yesterday, her brother hadn’t seemed fazed in the least.  Luke had actually seemed totally cool with it, but this comment had Jon speculating that he might’ve been wrong.

“You know how it is with family.”  Tony’s commiseration came with a pointed look in Jon’s direction.  “They think you’re trying to be a pain in the ass, when you just wanna help.”

We’re referring to Lilah’s half-cracked theory as help? 

That stretch in perception was almost as cracked as the theory itself, and Jon saluted his brother in the traditional New Jersey manner.

“Your wife doesn’t want to help, she legitimately wants to be a pain in my ass.”

“What’s Lilah done now?”

The laughter that laced Matt's question stemmed from his intimate familiarity with their sister-in-law’s quirkiness.  Jon wasn’t the only brother she enjoyed needling, just the one she enjoyed needling most.   Even so, this conversation wasn’t appropriate to have in front of the counselor’s brother – or anyone else outside the three of them.

That's why Jon tried to dismiss it with a casual, “Nothing new. Usual nutty Lilah shit.”

Tony didn’t seem to think the current company placed any restrictions on their topic of conversation. He immediately offered all the elaboration that Jon hadn't wanted to share.  “She thinks Jon and Charlie have a future together.”

That simple sentence had one set of eyebrows drawing into a harsh scowl – Jon’s – and two sets winging high with surprise – Luke’s and Matt’s. 

What part of ‘fling’ did Tony not understand and why in the hell was he propagating his wife’s stupidity?  Irritated as hell with his brother, Jon spat, “Thanks, asshole.”

That psychic network newsletter evidently didn't bother Luke, who hoisted his wineglass and divulged, “I wouldn’t complain.  That was part of the argument today – that I think she needs somebody like you.  A decent guy who has the same sense of responsibility and work ethic she does.”

The revelation had Jon uncrossing his legs and shifting uncomfortably in his chair.  It was bad enough that his own family – who knew how Lilah could be – was aware of her dumbass theories about him and the counselor.  Including Luke in that and watching him willingly climb on board the crazy train was awkward to the nth degree. 

“As long as you’re not expecting it to be me,” he pointblank cut the other man’s notion off at the knees.  “She and I haven’t screamed at each other tonight, and that’s about as good as it’s gonna get for us.” 

That candidness earned him the pointed gaze of three very different pairs of eyes.  Blue, brown and hazel irises all called bullshit, but the men showed enough restraint and respect to keep from saying it aloud.  His brothers didn’t know that Luke was aware of the physical relationship going on between Jon and the counselor, and Luke was equally in the dark about Jon’s brothers’ awareness. 

That lack of shared knowledge kept him from having to defend his statement.  He could keep his mouth shut and nobody would be the wiser.  Unfortunately, he hated that they all thought his remark was an ass-covering lie. 

“Sex is sex.  Period.”  Jon kept his voice quiet so as not to invite unwanted ears.  “And we don’t get through that without fighting, either.  So all of you back the hell down, mind your own business and do not encourage Lilah in her jacked-up theories.”

Eyes that had just been pinned to him now regarded one another with the recognition of what Jon’s comment signified.  Everybody was on the same page now with the understanding that speaking their minds wouldn’t break any confidences, and it was Matt who took the first shot.

 “I don’t buy into Lilah’s shit, but at the risk of making you mad, I’m gonna say I don’t think you and Charlie are all that different.”

There was obviously more wine being drunk here tonight than he’d realized, because little brother was spouting mindless drunken babble.

“Yep.”  Tony was now throwing in his two cents.  “Humanitarian, food banks.  As Luke said, work ethic and responsibility.  She sure as fuck is independent, which is a must for you.”

“She’s definitely independent,” Luke chimed in when his turn came.  “Tough as nails, but she loves as hard as she fights.  She’s worth the work.”

His Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee duo had grown to the Three Matchmaking Stooges.  How in the hell at this happened when all Jon wanted to do was have no-holds barred sex?  He was newly divorced, which made it completely within the realm of social acceptance.  Why couldn't they leave it at that?

Why?   

“Matt, you’re drunk.  Tony, you’re pussy whipped, and Luke is trying to foist his barracuda sister off on somebody.  Anybody.”  The rest of Jon’s wine went down in one gulp and he rose to loom ominously over the trio of men who were all bigger than him.  “I repeat: mind your own business.”