124:Grown-Ups

Jon bent his leg and brought it up on the couch as he turned sideways to put the terrace at his back.  Dinner was over, Nana was taken hostage to bunk with the boys, and wine flowed for grown-ups in the upstairs living room. There was some quiet music playing on the sound system and, peeking at Chiara's profile as she contemplatively gazed out at the city lights, he thought her the personification of serenity.

Or maybe he was projecting his feelings onto her. 

Things had gone well for their first meal with his boys, in his esteemed opinion.  Her presence at the Hamptons house this summer stole away any potential awkwardness, leaving the two youngest Bongiovis comfortable with the counselor, and she gave the appearance of being equally comfortable with them.  Over arroz con pollo, chicken mole and old-fashioned tacos, the talk had flowed easily about everything from Jake’s football team to Romeo’s book report and onto dogs – because they wanted one.  Jon told them that they’d better enjoy Nana’s visits because that’s all they were going to get. 

That constituted a good night in his world, but good could always been improved upon. 

Laying an arm along the back of the sofa, he grazed the very tips of his fingers across her exposed nape, and the lazy murmur of pleasure made him smile as wine slid agreeably down his throat.

“How you doin’, baby?”

Casting a sideways glance at him, she smiled briefly before lifting her own glass to sip.  One socked foot swayed at the bottom of her crossed leg as she hummed and laid a palm on his knee.  “I’m good.  Even though your method of getting me here was questionable, I’m glad I came over.”

“Yeah?  You were in the mood for Mexican?”

“No.”

He knew the answer before he’d posed the facetious question, but when she only sipped her wine instead of clarifying, Jon became legitimately curious.  “Then why?”

“There’s no deep, meaningful reason.”  Diminutive fingers pressed into denim when she squeezed his knee.  “I just like being with you.”

Jon curved his entire hand around the back of her neck with a gentle grasp that silently returned the sentiment.  “You feel safe here?”

The delicate column of muscle in his grip contorted when she turned to meet his eyes.  “I have a gun.  I feel safe pretty much anywhere.”

This was another of those moments when he disliked the very trait that he admired and was attracted to – her independence.  She would be fine with or without him, and while ninety-nine days out of a hundred, Jon found that to be the perfect scenario, there was once in a while where he liked the old-fashioned definition of a relationship.  The one where a man protected and provided for his woman, and the woman took care of her man’s heart and house. 

It didn’t happen often, but tonight there was a small corner of his psyche that was longing for that traditionalism. 

That’s because you’re in the process of doing something that may be a very stupid thing – for the sole reason of protecting her. 

While a large part of that thought was true, there was also another, more selfish, facet to what he was in the process of doing.  Jon wasn’t a good sharer, even if it was in name only, and having a married girlfriend frustrated him in concept alone.  Dealing with Owen’s bullshit on top of it only compounded his irritation.

Cramming that irritation back down into its hidey hole behind his left kidney, Jon leisurely inquired, “You have a permit to carry concealed?”

“No.”

The rigid line of her jaw stole both her tranquil profile and telegraphed that she knew where he was going next.  He was just as predictable as she was smart, evidently.

“Then you’re not safe all the time.”

“I was afraid you were going to start,” she intoned blandly, gaze slipping past him and out the terrace door.  “It’s nothing other than an empty threat to make him feel like he has control over something when he’s lost all control.  I’m being cautious, but the reality is that the treat is fictitious.”

“You don’t know that, Chiara.”

Dispassionate cocoa irises slid back to snag his.  “Let’s skip the debate and get to where you’re taking this.”

Jon skated a thumb up the column of her neck, sweeping it beneath the diamond and pearl adorned earlobe to the hairline behind her ear.   Originally, there hadn’t been an agenda for tonight beyond seeing and being naked with her - the peace of mind that came with visual confirmation that all was right in the world.

Now that part of his mind was eased, leaving the rest with time to stir up other shit – and there was no bigger piece of shit than Owen.  So here Jon was, on the verge of being the heavy in her life again, but he couldn’t frigging help it.  Seeing what was best and encouraging it – strongly – was just who he was and what he did.  If she wasn’t used to it yet, she’d better start getting that way.  It wasn’t likely to go away.

“Is there any way at all that you can finish up with work before Friday?  He knows that’s where you are nine or ten hours a day, which makes you a sitting duck for whatever kind of delusional mischief he can manage.”

Her hand glided from his knee when she bent forward to put her empty wineglass on the table, and she remained perched on the edge of the cushion to speak over her shoulder.  “There’s building security and all that, you realize?”

“Which might be useful if you knew who the fuck you were looking for.”

Rolling lithely onto the balls of her feet to stand, she smoothed both palms down the sides of her jeans and stepped over his feet to migrate toward the terrace doors.  The lights outside had been drawing her attention intermittently since they’d been sitting here, and now she was succumbing to their physical lure.

Jon had the same problem.  Those damn windows drew him like a magnet whenever he was in here – particularly if he had something on his mind, as Chiara so obviously did. 

“So you want me to just not go back?  And do what?  Sit here in your similarly secure building all day and wait for nothing to happen?"

A deeply frustrated breath flared his nostrils as it came in, and Jon scooted his wineglass onto the table beside hers before rising.  He wasn’t frustrated with her, particularly, because there was no sign of belligerence in his girlfriend.  She was simply asking questions in what might be a deceptively passive voice.

Approaching the figure who had both arms folded at her waist as she looked at either the skyline or her own reflection, Jon settled a hand on each of her shoulders and squeezed. 

“It makes me feel like I have some control, Chiara.”

Her countering words bounced off the glass and back at him, “But your control is over me, not the situation, and leaves me lacking the very same thing you’re trying to find.” 

There was no screaming.  No yelling.  Those he could’ve dealt with by digging in his heels and blustering through until she bent to his will simply to shut him up. 

This though…  Her quiet, profoundly truthful observation made him feel a little bit like an idiot.  It didn’t change how much he hated the thought of her being a sitting duck in a very well-known pond, but Jon now didn’t feel quite so brilliant about his proposed solution.

Letting defeated hands drift from her shoulders, Jon laid his arms atop the ones she had wrapped around her waist.  He angled his head to dust a kiss over the side of her exposed neck before softly murmuring, “You’re right.”

Two simple words were all that were required to soften the rigidity of her torso, and he planted bare feet wide to accept the weight as she reclined into his chest.  “We may have just had a grown-up moment, there, you know.  I almost didn’t recognize us without the yelling.”

“Scary, huh?”

“Only because I wonder if it means we’re losing our spark.”  The light jest was offered as her head lolled back to rest against his shoulder.  “I understand your need for control because it’s so much like my own.  That’s why I know how hard it is for you to accept that there’s very little here for us to control, and I’m also aware of how chafing that is.  Trust me when I say that I’m not any happier with this than you are.  There’s just nothing to be done.”

Not entirely true, he thought to himself.  There may be nothing that she would consider doing, but she wasn’t quite the same ruthless motherfucker from Jersey that had fought the world for everything he had. 

The more correct statement was “there’s nothing to be done now.” 

Except… Maybe…

“Our similarities are useful when we’re not butting heads,” he offered as subdued thanks for her understanding.  “I just had another idea about that control, though – that benefits both of us.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” The lazy inquiry was offered without change of position.  Her lax body still leaned heavily against him without tension, and he took that as a positive sign.

Jon snugged his arms tighter, bending to touch coaxing lips to the base of her neck.  “We could get out of the city altogether.  Both of us.”

“You mean go stay in Jersey?”

“No.”  He didn’t mean that at all.  “If you’ll finish up everything at the office on Monday morning….  We could steam up the windows in Cinderella’s castle on Monday night.”

Now she went tense, he thought with a smile.  There was only an instant before she pushed out of his grasp and whirled with question marks dancing in her eyes.  “Seriously?”

“I’d probably have to pull some strings – and sing at somebody’s birthday party down the road – but, yeah.  I think I can make it happen.”

She wanted to.  The desire radiated from her in waves, but she was holding it back with the force of a SWAT team controlling a riot scene. 

“What about Nana?  I can’t imagine there’s a pet policy in the castle and leavnig her with my family isn't doable.  Owen knows where all of them live.”

Since Nana was the one who had been directly/indirectly threatened, he could understand the counselor’s concern.  That wasn’t something he’d thought about before making the offer, but off the top of his head…

“The boys love her.  She can stay at Dorothea’s with them.” 

Maybe.  If his ex-wife didn’t tell him to kiss her ass.  She wasn’t a huge dog fan, especially considering the limitations of pets in Manhattan.

Clearly, Chiara was having similar thoughts because one of her eyebrows was sitting ridiculously high in her forehead.  “Really?  Dorothea?  You think that’s going to fly?”

“It might.  And if not…”  He grinned as he realized who loved that damn dog even more than his kids did.  “Tony will keep her, because I’ll ask him to do it in front of his kids and wife.”