Ch 6 ~ Mr. Sandman

It was only a few minutes before Rachel joined him in the family room, but Jon was a restless man by nature.  No matter how short the wait, he always felt compelled to be moving or doing something, and that need was compounded tonight.  Waiting for her, in her house... after all this time apart... 

He grabbed a couple of logs, tossing them on the dwindling fire and watched them turn black and begin to burn.  This would, hopefully, be a long conversation and he wasn’t ruling out the possibility of it ending naked.  A warm room would be beneficial on both counts. 

As the flames grew and enveloped their new fuel, he wandered over to the wet bar, noting with pleasure that his own stash of wine was still intact.  She hadn’t poured it down the drain, anyway.

Or fed it to her lovers.

The scowl that flattened his mouth only intensified when she appeared.   Her choice of attire wasn’t much less distracting than what she was wearing when he showed up.  The Henley-style pajama set accentuated her curves more than the red satin ever hoped to and now, as always, she didn’t seem to realize it. 

At least her legs weren’t bare.  He would take whatever he could get at this point, Jon decided as the cork popped free from the bottle.

“Make yourself right at home, Jon.”

His eyes slanted briefly toward her as she flopped down on one end of the couch and wrapped her arms around her waist.  It was best to ignore her bitchy tone as he set the cork aside and placed one stemmed glass on the bar’s surface.  Nothing was going to be gained by telling her how unattractive she was when she was in snark mode. 

“I smelled tequila on your breath earlier,” he observed instead, mentally acknowledging that pointing out her boozing might not be any better than pointing out the snark.  “Do you want another shot of that, or a glass of wine?”

Pillow-tousled hair danced against her shoulders when she shook her head in refusal.  “Neither.  I took a sleeping pill just before you decided to let yourself into my house.  Time is limited before it kicks in, so let’s cut to the chase.  Why are you here?”

Sleeping pill, huh?  And tequila.

That told Jon he’d been right.  She didn’t have any better an evening than he did. 

The knowledge was of little consolation as he plopped down in the opposite corner of the leather sofa and raked frustrated fingers through his hair. Taking a deep swallow of his wine, he put the glass on the end table and let his head fall onto the back of the couch. 

It was a reasonable question.  One which he wished he’d had enough foresight to develop a hard and fast answer to before he darkened her doorstep. 

Why was he here?

Clean your window for ya, lady?

Oh yeah, that’s why.

He rolled his head to the right, finding that she’d folded her legs so that her bare feet were tucked under her backside.

“Ya know,” he mused carefully, preferring to have answers rather than piss her off.  “It wasn’t all that long ago that you stood in this very house and told me I was the love of your life.   Yet tonight…  You couldn’t be bothered to drive twenty-nine fucking miles to where I was.” 

Twenty-eight point eight, to be exact, but he rounded for simplicity’s sake.  His phone had coughed up that little tidbit when he searched out her address on his phone, and the reality hit him as hard now as it did then. 

Jon sat up, propped his elbows on his knees and regarded her solemnly. 

“A lousy twenty-nine miles, Rachel.”

“So you showed up at my house in the middle of the night to lay a guilt trip on me?” 

Pissing her off needn’t have been a concern, because her question was utterly without malice.  In fact, it was without any emotion whatsoever.  Whether it was the aforementioned sleeping pill doing its thing or a complete disdain for him and the air he breathed, Rachel wasn’t at all engaged in him or this conversation.

Jon inspected her carefully for signs of drowsiness, but couldn’t find any.  She merely appeared to be... for lack of a better term, dead.  At least emotionally. 

Had he done this to her?  Had he underestimated or misunderstood how this breakup was affecting her? 

Focus on the question at hand, Bongiovi. 

“No guilt trip.  I just don’t get how you can flip a switch and turn those feelings off so completely.”

She said nothing for a full minute.  A full sixty seconds.  Jon counted, because what else was there to do when there’s nothing but silence?  That was typically thought of as a short span of time, but when it was happening  between two people who were playing the ‘staring game’ like two kids... it was an eternity.  

Eternity or not, their gazes never wavered from one another.  Jon watched a kaleidoscope of subtle, unidentifiable expressions flutter over her face, but her eyes remained dull and detached.  He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the hard green irises finally relented into a softer, more forgiving shade and left him free to exhale again. 

That’s my girl. You’re still in there, baby.

It was the first time tonight he’d seen anything that even resembled the woman he knew.  The previously detached and unaffected Rachel now regarded him with eyes that were familiar and alive with feeling.  

“No,” she corrected with the faint trace of a smile. “Just because I’m disciplined enough not to get caught up with you again doesn’t mean I’ve turned off my feelings.”

Jon’s spine lost some of its rigidity and he leaned back to extend his arm toward her, along the back of the couch.  Tentative fingers touched the silky blonde locks that spilled onto the blanket draped there, and he schooled his voice so that his next question was more coaxing than accusing.   

“Then why refuse to see me?  I was practically in your backyard tonight, Rach.” 

The soft leather cushion creaked quietly as she turned toward him, head tilting a bit to the side as she did.  Her eyes fluttered shut for a long moment and had him wondering if the sleeping pill was kicking in.  Before he could extend his forefinger to nudge her, she blew out a long breath as if deep in thought and her eyelids slid open once again.

“I’m trying to find peace, Jon – to be whole again.   You open the wounds that I’m trying so hard to heal.”  She laid her head down on her forearm and sighed.  “I don’t know where my ultimate destination is, but I’m trying to walk the path that allows me to find it.  In the meantime, I’m just trying to find strength until I can recover true happiness.”

Jon wasn’t impressed with that explanation at all.  In fact, it annoyed the hell out of him and he had to hold onto his carefully cultivated non-confrontational tone like a bum would a bologna sandwich.    

“I don’t know what all that psycho-babble bullshit means, so maybe you could explain it to me in English, huh?  Something a simple Jersey boy might understand?”

She blinked heavy eyes and offered him another faint smile.  “It means that seeing you – talking to you, for that matter – takes me back to a place that’s unhealthy for me.  For both of us, really.”

The drugs were definitely having their way with her now, he thought as her eyes closed again. 

Don’t leave me yet, Rach...

He'd just gotten her back.  He wasn't ready to lose her again, even to sleep.  In an effort to forestall the inevitable, Jon reached his arm further, folding their fingers together and stroking his thumb over the back of her hand.

The skin there was just as soft and supple as he remembered.  The memory of how soft the rest of her skin was took his non-confrontation voice to a more intimate tone.

“Seems to me that any two people who still feel something for each other ought to be able to talk from time to time.  Right?  Don’cha think?  Rach?”

His effort to keep her conscious had been in vain, because she was down for the count.  Her eyes were still firmly sealed and all he got was a faintly grunted acknowledgement.

Jon sighed with weary defeat. 

Damn it to hell.

But... he couldn't make himself be truly angry.  She hadn’t kicked him out and he was willing to count that as a win for the time being.  Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to finish sifting through her thoughts and rationale.

An affectionate smile creased his cheeks ever so slightly as he watched her sleep.

Tonight he would simply enjoy her presence.

It pleased him beyond measure to realize the single most important thing about their relationship hadn't changed.  She didn't have to talk to him, soothe his ego or pander to his demands in order to make him happy; all she had to do was be there.  The simple pleasure of listening to her soft breath was an inexplicable salve to his wounded soul.

Sappy much, Bongiovi?

No.  Not really.  At least he never had been before.  Walking in that front door tonight, though...

Don't.  Don't overanalyze shit.  Just enjoy the moment.

Jon got up just long enough to turn out the lights, leaving the warm glow of the fire as the only illumination in the room before he kicked off his shoes and carefully wedged himself between her body and the cushiony back of the sofa.  Mindful not to let her head fall too harshly to one side or another, he finagled their bodies to lie on their right sides, facing the fireplace.   A single groping hand pulled the blanket from the back of the couch to cover their bodies and he buried his nose in her hair, closing his eyes.

Rachel instinctively wiggled closer against his chest and he found the moment to be the most content he’d had since the day she walked out on him. 

Jon smiled into her hair.

In the morning, he’d make her see his side of things and they’d find a way to work it all out.   For now, he would relish in the sound of Rachel’s breathing, the smell of her hair and the feeling of her in his arms.