60 - Company's Coming

Greetings out there in Fan Fiction World!  For those of you who may have missed a comment made on this story a few chapters back, we would like to quote a little excerpt (Thank you, T!):

“Comments are like payment to a fan fic writer, and the only payment we get. Don't cheapen them by giving basically the same one over and over....like you do by constantly saying how much you dislike Sheridan.”

We firmly believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion and encourage you to share it – positive or negative.  If you think we’re disrespecting the story and our characters, please call us out on it.  We WELCOME your thoughts and input!!   

However… 

Brow-beating us with the EXACT SAME negative remarks chapter after chapter serves only one purpose:  Discouragement.  And it takes its toll on creativity in a big way.  You have no idea how many times I’ve told Audra I don’t want to finish this story.  I don’t want to write it, because no matter what hits the screen, we get the same reaction. 

Don’t worry.  The story WILL get finished.  If we have to disable Anonymous commenting to do it, we will.  But we really, really don’t want to do that.  

Please be respectful of ALL of your fan fic writers, not just us.  There’s a LOT of work that goes into one of these things.  If you can’t respect the women who write it, please respect the hours upon hours they devote to bringing their characters to life for no other reason than your enjoyment.

Love you all and sorry for the sermon.  Hope you understand….

Now on with today's installment!  :o)

♥blush & Audra

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“I’m on my way,” Sheridan told him, the blaring car horn in the background confirming that she meant it literally.  “Can you let your doorman know so I don’t have to stand around explaining myself with umpteen bags of groceries breaking my arms?”

Jon immediately rose to his feet, making for the intercom system beside the elevator door that opened into the upper level of his duplex penthouse.  “Yes, dear.  But they’re kids.  Unless those bags are full of chips and M&M’s I think it’s a waste.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  See you soon…”

Guffawing softly, he tucked his phone away and made arrangements for her to come straight up to the lower level, identifying her as a female visitor, laden with bags, who would be arriving in the next few minutes.  The new doorman – he couldn’t remember the guy’s name yet – readily guaranteed Jon that he would be happy to take care of it.

From the way the young man effused the promise, Jon assumed ‘happy’ meant he would wet himself with excitement if he could make a good impression on one of the tenants.  The newbies were always the most eager to please, and sometimes that was a good thing.

It’s all a good thing.  Friday afternoon.  My girl is on her way over for the evening to make a million unnecessary party preparations.  I can probably coax her into the spending the night… finally.

He didn’t know how it happened that, in all their time together, they hadn’t spent the night in his bed, but he had built up a peculiar need to see her there.  To smell her homegrown aromatherapy concoctions embedded into his pillow. To pin her to the wall of his shower…

Enough.  Keep it up and you’ll be nailing her in the coat closet before the groceries get put away.

It wasn’t like he’d gone without for any extended period of time.  It had only been yesterday morning that he woke up with her rubbing against him like a very sexy kitten in heat.  He’d barely rubbed the sleep from his eyes before he’d taken some of that heat for himself and added another one of her cat scratches into their now very-scarred bedpost. 

Punching the coffee maker to brew some coffee for them, he grinned to himself.  Pretty soon it was going to be nothing but splinters.

She would like that.  Knowing that she was the one responsible for destroying the proverbial bedpost she was so obsessed with in the beginning.

He damn sure liked knowing she was bundled up under turtlenecks and scarves because of his marks of ‘ownership’.   She quibbled about it on occasion, but as his part to mollify her half-assed objections, Jon had stepped up and owned his responsibility.  In his bedroom was an obscene assortment of designer scarves from department stores around the city.  Jeri had delivered them to him that morning, acting as though a mountain of silk was nothing out of the ordinary. 

Her discretion and willingness to serve were well-appreciated and he proved that with the healthy salary he doled out.  In his eyes, she more than earned it with every off-the-wall phone call or text message from him that she fielded without batting an eye.

Jon’s head popped up at the sound of the elevator and, thinking of multipurpose uses for those scarves, he fought to keep it to one head.

You’re a horny old bastard. 

Boot-heels tapping on the mahogany hardwood, he rounded the corner from the kitchen to the foyer with a wide smile as the elevator doors slid quietly open.  “Lemme help you with those bags, Baby…”

“Thanks, honey, but I’ve got them.”

Jon’s smile froze in place. 

The woman in the elevator was laden with bags, but they weren’t grocery bags.  Her load consisted of  Abercrombie, Banana Republic, Bergdorf’s and an assortment of others.  While he may not have recognized the logos on a portion of the parcels, he had no trouble recognizing the woman carrying them. 

“Dorothea.  I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Really?” she asked, stepping into the small vestibule and putting her bags neatly in the corner before removing the plaid wool coat he’d gotten her for Christmas last year.  Placing the coat on a hanger in the closet, she closed the door and turned to him with a look of innocence.  “When the doorman waved me on up, I assumed you had some Spidey-sense that told you I was stopping by.  Or maybe I thought those unreturned phone calls this morning had given you a clue.”

The phone calls she’d mentioned hadn’t gone answered unintentionally.  One had come while he was in the shower, another while he was talking to Shanks on the other line and, after checking the voicemail that had been left with the first missed call, he knew she was pissed about something.  He hadn’t felt like dealing with it at the time. 

Now that he thought about it, the phone might have also beeped while he was talking to Sheridan a few minutes ago. 

Three strikes and you’re out in left field with your ex when your girlfriend shows up to play house.  Avoidance ALWAYS bites you in the ass. 

His best shot at avoiding this head-on collision of women was to expedite Dorothea’s ‘visit’.

“I’ve been busy today.  I was going to call you back, but since you’re here now, what do you need?”

“Busy today?” she inquired with a cluck of her tongue, circling around him and following the scent of coffee into the kitchen.  Seeing as it had been her kitchen up until a few months ago, she was well-familiar with where to find the coffee cups even without the assistance of the glass-fronted cabinets. 

“What about yesterday?  Or Wednesday?  I asked both Jesse and Steph to have you call me, and I’m pretty sure I sent you two text messages to the same effect.  I get faster response in the middle of a tour.  Call me crazy, but I can’t say that I’m a fan of the Jon who’s so in-fuck-tuated with his new bed buddy that he can’t be bothered to discuss his children.”

Do not engage.  That’s only going to drag it out into an ugly argument.

Jon was quite proud of himself for sounding relatively normal when he asked again, “What do you need, Dorothea?”

She lifted an eyebrow as she sipped her coffee and leaned against the sink, telegraphing that she knew he’d taken the high road.  She didn’t understand it, but she knew.

 “This party you’re supposedly having here for Jesse tomorrow night.  I assume you’ll be supervising.  Closely.”

“I’ll be here all night.”

Dorothea snorted unkindly as she stirred creamer into her coffee, shaking her head as though he were a fool.  “Being here doesn’t constitute supervision.   Jesse says you’re doing this because he’s met a new girl, and I know I don’t have to remind you that he’s your son.  Supervision is not optional, Jon.”

And that new girl is my girlfriend’s niece.  Teenage hormones are to be checked at the door and Jesse will be well-aware of it.

“He’s your son, too, and there’s going to be a dozen or more kids here,” he informed her blandly. 

Jon deserved a medal for not going ballistic over this sniper ambush taking place in his own damn kitchen.  If it weren’t for the clock ticking down to Sheridan’s arrival, he wouldn’t be this low-key or diplomatic.  Given Dorothea’s current attitude, he’d do or say just about anything to get her the hell out of Dodge before Miss Kitty showed up.

Dottie has always been the Queen of Propriety, you schmuck.  What makes you think she’ll behave any differently today than she ever has?

Because, when Sheridan came into the picture, she’d morphed into some heinous stereotypical ex-wife he didn’t recognize.  His Zen and always-reasonable Dottie had become a snarky bitch, seemingly always spoiling for a fight.  At the very least, she now found verbal fault with everything Jon did nowadays.  The only exception had been Christmas morning, when everything had been nearly picture perfect, but that was because they didn’t spend a moment alone.

“And what about the younger boys?” she asked.  “What do you intend to do with them during this all-night party you have planned?”

A soft chime indicated that the elevator had dispatched a passenger to the penthouse. Jon acted as though he didn’t hear the discreet sound even as it echoed in his ears as loudly as an air raid siren.

Dammit…

“Romeo and Jake are having company, too.”

“Oh?”  Her eyebrows puckered with consternation as he backpedaled just outside the kitchen to be in full view of the elevator doors.  “I just talked to Margie today.  She didn’t say anything about Austin coming to a party.”

Austin was Romeo’s best friend, and clearly Dorothea had lost her mind if she thought he was going to host a full-blown party for the under-ten crowd in addition to the teen gathering.  That wasn’t happening.  As it was, he was counting on Sheridan’s nephews to entertain his two boys without a lot of grown-up required activities.

“These are new friends,” he evasively clarified – even though that was an oxymoron - his eyes darting from her to the elevator and back again.  “Look, I appreciate the advice, but I’ve got this under control.”

At that moment, mahogany doors slid apart, inviting a somewhat windblown Sheridan into his foyer.

“I thought you were going to tell the doorman I was coming?” Weighted down with at least five earth-friendly grocery bags, his kitten huffed a bit when she put her first foot on the hardwood floor.  “I had to practically show him my birth certificate to get up here.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, reaching for the bags and taking them from her.  “There was an unexpected mixup.”

When he turned toward the kitchen, Dorothea was fixing him with her patented Dick-Shriveling Death Glare, guaranteed to cause more effective shrinkage than a January polar bear swim in the Hudson.

“Tell me that’s not who I think it is.”  Courtesy of the wall separating the kitchen and the foyer, Sheridan couldn’t hear Dorothea ominously hissing at Jon.  She may, however have heard the coffee mug being unceremoniously clunked it on the countertop, Jon thought as the dark liquid splashed droplets on his counter. 

“I probably got too much food,” Sheridan’s breathy voice went from muted to crystal clear when she rounded the wall to join them in the kitchen.  “But I would rather…  Oh.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t realize you had company.”

Her footsteps had stopped abruptly, but Jon didn’t pause in his mission, putting the groceries on the counter that flanked the sink.  When he turned, it was to find the two women engaged in a silent standoff.  Dorothea’s arms were folded at her waist, her hip propped against the stovetop.  Sheridan pushed her handbag higher onto her shoulder as she brushed a disobedient tendril of hair from her cheek.  Her eyes were completely discernible. 

He hadn’t been to church in a while, but surely God remembered who he was.  Right?

Jon offered up a silent prayer that this would be short, sweet and uneventful.

“Sheridan, this is my ex-wife, Dorothea.  Dot, this is Sheridan.  My… girlfriend.”