65 - Ain't Life Grand?

She couldn’t go home and be alone.  She couldn’t call her sister, mother, best friend… or Jon.  Sheridan wasn’t there yet.  She couldn’t say the words out loud.  It would make them undeniably real.

After her brain had re-appropriated custody of an ounce of blood, poor Dr. Waverly had spent the better part of half-an-hour with her.  He dutifully battled her cross-examination and accusations with the expertise of a professional witness.  How did this happen?  Why didn’t the birth control pills work?  She had PMS!!  If there was a chance of her antibiotics reducing their effectiveness, why hadn’t someone told her?  If it was written in the precautions and warnings that the pharmacy issued with her prescription, why wasn’t it highlighted?  Someone was at fault here!

His bedside manner may need improvement, but the good doctor never flinched as he calmly provided a logical response to each and every one of her arguments.  He remained sympathetic, yet matter-of-fact, even through the bandying about of the dreaded ‘malpractice’ word borne of Sheridan’s disbelieving desperation.  Ultimately he advised her to not act rashly, but to think carefully about it.  She had options, if she chose to use them.

She needed to think.

That’s how she came to find herself in the ladies’ department at Saks, absently fingering a leopard-print blouse.  It was something she would never have looked at in the past, but ever since Jon had given her that first scarf, it seemed as though she saw cat-themed things everywhere. 

Automatically checking to see if they had her size, her hand froze.  What difference did it make?  In a short time she wouldn’t be able to button it.  Why the hell was she here?  None of the spring clothes they were beginning to display would fit when spring actually arrived. 

Frustrated, she whirled away from Contemporary Sportswear and trained her sights on the elevator.  Shoes were a woman’s best friend.  They wouldn’t let her down, and they certainly wouldn’t stir her already disturbed emotions.

There were sky-high heels awaiting her attention in the shoe department.  Sexy, open-toed peep shoes, hooker boots, ankle boots, pumps, strappy evening shoes…  The list of shoes went on and on and none of them would be wearable in eight months.  Her waddling body would likely plant one of the pencil-thin heels into the first patch of grass she wandered near.

My life is going to change forever….

Slightly depressed, she moved toward the more comfortable – flatter – shoes. 

It would change her life forever, because her options...  Well, they weren’t options.  Abortion was a flat no.  Adoption wasn’t feasible either.  It was one thing to physically provide the means to make a child.  She knew Madison was biologically half hers, but she never thought of Madi as “hers”.  Having an unknown child out in the world, uncertain if the parents could financially provide for it the way she was able to…  No.  She couldn’t do that. 

Good, bad or indifferent this baby would be hers.

Don’t forget the father.

Yes.  The father.  Who would likely be more devastated than she.   Jon looked fantastic for a forty-nine-year-old man, but he was a forty-nine-year-old man.  There was no way another child had been in his prospectus for the next eighteen-plus years.  There was a very good chance he wasn’t going to be happy.

Tucking her hand inside one of the slouchy, fur-lined boots that were so popular nowadays, she wondered if she was too old to wear them without disgracing herself.  Sheridan lifted her head in search of a salesclerk to request her size, but before she could flag the young man down, something else caught her eye.  Something spotted.

On the other side of the display was a pair of Ugg boots much like the ones she wanted to try for herself.  The only difference was that these were pink.  And leopard-printed.  And teeny, teeny, tiny.   Just the right size for a baby to wear.

Or a little kitten.

If ever there was going to be a sign from that bitch, Karma… this was the one.  It was time to talk to Jon.

❧❧❧

[3:08 PM]KITN:  What does your schedule look like for the rest of the day?

Stifling a little smile, Jon put his guitar aside. 

[3:09 PM]JON:  Just a little homework.  Is this a booty call I hope?

[3:10 PM]KITN: So you’re home?

Not exactly the resounding “hell, yes!” he’d been hoping for, but it was a start.  Once she got here, he could convince her.  Easily.

[3:12 PM]JON:  Yes.  Coming over?

[3:13 PM]KITN:  Yes

Yes?  That’s all he got?  He wasn’t always a stickler for details, but he’d like to know when to expect this little sparkle in his Monday afternoon.

[3:15 PM]JON:  When?

[3:16 PM] KITN:  20 min.

Good.  That meant he had time for a quick shower.

The new song was coming along well.  Very laid back, and indicative of where he was at in his life.  It was written specifically with the movie in mind, but there was the happy coincidence that it reflected him just a little bit, too. 

Pulling a clean Henley from the closet, he decided his jeans were good.  He’d only worn them yesterday when the kids were here and today when he took them to school.  Nobody else had seen him in them, so they weren’t ‘dirty’.  They were well under-used as a matter of fact.  

He twisted the shower handle to ‘scalding’ and impatiently waited for it to get that way. 

Only guys can appreciate broken-in clothes, he thought, stepping under the spray. 

David was a perfect example.  He’d said something similar when Jon called to reschedule dinner for tomorrow night.  He was moaning that Lexi was onto him about his black and white boots, asking if he was ever going to get rid of the ugly things.  First of all, Dave didn’t think they were ugly.  He loved those homely fashion statements and he would hold onto them until the soles were worn out.  Then he’d probably have them resoled for another go-around. 

Richie also got it.  Not quite so much, because he was a fashion guru nowadays.  He only wore his clothes half as long, just so he could pimp them by being a live mannequin.  At least, Jon assumed he was still schlepping clothes.  When several calls and text messages had gone unanswered, he resorted to calling Richie’s house phone and, in the process, connected with Grace.  His guitarist still wasn’t speaking to him, according to her.

He considered it a fortunate twist of fate to have reached the housekeeper and spent a bit of time talking to the woman, asking her input as to Richie’s general well-being.  He did everything but flat-out ask her if she went to the tabloids about her employer’s drinking, but she seemed like the same Grace he’d met on a dozen different occasions.  Very abrupt, up-front and in your face.  He just couldn’t see her tattling out of school. 

He didn’t think. 

I’m not worrying about that now, he thought, slinging the towel around his neck and brushing his teeth.  Right now he was looking forward to a very enjoyable visit with his girlfriend.  Depending on what she had going on, maybe dinner and a sleepover, too.

Jon was just padding back into the lower-level living room when he heard the discreet chime that signaled the arrival of the elevator.

Good timing.

He detoured from the sofa to the foyer and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and a ready smile for the woman who had managed to capture his heart.  When the doors slid open, though, she didn’t have quite the same smile he did.  In fact, he thought her smile looked strained – or pained.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up and his muscles tensed.  Something was up?

“Hi,” he greeted her, stepping forward with open arms and silently inviting her into them.  She accepted the invitation, but only long enough to press a quick kiss to his cheek.  Afterward, she immediately back-pedaled, shrugging her shoulder to hike up the large bag dangling from it. 

“Hi.”

“Uh…  You gonna take off your coat?”

She nodded her head, now shifting the bag from her shoulder to the floor while she shimmied out of the black leather jacket to reveal the soft red sweater that he liked so well.  When the jacket was properly hanging, she retrieved the bag from the floor and reseated it on her shoulder, pushing the hair back from her forehead. 

“We need to talk, Jon.”

For once, he wished he’d been wrong.  It would’ve been nice to believe everything was hunky dory in Love Land, but no good ever came from a conversation that started with those four words:  we need to talk.

“Alright.  You want some coffee?”

She opened her mouth to answer before apparently having second thoughts.  Her hair swung around her shoulders when she declined with a shake of the head. 

He nodded, gesturing for her to precede him into the living room, where she perched on the edge chocolate sofa, the bag taking a spot beside her right food.  Sheridan wasn’t meeting his eyes, frowning thoughtfully into the wood burning fireplace as he sank down beside her.

What the hell is going on?  You’d think she was about to dump me.

“I have some news,” she quietly interrupted his thought.  “I have slightly bad news and life-changing news.  Which do you want first?”

He abhorred questions like that.  Both were obviously going to be some kind of shit he didn’t want to hear.  Why did he have to choose the order in which they hit the fan?

“Just tell me what you’re gonna tell me.”

A magazine was produced from the gargantuan bag and flicked onto the coffee table before she reclined into the sofa.  The cover was pink and bore a blonde girl in a form-fitting,  sparkly dress that was the same shade of pink as the background. 

Cosmopolitan Magazine.  He already didn’t like where this was going.

Her head lolling back into the cushions, Sheridan took – what he perceived to be – a fortifying breath.  “The Cosmo article didn’t get pulled.  There wasn’t time, for one reason and I had already signed the contract for another.  But… Bridget did get my real name pulled from the byline and replaced with a  pseudonym.”  Her mouth curled up with faint amusement as inched her head around and flicked a glance at him.  “Stormy Kingston.”

He immediately made the connection and knew what she’d done.  Hell, it was kind of clever and he might have been amused, too, if there wasn’t a trepidation lurking behind her amusement.  That trepidation was making him tense and he cracked his knuckles, ready for the other shoe to drop.

“Okay,” he sighed, knowing this wasn’t the last he would hear about this fucking article.  Knowing it as sure as he was sitting here, but he pushed the ominous feeling aside.  Rather, he pushed that ominous feeling aside.  There was another one still hanging tough.  “I’m not happy, but there’s nothing to be done about it.  It is what it is and I hope I’m wrong about it biting us in the ass.  Now… was that slightly bad or life-changing?”

“Slightly bad.”

Why was he not surprised?  Oh yeah.  Because the frown-lines around her mouth had only gotten deeper after that revelation. 

“Okay.  So give me the other.”

Lifting her head, she sat up and slowly pivoted in her seat, turning to face him with an aura of stoic resignation.  When emerald eyes locked into his, Jon was victim to a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach – the likes of which he hadn’t felt since This Left Feels Right caught ten different kinds of hell from the fans.  Call it premonition, call it a flashback from that fucking fortune teller, call it whatever the hell you wanted.  He knew this was going to be bad.

“I went to the doctor today for more antibiotics, but he said I didn’t need them.  He also said the last round of antibiotics interfered with the effectiveness of my birth control pills.”

No.  Jesus, don’t let this end the way I think it’s going to end.

“I’m pregnant, Jon.”

His eyelids immediately fell shut as he absorbed the impact of the words.  Images came rushing at him in the darkness of his mind, one after the other:  a squalling baby Romeo, a fussy baby Stephanie, a demanding baby Jesse, an always-wide-awake baby Jacob.  Unhappy, discontent, loud, opinionated, needy, and demanding babies. 

He loved his kids with all his heart, but he loved them now – as individual people who had opinions and voices.  Not as bald, miniature old people who knew no other way to get their point across other than to scream themselves blue in the face.

For Christ’s sake, he was almost fifty.  The patience required for babies had been a stretch for him the first four times.  He damn sure didn’t have it now, when he should be hitting the relaxation stage of his life.  The only babies in his realm should be at a distant point on the horizon, like after Steph and Jesse each married and brought their babies to visit – and took them home again.

“Jon?”

“Did you do this on purpose?”

The cold-hearted sonofabitch inside of him, the one usually kept on call for business negotiations, pushed his way to the forefront without Jon’s permission.  The harsh words were a surprise, even to him.

If you had asked him to predict his initial reaction to this kind of news, those words wouldn’t have been anywhere on the top ten list.  But Jon didn’t like surprises, especially ones that he was going to spend the rest of his life financially liable for.  It made him angry and his mouth ran on emotion instead of logic.

Sheridan only allowed his slur to blindside her for a heartbeat before anger contorted her pretty face into a bitter twist.  Admirably enough, she managed to keep her tone civil in the face of his hurled accusation.

“Don’t you dare insult me that way.  I’m not some scheming, conniving bitch, and I’m not exactly overjoyed about this either.”  She pushed to her feet and crossed her arms at her waist, drifting toward the windows and away from him.  “You have every right to be angry, but it isn’t all about you.  This week with Mandi had only solidified my opinion that being childless was the right choice for me.  Maternal is not in my genetic make-up.  At least you know you can be a good father.”

He snorted, collapsing back into the couch cushions and throwing his right ankle onto his left knee.  “Yeah, because I don’t have a kid in counseling and three more who are screwed up but manage to hide it better.  Please… let’s bring another one into the fray.  Maybe I can find a new and interesting way to emotionally scar this one.”

She whirled on him, hard lines etched around her mouth and in her forehead.  “You don’t have to be a part of this, you know.”

“The hell I don’t.”  Rising to his feet, he strode to the window and gave her the same hard look.  “I’ve never shirked a responsibility and I ain’t plannin’ to start now.”

“Gee, don’t I feel special, right up there with filing your income taxes?”

Guilt should be pushing to the forefront, but he couldn’t seem to find it in him to care that he’d been tactless.  He was in crisis management mode and he wasn’t apologizing for being the guy who managed a crisis.  It was better than throwing her out of his house because he didn’t have the balls to deal with it.  He would deal with it, by God.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, grow up.  Life isn’t some endless damn parade of rainbows and love sonnets. Obviously.”

He barely had time to snatch her wrist in a restraining grip before she slapped the shit out of him.

“Now’s probably not the time to ask if  you want to get married, I guess,” he gritted.

If looks could kill, Jon’s brains would be splattered throughout the entire downstairs.   She jerked free of her imprisonment and defiantly re-crossed her arms.   “No, it’s not and no, I don’t.”

“We’ll discuss it later, then, because my kid won’t be a bastard.”

“Jesus!” she cried, this time throwing her hands in the air.  “In the space of ten seconds I go from being a conniving bitch to the incubator for YOUR kid.  Sheridan is still right here, you know.  I’m still the same woman you supposedly loved when you left my apartment yesterday.”

“Goddamn it, I’m  handling this the best way I know how!”

“Yeah, well, your handling sucks.”

Growling under his breath, Jon crammed his hands in his pockets and locked into a stare-down with her.   Her jaw was set in stone and she was ready to fight him tooth-and-nail.  God knew she would, too.

Jon didn’t want to fight.  He wanted this to go away, but in lieu of that, he wanted the situation under control.  Anger was merely his way of attempting to control chaos and he was going to have to find a better method before this shit got completely out of hand.

Get your shit together, Bongiovi.  You have diplomacy out the ass.  Use a little of it.

“Fine.  I’ll try again,” he huffed, forcibly softening his tone and his stance.  “This isn’t something I wanted to happen, but I’m not going to run because it did.  And it isn’t a ‘you’ or a ‘me’ thing, it’s an ‘us’ thing – from now until… forever.  Both of you will have my support.”

She blinked at him, silent for at least an eternity – in his mind.  At the very least it was long enough to make him antsy and annoyed before Sheridan’s stance and facial expression softened in accordance with his.  Her voice softened too, barely audible when she said, “Thank you.”

“C’mere.”  Anger, annoyance and antsiness diffused by those two softly-spoken words, he curled his fingers around her wrist and propelled her forward.  To his surprise, she stepped willingly into his arms, subjecting herself to his gentle scolding.  “I don’t ‘supposedly’ love you, Sheridan.  It wasn’t my dick talking when I told you I loved you.  I meant it, and that doesn’t change on a whim.”

Nodding her understanding, she curled her arms around his waist and let her weight sag against him.  “I never wanted this, Jon.  I didn’t.”

Sighing, he cinched his arms tight, keeping her close.  “I know, baby.  Neither did I, but it’s gonna be okay.  We’ll get through this and we’ll do it together.”

Along with my kids, your family, my family, my ex-wife and every fuckin’ tabloid in the entire goddamn world.  Ain’t life grand?