95 - An Evening at Home

“Hey.” 

Sheridan looked up from where she was chopping a salad and smiled.  Jon had been gone for most of the day and she was surprised at how much she’d missed his presence.  “Hey.  How was your day?”

“It was good.”  He twirled her into a loose embrace and slanted his mouth over hers, immediately diving his tongue inside.  The knife she’d been using to cut a tomato hit the floor when one wide palm came up to cradle the back of her head.  For whatever reason, he was doing everything in his power to kiss her senseless. 

When he finally let her up for air, she was breathless.  “Holy shit, did you miss me that much?”

He chuckled, dropping one more kiss against her lips before releasing her and retrieving the knife from the floor.  They were both lucky not to have been stabbed in the foot.

“Not that much,” he admitted, placing the sharp utensil in the sink and turning to prop his backside against the counter.  “That was more like a combination miss you/thank you thing.”

“Well, seeing as my lazy butt was here all day doing pretty much nothing, I’m not sure what you’d be thanking me for.  But if you’ll tell me I’ll do it again!”

Folding his arms over his chest, he grinned lopsidedly at her.  “You didn’t call Steph yesterday?”

“Oh, that.”  She withdrew a clean knife from the drawer and went back to her cutting board, not particularly having wanted him to find out about that call.  It was fine that he had, of course, but...  “I take it your trip to Hamilton went well, then?”

“Very well, but were you going to tell me that you invited her to the party?”

The last of the tomatoes were dumped on top of the lettuce and carrots, and she pulled a cucumber near, cutting both ends off neatly before guiding the blade to begin removing the peel.  “If she came, I would have.  Otherwise, probably not.”

“I don’t like secrets, Sheridan.”

She paused in her peeling, letting her eyes connect with his.  “And I don’t like seeing you wander by a generic, Stephanie-free bedroom like a lost puppy.  If you knew she’d been specifically invited and didn’t show up, it would’ve been worse.”

Engaging in a silent stand-off with her for a long moment, he finally dipped his chin in acknowledgement.  “Maybe.  Did you talk about anything else.”

Sheridan began dicing her now-peeled cucumber.  “I just suggested that maybe you’d already paid enough penance for your transgression.  She laughed and said she’d think about it.  Then she congratulated me on the baby and welcomed me to the family.  She seems to be a good kid.”

“Yeah, she is,” he concurred in a proud papa tone.  “And still idealistic enough to believe she can save the world.”

“I hope our baby has that kind of conviction.”  The quiet words were murmured without conscious thought as she scraped the last of the salad contents from the cutting board to the bowl.  When she turned to take the remnants to the garbage disposal, it was to find Jon grinning at her. 

Reaching for her, he rubbed a hand over the front of her Forty-Niners sweatshirt, where their baby was hiding.  “With you for a mama, our baby will have enough conviction to save this world plus another one.  Guaranteed.”

Sheridan blinked up into his face before rising onto her tiptoes and pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his lips.  “You’re trying so hard to make me love it.  Thank you.”

“I’m not trying to ‘make’ you do anything other than see that you already love him.”

She smiled affectionately, patting his cheek and choosing to ignore most of what he’d just said, because he didn’t understand.  Her hopes were the same for their child as they were Desiree and Matt’s – as anyone’s.  She wasn’t a bad person, she just...  didn’t feel anything.  “Still think it’s a boy, huh?”

Returning the smile with a shrug he clarified, “Him or her, I don’t care just so long as we’re not referring to the baby as ‘it’.”

“Mm.  Do you want dinner or did you eat already?”

He arched an expressive eyebrow in her direction, telling her in no uncertain terms that he knew she was changing the subject.  Rather than call her on it, though, he chose to follow along. 

“I want dinner.  What are we having?”

“Nothing fancy.  Rosemary chicken, rice pilaf and a salad.  Oh!”  She snapped her head up with a wide smile, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth momentarily with excitement.  “That reminds me.  Do we have any plans for Valentine’s Day?”

The expression on his face was almost comical.  Sheepish eyes darted to the far wall of the kitchen, his feet shuffled uncomfortably and his mouth opened and closed twice before he cleared his throat and said, “Not yet.  I was trying to come up with something for you, but the truth is I suck at Valentine’s Day and usually ignore it.  And hating Valentine’s Day is not grounds for a divorce, just so you know.”

A delighted laugh bubbled out of her throat as she handed him the salad bowl.  “Put that on the table in the breakfast nook, please.  And I had a sneaking suspicion that you might be anti-Cupid before I married you.  That’s why I accepted a dinner invitation for us.”

“Oh yeah?  From who?”  The bowl was placed in the center of the table and he started fumbling through the cabinets looking for plates as she pulled the chicken from the oven. 

“Suzy and Karl and Riley and Mitch.”

Fighting dinner crowds on Valentine’s wasn’t something Jon was particularly looking forward to, but she seemed to be excited about it.  It was one of the few times, lately, that he’d seen her relaxed and happy.  If dinner with her sister and friend made her happy, then he would do it.

“Sounds good.  Where we going?”

“Mezzaluna.”  She transferred the chicken to their plates and asked him to get silverware and napkins while she fixed him a glass of wine and herself some apple juice. 

“Mezzaluna.  I don’t think I know that place?”  His features drew into a thoughtful frown as he slid into his chair.  “Or do I?”

She grinned as she slid into the seat across from him at the small in-kitchen dining table, looking for all the world like a mischievous little girl with a secret.  “You might not know the place, but you’ve had something from there.”

“You gonna tell me what that is?”

If it was possible, her grin grew bigger.  “Tiramisu, baby.”

“No.”  He shook his head definitively, not at all pleased with the plan.  Not that he really cared where they ate, but...  “You are not taking me out in public, in a group and having a food-induced orgasm across the table when I can’t do a fucking thing about it.  That’s not even right.”

Her eyes twinkled with glee and she giggled like the little girl he’d just compared her to in his mind.  “I’ll make it up to you when we get home.”

“Well thank you for thinking I can wait to get home, but that ain’t happenin’.  We’re in the ‘burbs now, baby.  I think I’ll need to call my good friends at the Four Seasons and you may as well plan on taking a doggy bag to the hotel with us.”

He watched her cut her chicken and eat the dainty bite with an elegance that defied her messy topknot and sweatshirt.  The contrast would never cease to fascinate him. 

“You’re crazy if you think I can do take-away after eating there!  I already feel fat eating chicken and salad.  After pasta and a decadent dessert, there’s no way I’ll have room for more decadence.”

“Oh, ho, ho,” he chortled, shaking his fork at her.  “I beg to differ.  There will be decadence.  Maybe it won’t be tiramisu, but by God, you will pay for letting a dessert leave cream in your panties.”

“Jon!”  Pink stained her cheeks at the bawdy declaration.

“Sheridan!” he mocked with a lopsided leer.  “I can be as politically correct as anybody, but when we’re home alone I don’t wanna be, so congratulations.  You get to live with the often-coveted ‘true’ personality of Jon Bon Jovi.”

“Fine.  Say whatever you want, but promise you won’t talk about me creaming my panties to anybody else?”

“Say you’ll bring a doggy bag to the Four Seasons.”

He was nothing if not a master negotiator.  He committed to nothing without getting what he wanted first. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Nope.  And... wasn’t there something about you wanting to taste it on my lips?” he recalled with an inquisitive tip to his head.  “You can’t very well do that in the middle of a fancy Italian restaurant with your sister and your best friend.”

She carefully put down both her knife and fork, folding her forearms on the table’s surface.  “Can we go into the city early so I can go shopping?”

Maybe he could take negotiation lessons from his wife.   She had artfully turned this into a game of answering questions with questions.  Was she even aware of it?

Jon withheld a smirk. 

He didn’t mind playing along – just in case.

“What are you shopping for?”

“Have you seen me tonight?” she asked, pulling at the front of her sweatshirt.  He’d thought it a little strange to find her wearing a faded sweatshirt since she normally always wore an ‘outfit’ kind of thing, even at home. 

“Is there something wrong with the way you look?”

She huffed with annoyance.  “Do you want to be married to a hag?”

Okay, that wasn’t fair.  He had to be very careful as to how he answered that question.  She was pregnant and clearly not happy about something to do with her appearance.  The wrong response could get him in all kinds of matrimonial trouble.

“You think you look like a hag?”

She pinned him with a look that would’ve made the devil quake in his hooves if she hadn’t softened it with the hint of a smile.  “I think if you ask me one more question, I’m going to turn from a hag into a wicked witch.”

Point, set and match.  I win!

The mentality of a competitive teenage boy always dwelled just below the surface of his maturity.  Fortunately, his old side had enough control over his young side to put him in a headlock and dare him to speak.

“You couldn’t look like a hag if you tried,” he appeased her, spearing a tomato from his salad and popping it in his mouth.  He meant that.  “So what’s the deal with the sweatshirt?”

Pulling at the garment that obviously offended her, she snorted in disgust.  “It’s about the only thing that hides this growth at my middle section.” 

More of her de-personalization of their child.  The damn stubborn woman was determined that she was a human petri dish or something equally non-human.  It was starting to exasperate him.

“It’s a baby.  Come on, say it with me...  ba-by.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.  “Shut up.  I know it’s a baby, but I’m not ready to look pregnant yet – especially on Valentine’s Day.  I want something to wear that doesn’t emphasize the fact that I’m rapidly losing my waistline.”

He guessed that was something he could understand.  It reminded him of his fear of becoming the fat Elvis.  If she wanted something to make her feel less rotund – even though the bump was barely noticeable – then, by all means, she should have it.  Her feeling sexy was the key to him getting lucky tomorrow night. 

“Then go shopping.”

He had some shopping of his own to do, anyway.