Chapter 108

By the time the end of the week rolled around, Tessa was so horny, frustrated and lonely she could have stood on the top of her building and screamed. It would have been better if he’d been in a different state, but the fact that he was less than ten minutes away from her and she couldn’t see him…yeah it was driving her nuts. She understood the need to keep their new relationship from the kids, but hell. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “God, can you get anymore selfish, Tess?” she said out loud.

“Don’t forget spoiled, and greedy,” Nic said over her shoulder. “Yup, that’s you.”

She blushed and turned around. “I gotta stop talking to myself.”

“Well that’s the only way I learn things so please don’t.”

Tessa looked down at the serene blue carpeting that was currently just pissing her off. Screw serenity, she wanted to find the nearest punching bag and get some aggression out; her treadmill just wasn’t cutting it. “I know, I’m sorry. I can’t even get my own brain wrapped around Jon let alone talk about him.”

“Honey, you gotta talk to me. That’s my primary function as best friend, you know.” She wrapped her arm around her. “You haven’t been letting me do my job. You’ve been stewing in that back office for days now.”

“Because I feel stupid,” she sighed and let her head drop back. “I need to get myself under control here. He’s going to be gone for days…weeks!” She bit back the shout and took a deep breath, “At a time and I’m so churned up to see him now. What the hell happened to me? Why is he making me nuts like this?”

“Well there’s a difference between missing your guy when he’s out of town and missing your guy when he’s ten minutes down the road. I knew the kid thing was going to bug you sooner or later,” Nic sighed.

Tessa grabbed her forearm, “I don’t have any problem with the kids! I like his kids!” She didn’t seem that way, did she? She’d never really thought about having them herself but she liked his carbon copies. And a few of them were so like him it was eerie.

“No!” Nichole started laughing. “No, not like that. I mean because you’re separate from that part of his life. You’re not built that way, that’s all. No one wants to be the dirty little secret forever. It’s fun at first, but then it just...Well it just isn’t.”

“Well they kinda know about me,” she began. “They’ve met me indirectly and I understand the need to be careful. It feels like we’ve been together forever, but it really hasn’t been that long. Those kids mean more-“ she stopped herself.

“More to him than you do?”

“No!” Tessa back-peddled, “It’s a totally different thing.”

“Maybe in your head it is, but your heart is a totally different thing…it’s irrational and silly sometimes, even spiteful when you come right down to it. It’s okay, to feel that way as long as you don’t let it come between you two. But that doesn’t mean you keep all this stuff inside. That’s what you have me for,” Nic dragged her close for a hug and Tessa sagged against her. “So I can tell you that you’re stupid.”

“I am stupid,” she mumbled with her smooshed cheek against her best friend’s shoulder.

“Call him.”

“I don’t want to bug him,” she said on a sigh.

“You won’t be. He probably wants to hear from you.” She pulled back. “In fact, call him for my sake so I don’t have to look at your pouty face anymore today.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. “What would I do without you?”

“Pray you never find out, because you need my smarts, because you can be pretty stupid for such an educated chick!” Nic smirked over her shoulder and headed back to the front of the store. “Call him!” She called out.

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed. Nibbling on her thumb, she flipped open her cell and texted him: Are you alone? And slid the phone back into her pocket trying not to feel stupid.

She hefted a stack of re-shelves and busied herself with a few customers as she waited for his response. When her pants buzzed and she heard the soft tinkle of her text message tone she slid in the back and opened her phone. One word, Yes was all she needed to see. Snapping it shut she grabbed her purse and coat and called to Nic. “Can you handle things for a little bit?”

She waved, “Go! Please! Patty’s here and we’ll be fine.”

Laughing she pushed open the door and headed to her car. Trying not to think about anything too closely she unlocked her car and headed out to his house. Using her code at the gate she pulled in and breathed a quick sigh of relief when she saw both of his cars in the drive. She tried the front door, surprised to see it open and no housekeeper to be found. He generally kept the place locked up just in case an overzealous fan decided the front gate wasn’t enough of a deterrent.

“Jon!” she called out. When she didn’t get an answer, she headed into the den where he spent most of his time. When she didn’t find him there either she headed to the kitchen then upstairs. Frowning she went outside and flicked the lock open so she could get back in. She nibbled on her thumb again and followed instinct, making her way to the studio behind the house.

Not sure if she should just walk in, or knock or if he could even hear her she cracked her knuckles. Was it soundproof on the inside too? Turning the knob she finally heard some life, an acoustic guitar and sniffling to be exact. Not wanting to intrude, she called out his name again.

“In here, babe,” he called out.

She stepped through a maze of couches, boards with more buttons than she could count and a row of Styrofoam cups that went from one end of a square table to the other. The guitar was mellow and haunting, with a bit of country to it. She could hear the pluck and the strumming and the knock of his hand against the strings as he started over. She followed the sound and found him on a small swivel chair, his head tipped back with a heavy sigh and a sniff. His beat up black acoustic held loosely in his lap and his hair was mussed around his angular jaw. Was he crying?

She rounded to him, caught his blurry eyes and bright red nose and laughed. “Aww, Stephanie brought the cold to you, huh?”

He nodded, perfectly miserable and pale. “I really wanted to call you and ask you to come over, but look at me,” he said with a nasaly voice that ended in stuffed up consonants.

Reaching around him from the back she settled her arm around his neck and pressed her cheek to his. “Why aren’t you in bed?” she asked and hissed at the heat he was giving off. “Darlin’ you have a fever, you shouldn’t be in the studio.”

“Every time I lay down the room spins, so I figured I’d get some work done.”

“And how’s that working out for ya?”

“I don’t know, I can’t hear the notes right through the snot.”

Laughing she lifted the surprisingly light guitar off his lap. She looked around and found a guitar stand and set it inside before she turned back to him. She held out a hand. “C’mon let me put you to bed with some fluids and cold meds.”

“I told you, it makes me dizzy and then my stupid stomach pitches,” he whined.

“Good thing this is the first time you’re sick with me or I’d tell you to suck it up.” She tugged him out of the chair. “I promise that if you still feel dizzy you can get up.”

“Gee thanks,” he mumbled, but he followed her. She waited for him to lock up, turn off lights and shut down the board he had fired up to record just in case. Sliding her hand along his back she hugged into him, needing to touch regardless of his state of sickness. “Babe, you’re gonna get sick if you keep touching me.”

“Worth it,” she said and pressed a kiss along his jaw. He followed her into the house through the kitchen door without another word and didn’t even complain when she pushed him into a seat at the table. She grinned over her shoulder as he propped his head on his fist, sprawled in the chair sniffing intermittently. “Cold meds?” she asked.

“Skinny cupboard on the left,” he mumbled.

She opened it and punched two dark green tablets through the back of the pack into her hand. She rummaged through the cabinets until she found a box of Mrs. Grass soup in the back of the dried goods and set it to cooking.

“I’m not hungry,” he groused.

“Did you eat at all today?” she asked, knowing that he’d either forgotten or was too sick to want to.

“Yes,” he lied.

She leaned over the table and met his gaze.

“No,” he muttered.

Tessa turned back to the stove and finished stirring the chicken soup with the super salty content that tasted so good when you were sick. At least it was what her mom used to fix it for her. Setting the bowl in front of him with a spoon she simply said, “Eat.”

She could see him warring with stubbornness and knew she’d won when he took a deep lungful of broth and steam and moaned a little. She puttered in the kitchen as he ate, setting up a large bottle of water, more meds and a stash of cough drops she found in the same skinny cabinet on a tray.

He finished and stood, bringing his bowl to her and looping his arms around her waist. “I’m a foul patient,” he said in way of apology as he rested his chin on her shoulder and hugged her from the back.

Twisting in his arms she pressed her cheek against his hot chest and brushed her cheek against the soft hair that tufted from the V of his t-shirt. “Good thing I ignore grouchy men on principle.” Leaning back she lifted her hand to his cheek. “You really are hot, darlin’.”

“Thanks,” he croaked out.

Laughing because he was so obviously looking for it, she lifted her hand to his forehead. “Soup didn’t help too much, huh?”

“I could breathe for the about ten minutes,” he said helpfully.

She kissed along his neck and reached for the cabinet again and added aspirin to the tray. “Okay, upstairs with you.”

“Are you going to tuck me in?” he asked as he clasped his hands at the small of her back.

She let her hand rest on his chest, fussing with the collar of the shirt as her fingers toyed with the soft hair. “Yes, before I go back to the store.”

“Oh,” he pouted…literally.

She laughed at his jutted out lower lip. “I’ll come back tonight if you want.”

“Yeah?” he said with a tired smile. “My daughter abandoned me. She brought this stupid flu into the house then up and left me when I started coughing this morning. She of course didn’t get it and doesn’t want to get it.” He pressed his forehead to hers and she hissed at the heat there. “God, I feel like shit.”

“Well c’mon let’s get you upstairs and you can try to sleep.”

When she got him settled she started to draw away when he hooked an arm around her waist. “Leaving already? The room’s not spinning now, maybe you should stay. It must be all your Florence Nightingale stuff that’s working.”

Laughing, she sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard as he settled against her thigh. He sighed, his hand smoothing over her waist as his thumb found its way under her sweater to caress distracting circles at her hip. “I’ll stay for a bit,” she said in a husky voice. It really wasn’t fair that he could stir her up, even sick. How pathetic was she?

“This is not exactly what I was thinking for the next time I got you in my bed.”

Laughing and falling back on humor, she said, “What? I always make you hot.”

He laughed and slid his hand up further until he brushed a knuckle along the underside of her breast. “That you do, though I prefer a totally different kind of fever, thanks.”

She batted at his hands. “Hey now, that’s no way to treat your nursemaid.” She groaned as her nipple reacted instantly. Even sick, he could heat her flesh ridiculously.

“Hey, come over in the nurse’s outfit later and I’ll promise to be a bad boy,” he said with a sniff, somewhat ruining the fantasy.

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his slightly cooler forehead. The meds were starting to kick in, she could feel him pressing into her as his head fell against her thigh and his breathing began to even out. “I look forward to it,” she said softly as he sighed and his hand dropped away from her skin.

Not exactly what she’d been looking for when she took a trip out to his house, but her visit had eased the crazies that had taken over her brain that morning. She slipped away when she heard his soft snore of congested sleep and returned to the store with a smile.

She finished out the day and returned with paperwork and more meds, juice and met Lottie at the door. “Hey, there you are. I wondered where you were earlier,” she said in way of greeting.

“Here, let me take that,” Lottie hustled over to her. “I was out shopping for the sick one upstairs,” she said and dug into the bag. “Oh good, more juice. He’s woken up a few times and only wanted juice.”

“When’s the last time you got him to take something?”

She waved at the stairs. “He tells me he’s taking them every four hours but the medicine pack looks the same as when I checked on him earlier.”

Tessa hefted her laptop case and took a glass of juice from Lottie and tucked a bottle of water in her bag. “Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re good for him,” she said as Tessa headed to the stairs.

She turned back to the housekeeper, “Thanks, Lottie. I hope so, because I don’t know what I’d do without him now.”

Lottie clasped her hands with a bright smile. “Exactly what I want to hear,” she beamed.

She climbed the stairs to find him sprawled on his bed, shirt tossed aside and his hair sweaty with fever. Tending to him quickly she woke him enough to get some medicine into him before he settled back into his pillows with a hoarse cough and a shudder. She climbed into bed next to him and prayed that she didn’t get the same level of flu when she inevitably got it. Unable to call herself foolish, she opened her laptop to work.