11 - What are the Odds?

Jon swept up the remote control, turning on both the satellite and the television, followed by a flawless navigation to Fox Sports Channel.  Still wielding the remote aloft, like a scepter, he critically informed her, “This is the part where you’re supposed to be impressed.”

“That would be a little arrogant, wouldn’t it?” she asked mildly from her slumped position in the same armchair from last time.  She had immediately gravitated toward it upon entering the room, leaving Jon alone on the couch while she was busy finger-combing and parting her hair.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you didn’t figure it out on your own.  My schematics and instructions are the only reason you were able to do it that well.”

Nice.  He mentally marked her off the list of people to call in the event he ever felt suicidal.

“Petey?” he asked with a playful scowl.  “Has anybody ever told you that you can be a bitch?” 

She continued to plait her hair, unfazed.  “At least once a week.”

Once their chat on the terrace was over, Jon had helped Petey get the ladder positioned to reach everything she needed in the bedroom entertainment center.  Afterward, he went back to his desk and pretended to work while he eavesdropped on her quiet presentation of Constitutional Amendments.

History, electronics and football.  What a combination.

A little “Remote Controls for Dummies” session, and they drifted back to the living room on the first floor to see which game was being televised.  The Ravens and Bengals were almost through the first quarter, with the Bengals leading by a touchdown.

“Are you a gambling woman Petey?”

“Depends on the odds.”

A slow, slightly sneaky grin spread across his face.  “Not a trusting soul, I see.”

“I’m too old for trust.”

“Baby, nobody’s too old for trust.  You just get more selective about it as time goes on.”

The wheels were spinning fiercely behind her narrowed green stare.  He could practically see them. 

“In the interest of being non-confrontational, I’ll simply agree.”

He placed his palms together in a simulation of prayer and dipped his head with gratitude.  “Thank you, Jesus.  And in the interest of earning your trust, I have a proposition.”

“Haven’t you already propositioned me once today?”

“No, actually, I believe it was you who propositioned me, but that’s beside the point.  Are you interested in hearing this or not?”

“I’m slightly curious,” she offered off-handedly, fiddling with the curiously plain pink studs in her right ear – all three of them.

Yeah, a definite gift for understatement. She wouldn’t admit to being interested if it killed her.

“Earlier you said you’d answer a couple of questions because you’d never had better sex in your life - “

“I think you’re paraphrasing,” she interrupted.

He waved her denial away.  “I will take those two questions and bet them on the final score of this game.”

“Go on…”

A-ha.  He had her attention now.

“We each choose a team.  If my team wins, I get to ask one question for every point they win by. And…” He gestured toward the current tally at the bottom of the television screen.  “I’ll even let you have the Bengals since they’re ahead.”

“How generous of you.”

“Hey.  I can be a gentleman.”

Petey chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip, contemplating the pros and cons of his friendly wager.  “And if my team wins?”

“Ladies’ choice,” he proclaimed without hesitation.  “You can have the same opportunity for questions, or simply escape answering mine.  Or…  You can have anything else you want.”

Skepticism colored her tone.  “You’re serious?  Anything?”

“Anything I can give you.”

The way her tongue unconsciously darted out to dampen her bottom lip almost had Jon wishing she would come out on top.

Jesus, Freud would have a field day with this.

“Okay, but I want the Ravens.  They don’t lose at home.”

No.  They didn’t lose at home.  That’s why Jon was offering up the Bengals.  Damn woman wasn’t just a Steelers fan, she was a football fan.  It chagrined as much as it charmed him.

Oh well.  This had been his brainstorm.  He had no choice but to see it through, and was about to agree when she actually bent and gave a little.

“You can keep the two questions from… earlier.”  One black tipped finger went up in the air.  “On one condition, that is.”

So what that the bend was almost unnoticeable and this was still on her terms?  He’d take what he could get.

“The condition?”

“None of those stupid vital statistics questions – My hair color, eye color, favorite color, birthday, family and marital status are all off the table, along with every other question you might find on an eHarmony application.  You’re a songwriter.  Be creative.”

Sorry about her luck, but he was going to have to take immediate exception to one of those taboo topics.

“Marital status?  I’m thinking you need to tell me that outright, Sugar.  Your ring finger is bare and you set the ground rules, so I assumed you were single.  If some guy is gonna start beating on my door because I had sex with his wife, I wanna know and I wanna know now.”

Bright green eyes rounded in mortification.  “God, no I’m not married, you jerk!  Or otherwise attached, for that matter.  Cheating whore isn’t listed on my resume.”

He couldn’t help but laugh.  She had the most random way of saying things.  “I don’t think it would open a lot of professional doors anyway, so that’s good to hear.”

“Shut up.  You know what I meant.”

“I do, and I agree to your terms, even though I can’t believe you’re giving up a seven point lead.”

“You should be happy. It means you’re up by seven questions.”

Right now he didn’t think he could come up with seven questions that met her criteria.  Most of the things eating at him were exactly those types of questions – where she was from, her education, family, real eye color.  Then there were the sexual curiosities – the lack of nipple piercing, aversion to kissing and other oral activities.  Did he really want to lead with sex?  She was being semi-cooperative.  Odds were, if he went with the intimate stuff first, she would retreat into her shell like a turtle.

The game went to a commercial break and gave him the opening to take his first shot.  Her eyes were as good a place to start as any, he supposed.  Now, how to creatively ask about her eye color without asking about her eye color?

“How many different pairs of contacts do you have? Wait,” he interrupted himself before she could answer what he asked instead of what he meant.  “I mean different colors of contacts, not an actual count.”

She was trying to smother her grin.  “You’re getting better at asking.  For that, I’ll give you more than just a number.  I’ve got the full rainbow of ‘normal’ colors plus bright pink, dark red, glow in the dark yellow, cats’ eyes, and a couple pairs of creepy vampire eyes.  The cat or vampire lenses are the surest way to get dismissed early from a family function.  They freak my mother out.”

“Maybe I should get myself some of those,” he pondered, thoughtfully tapping his chin.  “If my mother didn’t make me stay so long at family functions, I may turn up for them more often.”

Jon rose to his feet, pointing an inquiring finger at her.  “Can I get you something to drink?  Another beer?”

“I’d prefer soda if you have it.”

“Sure.  What kind?”

“I don’t suppose you have any Mountain Dew?”

He delved into the trusty mini-fridge and held aloft the distinctive green bottle.  “I have teenagers.  Can’t be without the Dew.  Ice?”

“No, just the bottle.”

She actually smiled at him.  The novelty packed enough of a punch to falter his footsteps on the return trip to the living room.  

He paused beside the chair and she curled her fingers around the plastic bottle, but he held tighter until she lifted her question-filled gaze.

“You have a very pretty smile, Petey.”

She tugged on the bottle, coaxing it to slide from his fingers.  “Thanks.”

If her complexion weren’t so fair, Jon never would have known she was affected by the remark.  The bare hint of a blush creeping across her cheekbones wouldn’t have even been noticeable on most people, but Jon’s ego was thankful it showed on hers.  It was a rare bit of proof that Petey wasn’t as detached as she wanted him to believe.

The game had resumed play and he plunked down on the couch without commenting, leaning forward to dangle his freshly poured wineglass between his knees.  The Ravens were steadily pushing the ball down the field, and silence stretched between them as the activity on the field took precedence.

The quiet held until Petey subtly cleared her throat.

“Yes?” he asked, blue eyes sliding to her tautly held body.

“You don’t have to play the boy/girl games with me.   If you want to have sex, save yourself the effort and just ask.  I doubt it will kill you if I say no.”

“Sugar, if I was trying to get in your pants, it would’ve been a lot more blatant than that.  I was just offering a casual observation.”

Interesting.  The cute little Goth didn’t know how to take a compliment without being suspicious.  That told him more than his next dozen questions would.  She didn’t trust because somebody had screwed her over.  Big time.

“Hasn’t anybody ever told you that?”

Tension pulsed in her jaw and she looked purposefully away from him toward the television.  “Is that your second question?”

Dammit, there she goes into lock-down. You tried to get too personal.  Figure out a way to recover the fumble, Jonny.

“No, my real question is much more important,” he told her easily, reinforcing his casualness with a flash of his teeth.  “What exactly is it that makes you smell like cotton candy?”

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head, hopeful that the diversion was successful by the way she snapped her attention back to him so quickly.

“Nope.  That sweet, sugary smell has been making me crazy.  Where do you think I came up with Sugar?”

One dimple had been coaxed out of hiding, despite the fact that her head shook with something akin to pity. 

Success.

“Lotion.  From Victoria’s Secret.”

“Is that where your girly pink underwear came from too?”

“The Ravens just scored,” she informed him, lifting a hand toward the screen.  “Your lead is gone and so are your questions.”

“Fucking Bengals,” Jon grumbled good-naturedly.

The extra point went through the uprights and the Bengals earned more of his disdain with a fumbled play that the Ravens capitalized into another touchdown.

“You mentioned your kids.  When do you have them?”

Well, well, well.  She’s actually interested enough to ask her own question.  It was a red-letter day in the penthouse.

“Every other weekend.  This is my weekend, but they came a day early to see Richie, so they went back to their mother’s this morning.”

“I see.”

Speaking of Richie…

“Rich mentioned that you guys went out while he was in town.  I’m glad you had a good time together.”

Add another Hail Mary to his penance sheet for the fact that Richie hadn’t told him shit.  So what?  If he was out of questions, would resort to…  What did they call it on Law and Order?  Oh yeah.  Leading the witness.

His speculation must’ve been dead on because Richie’s name coaxed out both dimples.  Rather than getting pissed, Jon consoled himself that, by her own admission in the bedroom, it had been a while since she had sex.  So at least Richie hadn’t slept with her.

“He’s such a nice guy.  It surprises me that you two are friends.”

“What you mean is that I’m not nice, but that’s okay.  Some days I’m not.  And our friendship goes back too many years to make sense,” was his dry response.  “A lifetime, in fact.”

A loud ringing interrupted anything else he might add, and Jon rose with a frown.  Nobody used the house phone anymore, they all called his cell.  Which was lying upstairs on the bathroom vanity, he discovered after patting his pocket.

“Excuse me,” he murmured and chased after the sound drifting in from the kitchen.  He grabbed it from the cradle on the fourth ring.  “Hello?”

“Jesse’s in the emergency room,” Dorothea cut right to the chase, freaking him out a little.  His always composed ex-wife was clearly shaken.  If Dot was shaken, the average woman would have been a hysterical mess.  This was not good.

“What?  Why?  What happened?”

“He got hurt playing football.  We’re at Riverview.  Get over here now.”

“I’m on my way.”

Slamming the receiver back on the phone’s base, Jon strode back to the living room.  “Petey, I’m really sorry to cut this short, but I’ve gotta go.  One of my kids is in the emergency room.”

She was on her feet in a flash, full of concern.  “Of course.  I’ll just grab my jacket and head out.  I hope everything is okay.”

Before he could think about it, or she had the chance to protest, he brushed his lips across her cheek.  “Yeah, me too.  Thanks,” he tossed over his shoulder, running up the stairs for his jacket and shoes.