83 - Misunderstood

Petey padded from the bedroom and sat at the dining table, folding a leg under her.  Jon was at the head of the table pouring cream into a coffee cup.  When he had stirred the contents, he slid it toward her.

“Do you want something to eat?  There are bagels, Danish, croissants and fruit.”

The dark cherry table reminded her of the one at her grandmother’s house, shined to such a high gloss that she could see herself in the surface.  She reached across her reflection for a small plate, which she filled with a croissant and a couple of plump strawberries.

“I do have one really simple question,” Jon mentioned casually while pouring his own coffee.  Selecting a Danish from the assortment of food, he asked, “Patience what?  What does the T stand for?”

The silly, off-the-wall question diffused some of her tension, and Petey popped the end of a strawberry in her mouth and chewed through her smirk.  “I should make you guess.”

“Nuh-uh,” he mumbled around his own bite of Danish.  “I’ve waited almost two months to find out your first name.  You gotta toss me some kinda bone, Baby.”

“I’m going to kind of miss having secrets to taunt you with.”  Ingesting a cautious sip of coffee, she swallowed and frowned at the hot liquid sliding down her throat.  “It’s Teagan, after my birth mother.  She was Irish.”

He gave a thoughtful nod.  “Black Irish?”

“Mm-hmm.”  She broke off a small piece of the croissant and popped it into her mouth.  “That’s the blue eyes and black hair.”

He polished off the last of his food and leaned forward on his elbows, hand curled loosely around his coffee cup.  “I didn’t realize I’d be happy to find that the pink was still in your hair.  I guess maybe you wouldn’t seem like you without it.”

That was a big deal for him, she thought.  Maybe he would actually step into the light of day with her, after all.  Eventually.

“You finished?”  He’d seen that she picked up a piece of the pastry only to put it back on the plate. 

“I think so.”  The closer it got to the inevitable, the more her throat wanted to constrict.  She didn’t think anything else would go down. 

He snuck his hand across the small span of table separating them, and laced his fingers together with hers.  “Then it’s time.  Talk to me.  Tell me why you ran away.”

One corner over her mouth pulled back as she chose the words she wanted to use.  “I ran away because I had to have some time to think about what I was going to do, and because you were going to be furious.”  Sighing, she told him, “We had already been fighting so often.  I wasn’t up to doing it again.”

“Baby, I told you that I would fix whatever was wrong.  I meant it.”

“It wasn’t your problem to fix.”  She gently untwined their fingers, using her free hand to tuck hair behind her right ear.  “Let me start with New Year’s and I’ll go back after that.”

Her fingers mindlessly twirled in the already tangled mess of hair as she let her mind go back. 

“After we argued outside the ladies’ room, I spent some time inside there thinking.  I was actually headed back into the party to find you and talk when Daniel grabbed me and shoved me out the side door.”

His features darkened ominously, his eyes deteriorating to a stormy shade of blue.  Petey laughed softly, touching his cheek and then reaching for his abandoned hand.  “See?  You’re already getting mad.”

“Would you want me if I weren’t?”

Would she?  His passion for what he believed in was an integral part of who he was, and a quality that she admired.   At the very least, she could acknowledge that she appreciated his protectiveness.

“You have a point,” she murmured, and continued with her account of events.  “Anyway, I didn’t exactly go along willingly so he had to hold me against the building to keep me there.  His forearm caused the bruise on my neck.”  His hand squeezed hers and his face puckered unhappily.  “I could give you the sordid details, but there’s really no reason.  The bottom line is that he’s blackmailing me.”

“Sonofabitch,” Jon muttered.  “What does he have on you?”

A sad sigh of resignation eked itself out.  “You.”

“Don’t revert to the one-word answers.  What about me?”

“This is the part you’re not going to like,” she warned, dreading the outcome of this revelation.  “So keep a leash on the temper.  Please?”

His glare was totally uncompromising.  “I haven’t liked any of it so far.  If it gets worse, I make no promises.  Just tell me.”

Her free hand came to join the one clasped in his, sandwiching their hands together.  “Do you remember the day that we had sex in my apartment?  When you tied me up?”  A short, silent nod bid her to continue.  “He has pictures.”

“What?”  Pulling free, he made a visible effort to control his decibel level when he elaborated.  “How the hell did that cocksucker get pictures of us?” Jon ground out.

So Petey explained about Gavin, Daniel following her around all day, and the fire escape.

“He showed me the pictures on his phone,” Petey tried to get to the part where she was taking care of the situation.  “Daniel only has his work computer, and I have a former student who is over the networks at the University.  Reese helped me confirm that Daniel uploaded the pictures to his computer and transferred them to at least three different external storage devices.  One, he gave to me.  I have no idea where the other two are, and until I do we continue to have a potential disaster on our hands.”  She watched him pace agitatedly alongside the table.  “I know how important your reputation is to you, Jon, and I’m really sorry that you got put in this position because of me.”

The look of anger he shot her way was withering, but the only thing he asked was a gritted, “What is he blackmailing you for?”

“That gets a little more complicated.”  Petey leaned forward, planting her elbows on the glossy cherry surface of the table.  “He wants me to marry him, stop being a whore and resume my life as a respectable woman for starters.”

His feet came to an immediate standstill and a stiffly held head pivoted slowly to where she sat.  “That motherfucker did not call you a whore.”

“Mm.”  She was trying to keep the worst of the details to a minimum, but facts were facts, and if she were honest?  It was nice having someone be indignant on her behalf.  Still, the little devil inside her couldn’t help but point out, “You called me a slut not ten minutes before that.”

His righteous anger was pricked with a sharp arrow of remorse, deflating it into a blustering bravado as he stood there, hands on hips.  “One, I never said those words, and two, I apologized for what I did say as soon as it was out of my mouth.  I sure as hell didn’t mean it.”

“Actually,” she pressed delicately, ashamed to admit that her feelings were still smarting over his most recent fit of pettiness.  “You didn’t apologize.  You amended it to say you didn’t share well, but the implication was the same.”

“Jesus Petey.  Can we do this later?  There are more important things right now.”

Huh.  And just like that, he’d hurt her feelings again.  “Hmmmm…” she pretended to ponder.  “No.  I don’t think there are.  Did you hear yourself, Jon?  Because what you said was that there are more important things than brushing off the fact that you called your… lover a slut.  Maybe I’m an overly sensitive girl, but that stings a little bit.”

“You’re putting words in my mouth,” he protested with a harsh frown that conveyed his confusion at how they found themselves arguing at one another when he really wanted to be angry at Daniel.  “That’s not what I meant.”

Petey drew her knees to her chest, propping her folded arms atop them and cocking her head with interest.  She pointed out mildly, “They’re your words.  I was merely telling you how they affected me.”

The deep growl of vexation would have been amusing had she not been feeling just as frustrated.  How did they get here, arguing again?  Hadn’t she been frolicking with the bluebirds and butterflies in a sunny meadows of love moments ago?  Was this what they were destined for?

Only if you allow it.

Petey sighed.  “You know what, never mind.  Changing how you feel about something is right up there with rearranging spots on a leopard.  You can say it happened, but who really knows for sure?  This isn’t what we were supposed to be talking about.”

She heard the hiss of his expelled breath and he slowly walked the short distance from his side of the table to hers.  Jon’s expression was shuttered, making it nearly impossible to decipher what was going on in his head when he lifted one of her folded arms, silently imploring her to stand.  Petey rose and followed wordlessly along when he guided her to the sitting area sofa and into his lap. 

“You wanna know the truth?” he mumbled, winding his arms around her and looking up into her face.  “I was jealous.  Dave and Richie had made you seem happier that night than you’d ever been with me, and it sucked.  I wanted your feelings to be hurt like mine were.  I’m sorry.”

The simple apology went a long way toward soothing her injured pride.  Petey laid a gentle hand alongside his face and touched her lips to his, with a soft, “Thank you.  And I’m sorry you felt that way, but they were a welcome distraction from the fact that you were sitting across the room, pretending not to know me.”

She shushed him when he would’ve said more, likely some platitude that wouldn’t change anything that had happened. 

“It’s done, and my bruised ego isn’t smarting as much anymore.  You were right when you said we have more important things to talk about right now.”