9 - Tick Tick Boom

“Guess I’d better get that mess fixed,” Petey noted mildly, nodding toward the gaping wooden panel that housed the television.  Jon had moved off of her only seconds before, to dispose of the condom, and she felt very naked and very exposed.

Bottom bouncing lightly across the mattress, she moved away from him and toward the opposite side of the bed.  Her toes had just registered the coolness of the floor when a firm hand curled deliberately around her bicep.   

Craning her neck to regard him questioningly, she found that he was stretched out across the bed.  The smooth line of his bare right hip caught her momentary interest before she forced her eyes to his. 

“Petey.  Don’t shut me out.” 

She mulled the words over in her head, pondering their real meaning under the heavy weight of his gaze.  He was staring at her so intently that it brought to mind a line of poetry and she mentally recited Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Eyes of gentianellas azure, Staring, winking at the skies.”  

But Elizabeth Barrett Browning had no business in her head.  Not now.  Not ever.  That romantic crap was a farcical fabrication perpetuated by the greeting card and music industries.  Oh, and the Flower Growers of America.  Bastards.

“Asking me not to shut you out presumes that I’ve let you in to begin with.  I told you it was just sex.”  She gently pried herself from his grip and reached for the panties that were draped over the end of the bed. 

If he were being honest, Jon might say his ego was bruised.  The best (only) sex he’d had in more months than he’d care to count and she was blowing it off as a non-event.  Dammit, it hadn’t been that long since he’d had to force women from his bed after sex.  Who was she to dismiss him out of hand?

Don’t blow up and get pissed.  All that will do is send her outta here in a tizzy, leaving you with more questions.  Again.  Channel Yogi Sambora.  Deep, relaxing breath.

“Why does that mean we can’t be friends?”

She shimmied the leggings over her hips and the tattoo between them.   Jon silently cursed as the pink ink went into hiding.   He’d been so busy trying to keep her naked that he forgot to check out her tramp stamp. 

Her derisive snort reminded him that he had more important things going on right now.  “You don’t want to be friends with me.  I bug you because I don’t fall in line with what you think I should be.  The only thing you want is to dissect me like a damn frog, and see what makes me tick.”  Petey shrugged before putting her face into the neck hole of her t-shirt.  “Seeing as the sex was better than average, I’ll probably humor you and answer a couple of your endless questions.” 

Bra fastened and shirt in place, Petey pulled the elastic bands from her bedraggled pigtails and bent forward at the waist, finger-combing her hair before flipping back up to let it settle in a tousled mess around her shoulders.  She cast a pointed glance at him from behind her right shoulder.

“But don’t treat me like I’m an idiot by plying me with your corporate charm and schmooze.  At least be honest about what you want.”

Relaxation is for pussies.

Jon’s heels hit the floor with a thump that resonated from every hard surface in the room.  He heatedly snatched his shorts from where they lay beside the nightstand and jammed one leg in, then the other, before carefully zipping up around his now deflated manhood.  That charming metaphor took him from a slow burn to instant detonation, and he whirled on her, pointed darts of blue anger shooting from his eyes with the force of a Tommy-gun.

“Who are you to tell me what the fuck I want?  Because ninety percent of my damn life is documented on the internet and you listen to a couple of songs that ‘came from my soul’…”  He angrily formed the air quotes around the fan-babble.  “You think you know what makes me tick?  Well that’s bullshit!”

Angry hands pawed through his hair before he stalked to the doorway, retrieving his shirt and yanking it over his head.  He’d be damned if he’d stand here half-naked when she was already dressed and shoving her feet into those ridiculous tennis shoes.

“You’re not the only one who gets pigeon-holed, ya know.  The press and the whole free world decides who I am and paints their own picture accordingly, using any random bit of shit they can find to support the notion.  But the mother fuckin’ truth?  Ha!  Nobody wants that muddying the waters.”

He stabbed an indignant finger through the air.  “And you!  You come along with your body piercings and black-as-night presence, totally turning my fuckin’ world up on its end, because some weird-ass piece of my inner psyche thought it found a kindred spirit.  But your Brothers Grimm fairy tale of darkness paints me as the evil dragon, who you must valiantly slay with your sharp, pointed tongue.  How the fuck is that fair?”

Still smoldering, Jon propped his fists on his hips and glared expectantly across the width of the bed at her.  His last question was not rhetorical.  He expected a damn answer.

The pink jewel in her brow piercing glinted as it rose into its now familiar arch and she mimicked his fists-on-hips pose.    “Are you finished?”

And yet she’s still gonna give me attitude.  Lord, God, Jesus I’m gonna toss her impudent little ass off the terrace if You don’t stop me!

He bit his tongue in favor of a ferocious scowl and one sharp nod.

Although the sun shone intensely enough through the floor-to-ceiling windows to warrant sunglasses, the room brightened ten-fold when Petey graced him with her first full-on smile.  It transformed her blasé expression into something ethereal, knocking him figuratively on his ass.  That pretty pink mouth dressed up with the most intense dimples he’d ever seen was…  Shit.  She made him forget what he’d been waiting for her to say. 

But he didn’t forget that he was pissed.

“Mind telling me what you find so damned amusing?”

One artificially emerald iris disappeared in a flirtatious wink of her eye – What the fuck? – and Petey responded with a simply-stated, “I like you better this way.  It’s honest.”

Had he ever been rendered totally speechless before?  If he had, it was so long ago that the memory had swum merrily away in a sea of Pinot Grigio.  She flustered him like no one else he’d ever stumbled upon. 

P.T. Diehl was going to be the death of him, he prophesied with one bewildered shake of his head.  He just knew it.  It may not be today, but it was most assuredly on the horizon if he continued to subject himself to this quirky, unpredictable woman.

But was that an option...?

“So where does that leave us?”

“I was invited here to chase away the home entertainment Boogey Man.”  Petey dipped her head toward the ladder.  “Think you could help me with that so I can get to work?”

“Yeah, but what about after that?  Are you going to run like the hounds of hell are snapping at your heels?” 

Petey sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking one hip.  “What is it – specifically – that you want, Mr. Bongiovi?”

He, too, crossed his arms and turned his mouth into a stern frown.

“The first thing I want is for you to call me Jon.  We just had sex.  That means it’s okay to be on a first name basis.”

“And the second thing?”

Eye-popping smile notwithstanding, the stubborn imp still wasn’t giving an inch.  Unbelievable.  Well, she was about to find out who wrote the book on stubborn. 

“Say it.”

“Oh please.  Stop being childish and tell me what the hell it is you want.”

“Say it.”

That bowed little mouth flattened with annoyance.  “You know what?  I don’t need this, you, or your ego-maniacal crap.  Have Tony – or one of your kids – ‘idiot-proof’ your entertainment system.  It’s not that hard.”

“Nice jab, Sugar, but you’re not gonna distract me from what I want.  Say it.”

“Fuck you.”

“You just did.  Say it, Petey.”

Not uttering another word, she hightailed it for the door, rubber soled feet clomping noisily against the hard floor as tangible proof of her unhappiness with him.

Well, she’s about to get even unhappier…

Jon took two long strides, lodging himself steadfastly in the doorway, one foot and hand planted against each side of the doorjamb.  She wasn’t going anywhere until they’d finished this…  whatever this was.

“Move.”  She belligerently angled her chin, close enough to him that he could see the flush of anger pinkening her cheeks.  Pink was quickly becoming his new favorite color, he thought randomly, stifling a sneer.

“Stop being pigheaded and just say it, for Christ’s sake.”

“I don’t like you.”

“Not exactly a newsflash there, Sugar, but what makes you finally decide to say it to my face?”

Charging at him like a miniature bull, Petey shoved two flattened palms into Jon’s chest with enough force to knock the wind out of him, but his growl of pain was barely audible over her infuriated roar. 

“Because you screw with my logical thought process!  I don’t have sex with strangers.  I don’t act irrationally!  That’s not who I am, yet when I’m around you, every bit of good sense I have vanishes into thin air.  Stop making me crazy!”  

At the first impact, he had cuffed her wrists in his hands to keep them from pummeling him to death.  Even though she was still huffing agitatedly as she killed him a thousand times with her eyes, Jon slowly released his hold.  Tentatively, he cupped light palms over her shoulders and gave the gentlest squeeze.  

“I know, Sugar,” was his subdued reply.  “I know.  You have the same effect on me.”

“Then why am I here?!” she cried, practically stamping her foot in frustration.

He gave her a lopsided grin, and tucked the pink streak of hair behind her left ear.  “Because as crazy as you make me, I can’t resist the lure of P.T. Diehl.  I want to spend time with you.”

“But why?” she insisted.  His ambiguity did nothing to appease her desire for a logic and order in the crazy whirlwind that had slurped them into its vortex.

“I don’t know,” he sighed, his already rumpled hair once again bearing the brunt of his tumultuous thoughts.  “I guess you were partly right in saying I wanna know what makes you tick.  You intrigue me.  That’s all I can tell you.”

Jon knew his explanation was lame at best, and didn’t want to give Petey a reason to doubt his sincerity, so he openly met her eyes.  He figured was only fair that to offer her the opportunity to see whatever she needed see. 

Whatever it was evidently passed muster.

“So what do you want then… Jon?”

The grin that split his face was full of appreciation as much as pleasure, channeled from the mysterious warmth radiating throughout his chest.  “Spend the day with me.  Fix my mess, check out my terraces, watch football and let me cook dinner for you.  No pressure, no hidden agenda – just two friends hanging out.”

“No sex?”

The tone of her voice was so neutral he couldn’t tell if she was for or against the idea.  At this early stage of their truce, it would be in his best interest to test the waters before committing sexual suicide.

“I’m open to it if you are,” he said slowly, hands coming to cautiously encircle her waist in a loose embrace.  The mysterious warmth continued to burn when she stiffened only slightly.  “Because, in my opinion, it certainly bears repeating.”

“It didn’t suck,” was her somewhat pained admission.

Treating her to his own perfectly arched eyebrow, Jon pointed out, “I believe that was at your request, and it deserves a whole separate conversation, Sugar.”