A/N: Jad you rule! And all apologies to Seinfeld.... Seinfeld fans will catch it...
Chapter 103: Tangers XI
Try not to think about it.... Try not to think about it... But how could I not? I wanted to tell everyone about how sweet she had tasted and how smooth her skin was and how much more beautiful she was in person than she was on the screen. No camera, no movie, no words could ever do the flesh and blood of her justice. But I couldn’t really tell everyone, without telling them about Danny and Tom. So there was a little dilemma there. But I wanted to pour my heart out!
Perhaps I would tell Michele, she always liked to hear about my love life and she always seemed to give great advice about it. All the other guys would never believe me and anyway they would just tease me for feeling this way about a girl I would never see again. I know Michele would listen and not patronize me and tell me all the right things. She was like a mom to me.
I made up my mind during practice on Monday morning that maybe I would go over for lunch when Michele wasn’t too busy and I would talk to her about Penelope. And then I remembered that Jonathan would probably be with her, poor kid. He had that suspension because of a fight at his school. I felt bad for not going over more often to see him but I was in the midst of a miserable scoring slump and the coach wanted me on the ice more frequently than the other guys to practice. And the free time I did have I really needed to nap or unwind with the guys. I even was grateful that Noter was taking the time to go over and help with the kid.
Now that I look back on things, I really wish I had made the time to visit more often. Things like children are not meant to be pushed aside like chores. And mistakes like that aren’t meant to be learned the hard way.
I ended up spending my lunchtime with Joey who had decided to take it upon himself to lecture me on not getting too down on myself because I wasn’t scoring. It was true, I was really frustrated and maybe I was squeezing my stick a little. It did feel nice to know that the captain, who had his own return to worry about, was taking the time to notice and care about me. He even went so far as to suggest that maybe I spent too much time alone in the evenings and I should make an effort to go out with the guys or get a girl or something.
Sigh! A girl! There was only one girl for me and the only way I could be near her was by my repeated viewings of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and let me tell you... Nicholas Cage sounds stupid with an Italian accent!
Two hours the man went on and I listened and nodded and just felt better about myself. And then I thanked him and we went our separate ways. Not really wanting to go home just yet I decided to wander into the movies and by luck I was able to get into that hot new movie everyone was talking about. It was great for the first half but I didn’t get the part about the psycho woman who got kidnapped at the beginning going through all that trouble pretending to be the good guy... and then it was like three hours!! Three! But the fight scenes were good, and I guess everyone got what they deserved in the end. I had to wonder about that woman though... I mean why was she so mean and still nice, and when she told the good guy that she had fallen in love with him... I believed her. I would have been more interested in the movie if it had told me why she was the bad guy, people aren’t just born bad... are they?
But that’s what a three hour movie will do to ya! It makes you think the longer that director forces you to sit in his auditorium and observe his work. You begin to ponder things.
It was after six in the evening when I got home to my loft in LoDo. I loved it! When I first came to the city I barely spoke English and it all had seemed daunting and overwhelming. Now I loved it, the sounds of the streets, the cars, the clubs, listening to it all and smelling the cuisine of the restaurants late into the night through an open window as I fell asleep. I miss those days.
The first thing I noticed when I came home was that the door wasn’t locked and I wondered why. I could have sworn that I locked it. And I could hear the TV. I frowned and looked across the room to see Jonathan Roy sprawled on my couch, with a bowl of something on his lap and his eyes glued on the television.
"Jonathan?" I exclaimed. "What’s going on?"
Jonathan shrugged and dipped his hand into the huge, clear bowl on his lap and I recognized that it was my punch bowl. I squinted at it as I walked over to him, as I got closer I could see there was popcorn in the bowl and... well everything else.
"Ugh," I said glancing at the television where I could see he was watching some movie set in old times, aww the kid liked historical stuff! "Jonathan what are you eating?"
"Popcorn," Jonathan said between chews, "With hot fudge, marshmallow sauce, peanut butter and melted caramel... want some? Mom has a better recipe but I think I’m close.."
"No.. no thank you," I said watching him chew the sticky, gooey mess. "Jonathan what are you doing here?"
"Mom sent me here," Jonathan said running his tongue over the gooey mess on his fingers. "Cause I was getting in the way..."
The television sounded funny and I looked at it and to my horror I could see that the two ladies that had been in medieval clothing were kissing passionately and ripping at each others bodices. "My God! Jonathan what is this?!"
Keeping one eye on the TV Jonathan picked up my Digital Cable Guide and flipped it open to the back. "It’s called "Brave Hump"," he said, "The story of a young man’s coming of age in Feudal Scotland as he frees repressed virgin’s from their father’s villainous grips."
I could only stare in horror at the boy. Was my mouth hanging? It probably was.
Jonathan looked back at me and shrugged. "You’re not a normal guy and you have like no porn in this place so I ordered it off digital cable."
"Jonathan!" I exclaimed.
"Hey it was a package deal it was a bargain!" he replied calmly.
"Bargain?" I asked numbly.
"Yeah it came with "Rochelle, Rochelle" free! A young woman’s strange erotic journey across Europe from Milan to Minsk.."
I shook my head and closed my eyes. "Was that before or after this movie?"
"Well..."
"Nevermind!" I said quickly holding my hand up, "I never want to know, OK?"
"OK," Jonathan said cheerily as I turned off the TV. When I put the remote control down I found my hand smeared with chocolate. I sighed.
"Jonathan," I said, "What happened? What were you in the way of? And does your Dad know about this?"
"Sure," Jonathan replied. "He knows. Mom called him as she was dropping me off, told him that I was gonna spend the night here just to wind down and he thought it was cool."
"So what were you in the way of?" I asked, I wasn’t really mad. In a weird way maybe this was a good thing, cause Joe was just telling me that I needed more company in the evenings. Who better than a Roy kid?
"I was in the way of Danny’s lusssssst!" Jonathan said with a hiss at the end.
"What?!" I exclaimed. Now I was feeling disturbed.
"Danny," Jonathan repeated, narrowing his eyes, feeding some ugly spark there. "He wants my mom the way only Dad can. And he keeps coming over and pretending to be my friend... and when I yelled at him about it Mom thought I had gone psycho and she sent me here."
I shook my head. The kid had to be nuts!
"It’s not Mom’s fault," Jonathan said in a rather deep toned voice I had never heard him use before. "See she’s only being Mom, like real nice and all, like she is with you. But Danny... he sees her different and he.... I’m still mad at her though, she shouldn’t have thought I was nuts, she shoulda listened to me. But I got her back."
"How?" I asked in a weak voice, getting a headache, not wanting to believe the kid.
Jonathan leaned over and picked up his duffel bag, there was an opening in it and out of the whole little Gigi was panting and blinking, her ears down against her fluffy head. "I took the puppy!" he said. "She slept in my duffel bag and didn’t know."
I shook my head. This information was almost too much to process. If Jonathan was telling the truth than Danny needed to be beaten senseless for looking at a veteran’s wife like that. But I didn’t know how serious it was... I mean Michele was a smart lady. She put up with lots of guys in her life I suppose looking at her like that. Even I admit to having feelings about her like that at some points... She knew how to take care of herself. Poor Jonathan though, he would only know what he saw.
Then Jonathan handed me a brown paper lunch bag. "She said to give this to you, she made you a sandwich I suppose... She didn’t make me a sandwich," he said in a bitter voice.
I rolled my eyes and pulled out the contents of the bag. "There’s two sandwiches here," I said. "One with my name and one with yours."
Jonathan happily snatched his and bit into it, some jelly and peanut butter oozing out of the edges.
"Go on," I said. "Go take a shower."
"OK," Jonathan said brightly and he hopped off the couch to the bathroom, taking his sandwich with him.
As soon as the kid was in the bathroom I called over to the Roy house, I had to get this straight.
"Did he take the puppy!" Michele snapped as soon as she answered it.
I flinched as if I were in trouble. "Yup," I said. "She’s here."
I heard her sigh. "So sorry Alex!" she said. "It’s just that the poor baby, he is stifling here! And being suspended he has nothing to do and I can’t dote on him at every hour... I was hoping... just for one night?"
"Sure, sure," I said. "Don’t worry. Hey I’ll drop Gigi over later OK?"
"Oooh thank you," Michele said. "Can you make it sooner than later? Jana has been crying."
"Sure," I replied.
When Jonathan came out of the shower, the phone rang again. It was Debbie Sakic. "Hi Alex," her voice sang.
"Hey Debbie," I said. "What’s up?"
"Oh Joe and I were going out to dinner and we were wondering if you would like to join us," Debbie said.
I looked at Jonathan and whispered, "Are you hungry?"
"Always," Jonathan said.
"Can I bring a friend?" I asked.
"Of course!" Debbie said. "Ooh who is she?"
"He, actually," I said.
"Huh?" Debbie said dully.
"Jonathan!" I replied. "I have the rugrat over for the night, can he come?"
"Roy?" Debbie exclaimed.
"Yup."
"OK," she said. "That’s fine."
When I hung up the phone I looked at Jonathan who was sniffling and frowning.
"You need a hug?" I asked.
That did it, the kid broke down as I hugged him, and he began sobbing.
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