Chapter 23

TWENTY-THREE

A little before noon Jon finally managed to drag himself out of the bed and into his clothes. Reluctant, still, but he knew he had to go back home. He was sure Dorothea didn’t suspect anything but if this would happen again she might start to and he couldn’t permit that. He tried to take as much time as he could while getting dressed, until even Georgia, who was observing him from the bed, laughed at him.

“You know, if you are trying to seduce me you are doing it the wrong way around, you’re putting your clothes ón, I don’t think it really works that way…”

When he looked at her over his shoulder he pulled a face at her but chose to ignore her comment.

About five minutes later she followed him to the hallway, even though he tried to convince her to stay in bed. In the hallway he noticed a big black and white portrait that he hadn’t seen when he came in the day before. He walked towards it to give it a closer look. It was a picture of a young girl, unmistakably a very young Georgia, with a messy long blond ponytail. She wore a leotard and sat on the floor with a perfect straight back. She looked up at something or someone that wasn’t in the picture and the look in her eyes was hopeful and compassionate. They already showed the drive that told you she was going to be big.

“That was before I came to New York, I was only five years old… I don’t think I ever even had a chance on becoming something other than a ballerina,” Georgia said as she came standing beside him and hooked her arm through his to lean on him.

“Does it run in the family?” he said and looked down at her from beside.

“My mother came over from Italy for an internship at the NYC ballet when she was seventeen, they scouted her, she was really talented. Not long after she arrived she met my father in Jersey and they fell in love. She retired at the age of 25 when she was pregnant with me.”

“Where are they now?” he asked, careful because he didn’t want to ruin any moment when she opened up to him.

“Italy. They bought a house at Lake Garda a couple of years ago. My mother always wanted to go back to Italy but my career kept them here for a very long time and after I was long gone I think it was fear, more than anything. But when I went over and told them to go on with it because they had already given up so much for me, it all went really fast. And I’m happy for them,  they are living the dream over there.”

He laid his hand down over hers on his arm for a second and then he pulled her closer for a kiss. She tasted like mint tea and her sweet self. He looked in her light brown eyes and they stared back. Hopeful and still a little hazy from when they had sex earlier. He took her face in his hands and caressed her cheeks with his thumbs.

“By the way,” he said, “when I told you not to call me I didn’t mean: “don’t call me not even when you are hospitalized. I had to read about you in the goddamn papers…”

“At least I was important enough for the papers to write about, and I hope you don’t think I actually listen to you when you tell me what I can and can’t do…”

He chuckled. “No shit.”

She wrapped his arms loosely around his neck and laced her fingers. “Thank you for coming to see me though, I really enjoyed it… I…. missed you.”

He kissed her before he let her continue.

“I hope that this time we will manage to see each other two times in a row without having a fight in between though, wouldn’t that be nice?”

Jon sighed and tucked a string of hair behind her ear.

“I admit that maybe I shouldn’t have told Charlie” she continued, “but I can’t say I regret it. I’m only human Jon, I screw up, and yes I’ll be the first to admit, I probably screw up a little more than is average but I think you knew that when you said what you did in the car after that dinner…”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry okay. I know I was being a dick but all this still scares the shit out of me and that’s not easy for me to admit.”

“It’s okay, I never even thought that something was worth fighting over before anyway so that means we must be doing something right…”

“We are doing a lot of things right George…” he said and smiled before he closed the gap between them for another kiss.

They stayed in the hallway for a proper kiss goodbye a couple more minutes but then Jon really had to go. He promised her he would be back soon. May and the remainder of his American tour were around the corner before he would head to Europe in June but Georgia found herself hoping that before all that he would indeed find an opportunity to stop by again. Because even though it was the first time she let any man stay the night in her bed, allowed him in to her kitchen, her bath and for him to look through her cd’s, books and cabinets, it had felt so good. So safe.

There was no time to reminisce though because only minutes after Jon had left Charlie appeared. 

“Well hello there, red cheeks,” he said and leaned in to plant a kiss on each of them. “According to that flush and the haze in your eyes that really wás Jon Bon Jovi I ran in to in the hallway and I think he gave you the kind of wake-up call my chocolate donuts nor my hazelnut coffee won’t ever live up to…” he said as he raised the brown paper bag he held in one of his hands.

“But also the kind of wake-up call that left me dying for one of your chocolate donuts and a hazelnut coffee,” she said as she hopped to the couch and fell down on it. Now Jon was no longer in it, the urge to go back to bed wasn’t as strong as it had been.