Recreating History, Repairing Mistakes

Part 14

"You * do * know that I didn't meanwhat I said, don't you?" She asks, cuddled into his side in bed.His arm is draped around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him whenhe feels her tense up.

"Of course I do" He assures,pressing a kiss into her hairline and smiles when she relaxes againsthim again.

They had had this exact conversation atleast ten times since yesterday afternoon. After pulling her off thestage, he had led her to his office, pushed her gently inside andclosed the door behind him when he'd turned to leave. He'd made hisway back into the main room to retrieve her clothes and watched hersilently as she got dressed again. She'd slid into the leather jacketwithout hesitation. He had pulled her next to him onto the smallcouch. And then they had talked. Talked for over an hour, saideverything they should have said days, if not years, ago, explainedand apologized, and somehow she'd ended up losing her clothes againhalfway through him expressing how pushing them away had been thebiggest mistake of his life. After, they had talked and apologizedsome more, neither really sure when they had said everything theyneeded to but still afraid of saying too much too soon and disruptingwhat they just repaired. She had asked if he believed her a number oftimes then and he had always answered in the same fashion. Butsomehow she still seemed to be uneasy about it.

Another half an hour later she'd beenabout to kill him once again, when they'd been interrupted by Toniand he'd casually stricken up a conversation with the girl behind thedoor, while watching her fall apart under his talented fingers. Whenshe'd bitten the hand he'd put over her mouth to keep her fromscreaming, hard, she'd instantly forgotten what she'd been mad about.The look on his face had, however, earned him a slap when he'd leanedover to kiss her briefly before leaving her to get redressed again.

He had left to attend whatever businesshe'd come to do in the first place, and she had relocated back intothe main room, claiming her seat at the bar again. FP had found herthere an hour later, deep in conversation with Toni, looking for allin the world like she'd never been anywhere else. It had been themoment when he'd realized that he should never have tried to talk herout off it.

She shifts against him now, lacing herfingers with his around her shoulder and pressing a quick kiss to hislips. She's smiling when she pulls back and he thinks that he'dfinally made her believe he doesn't hold what she'd said yesterdayagainst her. He knows her for long enough to know, that if the momentwould come where she's enraged enough to reach that point, rationalthought is mostly gone from her mind. Her thoughts get all tangled upinside the other and she's saying the very most thing that comes tomind, often without even realizing she'd said it at all. He won'tpretend it hadn't stung, hearing her accusing him of abandoning theirchild back then, when that's technically not exactly what happened.But he's learned a long time ago to put his own hurt feelings asideto find the reason * she's * so pissed and trying to fix it. Withsixteen, he hadn't been sure why that seemed so much more important,but with time he'd come to find, that that's simply what you do forthe people you love.

He leans down to kiss her again, longerand more passionate this time, while his hand wanders down her sideto trace the faded ink on her hip bone. Her parents would have killedher for that tattoo with sixteen and so it's a little smaller thanhis and located where she's able to hide it under her clothesperfectly. The position had helped quite a lot in the last twentyyears, too, since she's never walked around her own houseinappropriately dressed, hence her children had not seen it, either.He squeezes her flesh slightly, making her squirm under his touch,showing her again, how extremely okay he is with how yesterday hadturned out in the end. And she finds she does believe him. Still,there is one thing she has to tell him again; to ask him again. Shewants to believe he knows it, after all he would never have taken asecond chance at her again if he didn't but she's still afraid shemight not have made it clear enough yesterday.