Love & Lies

Chapter Seventeen

Scarfing down one and a half hot dogs was probably not the best idea, Jessie thought to herself as she clutched her stomach approaching her block.  She looked down at Jackson as he trotted happily seeming unbothered by the half a hot dog he devoured almost an hour ago.  

She thought about the contents of her medicine cabinet when the image of chugging down the pink liquid medicine currently sitting in the middle shelf made her forget about her aching stomach - well, for a split second at least.  "Why worry about things going down the crapper when I'm probably going to die from a vendor hot dog," she muttered, but immediately wanted to slap herself for being so uncharacteristically dramatic.  Everything from the break-up onward was making her a person she really was beginning to despise and the worst part was nothing really could be undone.  Even if she backed out of her contract, the damage was done; awakened interest was already set forth and she knew it was only a matter of time before she was noticed whether by the public or thrown to the fire pit by her stalker.

As of now, though, none of the few passerbyers seemed to notice who she was.  She wondered if anybody else like Lauren, Jenny, or Brendan heard the radio, but then again they probably would have contacted her.  Even once everybody back at home heard the UK hype, she knew they would not be alarmed as they would consider that a good thing.  "Jackson, why did you have to drag me for a hot dog?" she grumbled.  However she knew that had she not heard the vendor's radio, it would only be a matter of time before she caught word of the new found American excitement.  

Her stomach continued to scream when she remembered that the mailman would have already come by this time.  She wondered just what she might find when she spotted a familiar figure in the distance wearing a long red coat and seemingly chatting with her doorman.

"Jenny?" she asked aloud knowing she was too far away to hear her.  She wrinkled her eyebrows trying to figure out why she would stop by without calling first, but at the same time she realized it could be a number of things whether Lauren atypically blabbed yesterday afternoon or Jenny was concerned with added security had she somehow found out about her new found "fame."  It also worried Jessie as to why Jenny was not at work being she was off yesterday apparently.  That really was not like her.

Having picked up on a familiar scent, Jackson began to pull an unprepared Jessie forward as he anticipated being pet by Jenny.  Jessie nearly fell over, but was lucky to catch herself.  Halfway down the block, Jenny recognized her and gave her a wave prompting Arthur to turn around as well.  Jessie returned the wave and eagerly made her way to the front of her building.

"Hey, Jess," Jenny greeted, reaching out to kiss Jessie.  

Jessie could not help but notice Jenny was beginning to pop already as she surveyed her unopened coat.  "Hi, Jenny," Jessie greeted back returning the kiss, her stomach problem on the back burner.  "How are you?"

"Good, good," Jenny said without emotion.  Unable to comfortably creep down to pet Jackson, Jenny stretched her hand downwards enough for Jackson to jump up to lick her fingers.

Arthur nodded with a smile to Jessie and held the door open.  "Uh, would you like to come upstairs?" Jessie invited Jenny, her confusion turning into worry.  

Jenny nodded with a small smile.  "Sure," she simply responded.

Jessie led the way to the elevators, the entire ride up oddly silent.  As much as Jessie wanted to break the silence, she just had the vibe it was best to stay quiet until they were actually inside her co-op even though they were the only passengers.

As soon as she let Jenny walk into her co-op first, Jackson headed for his water bowl in the kitchen once his leash was unclipped from his collar.  Jenny remained by the living room as Jessie locked the door.  "I'm sorry if I'm scaring you," Jenny apologized at last.  "It's just that being I'm not as far away from you as I was in the city and I was actually close by window shopping, I figured I would check on you especially after I heard on the radio-"