FOREVER YOURS

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Foreword:

To Sal, as a thank you note for writing her first fanfic.

Sorry for the exaggerated length of the pointless dialogues and thoughts. Gio and Betty just kept talking in my head and I didn't have enough courage to shut them up or delete their ramblings.

So fashion right now is that everyone is posting the songs they played as they were writing their fics. Here is mine: 1973 by James Blunt. I needed a slight touch of nostalgia…

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Forever The Rebound

She felt a ray of light enter the room from a crack of the venetian window and caressed her eyelids until she reluctantly opened her eyes. She also felt a bit of chill running through her completely naked body. She looked around: the sheets were all over the floor near the clothes and the shoes, the empty bottles, the glasses... the whole room was a mess and she was cold. But she wasn't in the mood for going hunting for cover so she searched for refuge in the warm body that was resting near her. She curled up against him. Her left tight on top of the warmth between his legs, soft and quiet now, fragile and delicate to the touch. "Delicate" she thought laughing to herself, as if she had been offensive. Not exactly the first word she would have ever picked to describe all that passion and savageness that those walls have witnessed just a few hours ago. She turned her eyes to him again, all of his body lying peacefully by her side. She took some time to study the chest moving slowly as he breathed calmly and peacefully. And she loved to see him there lying still and silent. Yes, he slept like a child, the only time he wasn't excited about something… so vulnerable. In a state not many people knew him to be, but she knew him well. She liked to think she knew him better even than himself for she was the one that had rejoiced in watching him in his sleep, observing him…

She contemplated his features and the forehead slowly gaining battle against his silky hair as time passed. She reached to him until the fingers of her left hand stared caressing his hair. She touched those strands of white hair running in pack from his temple, falling over his left ear. Oh, how she loved those uncolored strands, clear sign of life, experience and hard work!

He moved slowly awakening to her caresses and turned to face her.

"So you are still here".

"I left your keys at home… I thought I told you last night", she said.

He yawned and looked at the roof, adjusting his eyes to the morning light. He knew she could have left the front door unlocked. She had done that many times before. But he didn't want to think too much, it was already nice that she was there.

She moved her fingers gently dancing from his temple through his hair to his earlobe, then traveled south across his neck and ended drawing circles around his chest, unable to find a single hair in his naked body. "Besides I feel like tasting one of your special breakfasts today".

"Who said I'm cooking?" He moved slightly and placed his left hand behind his head. She rested her head in the comfort of his arm.

"You will".

"I'm not" he said as a matter of fact.

He stared into space and smiled as his lungs greedy took a deep taste of the air. It felt so good to feel her warmth in the mornings, there, by his side, as he woke up and greeted a new day. His smile faded away as he released the air slowly. He knew better. He knew that would only last a few hours. Then, like a fated version of Cinderella, the spell will be broken, everything will vanish in front of his eyes and a new day and a new reality will steal her away from him. And he had always known that. And she had always known that. But only God knew for how long: a week, a month, maybe just a day, could be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or could be one full season… but never a year. No, never for a year, because she kept coming back to him and he kept coming back to her, miserably dragged by a force that kept them together and apart, like the sun and the moon, creating days of bright light and pitch black darkened nights.

He let out a sigh. "Sometimes I wish you get yourself married…" Her head was still resting in his left arm. She stopped stroking his chest and paid attention to his words that continued in that husky voice of his: "that you are finally forbidden to me forever". He frowned. "What good would that do, anyway?" He gave a little chuckle imagining something. "I think that not even then you'll leave me alone… argh!"

She pressed his nipple between her fingers punishing him. "Gio! Are you implying that I'm the type who would cheat on my husband with you?"

He grabbed her wrist with his right hand holding her firmly, careful not to hurt her but claiming his power over her.

"Betty Suarez, I'm not implying… I'm sure about it".

She scoffed making herself free from his grasp. He was too full of himself.

"Then why haven't you married?" she asked.

He remained silent for a moment then sat on the bed, slightly pushing Betty away. He looked around trying to find something. He grunted.

"Where are my slippers?"

"You're changing subjects".

"I'm not changing the damn subject!" He felt the coldness of the floor against his feet. How much he hated that!

Betty turned to her side of the bed and searched for something in the floor. "There!" She threw the slippers to the other side of bed where Gio was sitting. They jumped against the surface of the floor. He picked them up one by one and glared at her. He contemplated that shivering body that clung to the pillow trying to find something to cover herself.

"I've told you thousand of times…" he threw her one of the blankets that were in the floor, "…not to move them from where I left them".

"Whatever," she said snuggling inside the soft silky sheets. "I had to pee. And it's your fault… why don't you install a carpet?"

He started grumbling as he picked a few of his clothes from the floor Betty followed him with her eyes as he walked around the room naked: his body flexible and strong. "He had gained a bit of weight", she though. Late night meals were finally paying his toll in his body.

"And stop barking or you'll never get yourself a wife", she continued as he went to the bathroom and she found herself staring at one of the photos in the wall. That one the opening of the first branch of Gio´s Sandwich Depot. She had been there that day; she the one in the back, dressed like she was going to the carnival. But she wasn't staring at the camera; she had her eyes fixed on the one in the front among a group of people, the young guy with a big white grin in his face, his long hair completely black.

"Find a wife soon, Gio. You're not getting any younger".

Of course she only said that to upset him. Last night display proved her that age suited well to Giovanni Rossi. Time hadn't diminished his eagerness and passion. Actually, quite the opposite, like a well aged wine she felt more than ever his energy pierce her very soul with every single move. She blushed like a teenager remembering the way he had touched just a few hours ago.

She heard some unintelligible words coming from the bathroom.

"What?" she yelled.

After a while he peeked from the door and pointed at her with his foaming toothbrush.

"I said… you're not getting any younger yourself. You are already forty. I can marry anytime I want; you, you must have children".

"Ha!" she answered as he returned to the bathroom. She really didn't want to think about it. But he was right about that. She knew the cursed biological clock was tickling. She just hasn't found the father of her children… yet. She frowned and closed her eyes. No, she didn't want to face reality. Why couldn't life just stay like that, in Gio's apartment, her special hideout in moments of storm, his peaceful haven among the wilderness of the outside world?

With those thoughts in mind she fell asleep.

She woke up again to the smell of bacon and eggs. She smiled. So he was cooking for her after all. She jumped out of the bed got her toothbrush from the shelf and after she brushed her teeth, she covered her naked self with one of the colorful bathrobes she loved and he kept carefully in one of the lowest drawers. She still smelled at him and she liked it. She decided to take the shower later.

"You know, I've been thinking: four months… that's a record," he said placing some boiled peas in her plate. I never expected you to stay for that long with 'Chinese Dumpling'."

She smirked at yet another of the many codenames he used for her exes.

"Well, 'Chinese Dumpling' wanted to move to Long Island and lock me in a large condo. He didn't want me to work, just to be a housewife and have his children. How about that?"

He made an annoyed face faking a woman's voice "That bastard! How dare him!"

"Stop it!" She threw one pea at him. "Men always run away from career women. You know I have bigger plans in life".

"Well… that's the way of life: men provide, women serve." He ducked the other pea aimed to his eyes. Betty looked at him with his apron, cooking for her and honestly thought that Gio wasn't really practicing what he preached.

"Betty Suarez," he continued, "you will live a bachelor if you don't accept those simple rules. And you have no right to complain, you were the one who ran away from him… like always," he said gloomily turning his back at her returning to the stove focusing on the bacons.

"Maybe so" she served a glass of juice and drank from the glass.

"Anyway, Chinese Dumpling, for being a broker in Wall Street he was nothing but a stuffed man, always too full of himself. I didn't like him".

"You never like them".

He came back on the table carrying two plates of bacon and eggs.

"That's not true".

"It is".

"It's not. I liked... The Minestrone, what was his name again?"

"You just liked him because he always got you free tickets to the stadium!"

"Well… that is also true", he grinned and then thought for a moment. "How about 'fish and chips'? The british guy. Your 'one true love'."

"You happened".

"Me?!" he sat on the stool in front of her.

"You scared the hell out of him. You almost beat him to a pulp" She counted with her fingers: "you gave him a black eye, a broken rib, a…"

"I get it. I get it. I remember. It was just a misunderstanding. You came to me with that story and… I thought he had beat you, that's all"

"It was an accident", she protested.

"I apologized, didn't I?"

"Now I remember that I swore I would never tell you anything anymore. You are just so passionate about everything. You better watch your health".

He grinned at her: "I don't remember you complaining last night".

"Shut up!"

He kept laughing like a river in the springtime, so refreshing to her ears.

"How about you and 'skinny spaghetti'?", she interrupted him. "I notice your house doesn't smell like a park anymore".

"Well, she is a florist. What's the problem with that?"

"What happened to her?"

"It didn't work out", that's what he always responded.

"That's the only serious relationship you've ever had all these years. You had her for like… five months, was it? That leaves you in no position to complain about me".

"I am a man. You are a woman. That's two different things"

They started quarreling between mouthfuls of eggs, bacon and peas, about former boyfriends and girlfriends, about womanhood and the superiority of man. After the meal was over, Gio busied himself at the cappuccino machine as Betty cleaned the kitchen.

"And you know. Chinese Dumpling even dared to try to convince me to stop dealing with the L.A partners and the concept of my new magazine. That made me furious. You know, I haven't given them an answer yet."

"Leaving the Meades, eh? Starting your own magazine in the west coast…"

"Yeah, it's so hard to find funding in New York. I would have to start by selling all my shares from Meade Corp."

"…and also your shares of my restaurant chain."

"I would never sell your shares" she said dismissively.

He raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Do you think I will let you eat all the profit gain by yourself? You gotta be crazy", she sat again in the table.

"So 'Chinese dumpling' had been teaching you a thing or two about good investment" he said bringing two cups of hot coffee to the table. "Anyway, I can lend you some money. You did it for me when I was bankrupt a few years ago".

"Thanks, but don't worry", she waved her hands scaring the thought. "I haven't made up my mind yet. I still have a bright future as chief editor of 'Women today'. Why leave something certain for something uncertain? I was just so pissed off when he forbade me to consider the option".

He snorted. "Tell me about it. Not everyone can impose to headstrong Betty Suarez".

She gave him a look.

He knew she had rejected 'Chinese Dumpling' the very night he proposed to marry her. That was cruel and he felt pity for the guy. It was the curse of Betty Suarez. She always ran when they started wanting some sort of commitment. Maybe that was exactly the reason why they had lasted so many years in that parody of relationship. Because they thought there were not bonds, not strings, just façade of freedom and liberty. And they pretended that the invisible chains and the daggers weren't there, refusing to acknowledge how much hurt they had been accumulating during the years.

And every time they separated they pretended they didn't really care.

But he did care. He wanted to ask her so many times to be only his and nobody else's. But he knew he would be rejected and disposed just like the rest. Just like once, many years ago she did to him. When the younger version of him confessed to her that he wanted to be the one and she just tore his heart away. No, he refused to experience that again. "It's better this way", he thought as he drank a bit of his coffee and saw her in front of him, beautiful, almost naked, smiling at him in his own kitchen, in front of him… reachable, "to be eternal lovers".

He smiled sadly.

He also knew she had never been attached to anyone like she was to him. But she had been his for only brief moments in their lives: a woman he could have but never own.

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Next Chapter: Forever The Friend