Jo smacked Zane upside the head.
"Ow. Watch it Jo-Jo." He did however remove his hand from her thigh as the plane landed. She raised her eyebrow at him and he smirked back at her.
"You can't do that in front of Mansfield." Zane's blue eyes rolled.
"Right. I am going to be subject to the groping hands of Andrea." Jo smiled and laughed at the thought of her blond haired, golden eyed, crazy about sexy male's best friend.
"Yeah I know." She said, standing and stretching from the five hour flight.
She looked down and Zane didn't bother to hide the smirk at watching her stretch. She rolled her eyes but allowed a small smile to pull at her lips. Since Andrea had left Eureka those two months ago, Jo had allowed Zane back into her life. Not quite to the extent that he had been before 1947, but hey one small step at a time. Zoe had gone off in a huff back to Harvard and Jo had mentioned stopping to see her but then thought better of it. The teenager was still angry at both of them.
"I can drive." Zane stated. Jo was looking out the window at baggage claim. The light snow on the ground was still giving her pause. However she did know how to drive in the snow, she would prefer a cab, mostly because the clouds outside were practically black.
"I don't know." She said slowly.
"Jo, I grew up out here. I know how to drive in a blizzard." That didn't give Jo any comfort. Zane rolled his eyes before going to rent a car, successively ending the argument. Jo sighed and walked over to the car rental counter behind Zane. The red head that was helping him was blushing slightly and had a slight glint in her green eyes. Jo pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth and attempted to ignore the conversation. The fact that Zane was flirting back and had his charm-the-pants-off-any-woman smirk on his face was making it difficult for Jo to breath. However, she pushed the emotion back pulling the Enforcer back in place.
"Well thank you Kimberly. You have a great night." Zane said, turning around with keys in his hand. "You ok Jojo?" She looked over at him and nodded. "We will be fine. You know how to get there right?" She sighed, pushing back any anger she had with him about flirting and smiled.
"Yes I know how to get there."
"Then let's go. I wanna see Mansfield's head explode." Zane said, grabbing both his and Jo's suitcases from the carrousel.
"You know you are terrified." Zane glared over at her, a look on his face she was still getting used to. "I saw you in Fargo's office." Zane's look diminished.
"He was yelling at me like he caught me on his computer." Jo laughed. However her Zane did get caught on a computer felony, he had been welcomed into the Physics department with excitement. Apparently this Zane, with his bitterness toward being in jail at all pushed everyone's buttons and quickly got demoted to head computer technician, leaving his physics skills to rot. "What?" He asked. Jo had been staring at him again. "Gonna tell me about that ring?" He had been randomly throwing that into their conversations hoping to catch her off guard; too bad she was always on guard with him.
"I was just thinking about Andrea." His smirk fell slightly.
"Oh." Then it perked back up. "Are you gonna kiss her again, cause that was really hot!"
"I actually have no control over who Andrea kisses." Zane didn't miss the hint of anger in her voice, but he decided not to comment on it as she grabbed her suitcase from him.
E
"Zane you missed the turn." Zane gripped the wheel, knuckles turning white. She had said that almost every time he drove past a street.
"That wasn't Southern Jo. You told me to turn left on Southern."
"I can't see anything in this snow." She said, slamming a fist into the dashboard.
"Well I can. Calm down Jojo." He didn't want to pay damage fees on a rental car and he was certain that Jo could break through the dash if she wanted to. "You said Southern to Fort Dupont Street. That was Alabama." Jo sighed as they came up to the next stop light and Zane pulled into the left turn lane. He glanced over, watching Jo chew on her lower lip as the light turned green. The first left turn after they turned on Southern was Fort Dupont and he waited until the hazy head lights passed them, turning and watching Jo visibly relax into her seat.
"Take the next left and then the first right." She said, pulling her hair over her shoulder. She started twirling a strand around her finger. He could tell that something was really bothering her has they pulled onto Fort Davis Place. "It's at the end, on the left." She said pointing. Zane tugged the wheel around the cul-de-sac and parked in front of a large gray house with light pouring out of the picture windows on the bottom floor.
"That's it?" He asked.
"This is it. Bill isn't here." She said, preparing to get out of the car.
"Who?" He shut the engine off, feeling the instant loss of heat from the engine as he glanced out to make sure no cars were coming before he got out.
"General Mansfield. His first name is Bill."
"I don't get to call him that do I?" He asked, meeting her at the back of the car for the suitcases.
"Not unless you want your head to remain attached to your body." She smirked at him, the teasing smirk he had become used to in the last two months and watched her walk up the drive way. They would be spending three nights in D.C and he knew that he wasn't going to pester her about the ring but he did want to know what was bothering her.
Before he had a chance to ask, Jo had rang the doorbell rubbing her hands together to create some fraction of warmth. He was going to help but as he reached the small front porch the door opened and Andrea's blond curls were bouncing around Jo's head.
"Jay! How was the flight?" She asked pulling back and smiling. Zane smiled slight and shook his head; he hadn't known her long but knew that he could always count on Andrea to have a smile on her face. Her golden eyes glanced over, locking with his as if she knew he was thinking about her and they got wide. "Shut up you brought sexy Superman." Then Andrea was locked around his neck. "Wholy crap your cold. Come inside." She tugged on his arm pulling him passed Jo who she pecked on the cheek in the process. He smirked, leaning in to do the same, until Jo's palm was pressed against his face.
"Nice try." He smirked at her through her fingers, and to get a rise out of her kissed her palm instead. He smirked through Jo's fingers over at Andrea whose smile was no longer as bright as it had been.
"Mom, Jo's here." Andrea shouted, causing both Jo and Zane to flinch.
"Josefina?" An older version of Andrea came out of the kitchen wearing an apron that looked like it was covered in blood. His eyes must have widened because Jo smiled.
"Hi Denny." Jo was hugging the older Andrea as the younger version sidled up to his side.
"Don't kiss her palm." Andrea whispered. He looked down at her, slightly confused. "Just don't." He had learned in the last two months to just go with whatever Andrea said.
"Whatever you say Dre." He said smirking down at her. She smirked back and linked her arm threw his elbow, tugging him forward to the bloodied woman.
"Mom, this is Zane." Denny looked up from fussing over Jo's hair and smiled a brilliant smile that her daughter inherited and belied the amount of red stained on her apron. "But you might know him better as Donovan." Denny's face fell slightly and then blinked rapidly.
"It's really nice to meet you; however I don't pity whatever you are attacking in the kitchen." He said, turning on his most charming smile to the General's wife. She blinked again in slight confusion before looking down.
"Oh." Then she nodded. "I'm making cranberry sauce. Please come in, you two look frozen." Denny was suddenly fussing over Jo again and Zane blinked, thoughts momentarily shut down. The most amazing phenomena was happening; Jo was blushing. He licked his lips, attempting to stop the dry mouth that was currently happening. He never thought in a million seconds would Enforcer, Jo Lupo blush at anything.
"You might want to put that away." He glanced down at the blonde still on his arm. He pulled his tongue back into his mouth and smirked down at her. Jo walked into the kitchen after Mrs. Mansfield and Andrea smirked. "I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about this." She said, patting him lightly on the fly of his jeans.
"Hey." He said, jerking back at the motion. Andrea was laughing slightly.
"Keep it from sticking out and I won't have to push it back in." With that, she removed her hand from his arm and moved toward the kitchen.
"Not funny." He said, coming up behind her. "I haven't ever seen her blush before." In the kitchen, Jo was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in her hand. "That smells amazing." He said as the smell of the coffee press hit him. Andrea had slid into the chair next to Jo scooting her chair next to her best friends.
"Zane would you like some coffee?" Mrs. Mansfield asked.
"That would be great Mrs. Mansfield." He said, plastering that charming smile on his face.
"Oh mom, don't let Zane near any appliances if you don't want Dad's head to explode when he gets home." Zane shot her a look over his shoulder before returning to the conversation with her mom.
E
Jo looked over at her best friend's eyes smirking at her. She pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth.
"What?" Jo smiled briefly but didn't want to get into the subject. She didn't like showing emotions and this one was a stupid one. "Jay." The word conveyed more than its simplicity.
"How long has Zane been calling you Dre?" She asked. Her best friend's lips pouted in thought as her eyes slid to the ceiling.
"About six weeks I guess. Why?" Jo's eyebrows rose slightly. Six weeks. She had been hanging out with Zane for six weeks and longer. She looked down to her coffee.
"I just didn't know you guys had been talking." She hid the anger and hurt by taking a sip and glanced over at Andrea's silence. The gold eyes were wide with shock. "What?" Then they slid over to the counter where the troublesome blue eyed physicist was talking to Denny.
"Zane." The tone in which her best friend spoke chilled Jo. It was a tone that was used by a parent whenever they were in trouble. Like when Andrea had talked her into jumping off the Lupo's roof into their pool, naked at midnight on New Years Eve. They had been taken to the ER with slight hypothermia, but that didn't stop them being grounded for three weeks.
Jo and Denny both choked back their laughs at the sickly sweet smile on Andrea's face.
"What?" Zane asked. Jo glanced at Andrea before hiding her smile in her coffee again.
"Why is it Jo didn't seem to know we have been talking?" Zane had the intelligence for the tone to hit home, but he pulled his mask up quickly, narrowing his eyes slightly. However, Jo noticed that Andrea saw the flinch.
"Let's get these two settled in." Denny said, her motherly tone breaking the tension between the two convicts. "Jo, you will be staying in Andrea's room with her…" Jo nodded, catching the dilation of lust in Zane's eyes over his coffee rim. "And Zane you will have to bunk with Andrea's brother…"
"Tiny's coming home?" Andrea was suddenly by her mother's side almost before Jo could blink.
"What kind of a name is Tiny?" Zane asked with a snort. Andrea shot him a low level glare but turned back to her mother in question. Denny nodded and Jo felt a full smile pull at her lips. She got up to join the hugging session currently happening and looked at Zane, who was oddly smiling back at her.
"His name is Tim. But Andrea couldn't get the 'm' sound when we were little so she called him Tiny. The name stuck." She explained to him as Andrea pulled out of her mom's shoulder, quickly wiping the tear from her cheek.
"Until High School. Then I could only call him that when no one else was around." She said, flashing everyone in the kitchen a brilliant yet watery smile. "He's been overseas for eight months." Zane nodded, reaching out and squeezed Andrea's arm. Jo blinked, and finished her coffee hiding from the intimate gesture.
She guessed if the two had been talking it probably wasn't that big of a surprise that they would end up having feelings for each other. Jo just thought that Andrea would confront her about it.
"Come on Jay. Superman. I'll show you where the boy's room is." Andrea wiped the happy tears from her face as Jo walked out into the hallway.
"Ow! Jesus I'm sick of getting smacked." Zane said behind her.
"Well maybe you should keep your mouth shut." Jo said without thinking. Then she froze. That was something she would have said to her Zane, to tease him simply but would result in a mouth appreciation session.
"Jay speaks my thoughts. Why didn't you tell her?" Jo turned, attempting to pull the mask of emotionlessness back into place but she felt herself failing slightly. "You asked me to let you tell her and I agreed. Six weeks." Jo glanced at Zane as Andrea pushed past her to the foot of the stair case. Zane looked at her, guilty and sorry. The look made her breath freeze. She never thought that she would be seeing this look from this Zane; correction… Any Zane. Zane was rarely sorry for anything he did, especially keeping secrets. "God I feel like the other woman."
At that one simple, stupid, nonthought through statement, Zane's eyes shifted. The sorry and guilt was gone. It was replaced by longing and lust and that stupid lusty grin started to spread across his face. Jo sighed, the moment lost and she turned around.
"Could you two please stop making googley eyes at each other and come up stairs." Jo grabbed the handle of her suitcase and proceeded to follow her friends command.