Jessica's eyes fluttered open and squinted against the harsh afternoon sunshine. Despite leaving at 8am sharp, the Massachusetts highways had not been kind.
John had volunteered to take the first shift and in complete honesty, Jessica was glad. She would not have faired well in the last four hours of bumper to bumper traffic and her Sunfire had not even crossed over the state lines yet.
But in a strange way, the prolonged car ride was worth it. There was no Liz to wedge between them and no school work to keep it that way. This was Jessica's dream weekend and she could finally share in it with her best friend.
"Good morning, Sunshine," John smiled at her, glancing at the passenger's side briefly and then back at the road.
"We still in Mass?" Jessica asked him curiously, rubbing her still tired eyes.
"Yeah, but only for a few more miles. Do you want to switch when we get to Connecticut?"
"Sure," she shrugged. "I know my way around the state pretty well. The road to… where we're staying… is kind of convoluted."
"English, please?"
"Oh… weird," she laughed at his confused state.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful and there was very little traffic in her birth state either. In fact, they'd be right on time.
"Hey, John?" Jessica asked her best friend as they pulled off at the exit.
"What's up?"
"I have a confession to make," she sighed. "We're not exactly staying at a hotel. In fact, I didn't really make reservations anywhere…"
"That's all right," John nodded. "We'll find somewhere along the way to get a room."
"No, that's not what I mean," she shook her head at him.
God, you can be so oblivious sometimes.
"Remember how I said I had to pull some strings?" she asked him, turning onto a familiar street.
"Mhmm…" he trailed off in suspicion, looking at the increasingly large houses they were passing.
"I had to agree to some… conditions."
John's eyebrows immediately shot upwards in curiosity.
"And would these conditions be?"
"Well…" she bit her lip as they pulled up beside a large, roving estate. "This is it."
"This is the condition?" he chuckled in disbelief. "What's so bad about this?"
"John Cena," Jessica stated before taking a deep breath, "Welcome to McMahon Manor."
As John and Jessica lurched up the driveway, she wasn't quite sure what to expect from her family.
Linda would be the courteous hostess and mother that Jessica knew and loved.
Shane would be the cool big brother.
Vince would probably be the cordial businessman he was in the presence of most.
And Stephanie… would probably be a sarcastic bitch, but John would be used to it. After all, so was his girlfriend.
Linda greeted them the moment they left the car. John had met her three times in his life and she was as kind and polite as ever.
As she ushered him through the towering front doors of the house, John couldn't help but look around in awe. Not only was the house massive, but his entire first floor would fit in just the foyer with room left over.
"John?" Jessica snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Earth to Cena…"
"Wait. What?"
"Space case," she laughed. "Come on, we're going to meet my dad."
"We're going to see who?" his eyes widened.
"My father, John," she repeated slowly.
"Vince McMahon?" he blinked.
"Yeah, unless my mom hasn't been telling me something all of these years. Then again, I'm kind of used to being misled-"
Suddenly, a man cleared his throat and John and Jessica turned around to find her father standing at the bottom of the stairs.
"Good afternoon, Mr. McMahon," John managed to force out.
"Mr. McMahon?" Vince laughed heartily. "Please, call me Vince… wait a minute," Vince cocked his head to the side as a thin smile crossed his lips, "Are you John?"
"Yes, sir… I mean, Vince."
Jessica was struggling to contain her laughter as she watched her best friend, the 6'1", 215 pound lineman made of almost pure muscle, stammer in the presence of her father. The rough and tough John Cena had been reduced to a bumbling idiot.
"Little John Cena, Jr," he marveled and shook his head. "The last time I saw you… I think you were about 4'5" and a popsicle stick. You've certainly changed!"
"Yeah, I guess," he admitted, slightly embarrassed that his best friend's father remembered his scrawny days.
"So what have you been up to these days, Mr. Cena? College, I hope."
"Of course," John nodded.
"What are you studying…?"
Maybe the weekend wouldn't turn out to be so bad after all.
John sat down on the bed in the guest room and marveled at how much bigger the room was than his own back in Massachusetts, as Jessica walked into the doorway.
"Hello there," she smiled at him. "All settled?"
He glanced around the room, from the mahogany dressers to the cream-colored walls.
"I think so," he replied, pushing his nagging thoughts aside.
"Well, Dad said that we could catch a ride with him to the Civic Center if we wanted. Once we get there, we can do what we want," Jessica continued to say, but noticed the blank stare on his face. "John? What is it? What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
"Bullshit," she retorted quickly. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," he sighed and laid back onto the bed, so that his legs were hanging off the mattress from the knee-down. "I guess, I look around here and wonder why you'd ever want to come back… to West Newbury, I mean."
Jessica continued to eye him oddly.
"Before, you hated your dad, but now you don't," he paused and then tried to cover his statement, "I meant, I'm happy you and your dad are cool now, don't get me wrong, I just don't see what's stopping you from staying."
"John," Jessica shook her head and sat beside him on the blue comforter, "I have a life back there. You're there, Grandma's there, your family's there… West Newbury's my hometown, no matter where I was born or where my parents reside. I can't just erase the eleven years I've lived there; it's made me who I was."
"So you're not going to move here?"
"No!" Jessica exclaimed loudly. "God, no. My sister and I can't be left in a room together for more than five minutes before we try to kill each other," she laughed and picked herself up off the bed. "I'd never leave West Newbury for Stamford. What gave you that idea?"
"I don't know," he shrugged.
"You've been saying that a lot lately," she cracked a smile at him.
"Well if you lived in a little town in a little house and then… boom! Stayed at your friend's parents' mansion for the weekend, you'd be a little overwhelmed too!"
"God, John," she rolled her eyes. "Sometimes you're such a butthead."
"Hey!" he pouted. "That's Steve, not me! I resent being one by association!"
"Whatever, Cena. Let's head out."
Vince stepped out of the black limousine first, followed closely by his daughter, and lastly, her best friend. After the driver closed the door behind him, Vince smoothed down his slacks and turned towards his youngest daughter.
"I have to attend to some matters backstage," he began, fumbling with his watch. "Are you going to be alright on your own, Jess?"
"Dad, I'm almost eighteen," she chuckled.
"Sorry, I forget that sometimes. Trying to make up for lost chances, I guess," he shrugged.
"Well, Mr. McMahon," John interred, trying to cover up the awkwardness clearly present between them, "Jess and I are off to explore."
"Right," he nodded in response. "I trust you to find your way?"
"Yes," Jessica replied and watched as her father turned and disappeared behind a set of doors.
But as John began to head for the doors as well, a hand on his arm halted him.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Well," he looked at his white Reeboks and then to the clear, glass doors of the Civic Center, "I'm here in the parking lot… of the Civic Center… and my best friend's father just gave me an invitation to go inside, so… I was planning on going inside."
"Well remember how I told you there were conditions… with an s?" she smirked, sliding behind his body and out of sight.
"Yeah…"
Suddenly, John felt her hands stretch over his shoulders and the world around him went dark.
"This is it."
"Jessica, if you make me bump into one more thing, I'm ripping off this blindfold and-"
"And what?" she challenged, stopping dead in her tracks, causing John to stop as well.
"You're such a bitch sometimes, you know that?" he frowned at no one in particular.
"Come on," she laughed at his frustration, "Don't you know what blood I have running through my veins?"
"I do, but…" John began to answer, still flustered at having to rely on her guidance.
"Stairs," she interrupted and he heeded her warning. "Thanks, guys, you can tie them off now."
"No problem, Ms. McMahon," a random voice, far off to John, answered. "If you need anything else, please let me know."
Jessica nodded and crept behind John once again, "You were saying?"
"I was SAYING, in reference to the venom that you call blood running through your veins, that it is still no reason for you to be bitchy."
"Come on, John," she lowered her voice, "Isn't this worth it?"
"Isn't what worth it?" he asked her confusedly.
"This," Jessica replied simply and untied the blindfold, allowing it to fall onto the bare canvas at their feet.
She stepped out from behind and stared at him, watching as his turquoise eyes drank in the world around him.
This world was nothing like the one back in West Newbury; this one was one of glamour and adoration or hatred and disdain, but the choice was your own.
Miraculously, his feet unfroze and he walked over to the end of the square in order to get a better look at everything surrounding him.
John rested his strong hands on the flimsy, red line in front of him as he gazed outward. The seats were empty, soon to be filled with thousands of people for the pinnacle of Sports Entertainment, yet John couldn't help but dream of the day in which Jessica would look out into the crowd and see all eyes on her, the day in which John would gaze into the sea of bodies and know they were there to see him.
The more John thought about Jessica, the more he realized how stupid it was to think that she would leave him behind back home. They'd met up this morning for the first time in three and a half months and judging by how much she'd missed him, he knew just how wrong he had been.
After all, she had sacrificed a lot to do this for him. He knew she had a term paper due Monday that she'd been slaving over for the past week, but she had done it for him… to give him a gift he could never have imagined:
A dream.
A/N: So I'm back after my long hiatus! I wrote a lot over the course of my two-week adventure in Europe and thank God you don't have to read the chapter from the notebook it was in. If you did, it'd be chicken scratch... it's hard writing on boats, trains, planes, and buses!
So this chapter isn't exactly eventful, but the next one is HUGE! It took me forever to get it the way I wanted and there are so many cross-outs on the page.
Well, let me know what you all think!
And as usual, shout out to my loyal readers: dj-ssdd, Adrian Jade, Daddy's Lil HeartBreaker, and Enigmatic Lotus Leaf.
Please read and review, everyone... four was down from my previous high of seven. Give me a good welcome home present and you shall be rewarded. :-)
Danielle
