A huge thank you to my wonderful beta Teanni, as well as everyone who has favorited, followed and reviewed! Y'all really make my day! I apologize for the delay in the chapter, I was busy moving back to school. Feel free to shoot me a review and let me know what you think!
Kat's eyes snapped open and she looked around, trying to figure out what had awoken her from her slumber. Jon. He wasn't in the bed next to her. She turned her head toward the master bathroom, and seeing no light, kicked off the covers and went to go find him.
She rubbed her eyes sleepily as she padded softly down the hallway, looking in doorways and finally finding him standing in her office, looking at more of the framed mementoes on her walls.
"Jon?" she asked, rubbing the back of her neck as she leaned against the doorway. "What are you doing up?"
He turned at the sound of her tired voice, a bit startled. "Couldn't sleep," he said. She smiled wryly as she came into the room and leaned against his shoulder.
"You couldn't sleep so you decided to try and figure out a bit more of my life story. Find anything interesting?"
"Yeah, actually," he said, pointing to a series of frames that all held posters, pictures, ticket stubs and programs from various stage shows - mostly musicals. "You did theatre?"
She nodded. "Yeah. All through high school up until right before my junior year of undergrad," she pointed out each show in the frames.
"Why'd you stop?" he asked.
Kat sighed. "Lots of reasons." She picked one of the framed pictures up off of her desk. It was a picture of her and a much younger girl. The frame around the picture read "Kasey and Rhia - Stage Sisters Forever" in swirly lettering. "I let the other girls get to me, I guess. Before, I used to do it because it made me happy. After, it just didn't make me happy anymore. I spent so much time comparing myself to everyone else onstage that I forgot why I was out there in the first place."
"Who's Kasey?" he asked, reading the frame on the picture. "I mean, she looks like you…"
"Kasey was my nickname all through high school. I did shows with the same group of people, so it stuck around for most of the shows. Katharine Christine, K. C. Kasey."
"And this?" He held up a frame of four women in jumpsuits, hard hats and hiking boots that said 'First Annual Nerd Herd Vacation, Blanchard Springs.'
"Well, there's me and Janie. Allie is the one between us, and Karah is the one on the end. We've all been friends for years. We get together every year and go on vacation together." She gestured to the other frames that lined the walls. "This year will be number seven," she said with a grin. "We aren't entirely sure what we're going to do yet. Janie's mom is the one who started calling us the Nerd Herd. It just kind of stuck." Kat tried her best to stifle a yawn and failed miserably.
"C'mon," Jon said, leading her back to the bedroom. "You still need sleep."
"Damn straight," she replied, not even wanting to argue that point, being as it was some ridiculous hour of the morning and they had to be at Janie's for Thanksgiving by two. They climbed back into bed and Kat cuddled close to Jon before wrapping herself in a burrito of blankets and going straight back to sleep.
Jon still couldn't sleep; everything he had learned in the past few hours about the woman in his arms was reeling around in his head. Instead of making him want to run like it normally did, knowing her better made him want to stay. That's what had been keeping him awake in the first place. Seeing her lying there, sleeping peacefully in his arms, her face untroubled by the cares of her day-to-day existence, made him want to be a part of that existence. With that incredibly uncharacteristic thought, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and closed his eyes, hoping he had the energy to withstand whatever tomorrow was going to bring.
The next morning found Kat waking up with both of Jon's arms wrapped around her waist in what felt like a vise grip. She tried, to no avail, to get him to move.
"Jon, I need you to let me up," she said, trying to be patient, having no idea what he was like in the morning, being as this was the first time they had actually woken up together. She tried to squirm out of his grasp. "Jon, seriously. I have to get ready." She just sighed and closed her eyes again, though it was a bit frustrating that she was stuck she couldn't help but find it cute. He'd have to move eventually…right?
Wrong. Forty-five minutes later, Kat was still trying to get out of Jon's death grip, except now on top of the ever-increasing time crunch, her bladder was now protesting. "Jon, c'mon… I really, really need to get up now. And I can't do that with you cutting off circulation to the lower half of my body." At this point, she was a teeny-tiny bit more than frustrated. The man could sleep like the dead!
"Good morning to you too, sunshine," he grumbled, releasing her.
"Thank you," she said, pressing a quick kiss to his lips and rushing to the bathroom to take care of her immediate needs and start freshening up for the day. "You hungry?" she asked from the bathroom after she had gotten most of her morning routine taken care of.
"Nope," he said, watching her run a curling iron through her long brown hair from the bed.
"Okay. Also, I should probably warn you, Janie's mom is a bit… brash. She has no filter. So just, don't be too surprised with the things that come out of her mouth, okay? And if you could conveniently forget anything embarrassing she happens to say about me, that would be awesome too," she added, setting the curling iron down and moving on to doing her makeup. She kept the makeup simple, just some pale brown eye shadow and a little bit of lipstick.
She walked out of the bathroom and over to her closet door where the dress she was planning on wearing was hanging. Completely disregarding the man still sitting in her bed, Kat stripped off her pajamas and slipped the burgundy dress over her head, buckling the brown belt around her waist. She gave herself a once-over in the full-length mirror before turning to Jon.
"Well?" she asked, turning so he could see the entire package.
"Damn," he said with a smile, taking in the beautiful woman standing before him. The dress complemented her pale skin and chocolate hair perfectly. She looked fantastic. He stood up and walked over to her, spinning her around so that they could look at their reflections in the mirror. "You're gonna make me look under dressed, doll," he said, kissing the side of her neck.
"Well, you work on getting ready. I have to finish up the food I promised Janie I would bring. If you need anything, I'll be in the kitchen, okay?"
He nodded, and Kat headed down the hall to put the finishing touches on the desserts she had started the day before. The Jell-o had set wonderfully and Kat was just adding the whipped cream topping to the chocolate pie when Jon came into the kitchen in a nice pair of jeans and a button-down. Kat subconsciously licked her lips. Hot damn this man was driving her insane! She glanced at the clock on the oven timer that read one forty-five and looked at him.
"You ready for this?" she asked, giving him one last chance to bow out gracefully, though she would admittedly be disappointed if he did.
"Oh yeah," he said confidently, although he was not actually feeling as confident as he was acting.
Kat placed the now finished pie into a pie carrier and put the Jell-o into another container before grabbing both and heading toward the front door. "Let's go then. The chaos and craziness awaits!"
"Aunt Kat!" the twins exclaimed as soon as Kat and Jon walked in the door, almost knocking the woman over with the ferocity of their hugs. The pie was almost lost in the hubbub.
"Oh good, Kat's here," Brent said, coming into the foyer. "Let me take those desserts while you wrangle the kids. I think Janie's in the family room. Her mom and dad are having grandparent time with Christine."
"Lovely. Oh, Brent, this is Jon," she said, introducing the two men. "Jon, this is Janie's husband Brent."
"Nice to meet you, man," Brent said. "Happy Thanksgiving."
"Happy thanksgiving," Jon replied.
"Is that Kitty I hear in there?" a southern-accented voice called from the family room.
"Kitty?" Jon playfully whispered in Kat's ear.
"Shut up," she replied. "Janie's mom is the only person who can get away with calling me that. Ever. Yes, Mama Morton, it's me!"
"Well get your cute little ass in here and say hello missy! I haven't seen you in forever!" Kat and Jon went into the family room where Janie and baby Chrissy were being doted upon by Janie's parents. "Oh good Heavens, Kitty brought a man with her? Is the world endin'? Has hell frozen over? Wait, Janie, is this the one you were telling me about?"
Jon watched as Kat's face went from its usual porcelain shade to bright red with embarrassment. She took a few deep breaths before answering.
"Yes Mama Morton, I did bring a man with me. This is Jon. As far as I know, the world has not ended, nor has Hell frozen over." Her face broke into a huge smile. "Damn it's good to be home. I'd almost forgotten what a holiday was like without you teasing the living daylights out of me! "
"Oh, honey, we've barely even started," Janie's mother said with a wink.
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