Here's the next update like I promised you guys. Enjoy!

Hospitals and Awkward Kisses

I was still pissed off at Jon. I was still pissed off with him when we got to the hospital. Solofa and Tally decided to chaperon Jon and I when he took us to the hospital.

It was early morning in Florida, Joe was in surgery when we got to the hospital straight from the airport.

"Annie." Patricia said once seeing me.

They were in the surgical waiting room, waiting to hear anything on Joe's surgery. Patricia looked tired like she hadn't been sleeping well. Me, I had hardly slept myself so I probably looked as tired as she did.

With it being in November, there was a boom box at the reception area that was playing Christmas music. Man that was strange to hear at this time of year. Oh no, wait, it wasn't.

"Hi, how are you holding up?"

"I am doing okay, the best that I can for Tera." She stepped to the side and showed the little girl sleeping. "We thought it would be best to keep her out of school today."

Jess had laid Tera down in a couch at the corner of the room. She wore a pink shirt under blue overalls. Her hair was up in two pigtails and she had a gift shop teddy bear tucked under her chin. Jess looked like she hardly slept at all. No one in their looked all that happy.

"Did you just get in?" Patricia asked.

"Jon drove here straight from the airport." Solofa said. "We'll call a taxi to take us the rest of the way home."

"How was your flight?" Sika asked joining in on hugging me.

I felt good to be there with them. Now that I was back home at least.

"It was okay. I'm sure youtube has me on there doing a personal reading of my book to a little boy that didn't like flying." I answered.

"Oh, you're going to be the best mom in the world." Patricia cooed.

I smiled, and then looked at the very tired fiance of Joe's. It was hard to believe that she and I didn't really see eye to eye, especially when people started thinking up the past. Everyone either thought that I was going to be Joe's sister or that we would make the long distance relationship work. I could see how she didn't care for me at first. But now since Joe was like the brother I never had, and his family the family I sort of wished I had, it was coming to terms with knowing that I fell in love with Sketch and she found herself falling in love with Joe. I just hoped she could understand that part.

"Jess?" I said sitting down next to her. "How are you?"

"Tired, but otherwise I'm good." She said, forcing a smile in my general direction.

"You're bleary eyed. I can always stay here with Joe so that you can go home to sleep."

"You look as tired as I do." She responded quickly.

"Oh I am. I was just trying to be nice."

"Well, don't, I can handle this on my own." She snapped at me.

I sighed. "I'm trying to help."

"Look, I just want to worry about Joe. I don't want you…"

"I thought we had this conversation before." I said leaning back in the chair and crossing my arms over my chest. "I thought we got that part over."

"You did, you did all the talking. But…I still sort of feel like you have some sort of thing for him."

"I lost the love of my life, Jess. I am not ready…"

"You're not ready to fall in love again, but now Joe is hurt and you're knocked up…" She paused and shook her head. "You don't know what it's like living with the fact that I was the second option."

"You don't know what it was like living with a drug addicted mother. The only reason why I stayed there at all was because of my grandmother." I interjected. "I stayed in the hell because Sketch was there. You have Joe. I don't want him. I want Sketch back. But Joe will come back full of piss and vinegar while the love of my life is buried six feet under." I hissed through my teeth because I didn't want Tera waking up.

I stood up and headed for the elevators.

Jon watched me go. I didn't care if he watched me leave, as long as he stayed in the surgical waiting room. But as I had thought, he didn't stay there so long.

The elevator doors were closing but his hand shot out and stopped it. As the doors opened Jon walked in and hit the close doors button.

"Can't let you go off on your own, Princess. What was the fight about?"

"Old feelings, old memories. She feels like she was the second option for Joe to date, because I'm assuming it was because she was there and I wasn't."

"I heard that you wanted Sketch back."

"Yes, I want him back." I reached up and pressed the single tear I had away.

"What's this about drug addict?"

"My birth mother. She was a drug addict, I think my biological father was too." I pushed my dark blond hair behind my ear. My hair was growing longer now, it was down to about my collar bone at that point. "She claimed she did drugs while she was pregnant with me."

The reflection of Jon in the elevator doors shown me the look on his face. He learned something that he didn't know.

"No one told you did they?" I asked.

"That mommy was a druggie? No, they failed to tell me about that."

"I guess they want to keep the past in the past. But that was why she came to the apartment, she wanted money, money that Sketch and I weren't going to give her. When Sketch told her to leave she pulled something from her hoodie and it turned out to be a gun."

He didn't say anything for a while. He walked with me, which may seem to be strange at that moment but it felt good. It felt good that he would be there for me and that he may have some sort of emotion for me.

"Sorry." He mumbled.

"Sorry about what? That I lost my beloved man, the father of my baby? That I had a screwed up life."

"Mine wasn't all that different from yours, Sweetheart." He held up a hand when I turned to him to say what was on my mind. "Your mom was a druggie, so was mine. It was a fact that I didn't divulge to a lot of people. Last I heard she was alive and not in a gutter somewhere in Cincinnati with a needle in her arm."

So that was the something we had in common.

"Did you go to foster care?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Yeah, when I was six. For two months. Mom got cleaned for two months, got me back and she just went on, hiding it better that time around." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I don't like to admit a lot of things."

"Me neither. When she came back, when I was sixteen and with the Anoa'i family, Patricia and Sika were ready to adopt me. Joe found that out, he over heard them. That was one of the major things that got me so mixed up. Joe was the one guy that I had been around that didn't treat me like crap. I started feeling these feelings that were so mixed up."

"Ah, I see. That's Jess's the whole issue with being second in Joe's life."

"Yeah, but Sketch, he became that man I wanted to be with. He was sweet, he thought of other people and not just about himself. I found him on my doorstep and that good part of my childhood came back. I only shared two kisses with Joe, Joe's got a kid with Jess. He asked her to marry him, not me. I already said yes to Sketch. We would have been happy."

And that's when Jon touched me, softly. It was on the back of my arm, making me look at him. The last time we ever touched it was him forcing me to let go of my luggage. This time his hand moved to my lower back. But it didn't last long there.

He pulled his hand back quickly. "And you keep trying to make yourself clear with everyone but it's like they are living in the past. Happens a lot, Princess. They'll move on from the ideas."

The elevators opened up and we stood in the lobby of the hospital. People were going to and from, patients getting discharged were being pushed in wheelchairs. Phones were ringing and the people were all talking. It seemed to drown me out of what was going on in my head.

"What do you think this Christmas will be like?" Jon asked.

"I had a family for Christmas every year since I was sixteen. It was Sketch and Grandma and me after 2002, that's all I needed. And now, Vanessa is AWOL, Summer's pregnant and Myritza isn't even around. She's up in Ohio with Matt, a sibling I never got to know."

"I hear he's thinking of moving back here. Him and Mandy are getting a divorce."

"Mandy the Wife?"

"Yeah. He wants to open a restaurant here in Pensacola."

I sighed. "Everything seems to be changing all of a sudden."

"Life does that."

Joe was in his room by the time Jon and I got back. I had calmed down and was able to go back to his room when Patricia called.

"Hey," Joe smiled at me when we entered the room. "You two haven't tried to killed each other, have you?"

"No," I glanced at Jon. "He made sure that I didn't go out to and do something that I shouldn't do."

"That's good." He looked at Jon with a pointed look.

"How are you feeling?" I asked stepping up to the bed. "Where's Jess and Terracotta?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Jess said something about taking Tera home. She didn't look too happy."

"Well, she wasn't, not with me at least." I put my hand on my stomach. "She still thinks you and I want to get together. I think. She said something about being the second choice."

"She was the first choice, I just got wrapped up with you for a while." He said then rubbed his head. "Damn, I thought you cleared that up for her."

"I thought so too, but she just didn't seem to want to listen."

Jon looked like the odd man out of the conversation.

"Thanks for keeping an eye on her. Where did you go?" Joe said looking at his friend.

"To the cafeteria to get something to drink. She wanted Cranberry Juice for some reason." Jon said. "And I got a call, I'm up for the next couple of weeks, they are giving me Thanksgiving off. So tomorrow I head out."

"Oh yeah, there's the Pay-per-view coming up the Sunday before Thanksgiving." I said.

"And I'm getting pounded by Bray Wyatt."

Now I felt like the odd one out. But I listened. Or tried to. Wrestling just wasn't that interesting for me.

"Take Annie home, Jon. She looks tired." Joe instructed of his friend.

"She was up most of the flight reading her Perry Miser books to some little kid." Jon filled him in on that fact. "But, yeah, I guess it's time for Princess to get her beauty sleep."

I nodded. I reached over and put my hand in Joe's. "Get better, big guy. I'll see you later."

He squeezed my hand. "You too, Annie."

Jon and I left the hospital in silence. I walked with him to the Tahoe. Solofa and Tally came out to take their things when their taxi came to pick them up. Patricia was still at the hospital but Sika left to take Jess and Tera home, then he was going to go out to find some food.

"Jon," I spoke up as we came to a stop light.

"Hmm," he mumbled, not looking at me.

"Thank you." Then he glanced at me, so I continued talking. "Thank you for listening to me earlier."

"No, problem Princess. So, now that you are finally home, what are you going to do?"

"Sleep, eat and continue writing. I pitched an idea for a novel that Colby and I started back in August. Well he started it and I just started adding to it. I'm almost done, I just have to tweak a few things."

"What is it about?"

"It is a spirit of Christmas kind of story. Something mushy, something along the lines of Angels coming to Earth to help down trodden humans feel the spirit of Christmas all over again. But it's dealing with Fairies."

Jon laughed just a bit. "Interesting twist on it."

"I've been wanting to write a fantasy, instead of just these children's books. I want to broaden my horizons with writing, not focusing on just children's novels. You know."

"I can see that. Moving on to bigger and better things?"

"No, more like starting a new adventure. I will still write Perry Miser books, I'm sure there are more tales out there with him. But I want to write as an adult for the first time."

Jon pulled down the road that would lead to the house. "People assume a lot about someone just by the one thing they do."

I nodded. "The one thing they are famous for. I'm famous for Perry Miser, no one can see me doing anything else when I like so many different genres out there. Although science fiction isn't one of them."

"And I'm the jackass heel that is a face. I usually am the heel in any damn wrestling brand that I am under. Then I get here, I start as a heel and then I get to be a face, it seems weird."

"So it seems strange when you're the good guy?" I asked only knowing a limited amount of wrestling from my early childhood with the Anoa'i family.

"Yeah, especially when," he pulled into the driveway. "Especially when fans come up and say they love me as a heel character."

Jon got out of the SUV and went to the back to get my luggage.

"Patricia gave me an extra key." I told him. "I'll go unlock it for you." I said slipping out with my laptop case in tow.

He didn't say anything, and I stood at the open door waiting for him to come in. I had to admit he did look good in ripped blue jeans, a graphic t-shirt and sneakers. His hair was slick back, though with the humidity, it was starting to puff up a little.

Now that we were being civil, it felt strange. We were talking like adults, we were getting to know each other but there was that wall that hung on the outskirts of it all. I was waiting for that wall to fall down and him treat me like a jerk face idiot that he usually was.

"Are you coming for Thanksgiving?" I asked.

He merely shrugged. "I haven't decided yet. Patricia tries to make me come, so I have for the last couple of years since I met Joe at what was FCW I've always come to their place for Thanksgiving."

"So this family has become sort of family for you as well?"

"Sort of, but not like you are to them."

"I'm still getting used to it myself."

I walked up the stairs, Jon right behind me. When I went to take the last step, my foot hit half of it, and it slipped. I yelped as I felt myself start falling forward. Jon grabbed the back of my shirt to keep me from falling on my stomach.

"Are you okay?" He tossed up the suitcase of cloths so that he could use both hands to help balance me.

My hands were on his chest, his body so close to mine. Jon's hands were pressing into my back to keep me from falling, I guess. This was the longest we had touched, this was the most intimate that I had been with him. He'd always been that jerk face idiot to me, but now, I was mesmerized at the light sky blue eyes he had. Jon's big hands, the way his mouth seemed to be set in a stone straight line.

I opened my mouth to say something when it happened. And it was the moment when it felt so strange.

Jon leaned down and kissed me. I jerked my head back slightly but he followed again, nipping at my lower lip.

And the fluttering feeling I had in my stomach was from the baby, moving around like he or she was happy.

Then it ended as suddenly as it had begun. Even Jon looked shocked as I did.

"Fuck." He grumbled letting me go and then stepped back. "I uh, that was wrong. I need to go, I need to…" he didn't finish it. Jon practically ran down the stairs and out the front door in a blur to me.

Blur because I started crying for no apparent reason. Maybe there was a reason, I just didn't know it yet.

Well, this is the path that I chose because it was the simplest thing to do. I hope you guys enjoy it. Maybe now Jon and Annie can work things out.

So until next time, see you guys later.