Chapter 11

The past few days went by smoothly. Rose's friend from the wrestling gig Carrie spent nights with her while Jon was out of town for the day or so. Rose's knee was healing rather quickly and she was to be back on her feet in the next three days. But despite everything goign well, Rose had a weird feeling. She didn't want to tell Jon and worry him. She was completely oblivious that Jon had the same feeling.

"Jon has been acting strange lately," Rose said. "Haven't you noticed, Carrie?"

Her friend looked at her. They were sitting on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune. Carrie was sworn to secrecy about the truth, just like Jason and Jack were. Jon made it his mission to keep everything under wraps so that Rose wouldn't find it. Jon was extremely afraid of losing Rose.

"Probably just under a lot of stress from wrestling is all probably," Carrie quickly said, trying to remain calm and collective as she could.

Soon there was a knock on the door. Carrie got up to answer it.

"Why, hello Jackus Cactus," she said, smugly.

"Don't call me that," Jack said. He stepped inside.

"Hey, Jack," Rose said. "Is Jon alright?"

"Yeah. He's fine. How are you?" Jack said, approaching her to give her a hug.

"Doing great. Worried about Jon is all," Rose said.

"Don't worry. He'll be alright," Jack said, assuringly. "Brought you something."

Jack reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a can of Sprite and handed it to Rose.

"Thanks, bud."

"No problem. You guys okay?"

"Yes we are, Jackus. I was making some lasagna," Carrie said, going to the kitchen. "It should be done in another twenty minutes."

"Why did I say about calling me that, Carrie?" Jack said, getting irritated with Carrie.

"I love messing with you is all," Carrie said, looking back to shoot Jack a sly smile.

"I want to know what's going on," Rose said, abruptly. "I'm not saying I'm not enjoying your company and I don't appreciate you guys' making sure I'm healing, but I sense something else is going on behind all of this."

Carrie came back into the living room. She sat down next to Rose. She remained silent for a few minutes. Jack didn't say anything either. Just stood up against the wall with his arms crossed.

"Carrie. Jack. What is going on?" Rose demanded to know at this point.

There was another knock at the door.

Jack went to answer it.

"Hey, Jason," Jack said.

"Hello everybody!" Jason's light spirit helped eased some of the tension in the room. "Damn, something sure does smell good in here. Lemme guess...lasagna?"

"Yes. It is," Carrie said, breaking her silence.

"Jason, where's Jon?" Rose said. By now, she had no more patience. "Why has he been acting strange lately?"

Jason stopped dead in his tracks. He gave Rose a stern look, a look that made her feel uneasy.

"Jon should tell you," he responded.

"Is he in trouble?" Rose said.

"Rose, it's best that you talk to him," Carrie agreed with Jason.

"He'll be back tomorrow morning. You two should talk then," Jack said.

"Alright," Rose said.

And with this, Rose went to bed with a lot on her mind. She really hoped what Jon had to tell her wasn't bad. She hoped it wouldn't jepordize their impending relationship. She loved Jon dearly. She was planning to actually make love to him finally.

But there was situation at hand that needed to be resolved.