AGAIN

Chapter Twelve: Cravings.

You have reached Jesse De Silva's voice mail, please leave a message and I will contact you as soon as I'm able.

Beep.

Hi! Sweetie, it's me! Suze! Listen I called Gino's Dinner and I ordered a few things, can you pick them up before you come home? I know it's late but I'm really craving that milkshake and the fries. Okay?

……………

You have reached Jesse De Silva's voice mail, please leave a message and I will contact you as soon as I'm able.

Beep.

Hey, it's me again. Don't forget to ask for extra ketchup and tell Gino to don't go cheap on the pickles for my burger. Love you.

…………………


Jesse

"Hey, Jesse," Gino D'Angelo greeted me when I walked into the dinner, it was almost midnight and Gino's is one of the few dinners downtown that stay open all night. I learned this during Susannah's third month of pregnancy when the bad cravings started. "Suze's order is almost up." Now that we have reached the sixth month of pregnancy both Susannah and I are well known at Gino's

"Thanks, Gino." I said, sitting down on a stool.

"Look that I see my old pal Rico." I heard a voice coming from my right; I turned to find Paul Slater sitting a stool away from me. "Hey, Toni, give some coffee to my friend Jesse here."

"Slater, what are you doing here?" I asked while Toni, the waitress, served me a cup of black coffee which I took gratefully.

"Jack hit his head this afternoon while mediating a ghost, grandpa said we aren't to let him sleep for eight hours at least… so Wendy and I are staying up with him till the eight hours pass, which will be around three a.m." Paul answered, it sounded like the truth. "But Wendy and Jack got hungry while we watched The Sixth Sense –AGAIN – and sent me to get food. I didn't even know that ghost could get hungry, but Wendy eats like is going out of style."

"I take she hasn't been dead for long." I said, scooting closer to him so we could talk without raising our voices. "Human habits die hard, she still thinks she has to get tired and get hungry and all… that's why she eats though she doesn't have to."

"Does food taste like something?" He asked, I guess, since I had first hand knowledge on the subject.

"To what you remember it tasted when you were alive." I explained. "After a while you forget and food doesn't taste like anything anymore and then you stop eating all together."

"Oh," There was something weird about this Paul, other than calling me Rico he was behaving like an entire different person… he was behaving like a person to begin with. "And what happens with, you know the food. It's not like ghosts… you know… use the toilet all that often."

"When the food gets inside a ghost's body it gets sucked into Shadowland, but since it doesn't belong there it bounces off, materializing some other place."

"I see… I wondered." Paul said absently. "What are you doing here?" He asked after a pause, right then my cell phone started to ring, I saw the caller ID, it was Susannah.

"Hey," I said into my phone.

"Hi. Listen, could you also get me an ice-cream sundae? I'm really feeling like having one." Querida said.

"Hold on." I answered. "Hey, Gino, could you also throw in a sundae?" Gino answered that he could and I passed along the message. "Is anything else you want?"

"That you get home already! I miss you."

"I'll be right there."

"Okay." She said happily and hanged up.

"Was that Suze?"

"Yeah. She's always getting these cravings… it's insane. But it's not like I can say no with the baby and all."

Paul's eyebrows went up. "Baby? Is she?"

I realized belatedly that I had said too much but there was no taking it back now… "She's pregnant."

Then Paul did the weirdest thing in the history of ever, he said. "Congratulations," and it sounded like he meant it. "Tell Suze I'm happy for her."

"Do you feel alright?"

"Of course, why?"

"You're being nice… to me… and you have hated me since the day we met."

"I never hated you. You were a huge pain in the ass but I didn't hate you. Besides, what do I win by hating you or wishing Suze bad? Nothing. I've come to terms with the fact that Suze wasn't' for me and that I was being a jerk about it. I never stood up and fought for her like a man like I should have; I blackmailed her into marring me and scared her into staying married to me. At the end, she only ended up hating me and divorcing me and she went back to you anyway… and I ended up getting Wendy as a Karmic punishment."

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head or something?"

"Yes, I'm sure." Paul said, he seemed oddly calm… and not like serpents get right before they strike but really, truly at peace… it was scary as hell. "Wendy said something once, about that boyfriend of hers who got killed, she said that 'he was kind and honest and put her ahead of everything, always' and that got me thinking that you always did that for Suze and that she always did it for you and I realized I never meet someone for whom I would feel that way. Weird as it sounds that made me realize the reason why I was never able to make Suze fall for me… because I never fell for her, she just said no when I wanted her to say yes and I never got over that. Wendy says…"

He went on babbling, it was freaky but after the tenth time he mentioned Wendy I knew what was so different about Paul… even if he hadn't realized of it by then he would soon… and that was the last time I felt animosity towards Paul Slater, the person that for years I blamed for ruining my life.

Soon after I went home.

"Jesse!" Susannah yelled and threw all her pregnant-self at me the second I crossed the door to our department. She looked as if she had swallowed a basketball but more beautiful than ever. "I missed you! I hate it when you work this late." She whined.

"I hate it too but Jerry has been taking the night shifts for me for the last two months and he wanted to celebrate his anniversary with Sam tonight."

"I know." Susannah said, sitting on the couch while she started to open the food packages, "I understand but I still hate it." She settled down and pushed the play button on the remote of our DVD player, she likes to watch movies while she waits for me – and her food – to arrive.

"Please, not Ever After again." I said sitting down and grabbing one of the three burgers Susannah had ordered.

"Nah, it's Jurassic Park, I didn't felt like torturing you so much tonight." She said as the movie started. Jurassic Park is one of the few movies we agree on and it's by the same director as Jaws.

We only made it to half of the movie before Susannah got sleepy. I cleaned up all the food wrappings and dishes while she settled in bed and then I joined her. We cuddled up together in bed, spoon fashion and I held her tight, kissing her hair and her ear and caressing her big belly softly.

"I love you, Jesse." Suze said sleepily snuggling closer.

"I love you too, querida." I answered as I always did.

I enjoyed watching her sleep, so peaceful and looking so pretty. I never thought I would have kids. After the first half century as a ghost I had resigned myself to it but now a little part of me is growing inside my Susannah and all I can do is stare in wonder as the weeks and months pass. We don't know if is going to be a boy or a girl, Susannah says we are going to wait the old fashion way.

And after the baby is born we are going to get married, I wanted to get married before the baby were born but I knew that if I said so Susannah would have thought I was only asking because she was pregnant and that wasn't true. So I asked her during her third month of pregnancy and she said yes but after the baby was born so we – meaning she –could have the big wedding and all.

So now I'm just waiting… waiting so I can marry the only woman I've ever loved and waiting to have our baby in my arms and be all the things I never thought possible.


-

Two Moths Later…

Paul

When I got home after work I found the oddest of sights waiting for me. A very pregnant Suze sitting and watching as Wendy tried to teach Jack to dance. Needless to say that my little bro was hopeless.

"Moonlight and Love songs, never out of date. Hearts full of passion, jealousy and hate. Woman needs men and a man must have his mate… on this you can rely." The CD player was blasting as I walked into the living room.

"It's still the same old story, a fight for love and glory. A case of do or die. The world will always welcome lovers. As time goes by."

Jack stepped into Wendy's feet and they both fell to the ground laughing.

"I really suck at this." Jack complained, getting to his feet and sitting next to Suze. "I'm so going to ruin my date!"

"That's not true." Suze said. "We got you a great suit, didn't we?"

"Yes, Jack, just relax, this isn't really all that difficult." Wendy said kindly, and then she noted I was there. "You, feet-lover, come over here." She ordered me and I walked to her.

"I've told you not to call me that."

She just rolled her eyes at me and Suze giggled. In the last months we have sort of become friends and since she gets along with Jack and Wendy she is often at home with them when Rico is at work, especially now that she is huge and about to give birth at any moment.

"Whatever," She said and added to Jack "Put the next song on."

I placed my arms around her and to Jack I said: "Watch and learn, grasshopper."

It was a BeeGees song, I remember it clearly and probably will till the day I die…

I know your eyes in the morning sun. I feel you touch me in the pouring rain. And the moment that you wander far from me, I wanna feel you in my arms again. And you come to me on a summer breeze, keep me warm in your love, then you softly leave. And it's me you need to show…

How deep is your love, how deep is your love. I really mean to learn, 'cause we're living in a world of fools breaking us down when they all should let us be. We belong to you and me.

I forgot about Suze and Jack standing right there as I danced with Wendy, it was so strange and I wasn't sure if I this was a dream or it was really happening 'cause it feel to good to be real.

I believe in you. You know the door to my very soul. You're the light in my deepest, darkest hour. You're my savior when I fall. And you may not think that I care for you, when you know down inside that I really do. And it's me you need to show…

It was like being suspended out of time or something, the moment when I first realized I was in love with Wendy, the last person I ever thought I would fall for. She was all the things that drove me nuts: sloppy, messy, sarcastic, she had no regard whatsoever for me, she could make my blood boilwith her teasing and then make me laugh so hard that I didn't know if I wanted to yell at her or kiss her. She made me want to shake her even as I wanted to smooth down her hair… but I never knew what that meant until that moment when I was dancing a silly love song with her…

How deep is your love, how deep is your love- I really mean to learn cause we're living in a world of fools, breaking us down when they all should let us be We belong to you and me…

And that's why I'll always remember that song… How Deep Is Your Love?


-

Suze

Jack and I exchanged a look of incredulity as Paul and Wendy danced, they looked so good together and it was just so OBVIOUS. I smiled inwardly… Paul who had always said I had been so stupid because I fell for a ghost was in the same position that I had been when I was sixteen. Only that Paul wasn't a naïve sixteen year old kid… he knew good and well what he was doing and he was going head first anyway.

The doorbell rang and Paul and Wendy broke apart abruptly.

"That must be Jesse." I said, getting up. "Don't bother, Jack, I know the way. Say hi to your grandpa for me, alright? And don't forget to tell me how your date went."

"Sure thing, Suze." Jack said, walking me out the living room even when I said I knew the way.

It was Jesse the one who rang the bell. He doesn't mind that I spend time at Paul's with Jack, he says that any company is better than nothing now that I'm getting close to m y due date. Usually I'm either with Wendy or with CeeCee – helping her planning her wedding, the one she delayed because she wants me to be maid of honor and she doesn't want me looking like a balloon in the wedding pictures. That would ruin her wedding and she doesn't want that… but then again, EVERYTHING might ruin her wedding, CeeCee is going psycho over the whole Wedding thing.

As for me… well, I'm so not going psycho with my own wedding as Jesse thinks I will, nope, I won't. Once our baby is born I'm going to ask Father Dominic to marry Jesse and me in the beach and then we'll have a party at mom's house and that will be about it. I think Jesse is going to like that.

Poor thing, Jesse, I've been so moody lately with him… like yesterday I threw a shoe at him because he was slow in getting me my ice-cream coated with French fries. And a week ago I yelled him for knocking me up and making me so fat that nothing of my clothes fit anymore and I have to wear his underwear. And Jesse has been talking it all so quietly, saying "Yes, querida." "Whatever you want, Susannah." All the time.

I really scored big with Jesse, but I already knew that.

End of Chapter Twelve.


-

Notes;

Okay, psycho me has class at seven tomorrow and I'ven't finished my presentation on mangroves and I'm going nuts but I wanted to write this first. I hope you like it.

I hope Paul was still believable.

Next chapter: The baby is born, and Paul has to "do the right thing" and let Wendy go… but does she moves on? Or is something else there?

Wait and see.

Much Love,

Crazy, lovable me.

PS: REVIEW!

PSS Starry! Chaotic Romance ROCKS!

PSSS Sorry, I ate a few words in one of Paul's POVs so I changed it!

Lol, I love this export thingy in FFN! It makes so easy to edit! I also corrected a couple of chapters in Love Magic :) I'll give a cookie to the person who tell me which ones.

Much love

Me.