Kate stared at the phone for what seemed like ages and then, finally, clicked the green button. She brought the phone up to her ear and shut her eyes tightly, "Hello?"
"Hi. I just got a call from this number," the male voice stated matter-of-factly.
She couldn't even open her mouth to speak. Instead, Kate sat there completely silent.
The voice pressed on, "Um… hello?"
A moment later, she managed to squeak out a word, "John?"
"Who are you?" he asked, thinking this was just a random fan who had managed to procure his digits. "How did you get this number?"
"It's Kate," she replied quietly, amazed she had actually spoken a coherent sentence, albeit a short one.
And with two words, the entire conversation changed.
"It's Kate."
John's eyes widened as she sat down on the end of his bed and his tone softened, "Kate? Wow… I'm sorry I sounded so harsh. I didn't…"
"I know," Kate finished for him. "I'm sorry, this was a stupid idea."
"No, no," John interred quickly. "Don't go. I wanted to talk to you. It's just weird, finally hearing your voice, I mean."
"Well, I have to admit," she chuckled lightly, finally coming to her senses, "It's not everyday that I hear John Cena's voice coming from my cell phone."
"Touché," he laughed in response as she settled against a wall in her room, a smile etched on her face. "So uh…"
"Yeah…" she trailed off and lightly banged her head against the wall behind her, silently cursing herself for sounding like a total moron on the phone.
"I don't know what to talk about," John stated honestly with a shrug on his end.
"Me either."
"Well, why don't I start by asking you your hobbies?" he decided, even though to him, it sounded slightly lame.
"Okay," Kate agreed. "Ask away."
"Um… what are your hobbies?"
She couldn't help but attempt to stifle her laughter, "Good question. I love sports… mainly basketball, baseball, and football."
"You like sports?" he asked contently. "What teams?"
"I'm a Mets fan… keep your mouth shut," she ordered him with a laugh.
"Hey?" he held up his hands in mock surrender on his side. "We didn't win a World Series for eighty six years. Who am I to judge?"
"Good point, but sadly," she let out a deep sigh and shook her head, "I'm a Knicks fan too."
"That's rough."
"Kind of easy to say when you're a Celtics fan," she shot back. "But I happen to like football, I'm just a hometown fan. I like the Jets and the Giants. There's no preference for me."
"Well, since sports seems to be a conflicting topic for us, pick another hobby," John chuckled and tried to ease into another topic.
Kate scrunched her nose, trying to find another topic that they could discuss, "Um… I like cars?"
The phone nearly slid out of John's good hand, "You like cars?"
"Mhmm. Is there something wrong with that?"
"No, no," he smiled into the receiver, "Actually, I LOVE cars. It's just that you don't exactly come across girls who like cars everyday. What is your dream car?"
"Do you have five hours to hear all eighty two of them?" she countered with a smart-ass attitude.
"Is that an approximate number?"
"Absolutely."
"Then no. Okay, give me a car from the 60's you'd really like to have."
"I think the first car I'd seriously hunt for," she paused to give herself a moment to think, then came up with the answer and continued, "Would be a '66 Dodge Charger with the 426 Hemi."
"Care to explain?" he asked her curiously, despite knowing his own reasons.
"Dude, it's a Charger with a razor grill. Its body goes on for miles. It can go from zero to sixty in 6.4 seconds at 360 horsepower. That's all I need to say," she finished, quite satisfied with her answer.
"Seventies?" he continued the game.
The majority of his own friends, in their twenties and thirties, couldn't even rattle off the specs of the car like she could. Hell, they couldn't even remember the specs of their own cars.
Kate could state the specs in less than fifteen seconds without batting an eyelash. In his opinion, not only was that pretty cool… it was amazing.
"I know that this is going to sounded incredibly cliché," she prefaced, but then added enthusiastically, "I like the 1970 Plymouth Superbird."
"That is cliché…"
"I know, I know," Kate replied, "But I've heard that if you hammer the gas, the car actually shuts down before the horsepower shoots through the roof!"
A smug grin crept across John's face as he leaned back against his headboard, "It does."
"How the hell would you know?"
"I have one," he answered matter-of-factly.
"I hate you," the words left her mouth faster than she could catch herself. "Whoa, that sounded mean. Sorry."
"No it's alright. I swear," he assured her with a laugh. "I would have answered me the same way if I was on your end of the conversation. I was kind of being an ass."
"That, I knew."
"Well, let me make it up to you," John began, "Are you going to be around in January at all?"
"Trust me, not going anywhere," Kate laughed. "Why?"
"Well, I'm going to be in New York City for the first weekend of the month," he informed her. "It's just some promotional crap for the Royal Rumble, but nonetheless, I'm on orders from Vince to be there."
"Um, okay…" she trailed off, silently hoping that he was getting to the part of the conversation she was wishing for.
"I wanted to know if you wanted to hang out or something like that?"
The phone slid freely through Kate's hand and landed smack on her deep pink carpet.
She couldn't be hearing him right. Was he actually implying that he wanted to see her?
"Uh… hello?" his voice was barely audible from the floor.
"Oh sorry, I dropped you!" she called to the cell on the floor and then picked it up. "Yeah, I'd love to."
"Good. We'll iron out the details in another week or so, when it gets closer. You might want to check with your mom," John answered contently.
Two words. Donny. Osmond.
"I'm sure she won't mind."
"Cool. Listen, I've got to go now… my friend, Rob, is throwing a party for his girlfriend," he informed her nonchalantly, "It's her birthday. Personally, I think it's just an excuse for us to get trashed, but whatever."
"Okay," Kate chuckled in response.
"But it's good to hear you happy again, Kate," he said honestly, "I know you haven't exactly had too much to be happy about lately..." he added, trailing off sadly
"Hey, I just got a call from one of my favorite WWE Superstars. Right now, life is good."
"Glad to hear it," he smiled and pushed himself off of the bed with one hand. "I'm going to go get ready, but I'll give you a call a little later tonight, when I get home, okay?"
"You don't have to…"
He cut her off swiftly, "But I want to. I'll talk to you later."
"'Kay. Talk to you later," she repeated after him, all ready to hang up the phone.
But then his voice stopped her, "And Kate?"
"Yeah?"
"You didn't get a call from your favorite WWE Superstar. You got a call from a friend."
After breaking the news to Julia gently over the phone, her best friend arrived in her white Toyota Camry and whisked her off to dinner at the local Applebee's.
Julia was genuinely happy for Kate, despite what she might sarcastically say. The girl hadn't had much to be happy about over the course of the last few months. For starters, she'd endured a surgery that was devastating to most others that needed it, but completely routine to her. Physical therapy was attacked like she was playing Guitar Hero, as nothing more than a challenge she could easily overcome.
Her parents' dissipating marriage, on the other hand, was not as easily handled. She knew that unless the court case was settled rather soon, there was a good chance that Kate's mother was going to be in financial trouble and that her daughter's once secure future might go up in smoke.
College was a different story altogether. The girl had the SAT scores, the GPA, and the ranking to get into some of the nation's top schools, however her financial insecurity would most likely terminate any chance at an out of state, private college.
Despite all of the odds stacked against her, Kate managed to find a stroke of luck somewhere along the line in falling into correspondence with John Cena. For the first time in what seemed like ages, Julia found that her best friend was happy and she'd do whatever she could to keep her that way.
"So what are you two going to do?" Julia asked her best friend, stabbing into a piece of chicken on her plate.
Kate shrugged and took a sip of her water, "I don't know. We just know that we're hanging together for a little while. Nothing's set in stone, though yet… so yeah."
"You could go to a movie or something," the brunette suggested. "Or the mall?"
"Right," the blonde girl rolled her eyes, waving her fork in the air as she talked. "I'm going to bring John Cena to a mall and see what happens?"
"Like you'd ever come within fifty yards of John Cena," a voice snickered from the booth behind her.
Shit.
Kate's eyes shut and she winced, "Please tell me it's not…"
"It is," her friend sighed.
"Mallory," Kate opened her eyes and turned around, forcedly smiling at the not-so-natural blonde in the green booth behind them. "How are you?"
"Laughing hysterically, thanks to your little John Cena fantasy back there," her classmate snorted with laughter. "Seriously, Jackson… do you really think, looking like that, you could actually have a chance with him?"
"I didn't say that…"
"Obviously," Mallory rolled her eyes. "Because then you'd be a little liar. I don't even know why you'd want to look at some 'roided out wrestler anyway."
"Uh," Julia interred on her friend's behalf, "Have you looked at him lately? Two hundred forty five pounds and just over six feet of rock solid, blue-eyed muscle... yeah, not hard to figure out."
"Plus, he isn't on steroids," Kate added to the conversation in defense of her new-found friend.
"Oh yeah? And how would you know? Oh that's right, I forgot. You're going to the mall with him," she cackled and rose from the booth, showing off her miniskirt and sweater, with one of her lackeys. "Isn't that just precious, Alexa?"
The brunette in a pair of tight jeans and a hoodie joined in the laughter, "Just precious."
"God, we've got to tell the girls how delusional little Miss Kate is here," Mallory continued, grabbing her jacket and waving over her shoulder. "Tootles."
After the miserable blonde and her friend left, Kate just stared down at her plate and frowned.
"You okay?" Julia asked Kate across the table.
"Yeah. I'm just… I'm just not that hungry anymore," she nodded and looked up. "Can we go?"
The brunette nodded and five minutes later, after paying the bill, they slipped into the white car and drove off into the night.
Kate glanced at the clock in her bedroom and sighed.
11:47 am.
"So much for calling me back," she mused half-heartedly and slipped off her headphones she had worn to sleep the previous night.
Last night had been absolutely disastrous and now, whatever slim desire she had to return to school was gone altogether. Just as she was about to go and take a shower, the cell phone charging on her nightstand nearly buzzed right off the hard surface and onto the floor.
Kate reached for the black phone, pulled it off of the charger, and opened it.
I am so sorry I didn't text you right back. I told you I was going to get drunk last night… and of course I did and got home at 9am. Of course, now, I'm hung over as hell and am going to try and sleep the day away. Forgive me, please?
John
With a content sigh, she typed back her response.
Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.
Kate
All better.
A/N: I know this isn't exactly my longest chapter, but I kind of wanted to get you all an update before the New Year, so here it is!
I actually had a chapter typed up as early as yesterday night, but after re-reading it… I HATED IT. So I typed this one up instead and I like it a lot better.
That being said…
I appreciate: faxness-rulz, JCEdgeRKO, nobody knows CIG, MissyKate21, cassymae, aphotshot, John cena punk princess, nikki, I'm.Totally.Fxcking.Awesome, goddessofthenite, Ayla C. Raspus, Enigmatic Lotus Leaf, Johnny, WinchesterAngel3389, and Cena-Test-Lover!
I am floored by the immense amount of support you guys are giving me. I only hope that it continues and starts 2008 off right for me. Keep reviewing everyone!
Have a happy and a healthy New Year, guys! May 2008 bring you nothing but luck and joy.
Danielle