John looked down at the cell phone he had left on the kitchen table ten hours ago and let out a sigh. Chances were he'd received a text message back from Kate, along with numerous others, and missed a few phone calls along the way, as well.
With his left hand, he grasped the small rectangle and began fiddling with the keypad.
Six missed calls.
Immediately, he pulled up the menu and checked all of his missed phone calls.
X Dad – 12:45pm
X Kate Jackson – 1:17pm
X Kate Jackson – 2:34pm
X Rob Sullivan – 2:55pm
X Kate Jackson – 4:47pm
X Dad – 5:29pm
The blue-eyed man tilted his head to the side and studied the information before him. It was easily concluded that Kate had called frequently while he had been sleeping and must have needed to talk.
Clicking off of the call record, John noticed a small envelope icon was on his screen, signaling unchecked text messages. In fact, four of them.
Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.
Kate
Hey kiddo. I'm just checking in to make sure you're coming up for Christmas. Call me back.
Dad
Yo, bro. What you up to?
Marc
Hey, John. Give me a call when you get the chance, okay?
Kate
Christ, Cena… are you in a coma? I need to talk to you ASAP. Please call me!
Kate
Dude, I am sooooo bored.
Sean
With a half-hearted laugh, John began to reply to his text messages.
Yeah, Dad. I'm coming up. I'll give you a call after dinner tonight.
John
Yo, Marc! What's up, killer? I'm just sleeping off last night's party.
JC
Sean, get a fucking Job.
Your employed older brother
Kate, I'm taking a shower and then I'm calling you. I SWEAR ON IT.
John
"Fuck," Kate cursed as she checked the same text message for what seemed like the millionth time in the last half hour. "What is taking so damn long?"
Angrily, she threw herself back on the bed.
She wanted to talk to John about his visit in two weeks. In all honesty, after the Mallory incident, she wasn't sure it was such a good idea anymore. While she was dying to meet the former WWE Champion, she wasn't certain that all of the flack she'd receive would be worth it in the end.
The only thing she was actually afraid of was the prospect of someone seeing them together at somewhere public like the mall. Immediately, they'd figure that she would have stalked him there, even though that argument wouldn't even make sense. Then again, who cared if gossip made sense… it only needed to be interesting.
Stop. Collaborate and listen…
With only a crack of a smile on her face, Kate reached for the phone on her desk.
"Have a nice coma?"
John let out a hearty laugh, "Yes, a very pleasant one, thank you. I'm sorry I didn't call you back. I guess I didn't realize how many I really had…"
"I don't think this is a good idea," Kate blurted out suddenly.
Way to be subtle, Kate.
He paused in silence before speaking again, "What isn't?"
She sighed, "You coming to see me."
"Kate…" John trailed off, shaking his head on the other end of the phone as he sat at his kitchen table, "You seemed stoked about it yesterday… what happened?"
"Nothing," she attempted to cover, "I just…"
"Bullshit," he cut her off. "What happened?"
Busted…
"I was just talking it over with my friend, Julia, and…"
"So what if she doesn't think it's a good idea," he interred again.
A deep exhale of air passed through Kate's thin lips. John was making this really hard on her.
Then again, maybe they were better off this way. He was thirty years old, successful, and handsome. Certainly, John Cena didn't need the one hundred sixty-five pound, five feet, four inches tall high senior who could barely handle her own home-life and had enough drama in her life that would put ABC's daytime lineup to shame.
Then again, adding John to the mix had upped her drama meter comparable to ECW's storylines.
"John, stop!" she finally exclaimed, rendering him speechless. "Julia's the one who is trying to convince me otherwise. It had nothing to do with her."
"Then what's the problem, Kate?" he asked her impatiently.
"Julia and I went out to dinner last night and we bumped into these two girls who overheard me talking about our plans for January," Kate explained with a sigh. "And of course, one of them just had to be the girl whose eternal mission is to make my life a living hell."
John nodded in understanding, "So she didn't believe you and gave you a hard time about it."
She bit her lip and agreed, "Yeah."
"But if we go out and they see us hanging out together…"
"They'll turn it into a whole bunch of vicious rumors," she finished for him.
John rubbed a hand over his nearly non-existent hair. This sucked. This really, really sucked.
"So I'll take you somewhere else, somewhere that's NOT your town," John offered.
"If you leave Marlboro, you could go to a neighboring town and still see people you know. Just because my town's not as small as West Newbury, doesn't mean a network doesn't exist," Kate countered sourly.
This time, he rubbed his forehead with his good hand and tapped his fingers on the table.
"What about another state…?"
Kate reached up and placed her English textbook on top of her locker shelf. As soon, as she had dropped another book into her backpack in its place, the blue metal door slammed shut and a pair of red-taloned fingers lingered on the surface.
"See Mr. Cena lately, Katherine?" the owner of the claws cackled.
"I don't have time for your shit today, Mallory," Kate seethed through gritted teeth before turning to meet the girl eye to eye. "I have somewhere I need to be."
"Meeting John, I'm sure," Mallory laughed and flipped her blonde hair as her lackey stood in the background. "Right, Alexa?"
"Of course," the brunette sneered, her blue eyes darkening.
Kate rolled her eyes and opened her locker once more, "Whatever."
"Oopsies," the unnatural blonde shrugged innocently. "I forgot… she's meeting him in another week. Not today. My bad."
"You know," the five foot four blonde shut her locker door and turned to face her rival with a smirk, "For a girl who claims to despise me, you seem to sure know a lot about my personal life…"
"Or lack thereof…"
"Your words, not mine," Kate smirked and brushed past the Abercrombie-clad girl and the Hollister-covered wannabe behind her. "Later, bitches."
Her comments flustered Mallory, who called out to her as she pushed through the school doors, "I may be a bitch, but at least I'm not delusional!"
"You lucky little bitch," Julia seethed to her friend over the phone. "In just two hours you're going to be meeting John Cena and I'm stuck at fucking college!"
"Hey, you could have gone to a state school," Kate countered with a laugh laced with nervousness, "But you chose Pennsylvania. Not me."
"Yeah, whatever," her best friend countered. "So where are you going?"
"Well…"
"BESIDES the city," she cut Kate off, knowingly ending the oncoming sarcasm.
"I don't know. He wouldn't tell me," she shrugged and fixed her makeup in the mirror.
"And what are you wearing?"
It was a simple question to answer now, but a few hours ago, all Julia would have heard from Kate's mouth was a scream of despair.
Currently, there were clothes all over her bed, leaving random spots of pink peeking through in only a few locations, and she still had yet to decide on a pair of shoes.
But the outfit that rested on her body was a simple chocolate brown, scoop neck sweater and a pair of dark blue jeans with flowers made of yellow stitching on the pockets. It was sweet, yet sophisticated and it'd be perfect for the cold, winter day outside.
"That brown sweater we bought last time you were in, the one that was a tiny bit snug last time," Kate informed her friend, turning to view her side profile in the mirror. "God, my ass looks huge."
"Oh shut up," Julia groaned on the other end of the cell phone. "Seriously, you're what now… one hundred fifty pounds?"
"One hundred fifty two… point seven," Kate corrected her and tugged at the hem of her sweater.
"Shut up. I'm sure the sweater fits perfectly now," the older girl scoffed at the younger one. "Girl, I barely even recognized you when I came down and you had only lost about sixteen pounds since the last time I saw you. He's gonna drop dead when he sees you."
"Easy to say when you're a size six at most," the younger girl countered as she began to spray her hair with the red bottle of hairspray that had formerly rested on her dresser.
"And what are you? A size ten?" the college girl sniped back. "Oh the horror. Come on, Katherine. You and I BOTH know that losing over sixty pounds in the last year is absolutely nothing to scoff at. And by the way… your ass is just fine."
"You're not looking at it!"
"I don't care to at the moment, but I assure you… it. Looks. Fine."
Kate's eyes flitted around her bedroom and she froze, "Shit!"
Julia gasped instinctively, "What? What is it?"
"What if he wants to come upstairs… or a tour of the house?!?!?" her mouth dropped open.
"Uh…" her friend trailed off and chuckled awkwardly. "You give him one."
"But my room looks like a tornado hit it!" she screamed shrilly.
"Then clean it the fuck up!"
About an hour later, all of the clothes that had been laying on Kate's bed were back in their rightful drawer, closet, or armoire, all of her makeup was put away, and every little miscellaneous item in her room had returned to its original place.
"I think that's it…" she trailed off, surveying the room.
Julia laughed, "I'd tell you myself, but I can't see the room… unless you sent me a series of panoramic picture messages."
"Oh my God, can I do that?" Kate asked, genuinely serious.
Julia smacked herself in the forehead, "Now that's just a tad bit obsessive, Jackson…"
Following the comment, the chiming of the doorbell resonated off of the walls of her house.
The brunette spoke softly, "Was that a…"
"Doorbell," Kate finished for her conclusively. "Shit. He's an hour early… shit. Shit. Shit…."
"Okay, Kate… just breathe," Julia instructed her calmly, "And use a different word other than shit…"
Her eyes clenched together tightly, "Fuck."
A brief chuckle entered her ears, "Okay. That is one… listen. You're gonna be fine. Just go down there and present yourself nicely. Don't be overly wordy, don't be quiet. Don't talk about wrestling… but don't talk about yourself either."
"Okay," she nodded furiously. "Anything else."
"Um… yeah. Just… just you know… be yourself."
"Yeah, like that's ever worked before," Kate mumbled.
"Kate, you have a visitor!" her mother called from the bottom of the steps.
"I'll be right down," she replied loudly and then softly spoke to her friend. "Alright, I'm gonna go now. I'll text you when I can, I just don't want to be rude, you know? Wish me luck?"
Kate could feel the smile creeping across her best friend's lips, "Good luck, babe."
"Thanks. Bye, Jules!" she whispered into the phone.
"Bye, girl."
The five foot, four inch blonde slowly made her way down the steps until her black Chuck Taylor's hit the tiled floor with a light thud.
Breathe in and breathe out, she coached herself silently and took a deep breath.
The footsteps continued as she hooked around the end of the banister and made her way down the hallway. In what seemed like an instant, she had approached the end and the hallway opened. Her head snuck around the corner of the wall, taking a peek and retreating back to rest against the wall.
In a pair of dark blue, acid washed jeans and a plaid shirt, with stripes that were thinner than normal, he was even better looking in person. In fact, he was BIGGER in person, as well.
With another deep breath, Kate finally mustered up the courage to walk out of the hallway.
Immediately, upon her entrance into the family room, he took notice of her presence, stopped petting Kate's chocolate brown Labrador retriever, and rose from the brown, leather sofa with a smile on his face.
"Kate," he continued to flash her his knee-weakening smile… which was working.
"Hi," she managed to breathe and looked down at the Berber carpeting under her feet, then back at him as he closed much of the space between them.
"It's nice to finally put the face with the words… and the voice," John added, his turquoise blue eyes sparkling in the overhead lighting.
Now, he was close enough for Kate to discover that the thin striping of the plaid was in fact, a mesh of dark and light blues, along with a camel brown, over linen white fabric.
"I can't really say the same," she remarked in response, bordering on wittily, and smiled up at him just about nine inches above her, "But it is nice to finally see you in person."
John let out a chuckle in response and shoved his hands in his pockets, "You're exactly what I expected."
"I hope that's a good thing," Kate stated simply, toying with one of her sleeves.
"It's a very good thing," he replied with an honest grin and removed his hands from his jeans, extending them away from his body slightly. "Can I get a hug?"
Is that a trick question?
Kate nodded and stepped forward slightly, allowing him to envelope her much smaller body with his strong arms. For a moment, she froze, despite knowing what would occur when she responded, but then wrapped her arms around his back as far as she could.
I think my hands are ACTUALLY a foot apart.
All too quickly, he pulled away, leaving her with a pleasant smile on her face.
"Should we go now?" he asked, glancing at the wall clock. "I don't think we'll hit a lot of traffic if we leave now. Then again, I'm not from around here… I don't know."
She didn't exactly want to show off, but then again, she didn't want to be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, even if it was with the former WWE Champion.
"Yeah," Kate agreed politely. "If we leave now, we'll have a good shot at beating rush hour."
John nodded and turned to her mother, "It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Jackson. I'll be bringing her home in one piece, I swear. When does she need to be home by?"
Internally, she grinned from ear to ear… it sounded as though he was her date.
Natalie shrugged and waved him off, "Whenever is fine, John. I trust you. Just have a good time."
"Okay, thank you," he replied and escorted Kate to the front door, which he pulled open. "After you."
"Thanks," she answered softly and walked out the door into her front yard.
Immediately, she turned to face her driveway and shook her head with a grin.
"I thought you'd like it," John remarked from behind her and soon passed her as he made his way over to the car.
She rolled her eyes at him, "You're such a gangsta."
"Don't I know it," he winked at her, not missing a beat, and slid into the driver's seat of his black H3. "You coming?"
"Yeah," Kate continued to shake her head and quickly found herself in the passenger seat.
Turning on the ignition, he shut the door and buckled himself in, "Any musical requests?"
"Anything that won't make my ears bleed."
"Okay… guess that's a no to screamo," he laughed as he backed out of the driveway.
"Yeah, that'd be a no," Kate laughed. "You know… this isn't too bad," she remarked as the GPS set into the center of the dashboard informed him that he needed to take a left. "At least you didn't go for the Solar Flare Metallic Orange."
"Come on, now, Kate…" he looked over at her as they stopped at the end of another street. "A true playa knows how to be low-key."
Right… in a Hummer.
"Okay, John," she reached over and patted him on the leg. "Whatever you say."
A/N: I'm sorry it's taken me this long to update, but since getting back to school, I've been working really hard for the upcoming mid-terms, so yeah.
And, I wanted a triple update so that I could be incredibly excited when I checked my email after school. Hint hint!
I appreciate:
Johnny, faxness-rulz, cassymae, Ayla C. Raspus, Cena-Test-Lover, goddessofthenite, JCEdgeRKO, I'm.Totally.Fxcking.Awesome, jada951, Nicole, Enigmatic Lotus Leaf, WinchesterAngel3389, John cena punk princess, pinkshadow89, Fozzy-floozy, xxwithlovexx, dj-ssdd, and miniature-hero!!!
EIGHTEEN FREAKING REVIEWS IN ONE CHAPTER!
That's absolutely insane, you guys. Thanks you sooooo much for your kind words and your loyalty to this story.
Please, as always, review!
Danielle