all disclaimers still apply, blah blah blah
author's notes at the end
John opened his eyes and then shut them immediately once the sunlight nearly blinded him. He waited a couple of seconds before very carefully opening his eyes to the new day. He tried to stretch and realized that there was a warm body snuggled into his side. He grinned and gently kissed the top of his girlfriend's head.
My girlfriend. Wow. Abby's my girlfriend. I still can't believe it.
He would have been content to lay there and watch her sleep for a while, but she chose that moment to open her own eyes and blink sleepily up at him. She graced him with a lazy smile before her entire body went stiff as she stretched and a loud yawn came out of her mouth.
John couldn't help but snicker a little. "And a good morning to you, too." He leaned down to give her a kiss, something he was still happy he was allowed to do now.
"No!" she shrieked, quickly turning to face away from him, hiding her face.
"No?"
"Morning breath."
John didn't know whether to laugh or be offended. "Well, if it bothers you that much, I'll go brush my teeth first."
"Not your morning breath--my morning breath. You don't wanna be near that."
He lifted himself up slightly and maneuvered so that he could see her face. "I don't care," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her lips. And, truthfully, he didn't. All he wanted to do was kiss her.
Apparently, it became less of an issue for Abby as well, since she was quite willing to respond. And, without either of them realizing it, they managed to a more comfortable and recently familiar position of him lying on top of her, holding her close. She wasn't quite sure how they always managed to end up in that position, but she knew she didn't mind it. It made her feel safe, as if she was completely surrounded by John.
Once breathing became important, they pried their lips from each other, but Abby kept her arms firmly around John's neck, ensuring that he wouldn't move. "I could so get used to waking up like this."
He grinned and kissed her again. "I've missed you this week." This was actually only the second time she'd managed to spend the night since they officially became a couple--work and her brother had kept her fairly busy, and they'd only managed to spend a few hours here and there together.
"Same here. I'm almost looking forward to school. At least then we'll be able to see each other during the day."
He waggled his eyebrows at her. "You could always quit your job."
"Brilliant idea, ace. I'll just pull money out of my ass. How's that sound?"
He made a face at her, and she pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "Keep that up," he mumbled, moving his lips to her neck, "and I'll buy you anything you want. You'll never have to work again."
"Tempting," she answered, arching her neck, "but I think I'll pass for now."
"Your loss." He brought his lips back to her mouth and kissed her once more.
Abby let herself enjoy it for a few minutes before putting her hands on his chest and gently pushing him away. "We probably shouldn't do this here. I mean, if your grandparents or whoever were to walk in right now..."
John moaned in frustration, but moved off of her nonetheless. "I know." He forced himself to take a few deep, calming breaths before looking at her again. "Can I get a raincheck?"
A grin spread itself across her face. "Absolutely." Just then, her eyes widened and she flew into an upright position. "Oh, my God. Susan's coming home today!" She glanced over at the clock, then stood up and started bouncing on the bed. "She's gonna be home in a couple of hours!"
"All right, all right. We'll go see her a little later on, grab her for dinner or something."
"Noooo." She dropped down to her knees beside John. "I wanna be there when she gets home. I haven't seen her in two weeks. I've missed her so much."
"She's going to be busy unpacking and stuff. We should give her some time."
"She's spent two weeks solid with her entire family. I think she's going to need to be rescued a little earlier than that."
"But I wanna spend some time alone with you for a little while."
Abby sighed in frustration. "You can spend time with me later. I want to see her ASAP. Please?"
He arched an eyebrow at her. "And if I say no?"
She batted her eyes and leaned over him in what she hoped was a seductive manner. "Let me put it this way. We can over there soon, spend time with your best friend since the age of five, and you'll get to have me all to yourself later on, or I can walk home, spend time alone with her, and I'll tell what terrible boyfriend you are. What's it gonna be?"
"I guess we're going to see Susan."
She flung herself at him, hugging him with all of her might. "Thank you! I didn't want to have to bad-mouth you."
"You owe me."
She pinched his arm and got out of bed. "Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, dear. I get the shower first."
"Just leave some hot water for me!" he called her retreating form. The only reply he received was the bathroom door shutting behind her, but he was fairly certain he could hear her laughing.
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John wasn't even able to put his car into park before Abby practically wripped the door open and flung herself out. Susan and her family had apparently just gotten home because they were busy unloading the car. Abby had already run across the lawn and hurled herself into Susan's arms before he'd even gotten out of the car.
"Hey, stranger. Welcome home," he called, hurrying to catch up, realizing just how much he'd missed Susan while she'd been away. Abby released her and gave John room to get in a hug. "We've missed you."
"Sweet mother of pearl, I've missed you guys, too," she answered, reaching out an arm to draw in Abby for a group hug. "Way too much time as 'happy family,'" she mumbled under her breath. She released them and stepped back. "Just let me finish upacking all this stuff and we can go do something. I'll be ten minutes at the most. Probably less, because now I have motivation to hurry."
"Can we help with anything?" Abby asked, eager to speed up the process.
"Nah, we've got it. I'll be back soon, I promise."
"You better be," John said. "Because I think this one's about ready to pee her pants."
Abby did nothing to deny it--she continued bouncing on the balls of her feet, grinning like an idiot. "I can't help it. I've missed her!"
"If you pee your pants, I'm never speaking to you again," Susan answered, grinning.
Abby rolled her eyes. "I'll try to contain myself."
"You do that. I'll be back in a few minutes." With that, she grabbed as many bags as she could carry and hurried into her house as fast as could, commanding her family to do the same.
Once they were inside, John looked at his girlfriend and smiled. "Feel better now?"
"A little. It's good to see her again."
"Yeah, it is," he answered, ambling back toward his car, Abby following suit. "I'm glad you decided we should come see her right away. I really didn't realize how much I missed her until now. Of course, I've been a little distracted the past week." He leered at her playfully.
"Sure, blame it all on me. It's always the woman's fault." She instinctively walked around the car to get in on the passenger side before she realized they weren't actually going anywhere yet. She turned and looked at John helplessly, who had an amused expression on his face. "I need help."
"Ooh, baby, I can help you," he answered, placing his arms on either side of her, pinning her to the SUV.
"Not that kind of help."
He craned his neck to look over the top of the car, checking for signs of life from Susan's house before returning his attention to Abby. He gently brushed his lips across hers before trying to move away. "Well, if that's the way you feel..."
Abby grabbed the front of his t-shirt and tugged. "Get back here." Willingly, he obliged, kissing her once more.
"So," he mumbled between kisses. "If I left for a couple of weeks, would you react like this?"
"Oh, I'd be worse," she said, her voice an octave lower than usual. "I'd probably throw you on the ground and...I don't know...dry-hump you, or something."
He chuckled, still trying to kiss her. "It'd almost be worth going out of town just to see that happen."
"No more talking. Just kiss me."
"Yes, ma'am." He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her as close as she could get, placing his lips upon hers once more, and the world around them disappeared.
"Whoa!"
Quickly, almost guiltily, the couple jumped apart to find Susan staring at them, her mouth hanging open, her eyes nearly bugging out of their sockets.
"Done unpacking already?" John asked, attempting nonchalance.
Ignoring him, Susan managed to sputter, "I'm guessing I missed something while I was gone."
Abby and John exchanged a quick glance. "Yeah, you could say that," she responded, shuffling her feet, not quite sure where to look.
"Does this mean you two are...?"
John grinned and reached for Abby's hand. "Yeah."
Susan shook her head, still trying to connect the dots in her mind. "How? Where? When? No, wait." She held up her hand to stop them as they tried to answer. "I don't want to do this here. Let's go Starbucks or something and get some coffee and talk there."
He shrugged. "Whatever you want to do."
"Oh, believe me, it's what I want to do."
They all piled into the car and began the quest for coffee. "I do want to say one thing, though."
"What's that?" Abby asked.
"It's about damn time."
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"Okay," Susan said, once they'd gotten their drinks and found a relatively quiet table. "I need details and I need them now."
"Well," Abby began. "Last Friday, I went over to John's house after work because you weren't here and I felt like talking. Anyway, we were sitting out by the pool--"
"Seducing her with your pool. Very slick, my friend," Susan teased, winking at her friend.
"You know me--player to the core."
Abby cleared her throat in mock irritation. "May I continue?" Taking their silence as a "yes," she carried on. "As I was saying, we sitting by the pool, talking about whatever, and he leaned over and kissed me."
"Nicely done."
"So, I kissed him back. And we wound up making out by the pool."
"Wow. If I didn't know you two so well, I'd say that was almost kinda hot."
"It was hot, Susan," John said. "You weren't there."
"And good thing I wasn't. If I had been, you two would still be sitting around, twiddling your thumbs." Neither of them objected, recognizing the truth of her statement. "So, does anyone else know about you two? I mean, like your parents, grandparents..."
"Well, considering Gamma walked in on us going at it on the couch the next day, I'd say she managed to put two and two together."
Susan cringed. "That sucks. Was she pissed?"
He shrugged. "Not really. I think she's kinda happy for us, actually. She did put a few restrictions on us, though."
"Such as?"
"Well, we're still allowed to have sleep-overs. If it's the three of us, it's business as usual, we're free to do our thing. Same thing if it's just you and me, Sus. However, if it's just me and Abby...well, she's allowed to spend the night with me in the same bed, which I still find pretty amazing."
"But..."
"But, we have to keep my bedroom door open at all times, and we're not allowed to make out while in that room. If we want to kiss elsewhere in the house, that's fine, as long as it's in a room with no door or a door that's open."
"Yeah, that's definitely pretty cool," Susan agreed.
"Well," Abby said, "her reasoning behind it was that she knew that if she forbade us to spend time together or whatever, we'd sneak around and probably wind up doing something stupid. This way, she can know where we are and what we're doing, but also show that she can trust us to not abuse this and to be mature about this whole thing."
"But not trust you two enough with a closed door, right?"
"At this point, I don't think either of us would trust ourselves with a closed door. We're two hormonal teenagers--no one has any reason at all to trust us alone in a room with a bed."
Susan threw her head back and laughed. "Good point." She looked at her two friends and smiled. "I have to say that I'm really happy for you guys. You look happy together and you make a really cute couple. But I'm also so glad that I don't have to be caught in the middle anymore. It was exhausting knowing that you both liked each other and not being able to say anything about it."
They at least had the good grace to smile sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry about that," John said. "Neither of us meant to put you in that kind of position."
She waved her hand, dismissing his apology. "Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you two found your way to each other."
John looked over at Abby and smiled happily. "Me, too." He leaned over and gave his girlfriend a tender kiss.
"Oh, God. I'm going to have to live with this now, aren't I?"
The couple broke away from each other and smiled at their friend. " 'Fraid so," Abby confirmed. "Though I suppose we could try to keep the affection to a minimum."
"Good. I don't want to have to start carrying around barf bags everywhere I go."
With that remark, Susan was hit in the face by two crumpled up napkins.
Author's notes: Wow...I didn't think this chapter would ever make it. Between moving and internet problems and something going wiggy with Word Perfect and me almost throwing this fic out all together, I'm just amazed that I managed to crank this out. HUGE thanks go out to Courtney...she knows why. Thanks for being such a great friend, dude. You rock. I wouldn't have gotten through this one if I didn't have you as my personal cheerleader. You know what? I'm just going to go ahead and dedicate this chapter to her. She deserves at least that much. No ETA on the next chapter, but since I already have some ideas for it, I'm hoping by the end of the month. In fact, it may have to be, or else someone might not let me visit her. Anycrap, I hope this was worth the wait. If you'd like, leave a review. If you don't want to, well...I'm not holding a gun to your head. It's a free world, do what you want. But reviews are appreciated (and loved and adored).
