Shawn learns how Audrey sees. Jon and Audrey talk.

Shawn tossed the deck of Uno cards haphazardly onto the top shelf of the closet and dashed back over to where Audrey was on the couch. It was nearly midnight and Jon was still out on his date with her. The thought soured Shawn's mood and he grumpily slouched down into the couch.

Audrey regarded him with a sideways glance. "You look just like Jon when he gets back from his dates. But you haven't left the house so what's your problem?"

Shawn wrinkled his nose in annoyance even though he was pleased with the comparison. "He's still out and it's almost midnight."

"He'll be back soon," she assured him. His expression didn't change so she leaned over and said conspiratorially, "And if he's not, I'm taking his bed and he can sleep on the couch when he gets in."

The idea made Shawn smile and he jumped up. "I'll go get him a pillow and a blanket."

Audrey laughed. "You need to get to bed yourself, Shawn."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes," she responded firmly.

"There's no school tomorrow," he whined. "It's a holiday."

"I don't care," she replied, motioning towards the bathroom. "You and Jon are both so cranky when you don't get enough sleep. Go get ready for bed."

Ten minutes later Shawn made it back to the living room. Audrey was waiting to point him in the direction of his bedroom.

"Did you brush your teeth?"

"Kinda."

She folded her arms across her waist. "Go brush."

He walked up to her until he was nose to nose with her. Squinting his eyes, he regarded her steadily. She stared back at him with the same intensity. While he had every intention of doing what she told him he couldn't make it that easy on her. "What are you, my mom?" he challenged.

"Well, I'm not your babysitter," she shot back, wrinkling her nose at him.

"Oh no?"

"No. Babysitters get paid to watch other people's kids."

"And moms?"

"Get nothin' to watch their own kids."

A smile was starting to crack his serious façade. "Which are you?"

"Well," she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I'm not getting paid to watch someone else's kid am I?"

The grin broke fully through. "Okay, Mama, I'll brush my teeth for real this time." He kissed her cheek.

"Ug!" Audrey yelped, getting the full aroma of minty toothpaste and something pungent. "Use mouthwash, too! What have you been eating?"

Shawn shrugged. "Pickle potato chips."

"The whole bag?"

"Nah, there's a couple chips left."

"Go brush your teeth!" She shooed him away and turned to the kitchen, no doubt to retrieve and throw away the empty bag of chips that was stashed somewhere in the cabinets.

After he came back and checked with Audrey to make sure his teeth were cleaned to her expectations, Shawn asked, "Can I at least stay up until Jon gets back?"

"No," she told him, picking up the TV Guide. "I am not dealing with two cranky people on my day off. So unless you don't want me to come back over later..."

Shawn shot up from the couch and jumped over its back. "Goodnight!"

Audrey couldn't help but giggle. She got up and pulled Shawn into a big hug, almost pulling him over the couch's back. "Goodnight. I love you."

It was very rare that Shawn ever heard that phrase from anyone. When he did there always felt like there was a condition attached to the affection. But it was different when Audrey said it. When Audrey said it, he knew she meant it, no strings attached.

"I love you, too, Aud."

The apartment was still for only a few minutes after Shawn went to his room before its front door suddenly opened and shut. This used to make Audrey jump when she first started watching Shawn while Jon was out, but it was becoming such a routine occurrence now that she hardly noticed anymore. Jon, as usual, looked unhappy. Audrey quietly watched as he took off his jacket and tossed it carelessly at the couch. She caught it before it could slide off onto the floor. With the jacket secure, Audrey shifted her position on the couch, so she was facing the kitchen. Resting an arm on the back of the sofa, she pulled her legs up underneath her and waited. After a few minutes of frustrated fussing in the kitchen, Jon joined her, slumping down on the couch with a heavy sigh.

"How'd things go with Shawn?" His eyes were closed and he was scowling.

"Good. He hasn't been in bed long. He's probably listening at his door."

Jon turned his head slightly and raised his voice in the direction of the boy's room. "Goodnight, Shawn."

"G'night...dang!"

"Go to bed, Hunter!"

"Fine."

Jon shook his head, but he was smiling. He knew that Shawn had not gone back to bed and would probably fall asleep, drooling against the door frame. Again. He leaned his head back and sunk down into the couch until his head and neck rested on the back of the sofa. He put his feet up on the coffee table and groaned.

Audrey put her hand on his forehead. "Sounds like you had another fun outing tonight."

"Oh, it was just great," he responded sardonically. "Same as usual. The exact same thing. Everything was going fine, just fine. Good even. And that's when I know that it's gonna come up; it's only a matter of when. You know she's gotten into this thing of bringin' it up in public. And not in public away from people, but when we're surrounded by people. It's awful. Why would she do that?"

"How do you feel when she does?" Audrey asked, taking her hand away from him and resting her fist against her cheek.

"Humiliated and trapped," he sighed sounding defeated.

"I think you have your answer then."

Jon turned his head to look at her with an inquiring gaze.

"Doing something like that in public is supposed to humiliate you so you'll go along with whatever she wants to avoid the public's judgment," she told him seriously. "Manipulation 101."

"Is this a class you can sign up for?"

"Not that I know of," Audrey shook her head. "It's taught to daughters by their mothers and other female influences. And it is almost always for the purpose of using men."

As outrageous as it sounded, Jon considered this. He then gave her a worried glance. "Did your mother teach you?"

"My mother taught me what it was and that it was wrong and would've have beat my butt if she caught me doing it."

Although he only knew the woman through photographs, the thought of her picture-perfect mother being anything other than picture perfect amused him. "I think I would have liked your mom a lot."

Audrey smiled as she absently ran her fingers through his hair. Finally, she asked what had been on her mind for quite some time. "Why are you still going out with her?"

"I dunno." He rested his arm on her knees. "At this point, I honestly don't know. I can't stand the pressure to get married, but I also can't stand the tears. I just wish she'd back off. Let me figure out how things are goin' to go with Shawn. I've asked her and I've pleaded with her to stop. But she just won't do it."

Audrey was quiet for quite a while, thinking. Her fingers were still entwined in his hair. "I don't have much experience when it comes to dating," she paused and corrected herself. "Actually, I don't have any, but it doesn't sound to me like Katherine really loves you."

"It doesn't?" It had occurred to Jon that, at the very least, he and Katherine had vastly different ideas of what love was.

She pursed her lips together, carefully gathering her words. "Every time you come home, you're in a bad mood, unhappy, frustrated. You shouldn't be like that. From what you've told me it sounds like your entire relationship revolves around her and what she wants and making her happy."

Jon closed his eyes again. "Seems like that to me, too."

"When you plan a date, do you ever do what you want to do?"

"Rarely," he harrumphed. "And not without great protest."

Audrey pulled her fingers out of his curls, much to his dismay. "If you could do whatever you wanted on a date, what would you do?"

He knew the answer to this, but he held back on responding. Would she react the same way as Katherine if he told her honestly what he wanted to do? No, of course not. This was Audrey he was talking to after all. "It's been a long time since I've bothered to think about that. I dunno. It'd be nice to go to a football or hockey game every once in a while. I mean, I know a lot of women hate sports and think it's stupid. But I'd kinda like to go and forget about everything else for a while. I mean we wouldn't have to go to a game all the time. It wouldn't even have to be once a month. Just, you know, occasionally."

Audrey raised her eyebrows and regarded him with sympathy. "Why are you so defensive? You don't have to explain yourself. If that's what you want to do that's what you want to do."

He let out a sigh of relief. "I guess I feel like I have to."

"Why?"

"Because Kat gets upset when I suggest stuff that I like because she doesn't like it. And I don't like doing a lot of the stuff she likes. I don't enjoy most theater or performance art" He shot Audrey a worried look. "No offense, but I don't enjoy the ballet, either."

"Oh, you don't, do you?" Audrey gasped at him in mock horror and gave his shoulder a playful punch. "So you were just pretending to be happy to see me perform last weekend in my first dance recital in three years?"

"No, no," he laughed, blocking her punches with his palm. "Shawn and I really did enjoy that. But it's because we knew you. Every other ballet, all the dancers look the same. I don't know what's goin' on and I don't care."

"But you like my recital. So did you like that story it told?"

"There was a story?" He looked bewildered.

She lightly smacked his arm. "What did you think of the other dancers then?"

"There were other dancers!?"

She punched his shoulder again and laughed along with him. "Okay, fine," she said pretending to be put out. "You don't like ballet. What else?"

"I really don't like doing most of the stuff Kat does, but I have to do it anyway. And with the right attitude or she's mad. If we ever do what I wanna do, which is almost never, she makes me feel like a jerk for wantin' to do somethin' she doesn't like and has a lousy attitude the whole time. It makes me wish we'd just done what she wanted to do."

Absently, Audrey smoothed the collar of his sweater. "Jon," she said seriously. "Can you be yourself around her?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"No, not fully. Not if I want to keep her happy." There were plenty of areas of his personality that he put a lid on or tried to remember to change because, according to his girlfriend, those were his problem areas. It wasn't that Jon thought he had no flaws, he knew he did, but it seemed overkill to him to expect a person's entire way of doing things and aspects of their personality to change according to another person's dictates. This was a one-way street, naturally. He was the only one in the relationship that needed to change.

"Are you seriously considering marrying someone you can only sort of be yourself around?"

He shrugged. "I guess that's why I'm fighting the whole commitment thing so hard."

"You know," Audrey said softly. "My mom often did things my dad loved to do that she didn't like. He loved to golf. She hated it. But she loved him and loved being around him. So, she would go. Not all the time. But she would go and watch him do what he loved and try to participate. My mom, on the other hand, loved ballet. My dad did not."

"Are you kiddin'?" This came as a surprise to Jon considering Audrey's level of involvement in dance for most of her life. Her father, as she told it, was her biggest supporter and was a near constant presence in her dance life.

"No, he really hated it," she laughed fondly at the memory of happier times in her family's life. "But he loved my mom and he loved me. So he would go. Because he loved her and loved seeing her happy. You know," she said thoughtfully. "If my parents had had the type of relationship you and Katherine have, I think my dad would have been relieved when she died, not devastated.

My parents' marriage was far from perfect. They had their issues, more than I was aware of at the time because I was so young. But they also had a deep love and mutual respect for one another. I don't see that in your relationship with Katherine. I don't think Katherine loves you. I think she loves the idea of marriage and kids and the life she wants. And you happen to be the one who checks all of her boxes."

Jon was quiet for a long time as he thought about what she had said. Unlike Katherine, she didn't require him to keep talking. They sat in comfortable silence while Audrey resumed massaging his scalp. He had often wondered if Katherine really did love him for the very reasons Audrey stated or if there was something wrong with him for not being able to align with her life. These thoughts weren't ones he felt he could ever voice to Katherine. When the conflict between them first arose, he tried to but was immediately labeled a misogynist and a selfish man. However, it was the 90s, the rules had changed, and what did he really know about women and relationships anyway? Yet it was Audrey who mentioned this, not him, so maybe he wasn't as far off base as he worried he was. He felt a sense of validation and a confidence to put an end to the marriage discussion permanently.

As he sat there lost in thought, he could feel Audrey's fingertips slipping through his hair as he began to relax fully. Drowsiness settled over his eyes. He moved closer to her although there was already no room between them and rested his head against her shoulder.

If only she wasn't so young. If only she wasn't his student teacher. If only...

Her hair fell around his shoulder like a curtain. He fell asleep fully content and at peace. When he awoke hours later, he found himself lying on the couch, a pillow under his head and a blanket over him.

Audrey was gone and the contentment and peace had gone with her.