Personal Assistant (26 page)

       
Once
they entered the house, she was faced with his mother. Mrs. Gunner did not
fuss, she did not show sorrow,
she
smiled at them and
began getting the soup she prepared into bowls. She said in her friendly way,
“Jonas, dear, take her to the recliner and then fetch her some comfy pajamas to
change into.”

       
“Yes, ma’am.”
He nodded. Frankie was tired. The recliner was
a lot closer than the bedroom. Not to mention the fact she wasn’t sure if he
wanted to sleep in the same bed with her. He was being weird, or maybe the meds
had made her feel weird. At any rate, she found the seat more comfortable than
any other in the world once she sat in it. Jonas looked her over with a frown
on his face, “I’ll be right back.”

       
She
nodded.

       
Mrs.
Gunner was there a moment later.
“Here, dear.
Have
some soup. It will make you feel better. It’s very light. My mother made it for
me when I was sick, sad, or in need
of
comfort. She
made it for me when I had my miscarriage.”

       
Frankie
looked up at her and accepted the soup.

       
“Yes,”
she smiled. “Between Jed and Janice, Jed was too young to remember, so we just
made those pictures disappear. I was four months. They usually happen before
three and most women don’t know it happens if they don’t know they are pregnant
to start off with. I think its best you know. I think it matters no matter how
far along. It certainly doesn’t make the pain any less easy to bear.”

       
Frankie
tilted the cup to her mouth and tasted the soup. It was good. It was
comforting. It promised everything would be okay. This too shall pass.

       
Jonas
returned with her favorite pair of pajamas and some slippers. He studied her
from the doorway. She focused on the soup.

       
“I
made you a bowl. It’s in the kitchen. Leave those here for her, dear and come
with me a moment.” Mrs. Gunner patted Frankie on the leg and then went to her
youngest child, her son, her baby. She looked up at him and nodded, “Go on.”

       
Jonas
put the pajamas on the arm of the chair and the slippers next to it. He still
looked at her in that melancholy expression she couldn’t really read. Unsure
what to say she squeaked out, “Thank you.”

       
His
jaw ticked. She frowned. He left for the kitchen and his mother. Frankie waited
a
moment,
her fingers touched the soft material of the
pajamas. Then she heard it. It sounded like a man’s sob.
A
woman crying.
Then…

       
Frankie
found him holding on to his mother and sobbing as she did her best to rock him
side to side and tell him it was going to be okay through her own tears.

       
Everything
inside of her suddenly processed the details of what had happened. His mom saw
her and let go of his back long enough to motion for her to come towards them.
Frankie began to feel with each step. She had shut it down the moment the
doctor spoke the words. Her heart was sealed up and protected again. No hurt
allowed inside. This, she could not hold off anymore. Each sound of his grief,
raw, unrestrained, drew her deeper into the room until her hand touched his
back and everything flooded through her then out of her. She knew Mrs. Gunner
wasn’t exactly a large woman, but she made room for her somehow and eventually
she cried and hugged, and then with one easy move, she shifted Jonas from her
arms to Frankie’s and stepped back.

       
“Call
me if you need me, sweet boy.” Mrs. Gunner placed a kiss on Jonas’s forehead
and then Frankie’s. “Take care of each other.”

       
Then
she was gone.

       
They
remained like that for what felt like an eternity. Until her back ached, until
she needed to sit down. “Jonas.”

       
He
had stopped crying. So had she. “I’m sorry.”

       
“For what?”
She sniffed.

       
“Not…knowing
what to do…
I
…”

       
She
stroked his check, pushed her hand into his hair. “I’m sorry for not knowing I
was…”

       
“No,
it…that method obviously doesn’t work for us. We…I don’t care if you don’t want
to…
later,
we can talk about it later. Let’s get you in
some more comfortable clothes and into bed. I’ll call and tell them I can’t be
there…”

       
“No,”
she said louder than she intended. “I’m fine. The doctor said I should rest,
but I am fine. I can rest here, alone. You have to go to work. You have to or
everyone will want to know why and everyone will ask and…wait, how did you know
I was in the hospital?”

       
“Let’s
just take one thing at a time,” he said as he pulled her in close to him. “I
love you.”

       
“I
love you, too.”

Four
weeks later…

       
Frankie
rarely visited him on set. She didn’t know why she was stopping by unannounced.
She just couldn’t help herself. Both her mother and Jonas had told her about
Shay. Frankie learned that her mother had never stopped talking to Shay. After
getting past that betrayal, though Frankie knew her mother never really
betrayed her because this was something they had been through before, she
couldn’t stop thinking about her. Their fights in the past were never this
severe, never as adults, but Frankie and Shay always ended up friends again
after a falling out. Jonas made no attempt to defend Shay or put his two cents
into the arena.

       
Her
mom was not so silent. She reminded Frankie of all the good things after
Frankie told her about all the bad things. From her mother’s point of view,
Shay had always been on a downward spiral of self-loathing disguised as
self-love but it was all actually just self-preservation. Shay’s parents were
not really role models. They prized her beauty, they were hard on her when she
lost roles, didn’t make money right away as a model or actress, and to
Frankie’s surprise had spent Shay’s college fund on a trip to Hawaii they never
returned from. It meant leaving her with no choice but to drop out and, well,
Frankie knew the rest of that story.

       
“Hey,”
Jonas called and waved to her. He was surprised, but pleasantly. They hadn’t
really been touching each other in the weeks after the miscarriage. Her doctor
had given her the all clear and Frankie opted not to use another form of birth
control. She could no longer trust medical science with her hormones. He pulled
her into a gentle hug and kissed her cheek. “This is a nice surprise.”

       
Frankie
smiled up at him. He handled her with kid gloves as if he touched her too hard
she would break. It was beginning to get annoying, but she understood he needed
time to process everything too. “You look hot.”

       
“Yeah,
it’s like a million degrees in that thing,” he said as he pointed over to the
set.

       
“I
meant…never mind.” She looped her arm in his and said, “Talk to me like Sir
Hamilton would.”

Later…

       
“I’ll
see you tonight,” he leaned in and Frankie took advantage of the moment and
caught his lips for a kiss. He brought his arms around her, slowly, gently, but
he revealed just how much he had missed her with his lips and tongue. She let
him go and took a step back. He looked stunned. He cleared his throat and said,
“I miss you.”

       
“I
miss you, too.”

       
She
knew they were not talking about the lack of time they spent together during
the course of a day. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to discuss a few things and
to get back to normal.

       
Jonas
looked past her shoulder. He pulled his arm up and grabbed the back of his own
neck.
“
Uhh
…yeah.
I’m going
to get back to work. My break is over.”

       
Frankie
turned to see what he was looking at. Her gut did a flip flop in that anxious
way it does before something was about to happen. Shay was standing across the
street in front of a building. Frankie looked to Jonas and smiled, “I’ll see
you tonight.”

       
“If
you need me…”

       
“I’m
fine.”

       
She
watched him start walking towards his entrance and she turned to see Shay
walking down the street in the opposite direction.

       
Frankie
crossed the street and stood there. She watched her walk away. Shay topped,
turned, stood there for a long moment then waved a timid wave. Frankie held up
her hand and waved back. Her belly relaxed. It wasn’t a perfect reunion. Things
had changed. A lot of things had changed. Yet, it was a start. Shay slowly
turned away and walked on.

***

       
“Ivy!”
Frankie was so glad to see someone who she could just talk to it was unreal.
After another two weeks of Jonas just kissing her, and Shay just waving, Frankie
was about to go nuts! “Hey. How’s it going?”

       
“Do
you really want to know?” Ivy asked with a hopeful expression.

       
“Yes!”
Frankie wanted to know. She wanted to get lost in someone else’s problems for a
while to avoid thinking of her own.

       
“I
think I am having an identity crisis,” Ivy started walking and Frankie
followed. “Do you have plans this afternoon?”

       
Frankie
thought about it. She could go visit the two people making her the most crazy
as planned, or she could text Jonas, and let Shay figure it out on her own that
she was not coming to the set today. “No. I do not.”

***

One
month later…

       
He
was home. She was sure he was home. She made her way through the house, into
the bedroom where his clothes were strewn across the floor. Nothing in her inner
alert system was going off, but her brain was processing the noise coming from
the bathroom. She didn’t see anyone else’s clothes on the floor. She got to the
bathroom and heard another “fuck” escape his lips.

       
She
was jealous. Jealous and angry that he was in there alone. “Jonas.”

       
He
groaned at the sound of his name.

       
“Jonas,”
she said it louder and stepped to the shower door. Another soft moan had her
insides liquid despite her resolve to be mad at him for this. She pulled the
door open and said, “Jonas!”

       
He
came. Instantly, jerking his hips forward as his hand milked his cock
instinctively. He was flushed from the exertion. He breathed heavily, looked at
her longingly and said, “I thought I was imagining you calling my name.”

       
Frankie
crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “What about me?”

       
“You?”
He arched a brow. “I’ve been waiting for you to make
some move to let me know…I don’t want to hurt…”

       
“Are
you kidding me?” she practically shouted at him. He leaned back as though she
had reached forward to smack him.

       
“Kidding
you? Frankie I have been spanking it on the regular for weeks waiting for you
to give me the all clear. You have to be the one to initiate sex Frankie. I
can’t tell if you are okay. I don’t know.” He pushed his hands up over his face
and through his hair. He propped his hands on his hips. The shower sprayed on
keeping him wet.

       
She
let the gravity of his words sink in. Of course he would wait for her to
initiate sex. She was a bit insecure, a bit nervous since he said it was her
choice to use birth control or not. He would wear a condom is she asked him to.
He left a lot on her shoulders to deal with.

       
As
her eyes moved over him from head to toe and back again, she remembered all of
the things she loved about touching him. She thought about that first night.
“Get out of the shower.”

       
The
water was off and he was out in a flash.

***

       
Jonas
dried off as she watched with renewed interest. He knew the look in her eye and
he was glad to see it was back. She had kissed him a few times like she meant
it, but for the most part he couldn’t tell if she was really feeling it or
trying to do it for his sake. He wouldn’t have it. She had to want him as much
as he wanted her or it wasn’t going to happen.

       
She
extended her hand and let a finger trace the place she had once written her
name on him. He closed his eyes and opened them to find her smiling at him. She
said, “Mine”

       
He
could feel his mouth curl into a smile, a fresh heat creep over his body, new
blood pushed through his veins in response to her claim.
“Always.”

       
“Come,”
she said as she slid her fingers into his and tugged him towards the bedroom.
“Do you remember the first time I came into your bedroom and took your clothes
off?”

       
“One
of the best nights of my life,” he admitted.

       
“I
want you to stand here, like that again.” She stopped him in front of the bed.
A sizzle of excitement rolled through him. She had touched him everywhere that
night, in slow torturous fashion.

       
Her
fingers began tracing the lines of his back, pressing into the muscles,
relaxing them for a moment until she moved on to the next. Her tongue slipped
down his spine and everything in his body tightened.

       
“Flex.”
She touched the cheek of his ass.

       
“This?”

       
“Yes,”
she nipped it.

       
It
stung and he made a
tisking
sound.

       
“Sorry,”
she nipped lighter this time. “I wish you could just see how amazing your ass
is.”

       
“I’m
not really afforded that view from here,” he chuckled.

       
“It’s
just muscles, not an ounce of fat, not a dimple or a line, I’m envious,” she
slowly let the nails on her fingers softly caress from top to bottom and then
they moved down the back of his thighs. “Turn around.”

       
“I
remember this going a little slower last time,” he teased as he complied. He
looked down at her on her knees in front of him, he liked her in glasses,
she
looked smart, authoritative, and naughty all in one. She
was wearing a button down, crisp, short sleeved navy blue blouse, a printed
navy and white skirt, and…stockings. His entire body shivered. She only wore
stockings if she was wearing thigh highs, and those were always attached to a
garter. “Pull the hem of your skirt up a little.”

       
She
shook her head no and kissed his kneecap instead. She continued to crawl up his
body using her fingers to map the way.

       
“You’re
much bigger now than you were before,” she said as she slid her hand around the
base of his shaft.

       
He
let out a moan and disagreed, “I think he’s the same size, but maybe two months
has changed your perception.”

       
“No,”
she licked the tip. He twitched. Pushed a hand through her hair and encouraged
her to come closer and do that again. “I mean your body. You’ve bulked up.”

       
“You
prefer me this way?”

       
“I
prefer you naked, yes.” She took him into her mouth and the heat, the wetness,
the feel of her tongue had him breathless. It had been too long. After a few
precious moments she let him loose and looked up at him mischievously and
asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me to get on the bed? Isn’t this less
comfortable for me at this angle?”

       
“Oh
yeah,” he tried not to laugh. “I forgot.”

       
She
stood and pushed at his chest. He sat back on the bed and then moved farther as
she climbed on top of him. He made his way to her skirt hem and she grabbed his
hands and said, “Not yet.”

       
“If
not now, then when?” He easily broke her grip and then put his hands over her
skirt, but onto her ass. He knew from the feel of lines under the fabric she
was wearing it. “You did this on purpose
didn’t
you?”

       
“I’ve
been wearing all sorts of things lately, but you haven’t seemed to notice. I
thought this might do the trick, but then you started without me.” She pouted.
He wanted to kiss that pout, but he had another thought.

       
“Have
you been masturbating, Frankie?” he looked pointedly at her. She nodded.
“With my competition?”

       
She
nodded again. His eyes rounded. He was a bit pissed, but it was partly his
fault.
“How long?”

       
“Three
weeks,” she bit into her lower lip.

       
“To who?”
Now he arched his brow and pinned her gaze.

       
“To
you of course,” she smiled and sat up to look down at him. She straddled his
cock, the silky fabric of the panties made him lift against her though he
wanted to stay unaffected.