I'm Back oh yeah, Chapter 104

Sick as a dog, but as promised, here is the next chapter.

Lexie had been avoiding this question, not only from Thomas, but also from Jon.  Granted she had used the kids and Jon’s upcoming month away for tour, when she talked to Thomas, but would Jon fall for it.  With all the things going on with Stephanie, and feeling like she had failed, she knew that it was a cop out.  She had never failed at anything before, she wanted to write children’s books, she conquered it, she moved to adult mysteries and she succeeded at it.  Being a mother to seven children, has her second guessing.

“You’re going to be gone for thirty one days, the boys will be at football tryouts and practice, the trio will be five months old and trying to pull up and crawl.  I’ll have so much on my plate, I won’t have any time to write.” She got up and walked over to her desk and closed her laptop and put her iPad in the drawer and turned to Jon, “It’s only for a month or a year.”  She gave him a smile.

Jon listened to her explanation of why she was taking time off, and knew this was all just a small tip of the iceberg.  They had met when she had writers block, but she was always tapping away on her laptop or iPad, so writers block wasn’t the problem. He knew that smile he had seen it before, right in front of the paparazzi.  She joking called it her Bon Jovi press smile, like the one he had. That glazed over smile that never made it to his eyes.  She had joked about it when he did Fan Club Meet and Greets.

“Darlin’ I call bull shit on that, is it writers block?”  Jon moved to sit on the edge of the bed, but kept an eye on the Trio.

“No, I just don’t have time to write Jon, I do have six kids that are going to need my attention for the next month to get them ready for school and to football practice and games.  That means more to me than writing right now.”  She told Jon.

Jon started to say something when he heard a knock came on their door. Saved by the knock. He watched Lexie open the door and let in Hellen in to get the trio, she had Stephanie with her. Stephanie knew the vibe in the room was electric, since she heard her parents arguing for the first time.

She walked over to the bed and picked up a sleeping Cullen, he snuggled to her chest.  She would miss these little babies, they would be most likely be walking by the time she came home for Thanksgiving.  She looked between her dad and Lexie and hoped that they would work things out.

“Night Daddy,” Stephanie said as she followed Hellen who was carrying both girls and heading to the door.  “Night Mom.”  Stephanie smiled up at Lexie.

“Good night sweetie.”  Lexie said to Stephanie.  It was a small baby step, but at least she called her mom and not Lexie.

Lexie waited till the door closed and heard footsteps moving down the hall.  She turned to Jon and smiled.  “She called me Mom.”  Lexie felt tears prickle the back of her eyelids. All thoughts of what they were talking about before the trio left, wasn’t important.

Jon held out his hands and she moved into his arms, now was not the time to get into an argument, he would talk to her about it tomorrow.

The next day they went tubing on the river and had a blast. Lexie and Stephanie put together a huge picnic lunch. The trio were in diaper swimmers and little float tubes with sunscreens, each kid had a tube. Chairs were set up around a cook pit.  Jon and Jesse hauled the coolers and baskets of food.  Lexie had the younger two boys collecting sticks for a fire, so they could do damage to the two bags of marshmallows.

Jon got in with the trio, Lexie joined them after she got the site set up.

“They seem to love the water,” Lexie said swimming up to Jon.

“Yeah they sure do, just like the rest of their family.”  Jon said as he pushed Olivia toward her mother, loving the way she giggled and slashed the water at her mother.

Sally joined them after work when they were making s’mores, the trio were asleep in their seats.  Lexie put a marshmallow on her hot dog fork and sat between Jon knees, as he also held his fork over the fire.

“Do not burn me.”  Lexie said to Jon as his marshmallow flamed up.

Jon brought the marshmallow out so Lexie could blow out the flames.

“They make such a cute couple.”  Sally told Jesse.

“Yeah, Dad is like a whole new man.  His divorce to Mom hit him really hard.”  Jesse told Sally.  “He’s happy and watching him around the trio, it’s fun to watch.  They are making him learn what having three kids in diapers means.”  Jesse chuckled.

“Can I ask you two something?” Sally asked Jesse and Stephanie.

“Sure.”  Stephanie assured her.

“Has Lexie told you guys about the movie based on one of her books?”  Sally asked them.

“Sure, we found out before she got pregnant with the trio. This is a big deal for her.  I have followed her from the first book, but she told us in the last chat, she was taking a break.”  Sally told them.

Stephanie shifted uneasily on the log they were sitting on.

“Yeah, she and her editor have been meeting, she’s had a rough month or two.” Jesse said looking at Stephanie.

“Well the movie is off, this came from her editor’s site.  I wanted to talk to Lexie about it, but she just smiled and said we’d talk later.”  Sally told them.

“That would explain what they were arguing about last night.”  Stephanie told them.  She looked over where her dad and Lexie sat.

All too soon it was time to head back to the cabin.  Jesse and Sally had plans to go to a movie and Stephanie stayed home to do Lexie’s nails.  Jon took the younger boys to the Game store to pick up a few games.

Lexie was soaking her fingernails when Stephanie brought out the polish and files.

“I haven’t had my nails done since the trio was born.”  Lexie sighed and followed Stephanie directions.

“Sally was telling us about your post on line about taking a break.”  Stephanie reached out and took one hand out of the water.

“Yeah, with your brother’s football schedule and your dad starting tour, I decided to take a break.”  Lexie told her as she buffed her nails.

“So that isn’t what you and daddy were arguing about last night?”  Stephanie clipped at her nails.

“We weren’t arguing, we were discussing.”  Lexie laughed.

“I’ve seen daddy’s arguing face and his mad face and that was his arguing mad face.”  She put the hand back into the water and took the other hand. 

“Really, hmmmm, mad arguing face?”  Lexie looked puzzled.  They had never really had a knock down drag out argument, so she had nothing to fall back on.

“Yeah, he gets this tight face and his voice gets flat.  He and Mommy had a few fights before the split and I just know the sound of his voice.”  She finished with the other hand.

Lexie was quiet thinking about last night and what Stephanie was telling her.  Neither of them heard Jon get back with the boys.

“When are you going to tell him, Thomas killed your movie deal?”  Stephanie said just as Jon walked into the room.

“Your movie got killed?” Jon asked.