Chapter 72 - What About Now

They sat at the table together and ate in silence.  Beth picked at her food, having no appetite what so ever, and Jon was feeling pretty much the same way. 



He's been where Beth is right now and he feels for her, but in his heart - there is nothing that he can do for her.  THIS was out of his control and he accepted it, he needed to help her now.  "You should eat, babe."  He reaches across the table and takes her hand in his, "Really."


"Not hungry." she mumbles through her unopened lips, looking up at him.  She reminds him of a little girl that was in trouble, pouty and sad.


"You still need to eat."


"I'm not hungry Jon." she reminds him, placing her napkin of the table, slowly rising from her seat.  "How can you eat?" she walks away, not waiting for him to answer.  He watches her leave the dining room and doesn't even try to stop her.  He figures she's going to pout and there isn't anything he could do to change her mood.  He knows that she's going to be pissy about the whole thing and there was nothing he could do. 


Without her, he sat there and tried to eat himself.  He was listening to what she was doing, and he could hear her in the living room with the twins.  Lost in his own thoughts and his own mental madness that they release of this book has caused, he comes to the conclusion that if they were going to beat this and do as much damage control as they could, they needed to get out of town.  Once the book hits the shelves and is available for download, the private little house that they have at the end of the road, on the shore, won't be the best kept secret anymore.  With that in mind, and a pounding headache he takes care of his dishes and seeks out Beth and the twins.


He finds her out back on the patio with the twins in a pack and play.  She's in a scoop chair reading a book.  The night is cool. The breeze off the water added a chill to the air, but it was a beautiful evening.  "Babe." he says, sliding the door closed behind him, "We need to have a little chat."


She looks up at him, "About what?"


"I think we should get out of town for a few days." he says and holds his breath.  "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow and I don't want us here for it."


"You want to run from it?" she questions, setting her book on her lap.  She can see the stress that has come over his face, and she can hear that he is a little concerned, as he stands over her. 


"I know how this will all play out, and I really don't want to be here. I don't want any of us here."


"Where do you want to go?" she exhales, lowering her head, "What do you have in mind?"


Jon kneels infront of her and looks her in the eye, "Why don't we go up to the house in Queensbury."


"I sold that a long time ago Jon." with a chuckle, she tells him, "Did you forget that?"


He nods his head yes, "I did.  We can go anywhere you want to go."


"I don't want to go anywhere." she stands up, exhausted from just the short conversation that they had, "I  am not running because of them anymore Jon.  I'm not."


He stands up and walks in her direction, "This place is going to be crawling with reporters and people tomorrow."


"I know."


"Do you really want to be here for that?" he asks her, hands on his hips.  "Do you really want to deal with the assholes going through our garbage and zooming into our windows with their cameras?"


She turns to look at him and snaps, "No!  I don't want any of that.  I want to get up in the morning, put the twins in the stroller and go for our run - like we do everyday.  Then I want to come home and have breakfast with you and get on with our day."


"That's not going to happen, Beth." he matter of factly tells her, wanting to do the exact same things that she does, "There is no way you can go anywhere from here tomorrow, unless it's with me."


"Jon..."


"Beth, if you've never listened to me before, I need you to listen to me now." he gets a little louder with each word, "It's going to be crazy here tomorrow."


"Fine." she gives in, "where do you want to go?  We are supposed to have the kids this weekend."


"We'll grab them when we leave." he sits in her chair,  flipping open his phone case, "I need to let Dorothea know so she isn't caught off guard."


Beth stands there and looks out over the sprawling lawn, noticing that the leaves are changing a little bit, shaking off the chill.  "Why don't we go get them tonight?"


"We can." he looks up at her, "If that's what you want to do."  He can see in her face that she's losing the fight.   He can see that she is going to do whatever she needs to, he sees her nesting kicking in. 


"Yeah.  Let her know that we're coming tonight.  I'll get the twins ready." she faces him, her heart is beating so loudly she can feel it in her ears, "I need to pack for them, where are we going?"


He didn't have an answer for her, "Where ever you want to go.  Name it."


"Just pick some place and let me know." she walks over to the twins and picks up Spencer, "Will you bring her in.  I need to shower."


"Yeah, go ahead.  We'll be in in a few minutes."  Jon watches her walk away with his son in her arms.  A piece of his heart goes with her.


Before he takes Brianna and goes inside, he calls Dorothea to let he know what's about to go down.  By the sound of her voice, he thinks he woke her up.  "Hey."


"Hi Jon."


"Did I wake you?" he asks, with no real concern.  Talking to her was on of his least favorite things to do, but since he and Beth got back together, he's tried really hard to be civil with Dot - not only for the kids sake but for his own.  Life was better when everyone got along.


"No.  What's up?" she quickly fires back. 


"I'll make this quick." he pauses and takes a deep breath.  "Dalton and Melissa wrote a book about what they did.  It's being released tomorrow.  I'm taking Beth and the twins and getting out of town."


"Okayyyyyy." she couldn't sound anymore uninterested, "What do you need from me?"


"I'm supposed to pick up Jake and Romeo tomorrow, I think I'll come get them tonight and just take them with us."  another pause, this time he waits for her to react.  When she doesn't he continues, "We should only be gone the weekend, or until it all dies down."


"Okay.  I'll get them ready."  Dorothea tells him, no urgency or concern in her voice.


"See ya."  and he ends the phone call.  Tucking his phone away, he leans over and picks up Brianna, who is all smiles at her daddy.  With his baby daughter over his shoulder, he heads into the house.  Once inside he empties his pockets onto the counter and takes the baby upstairs, looking for her mommy.  As he makes it down the hallway, he can hear the shower running, following the sound he enters the steamy bathroom and sees Beth and Spencer through the shower door. 


"Can you take him and hand her to me?" Beth calls out, over the sound of the shower.  "They needed a bath, this is much quicker."


"Yeah.  Give me a minute."  Jon replies, fumbling quickly to undress on baby to swap her out to dry and dress the other.  As he's doing that, he tells Beth, "I called Dot.  She's going to have the boys get ready."


"Okay.  Do you want me to go with you?"


"That's up to you." he tells her.  With a smile he asks, "Don't you want to see Dorothea?"  a quick wink and they trade babies.  Jon takes Spencer into the nursery.  As he's drying and dressing him, he loudly says to Beth, "I think you should go."


Beth doesn't respond.  She finishes showering with Brianna and steps out, wrapping her daughter in a thick heavy towel, swaddling her while she kisses all over her face.  Brianna is the happiest of the two babies, and at certain times, Beth can see a little of McKenna in her.  They have the same smile and often Brianna will make the same facial expressions that McKenna used too.  Beth keeps kissing her and telling her that she is mommy's little angel. 


Naked and with baby in arms, Beth walks into the nursery where she finds Jon cleaning Spencer's ears and clipping his toenails.  That warms her heart and makes her giggle a little.  "When you're done with him, you can do her."


"Lay her down." he nods to the adjoining changing table.  "I'll take care of it."


Beth lays Brianna on the table next to her brother, kisses Jon and says, "I'll get dressed, but I want to run an idea past you."


"What's that?" he pauses what he's doing and looks at his beautiful naked fiancé and hopes she's horny, but he knows better.


"What if we got ahead of this?" she asks him, "What if we go public before it does.  Could that help with damage control?"


Jon looks at her, with a wrinkled brow and says nothing.


Beth sits in a rocking chair, "What if we held a press conference and gave our side before the book is even released?"


"We would have to do that tonight or first thing in the morning.  It's being released at noon." he's not sure if he's liking the idea, maybe because it never occurred to him.  He sits and thinks for a minute, not really sure how he feels about it. 


"Think about it.  We can announce that this dreaded book is coming out, before they do.  For whatever reason, they haven't had too much publicity regarding it, so let's beat them to the punch."


Jon is startled as her feels Spencer roll over under his hand, looking down at his son, he says, "Then we better do it tonight."  He picks up his clean and fresh smelling son and hands him to his mommy.  "I'll get her ready to go, go get dressed."


"Ok."


Beth takes Spencer into their bedroom and sets him on the play blanket that's in the middle of the floor.  The twins are getting harder to contain now that they're semi mobile, but the bedroom is large enough, he won't be able to get very far with his belly scoots.  Beth walks around him, talking to him as she gets dressed.  "I think we're going to get Jake and Romy, Spencer.  Do you want to see your big brothers?"  Spencer loved when anyone talked to him, he's the most vocal of the two and his squeals were music to anyone's ear, "Maybe we'll see grandma and grandpa too."


Beth is dressed and fixing her hair and face, when Jon walks in with Brianna.  "She's dressed and ready to go." he tells Beth as he sets her on the floor with Spencer.  "And man, we are in trouble when they start crawling."


"Which should be any day."  Beth replies, dabbing on some lip gloss in the mirror, looking back at Jon. 


Jon pulls his t-shirt over his head and starts to tell Beth, "Okay, if we're going to do this, I think I'll call Savannah and have her come here and take our statement."


"Do you think she will at this hour?" Beth turns to look at him, hopeful that Savannah will come to the house.  "That would be great, if she did."


"Yeah, she'll come here.  I'll call her and my mom and have them come here."


"Do we really want to do it at this house though?  No one has ever seen the inside of this place and I'd like to keep it that way."


"We could do it out back or in the studio.  We don't need to do it in the house." he reminds her of their options, "Or we can met her somewhere."


"I don't care.  I just want our home to remain private.  I guess we could do it out back."  Beth agrees as she watches Jon slide off his shorts and pull on some jeans.  "Hey."  she stops him.


"What?" he looks at her and smiles.


She smiles back, "Nothing.  I just wanted a peek."


He winks at her, flashes that dazzling smile and pulls the jeans on and fastens them.  Once he's dressed, he crabs her cell phone and calls Savannah, who quickly decides that she will grab a crew and head to his house right away.  She is a friend of the family, but foremost she is a journalist and she would love to crack this story.  "I'll be there as soon and I can, and I'll have it start it's run on the 11:00 news, will that work?" She questions her rockstar friend.


"That will be fine, but we need to do it out back, so make sure you have enough lighting and production equipment."


"I will."  And the call is ended after a few more seconds of exchange.


Beth walks up to him, kisses his cheek and whispers, "Thank you."


His arm goes around her waist and he pulls her close, as he moves in to kiss her, they hear Spencer say dada.  And they freeze.  As they are face to face, they both smile and Beth can see the lump in Jon's throat starting to bother him, he swallows hard.  Jon looks at the twins and Beth watches Jon.  She can see the tears in his eyes starting to form and her heart swells with happiness. 


Jon gets on the floor with his babies, picking Spencer up he holds him close and talks to him, "Dada."


Spencer repeats it and Jon falls apart.  Beth is overcome with emotion herself and sits down next to Jon, rubbing his leg and crying with him.  He looks at her and says, "This is the first time I have ever heard a first word from any of my kids."  He buries his face in Spencer's neck and continues to feel the joy that he's feeling.  After all of these years and having a handful of children, he was finally able to hear a first word uttered and it was his name.  It was dada.