Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Johnny Zest could barely make out the older woman sitting at the bar but he knew he had to say something. It was the one time he had managed to catch her without Malcolm or Geoffrey by her side. He couldn’t focus on his girlfriend or the salad in front of him. He sucked in a deep breath and pushed his seat back from the small table.

“Do you need anything, sir?” a waiter asked as he passed.

“I’m fine,” Johnny quickly let out.

“Oh?” his girlfriend, Rosa, looked up from her bowl of soup, confused.

“Promise I’ll be right back,” he said before he quickly made his way toward the dimly lit bar on the opposite side of the upscale restaurant, Villa Bovine.

The blonde woman sitting at the bar swiped a bit of her hair behind her ear and the light glistened against her dangly earring. Up close now, he could make out a few, stubborn gray hairs hiding among the bleached strands of her neat bob. The jeweled bracelet slipped down her thin wrist as she raised her hand. She picked up the fizzy, fuchsia drink the bartender slid her way and took a sip.

“Na-Nancy?” Johnny called as he stood a little ways behind her. She swiveled on the stool and met his gaze with bright eyes that didn’t falter when she realized who had spoken to her.

“Johnny,” she said with an airy sigh. His heart was racing and his eyes were burning from holding back the anxious tears which had quickly accumulated as he had shouldered through people to cross the room. He blinked a few times, both struggling to keep his composure and genuinely taken back how the woman in front of him remembered who he was.

“You look surprised,” she said with a sweet, perfect smile. “I’d recognize my boy anywhere.”

She was so much nicer than he could have anticipated. He wanted to hug her and feel the safety of her arms around him for the first time in almost a decade. She looked him up and down, concern clouding her blue eyes and furrowing her neatly plucked eyebrows.

“Are you well? You look like you could eat,” she said. “I can order-“

“It’s fine. I’m on a date,” he pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “I just...”

She leaned forward on the stool slightly, anticipating his next words.

“I wanted to talk,” he revealed.

“Not here,” she whispered with an almost unnoticeable shake of her head. She looked around the bustling restaurant as people came and went in their formal suits and dresses. The clicking of the shuttering paparazzi cameras outside the doors was unmistakable. Some of them were for him, for her, and other know. patrons dining that evening.

Nancy swiped her clutch from her lap and popped it open. Johnny watched as she scribbled on a napkin.

“Meet me here tomorrow at noon. We can talk about everything then,” Nancy said as she handed over the thin cloth. Johnny looked down at the address she had hurriedly scribbled then back up at her sincere face.

“Everything?” he asked.

“Everything,” she reassured him with a nod.

“Thank you,” he said before she turned back around on the stool. He stood in place, dazed. He had dreamt about the reunion for years and just like that, the moment had happened and was already over. Tomorrow. The thought of tomorrow made his heart race. He quickly turned around to return to his table.

“Who was that?” his girlfriend asked as he wordlessly reclaimed his seat. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Johnny nodded a few times before a small smile tugged at the right side of his mouth. “That was my mother.”

“Nancy Landgraab is your mother?” his girlfriend asked, eyes bucking from her skull.

“It’s a long story,” he said with a shake of his head.

“I’ll say,” she said as she cast a glance over her shoulder. “You can tell it to me when you’re ready.”

“I think there’s still a few missing pieces I have to find first,” he said as he twirled the napkin between his long fingers.

Chapter Text

Cody Carmichael was confused and growing agitated. There was no reason for the infamous Don Lothario to be making his way up the sidewalk toward his front door, but it was happening. The two of them had never met. The two were polar opposites. Cody worked on-base in Strangerville and Don was a bartender who drifted between clubs. To be frank, Cody wanted nothing to do with the man after hearing all the rumors about him. 

Cody thought if he moved quickly enough, he could make it look like no one was home. He flipped the switch on the lamp, engulfing the room in darkness, and quickly threw himself down on the couch. 

“Babe, what’re you-“

He clapped a hand over his girlfriend’s mouth then grabbed the remote with the other to mute the television. Still, the doorbell rang. He shook his head as his girlfriend’s eyebrows knit together. She managed to pry off his hand and whisper,

“Are you hiding from someone?” 

“No,” he said with a quick shake of his head. “It’s just no one important.”

She freed herself from his grasp and gracefully crossed the room. Cody deflated against the cheap couch cushion and light from the porch flooded the living room as she swung open the front door. Cody squinted at Don before un-muting the television and giving his attention to the pizza commercial flashing on the screen. If what he had heard was true, trouble was brewing. No one could resist Don. All he could do was brace for the worst.

“Hey,” the visitor greeted.

“Do you need something? It’s rather late,” she claimed. Don’s face fell but he shrugged it off.

“I couldn’t help but notice you out jogging earlier. I wasn’t trying to be a creep but I saw you come inside your house and thought I’d introduce myself before I lost the opportunity to meet a beautiful woman such as yourself.”

She wasn’t all that flattered. “You’re Don Lothario. I’ve heard a little about you.”

“All good, right?”

She laughed in his face and shrugged a shoulder. Cody was fuming as his grip on the remote control tightened. 

“This is actually my boyfriend’s house.”

“Here,” Don offered over a small piece of paper. “Take my number. Call me when he's not around. Maybe we can go out for a drink sometime?”

“Did you not hear me? This is my boyfriend’s house. I don’t appreciate you following me and disrespecting him by showing up here so late,” she shot back.

“Disrespect? Do you know who I am? I could buy this piece of crap house, bulldoze the land, and watch you and your so-called boyfriend struggle,” Don vented with a small scoff.

“I don’t care who you think you are or what you can do,” she crumpled up the phone number and tossed it at him so it bounced off the middle of his forehead. “This is private property. You need to leave.”

“You’re not attractive enough to behave this ugly,” Don said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll give you one more chance to come to... your... senses.”

Don's voice hesitated as the floorboard creaked just behind the woman he had been speaking to. Cody's wide frame shouldered in front of his girlfriend and stepped into the light. He looked Don right in the eyes as he scratched at his thick beard and stretched his neck. 

“Can I help you?” Don asked with a slight roll of his eyes. Cody gripped Don by the front of his shirt and jerked him in real close, their foreheads nearly touching. Don’s green eyes widened in surprise as the tips of his toes barely scraped the porch.

“She said you need to leave.”

Before Don could say anything else, Cody dragged the taller, leaner man toward the edge of the porch and tossed him down the wooden stairs. He groaned and quickly
clambered to his feet beneath the orange glow of the street lamp before scurrying down the quiet street. Cody turned to his girlfriend with a sheepish grin.

"What took you so long?"

"I just thought..." he shrugged and his cheeks grew pink.

"You big baby. Come on," she said, pulling him back inside with a smirk.