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jonesyjonesyjonesy · 1 year ago

Text

Wildflowers (pt. xxi.i)

a john paul jones x fem!oc fic

summary: Julia Morgan knew nannying for three girls who had recently lost their mother would come with many challenges. But she never thought their father, the enigmatic musician John Paul Jones, would be causing her the most trouble. And while Julia is not in the business of saving broken men, her tenderness might be meant for more than little girls and wildflowers.

table of contents │ previous chapter

masterlist│ko-fi

notes: nsfw

a/n: it's my birthday and it's julia's birthday and it's everyone's birthday! :)) due to my busy schedule, i'm going to start splitting up longer chapters into two more regularly so i don't have to keep y'all waiting 5ever. anyway. enjoy. and happy birthday, julia.

pt. xxi.i, horned poppy

“I’m afraid he’s taken a leave of absence and sent John Paul Jones in his place. Will that do?”

White lilies. Ugly things.

“Well, these are nice aren’t they?”

I looked at Annie and then back at the flowers. A small card stuck out from amidst the ivory petals.

“Well, don’t just stand there and gawk at it. See who it’s from, hm?” Annie nicked me on the arm with a knuckle.

I sighed and grabbed the card. “White lilies are funeral flowers.”

The flowers had arrived while I was on my morning school run. Bounteous lilies in a fine crystal vase. Expensive. But…deathly.

“You are a snob, Julia,” Annie sniffed. “You should be grateful he thought of you at all.

She was right about that. I had to be grateful that John remembered me on my birthday at all. I had to take it as a good sign.

I unsheathed the card and read it aloud. “Happy birthday, Julia. With love.”

Annie’s eyes bulged. “With love?”

I flushed. “It’s just an expression.”

“A very strong expression,” Annie grumbled.

While outwardly I remained calm, inside I was reeling. Love was not a word John and I had exchanged. Even “like” would have felt too strong to utter though everything between us would point to at least “like”.

As if sensing my spiraling, Annie floated toward the door to the outside. “Come on, laundry doesn’t dry itself.”

I followed her outside and sighed. 28 years old. Another birthday in another home that wasn’t my own with a family that wasn’t mine. One that I wanted to be mine more than I should have allowed myself to want.

Annie and I went to work on hanging the wash. Time dribbled by easily, approaching the next hour. A September breeze shifted all the dresses hanging from the clothesline; a row of ghosts wafted in the morning light.

My fingers were starting to ache from pinching clothespins over and over. Bloody dryer was on the fritz, leaving Annie up to her chin in wet laundry and nothing to do with it but hang it out on the lawn. The poles hadn’t been used in eons, as made clear by their chipping white paint.

And while the chore was a bit pedantic, it was also meditative. After the first line, I’d found my rhythm and technique, how to hang up tartan skirts, socks and knickers, blouses with tiny, undissolvable stains hidden on the collar.

Anything to distract me from the date.

“Help me with this, would you?”

Annie was trying to straighten out a damp bed sheet with her small wingspan.

I smiled and wandered over, taking one end from her and spreading it as far down the line as it would go.

“That bloody machine…wasting all my time.”

Hearing Annie curse made me giggle. “Repairman should be here sometime this week.”

“Laundry doesn’t stop for a repairman, does it, Julia?” Annie said with a sigh. She clipped a pin to her end of the sheet, then one in the middle. “Blast, I don’t have another one.”

“I’m afraid I’m out too.”

She grunted in annoyance. “Hold on.”

Annie skittered away before I could say another word, leaving me standing there with the wet sheet in my hand, its dampness dripping down my arm, underneath the cuff of my jumper. I tilted my head to the side and sighed, looking up to the sky. It was slightly overcast, but the peeks of sun through the clouds were generous and brilliant.

My birthday always was more introspective than I liked it to be, especially as I got older and remained unmarried. This being my first birthday in several years without Nick in my life, I was starting to wonder if maybe I should have just gone along with him to Paris and forgotten the whole lot of my freedom. I might have been engaged by now.

Now, now, Julia, you know that’s not what you want.

Nick so rarely crossed my mind since I’d ended things. Even more so once John became the object of my fantasies and affections.

I leaned into my hip. “Come on, Annie, my arm’s getting tired.”

I was met only with silence.

I groaned, my head dipping back.

Get on with it, then.

I dropped the sheet and marched over to one of the pairs of socks I’d hung, clasped the two of them together on one, and then returned to hang up my end of the sheet.

But just as soon as I clipped the end of the sheet to the line, the opposite side fell to the ground. I huffed, marching back over to hang up that end. I scanned the ground for the pin, finding it under the drape of white, pinned it back up and sighed. A job done.

Then, the other end fell.

I stared at the fallen sheet and started to laugh. This was getting ridiculous. I went back to the opposite end, pinned it up and –

The telltale flumf of the sheet falling on the other end.

I turned on my heel, laser-focused on the fallen sheet.

That was too many coincidences in a row. “Annie…” I said with a sly smile. “Are you being clever?”

I ran back to the end and pinned it up. Again, the other end, fallen.

“You think I don’t get enough cheekiness around here with three little girls, eh?” I snuck back to the other end. Instead of pinning it back up, I grabbed the sheet and poked my head around the other side.

No one was there.

“Oh, come on. This is ridicu –” I flipped around just in time to catch the shoe of my tormentor as they hid behind the curtain once again.

And that was not Annie’s shoe.

My heart pounded. My mind must have been playing tricks on me. I could have sworn that it was John’s shoe.

“John?”

Silence. Just the waving of the sheet in the wind. Taunting me. Reminding me what an idiot I must be to think for a second it would be John.

Still my heart stayed in my throat. I crept back to the other end of the sheet. “If you’re playing a trick on me…”

You’ll what? Leap into his arms and beg him to never leave again? Be realistic…

I grabbed the end of the sheet and took a deep breath. “I swear to god, I’ll –”

Two arms enveloped me from behind, absorbing me into a tight embrace. I screamed and squirmed, but before I could see who my laundry ghost was, their lips told me, pressed against mine in a tender, familiar kiss.

John .

My body broke into goosebumps as my heart soared toward the sky. Weightless, wrapped in his arms, I had to believe this was some fever dream. I pushed a hand against his chest, drawing myself away to see his face, make sure he was really real. “John, what are you doing here?”

If I hadn’t been totally infatuated with him before, I was certainly infatuated now. His darling smile, prickling at the dimples to see me had me swooning and the glimmer in his eye made me melt. A lethal combination to a girl trying to remain sensible. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

“You – mm –” John interrupted me with a kiss. “ – know it is. But you wished me happy birthday on the telephone last night and –”

“That’s not nearly the same as wishing you a happy birthday in person, is it?”

I gaped, totally unable to comprehend what was happening. “This can’t possibly be happening.”

John grinned. “Aren’t I real enough for you?”

None of this felt real. John was touching me, kissing me, like some sort of dream I’ve had in the weeks since he’d left. “Yes, yes, but I really don’t –” I sighed and closed my eyes to get my thoughts straight. “You came out here to see me?”

John nodded.

“For my birthday?”

He nodded again. I brushed a lock of his hair back and tucked it behind his ear, grinning unbelievably wide. “Really?”

John threaded his arm around my shoulder, pulling me near again for what seemed like another kiss. His nose grazed mine as he whispered into my mouth, “Julia, you mustn’t be so surprised I came home to celebrate your birthday.”

But I was. Unbelievably surprised. Even more than that, I was surprised by his charisma. I’d noticed it coming more and more forward since Montreux, since we fell into each other’s arms. Now, though, it was heightened. Nearly theatrical.

“Now you two have ruined a perfectly clean sheet!” Annie yelled from the house.

I flushed and pointed at John. “His fault!”

“I should have known you’d be a snitch,” John teased, unrolling us from the sheet. “She should be grateful it’s not ruined in other ways.”

I gaped at him. “John.”

John grinned mischievously as he balled up the sheet. I still couldn't believe he was right in front of me. “Come along, dear.”

I followed at John’s heels, trying desperately not to spend too much time looking at the way his trousers squeezed his backside. “Where are we going?”

“A surprise.”

“At least let me change,” I argued, pulling at the cuffs of my sweater.

“No time,” John smiled over his shoulder and grabbed me by the hand. “You look perfect for our purposes anyway.”

I didn’t think so. I’d thrown on a frock and tried to cut the chill with a ratty old sweater that I’d acquired at the farm, an inheritance from dead Uncle Donal. Not to mention a pair of old leather boots that needed a good shining.

John and I waltzed into the kitchen where Annie was waiting with a hamper in her hands. “Alright, be good you two.”

I stared at the wicker hamper as she held it out toward us. “Where were you keeping that?”

She shrugged, a sly smile to match John’s on her face.

“Thank you, Annie dear,” John said, taking the basket and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“You made that for us?” I asked in shock.

“No, I made it for the Queen of England,” Annie said with a roll of her eyes. Her sass turned into a smile. “Go on, birthday girl.”

I could barely believe it. The woman who’d admonished us for so much as kissing was now encouraging us to venture into the wide world together. I threw my arms around her neck. “You knew everything, didn't you?”

Annie chuckled and patted my back. “It was all him, I just aided and abetted, alright?”

“Julia, come on!” John called from the front hall.

I felt dizzy with joy as I ran through Warren House and out the front door, only to be gob smacked again by the sight of a darling Rolls convertible, which I was able to identify by the ornament on the hood. “What is this?”

John dropped the basket in the backseat. “You like it?”

“Is this yours?”

“Oh, God, no,” John said with a scoff. “I got rid of mine years ago. Borrowed this from Bonz. So, we have to be good.”

I smiled and approached the car carefully. “I’m even afraid to touch it.”

“Oh, well a lady should never have to touch the car,” John said, opening the passenger door for me.

“Thank you,” I said with a genteel look over my shoulder.

He was so smug as he shut the door behind me. And I’d allow it, considering everything he’d done to surprise me this morning. If it all ended right here and he said this was all there was, it would have been enough.

John rounded the car and leapt into the driver’s seat without opening the door as if he was some sort of Hollywood dandy. “You ready, then?”

“Who are you and what have you done with John Baldwin?”

“I’m afraid he’s taken a leave of absence and sent John Paul Jones in his place. Will that do?”

I reached over and grabbed his chin. “You smarmy, little –”

“Prick?”

I smashed my lips against his as answer. Yes, obviously.

John sighed into my kiss as if tension from all the work he’d done was melting away just at my touch. What a far cry this all was from our first meeting. Him hiding his identify from me, trying to be an average widower. Now, here he was, flashy and bold, strutting around like a peacock.

I was charmed. I won’t lie.

Breaking the kiss before it went too far, John straightened up. “Alright, one more thing.”

“John, no more things. No more surprises,” I said.

“Just a little thing.” He reached down and tapped the glovebox. “In here.”

I took a deep breath and opened the glovebox as John slid on a pair of aviators. Handsome arse. Burnt orange flashed from inside the glovebox. “No.”

John didn’t reply, revving the engine.

“No, John, this is –” I snatched the small box and admired the small Hermes logo. “Please, this is much too much.”

“Just open it would you?”

I lifted the lid and undid the wrapping paper as John swerved the car out of the driveway and down Warren Lane. Inside was a silk scarf, decorated with periwinkle loops and golden birds.

“Since I wouldn’t let you cut up the curtains,” John said.

I lifted the scarf out of the box, watching it flutter delicately in the breeze. “I hate to even think of the absurd amount you paid for this.”

John smiled. “Put it on, Julie Andrews.”

“Ah, you're Robert in John’s clothing, are you?” I started to fold the scarf into a kerchief shape for my hair.

Wordlessly, John turned on the radio. A jazzy melody wafted through the speakers.

I delicately knotted the luxe fabric at the base of my skull and peered into the wing mirror. With my bare face and frumpy sweater, I didn’t feel like I was a girl who belonged in a Rolls with a silk scarf in her hair. However, when I felt John’s hand on my knee, I knew I just had to accept that this was my reality. He nudged me closer to him. “Let me look at you.”

I flipped around to face him, smiling maudlinly. “The hills are alive…” I lilted.

John grinned. “Looks perfect with your eyes.

I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek, teeny bristles of hair against my lips. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome darling.”

Where had this smokey-voiced, Casanova come from? Had Bonzo given him some midland pointers? Maybe Pat had really pulled all the strings. Or was this the man John was far before the broken heart?

I bade myself not to think about it too hard and to enjoy it. It was my birthday after all.

“Where are we going?” I asked, tucking my chin on his shoulder as we mazed through Crowborough.

“Well, we’ve got a hamper courtesy of Annie and you’ve got a kerchief ala Fraulein Maria, the Alps perhaps?”

I smacked him on the arm. “Cheeky.”

“Always.”

I couldn’t ignore how wonderful he smelled. How much I’d missed him. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it also heightens the senses. And everything about his touch, his smell, the way he looked…

Made me absolutely feral.

“I thought I’d take you down to the shore. Is that alright with you?”

I smiled. “I haven’t been to the shore in years.”

“Obviously you’re overdue for a visit then.”

“Yes,” I replied, the open road curling out before us. “Yes, I am.”

The shore at Normans Bay was nearly an hour’s drive, but the time ticked by quickly at John’s side. We had much to catch up on, things we couldn’t get from our nightly chats. Closeness, the kind I could only get from hearing his breath through the phone.

We didn’t have to talk. It was that simple at this point. The radio crooned, the English countryside plowed by, and we simply existed in the same space.

It was as close to love as I had felt the entire time I’d been falling for him. Dangerous. Unavoidable.

“Seems like old times…” the radio sang.

“So how’d you sneak away?” I murmured to John.

“Having you to walk with…”

“Zeppelin’s four members, isn’t it? All I have to do is throw a fit now and then, disappear, and then I’m welcomed back with open arms. Can’t get on with only three.”

“Seems like old times, having you to talk with.”

I pushed my face into his shoulder. “You didn’t tell anyone you were coming here to see me, did you?”

“No, of course not. They’d have a field day with that.”

Acceptable, especially based on the way I’d asked the question. Still, I would have loved to have been sung from the rooftops.

I moved back to my side of the car and leaned on the door, letting the wind whip through my hair and kerchief. “This was quite a surprise, John.”

“That was my goal.”

I grabbed the hem of my skirt. My legs felt light as arousal crept up my thighs. “I’ve missed you.”

“You know I’ve missed you, Julia.”

I had been trying to understand all this time if our relationship was more than just physical to John. And now, here I was, struggling not to feel turned on. My body hadn’t expected him. I was taken off-guard, each and every part of me.

John leaving was like a withdrawal from my system, the way it felt when I went from doing cocaine everyday after school to hiding myself on the farm while I was with child. Shakingly needy. Touching myself in the late hours, the early hours, the in between hours.

Now, here he was in the flesh.

And we’d already gone far too long without touching each other in the deepest ways.

I curled my fingers under the hem of my skirt and spread my legs.

“Julia…”

“What?”

“You know what.”

I pulled my fingers further up my thigh.

John fiddled with his glasses. “God dammit, Julia. You want me to run the car off the road?”

“I’ve barely done anything.”

John took a deep breath. “I can fucking smell you from here.”

“I hope that’s a compliment.”

The car abruptly veered off the road into an embankment. I nearly screamed before realizing John was responsible for the change in direction. He ripped the keys from the ignition and dived toward me, pressing me up against the door, lips on mine, ravenous lips, tongue ripping into my mouth. I braced myself, one hand against the headrest, the other against the dash.

His sunglasses knocked up against my face. He trembled to grab them throwing them onto the ground without another thought.

I wrapped my leg around his hip, pulling him flat against me. My entire body bucked against him, his touch utterly enthralling from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

“I was trying to be good,” John growled, moving his lips to my neck.

His teeth sunk into my skin. I let out a long sigh in response.

“I was going to wait,” he went on.

John’s hands slid from my calves and up my thighs, jerking my skirt up to my waist.

“But you and your fucking…” John shook his head like he’d just been hit with an anvil. “God almighty, Julia, I can’t control myself around you.”

I bit my tongue through a smile. “You never have to control yourself around me.”

John pushed my panties down (also not attractive, to complement the already dowdy outfit), then ducked under my skirt, his mouth sealing tight to my center.

My head dipped back toward the sky, jaw falling open as I welcomed his lips to my groin. I could barely even calculate the things wrong with this situation. In a car on an open road, a convertible with the top down, an employer with his children’s nanny.

A continued dance between secret and broadcast. This was the thing that plagued me while I was away from John.

But while I was with him, it drove me fucking mental.

John moaned into my dripping core. I jerked in response, hooking my hands over the window well at my shoulders. “Oh my god…”

His tongue slid from my perineum up to my clit, snaring the sensitive pearl with a snap of his lips.

My body seized, then collapsed again. A whimper, a moan, a breath.

I felt a drop of rain square between my eyebrows and was immediately snapped out of my reverie. I could only think about Bonzo’s car. The leather interior and anything else that might be ruined by the rain. “John, it’s –”

He locked his hands under my ass, pressing his mouth harder to me.

I bucked again. “John, the –“ A few more drops of rain. More suction of his mouth. “Please, we have to – oh god, I have to –”

John’s mouth was unyielding. I had to give into him. The warmth of his mouth, the cool kiss of the rain, the same amount of opposition that had been in our dynamic since the very beginning.

I grabbed onto his shoulder as best I could. John moaned once, twice, three times, each one building, shaking my sense free until the orgasm trembled free. I keened, raindrops tumbling onto my tongue, down my throat. “John, please,” I begged, gripping his jacket. “John, I need –”

John reemerged from under my skirt and slid up the length of my body to catch my mouth in another longing kiss. I tasted myself on his mouth.

Fit perfectly in the cradle of my legs, John rested, catching his breath against me. His fingers curled around the door. “Fuck,” he growled. “What do I do with you?”

“That. Again and again, please.”

John coked his head against my chest, smiling lopsidedly, a sheen across his lips and cheeks.

The rain intensified, from a drizzle to a steady cadence which finally snapped John back into gear. “Shit, the top.”

“I’ll help you,” I said, dragging myself out of the car and into the rain.

Like a sketch out of a Marx Brothers movie, we managed the top of the Rolls about halfway before it stuck. We switched sides a couple of times, trying to figure out what we’d done wrong, until John realized the fucking thing was automatic and went up and down with the push of a button . “How do we keep up with these newfangled gadgets, eh?” he asked, settling back into his spot with a damp squelch.

“It’s alright, you old fuddy-duddy,” I cooed.

“Says the girl celebrating a birthday.”

“Twenty-eight, over the hill, I know.”

“Well, it’s a very beautiful hill.”

I smacked him on the arm. “Drive, you.”

We set back off on our trajectory to Normans Bay, quickly leaving behind the patch of rain we’d been hit with for cooler temperatures and wider blue skies. The closer we got to the sea, the more I could smell it in the air and eventually, see it in the distance.

“Oh, wait, wait. I have to pull over,” John remarked.

“What for?”

The car rolled to a stop one more. He nodded back over his shoulder toward a flower cart at the side of the road. “Flowers. For you of course.”

I screwed my forehead together. “More flowers?”

John’s forehead matched mine in confusion. “What?”

“You already got me flowers. You sent lilies. This morning.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“Didn’t you?” I asked.

John shook his head slowly. “No, I didn’t send you flowers.”

“Then who…” I trailed off, my heart beating with anxiety. “Please don’t joke with me, you didn’t send me those flowers?”

John half-smiled. All of the charisma he’d rode in on, suddenly caput. “I know I’m not the only man who admires you, Julia.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was still horrified to think of who could have possibly sent them. It was a short list, but none of the options were desirable. Nick Westerling being the first three names on the list.

John hurried off and fetched a spray of wildflowers from the seller. I watched through the wing mirror as his coat and hair whipped in the wind as he handed over a generous couple quid for the bouquet. He returned as quick as he’d made off, bashfully handing over the flowers. I took them with much more tenderness than I’d received the lilies this morning, pressing my nose into the fragrant spray. “You mustn’t give me anything more.”

He merely smiled.

Before he could start the car for us to finally make off to Normans Bay, I leaned over and slid my lips across the lobe of his ear. “You’re the only man I care to be admired by. I promise.”

John gratefully accepted my kiss, leaning back in his seat, a hand against my waist. I grabbed a yellow poppy from the bunch, remembering the poem from our Flower Fairies book. Only grows on the seashore. I tucked the flower in his hair. “There. Now everyone will know.”

He flushed, laughing bashfully like a schoolboy. “Damn this long hair.”

“I think it’s darling,” I said, sitting back in my spot.

John looked me over, considering each and every part of me. The yellow flower over his ear added a warmth to his face blush couldn’t seem to encapsulate on its own. Then, he smiled, put the car in gear and took a deep breath. “Next stop, Normans Bay.”

And though I laughed and sang along on the radio, I held my tongue back from what I really thought. That I never cared if we ever got to the shore at all. I could die happy in this moment.

Not even noon and this was already, most certainly, my best birthday to date.

tag list: @jimmys-zeppelin, @kari-12-10, @grxtsch, @digitcc, @ritacaroline, @kyunisixx, @salixfragilis, @rebel-without-a-zeppelin, @jimmypages, @dollyvandal, @cassiana-on-dark-side, @thepinklovewitch, @faisonsunreve, @sastrugie, @seventieswhore, @t4ngerinedr3am, @mayspringcome, @barrettavenue, @foreverandadaydarling, @glimmerofsanity, @montereypopgroupie, @lzep, @jimmysdragonsuit13, @n0quart3r, @larsgoingtomars, @paginate54, @leveeisbreaking (let me know if you’d like to be added 💋)

#john paul jones #wildflowers #led zeppelin #julia morgan #wf #john paul jones x oc #jjj

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jonesyjonesyjonesy · 1 year ago

Text

Wildflowers (pt. xx)

a john paul jones x fem!oc fic

table of contents │ previous chapter

masterlist│ko-fi

notes: n/a

a/n: i miss you all so much, miss wf so much. i've been working my butt off on my writing career and the time i have for john and julia is so limited, but i still think about them all the time. this is just a little fluffy interlude to tide us all over until i can get to what will be a very signif chapter. so i hope you enjoy it, even if it's a little silly :)

pt. xx, eyebright

“Sir Curran for the talent, ladies.”

The lights were dimmed, the stage was set, and Jacinda was doing a marvelous job of playing a jumpy melody on her recorder.

“And here he is, Mr. Starmaker himself, your host, Hughie Green!” Tamara announced.

I began to applaud.

The curtains by the window trembled. Kiera yelped. “I’m stuck!”

Tamara looked askance nervously as if she was truly in front of a full audience, not just me sitting on the sofa cozy under a blanket with a cup of tea. “Technical difficulties, ladies and gentleman!” She snapped at the recorder playing Jacinda. “Cindy!”

Jacinda stopped playing, the last note squeaking. She huffed as she stamped over to the window where Kiera was only getting more and more tangled in the curtains.

I tried to stifle my giggles as she tried to free Kiera while Tamara stood by tapping her foot, checking her wrist for a watch that wasn't there. “The audience is waiting, Mr. Green. This is live television.”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming!” Kiera squeaked and then burst through the curtains. She looked absolutely darling in her father’s herringbone sportscoat (leave it to John that an average sportscoat would be the most shocking thing I could find in his closet) that fell all the way to her ankles, sleeves rolled up just enough so she could wave the hairbrush in her hand near her mouth as a microphone. “Ahem!” Kiera gestured to me.

“Oh, sorry!” I started to clap my hands again. “Bravo!”

Kiera bowed several times to the audience of one as she came to the center of the “stage” aka right in the middle of the playroom with the television pushed back. “Thank you, thank you! I wanted to say…” She looked over at Tamara with wide eyes.

“Birthday cards,” Tamara hissed.

“Yes! My birthday. Thank you for the cards. I’m fifty-eight but feel like I’m a hundred and eight.”

I let out a rip roaring laugh as I did every time Kiera repeated the joke. She’d heard it once on television and couldn’t stop repeating it. Tamara decided to use it to her advantage when planning out this skit for my evening’s entertainment.

Since John left, the girls had taken it upon themselves to fill the night hours with little performances for me. That way, according to Jacinda, “None of us would have to feel sad without daddy around.”

Sad was not how I felt without John around. Uneasy was more like it. Especially after the way we had left things.

To be fair to John, he didn’t know how we’d left things. After all, how could he have known that Pat and I lingered by the door listening to his conversation with Bonzo where he basically implied he wasn't sure he fancied me. After a month and change of letting him inside me again and again, letting him drown himself in the softness of my collar bone, flirt with me while everyone’s backs were turned.

After all that he wasn’t sure if he “fancied” me.

It was proof to me I should have resisted him.

However, the morning he left…made it so impossible to hate him. He woke me up by diving between my legs, languishing his tongue inside me, touching me like I was something holy. And when I had come not once but twice, he didn’t want anything in return.

“I needed to get my fill of you,” John had muttered. And then, after a kiss to the inside of my thigh I wish could have been welted onto my skin forever, he whispered, “I’m going to miss you so much.”

With several long, uninterrupted kisses amidst my bedclothes, that was our goodbye. The rest of his goodbyes were saved for the girls. With hugs and kisses and waves from the front step, we watched John and Bonzo drive off down Warren Lane.

Pat kept me company that first day. And after that…I was on my own.

Trapped between unfancied and missed, managing the house was a confusing task. It had only been four days and the girls were defaulting to me at every turn as their figurehead. Everything was up to me. John had not left instructions. And there was no threat of him returning in the middle of the night with anxiety over how I’ve stepped into the role left by Maureen.

Except I hadn’t. Not really. My presence in the Baldwin girls’ life was pear-shaped motherhood.

However, with John away in Headley, I was what they had to cling onto. John called every night, but he didn't have much time or energy to spare to them as he was still getting their bearings. My personal interactions with him were quick and to an end.

As it should be. The girls needed him. I didn’t.

I don’t, goddammit.

The nights had been long without him.

But the girls’ performances made the nights a little easier to bear.

“Tonight, we have a treat with you with star in the making Su Pollard singing an Oklahoma! favorite –”

“Everything’s up to date in Kansas –” Tamara began to belt, having changed into a flowery caftan from my closet and a yellow wig she made up of spaghetti noodles, twine, and glue.

“Not that one!” Kiera retorted.

I laughed loudly. “That was good,” I muttered, glasping my hands to my chest. “That was very clever.”

Tamara pretended to be shocked, shook her head to recalibrate, and then began to sing, “I’m just a girl who cain’t say no –“

The girls had become quite taken with the show Opportunity Knocks, a televised talent competition that included a postal voting system which meant every week, along with all of my other letters, I would mail the household vote off to ITV. The things you do to see children smile.

Unlike a professionally judged competition which would of course reward contestants with the most talent, Opportunity Knocks’ public judging system often allowed for some questionable winners.

“But will Su’s spotlight dim when up against –“ Kiera continued.

“Arf! Arf!” Jacinda barked, now on her knees with her tongue hanging out and two paper dog ears on her head held up with a headband.

“Weezy, the singing Jack Russel!”

“I know how this one ends!” I announced excitedly as Jacinda began singing “Happy Birthday” in a warbling dog voice. Su Pollard and the Jack Russel were actual contestants in the previous cycle of the show.

Guess who the girls voted for?

“This and more on tonight’s Opportunity Kno –“ Kiera’s excitable cry was cut off by the ringing of the telephone.

Jacinda was the first to alert, like a true Jack Russel would. “Daddy!”

“Hold on, girls,” I said, assuming role as the offset producer. I picked the phone out of the cradle. “We’ve got a call from the BBC. Sir Curran –” I answered. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

John’s growing smile could be heard through the telephone. “Ah, you remembered I’ve been knighted.”

“How could I forget, sir?”

The girls all crowded around me on the sofa, Tamara over the back, Jacinda at my hip, and Kiera right under my arm, struggling to get comfortable in her father’s jacket.

“So, has the BBC come back to beg for our talents?”

“Mm. Depends. Let me talk to the talent.”

Adorably, the first night of our silly skits, John had wanted in on the action even though I could hear the exhaustion in his voice. So he played the role of Director-General of the BBC, Sir Charles Curran. Damn him for continuing to be so utterly charming.

I smiled and held the phone out for the girls. “Sir Curran for the talent, ladies.”

The girls clamored for the phone, all of them screaming as their various roles. I retracted the phone out of their reach. “One at a time, ladies. And dog.”

Jacinda barked and panted. I patted her head lovingly as Tamara snatched the phone from my hands.

“Sir Curran, Su Pollard here –”

“But I’m Hughie Green! I should get to speak first,” Kiera whined.

“Shhh, you’ll get your turn,” I told her and pulled her into my chest.

Kiera pressed her cheek against my bosom and harrumphed until Tamara’s turn was over, then harrumphed more when Jacinda took the next turn, citing that she was the second eldest and therefore should get the second turn.

By the time it got to Kiera, she was weepy and could barely hold the phone herself so I held it for her. “S-sir Curran? They are being very unfair to me.”

I stifled a laugh, overhearing John tutting Kiera and then coddling her in the best way he knew how. While they spoke, Tamara and Jacinda set to cleaning up the stage.

“No, they’re not nice to me. They’re never nice to me.”

“Kiera…” I patted her back and eyed Tamara who gave me a shrug. The bane of Kiera’s existence would always be that she was the youngest and smallest, therefore everything was very unfair to her while the reality was most everything was unfair to Tamara. Still, I remained impartial.

“Yes, Julia’s nice to me. But Julia has to be nice so that doesn’t count.” Kiera waited and then let out a frustrated screech. “I am not tired, Daddy!” meaning she was indeed very tired and bedtime was imminent. “You’re mean too!”

Kiera shoved the phone up into my face. I could hear John intonating carefully, “Kiera, love, this is the only time you get to talk to me today and you’re choosing to be grouchy.”

“You have to say goodbye,” I whispered to Kiera, but she shook her head, shoved me away, and ran out of the room.

“Kiera? Hello? Is anyone there?”

I sighed and pressed the phone to my ear. “I’m afraid Mr. Greene can be rather dramatic when he’s in need of beauty rest.”

“Mm, I know a few people like that. Mr. Page wasn’t up until noon.”

I giggled, but stopped myself when I felt Jacinda look at me. I covered the receiver and nodded toward the door. “Girls, you head up to bed. Check on your sister if you can. And say goodnight to your father.”

I held the phone out for both of the girls to cry out their goodnights as they loped out of the room.

“Well, at least they sound like they’re in good spirits,” John murmured.

“Yes, they are. Everything was going swimmingly up until you’re call.”

“Oh, well I beg your pardon.”

I pinched my nosebridge. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

He laughed, a hiccupping quiet thing. “I know you didn’t. I’m giving you a hard time.”

I paused, letting his breath shuffle into my ear. Other than the static of the phone, it was as if he was in bed with me.

“And you, Julia?”

“Me? Just fine. You?”

John sighed. “Fine. Tired. We’ll be working a little while more today, probably.”

“You ought to be the one to sleep in tomorrow. Give Jimmy a run for his money.” Jimmy's name made my mouth immediately hot, uncomfortable, dangling bait for John.

“I like the way you think,” John replied, the warm tone of his voice remind me of his arms wrapping around me. “No, every time I decide to be a handful, someone always outdoes me. I’m resigned to being agreeable.”

I chewed on my lower lip. “Well, that’s not always a bad thing.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

Since he'd left, our phone conversations were normally limited to a short back and forth, often a veiled one if the girls were in the room, ending with one of us trailing off and the other going, “Well, I'll let you go.” Unceremonious.

We hadn’t learned how to care for one another from afar. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever learn it.

I tugged on a lock of my hair. “I should get the girls in bed and –”

“Listen, are you particularly tired tonight?”

I froze, fingers tightening around the phone. For him, I would stay awake for days. “No. Not particularly.”

“Then I’ll give you a call when we’re done. Say around half past eleven. Is that alright?”

I started salivating, my mouth preparing for hours of conversation. “Yes, that’s qu-quite alright.”

“Oh good. Good, I’ve…I’ve really needed to hear your voice more than just a few moments at a time.”

I leaned back on the couch and pressed my palm to my head, smacking it over and over. This man was eluding my ability to categorize him. “Yes, it’d be nice then to chat,” I said after a moment too long of leaving him hanging. “I want to hear about everything going on there.”

John laughed. “Trust me, Julia, I don’t know if you want to hear everything going on here.”

Oh, but I did. Every sordid detail. The drinking, the drugs, the inevitable discussions of women and perhaps parades of them too. I wanted it all.

“Alright, dear girl, I’ve got to go.”

Dear. Girl. Bloody fucking hell.

“Half past eleven. You have the right to go to sleep on me if I’m a minute late.”

“I’ll wait at least two before I give up on you.”

John hummed. “You’re quite a romantic, are you?”

“Not all women would give a man two extra minutes, but me? Well…” I drew my foot up my leg delicately. “I’m a romantic.”

“Be careful with that voice, you’re going to put me in a compromising position.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, my body all aflutter imagining what he was imagining. “God, you have to bring that up right before I’m going to say goodbye?”

He let out a low chuckle and then: “Half past eleven.”

“Half past eleven,” I repeated.

And then I heard the click of him hanging up. I pressed the phone to my chest and sighed heavily. This is bad…this is so –

I wasn’t left alone with my thoughts for more than five seconds before I heard a sharp cry from upstairs and my name being called with tearful anger by Miss Kiera.

You’ll be pleased to know that after a hellish bedtime routine and nighttime shower where the water would not get hot enough, John called. In fact, he called early. Eleven o’ three.

He kept me up until nearly two. Talking about nothing and everything.

Not a mere mention of our bodies. The way they had begun to gravitate toward one another. The familiarity we had earned from John becoming a landmark in my bed.

Yet the want was all the same.

“We should get to bed, shouldn’t we?” I asked after a long silence, my eyes falling shut as I sprawled out across my small sofa.

“Must we?”

I hummed.

“Oh, I know that hum. That’s a tired hum.”

I wondered how many times he’d heard Mo hum over the phone, across an ocean. Made me sad to realize he couldn’t run home if he needed her. No man can run on water, even with the most profound love in his heart.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you my eleven o’clock number.”

“Mmmwhat would it be?”

“’So long, farewell…’” John sang the first bars of a tune from The Sound of Music.

I snorted. “You’ve been spending too much time with Robert, haven’t you?”

“Suppose so, Julie Andrews.”

I may have been able to keep this up until morning if he kept making me swoon.

“You better not pull the curtains down to make any outfits for the girls. Especially not in the playroom. I’m fond of those.”

“What about a kerchief for my hair?”

John laughed. “Don’t get cheeky. I’ll be checking them over when I get home." Saliva moved in his mouth. "Although the blue would certainly suit your eyes.”

My body was gleefully numb until we said goodnight.

After all, a man wouldn’t know the eye color of a woman he didn’t fancy, would he?

#john paul jones #led zeppelin #john paul jones x oc #wildflowers #wf #julia morgan #baldwin girls

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