. everything now

[jada carson]

Jada peers under her fringe, watching carefully as Oliver's chest rises and falls. She wonders if she'll get over it, or if she'll spend the rest of her life worrying if her son is going to drop dead. When she asked her own mother, Caroline Carson said that it gets easier. Though while investigating this within her own mind, Jada realized that her mother contacted her every day in the form of a phone call or sharing a cat video on her Facebook. The cat videos were her mom checking for a pulse. She hadn't asked Finn if it gets better, though she presumes he'd say it gets more difficult with independence. She thought this because these were her own beliefs. Jada is stiff against his touch, her eyes squinting to focus on the screen. When her stare releases, so does her body. Her thighs collapsing onto his and her bedhead falls to his shoulder. She smiles at his words and gives a soft nod of agreement. "I think that's wise," she lifts her head and tips it his way, "sleep in mine, I changed the sheets yesterday and it's a big cozy nest." She stretches her legs out to meet his and lifts her arms above her head, her sleepy bones crackling as she does so. "If it stays nice out, I'll put my stay-at-home-mom apron on and make us a barbecue."

[Deleted]

Without warning Finn switches the TV over to the familiar Netflix user selection screen, that big red logo simultaneously making him feel relieved to be at home and aimless without having a project on the go. The first screen is promoting The Defenders and he feels like that's another baby he's abandoned, though its of course worth it. Glancing over his shoulder to the open door of his bedroom though he only saw Ollie two seconds ago on screen, he's mollified for the moment, forcing himself not to obsess. After all, Jada was doing enough obsessing for the both of them. "It was ambitious of me to agree in the first place," he admits, wondering what it was he'd been thinking when he said yes. Must have been another rash decision made in the glow of his enduring good mood. "You're too kind," he says of her offer to sleep in her bed, though he knows he won't take it up. Even fresh sheets won't be able to disguise the sweet, fresh scent he so strongly associated with her, and he hated waking up to it, hated having to remind himself they weren't still married. "Why don't we just drag all the sheets out here and have a lazy family day? I probably shouldn't do anything more than doze, or I'll throw myself off for the rest of the week."

[jada carson]

Netflix takes over the large screen and she turns her face to him to protest. Her mouth gapes open for a second and shuts, realizing that this is probably more sensible than counting breaths. "I'm sure she'll not mind. I always like having belated birthday, makes me think that the celebration has been extended." The brunette, though not so fussy in many areas, was notorious for having month long birthday celebrations. "Aren't you full of ideas?" her thick eyebrows raise and she smiles at his suggestion. Jada pushes herself from the couch, "stay there, okay? I'll still tuck you in." She leaves for her bedroom and comes back with the contents of her bed. Spilling from her duvet are a few pillows, which she positions around Finn. She tucks the blush threaded duvet around Finn and the corner of her lips rise as she stands back to admire her handy work. "Are you cozy?" she reaches to pinch the apple of his cheek, and lifts the fabric over his face. "You look cozy," she laughs at his Eskimo-like appearance and slides her body in next to his. "Will you put on something bad but entertaining?"

[Deleted]

He raises his own full brows in response to her comment, grinning again as he thinks of her birthday shenanigans. "Tell me about it." He makes a mental note to get his assistant to start booking things in for this year's monthlong extravaganza, something baby-friendly and not far from home... a far cry from the magnums of champagne and baggies of ketamine that so characterised their old celebrations. He feels a bit guilty to think that he was a father even then, but vows to himself that this time will be different, he'll set a better example for his second than the first. And besides, didn't Savannah turn out fine after all? He dreaded to think what she got up to in her own time. In fact, the thought of raising another child in the moral wasteland that was Los Angeles filled him with dread. Ready to express this to Jada, he stops himself, knowing it's a conversation that could wait for another day. Instead he finds himself assaulted by a pile of impossibly soft fabric, Jada tucking him in with gusto. Laughing, he shakes his head as much as he can from his pillow prison. "Ideal, exactly what I meant." As she slips in he knows this is actually what he wants, easing in to the overwhelming comfort of blankets and a warm body next to his. He shuffles some of the duvet across to swaddle her, pulling her in as he manages to get an arm free to find and grab the remote. "'Deadly Women' it is. Or would you prefer Revenge?"

[jada carson]

The two of them were very picturesque under their mountain of fabric and feathers. Jada has many rules that she's keen to remind Finn of whenever she feels they're threatened. Cuddling up to her ex-husband on an early morning and watching trash television definitely went against her rulebook. But she can't resist. Her cold body snuggles up against his warm one and her head rests on his meaty shoulder, she feels safe and comfortable. She feels tired again, despite drinking most of her cup of coffee. If she let herself, she could close her eyes and drift away. "Oh god," she yawns, "they're both so bad. Maybe one and then the other, if we can manage." Jada hooks her arm through his and pulls her legs underneath her bottom. "I should put an ankle monitor on you so you can't leave, I don't know what I'd do without you," she watches as the opening credits begin to fade in and out of the screen. "You really are the most sane, helpful and best person I know."

[Deleted]

Sinking deeper into the plush setting, he was happy to be cocooned against the world today. He hadn't expected her to react positively to his suggestion of a duvet day and he certainly hadn't expected her to snuggle up against him, but he's not complaining. Far from. "You better not change it to something worth watching when I fall asleep. I'll feel very betrayed," he warns, flicking Deadly Women on. The dramatic voiceover and obvious wig on an underpaid actress are enough to bring a smile to his face already, and he settles in to watch. Her comment catches him off guard. Truthfully he felt pretty useless, the archetype of a good intentioned but fundamentally useless father. It was a stereotype Sienna had always endorsed, when actually she was just a control freak who didn't trust him to do as good a job as she believed she did. "I can't imagine a better person to have had a baby with," he says, "I'm not going anywhere."

[jada carson]

She laughs beneath the layers of down, "I think we've watched anything worth watching these past couple of months.. all there is is garbage." She watches a woman with cherry red lipstick make eye contact with her audience; these were the sort of roles that she wouldn't have taken under desperate times. Snuggled up like these makes her feel guilty for breaking rules and like a tease. The simmering guilt causes her to lift her head from his shoulder and press her lips thoughtfully. She's reassured of his permanence and it feels good. Of course, it feeling so nice also boils her guilt. She looks a little sad, her green eyes looking at his baby blues. "Aren't you afraid of hating me?" She thinks a minute, the words feel a little heavy for this time of day and she doesn't know if she wants to continue. "I know I won't hate you, I trust you to not do anything heartbreaking," but she carries on. Her knees lifting to her chest in her habitual fetal position and her arms folding around her blanket covered limbs. "But I know I put you in a position that could make you easily resent me. You'll tell me if you start to hate me, right? I'll help you not."

[Deleted]

"I think we might just be a bit too distracted to really enjoy TV," he says, thinking back to their time on this very couch. The last two months had been obsessively (and understandably) about their screaming newborn, whilst the weeks before that had been a riot of preparation and false alarms. Not to mention one glaring difference: Jada's mother was no longer around, and when she had been, what little of Finn's attention that hadn't been taken up by Ollie was taken up by the effort of trying to impress her with his parenting skills. He could feel disapproval radiating off the older woman, though he had managed to convince himself that towards the end of her stay, she was satisfied that her daughter had not made the worst mistake of her life after all. Jada had been noticeably more tactile since her mother's departure too, or at least noticeably less resistant to his small displays of affection. He knew she wanted to divorce their feelings from each other from this whole thing just as he knew he couldn't ever do that, though he was trying his best. "I could never hate you," he says matter of factly, because it is factual. Quite apart from how much he had always loved her, he didn't even have it in him to hate Sienna, and she had done plenty to encourage him to. The bond of parenthood was unbreakable. "Trust me, you're not very easy to hate. What about when I start dating a teenager, or I introduce Ollie to the wonders of weeknight drinking and recreational drugs?"

[jada carson]

She shrugs and nods in agreement. It had been a quick couple of months of catapulting into motherhood. Sleepless nights of rocking an unsettled newborn and days of walking around like zombie while simultaneously trying to entertain her mother. She'd been sad to see her mother leave, as they lived a distance away and seldom saw each other. But she was also pleased, as Jada could hear herself think once again. Not that that was doing her any good, with her rules and over-thinking. Her plump lips pout unconsciously when he mentions he could never hate her. The guilt bubbled and she kicked herself for letting go of him. She quickly reminded herself how necessary it was and how decisions had to be made. She reaches for his hand and strokes his rough knuckles with a soft thumb. "I could be easy to hate. Nice girls turn into mean ones everyday," she comments with a cheeky smirk. Her fingers thread through his for a moment and she lifts her hand with his before letting it slip. "I've seen you turn from a twenty year old to someone closer to your actual age in the past year. I think you'll avoid your dating your daughter's friends, have a strict weekend drink/drug using rule, and spend your own evenings with a scotch and cigar in a lazy boy watching your next masterpiece."

[Deleted]

As she takes his hand in hers and runs her thumbs over his knuckles it's impossibly soothing. Contentedness blurred into sleepiness and kept him in a warm, fuzzy in-between state between asleep and awake, too comfortable to be alert and aware of his exhaustion, but too content in the moment to let himself slip into unconsciousness. Finally he was seeing her as something more than his sexy, beautiful ex-wife, he saw her as a partner, someone he could not rely on and whom he was pleased to be relied upon by. He hoped she knew he wasn't just trying to get back into her pants, not now. "You could never be mean. Even if you could, I'd probably grow to like it."  Usually he would hate hearing himself speak like this, but in the blurry state he was in he couldn't bring himself to give a fuck. His hand feels weirdly cold when hers slips out of it and it elicits a small frown. "God, I sound awful," he grins, though the truth is she was describing an almost perfect rendition of exactly how he saw the next chapter of his life. "Though I hate to tell you this, scotch counts as drinking. And obviously cigars are disgusting," his voice is quieter than usual, softened by his tiredness. He's sleepy and he sinks down next to her, leaning his head on top of hers. "How about you, what are you going to be doing while I'm busy being middle aged?"

[jada carson]

She smiles at his compliment, believing the words that fall from his lips. "Maybe not mean, but impossible and grumpy. I can already be those things, they'll just get worse with age." Growing old together was inevitable especially now. Though she'd already known they'd be in each other's lives forever even when divorced, this was different that being present. This was in many ways sharing a life and being actively involved. Despite rules and insecurities, she was glad to have the reassurance of forever. The partnership of their parenthood meant more than an ordinary relationship. Finn was someone she could turn to in her future goods and bads. "You sound like a nice seasoned old man.. God, does it really?" she plays on the obvious. Her arm reaches around his shoulders and her fingers comb through his overgrown hair. "I'm going to pick up a craft... paint-by-numbers or quilting. And I'm going to open an Etsy shop. And I'm going to start a folk band, like Mandy Moore in This is Us. You need to watch Ollie while I'm away on my sold-out tour," she laughs at her own imagination. Her fingers gently stroking his head and willing him to fall asleep.

[Deleted]

Her suggestion that she'll grow into a more irritable version of herself as she ages only says one thing to him: you will know me when we're older. It's a beautiful thing to hear despite the fact he knew it already, and right now he's sure he doesn't need anything beyond this apartment to be happy, what with the McDonalds and the massive TV... and Jada and Oliver, that too. "You've got to stop calling me an old man. These past couple months have made me realize how true it is, and I can't handle the truth." Her arm slips round his shoulders and his skin comes up in goosebumps. He's never known anyone to have this kind of hold over him, not since he was a teenager losing his virginity to an older girl from school. With her fingers in his hair it's almost impossible for him not to lean over and kiss her, and had he been even 10% more alert that's exactly what he would have done. As he is, he stays in his lethargic position, though the desire burns on. "I was with you until the folk band," he said, scrunching up his nose. "You leave me for a tour with a folk band and we'll have to desert you."

[jada carson]

"Oh, Finny baby. You'll never grow old," she coos to him, believing it to be true. Though there was a little over a decade better them, Jada never considered the age difference. She can remember her mother warning her about the expectations of going with older men and how she'd be left a sad widow. But to twenty year old head-over-heels in love Jada, these things didn't matter. With her always acting older than she was and him acting younger, they seemed to even each other out. The cons to the decade difference were consistently outweighed by the pros. "Awh, baby. You might be putting down the next Stevie Nicks," she kids, her fingers still petting his head with a slow rhythm. She leans her head into the crook of his neck and hums for a second, her eyes catching the television and watching a poorly executed New York accent tumbling from a woman's lips. "I'm going to count to three, and when I call out three, youre going to fall asleep. One, two... three."

[Deleted]

"Tell that to this," he said, pointing at his face. It was possible that he had been in Los Angeles for too long now, the slight wrinkle around his eyes and laugh lines made him feel like he was about three thousand years old in this city of the perennially youthful. Not that he was going to rush out and get a facelift any time soon, but with Jada he felt it the most, her skin so perfectly smooth and youthful. Weirdly he felt it more with her than he did with Jessica, who made him feel young by association. It was with some real guilt that he realised just how much he had been using the poor girl, however unintentionally. "I don't think Stevie's got anything to worry about," he said, though in reality he would support her through whatever flight of fancy she went on. Her rhythmic patting and low humming is hitting him like a nuclear grade sleeping pill. Dozing, he finds his eyes closing right up until her countdown... when he forces them open, shifting his weight a little to try and stop himself from being so comfortable. Placing a finger on her chin, he tilts her face up to face him. "Nice try," he whispered, the corner of his mouth turned up into a lopsided smile, "you're stuck with me for a while longer."

[jada carson]

She fakes concern, leaning in to closely to inspect crows feet that sit at the outer corners of his perfect blue eyes. "What? I don't see anything. You're as handsome as ever, Grayson!" she proclaims with enthusiasm, and leans back into their duvet cocoon. She sweetens up the execution but means every word. In her seven years of knowing him, he hasn't aged much. She knows that beneath his thick beard is a baby face that would make him look ten years younger. The wrinkles are signs of a time well had, faint for now but deepening when he shows off a smile. Jada pouts, her lips becoming like sofa cushions underneath her sculpted nose. She feels as his body becomes more slack against hers as she spills numbers. Though when she announces the final digit, he clumsily awakens. "Oh no," she can't help but grin as she looks up at him. "I was looking forward watching this amazing production.. I'm sure I can lull you into dreamland," the brunette kneeds his back with one hand and resumes humming. The tune gets more annoying as she carries on, picking up pace and losing all sense of a tune. "Okay, I'm done. Enjoy your discomfort," Jada lifts her hands and tucks herself under the sheets.