Chapter Twenty

Shannon knew as she opened the door to her hotel room that Joey was already inside. Making sure to avoid eye contact with him, she quickly moved to the table and placed her belongings there. Shannon looked at her watch, it was a little past noon; she knew everyone would be heading out for lunch soon, but her stomach churned at the mere thought of food. Instead, she needed to finish a few more of the costumes - one of Lance’s shirts needed the buttons sewn on, Justin wanted her to embellish several of his bandannas, and there was a pair of Joey’s pants that needed to be hemmed - which she needed him to try on before she did that. 

I might as well get this over with. Shannon took a deep breath and turned to face Joey, her eyes on the pants in her hands. “I … I need you to try these pants on.” Shannon nearly dropped the pants when she saw the look of pleading in Joey’s eyes.

“Shannon, I think we need to talk. I don’t want you to be afraid to talk to me.” His hazel eyes were serious. He pulled the pants from her hands and turned to put them on.

“I’m not afraid to talk to you … I just figured you weren’t talking to me.” Shannon sat on the floor at his feet and started pinning the hem of his pants.

“Well, I was mad, but I really want to work through this.” Joey looked down at her. “Could you stop with the pinning for a minute?”

Shannon put in another pin. “Actually, I’m all done - you can take them off now.”

“Shannon?” Joey pulled them off and handed them to her. “Do you want to talk about what happened or not?”

“I don’t know where to begin,” Shannon said simply, sitting down at the table. Joey could tell how nervous she was by how much her hands shook as she tried unsuccessfully to thread the needle. After her fourth attempt, Joey covered her hands with his and kneeled down before her.

“We both know we’ve messed up … we’ve both done things that we shouldn’t have … I’m not going to say either one of us was right or that one of us was more wrong than the other.” Joey stopped to collect his thoughts. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to lose you over this.”

“I don’t want to lose you either, but I don’t think that a few words are going to fix this and make it all better.” Shannon raised her eyes to meet his. “I’m more worried about your friendship with Justin and Chris - you really need to talk to them first.”

“My friendship with Justin and Chris will be fine - I’m more concerned with working all this out with you. I need to know you aren’t mad at me … I’m not mad at you.” Joey rested his arms on her thighs and his head in her lap, looking up at her with pleading eyes.

“Joey …” she couldn’t help but smile at the picture he made. “I’m not mad at you, we were both in the wrong the other night, and yes, I want to work through this together. But you really need to talk to Chris and Justin, I mean, they’re way more important than I am.”

“What? How do you figure?” Joey raised his head in shock.  “Sweetheart - you mean more to me than anything, than anyone. I thought you knew that.”

Shannon touched his face gently. “Joey, I know that, trust me, I do. But you’ve worked so hard and for so long with Chris and Justin to get where you five are today, and I think you need to work everything out with them before the concert tonight. I mean, how are you guys going to be in synch if you’re not speaking to one another?”

“We’ll be okay - trust me. I just need to know we’re okay.” Joey raised his eyes to meet hers.

 “Look … Joey, we can’t say a few kind words and make everything okay here. I mean, you and I both made conscious decisions to sleep with someone else. Chris and Meaghan were part of those decisions - they knew what they were doing, as did Bridget. Justin is the only innocent here, in his mind and in his heart he made love to Meaghan that night.” She paused to take a breath and to place the costumes back in the bag.  “Joey … it’s going to take time to repair this. I could sit here and say everything is all right and say I’m sorry and say I forgive you - but in my heart I would still have the guilt and the fear. So let’s be adults here and just give each other the time and the space to heal, and you go find Chris and Justin and make everything okay before the concert tonight.” She got up to leave and only then noticed Joey’s shocked expression.

“You mean … but … I want us to fix this now.” His voice came very close to sounding like a whine.

“I know you do, but it’s not going to be that easy. I need time, and we both have work to do before the show, so I’ll see you later.” Shannon willed herself to be as strong as her words sounded, but it was hard when Joey grabbed her arm to prevent her from leaving.

"Where are you going? This isn’t resolved yet and besides - this is your room, too.”

“I’m going to head over to the venue.  Meaghan and I need to get a few things straightened out between us, and I have to make sure I have all of this stuff done before six.” Shannon motioned to the bag of unfinished costumes.

“All what stuff? It’s going to take you six hours to hem my pants and sew a few buttons on?”

“Well … no. But I do need to talk to Meaghan, she’s my best friend, and - ”

“And I’m your boyfriend - unless you’d rather I wasn’t. Maybe you’d rather be with Chris instead.” Joey regretted the words the moment they left his mouth, especially when he saw Shannon’s face crumble and tears fill her eyes as her belongings fell to the floor. “Shannon … I’m sorry, I - ”

“Shut up, just shut up. I can’t believe you just said that to me.” She turned to face him, her dark green eyes stormy. “Get out.”

Joey tried to swallow past the gigantic lump that had lodged in his throat. His voice broke when he tried to speak. “I’m sorry.”

“Get out, Joey. I can’t look at you right now. Please, just leave me alone.”

His hazel brown eyes pleaded silently to stay, but he knew she needed to be alone, so he simply nodded, grabbed his bag, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Shannon pulled his pants she needed to hem out of the bag and sat down, the scent of Joey overloading her senses. Tears filled her eyes, and unable to hold back, she clutched his pants to her chest and sobbed.

********

Joey stood outside the room, not sure if he really should leave or go back inside, his confusion made greater as he listened to Shannon's sobs. His mind made up, he had just raised his hand to knock when he felt someone touch his shoulder.

"Uh ... I think you should maybe leave her alone for awhile." Chris said hesitantly.

Joey's eyes darkened with anger. "Let me guess ... you heard everything?"

"Well ... yeah. I didn't mean to - I was just coming to try and talk to you ..." Chris tried to explain only to be cut off by Joey.

"Do you hear her in there? She's upset and here I stand, the whole reason she's upset. I need to fix this." Joey moved again to knock on the door only to be stopped again by Chris.

"Dude - leave her alone." His brown eyes were serious. "I know she's upset from what you said to her ... why did you say that, Joe? You know Shannon loves you."

"I know, I know ... I don't know why I said it. I have to go in there, she needs to know I -"

"Joey, just leave her alone for a little while. Trust me, it's what she wants."

"And just where do you get off acting like you know my girlfriend better than I do?" Joey glared at Chris.

"I don't know her better than you do, but maybe I understand her better!" Chris waited until his words sunk in before continuing. "I know what everyone's been saying about me the last few months, about my 'crush' on Shannon. Yes, I like her, I like her A LOT. But not the way you all think. I like her because she  understands me and listens to me better than anyone I've ever known. She sees past the jokes and the humor ... don't get me wrong, Joey. You and the other guys are the best friends I've ever had and you're my brothers in every sense of  the word ... but it's just been great having Shannon around to talk about the more serious stuff - FuMan, my problems with Bridget. I do love Shannon, but as a best friend. I know I screwed up -"

"Chris, we all did." Joey cut him off, the fierceness gone from his eyes. "God ... I love her so much! I don't know how I'm going to fix this." He wiped furiously at the tears in his eyes. "I mean, she's all I've ever wanted, she's all I've ever needed ... and I'm so pathetic that I'm quoting our song lyrics."

Chris chuckled and smiled at his best friend. "Just leave her alone for a little while, let her sort out her thoughts and go from there."

"Thanks man ... so ... are we cool?" Joey asked, nudgeing Chris with his shoulder.

"Yeah, we're cool ... ya big dork."

Joey let out a small laugh. "Watch who you're calling a dork, Fievel."