Jon padded down the stairs to the McMillan basement in stocking feet. He was wearing a set of silk pajamas, borrowed from the closet of Richard McMillan, after having taken a shower to get the smell of Karyn off of him.
Jon looked down at his sleeves as he descended. A bright royal blue, with gold trim.
“I told you yesterday,” Sarah reminded him. “Blue is your signature color.”
The pajamas were a little bit big on him, but with a good tug of the drawstrings they stayed up pretty easily. The fact that they were big made them feel more comfortable. Sarah had changed into pajamas while Jon was showering, as well. Not quite matching Jon’s set, hers were a bubblegum pink with big yellow stars, but in the same sort of motif of “loose button-down shirt and drawstring pants” as what Jon was wearing.
It surprised Jon. In his head he had this pre-conceived notion that Sarah McMillan’s idea of sleepwear would be… well, something like what he saw Other Karyn wearing the previous night. Short, see-through, and lacy.
But she was wrapped in thick, soft, comfortable fabric that almost threatened to make her look frumpy, but just made her look comfortable instead. Sarah looked comfortable, and Jon felt comfortable.
And as the two teenagers reached the bottom of the stairs and turned a corner, Jon blinked in surprise. He wasn’t entirely sure of what he’d been expecting when he heard “home theater,” but what he found was a room that was half occupied by a giant sectional sofa in a U-shape along the wall, with three large ottoman sections free-floating on the floor. There was a large basket on one side full of blankets, and another basket on the other side full of pillows. And bean bags taking up most of whatever floor space was left. A large projector was mounted high on the wall above the back of the sofa, aimed at a wall that was empty and clean and white.
“These middle pieces are on wheels,” Sarah explained as she approached one of the large ottomans. “We can push them up against the sofa to make it into like a big bird’s nest.”
To Jon, it made the arrangement look almost like a giant bed. Something tickled the back of his mind at that thought, even as he helped Sarah create her bird’s nest and climbed up into it with her.
She crawled over to the basket full of pillows and removed about half of them. “Hey, go grab a bunch of blankets, would you?” Sarah motioned towards the other basket, and Jon dutifully followed her instruction.
And soon the two had built up a little fortress of fuzzy blankets and fluffy pillows in the middle of the bird’s nest sofa, huddled in the middle of it in their pajamas. Sarah pulled up an app on her phone and the projector turned on, illuminating the wall before them. It didn’t take long for her to find some streaming service that had episodes of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the moment that the theme song began, the tickle in the back of Jon’s mind became a clear image.
Jon wasn’t some kind of enthusiast or anything. He honestly hadn’t thought much about this particular TV show in years. It had just popped into his head recently, and he wasn’t sure why.
But the last time he’d seen the Mary Tyler Moore Show, he’d been very young, and he’d been sitting beneath the blankets on a bed that seemed massive to him, looking at a screen that seemed massive to him, in his pajamas, cuddled up against his mom.
That’s the feeling that struck him as the opening notes to the theme song began to play. The feeling of being a small child, wrapped up in blankets on a huge bed, cuddling up with someone who was comfortable. Jon subconsciously slid down a bit into the mountain of blankets, and leaned his head against Sarah’s shoulder.
Sarah’s breath hitched, but she didn’t stop Jon. With a moment’s hesitation, she surrendered herself to the feeling of casual intimacy and brought up a hand to stroke Jon’s hair as he nestled into the crook of her neck.
Sarah’s priority was to give Jon a stress-free afternoon. Make him feel comfortable, make him feel safe. Get him to a place where he can have a reasonable conversation with Karyn. And then get them back together.
But as the laugh track of the 1970’s sitcom cued laughter from the two teenagers in pajamas wrapped together in blankets, something that she wasn’t ready to acknowledge began to tickle in the back of Sarah’s mind.
