85:Anchor

September 29

Abu Dhabi

[7:11 PM]LUKE: Our family owes you a huge debt of gratitude.  Can’t believe you got Charlie to see a shrink but grateful.  My brothers and I want to buy you a drink when you have time.  Everybody’s stoked you two are together btw

The sun was just beginning to set over the water in Abu Dhabi, and it was an exquisitely beautiful sight.  Lyric-worthy, really, and Jon probably would’ve appreciated it had he not been forced here two days earlier than expected.  The stage he was supposed to be on tonight in Taiwan was being sieged by a typhoon and required the cancellation of the show.  That left him sitting on his ass and twiddling his thumbs. 

Sitting on his ass and twiddling his thumbs irritated the shit out of him, which is probably why Luke’s text message hit his hot buttons.  God knew everything else had been hitting his hot buttons in the last forty-eight hours and, as a result, both of his brothers and the entire band had sworn him off until he calmed the fuck down.

That left him alone on the balcony with room service, picking apart Luke’s comments like a vulture dissecting a zebra carcass.  There were two major red flags flying high – the "shrink" flag and the "together" flag.  The counselor was seeing a shrink and had told her family they were together. 

If the text had come from her, it would actually improve his mood because both items were major stepping-stones toward amputating Owen.   His first reaction was a desire to hear more about each, but because Luke was the messenger, it ended up rankling with Jon.  Her family was once again delivering news that she should be providing.  Why in the hell wouldn’t she just talk to him?

Don’t take it out on Luke. 

He had no plans to.  Jon would simply say what he wanted, and then tack on a smiley face at the end.  His kids had repeatedly assured him that was the way of the text messaging world.  They regretted providing that insight when he started questioning their smiley face comments, but it was too late to take it back.

[7:13 PM]JON: Drink or put me through another round of big brother bullshit?  :)

[7:16 PM]LUKE: Ha!  Drink.  And give Dom & Vince a chance to get to know you.

They’d both seemed like nice enough guys at Juliana’s that night, so maybe hanging out with his girlfriend’s three brothers wouldn’t prove to be as ominous as it felt.  He could always even the odds a little.

[7:17 PM]JON: Sure.  I’ll bring Matt & Tony.  Make it a party.

[7:18 PM]LUKE: Cool.  Give me a shout when you get back.

Jon dropped the phone on the café-style table and peered out over the horizon at the ball of blazing light  half-submerged in the Persian Gulf.

He was ready to go home.  Delays like this made him feel like he was wasting time, and wasting time was way the fuck down on his list of fun things to do when he craved fighting and fucking with a beautiful brunette until there was nothing left unsaid between them.

Tapping his bare toes on the concrete balcony floor while restlessly fingering the hem of his shorts, Jon contemplated calling her now and dumping his displeasure in her lap.  Was that fair, or he was he unnecessarily wound up because of the idle time? 

He pushed his half-eaten dinner aside in favor of another drink while he deliberated.  The wine was delicately glugging from the bottle when his phone rang, and he foolishly hoped for something – anything – that didn’t irk the hell out of him.

When Jon lifted it to read the face, the chances of that happening dropped to zero, because the choice of calling Chiara had just been taken from him.

“Hey.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Chiara railed at him without preamble, and his already frayed temper spiked.  If she wanted to jump down his throat over something, she’d damn-well better be ready to get bitten on the way down.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“What?  Are you trying to hide from your shortcomings?” she fearlessly goaded him for whatever mysterious reason.  “It’s a simple freaking typhoon, Bongiovi.  Why can’t you just hold it off until your show is over?  Is it really that hard?”

“I don’t control the motherfucking weather!”

With a fierce frown, he kicked out one heel to rest on the floor while the ball of his other foot bounced agitatedly beneath him.  He briefly wondered if she was having a psychotic reaction to something the shrink had prescribed.

“Good to know you realize that.  Now stop being all pissed off over it,” she returned, now much calmer and sounding more like his girlfriend instead of a crazy woman.  “And if you can’t, call and yell at me until you get it out of your system.  It doesn’t annoy me as much as it does your brothers.”

“That’s why you called?  So I’d take my bad mood out on you?”  The wine here was obviously stronger than what Jon was used to because that made so little sense, he had to be drunk.

“Sounds kind of sick and twisted when you say it that way.  I was really thinking more along the lines of making you feel better, but whatever.”

When in the hell had anybody come seeking him out when he was steeped in a foul mood?  They all usually just steered clear until he’d gotten over it by running himself into exhaustion on a treadmill or drinking himself to sleep.  For her to step into the figurative lion’s den in an effort to pull the thorn from his paw…

There really was a fine line between love and hate, and Jon was teetering precariously on it.  Not that he actually hated her, but he was definitely not happy with her.  The love thing, though…

Ignoring the warmth in the center of his chest, he pushed to his feet and went to lean one hand on the balcony’s stone railing.  There was the ghost of a breeze trying to stir in the warm evening air and Jon turned his face into it, squinting as he sighed in frustration. 

“Who called you?”

“Nobody asked me to try and cheer you up, if that’s what you mean.  I talked to Lilah last night.  She mentioned the change of plans and the fact that none of the guys were happy about it – especially you.  So here I am.  Gimme what’cha got.”

She was offering herself as a verbal punching bag so that he’d cheer the fuck up. 

Jon scratched an impatient hand over his head, reminding himself that she kept things from him.

“Not the best time make that offer, because I’m pissed at you right now.”

“Okayyy…”  He could hear the undertone that indicated she was bracing herself.  “I can take that, too.  Dish it.  What have I done?”

God, he wanted to be mad, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying to yell at someone who was willing to take it.  This was the problem he’d had behind the guest house that night.  She’d been so willing to accept his verbal abuse that it only frustrated him more.  That’s why he’d ended up pinning her to the wall, and since she wasn’t within pinning distance now…

The need to fight seeped out of him. 

“I got a text from Luke earlier.”

“Oh, Jesus.  What trouble has he stirred up now?”

Releasing his grip on the balcony, he twisted to lean his backside against it and blindly look at the mess on the table.  His right hand held the phone and he cradled his left in the crook of his right elbow, crossing his ankles and shaking his head. 

“Don’t blame him for this, Counselor.  He thanked me because you’re seeing a shrink and said your family was happy about us being together.  Very nice, but those are things that I should have heard from you, not your brother.  Along with a list of shit as long as my arm.”

“My family just found out two days ago, and this is the first time I’ve talked to you since.”

“And the shrink?”

“A couple weeks, but I’ve only talked to you a few times since you’ve been gone and not for long then.  I’m not wasting limited time on that stuff when I’d rather hear how horny you are.”

Standing to reach for his wine, Jon took a gulp before responding, “This is what it’s like, Chiara.  Five minutes here, ten minutes there.  You’ve got to learn to prioritize and make the most of it, and that includes keeping me in the loop on what’s important.  I can get anybody to blow sunshine up my ass.  What I really need is for somebody to ground me to life outside the fucking spotlight.”

“You’re gonna give to give me a second.”  Her voice was tight with the response, and he could hear the tremor of anger.  “I have to find a spin on that where I’m not being spoken to like a child.  Preferably one where you understand that I’m indoctrinated to doing shit entirely on my own.”

The remainder of his cabernet slid down his throat, and it was a Herculean effort for him not to throw the empty glass from the third floor balcony.  Grinding his teeth, he exercised undue caution in placing the glass on the table while taking a calming breath.

“And I’m trying to find a spin on the whole damn thing that doesn’t leave me in the dark about situations that directly impact our relationship.  Don’t get your fucking feelings hurt because I’m trying to educate you on life with a goddamn rock star.  My work life is a frigging circus that sucks me in and skews my perception of what’s important.  I need somebody in my life to anchor me, which I think is why you called in the first fucking place.  Own it and understand how much I appreciate it.”

Silence.  He was met with total silence as he paced the six-foot span of concrete that made up the balcony.  The longer the silence extended, the more tense he got. 

Screaming he knew how to deal with, but the counselor wasn’t the quiet, passive-aggressive type.  This, he didn’t know how to deal with and wasn’t sure he wanted to.  He didn’t have the patience for that shit.

“I settled the parrot case this week.”  She was pleasant when finally deigning to speak.  It was almost like starting the whole call over again, and he still wasn’t ruling out a psychotic drug reaction. 

“Yeah?” The uncertain question was all he could come up with until he figured out what was going on.

“Yes, thank God.”  As though the last ten minutes had never happened, she carried on with, “My mother has invited you to our family dinner on the last Sunday of October.  She wants to make you meatballs, which is her version of a Grammy, so you should feel honored yet still rave about them.”

This was getting more nuts by the minute.  Had he stepped into the Twilight Zone?  Where was Rod Serling warning him about that other dimension?  

“Chiara, what the hell are you doing?”

“You asked for an anchor,” was her placid response.  “I can’t think of anything further outside the spotlight than my family dinner.”

For the first time in two days, the muscles in Jon’s shoulders relaxed.  His neck was once again flexible instead of rigid, his fists weren’t clenched and even the tension in his lower back eased.  The lousy mood that had been ever-present in those same two days was getting crowded out by a swell of peace, normalcy and… love for a woman who forcibly shelved her independence and inclination to argue in order to placate him, and who was willing to be what he needed.

It was more priceless to him than all the oil in the Middle East.

“I like meatballs.”