13:Dog Days

August 9

Jon grumbled as his middle brother planted a low beach chair beside his in the sand.  Pulling his cap further down until it practically met his sunglasses, he stretched fatigued legs out as far as they would go.  It was his hope that the sun would provide warm, healing rays that would improve the way he felt this morning.

“Hung over?” Tony asked casually after he’d stripped off his shirt and squirmed into an apparently comfortable position.  With sunglasses as dark as his own, Jon couldn’t tell if he was looking this way or not but, then again, he didn’t really care.

“Meh.”

Even after a long morning run that had his made his legs rubbery, Jon felt like shit, and only part of it had to do with the two and a half bottles of wine he drank last night.  The rest of it could be attributed to the raging hard-on he’d woken up with after a raunchy dream about Counselor Charlie up against a wall, gasping his name and begging forgiveness while he completely owned her. 

He was not accustomed to waking up with a tent pole under his sheet and there being no woman around to take care of it.  That added this morning’s hard-on/headache combo as one more reason on a list of millions to loathe the woman. 

His brother’s slightly longer legs unfolded parallel to Jon’s and his face tilted to the sun.  It was with a sigh that he laced his fingers across the pasta gut that Jon could easily have if he weren't so stringent about his diet.  

“I’m disappointed in you, bro.  After all these years and all that booze, you should be invincible to something as mundane as a hangover.”

“I’m not fucking Superman, nor do I have a hangover.  I’m just antisocial, so shut up.  Where are your wife and kids?  Shouldn’t you be with them?”

Tony gestured to their left and Jon’s eyes followed along to find Lilah and the kids about fifty yards down the beach and closer to the water. 

“It’s sandcastle day.  Last time we had sandcastle day, Lucas and I played moat monster and flattened them before Lilah and M.J. got ‘em built all the way.  I was disinvited so my son can see how it’s supposed to ‘really’ be.”

Despite himself, Jon chuckled.  His three-year-old niece was a take charge kind of girl, who liked things to be her way.  Her two-year-old brother was a terror who didn’t give a shit what she wanted or what got destroyed in his path.  Jon had a sneaking suspicion that the boy’s daddy was proud of that fact. 

“You’re gonna go kick ‘em over after they’ve finished, right?”

“Hell, yes.  Moat monster is on the schedule for noon.”

After the obligatory brotherly fist bump, a comfortable silence stretched between the two.  Tony’s moderately quiet nature was one of his best qualities, in Jon’s opinion, because he wasn’t compelled to talk just for the sake of talking.  

This was one of those times that Jon appreciated that characteristic. He appreciated it so much that he’d almost dozed off in the warm sunshine when the hush was disrupted.

“You got awful chatty after that second bottle last night.”

Had he?  Jon honestly didn’t remember anything other than lying on the couch and listening to Sinatra while everybody else did whatever they were doing in other parts of the house.  They were all in bed by the time he’d climbed the stairs to his room.

“And?”

“And nothing.  You were just telling us all about your dinner with the kids and that lawyer.  Very colorfully, I might add.”

Turning his head, Jon found that Tony’s face was pointed straight ahead toward the ocean.  Because of his quieter nature, when he did talk, whatever he had to say was usually blunt and to the point.  The fact that he was engaging in supposedly casual small talk was enough to tell Jon that his brother was dancing around something else.

“You wanna get to the punchline, already?  I’m not in the mood to play guessing games.”

“Look,” Tony sighed.  “You kept bitching and railing about the lawyer so much last night that Lilah’s convinced you don’t hate the broad.  She’s decided that you have the hots for her – in a bad way – and gave me orders to get the scoop.  So tell me something that’ll get my wife off my back and we can go back to quietly baking in the sand.”

Snorting derisively, Jon diverted his face back toward the ocean.  “Tell your wife to mind her own fucking business.”

“I’ll let you deliver that message.  Keeps me outta the middle of the perpetual family feud you two have.”

Lilah was a perpetual pain in the ass. 

He missed the days when her eyes were filled with a fearful respect, she kept meekly silent and gave him a wide berth.  Since she’d married into the family and realized his bark was worse than his bite, his sister-in-law didn’t hold anything back.  As mouthy as any Jersey girl ever hoped to be, she force fed him her opinion on everything, including his tour schedule.  Generally, he disregarded said opinion and told her to fuck off, even when she was right. 

You gonna admit she’s right this time?

Not out loud, he wasn’t.  It wasn’t like he wanted to forge a relationship with Charlie Del Vecchio, which was exactly how romantic-minded Lilah would take it.  All that interested him was physically screwing the lady lawyer, using as much blatant savagery as she had when figuratively screwing him.  Then he could tuck his dick in his pants and forget about her.

His brother wasn’t Lilah, though, and they’d shared a life-long relationship filled with more secrets than the Pentagon.  Maybe disclosing his thoughts about Charlie at a very superficial level might dilute the potency of them.

It couldn’t make them any stronger, that was for damn sure.

“Between you and me,” he confided after a long moment.  “The woman is a bitch, but I wouldn’t mind screwing it out of her.  As much as I hate it, Charlie Del Vecchio turns me on, and if you tell your wife that, I’ll kill you.”

Lifting one casual hand, Tony swore, “Not a word, man.  Can’t understand why you don’t just stick it to her and move on, though.  It’s not like women typically refuse you.”

“Honestly, I can’t stomach the thought of being nice enough to her to get in her pants.”

As a man who considered himself an equal opportunity humanitarian who believed that everyone deserved a chance, he should be embarrassed by that admission.  The list of people that he disliked was a very, very short one, but her name was on it.  At the top.  In bold-tipped marker. 

“Find some other pants to get in, then,” was Tony’s unadorned advice, and his dark head nodded to the south end of the beach, where a barefoot woman with an equally dark ponytail strolled along the shoreline with her dog.  “Those pants would do me, if I was single.”

Sliding his eyes in that direction, Jon saw that his brother’s taste in women didn’t suck – other than Lilah.  The referenced pants were short, cut-off jeans and they were topped by a form-fitting tank top.  Neither did anything to disguise a lithe figure that was both firmly toned and softly rounded in all the right spots.  

He could spend an hour or two with her wrapped around him.

“No kidding.”

Curious as to whether the face obscured by oversized sunglasses was as attractive as the rest of the package, Jon seriously contemplated getting up and going into the surf just to get a better look.  Contemplation switched into a concrete decision after about ten more seconds of watching her curves sway as she walked.  He was just planting his feet beneath him when her little dog dropped back on its heels, barked up into the air and spun around before making a mad dash in Jon’s general direction.

“Nana!” the woman called after the hairy creature whose short legs were struggling after leaving the hard-packed shoreline for looser terrain.  It would go a step, then get buried up to its chin before taking another step and experiencing the same problem.

Feeling sorry for the mutt with the stupid name, Jon followed through with his original intention and pushed to his feet.  Slogging forward the dozen steps that brought him close enough to scoop it up, he snagged the animal around the midsection and lifted it free of the sand. 

“Hey, buddy,” he greeted the dog whose coat was much the same color as that sand and tucked its squirming body into his side.  “That shit isn’t made for midget legs. You should stick to firmer ground.”

The woman’s legs, which were athletic not midget, covered the distance much more quickly than the dog’s had.  It was only seconds before she was in front of Jon with a breathless, “Thank you!  Thank you so much!  I don’t know-“

Her effusive gratitude stopped abruptly when she realized who held her animal, and it wasn’t because of the typical “oh my God, you’re Jon Bon Jovi” reason either.  Now that he was close enough to discern facial features, Jon was unfortunate enough to discover that it was her rogue dog running loose on his beach.

Charlie Del Vecchio was the woman with the rocking body. 

Of course she was.  Why wouldn’t she be?  That’s the way his luck was going lately.

While transferring the dog from his custody to hers, their hands brushed against one another and the touch brought with it – surprise – a jolt of electricity. 

It pissed him off as much as it stirred him.

“Counselor,” he admonished tightly.  “Ever hear of a leash law?  Or don’t they cover that in predator school?”

“It sounds vaguely familiar,” was her sarcastic rejoinder while hugging the canine defensively to her chest.  The unused leash was wrapped around her wrist.  “I’ll look it up when I get home.  Sorry to disturb you.”

Kicking up a spray of sand, she spun on her foot and proceeded down the beach with her back stiff and head held high.  He did much the same in returning to his beach chair, not quite managing to swallow a grunt of irritation as he slumped back into it.

“Uh,” his brother ventured when she reached the edge of the surf and was out of earshot.  “You called her ‘counselor’.  Is that who I think it is?”

I would’ve preferred to call her a lot of other names.

“If you think it’s the one Lilah calls the Antichrist, then yeah.  That’s her.”

“Damn.  Your dick can’t be faulted for its choice in women.  I can definitely see the appeal.”

Jon didn’t bother offering a response, choosing to instead silently observe as Charlie got in the dog’s face and presumably scolded it for running away.  Lecture over, she set the still-unleashed beast down on the sand and continued her stroll.

He was grateful for the dark lenses that hid his blatant inspection of her as she walked into the distance.  There was clearly some type of regular exercise in her routine besides walking that dog, because nobody was naturally that toned.  He should know.  Two weeks out of the routine had him sporting a mini version of his brother’s gut. 

No, she worked on those arms and legs, and he wondered exactly how much power she had in them.  Would they grip him like a vise when he nailed her to a wall?  Or would they softly open and invite him in? 

He hated how much he wanted to find out that answer.

She’d traveled about thirty yards up the shore when the dog pulled its routine again, dropping back to its heels and barking before whirling to lead Charlie on another merry chase.  This time Nana was hell-bent on diving into a small group of beach dwellers that included Jon’s excitedly squealing niece – and her mother. 

Going from a relaxed slump to full attention, he reached out to smack Tony’s arm and point toward the scene.  “I do not want those two women to meet.  Go grab that damn dog and keep Lilah away from the lawyer.  Go!”

“Relax.”  The urgent insistence had no impact at all on the most laid-back of the three Bongiovi brothers, and that fact further irritated Jon.  “They’re far enough down the beach that the lawyer won’t connect them to you, and Lilah sure as hell won’t know who she is.  Antichrist will get the dog and be on her way before I could even get there.”

Watching as the Tasmanian devil mongrel ran circles around M.J. and plowed into Lucas while Lilah tried to catch it, Jon had his doubts.

“You better fucking hope so,” he warned, putting a menacing finger in Tony’s face.  “Those are the two women I trust least in this world.  Nothing good can come of them meeting.”

“Oh for chrissake.  Five years later, my wife still isn’t a terrorist out to sabotage you at the first opportunity.  Get the fuck over it.”

Okay, so he was exaggerating a little – at least as far as Lilah was concerned.  He knew she could be trusted, but his sister-in-law truly loved to yank his chain and that was not good in this scenario.  If she thought Jon had a thing for Charlie and realized that was Charlie…? 

There was no predicting what kind of mischief she might stir up.