83:Bangkok to Red Bank

September 13

Bangkok, Thailand

Jet lag was kicking Jon’s ass.  It was his fifth day in Asia, which theoretically meant he should be acclimated by now, but the eleven-hour time difference still had him with his days and nights switched.  At noon, his body believed it was one in the morning, and it required copious amounts of coffee to convince it differently.

There was an upside, though.  His vampire/touring sleep schedule on this side of the world was daylight hours at home.   He wouldn’t suffer too much on the back side of this thing, but for now, he was buttoning his black shirt and hoping he managed to sound intelligible at the impending press conference. 

Grabbing at one of the long cuffs that fell past his knuckles, he fumbled with trying to button it for a solid thirty seconds before swearing.

“Fuck it,” he muttered to the empty hotel suite and dropped his arm as someone banged on the door.  He’d fold them back or let the fucking things hang open, he thought with a glance at mussed gray hair that he also didn’t care enough to fix. 

Instead, he strode to the door and flung it open with the expectation of seeing Dave or Tico, whom he was dragging along to the press conference.  This was the first tour Bon Jovi had implemented since Richie’s departure, and the three of them were now the core of Bon Jovi.  In the interest of presenting a unified image, they were accompanying him on the majority of the press junkets this month, and today he was especially glad.  They would draw some of the attention from him and his callused brain.

It wasn't Dave or Tico standing in the luxuriously carpeted – for a hotel, anyway – hallway, though.  Tony was the one looking at him like he’d rather be anyplace else. 

“What?” he demanded peevishly.

“Your jet lag isn’t any worse than mine, so don’t cop that fucking tone with me.  I need to talk to you.”

That was the trouble with employing his brothers and bringing them along on these trips.  They showed no damn respect unless other people were around.  Even at that, it was subject to their moods – Tony, in particular.  Matt was better about playing the deferential bodyguard, regardless of how he felt at the time. 

Jon supposed he should be grateful they didn’t give him shit in front of the crew, but gratitude wasn’t on the crowded schedule today. 

“Come in,” he offered sarcastically as Tony pushed his way into the room.  “It’s not like I’m on my way out or anything.”

The automatic closure slammed the door shut as the darkest of the Bongiovi brothers pushed prescription glasses up on his nose and folded arms over the chest of a black logoed t-shirt. 

“Stop being a prick.”  Boredom was infused into both his tone and stance.  “This is for you, not me.”

Swallowing a sigh, Jon also folded his arms, and the cuffs flapped irritatingly.  “I’ll try.  Whaddaya got?”

“I talked to Lilah a little while ago.”

That wasn’t surprising.  Tony typically called home at the same time every night, which was morning here.  It did remind Jon that he’d meant to call Lilah himself after the spa day, but with the goings on and commute from Jakarta to Bangkok, the timing just hadn’t been right. 

He admittedly didn’t try that all that hard, though, because the counselor sounded good when he talked to her on 9/11.  There were sniffles to start with, but she sounded like herself when they said goodbye.  There was no reason that their trip to the spa should prove traumatic.

“And what does that mean to me?”

Eyes that were completely unlike Jon’s pinned him with a hostile look.  “Keep it up, and you’re on your own.”

“Alright, alright.  I’m sorry,” he backed off, holding his hands up in surrender.  The flip side of his brothers showing no respect was that he did the same thing, and it was a shitty habit that he needed to ditch when they were on a work trip.

“Better,” his brother approved.  “Have you talked to Charlie lately?”

“Not for a couple days, why?”

“Lilah’s… concerned.”

Having decided that another cup of coffee couldn’t hurt anything, Jon approached the room service cart by the door and grabbed the empty cup he’d put there earlier.  He filled it with what remained in the pot while again asking, “Why?”

Anything was possible with his sister-in-law, but since she’d recently spent time with the counselor, he presumed it wasn’t one of those psycho things.  That might be a bad assumption on his part. 

“You know they went to that spa.  Lilah says Charlie took a phone call right after they got there, and that it pissed her off.”  One hand came up rub at the back of his neck.  “You know anybody named Owen?”

Jon’s mouth went tight against the rim of the coffee cup, and he determinedly swallowed the lukewarm brew before guardedly responding, “I know lots of people.  Why do you ask?”

“Look, man.  I don’t give a fuck who you do or don’t know.  I’m just tellin’ you that Charlie told the guy to go fuck himself and hung up.  Lilah asked if he was the source of the ‘problem’ vibes she’d been getting about Charlie.  Charlie said yes, but not for much longer.  So there you have it.  We just wanted to make sure you were in the loop.”

Nodding slowly, he decided to focus on the positive “not much longer” instead of the fact Chiara hadn’t mentioned talking to Owen.  She probably would’ve if Jon had called.  That’s what he told himself, anyway.

“Thanks.  Any word on how the rest of the day went?”

Tony barked out a laugh and shook his head.  “I never know what to expect from you.  When I figure you’re gonna lose your shit, you don’t, but something inconsequential sets you off.”

“I already knew about him.  Nothing to lose my shit about.”

“Okay, cool.”  His brother moved toward the door as Jon returned the coffee cup to the cart.  “Spa day cost you three large, and they had a good time.  Lilah likes Izzie, but was surprised to find out it’s not just Charlie’s friend.  It’s her brother’s widow.”

Jon could understand that surprise, since he hadn’t known Chiara’s best friend was also her sister-in-law until it was mentioned in the Del Vecchio brothers’ telling of the 9/11 story.  The more he thought about it, the more he was beginning to realize that about half of what he found out about the counselor didn’t come from her but her family.

“I only met her briefly and didn’t know at the time.”

Turning the door’s handle and pulling inward, Tony stepped into the opening with, “Kinda weird, kinda not.  Have fun at your press thing.”

“Fuck you.”

Alone again once the door closed, he wondered whether to make an issue out of Tony’s news.  Standing by itself, the fact that Chiara hadn’t shared a phone call from her… Owen wasn’t a big deal.  Jon wasn’t her frigging keeper, and she didn’t have to report shit to him. 

If they hadn’t been consistently talking about her moving toward a divorce, it wouldn’t have even registered on Jon’s radar.  If it wasn’t the one item on top of several others, he wouldn’t even be thinking about it. 

Don’t start a half-assed argument

He was acutely aware that mental clarity wasn’t one of his shining attributes today.  If he had any damn sense whatsoever, he’d refrain from calling her in a snit and continue to focus on the positive tidbit – “not for much longer”.  Maybe she was actually making steps in the right direction.

Making steps is what he should be doing, Jon realized after looking at his watch.  It was time to go earn his pay.

J J J J J

September 13

Red Bank, New Jersey

Charlie stretched in the dark four-poster bed, stirring Jon’s faint scent in the bedclothes as her toes reached for the bottom edge of the mattress and hands flattened against the walnut headboard.  When fatigued muscles screamed in protest, she swore silently while relishing the pain. 

The hours and hours she spent yesterday penciling images onto the studio walls had been taxing but therapeutic.  Crafting seamless transitions between the Fast Lane, Lucy the Elephant, lush summer trees, boardwalks, beaches, and the Bon Jovi logo…  The concentration required to accomplish that enabled her to forget everything but the pieces of New Jersey she was melding together.  There was no Owen, no divorce, and no guilt.  There was nothing but the lines, curves and shadows that made up the world, and it gave her peace to transfer those elements to the canvas of Jon’s studio.

With any luck, today would be more of the same.

After retrieving the new keys and alarm codes that Desiree said Jon had gotten just for her use, Charlie drove directly to High Point and began sketching.  She worked all day, only stopping to take Nana out and eat the protein bar and apple from her bag as she contemplated her next moves.  So engrossed was she, that it was after midnight before she called it a day. 

That left her with only about a quarter of the outlines left to etch before she could start painting.   It was her goal to start that by afternoon, but she wasn’t going to do anything without loosening her knotted muscles first.

Throwing back the covers, she slid from the sheets to stand and take a look at the room she hadn’t really noticed last night.  It was very… old world, for lack of a better description. 

The swirling bedposts reminded her of his bed in East Hampton, but that was where the resemblance ended.  Everything else in the spacious master bedroom was antique – the high chest of drawers, low armchairs, nightstands and tables all had a dark wood similar to the bed.  The chandeliers weren’t stuffy, but they and the neutral patterned carpet also spoke of old world elegance that glowed gold in the morning light that beamed through three sets of undraped French doors. 

Not her taste, but it was okay.  His apartment bedroom was more to her liking, and she preferred her own bedroom to both of them. 

The bathroom was a lot fancier with cream, taupe and a gold chandelier.  Shaking her head at the opulence of it, Charlie decided to bypass the deep claw-foot tub in favor of the shower with a million jets.  That thing could probably do the same kind of muscle manipulation as her massage therapist at the spa.

Thirty minutes later, the studio door swung open at her touch and Nana trotted inside while Charlie disarmed the security system.  The little dog did a cursory cruise around the perimeter and then settled down in the bed that had been brought up yesterday while Charlie synced a wireless speaker with her phone, and brought up a playlist on Spotify.

She had no idea how much later it was when Bob Seger was interrupted with a ringtone, but it was long enough that she was closing in on the last of the outlines.  Shrugging her right shoulder to loosen it, Charlie smiled when seeing who her caller was.

“Hey, handsome.”  She glanced at the clock on the wall and did some mental calculations.  “Isn’t it like midnight there?”

“Pretty close.”

He sounded subdued but it didn’t diminish her pleasure at hearing his voice.  “How are you?”

“Still trying to get used to nights instead of days.  I had a press conference today that came off awkward as hell.  I never know when I’m supposed to bow or how I’m supposed to react to the very unusual gifts they give us.  It was painful.”

“Kinda wish I’d been there,” she mused, wondering if there would be a video someplace on YouTube.  “I’ve never seen you awkward.  You’re always so in control.”

“Trust me.  It happened, and I’d like to forget about it.  What’ve you been doing over the weekend?”

“Hanging around your studio,” she told him, climbing onto one of the stools and hooking her bare heels on the bottom rung while choosing to ignore the control thing that turned her on just a little bit.  “I have almost all the outlining done for the mural.”

“Yeah?  Cool.  Are you staying at the house?”

“Felt strange being naked and alone in your bed, but yeah.  I figured since I got my own key and everything, I may as well.”

“Good.  Did you find what I left for you?”

She found it, alright.  Charlie hadn’t open the packaging on the vibrator tucked into a gift bag and placed in the center of his bed, but she’d found it.

“Yes, but what the hell?  You think I’m going to masturbate in your bed?”

His groan was so soft and short that she got the sense it wasn’t intentional.  “A guy can hope – and fantasize.”

Charlie inhaled deeply through her nose as her lower abdomen clenched.  Women were throwing themselves at him on a daily basis and he was going to fantasize about her?  Damn if that wasn’t a power trip.

“It’ll be nice when you get home so we can turn fantasy into reality.”

“Mm.  Don’t start.  I am not jacking off in Bangkok.  Too fucking cliché.”

She threw her head back and laughed with sheer delight at his blasé remarks.  “That’s priceless.”

“Whatever.  Hey, how did your spa thing turn out?”

With her laughter fading to a smile, Charlie played with the end of her ponytail and told him, “It was exceptional.  I came out of there feeling like a different woman.  Thank you again.”

Exceptional didn’t begin to describe the experience.  With Lilah’s fabled amethyst crystal sauna, massage, facial and pedicure, it was an experience just this side of Heaven.  She had even booked the VIP suite as a surprise for when he got home.  A nice relaxing massage would do him good.

“You’re welcome.”

When he didn’t immediately follow that up with another vein of conversation, Charlie decided to broach an idea she’d been bouncing around in her head.

“I haven’t nosed my way through your house, but I assume there’s an office in there somewhere?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Do you happen to have a scanner and printer?  Or a fax?”

“I don’t use them much, but yeah.  Again, why?”

Charlie was enjoying her time with the mural and here at his house.  Izzie had also managed to pull in some favors to get her in with a therapist friend tomorrow – in Middletown, which was only about ten minutes away from here.  She thought maybe she could use Jon’s office for work, go to her appointment and then come back to continue painting.  It would save her a couple of trips to the city and back. 

“I was entertaining the idea of using your office to work tomorrow, but if that’s weird, just say so.”

“It’s fine, Counselor,” was his immediate assurance.  “I appreciate your asking, but you could do anything you wanted and I wouldn’t know unless you told me.”

Squinting out the high window into the sunshine, Charlie frowned.  That response was… odd.  Was there some subtext there that she was missing?  He never had a problem coming out and saying whatever was on his mind, so she didn’t think so, but something in his voice wasn’t ringing quite right. 

If he was here – or if they’d connected for more than fifteen minutes since he left – she would push it.  Since he wasn’t and they hadn’t, Charlie didn’t want to waste their time together with her speculation, so she simply let it go with quiet thanks.