61 - Bitter Wine

Petey held the phone to her chest, willfully blanking out her mind. 

This isn’t a reason to have an anxiety attack.  This isn’t a reason to have an anxiety attack. 

“Squirt?”  Henry had joined her in the den.  His hands gently grasped her hunched shoulders and eased her around to face him.  In an instant, he was livid.  “Who was on the phone?”

“It was a work thing, why?”  She blinked blindly at him, not understand why he was angry. 

“Because that’s the look you’ve had on your face all weekend.  It left for a little while, but that phone call brought it back.  I want to know who put that look there.”

“Henry…” She impatiently pushed his hands away.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.  What look?”

“That little lost puppy look you get when you can’t make sense of something.  It visibly eats at you.  The look I haven’t seen on your face in more years than I can count.”

“You’re crazy,” she declared with a quick shake of her pigtails.  “It was work, pure and simple.”

Before she had a chance to sidle away from him, he’d snatched the phone from her hands and was checking the call log.  Petey scrambled to reach for it, but he was nearly a foot taller than she, and held it easily out of her reach.

“Jon Bon Jovi?”  His brow furrowed.  “You were talking to Jon Bon Jovi?”

“I told you it was work,” she bit out, snatching her phone back.  “He’s both the boss and brother of my boss.  It’s kind of like he’s my grand-boss.  Or the Grand Pooh-boss.”  Yeah, that seemed appropriate. 

“What the hell did he want on Christmas Day?”

To fight with me Henry.  That’s what we do.  We fuck and we fight.  Oh, except for me.  I fall in love like a stupid girl, too.

Blinking away the moisture that threatened to gather, she withdrew into herself telling him factually, “As part of her Christmas gift to him, his daughter contracted me to do some sideline work after the holiday.  He just found out and was confirming the schedule.”

With that, she ignored his concerned protests and pushed past him to rejoin the rest of the family.

While she’d been here, she stumbled across a really interesting television show.  Petey wasn’t much of a television watcher, other than for sports, but a sitcom called The Big Bang Theory caught her fancy when one of her brothers was watching it.  The show hit her as humorous in a way that few things did. 

With it being so fresh in her mind, she sought to channel her inner Sheldon Cooper.  He was all logic and no emotion, much as Petey had been a month ago.  She needed it back, and she needed it now.

 ☠ ☢ ☠

“I don’t care how you do it, just do it.”  Jon disconnected the call and threw his phone down on the couch.  This week had been a royal pain in the ass. 

After stumbling upon Dorothea and Tony, Jon had stiffly hugged his kids and told them he’d talk to them in a day or two.  Then he had hightailed it out of there with a casual wave to the rest of the family and without speaking a word to his brother or ex-wife. 

The ride back into the city had been a crazy roller coaster of emotions.  He was furious, then didn’t think he had a right to be.  Had this been going during their entire marriage?  Were Dorothea and Tony having an affair all along?  He sure as hell hadn’t had any trouble replacing Jon when it came to putting together the kids’ toys.

He’d brooded, and when he finally reached the penthouse, he put on his rattiest sweatpants and got rip-roaring drunk.  Being drunk made it easier to hurl obscenities at an invisible Dot and Tony, but it didn’t lessen the feeling of betrayal when awoke with a hellacious hangover the next morning. 

Since then, he’d been diligently avoiding calls from the both of them.  He’d talked to both Stephanie and Jesse, so he knew things were all right with the kids, but he wasn’t up to dealing with that other shit just yet.  It was possible he never would be.

In between avoiding phone calls, he worked his ass off.  Since everything for the tour was already set, that meant aggravating the hell out of the promotion company, his marketing people, the merchandising people and everybody else he could think of.  He made impossible demands and expected them to be met.  When they weren’t, he reamed somebody’s ass until they were met.

 Two people had gotten fired in the last two days for not meeting his demands.  Jon might relent after the first of the year, but right now he was basking in his unreasonable prick-ness.

Today, he’d been barking out orders from the comfort of his couch.  He’d showered and brushed his teeth, but that was the extent of his personal hygiene activities.  There was a three-day stubble on his chin, and his hair didn’t look like it had seen a brush in far longer than that.  The same ratty sweatpants were still hanging from his hips.

Jon didn’t have to get dressed.  When you had enough power and clout, you could grab the world by the short hairs while in your pajamas.  He had enough power and clout.

In the back of his mind, he knew he was on an out-of-control power trip.  He just wasn’t inclined to stop it.  It gave him something to do besides be betrayed by his brother, pissed at his ex-wife and worried about a damn imp who considered him nothing more than a stud.

 ☠ ☢ ☠

Petey took a deep breath.  The last two days working back at the studio had been stressful, but at least there'd been no sign of Daniel.  She'd almost rather be living in uncertainty at the studio, waiting for an invisible shoe to drop, than standing in front of Jon's door.

This scene was way too familiar, but if she had her way, it would be the last time it played out.  She would never find herself petitioning for entry into Jon Bon Jovi’s penthouse after today, because her obligation to his daughter would be fulfilled. 

Adjusting her dog collar, she then reached for the bell.  This particular instance was eerily like the first time she’d stood here.  A family member had requested that she help Jon and she arrived at his door in her personal combat gear – overly heavy makeup, purple contacts, dog collar, spiked cuffs, leather jacket, cargo pants and combat boots.  The only difference was that, today, she was wearing the t-shirt he’d gotten her for Christmas.

Which was not a smart thing to do.

Hoisting her bag onto her shoulder, she waited for him to answer the door.

“What are you doing here?”

He looked awful.  Well, as awful as Jon Bon Jovi could look anyway.  She wouldn’t have been surprised to find out he’d been on a three day bender, considering the bloodshot state of his eyes.  The stubble was actually sexy, as was the messy hair.  His ill-humored face she could live without.

She shook her head and pushed past him into the apartment.  “It’s Wednesday.  We have an appointment.”

“No,” he contradicted dourly, closing the door more forcefully than he had to.  “You effectively cancelled our appointment when you hung up on me.  I'm still pissed about that, in case you were wondering.”

She hung her coat up with a sigh.  “Don’t be juvenile.”

“Me juvenile?  You’re the one who fucking hung up the phone rather than have a rational conversation.”

“Like we’ve ever had a rational conversation.”  When he started to argue again, she held up her hands, forcing herself not to look at his bare chest and barely-hanging-onto-his-hips sweatpants.  “Look.  I have an obligation to Stephanie, and I’m here to fulfill it whether you like it or not.  Your daughter went to a great deal of trouble to set this up, and it isn’t going to fall through because of me.  And speaking of Stephanie…” 

Petey bent, tossing back the flap on her messenger bag and unearthing a flat package from its depths.  She held held the gaily wrapped gift toward him.  “Please give this to her the next time you see her.”

“What is it?” he asked, accepting it reluctantly.

“A scarf.  Dorothea said it was okay for me to give it to her.”

The package landed on the foyer table with a ‘thud’, and Jon snorted derisively.  “Of course she did.  She thinks a lot of things are okay nowadays.”

Petey’s eyes narrowed.  “Are you saying it’s not okay for me to give her a scarf?”

“Yes.  No.”  He threw up his hands and made an angry beeline for the bar.  “I don’t give a shit.”

The glass hit the bar with such force that she expected it to break.  When it didn’t, she was sure its demise would come when he slammed the bottle of whiskey against its rim.  Miraculously, it still stood in one piece and he inhaled its contents in a single, smooth gulp.

There is no way he’s this pissed because of Daniel. 

“Jon, what’s going on with you?”

They were interrupted by the ringing of his phone.  Crossing to the couch, he inspected the screen with a nasty snarl and threw it back down again.

“Jon?”

“What?”  He spun on her, blue eyes flashing.  “What, Petey?  What the fuck do you want from me?”

More than you’ll ever be willing to give me.

“I just want to know what’s turned you into a belligerent drunk since the last time I was here.”

“I'm not drunk,"  he snarled, grabbing up the nearly empty bottle of liquor and pouring its remains into the Glass of Steel before gulping it down.  "but if I were, gee, I don’t know.  What could possibly make me that way?  The fact that you used me as nothing more than a damn gigolo?  That you keep me shut out at every possible turn?  Maybe it's because I'm worried about the Lone Lover stalking the shit out of you.  Or, hell, maybe I missed you?”

Petey’s stomach somersaulted.  He was worried about her?  He’d missed her?

“No, no, no.”  He waved both hands in the air animatedly.  “That’s not it.  What is it again?”  He crossed one arm over his waist while tapping his chin thoughtfully with the opposite hand.  Jon snapped his fingers as though it had suddenly occurred to him. “That’s right!  My brother’s fucking my wife.  Yeah, that’s it!”

The liquor bottles in all their various stages of abundance clanked together as he rummaged around for an acceptable substitute to his now empty whiskey bottle.  Emerging victorious, yet still scowling, he waved a half-full fifth of vodka in the air.

Well.  He didn’t have a stroke.  I’m not ruling out cirrhosis just yet, but that will be a while coming.