72 - One Wild Night

Jon was still pissed that those other two women had kept him from following Petey into the bathroom.

That's the only reason he was now watching the door intently, forced to wait for her return to the party.  Because he was specifically looking for Petey, he lifted his head with only mild interest when Matt came barreling in, skidding to an abrupt stop just inside the doorway.  His baby brother was searching the room with an urgency that made Jon’s skin prickle. 

“Matthew,” he called from his seat, putting the heavy highball glass on the table.  “What’s wrong?”

His brother slipped over, voice dropping low and eyes never slowing as they scanned every corner of the partially filled room.  “Where’s Richie?”

“In the can.  Why?”  Richie had stepped out just a minute before, cursing the sparkling grape juice.

“There’s something wrong with Petey.”

“What do you mean something’s wrong with her?”  He wasted no time in shoving his chair back and rising to his feet.  “Where is she?”

“At the bar.”  Jon barely heard Matt tack on, “Dottie’s with her,” as he pushed through the door, lengthening his strides to eat up the stretch of hallway that separated the private room from the bar.

Was she sick?  She’d been fine when she stomped off into the bathroom fifteen minutes ago.  Pissed, but fine. 

“What happened, Matt?”

“I don’t know.”  His brother was genuinely distraught and confused.  “Dottie found her standing outside the club, staring into space like a zombie, mumbling to herself.  She finally got her inside, but Petey won't acknowledge anybody or anything.”

Pausing in the entryway to the main club, Jon’s eyes darted around the room desperately seeking out her small, dark form as the music thumped and the strobe lights flashed.  He could barely hear himself fucking think, and all of the extra stimuli jacked up his heart rate even further.  He was going to have a heart attack before he found her.

Finally.  There.  At the end of the bar.

He barely registered his ex-wife hovering over her as he swooped in.  Even over the pounding music, he could hear the Constitution falling from her lips.  She was having an anxiety attack.

“Dorothea,” he spoke loudly into her ear.  “Have you tried to get her attention?”

Her head bobbed up and down, and between the faint sound of her voice filtering through the music and the movement of her mouth, he could make out, “She won’t answer me.”

Jon nodded and situated himself directly behind Petey, working his hands beneath the curtain of wild, pink-tipped hair and stirring that sweet cotton candy scent.  He soothingly pressed his thumbs into the muscles at her shoulders to slowly knead out the rigidity while he put his lips directly against her ear.  “Petey...  Sugar, it’s okay.  Whatever it is, it’s okay.  You’re okay.”

Her shoulder muscles relaxed only marginally, downgrading from set in cement to being as malleable as cold, wet clay.  Jon didn’t press any harder, but continued his gentle kneading while practically screaming in her ear to be heard.  “Tell me what happened and I’ll fix it.  I promise.  You just have to come back and talk to me, Baby.”

The free fall of historical babble didn’t slow – he felt the hum of her voice through her torso – but her body relaxed enough to lightly rest against his chest.  She wasn’t ready to deal with reality yet, but she was starting to come down.

For the life of him, Jon couldn’t find any magical words that would take away the panic, and after a bit, he quit trying.  Time and everything but Petey faded away as he murmured nonsensical words in her ear while he tried to melt the tension from her neck and shoulders.  There was nothing to be panicked about, he assured her over and over again.  She was okay.

It took far longer than his blood pressure would have liked, but he finally felt the faint vibration of her voice trickle to a halt.  Her body was completely still, the slight weight of her frame now resting fully against him.  Jon couldn’t help but wind his arms around her waist and hold her close as the techno-pop beat of the deafening song launched into its last chorus. 

In the relative quiet that ensued after the final screeching guitar lick, he asked quietly.  “Okay now, Sugar?”

Petey stiffened, realizing whose arms she was in, and pulled away.  Jon was forced to release her from his embrace and take a step backward. 

“I… I’m fine thank you.”

She didn’t even turn to look at him, dammit.  He scrubbed a frustrated hand over his face. 

Now that Petey was back to her normal, belligerent self, the awareness of his brother and ex-wife’s presence seeped back into his consciousness.  Matt’s eyes were darting back and forth between Jon and Petey with curiosity, and a glance at Dorothea got him a knowing, cocked eyebrow.  “Anything but average?” she inquired wryly.

Fuck.

“Petey?” Richie’s voice came from directly behind him. 

Jon spun around to find his friend looking more pissed than he’d seen him since the early nineties. 

Christ.  How long has he been standing there?

“Petey?”  Richie repeated, enraged eyes skimming between her and Jon.  “Is he dipshit?”

Horror filled her face, and Jon frowned as she shook her head in denial.  “No.  Richie, don’t.”

Dipshit?  What did that mean?

He stepped out of the way when Richie pushed toward Petey, putting one hand under her chin and forcing her eyes to his.  “Is it him?” he demanded, and Jon irritably wondered what the hell was going on. 

“No,” she said so quietly that he barely heard her.  The intro to the next song was cuing up and that didn’t help matters any.

“You’re lying.  I can see it.”  Richie dropped his hand and swung around on his heel, grabbing Jon by the arm as he did.  “Matt, we need your office.  Which way?”

“Uh.  Next to the back room.” 

Matty looked like he’d been sucked into the Twilight Zone, and with the resurgence of the thumping music, Jon could relate.  He wasn’t happy about it and shook Richie off in irritation.  Petey was freaking out and he needed to make sure she was okay.  “What the fuck’s your problem?” he demanded. 

Richie’s only response was to give him a shove down the hallway.  “You don’t want to have this conversation here,” he grimly informed Jon.  “Trust me.”

“Richie, no!  It’s not!” Petey called after them, but Dottie’s firm, yet gentle hand kept her seated. 

“They’ll work it out.  They always do.”

☠ ☢ ☠

Richie entered the small, enclosed office just a half-step behind Jon, reminding himself that they had a tour kicking off in a month’s time.  He couldn’t afford to break his hand.  That was the single thought that kept him from breaking his best friend’s jaw.

“You wanna tell me what the hell your problem is, Sambora?”  Fists planted on his hips, Jon doled out his patented look of intimidation – the stink-eye.

It had ceased to impress Richie years ago.

Lifting both hands, he shoved at the smaller man’s shoulders, causing him to stumble into Matt’s desk.  “You are my problem, Mr. High-and-mighty-holier-than-thou-pompous-arrogant-son-of-a-bitch.”  Once Jon had righted himself, Richie shoved him again for good measure.

“Goddammit, you do that again and I’m gonna break your fucking arm!”

“If anything gets broken, it will be your pretty-boy face.”  The office held only a desk and chair, a filing cabinet and one guest chair.  Those minimal furnishings filled it to brimming, leaving not nearly space to contain Richie's temper.  He picked up the guest chair and slung it into the wall.  “What did you do on Wednesday?  Before I got there and we worked on the songs, what did you do?”

Jon’s face was turning beet red with his fury, but Richie didn’t care.  He personally thought anger was a wasted emotion, but was willing to overlook his personal beliefs in this instance.  Jon Bon Jovi needed to be brought to task.

“I talked to my brother and ex-wife about their newfound relationship and worked up a couple of song ideas!  You already knew that!”

“What else?”

Deep creases furrowed his friend’s forehead and, while Jon paused, he gave no appearance of backing down. 

“Dammit, what else?” Richie bellowed.  How could he be friends with this man?  How had John Bongiovi gone from a long-haired kid who thrived on the music and the fans, to the cold, callous bastard that stood before him?

“I got a lesson on how to use an iPad!  What the fuck’s it to you?”

Richie got in his face, using his four-inch height advantage to its full potential.  “A lesson from Petey.”

“So what?” Jon pushed away from him as far as their confines would allow, which wasn't much. 

“I don’t even know what to say to you,” he snarled ominously into Jon’s face.  “Right now, I’m so fucking pissed at you, and who you are, that my heart is about to explode.”

“Goddammit, Sambora, I’m not gonna ask you again – what the fuck is your problem!?”

A mirthless chuckle escaped Richie and he poked one long finger into the center of Jon’s chest.  “My problem is that you can fuck a woman as sweet as Petey and then tear out her heart without a second thought.  The great mother fucking Jon Bon Jovi can take what he wants, whenever he wants, and trample over everyone else in the process, without a second thought.”

Finally.  Finally, there was a flicker of uncertainty in the infamous blue eyes.

“That’s not what happened.”

“The hell it’s not!  Do you know where I spent Wednesday afternoon?  Do you know, Jon?”  The fire was slowly draining out of him at the memory, but he still pushed at his friend.  “I was comforting a sweet, beautiful woman who was sobbing like the world was coming to an end.  She was having some trouble accepting the fact that she’s an embarrassment to the man she’s been involved with.”  

He took a step backward, then turned to rest his hand on the doorknob.  “My best friend never would have done that, but you did, and I hate you for it.”

This time it was Jon grabbing at Richie’s arm to keep him from going.  “Wait.  I… I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?” he asked quietly, releasing the knob and pivoting back into the room.  “That you were ashamed of her, or that she knew you were ashamed?”

Jon’s hands tunneled restlessly through the messy ash-blonde locks that got media attention every time he cut them.  Richie shook his head in disgust. 

“She’s the one who should have been ashamed.  You don’t deserve to know her, you selfish son of a bitch.”

The anguish in Jon’s face translated into a flat, bleak voice.  “It’s not what you think.  I swear to God, it’s not what you think.”

Richie leaned his weight against the door, face contorted with repulsion and arms crossed imposingly over his chest.  “Then what is it?”

Jon fell into the guest chair with a grunt of dismay, knees widespread and hands dangling loosely between them.  “It was just a physical thing.  She was adamant about it.  Still is for that matter.  That’s all it was ever supposed to be.”

“But…?”

He scrubbed both hands up and down his face and leaned forward on his elbows.  “But she makes me feel alive, and Petey was there for me when I needed somebody.  I was in the middle of going apeshit over Dottie and Tony, and she stepped in, talked me down and made it all okay.  She understands me for some goddamn reason.” 

“Well yippy fuckin’ skippy for you,” Richie drawled sarcastically, not at all touched by the supposedly heartfelt admission.  “That doesn’t do a damn thing for her, though.”

Jon’s hands laced together and came to rest atop his head.  “You think I don’t fucking know that?"

"Knowing it and doing something about it are two different things.  I don't care what you know.  What the fuck are you going to do, Jonny Boy?  What the fuck are you going to do to make things right?"

"I've been doing some thinking," he sighed.  "The last three days I've done nothing but re-evaluate my life, trying to decide if it's worth having without her in it."

"Thinking isn't doing.  Try again."

"Dammit, give me a break!  I need some time."  His eyes locked on Richie’s meaningfully.  “But make no mistake about it, she’s mine, Rich, and you can pass that along to Lemma, too.  I need some time to work this out, but she’s mine.”

“You ever think about telling her that, dipshit?”

His eyes fell shut with a groan.  “You don’t tell Petey anything.  You talk to her and hope she sees things your way.”

Richie grinned at the first inkling of sense Jon had shown since the door closed.  “Damn straight.”  He allowed the grin to fade, and pointed a threatening finger at Jon’s face.  “I hate like hell that it’s you she got involved with, and not me, because I don’t think you deserve her.  You’d better prove me wrong, or I’m gonna stomp that perfect ass of yours into the ground. “ 

Jon smirked and Richie felt compelled to reiterate the warning, not wanting him to mistake the gravity of the situation.  “I’m not playing around, Kidd.  You ever make her cry like that again...?  Be damn sure that I’ll beat the living shit out of you and then convince her to be mine.  Get me?”

The smirk fell into a grim line of resentment.  Jon was obviously biting back the urge to tell him to go fuck himself, and it pleased Richie, in a screwed up kind of way.  It meant Jon was taking his threats - promises, actually -  to heart. 

“Yeah,” he finally grunted, pushing to his feet.  "I get you.”