91 - Silver Lining

Richie put the second magazine aside, conflicted.  He was disturbed that he’d found both ‘Stormy’ editions of Cosmo in the messy pile of magazines his daughter kept in her room.  The fact that his baby girl was reading this trash horrified him.  He would have to keep a closer eye on the newsstand trash she was rotting her young brain with.

But, putting his parental morality aside, that shit was hot.  Supposing that only half of it was based on actual events, JB was one lucky sonofoabitch and Richie knew he wouldn’t be the only one saying that.  If HE, still recovering from the bad taste she’d left in his mouth, was going to have a hard time looking at Stormy and not remembering that car scene she wrote, any guy who got his hands on this and saw a picture of the current Mrs. Bongiovi...  Well, let’s just say that Jon might be getting a run for his money for the title of Sexiest Bongiovi. 

Ticket sales for the next tour should go well, he mused.  Men were going to start buying seats just hoping for a glimpse of Stormy Rain Kingston in the family section of the stadium. 

Had CEO Jon realized that?  Seriously?

❧❧❧

Matt Bongiovi scrolled down the screen, chuckling to himself.  He would bet anything that his oldest brother hated this latest bit of media blitz with a passion.  Personally, Matt thought it was funny.  What was there to complain about your wife thinking you rocked in the bedroom and advertising the fact?  He would pay Des to write this kind of stuff if he thought she’d do it.

And he wasn’t the only one appreciating Sheridan’s writing skills.  If the fan club message board was anything to go by, a good chunk of Jon’s following read Cosmo – and liked what they read.

JoviChick91909:  OMG you just know those articles are about him!  She talks about blue eyes over and over.  I KNEW he was hot in bed!  That second grader BS was just to discourage us!

JBJsLuvah: This is a million, trillion, gajillion times better than FF because you know it’s REAL!  Hey, wait a minute………  Do you think his wife would consider writing FF?????

MissUndrstd: Sheridan Bongiovi is the luckiest woman ever.  I’m soooooo jealous!!

Mrs4thofJuly: She looks like that and gets to do the nasty with HRH, too?  Some biotches have all the luck!

RosieRoxie: Why isn’t he on tour?  We NEED him on tour with this new info.  I’m looking at him in a whole new light…

BangaDrummer: Wonder if he would autograph my Cosmo?

LilianaBongiovi: I’d buy anything that man wanted to sell me right now!

Over and over again, they were basically saying the same thing – give us a piece of Jon.  Big brother should be taking advantage of the publicity and ride the wave, in Matt’s opinion.  Whatever that was worth, which was usually not much. 

Copying and pasting the most interesting comments, he compiled an email with them and hit the send button.  Then he picked up the phone to call his boss. 

When Jon answered, he couldn’t help but razz him a little.  With a sadistic smirk, he inquired innocently.  “Is this Doc Jon…son?”

❧❧❧

“Yes, I’ve got the date written down.  I’ll check Mr. Bon Jovi’s calendar and discuss the offer with him.  You should hear from me in the next couple of days.  Thank you.”  Jeri snickered and shook her head in with incredulity as she set the telephone aside for a moment. 

Jon really did have a horseshoe up his ass.  It was the only explanation.  Why else would what he expected to be a complete walk of shame spin itself into what was shaping up to be one of the hottest, most positive media moves of his career?  What other possible explanation could there be? 

Her phone had rung off the hook with interview requests all day yesterday and it had already begun again this morning.  Most she had dismissed out of hand, knowing that her boss wasn’t going to do the publicity jaunt unless it had to do with business.  This last one, however, was from Katie Couric. 

Jon had always had a soft spot for Katie, and the fact that she wanted to portray this whole thing as a “Rock’s Sexiest Couple” with a sideline of “Rock Morals”, might be enough to convince him to take the interview.  Not likely, but it was worth a try. 

Money could not buy this kind of fame.  Did he realize that?

❧❧❧

Today was the day – the day that she would have actual proof that she was carrying a little person inside of her.  At least, Sheridan assumed so.  All of the research she’d done indicated that there was a good chance she might hear the baby’s heartbeat, anyway. 

She picked up one of her larger makeup brushes and dusted blusher on her cheeks, making a note to stop by Neiman-Marcus for some concealer.  Something had to be done about the fatigue lines and dark circles under her eyes.  Sleep wasn’t doing the trick.  Maybe some cosmetic enhancement would help her not look quite so haggard. 

Her cell phone dinged the arrival of a text message on the counter, but she ignored it, reaching instead for her eye shadow.  It was probably Suzy or Riley giving her crap about the Cosmo articles again.  Both found it unbearable funny and were insistent upon haranguing her at every opportunity.  They tormented her about and all the pent-up sexual frustration she must have had after two years’ celibacy in practically the same breath in which they asked to come along to her doctor’s appointment. 

She’d laughed at them both and told them there was no way in hell she was signing on for that.  A solid hour or more of hounding about her husband’s sexual prowess?  No thank you.  She would call them both after and let them know what the doctor said, but that was it. 

Besides, Jon was going to go with her and, the closer that it got to her eleven o’clock appointment time, she almost wished he wasn’t.  They hadn’t been together all that long yet, and she would like to wait as long as possible before he had to see her in a paper gown and stirrups.  

That was the superficial, ‘blonde’ reason she gave herself, anyway.  The real truth was she didn’t know if she could handle him looking at her, expecting her to feel something when she heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. 

There’s no guarantee that you aren’t going feel something.

On the flip side, there was no guarantee that she would, either.  Sheridan was already feeling like a bit of a failure in her husband’s eyes this week.  There was no reason to perpetuate that image any more than she had to. 

“Hey.” 

She put her mascara wand back in the tube, finished with her makeup, and spun on her heel to find him standing in the bathroom door.  “Hey,” she returned with a smile.  “I’m just about ready to go.”

“Yeah, about that…”  He folded his arms over his chest with a frown.  “How pissed would you be if I didn’t go with you to that appointment?”

“Not pissed at all, but why?”

One side of his mouth lifted, invoking the smile lines in his left cheek.  “Please take note that I’m about to ask your opinion on something that’s work-related.”

He could be so endearingly cute sometimes.  In those moments, when the eyes of a shy boy looked out at her from the depths of his ruggedly handsome face, she was helpless to do anything but fall in love with him all over again. 

Puckering her lips to keep from grinning like a lovesick fool, she picked up her phone and tapped into the calendar.  “It’ll… take me… just a second….  There!  February seventh.  A day to remember.”

“You’re such a fuckin’ smartass sometime.” Jon followed her from the bathroom into the sitting area of their bedroom.  Following her lead, he dropped into one of the two matching armchairs that faced one another and crossed his legs. 

“Only sometimes.  Now what are you asking my opinion about?”

He bounced his foot, because he could never sit completely still for very long and began, “This Cosmo thing has taken an unexpected turn.  Apparently it’s doing ‘great’ things for my image.”  He rolled his eyes to the ceiling.  “After reading them, Richie called on behalf of the male population, telling me what a lucky SOB I am and suggesting heightened security for my hot, sexy-brained wife when the tickets for the next tour sell out.”

Sheridan’s head fell back and her laughter rang throughout the room, enticing Jon to join her.  “Sexy-brained.  Oh my God…  How crazy is that?”

“Isn’t it?  Then Matt emailed and called.  The fan club message boards are going nuts, begging for a tour and anything else I want to try and sell them.”  His chin fell into his chest with a slow shake of his head.  “And then Jeri called….”

“That reminds me.  I need to get with her tomorrow and make sure she has the movers and furniture deliveries scheduled for Saturday.  Do you know if the walls and floors at the house are ready for me to look at tomorrow? And when will the realtors be by to take pictures of both of our apartments so we can get those on the market?”

“She has movers lined up for sure, but I didn't ask about the rest of that.  I’ll have her call you.”

“Thank you.  I’m sorry I interrupted.  Go on.”

“Yeah.  I guess the talk shows have been contacting her with invitations for me to appear.  Normally, she automatically rejects all of those kinds of things unless I have a media blitz in the works, but there was one from Katie Couric…  Katie and I are good friends, so Jeri felt obliged to tell me about it.”

“You’re good friends with Katie Couric?”

There was yet another facet of celebrity-dom that hadn’t even dawned on her – his friends that were also celebrities.  Richie and David didn’t really count, because he worked with them.  They were musicians.  But Katie Couric was one of those household names and she was a BFF with Sheridan’s husband.

“Yeah, we’ve gotten to know each other over the years.  Anyhow, she’s calling us ‘Rock’s Sexiest Couple’ and wants to do a show on rock and roll morality, with us as guests.  Since we got married or what the fuck ever.”

That was right up there with getting a root canal on Sheridan’s list of fun activities.  Did he really expect her to accompany him on a talk show?

“What did you tell her?”

“I said thank you, but abso-fuckin-lutely not,” he scoffed.  “Whatever is still left private of my private life, is gonna stay that way.”

She didn’t realize her muscles had drawn into tight knots until they untied with relief.  “Thank God.”

“It did get me to thinking, though.  I wonder if it isn’t time for a new album.  Kind of ride the wave of publicity?  What do you think about me using the hype over us to make some money?”

What did she think?  She thought that it was positively hilarious.  He’d paid hell to his ex-wife and daughter yesterday over those articles.  He’d given her five different kinds of hell over letting the damn things get published in the first place and about the mystery of the continued ‘leak’.  It didn’t matter that Bridget and Hal had both told her anybody with publishing contacts could get her real name, so it had probably just been legwork by one of the more eager media members that unearthed the information.

All that grief and upheaval and now he wanted to cash in on it? 

“You know what?” she told him, leaning forward and curling her hand over his knee with a pat.  “I feel like we’ve paid through the nose for the privilege of living our lives lately.  If somebody else wants to pay for it, then why not?”

His hand covered hers warmly with a low, rumbling laugh.  “That’s kinda how I felt about it, so I’m gonna stay home today to try and get some work done.  Maybe call Richie and get a couple rough ideas hammered out for new songs.”

“If that’s what you want, fine by me.”

“Awesome.  You’re coming straight home after the doctor?  Or you’ll call and let me know what they say?”

The clock on her phone said it was twenty past ten, leaving only forty minutes until her appointment time.  She’d better get moving. 

“Yes,” she confirmed, standing and reaching up to kiss him when he stood with her.  “I’ll be home right after.  Don’t forget to call Jeri for me please?”

“How about I text you her number?” was his counter-offer as he looped his arms around her waist.  “You’re going to need it eventually, anyway, and that leaves me out as the middle man in this.”

Sheridan’s eyebrow crept slowly up her forehead. “Is this your way of telling me you don’t care what the house looks like?  Just leave you out of all the fabric samples and paint chip conversations?”

Grinning, he bent to nip at her bottom lip.  “How can you possibly know me so well already?  Quick.  Tell me what I’m thinking!”

“Oh my word, give me something that’s more of a challenge next time.”  One palm curled around his jaw, patting it with condescending affection.  “You want to know what’s in the other two articles.”

It was all she could do not to cackle with glee when his jaw dropped open.  “Now that’s just fuckin’ creepy...”