Chapter 117 - I Can't Buy Back Yesterday

Jon stayed with his parents and avoided all press and paparazzi the best that he could until he and the band had to hit the road.  The few days felt like a lifetime and he missed Monica like mad, but he gave her the space and the time that he knows that she needed.  
In those few days, he did very little and seen no one with the exception with who lived in the Bongiovi household.  He didn't go out, he didn't go write with Richie - he needed Monica to see that he was faithful, loyal and that she could depend on him.  He wasn't going to put himself in the spotlight, the spotlight that shined in whatever way the writer needed it to shine.

The band met at the airport to fly to Boston, on a Saturday afternoon.  As Jon waited in the executive hanger for the guys, he couldn't help to feel butterflies.  Monica is supposed to go with him on this leg to promote the documentary that she produced, but at this point it was never released.  He wondered if she would show up.

One by one the band arrived.  They spent a few minutes catching up since it's been a while since they all talked, that they all have been together.  When Richie showed up alone, his heart sank.  Jon knew that if Monica was going to come, she would come with Richie.  When Jon sees that she's not with him, he feels a little sad and now his anxiety is on the rise.  He's sitting there drinking a beer.  He's kicked back, his feet on a coffee table and he tries to portray that he has not a care in the world.  Richie comes over to him and asks, "Where's Monica?"  Jon was shocked.  He never thought that Richie would ask him that.  He was certain that Richie and Monica have spent time together, he was certain.

"I'm guessing she's home."  Jon answers, trying hard to hide his anxiety over it.

"I thought she was going with us." Richie responds, sitting down next to Jon on the couch, "Did she change her mind?"

"I guess.  I haven't talked to her."  Jon isn't keeping secrets from his brothers, from his friends but he didn't really feel like talking about it either.

Richie looks at him with a puzzled look on his face, and as he processes what Jon just said, he replies, "Since when?"

Jon puts his feet on the floor and stands.  Beer in hand, he takes a drink and tells Richie, "Since Tuesday."  

Jon leaves Richie on the couch and walks over to the other guys that are just standing around waiting for direction from someone.  Everybody that's relevant is there, Jon notices as he survey's the situation.  "Is everybody ready?"  He asks the guys, clapping his hands in a pretend excitement.  "Let's get on the plane, so we can get going."

They board the plane and in no time they are in Boston.  Everyone is shuttled to the hotel for check in and then they need to meet up at the arena for sound check.  Showtime in 7 hours.

Sound check always starts off as a screw off session, but after a few minutes they usually wrangle themselves in and start to take it all seriously.  It's been a bit since they played together.  As they warm up and start to focus, Jon hands them all a sheet of music.  Lyrics and music, on one sheet of paper.  "I want to do this tonight, can we do a run through?  I know it will be easy for guys."

Tico looks at the sheet of music and reads the lyrics, "When did you write this?"

Jon feels a little uneasy, they never do anything that isn't theirs, since She Don't Know Me.  "I only wrote part of it."

"Why are we doing it then?"  Alec asks, looking it over, tapping his fingers on his guitar to the beat of the music that he's reading.  "It's pretty good, whoever wrote it."

"Can we run through it?"  Jon asks, in a way that doesn't give them the option of saying no.

The band runs through the new song a couple of time, and then they finish sound check.  Once they all are happy with the sound and the arrangements, they disperse and go back to their rooms.  Each of them have a pre show ritual that they do before every show, and without Monica around, it didn't feel like the gang wanted to hang out together.  When Jon thought about the space that was between him and the guys right now, he realizes that they have heard about the nurse and the pregnancy rumor and that they all decided to not discuss it, and he was okay with that.  He wasn't ready to talk about it, and he knows that on the road, at the beginning of a new leg - it wasn't the best time.  

Backstage, ready to rock Boston, they all huddle up at the foot of the stage stairs.  They all are pretty pumped, as they hear the crowd screaming and the house music go down.  "This is it, here we go, the start of another run."  Jon starts his pep talk, "Let's kick ass tonight and show Boston that we are more than just 5 pretty faces, let's give them a show that they will talk about for years to come."  The boys support what he says and make their usual hoorah sounds.

The four of them hit the stage and take their usually places.  Tico kicks the drums in over drive and the place goes black.  Jon appears and the roar is felt in the floor.  At his 'white mic' he stands and waits for the spot light to hit him.  When it does, the guys do what they rehearsed in sound check, they just didn't know what Jon was going to say.  Jon places his right hand on the mic and swings his guitar to his back.  The place goes quiet.

"Hello Boston!  Are you ready to rock?" he starts the dance.  The crowd goes crazy, he can feel the surge hit the stage.  "We are happy to be here, to kick this leg of the tour off in Boston....thanks for having us!"  The screams are piercing and Jon just continues, "We're going to start tonight off with a change, with something we have never done before."  He looks over his shoulder to see what the guys are doing.  They are in their places, waiting on baited breath, "Tonight, we are going to play a song that we have yet to record.  A song that no one has ever heard before.  Right, Richie?"

Richie was paying half attention, and hearing his name was what brought him back to full attention, he smiles and waves to the crowd, "That's right and we have only played it a handful of time, TODAY!"  The girls scream and that makes them all smile.

"Some of you may have heard rumors about me over the last few days, and I want to go on record, for the first time as saying, it's all bullshit.  There is no truth to any of it, except that nurse was one that took care of my wife, Monica, when she was in the hospital."  the crowd starts to quiet as they listen to Jon.  "My wife and I were hit by a car on the day that we were married and she spent several weeks in a coma.  The hardest time in my life, ever.  This nurse took an oath, and in her mind she did what she was paid to do and then more.  I did not have an affair with her.  I did not cheat on my wife while she was in the hospital, or at any time.  These rumors are totally false."  He pulls the micro phone off the stand and starts to pace, looking out at all of the faces that are waiting for him to continue.  "And some of you may have heard that this nurse went 'public' and gave an interview to a local New York radio station."

His band, behind him, continually look back and forth at one another, all of them clueless as to what he's doing.  Jon can see the look on Richie's face and sees that he needs to get this done and over with, "Well, because of this whole situation, Monica and I have had some trouble and this song that we are going to play for you was co-written by Monica - and she just doesn't know it."  With a swing of his arm, Richie knows that it's time for the guitar intro.  "This one is called I'll Be There For You.  Which was mostly written by Monica, apologizing to me for her accident."  He lowers his head and takes a deep breath, "Baby, if you're out there and you hear this, I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you."