Chapter 149 - We Gotta Hold On

"Is this how we're going to spend our day, Jon?"  Monica asks, feeling herself deflate
against the back of the couch.  "We really need to stop this."

"How can we stop this?  We haven't even really talked about it at all, and here you go, wanting to act like it never happened."

"That's not what I'm doing, Jon.  I just don't want it to be this thing between us until I'm ready to deal with it."  

He jumps to his feet, "When will that be?  We can't live like this, Mon.  I cannot wait for you to want to talk about it.  I can't keep wondering what's going to happen with us, with all of this?  I see you in the newspaper with Rick and I seen RED.  Bright fucking red."

"Why are you yelling at me?" she snaps at him, "Are you pissed because I can't get passed this as fast as you want me to?"

"I don't want you to get passed it, we need to deal with it.  You have been gone, I've been gone and now we're finally on the same continent.  Can we please talk about it?  Figure out what you want to do regarding our marriage?"

"I think I've said all that I need to say.  I just need to deal with it and I don't know how."

"Let me help you figure that out." he pleads with her, "Let me help you babe."  he continues with his pleads.

Monica sits there, quiet for a moment, wondering how he can help her, when he's the cause of her heartbreak.  He's the one that threw their love on the floor and stepped on it, over and over again.  When she finally has something of value to say, rather than to run him down, she informs him, "Erica joined Rick's tour three weeks before the end."

"Why?" Jon doesn't care anything about Erica.  He cares about the woman that is sitting in front of him, her bathrobe loosely open, her hair still up in it's towel.  "Why would Rick ask her to join when he knows about our situation?"

"She weezeled her way in through management."

"And Rick allowed it?" 

Monica nods her head, "Yeah, I was down a camera man and I need a body to run the FOH camera."

"And Erica was your best option?" he drops to his knees in front of her, taking her hand in his, "I never wanted to hurt you and I would never have allowed her to be anywhere near me or my band after what's happened - so why would he?"

"I needed her Jon.  To get my work done, I needed her and he knew that."

"Are you done with the tour?" he lightly asks, lowering her head to his lap.  "How much time do you have?"

"Before what?" she gently moves hair that was covering his face.  She starts to run her fingers through his hair like she always does when they are relaxing together.  

He raises his head to look at her, "Before you leave for Hollywood?" his voice sounds almost boyish, innocent.  

She smiles down at him, "I have a few weeks.  I have to finish my first order of business and that's my Bon Jovi project.  I need to go to my studio and reel the final cut to get to distribution."

"When do you plan to do that?"

"Wanna go into the city with me and work on it today?"  she sincerely asks him, "We can have lunch and work on it together."

He looks up at her again, "I'd love to but are you sure you want me to?"

She nods her head and winks at him, "Go get dressed.  Let's get out of here before everyone knows that we're both home."  He moves to get up and she stops him, her hands on his face, she pulls him close and kisses him softly.  "Bring the master for your new album, we can listen to it there."