12 - Barbarian

Jon vaguely registered Petra’s inane comment about what a nice young man Jesse was but let his brother handle the obligatory reply.  Folding an arm over his chest to grip the opposite bicep, he instead chose to swirl his rosè and observe the gray-eyed sisters.

Really, the woman behaving as though Matt was the funniest thing since Seinfeld only held a fragment of Jon’s attention.  She and her laughter blended into the background as this scene took on the feel of a portrait, blurring everything but the primary subject – the twin who watched him as attentively as he watched her. 

The one who didn’t have a husband.                                                                                                                          

He was unprepared for how much of a difference her marital status made in his mindset  Hell, Madame Marie couldn’t have predicted how the information was going to affect him.  Who would’ve believed those few words could heighten his awareness of her breathing or eroticize the simple action of tucking hair behind her ear?

She was available, and the assortment of rings that had kept his subliminal thoughts at bay now lost all power.  The floodgates were open to expose the all-natural, untamed and uncivilized John Bongiovi who lived at his very core, and that feral-eyed fucker was whispering, “Game on”.

Fortunately, Jon’s cultured conscience got enough exercise to earn a spot on Muscle Beach.  Keeping his baser self on a leash was nothing new, and he shoved the pushy bastard back behind the gates.    

Learning that the ring on her left hand was mere decoration changed nothing besides the direction of his thoughts.  His actions would remain above reproach, because Jon already promised himself – and Dorothea, indirectly – that nothing would happen with the feisty florist as long as he wore his wedding ring.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t get to know her.

Jon had issued the sisters’ invitation to this get-together with the understanding that they were a package deal tonight.   Where one went, the other went, thereby making this a group activity.  There would be no alone time spent getting to know Delaney, and he had been resigned to it. 

However, when she licked a droplet from the rim of her wineglass, John the Barbarian decided that plan was a shitty idea.  Group activities sucked, and he wanted her alone.  Loudly and repetitively the thought came, pounding against the inside of Jon’s skull until he made the abrupt decision that would appease both his inner savage and the saint he needed to be.

“Petra, I need to steal your sister away for a minute.  Matt will introduce you around, if that’s okay?”

“Uh…”  Jon didn’t expect to ever see the socialite struck dumb, but there it was.  She took a full five seconds to get her shit together and graciously agree.  “Of course.  Oddly enough, I see someone I recognize and should speak to.  This keeps Delaney from being bored senseless while I do.”

Nodding as though he cared about the explanation, Jon fired a vague smile in her direction before softly requesting of Delaney, “Come with me?”

The double-entendre was unintentional, and he was only aware of it when dove-gray eyes transformed in a way he hadn’t yet seen.  Rather than lightning tinting them silver, there was a silent thunder that shaded them like a summer raincloud. 

John the Barbarian spotted a kindred spirit hiding in those eyes and wanted to make a storm with her. 

Jon's big head slammed back the dregs of his wine as she bobbed her consent to join him.  He used an open palm to guide her – without touching – toward a bar tucked into the room’s far corner.  

“Since you were singing back to me, I guess the song I picked for you was okay.”

“Perfect choice,” she complimented, adding two full dimples for reinforcement as they skirted through the crowd that was already starting to thin.  “My favorite is ‘Keep the Faith’, but nothing could’ve been more appropriate than ‘Memory’.  I thought it was to be my final perfect Jon Bon Jovi memory until you sent Matt to offer another one.  The invitation to join this party was unexpected.”

“I’m an asshole for doing that to you at the last minute.”

The base of his glass scraped over glossy wood laminate as it found a home on the bar, and Jon gestured to the row of empty stools while his feet carried him to the serving side.   Delaney chose one of the pale leather seats and climbed on, taking the biker jacket she’d been clutching and dropping it onto the one beside her.  Her wineglass found a spot in front of his on the bar, and she laid one forearm against the padded rail.   

“You’re a rock star.  That grants you a lot of leeway, even by Petra’s standards.”  The silver bangles on her necklace shifted with a shrug as the glass stem rolled back and forth in her unpolished fingertips. 

He’d watched her off and on throughout the show.  She’d exerted herself as vigorously as any of the band yet he couldn’t find evidence of it now.  Her hair and makeup looked as good as they had beforehand, if not better.  Or maybe he was just taking more time to notice. 

“Yeah, well I had a good reason.” He dropped one hand to reach under the bar and, with a sharp crinkling sound, withdrew what he’d stashed there earlier.  It was placed between his wineglass and hers with a rattle of brown paper.  “There’s one other memory I wanted you to have, but this one's a little more concrete.”

Bright, owlish eyes darted from the Bon Jovi-logoed shopping bag to him and then back again.  

“No.”  Purple strands danced in the dark waves that shook with denial.  “You didn’t have to do this… whatever this is.  Everything about today has been concrete enough for me.  I don’t need anything else.”

“That’s very courteous; your sister would be proud.  Now open the fucking bag.”  The gruff command was tempered with a crooked slant of his mouth, and Delaney’s eyes danced like dolphins in the surf when she grinned. 

“Since you insist…”  Pulling it close, she levered up to curiously peek inside. The spot between her eyebrows creased with a frown as Delaney tried to decipher the contents, and when she sharply sucked a breath, Jon knew she'd made a positive ID.  “No freeping way!  Are you flocking kidding me?”

Chortling at her Sesame Street swearing, Jon was glad that he followed through with this impulse.  Not only did he get to hear how Kermit the Frog must cuss, but her cheeks had tinted to a shade of pink he recognized as proof of a woman’s intense satisfaction.   This just happened to be one of the few times he’d seen it while the woman was wearing something other than his sweat.  

“Dave showed me a picture, so I thought you might like ‘em,” he explained, beating down his immoral instincts as she withdrew the maracas and stroked them in a way that could qualify as soft porn.  He shifted to ease the discomfort in his jeans and ignored John the Barbarian, who was demanding that she stroke his maracas.  “Uh… There’s something in there for your sister, too.  It seems obnoxious, but I hear my sweaty towels are a thing, so there it is.  She can always wax her car with it or something.”

Dainty fingers curled over one of the wooden handles, giving it a squeeze and tug that further antagonized his inner Barbarian. 

“She’ll be lucky if I remember it’s in there.  Maracas eclipse all other Jovi memorabilia.  Thank you so much and… OhmiGod!  You even signed them?”

Leaning both elbows on the bar, he reveled in her childlike delight.

“Yeah.  I’m egotistical that way.”

In reality, his ego had nothing to do with the inscription that spanned both maracas and everything to do with the woman who was brazen enough to kiss the damn things for a photograph.  His intention was to give her a memory that she could hang onto, even if he ended up never seeing her again.  He doubted that was going to happen, but one never knew, so he'd penned:

To Delaney, 
You rocked The Garden

Scrawled in silver on the black plastic, that message covered the front half of the left maraca.  On the right, he put “KTF” and provided a reasonably legible version of his signature.  He’d given away maracas before, but these were the first that he could recall personalizing. 

Having read his sentiment, she let her arm drop to stare at him in wonder.  The shakers rattled in her loose grasp, and her dimples were still carved deep as she swung her head slowly from side to side again. 

“Unbelievable.”

“What?”

“You.”  She gave the maracas a hard shake.  “This.”

“It’s just a trinket,” he denied quietly, watching her irises grow and shrink when she blinked lazy eyes.

“Nuh-uh,” came her immediate insistence before leaning over the bar until only there was only a couple of feet left between them.  “This is proof that you’re really as nice as the media says you are.  Finding that the they're right about anything qualifies as epic, so thank you for restoring my faith and living up to your hype.”

“I’m not as nice as you want to think.”

Their gazes locked for an abbreviated eternity in which neither spoke, and Jon wondered if his thoughts were as easy to read as hers.  Delaney wanted to know the hidden meaning behind what he'd said, and she examined his eyes for some clue.

From the length of time already invested, she wasn't having much luck, which was weird since he felt like every word was spelled out in cartoon bubbles over his head.  He supposed he should count himself lucky that the Barbarian was illiterate and able to be cloaked in civility.

“Why do you say that?”

Her breathy question tugged sharply at that cloak, sorely tempting him to voice the uncensored truth living at his core.  As he shifted stance again, Jon contemplated heeding that temptation to see where it might lead.  God, he wanted to, but he couldn’t.  His conscience was more brutal than the Barbarian and refused to allow it. 

“Because you don't know me.”

That was the bland justification of Jon the Civilized.  Inside his head, John the Barbarian was howling his real thoughts.  The ones that weren’t nearly so innocent.   The ones that would justify the pink shading of her cheeks.  The ones that had become progressively more true throughout the course of this day, no matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise.

I don't give a damn about my wedding ring.  I want to strip that hot little body, leaving you naked and exposed for me.  Then I want to spread you out and eat you like a buffet before I fuck you raw.   And I'd almost do it in front of my wife.  How’s that for nice?