69 - Souleys

Jon pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss against the back of Delaney’s neck and eased out of her with an affectionate pat on the rump. 

They hadn’t made it far inside the apartment before he “good and truly” did her.  In fact, they hadn’t made it any further than the dining room table before he bent Delaney over it, dropped his pants and flipped up her skirt.  It was fast, it was furious, and it was fan-freeping-tastic.  There was nothing quite like being manhandled by a man who knew how to handle her, and Jon most definitely did. 

The pulse still pounded like a freight train in her ears when he righted the panties and skirt that he’d so determinedly wronged. 

“You gonna move?”

She didn’t have the energy to berate him for his obnoxious sarcasm and barely managed to hoist a single finger in his direction.  “My knees were still knocking from the car when you went all caveman on me, here, baby.  I’m not used to being so…"

“Well-fucked?” he offered helpfully, sounding quite pleased with himself.  “And that’s barbarian, baby.  Not caveman.  Barbarian has a better tool.”

Delaney’s forehead fell with a dull thump onto the tabletop as the snort tickled her throat.  Rich man or poor, they were all little boys fascinated by the quality of their tools.  “You’re something else, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”  With his jeans buttoned again, Jon hooked both her elbows and gently tugged until Delaney stood upright.  A slow spin had her in his arms, and she snuggled a cheek against the heart that hadn’t quite slowed down yet either.  It was a good place to be, and Delaney sighed happily, knotting her fingers at the small of his back.

How in the world had she gotten this lucky?  The man was in excellent shape, and boy did he like sex.  There weren’t as many orgasms in the first month of her marriage as in this first two weeks with Jon.  Then again, she’d also had two preschoolers underfoot in the married days.  That tended to limit opportunity.

She wondered where this ranked on his scale of normal.

“How often do you typically have sex?”

Bending to press smiling lips against her temple, he confessed, “Before a little Greek leprechaun came into my life?  Not this much.  You make me horny, Mou.”

She closed one eye and peered up with the other.  “So, this isn’t going to be a once-a-week-on-Friday kind of thing, then?”

“Nope.”  He smoothed wayward hair from her forehead with laugh lines softening his rugged good looks.  “But you can count on an encore this particular Friday.  After I make a couple of phone calls, we can both have a glass of wine and recharge for round two.”

“Round three for me,” she reminded, easing out of his arms with a laugh.  “Not that I’m complaining.  I do have to wash my hair, though, so I’m going to tie up the bathroom for a while.  You need in there first?”

“Yeah.  For a minute.”

Encouraging over her shoulder for him to take his time, Delaney veered toward the bedroom as he closed the door but didn't make it through the doorway before drawing up short.  

There had been no evidence of his occupancy in the main living area.  In fact, she’d almost forgotten he temporarily moved in, but now there was no denying it. 

Two black leather bags – an overnighter and empty laptop case – were at the foot of the bed.  The overnighter spilled jeans, socks and a pair of shorts onto the floor, and a dark shirt hung from the brass headboard post.  One of the her two armchairs was pulled up next to the bed, where a Macbook sat open with its dark screen.  Propped in the other armchair was a guitar.

Not just any guitar.  The guitar. 

The black acoustic with the initials “AP” carved into the body.  The same one that had a silver fighting Irishman adhered to its front in recent years.  

Jon Bon Jovi’s famous and revered Takamine.

Judas Priest.  Jon Bon Jovi is living in my dinky apartment.

She’d become so immersed in the man who was stealing her heart and claiming her soul, that his “real” identity had fallen to the edges of Delaney’s awareness.  

The guy peeing in the next room was just a guy who, as part of his goodbye to his kids, reminded them to respect their mother.  Who frivolously offered to pick out the color of an imaginary prom dress.  Who was turned on by the soundtrack of carnality.

“Shit,” the man who smelled like Delaney and sex muttered from behind her.  “I meant to put that stuff away.  Sorry.”

Jon squeezed past to scoop up the laptop and slide it in the proper bag before cramming the spilled clothing back into his carryall.   With disheveled hair and sheepish expression, he looked like a little boy who’d been scolded for not cleaning his room.

Shaking her head, Delaney laughingly ordered, “Stop.  It’s fine.  I wasn’t judging your slovenly ways.  I just got… overwhelmed for a minute.”

“Overwhelmed that I’m gonna commandeer your house?” he asked over a shoulder, using his foot to scoot the duffel to the corner and dropping the computer case on top.  “I won’t.  Much.”

“Take over as much as you want.  I honestly don’t care.”

Straightening, he turned to her with questioning eyes and hooked both hands over his hips.  “Then what?”

Delaney pulled her mouth into a wry twist and pointed to the guitar.  “That belongs to Jon Bon Jovi.”

“Yeahhh?”  There was no dawning understanding in his eyes.  The man who usually just knew everything didn’t get it, and she began to feel a little silly. 

“One of the most recognizable instruments of the music world is sitting in my bedroom, and it belongs to my…  boyfriend, for lack of a better term.”  She gave a laughing shake to her head.  “It’s stupid, but I guess I lost track of who are until I saw the guitar.”  

There wasn’t a single fucking thing she could’ve said to please him more, and Jon grinned at his… girlfriend, he supposed.  Crossing the short amount of floor space between them, he palmed the back of her head and delivered a kiss rife with a rabid tenderness that had Delaney clutching the front of his shirt and purring. 

“It makes me fucking ecstatic that you see me instead of my job,” he murmured, sweeping his thumb under shiny lip.  “And we need to find better words.  Boyfriend/girlfriend makes me feel like a dumbass kid again.”

Glazed eyes blinked, and two prominent dimples slowly eased into bloom, making his heart beat stronger.  Love was such a strange thing.  Who’d ever believe that he could be head over heels for a fan faster than you could say “divorce decree”?  Not him, for damn sure.  With Mou, though, it was like they’d known one another forever.  Their meeting just got delayed somewhere along the way. 

“We’re souleys,” she proclaimed with quiet authority.  “Not that it sounds much more adult than the other, but it feels more fitting.  To me, anyway.”

He rolled it over in his mind, finding it a little peculiar, but then again, so was this whole damn thing.  “It’ll work.  Now, go wash your hair while I open some wine and make some calls.”

“Okay.”  She popped up onto her toes for another quick dusting of lips, and then slid away to kick her shoes into the closet.  “Do yourself a favor and don’t wait on me to drink.  I have something to talk to you about when I’m done in the bathroom.”

He still had something to talk to her about, too, but Jon was going to defer it another day.  With Katya and kids and grief, they’d had enough sharing of souls – souleying? – for the duration.  His encounter with Poppy could wait. 

“Jesus Christ,” he groused at her departing back.  “How bad is it if you want me boozed up beforehand?”

“You like being a little drunk.  Take the excuse and run with it,” came the sing-song reply – followed by a soft click that indicated she’d closed the bathroom door.

It was kind of odd finding himself on the other end of this knowing somebody thing.  Jon chuckled at knowing Delaney hadn’t been too far off the mark when calling him a high-functioning alcoholic.  There were evenings he didn’t want to get through without the assistance of fermented grapes.  He could, but the truth was, he loved his wine. 

With that thought in mind, he quickly shed his shoes and changed into shorts and a sleeveless tee so he could pad toward the freshly stocked fridge.  There might have been a mess in her bedroom, but the bottom shelf of her refrigerator was neatly stacked with half a dozen Hampton Wine bottles that should be perfectly chilled by now. 

Withdrawing one with his left hand, Jon used the right hand to tap a contact number and tuck the phone to his cheek.  He peeked in the nearest cabinet while the call rang through.

Where does she keep the wine glasses?

They were hidden in the last cabinet on the row, naturally, and he was just taking them down when a familiar voice answered, “Hey, asshole.  What’s up?”

“Lema, you are a charmer.  No wonder you got laid so often in the eighties.”

“Well, I’ve had to temper it in recent years.  Married life, yanno.”

Jon grinned into his shoulder and popped the glass stopper that was holding his inebriation hostage.  One of his oldest friends, David was also arguably his craziest.  “We still on for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Hell, yes,” the man on the other end guffawed.  “I have to counsel young Gidget so that she knows what the fuck she’s gotten herself into.”

There was probably more truth to that statement than the joking tone implied, and Jon wasn’t put off by the reality check David would provide.  It was a given that his Mou didn’t scare easily, but things so far had been easy.  Fast, but easy.  There would come a time when he turned into a self-involved, work-driven asshole, and it was never far into the future. 

If Dave outed him, then Jon wouldn’t blindside his – the grin went wider as rosè splashed into the glass – souley with that unpleasant facet of his personality. 

“Not a bad idea,” he concurred, slipping  the full glass stem between his fingers and scooping up the empty and bottle to take along to the coffee table.  “But can we change venue?”

“Sure.  You don’t like the place in the Village, we can hit that sushi spot in Midtown.  As long as there’s booze, I’m in.”

Speaking of high-functioning alcoholics…

David Bryan could drink any man and half a fleet of sailors under the table while appearing perfectly coherent.  It was the damnedest thing. 

“I was thinkin’ something a little different.”  Jon scooted his ass forward on the couch cushion, propped his feet on the edge of the table, let his head hit the leather bac, and proceeded to relay his plan. 

When he was finished, there was a moment of silence.  Actually, more than a moment.  It was quiet for so long that Jon swallowed the last of his rosè and was forced to prompt, “Dave?”

“Yeah, I’m here.  Just marveling at the mysteries of the universe.”

“Well, could you marvel later, fucker?  I’ve got other calls to make.  Yes or no?”

“Like I really need to answer.  You knew I’d say yes before you asked.”

Jon hadn’t known, but he’d had a pretty damn good idea.  He could count on one hand the number of times he’d called Dave and been refused.  He could count on one finger how many times he’d been the one doing the refusing, and it involved a set of triplets, a limo and a sex toy convention.  Bad news all the way around, but his buddy still referred to it as a fond memory.  Whatever.

“Then fucking say it so I can move on to the next person on my phone list.”

“Ah, if only it were that easy.”  The evilly maniacal undertone was classic Lema, as was the mad scientist laugh that followed.  Jon thought he was in for a ration of shit until the man they referred to as Joker delivered a stone-cold sober, “You’re really into this girl.”

“I love her.”  The words came easy and would guarantee the predicted ration of shit, but that was the way this friendship worked.  They didn’t answer a call with anything but yes, and they didn’t bullshit one another. 

“You mean your dick loves her.”

“That, too,” he snickered while splashing out another serving of wine.  “But it’s a separate thing.”

“How the fuck do you do that?  Go from a marriage the pre-dates the cavemen to the L-word in a week’s time?”

Strangely enough, the question wasn’t laced with sarcasm or cynicism.  There was nothing but genuine curiosity, so Jon didn’t screw around.  He swallowed some wine and spoke the unvarnished truth.

“I’ve got no fucking idea,” he admitted.  “There’s this connection there, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.  Ever, man.  Her sister told this story about their parents being soulmates and I swear to God, when I heard that, it just clicked.  I don’t know any other way to describe the feeling that I’ve known her my whole life.”

“Well, alrighty then.  Jonny’s got a soulmate.”

The absentee sarcasm had come home to roost, and its wings were flapping to herald the arrival.  There was no smoothing the feathers or blithely escaping it.  The only thing Jon could do was face it down and accept its presence. 

“We prefer to be called ‘souleys’, thank you very much.”

“Well, duh.  Who the hell wouldn’t?” David cackled.  “You’re dry fucked, JBJ.  This woman is Superman’s kryptonite, and I’m so excited about this thing tomorrow night that I might piss my pants.  What time?”

Superman’s kryptonite. 

Proof that what gives you strength can also kill you.

Maybe, but telling someone about being a souley was all the soft underbelly Jon was going to expose tonight.  Dave’s kryptonite theory would go unconfirmed.

“Seven.  I’ll text with the rest of the details.  Thanks, man.”

Without even a goodbye, Jon disconnected the call.  He had shit to accomplish and a short time in which to do it.  Taking a deep breath, he pulled up the messaging app and braced himself. 

[8:37 PM]JON:  I need a favor, Petra.