Water Ch. 111 - Crazy Love

Beth remained calm when Dorothea asked her that question.  Beth even paused before she answered it.  Having a career with high pressure and even higher stakes, Beth knew how to keep her calm when the storm hits.  She's very diplomatic and capable of maintaining her composure, even when she's faced with situations like the one she just found herself in. 

"Dorothea, whether you believe me or not I struggled with the fact that he's married.  But once I was sure that you're marriage was over, my only concern was your children.  The shit going on between you two needs to be kept away from the children.  Coming here tonight was stupid on your part.  Going through the house was equally dumb.  But, you have to be you and do what you think.  I get that.  Do you really think that this will win Jon back?  Your marriage is over.  Best thing to do now is work through this amicably." Beth says and looks to Jon. 

"You really have no idea what's going on, do you?"  snaps Dorothea. 

Beth thought okay, I'll play - "What's going on Dot?  What do you think you can tell me that I don't already know?"  She crosses her arms and waits.

Just then they all heard Stephanie yell, "Dad!"  Jon turned to walk to her.  Meeting her at the door, Stephanie said, "You and Beth need to come in.  Tell mom to go home." 

"We're trying, we're trying.  Mom is pretty upset.  We'll be in in a few minutes."  Jon said, brushing Stephanie's cheek with his hand.  "Go back in, we won't be long."  Stephanie turned and closed the door.  Jon went back to the women that were fighting over him.  "Dorothea, it's time to go.  The kids want us inside.  Please go home."  He's polite about it, but she isn't having any part of it. 

"Jon, why don't you tell Beth where you were last weekend?" Dot is spewing her venom now.  "Tell her where you were, Jon."

Jon looks at her like she lost her mind and comes back with, "Why don't you tell her where I was, since you think you know, Dorothea."

"He was in the Hampton's with me and the kids."  Dot states, matter of fact.  "He was with his FAMILY, Beth."

Jon laughs and says, "You're really going to do this, like this Dot?"  Beth was watching what was going on, and for her own piece of mind, she did the math and figured out where he was last weekend.  She recalls him and the kids at her house.  They spent the day at the beach. 

Beth, done with this game, calmly said, "He was in the Hampton's with you, huh?"  She looks at Jon and continues with, "I'm going to bed.  You take your time out here.  If you need to, call the cops."  She grabs his face, a hand on each side and kisses him right in front of his wife.  "I'll see you upstairs, and I'll be naked.  I love you."  And she turns to leave, glaring back at Dorothea she adds, "Good night Dorothea."  Beth walked away and went into the house.  When she got inside and had a second to think about what she had just done, she felt a little bad.  And only for a second.  The marriage was over, she was having his baby and they were happy.  If she should feel bad about that, she doesn't.  She's not responsible for the break down of his marriage.

Jon, after pleading and practically begging, convinced Dorothea to leave.  Walking back into the house, he runs his hands through his hair and asks the peace and quite, "When is this going to be over?"  He armed the alarm and went up to bed.  In the bedroom, he found his lover sound asleep on the covers.  He sits next to her on the bed and just watches her sleep.  He watches her, her every breath.  He can't believe how much he really loved her.  She was his everything.

He kicked his jeans off, took off his shirt, grabbed the quilt off the chair and covered her up.  He curled up with her and laid there thinking about what their baby might look like.  He's hoping she's as beautiful as her mother.  Blond hair and blue eyes and tall like her mom.  He can't wait to meet her and introduce her to her brothers and sister.  They had so much to do, and he was mentally making a list.  At the top of his list was DIVORCE in big black letters. 

He nods off to sleep and is later woke up by Beth.  "Babe, babe"  She shakes him a little bit.  He wakes up and looks at her, ""Lets get in bed, I'm chilly."  It takes a second for that to register with Jon, but when it does, he moves so they can get into bed.  Once they are under the covers, he snuggles her tight and they both go back sleep. 

Kids were getting picked up by Dot at noon.  Beth made sure they were all set and ready to leave when their mom arrived.  She didn't want to give her any reason to hang around or try to start crap.  Noon comes and she rings the bell.  Jesse goes and answers the door and tells his mother, "We'll be ready in a minute."  And he leaves her in the foyer.

Jon comes down the stairs with Romeo on one arm and Jake holding his other hand.  Beth comes around the corner talking to Stephanie, and Dorothea is faced with the fact that her family is moving on with out her.  To see Stephanie and Beth getting along was a dagger through the heart.

"Is everyone ready?"  Dorothea asks with a smile on her face.  Jon walks up to her and hands off Romeo.  "Hi handsome." Dorothea says as she takes her baby into her arms.  Romeo pulls away and wants his dad.  That's normal though, when Jon picks him up he does that same thing with Dot.  Jake says, "Hi mommy" and he hugs her leg.  Dorothea bends down and hugs him and then ushers her children out the door.  Beth and Jon tell the kids goodbye and off they go.  It's bittersweet, as they need the time together, but they both will miss them and will eagerly wait their return.
 

They are alone after spending some great time with the kids.  Jon's children made Beth feel welcome, made her feel accepted and she loved that.  They are standing in the foyer looking at one another like 'what now?'  

Jon asks Beth, "What do you want to do until I have to leave?"

"Leave?" She questions rather snappy.  And he laughs.

"Did you forget already?  I have a press conference tonight before the football game."  She looks around like she was looking for a clue, to remind her of what he's talking about and can't find one.

"I'm sorry, I must have forgot. Since my accident, I forget alot. When and where is it?"

"It's a 5:00 in Philadelphia. Do you want to go with me?" He asks with an eagerness that makes her smile. There is no way she can say no now.

"Yeah, I guess. How are we getting there? Driving or flying?"

He thinks for a minus and says, "Lets take the train. I haven't done that in years."

"The train to Philadelphia?" She asks.

"Yeah, come on. It will be fun."  He takes her by the hand and leads her to his office.  He sits in his chair and pulls he onto his lap.  Turning on his laptop and waiting for it to boot up, he looks at her and says, "Thanks for taking the high road last night."

She glances at him, laughs and throws her head back. "High road? I didn't take the high road Jon, I took the right road.  When she started running her mouth I was done?"

"Whatever road you took, thank you babe!  She came here looking for a fight."  He puts his head on her arm and says, "I just want this divorce over, so we can get on with our life. Two more weeks. Just two more weeks!" 

"I can't wait. Too bad we can't get drunk on the day it's final.  Well, you can and you should."  She puts her head on his head.  The two of them lean on each other as often as they can, physically and mentally.  Jon and Beth have a bond.  A bond that even tests, time and Dorothea can't break.  

The train ride and press conference was fun for Beth.  Arena football is a sport she knew nothing about.  All she really knew about it was that Jon owned a team.  She had never been surrounded by so many men built like buildings and each and every one of them respected Jon like something she has never seen.  Addressing him as sir, shaking his hand and just being polite. Jon was the same way with his team.  He was proud of his team and he knew they would be champions.  

They stayed in Philly and watched the game. Beth thought it was pretty barbaric, but she could watch Jon watch football all day long.  He was very into it and was lost in what he was doing. She found him to be so sexy, seeing that passion and love for a game.  His team won and that put Jon on a pretty high cloud.  

The train ride back was relaxing.  Beth put her head on his shoulder and threw her legs over his.  Yawning, she says, "I love you baby.  Please don't leave me sleeping on this train."

"Go to sleep babe. I won't leave you on the train. I don't know how far it goes." He laughs and kisses her head.  "Sweet dreams."  Beth relaxes on her man and does doze off.  She wakes to Jon's voice calling the car service to pick them up at the train station. "Are we home yet?"  She asks, looking out the window.  She can see lights all over, but has no idea what city it could be.

"We're almost there. The car will be waiting for us.  Are you hungry?"

"Yeah a little bit.  Not too hungry though."

"We can stop on the way home.  Dublin House might be open or we can go into the city?" He offers her choices as she doesn't like either.

"I've been craving junk food. Can we stop at a convenience store and buy junk food?" Beth doesn't like junk food in the house, so it's not been on any list yet.  But she needs a fix.

"Of course we can stop and get junk. What kind of junk do you have in mind?" He asks.

She makes a funny face and says, "I want some fritos, skittles, chocolate and licorice.  To start with."

"None of what I like. You don't want a frozen burrito or pre packaged sandwich?" He chuckles. That was the food of choice for the boys back in the day.

She shakes her head,"that's not junk food, that's garbage.  I want stuff I know I shouldn't eat."

"Then lets stop and get you something that you should. I want this to be a healthy pregnancy, while keeping you happy. If that's possible" he jokes with her and she knows that he's right.  He suggested that they stop at IHOP or Denny's and she agreed to IHOP.

They depart the train and quickly get to the car. It seems no matter where he goes, at least one person recognizes him.  They heard oh my god, it's jon bon Jovi and that's all it took. Running sometimes wasn't fast enough, but this time they made it. Jon told the driver to go to IHOP and he did.

They went in and had breakfast for dinner, Beth even had decaf with her breakfast dinner, and of course her fruit. Jon had a little bit of everything and seconds on some.

While they ate, they talked about a little of this and a little of that. They decided they would stay in the Red Bank house until they could find one that they liked.  Beth was selling her NYC apartment and they will do their weekends at the Happy Place. Dorothea gets the Hampton house and his NYC apartment.  So there was no need to worry about those.  Beth's big concern was her place in California. 

She tells Jon, "I'd like to keep that, if you don't mind?  I'm sure I'll still have to go to Malibu for work. I'd rather have my own place as opposed to a hotel."

"So you're not quitting?" He asks with a little disappointment in his voice.

She looks at him surprised, "We talked about this babe. I'm not ready to quit.  I can still do your books though. I don't want to give up working yet."

He shakes his head a little bit, indicating that he's not happy with what she had just said. "I want you to focus on the baby and planning your wedding.  You don't have time to work."

"Jon, I can do all that. I'm pregnant, not handicapped - we discussed that already.  I need my job, my job needs me. Please don't make this a fight."

"Beth Ann, I would never let this subject turn into a fight. I'm just not happy with your choice."

"Why don't you quit your job, and you plan your wedding Jon?" She has him there.

"My job is a little harder to quit. I am signed to and with so many things, it'd take me longer to get out of them than it would letting them run out." He laughs, "I'm a highly sought after guy."

"But you see my point?  I can't just quit like that either." She explains.

He hates to admit it, but she's right. "I can see your point. I'm sorry, I just want you under as little stress as possible.  And I know your job stresses you the hell out sometimes."

"Your job stresses me out even more. When do we leave for Europe?" She asks.

He is shocked by her question, he was certain she wasn't going on the road. Smiling, he asks, "You're going to go?"

"Yeah, if I'm still invited.  Denise and I talked about and I think I want to go."

"Of course you can come with me.  It's only 2 weeks, ya know. I'm done going out for months at a time."

"That's fine. I'll call Paul in the morning and let him know I'm taking some more vacation.  But when we get back, we have to move my stuff from LA." 

"Why dont we have someone go in and do if while we're gone? We can go out there this upcoming week and pack up the personal stuff you want to move yourself." Jon is trying to make all of this as easy on her as he can, hoping her transition will be easy and smooth.

"We can do that. That's a good idea, but where will we put all my stuff?" She questions.

Jon thinks a minute, running through his mind what all she has in LA.  It's fully furnished and he's sure she won't move it all, because she wants the place for when she works in LA, but he wonders what she'll want to move.  "We will make room for whatever you want in the house.  We'll mark it so the movers know what to and what not to move."

"Sounds good.  Are we done here?"

"Yeah, we can go." They get up and Jon throws a 50 on the table and they leave.  The waitstaff are all hiding, peaking at the rock star as he leaves with his mistress.  They get into the car, sit close and in quiet all the way home.