Water Ch. 214 - It's All About Learning The Things You Love

Their phone call was short and sweet.  She's glad that she had the chance to talk to him before he hit the air.  She was a little embarrassed by her behavior, her feelings were hurt and she couldn't understand how he could forget her birth date. 

 

She sits on the bed for a few more seconds, staring that the beautiful ring that was no on her finger, when she remembers Oh shit, the kids. 

 

Running out of the house like a mad woman, she forgets to disable the alarm.  She has one foot out the door and the alarm goes off, scaring the hell out of her.  Trying to enter the code to shut it off, she wasn't able to do it.  Shaking, she tries again.  The phone rings.  She runs to the kitchen and grabs the wireless phone and answers it, "Hello!!"

The voice on the other end says, "Ma'am, this is Josh from ADT.  Is everything okay?"

Beth covers her open ear and yells into the phone, "I'm fine.  I opened the door without disarming the alarm.  Can you turn it off?"

"Do you know the code?" he asks her.  "Have you tried to disarm it?"

Beth walks out front, where she can hear better and as she stands their talking with ADT, she can hear sirens in the distance.  "I tried the code, it didn't work.  Please turn it off."

"Ma'am, can you give me your name?"

She's pacing, as she hears the sirens get louder, "My name?  Why do you need my name?"  The wind is cold and her hair is still wet.  She's freezing her ass off and she can't go in the house because of the loud alarm.

"I need to verify who you are, before I can turn the alarm of from here." he calmly explains to her, "There is a list of people that are cleared to do it via phone.  Your name?"

"Beth......." Two cop cars pull into the driveway.  She is now a bright shade of red, not from the wind and the cold, but from the embarrassment.  "Beth Adams."

"Can you verify either your drivers license number or your social security number?"  Josh asks her, following company policy.

Beth, standing in the driveway on the cordless phone, is facing two police men walking toward her.  She sees cars going by and slowing down and the neighbors on each side are in their yards wondering what's going on over that the Bongiovi house now.  "What?"  She asks into the phone.

"Please verify your drivers license or social security number." Josh repeats.

Holding up one finger to let the officers know that she will only be a minute, she rattles off her drivers license number to Josh.  A few seconds later, Josh asks her, "Do you know the security question answer?"

Beth is lost.  The officers watching her can see that she was just asked a dumb question, by the look on her face.  "Do I know the what?"

"The answer to the security question."

"What's the question?" she snaps at the customer service rep. 

"It says here, what do we say instead of goodbye?"

Beth knows the answer and tells Josh, "Until next time.  Can you turn off the alarm now?  The police are here."

The line goes quite for a minute, and then the alarm goes quiet.  "Ma'am is the alarm off now?"

"Yes, thank you very much." she sounds apologetic, although Josh may not hear it.

"Can I help you with anything else?"

Beth quickly tells him, "No that will be all, thank you." 

"Thank you for choosing ADT.  Have a great day."  And the line goes dead.  Beth pushes off on the receiver and directs her attention to the police officers that were patiently waiting for her.

One officer asks her, "Is everything okay here, ma'am?"

Blushing she tells them both, "I was in a hurry, and I still am" she looks at her watch "I opened the door without disarming the alarm."

"Are you the only one here?" the 2nd officer asks her.

She nods her head yes.

"The kids and staff are gone?" questions the 1st officer.  Knowing who's house they were at, everyone in the area knows that Jon has a full staff and four children.

Beth, getting irritated by all of these personal questions tells them, "The children are at school and the staff is at the store.  This was a false alarm."  She starts to walk backwards toward the garage, "Thank you for your quick response, but it's nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes.  Excuse me, I have to go." And she leaves the officers in the driveway. 

Jumping in the Denali, she is on her way to meet Pete in Sayreville.  Pete picks them up from school and meets Beth, so Beth doesn't have to go all the way into Brooklyn.  Pete will meet Beth in the morning and take them to school and then will meet Beth after school as well.  It was an arrangement that Jon worked out to make it all a little easier on Beth.  Beth insisted that Pete have some time off, but Jon didn't want to do that.  He and Pete came to this agreement so Pete would still get paid and she would help Beth, as needed.

The exchange went well, all of the kids were happy to see Beth and the first thing they all asked was, "What are we going to do tonight?"

Beth is making sure that Romeo and Jacob are properly buckled in, "Make sure your seat belt are on, you two."  She's referring to Stephanie and Jesse  "And what do you mean, what are we going to do tonight?"

"We gotta do something fun, dad is gone." Jesse explains, with a little bit of excitement in his voice.

Beth getting in the driver seat and fastening her seat belt, she looks over her shoulder and says, "It's a school night."

Stephanie tries a different approach, "Can we go out to dinner?"

"Yeah!" squeals Jacob.  He loved going out to dinner.  He loved going anywhere, as long as he was with Beth.

"I guess we can, after home work is done.  Who has homework?"

 

The oldest children make sounds and faces indicating that they do. "Can we do homework after dinner?" Jesse asks Beth nicely.

 

She looks back at him and thinks for a minute. "Yeah, I guess we can do that.  Should we go now, are you guys hungry?"

 

All of the kids are hungry.  "Where do you want to eat?"

 

Jesse jumps out of his seat and taps Beth on the shoulder, "Can we go to Game Play?"

 

Beth says, "For dinner?"

 

"Yeah, they have pizza, hot dogs, chicken nuggets and all kinds of stuff."  Jesse fills her in.

 

"What do you think Jake?  Game Play?"  Jake smiles and shakes his head yes.

 

"Game Play it is."  And Beth heads toward the Game Play down in the Brick area.

 

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The guys land in Seattle, to only be hurried over to sound check.  Jon's tired and he knows they need to get it right.  That's the Bon Jovi way.  All the boys were rested, personal lives in check - this world tour should kick ass.

 

Leaning on a stage prop, he remembers that he needs to call Beth.  His watch tells him that it's almost 6pm, he will call her when the kids are in bed.