Chapter Fifty

The rest of the day passed quickly at the farm. With a full barn of horses and just Jenn and Steph to do them, free time was a rarity. Once the initial shock of Jon’s call had worn off, both girls found working pushed any dark thoughts to the back of their minds and before long they found themselves feeding and rugging the horses up for the night.

“Quite a day huh?!”

Jenn ran her hands under the tap in the feed room as Steph finished stacking the buckets.

“Yeah you can say that again!” Steph groaned as she stretched out the muscles in her back, “I think I’ll be able to qualify for Iron Woman if we keep this up!”

Chuckling Jenn clapped a hand on her back, “Get used to it honey, these horses are here to stay!”

Together they flicked off the lights and locked up the barn before trudging up the path to Jenn’s house.

“Do you wanna borrow some clothes of mine to get you by for the few days that you’re here?”

Steph shook her head as she kicked off her boots at the back door, “Thanks but Mom said she’d drop by later with my stuff.”

Jenn’s heart nearly stopped at the thought of seeing Dorothea and she swallowed with some difficulty. With everything that was going on she was quite sure she was Dorothea’s least favourite person in the world right now.

“Coming here? But isn’t there a bunch of reporters camped outside your front door?”

She kept her head down as she peeled off the layers of scarves and fleeces she’d been wearing all day hoping Steph wouldn’t detect the nervousness in her voice.

“Oh yeah but they won’t bother my Mom, she’ll just act like they’re not there and drive on by them!” She laughed as she tugged off her coat. “I don’t think there’s any reporter in the world who’d be brave enough to take on my Mom!”

“I don’t doubt that”, murmuring quietly under her breath Jenn moved into the kitchen. Summoning a bright smile, she swung the door of the refrigerator open and gestured to the empty shelves.

“Any chance she’d bring dinner as well?”

~~~~~~~~~

Jon slumped back in his chair wearily massaging the creaks in the muscles of his neck. After spending the entire day holed up in the apartment on the phone, he was exhausted. Richie had braved the streets earlier to confirm that there was indeed a gang of reporters staking out the sidewalk. So that meant going for a run definitely hadn’t been an option and his in house gym held no appeal today whatsoever. Resigned to being held captive a little while longer, he’d thrown himself into conference calls with his lawyers and management team. Eventually they’d come up with a plan of sorts that although Jon wasn’t very happy about it, seemed to be the quickest way of getting the media storm to blow over.

Tomorrow morning, his lawyers would release a formal statement to confirm divorce proceeding are underway through the mutual consent of both parties. Doug the senior partner in the law firm had advised Jon that to stop any further intrusion into his family, simply by quelling the rumours and actually giving the media the information they were digging for, should in theory make them move on to somebody more exciting. It was the whole ‘in theory’ part that Jon wasn’t thrilled about but he didn’t exactly have a huge array of other options available.

Hearing movement from the floor beneath him he swung himself off the chair with a groan and stuck his head out the office door.

“Rich? That you?”

“Yeah man.” Richie’s voice carried faintly up the curved staircase. “Come on down and see who I found wandering around!”

Scowling Jon made his way downstairs to the living area. He really wasn’t in the mood for company but that all changed when he saw a familiar mop of blonde curls bouncing around his kitchen.

“Well shit Lemma! If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes!”

Grinning widely Jon clasped his old friend’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder in a brotherly embrace. It felt like an age since he’d last seen him.

“Hey Jonny, good to see you man!”

David’s grin stretched from ear to ear as he shook Jon’s hand. Behind the smile he quickly took in the tired creases under Jon’s eyes and the pale pallor draining his skin.

“So the sharks are circling huh?” David grimaced and looked sympathetically at his friend. “Rich filled me in on the way over here.”

“You got that right!” Shrugging as he pulled some beers from the refrigerator, Jon attempted a weak smile, handing an icy bottle to each of them. “It was gonna happen sooner or later but hey!" A glimmer of a twinkle returned to his blue eyes as he twisted off the cap and took a slug, “You two lived to tell the tale!”

David snorted as he lifted his beer to his lips, “Don’t worry my bank account still has the scars to prove it!”

In recent years Jon had watched both Richie and David go through painful divorces. Richie’s split from actress Heather Locklear had been splashed all across the papers while David had managed to keep the details of his somewhat quieter. Back then he’d always offered a shoulder to lean on whenever his friends had needed one but at the back of it all, he’d been comfortable in the thought that he’d never himself have to endure it. Turns out he’d gotten that one badly wrong.

Moving into the lounge the three men kicked back and distracted themselves with catching up on David’s news. While they all regarded the band as their day job, each of them nearly always had various other projects on the go while the band was between records. The last tour had ended over a year ago and they were all starting to get a bit antsy.

“So? Is it time to go back to work yet Boss?” David raised his brows questionably  at Jon from his lazy slouch on the sofa.

“I wish Lemma, I really do, but with all this fuckin drama”, Jon jerked his head at Richie, “We haven’t been able to get any goddamn shit done!” His earlier mood lift at seeing David was rapidly evaporating.

David frowned and settled back in the sofa with a sigh. “Well hurry your asses up before I get fat and old! I never thought I’d say this a year ago but dammit I’m getting bored!”

“Brother you are fat and old!” Taking a swig from his beer, Richie grinned lazily at him.

“Take a look in the mirror jackass!”

Rolling his eyes, Jon shook his head chuckling at his friends. These guys were just what he needed right now and for the moment at least he was done with the rest of the world. Reaching into his pocket he slid out his cell phone and did something he rarely if ever had done before – switched it off. The idea of being completely unavailable to the rest of society except for the two guys in this apartment had never felt so good.

Slipping the phone back into his pocket once the screen descended into darkness, he threw the rest of his beer down his throat and heaved himself off the chair.

“We’re gonna need more beer.”

~~~~~~~~~

Jenn stared out the window through the darkness at the marbled moon crescent as she absentmindedly rinsed off the dinner plates. After they had polished off a frozen pizza that Jenn had eventually unearthed from the depths of the freezer, Steph had gone to soak in a hot bubble bath to take the stiffness of the days riding from her muscles. Jenn had purposely kept the television off all night in case there were more media reports circling and instead had apparently appalled Steph by the meagre content of her iPod. A birthday present from Karen, she had never really taken the time to put much on it except for the few old battered albums that had been knocking around her car at the time. 

Steph had produced her own device with a flourish and nimbly shown her a brief overview of what she claimed to be nearly two thousand songs. When Jenn had shook her head in amazement Steph had thrown her eyes up to heaven and told her to ‘get with the times’. That was the trouble with keeping company with teenagers, they always made her feel so damn old.

Smiling to herself she set the plates to dry and flicked on the coffee machine to froth some milk for hot chocolate. The bitter cold of the day had seeped into her bones and a milky hot chocolate at night had never failed her yet to get some warmth back in them. Just as she was taking the milk carton from the refrigerator, the headlights of a car swinging into the drive shone through the pulled blinds of the living area.

Trying her hardest to ignore the steadily increasing beat of her heart, Jenn calmly poured the milk into the frother and headed for the front door. Wiping her hands on a towel, she paused in the hallway as a silhouette appeared behind the frosted glass of the door and gave a loud, sharp knock.

Taking a deep breath, she called down the hall to the bathroom, before striding over to open the door with more confidence than she knew she possessed.

“Steph! Hurry up – your Mom’s here!”