Chapter 4

Jon shifted in his chair so he could see Richie - but still keep one eye on Jay - and he shrugged.

“There’s not really much to tell, Rich.” He said softly.

“No?” Richie smiled slightly. “No…..just a son you never mentioned - never knew about. Naw, nothin’ to tell.”

Jon chuckled. Trust Richie to get right to the heart of things. Maybe it would help him figure it out in his own head, though, if he talked it out. God knew, since the day he met Jay and realised who - what - he was, the subject had been circling in Jon’s brain without any real answers coming out of it. The number of times he’d been on the point of calling Billie, then backed down - hell the one time he’d actually decided that he was doing it, his wife interrupted him, and the moment was lost again. Since Dot and Stephanie left, he’d not had a spare minute to think, let alone call Billie. It didn’t help that he still hadn’t figured out what to say to her.

“I told you already about meeting Billie, back when I took off after the Jersey tour.”

“Yeah, you told me. You told me she helped you, but you never really made it clear in what way.” Richie chuckled as he nodded toward Jay. “You did tell me you were fuckin’ her, but that’s kinda obvious now, huh?”

Even now, the memory of those times made Jon blush uncomfortably. Yes, he’d told Richie that he’d had a…..well, a fling with a young woman who owned a ranch, but he’d never actually clarified why the affair had been so healing to his wounded psyche. He drew a deep breath, but he knew Richie needed to hear the whole sorry tale now. And maybe he just needed to tell it. A gulp of the stale coffee didn’t really fortify him, but it did give him a moment to get himself together again.

“Only one other person - well, two, including Billie - knows about this, Rich. Dot knows - knew - and I’d really like to keep it that way.”

Richie looked offended at the suggestion, but didn’t say a word, and Jon flushed again.

“Sorry, bro. I should know better. Okay, so after the tour, you know Dot and I lit out on the bike, and then she came home to Jersey and I carried on alone. She pretty much sent me away - said I needed to work through stuff on my own, that having her and Doc around wasn’t helping me. She was right.” Jon looked quickly at Jay, making sure he was still oblivious, then he kept his eyes on the floor, looking into his past as he spoke. “Thing was - and Dot said it was just a symptom of the depression - but, well, I was…….I couldn’t……shit. Back at that time, I couldn’t do anything for her. Not physically.”

After looking puzzled for a second, Richie got it, and his eyes widened - not really so much at the fact of Jon’s impotence at that time, but at the fact he was admitting to it. He nodded slowly, not pushing Jon to say the words.

“Gotcha.” He just muttered. “And…..damn!”

“Yeah. You’ve no idea.” Jon blushed brighter, but that was the hardest part of the story to tell. “So, I did meet Billie the way I said - out in the middle of nowhere - and I spent a couple days with her. Dot had been gone a couple weeks by then, and I was feeling a lot better. Not because she was gone, but just…… Anyhow, Billie and I were having fun, then we got kinda drunk one night and ended up swapping sad stories. Hers was sadder than mine, but I told her anyway. I already knew I was attracted to her, and a day or so later I stumbled into her bathroom and caught her in the shower. I’d thought she was outside, and there was no lock on the door.” He smiled slightly at the memory. “So we were lovers for the rest of the time I was there.”

“And, what, you got caught out once without protection?” Richie asked. He knew Jon, well, all of them, really, had always been careful about that with the legions of groupies around.

Jon blushed again, shaking his head. “Honestly? It never even crossed my mind. Not once. We just……”

“You asshole.” Richie said seriously. “Did you think she was on the pill? That what she told you?”

“No. We never discussed it. I guess, if I think about it, I didn’t think she was, because she’d lost her fiance a few years before and hadn’t been ‘with’ anyone since. It just never occurred to me. To either of us.”

“And she never told you about….him?”

“Nope. I left there one morning, we said goodbye as friends and I got on the bike and headed back here. I told you before, she never even knew my last name. Hell, I only knew hers because we had to take her dog to the vet that one morning and the chick there called the dog Mr Kelsall. When Jay was up for the tryouts, I didn’t even know his name until I met him - he was ‘number eighty four’.”

Richie shook his head. He remembered when Jon had told him about Billie, while they were both heavily under the influence of Jack, and he remembered his astonishment that anybody back in the late eighties didn’t know Jon’s name or face. He could remember laughing at Jon when his friend pouted a bit over that, complaining that there he’d been, thinking every woman in the known world wanted to fuck him, and discovering a tiny town in deepest Kansas where they didn’t even know his face. Thinking back to when Jon had given the admissions girl Jay’s details, Richie had to ask.

“Have you talked to Billie? Since you found out?”

“No.” Jon said softly, looking at Richie seriously. “I’ve thought about it. Hell, a few times I’ve picked up the phone to call her - the number’s in Jay’s file - but what the fuck do I say to her? ‘Hi Billie - it’s Jon - remember me? The father of your son.’” He shook his head. “Jay said she was a fan, so it’s safe to say she now knows who I am. If she wanted to get in touch, she could’ve.”

“Could she?” Richie raised his eyebrows. “Think about that, bro. How easy is it for any of the fans to get in touch with one of us? Pretty fuckin’ impossible. Maybe she’s tried. If she wrote to you, even if she didn’t put down in black and white exactly who she was, and why she was getting in touch, do you actually think your guard dog would give you the letter?”

Jon nodded slowly. Richie was actually right. His assistant was very protective - hell, that’s what he paid her for - and any ‘inappropriate’ contact from a fan would have been summarily shredded and tossed in the trash.

“You’re probably right, bro.” He smiled. “I never really thought……”

Jon broke off as he saw Richie’s gaze shift from his own face to the boy in the bed, and he swung around, hoping to find Jay waking up.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t why Richie was staring at him, as Jon saw his son’s body bend backward, arching so that only his head and heels were on the mattress as a convulsion shook him. Drowning out Jon’s yell of panic, the monitors blasted into life, alarms screaming as Jay convulsed again, his eyes open but rolled all the way back into his head.