35 - Women are from Venus

His eyes lit like a Broadway marquee, boldly flashing the message she'd been fearing all along.  Tony thought she was certifiably nuts.

“I don’t know where the hell you got all that, but I don’t need saving,” he told her.  Then his fingers curled very deliberately around her wrist, and he removed her hand from his chest.

Lilah’s heart broke just a little bit.

You knew this could, and probably would happen.  Don’t get your feelin’s hurt.  He’s freaked out and confused.  Focus on him, not yourself.

Turning away from her feelings and corralling any shred of self-confidence that she could find, she pushed her hands into her back pockets and thumbed the threaded design, vainly searching for the right thing to say.  Something that would magically make him believe that something totally improbable was probable..  

“Are you sayin’ I’m wrong?”

“I don’t need saving,” he doggedly repeated, side-stepping her to pick up the empty whiskey glass and put it back on the desk with huff of disgust. 

“Jersey….”  She stepped forward in one of the bolder moves of her lifetime, curling her fingers into the crook of his elbow.  Still unable to locate a magical mantra that would make everything seem orderly and logical again, Lilah was driven to her last resort.

Removing the perpetual filter between her brain and her mouth was a painful process, but she somehow shoved it aside and let her heart and intuition speak for her. 

“Everybody needs savin’,” she countered softly, eyes beseeching his.  “If nothin’ else, we need to be saved from acceptin’ the life we have in place of the life we want.  This isn’t the life you want.  It’s been good, and you’d do anything in the world to help your brother, but your heart isn’t in it anymore.”

His features went dark as a chime rang out from his pocket, but not so much with anger as broodiness.   Lilah had it in her head that his reaction meant she was right, and a cloud lifted off her heart.  At least she knew she wasn’t crazy now.  Nothing made any more sense than it had an hour ago, but at least she knew that whatever happened to her was real. 

With an incoherent grumble, he swiped an impatient finger across the screen and scowled at the message lighting up the display.

Stop pushin’, Lilah Jane.  You’ve had almost a year to get used to this.  Give him some time.

Pushing the phone back into his pocket, Tony grimly, “Jon’s been after me to go out with him and the band for dinner tonight.”

Encourage him to go.  He needs to know you’re not a clingy psycho stalker.

“Sounds like fun.  You do that often?” she inquired politely, dredging up the hint of a smile as she backtracked to the side of the bed where her shoes were.  A walk would expel some of this nervous energy and help her get a handle on the chest pains that were now being borne out of anxiety.

 She was so close to having wasted a year of her life and a big bunch of Amos’s life insurance money… on something that may very well end up costing more much more than that.  Lilah found herself in a position to lose to take another significant loss on her woefully skimpy self-esteem.

“No.”

Tying her Keds, she took a deep breath, hating that he’d reverted to one-word answers.   It meant he’d closed himself off to her, but she directed another strained smile up into his somber face.  Dropping her foot to the floor, she forced an artificial lightness into her voice and commented, “Then it’ll be nice for a change.”

“I haven’t decided if I’m going or not.”

Please just go.  I don’t know what else to say to make you understand.

Lilah stood and wiped her palms down the front of her jeans.  While absently looking for her purse and room key, she inquired, “Oh?  I hope it’s not because of me.  I was just going to go investigate what the hotel has to offer.  Maybe see if they have a gym for the guests and check out the restaurant.” 

And see if there are any other rooms available. 

“Okay.”

She took that to mean he was going to go with the band, and looped her purse over her shoulder, making sure that her phone was inside.  Tucking the key into her pocket, Lilah mentally removed herself from the situation and coached herself to fake some confidence.  Enough confidence to take what she so desperately needed from him if this were going as badly as she feared.  A final kiss.

She miraculously found that elusive confidence hiding in a deep, dark corner of her personality, and Lilah latched onto it with both hands, steeling herself for rejection.  With a deep breath, she slowly lifted onto her toes and pressed soft lips against a disappointingly hard mouth, lingering there for his reaction.

He didn’t recoil, or push her away, but he didn’t return the kiss either. That little bit of heartbreak from earlier became a little more.

“I’m not crazy,” she declared quietly, resigned to the worst possible scenario.  “But I understand if this is… a little too out there for you.  Just tell me, and I’ll be gone.”

Please don’t say it…

She repeated the phrase to herself over and over, holding her breath through each slowly measured step toward the door.  She held it, refusing to let it go until she stood in the hallway, the barrier now closed safely behind her.  Only then did she allow all the air to whoosh out so that a fresh, sweet taste of oxygen could steal into her lungs.

He hadn’t said it. 

Then again, he hadn’t said anything at all.

✧✧✧

There were two cars going to the restaurant.  Jon, Dave and Matt were riding in the first one, and Tony climbed into the second one, joining Tico and Richie.  In the event that his brother was still feeling like a smartass prick, Tony preferred to keep some distance between them.  That would be the smartest thing to do, considering how fucked up his head was right now. 

“You never answered my text, man.” Richie lightly back-handed him in the leg.  “That girl of yours get any happier?”

“Honestly, I got called to the setup and forgot to read the text,” Tony admitted, pulling at the buttons on his off-white ‘going out’ shirt, and crossing his booted ankles as he situated himself in the corner of the seat.  Richie was next to him and Tico was on the other side.  “What did it say?”

“Whoa,” Tico’s gravelly voice interjected as he sat forward to look between the two other dark-headed occupants of the vehicle.  “TBJ has a girl?  Since when?”

“Yeah, Tony, since when?”

“She’s not my girl, she’s…”  What the hell was she?  Fan?  Lover?  Stalker?  Psychic?   Friend?  “She’s just a woman.  I met her in Dublin.”

“Ah.”  Richie kicked one ankle up on the opposite knee, and reared his head back with understanding.  “If she’s ‘ just a woman’, that explains why she was crying in the elevator.”

“When was that?”  Had she left his room crying?  Jesus… that was just what he needed on his conscience along with the rest of this shit.

“Earlier.  I guess she was on her way to her room?  She came outta the bar about the time I hit the lobby, and I rode up with her.”

”Oh.   I couldn’t tell ya.”  Relieved that it was earlier in the day, he thought back on her glassy eyes when she’d come into the room.  It bugged him, but he really couldn’t tell Richie why she might have been.  Maybe she’d been bent out of shape over her big revelation.  So bent out of shape that she’d stopped to have a drink before she came up stairs?

You sure as hell are.

If she’d told it to Richie, he probably wouldn’t have batted an eye.  He was into all that destiny, fate, karma crap, but Tony didn’t have cosmic inclinations.  Yeah, Tony had his Chinese zodiac symbol tattooed on his arm, but he was really more of a concrete guy, believing in what he could see and touch.

“Well, she was doing her best to keep it on the down low,” Richie admitted.  “I offered to lend an ear, but she politely blew me off.”

“So what’s the deal with this ‘just a woman’?” Tico asked interestedly, rubbing a lazy hand over his trademark soul patch.  “You don’t usually pick up tour bunnies that are gonna follow you from town to town.”

Richie snickered.  “She’s not a tour bunny like I’ve ever met.  Least ways not one who’s impressed with our fearless leader.”

“Lilah says she’s one of your girls, Sambo.”  That hadn’t bothered Tony before, but it did now.  The thoughts of Richie charming her into his bed and nicely bidding her farewell after fun was had by all… 

What the fuck difference does it make?  You had her.

“Bro…”  Richie clapped him on the shoulder, his long fingers squeezing into the muscle there for an instant.  “From the little bit I’ve seen, she’s all yours.”

Tony’s gut knotted like a sourdough pretzel, confusion permeating his physical self as well as his mental. 

“You don’t look like that sits too well, TBJ.  What’s wrong with her?” 

Glancing over at Tico, he muttered, “Nothing, other than she thinks Fate brought her here.”

Tony had been right.  Richie didn’t bat an eye.  He lifted a negligent shoulder and twisted his mouth in a matching shrug.  “Who’s to say it didn’t?  You ever do something without knowing why?  We all get a little subconscious pull or tug from the universe now and then.  Some of us can admit that, and some of us can’t.”

Tico snorted softly.  “Rich, man, I’m surprised you don’t have your own hotline on the Psychic Friends Network.”

“Yeah, fuck you, ya cynical little Cubano.”  The guitarist was used to the ribbing from his band mates when it came to these kinds of topics, and let it roll right off of him without a second thought.  “Fine, be a skeptical bastard.  With or without your endorsement, the universe still does its thing.  It doesn’t have to give you proof.”

The car glided to a smooth halt in front of the restaurant, with the driver quickly exiting the vehicle to open the back door for his passengers.  Tony was the first one out, knowing that he would blend into the woodwork once the handful of gawkers caught sight of Richie.  He preferred it that way, and stood to the side inside the restaurant until the other two men were led to a private dining room. 

Following closely behind, he stayed quiet, preoccupied with the Richie’s last comment. 

The universe didn’t have to give him proof. 

But it had.