41 - Brotherly Love

Tony flipped his wrist around, surprised to find that it was already after three.  Problems and locale oddities had kept him busy since his arrival, but everything was fired up and ready to go.  He was set to grab a little dinner and chill for a couple of hours.

“Hey, bro.”  Richie clapped him on the shoulder then mounted the metal staircase.  “Miss Lilah feelin’ better today?”

Tony scrunched up his forehead and scratched at his goatee.  “Yeah.  I never did find out what that was all about, but she’s okay now.”

“I’m curious to see this girl,”  Tico rumbled, following along.  “If she’s got Dot bitchin’ Jonny out, she’s got to be worth meeting.”

“Hell,” Dave followed up with a rude snort.  “I’d pay her to hang out with us if she makes Jon the bitch-EE instead of the bitch-ER.”

Tony had vowed he was going to stay the hell away from Jon.  He wasn’t even going to mention that extra room thing, because it had happened before their ‘chat’ last night and there was no point in belaboring something that was after-the-fact.

But this… He was curious about how lunch went, and if Dot was talking about Lilah, Tony wanted to know what was being said.

“Where are they?”

David cocked a thumb toward the dressing rooms.  “In the haven of skulls.”

Recognizing the wise-ass crack as an alias for Jon’s personal dressing room, Tony made his way in the direction, careful to keep his footsteps and his temper moderated.  It wouldn’t do any good for the guys to find out he and Jon were having issues.  Richie probably suspected, but the rest of them should be relatively clueless about what was going on in Tony’s personal life.

“Oh, for God’s sake Jon, you’re being ridiculous!”

Tony’s feet slowed, and he cocked his head to get a better listen.  Curious as to what Dorothea was finding so maddening, he blatantly eavesdropped and immediately regretted it.

“I don’t think that I am.  You said her son is in a band.  She’s trying to find an ‘in’ for them, and using Tony to do it.  Isn’t it obvious?”

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!  Seriously?  Am I hearing this right? 

Jon was set to believe the absolute worst about Lilah, no matter what.  What was it going to take to get through to him?

“You know what’s obvious to me?” Tony snarled, coming around the corner, all of his frustration sitting in the tightly balled fingers of his right hand.  It wasn’t even about Lilah anymore.  Not fully.  Jon continued to have no respect for him or his ability to make a judgment call.   It had now escalated to a point where he was ready to forcibly demand that respect. 

Yes, it was show day and that meant Jon was technically his boss, but that never crossed Tony’s mind.  He felt only insult and, as a result, saw nothing but his brother and the cloud of incessant frustration that Jon was creating.  He simply could not believe the unmitigated gall of the sibling that had always been his best friend.

“That you think you’re an all-knowing God.” 

Skirting Dorothea to get at Jon, who was perched on his director-chair-throne, Tony latched onto the sides of his brother’s half-unbuttoned shirt and jerked him abruptly to his feet, sending the ‘throne’ flying.   He took sick satisfaction in the surprise and glimmer of uncertainty in Jon’s eyes.

“Tony!”  Dorothea shouted over the clatter of the chair hitting the floor.  “What the hell are you doing?”  She scrambled to interject herself between the two men, but Tony angled around so that she was at his back.  He wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

“Goddammit,” the imprisoned Bongiovi bit out with a piercing blue glare and his jaw set in granite.  “Do not hit me.  I have I show to do, and you know better than to fuck with my business.”

“Since when did business become more important than family?” Tony countered with another unrelenting jerk, snapping his brother’s head back with the force of inertia.  Lifted to his toes, steam nearly rolled out of Jon’s ears.  Well he wasn’t the only one steaming.  Tony gave him one bone-jarring shake, growling, “Answer me!” 

Jon leaned forward, fully recovered from his surprise, blustering into Tony’s face, “Since when did a piece of ass become more important than family?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Tony snorted, shoving him away with disgust.  “Don’t even try that shit, when you’ve been nothing but a dickhead from the beginning.  It’s as much about your attitude toward me as it is her, you asshole.”

Dorothea scrambled to help a stumbling Jon before he tripped on the overturned chair.  He snatched his arm away as she loudly commanded, “Both of you, stop it!  This isn’t doing anybody any good.”

“Seems like nothing but a frontal lobotomy will,” Tony muttered, more bothered by upsetting her than anything that had transpired between him and Jon.   Dorothea was a saint, as far as he was concerned, and adding anything else to her already full plate of four children and a sometimes humble/sometimes egomaniacal husband made him feel bad.  “And if you’d ever bother talking to Lilah, you’d know she’s not like that, dumbass.”

“I think Tony has a point,” she concurred, speaking to her husband in a much kinder voice than she’d been using when Tony arrived.  “You need to meet the woman and actually talk to her.”

“I’ve talked to her plenty.”

Tony scoffed, “What?  Once in the hospitality tent?  I’m sure you found out everything there was to know in those three sentences.”

“No,” spat the man whose pride was wounded as much as his face.  “I talked to her yesterday, and she’s secretive as all hell.”  He pinned Tony with a accusing look.  “Did she actually talk to you, like she said she was gonna?  Do you finally know why she’s got her nose in the middle of our family?”

“Whoa.”  Tony lifted his hand as Jon righted the chair with a jerky motion.  “Back the truck up.  You talked to her yesterday?  When?”

“Yes, Jon, when?”  His better half crossed her arms and lifted her brow haughtily.  “And why?”

“When she checked into the hotel.  He knew that already.  I told him she killed her husband.”

I was so pissed that I didn’t even stop to think how he got the crazy-ass idea.  But, wait…  When she checked in?  Before Richie saw her crying in the elevator?

“Tony?”  A dark head swung his way, hitting a higher pitch than was typical for her.  “She killed her husband?”

He couldn’t blame Dorothea for her look of horror.  It sounded bad, but the truth was worse – in his opinion.  The only trouble was that Tony didn’t feel like it was his place to tell, or any of their business.

“No.”

“Then who did?” Jon pressed, throwing a belligerent arm in the air while firmly ensconced back in his ‘throne’.  “She wouldn’t give up anything about anything.  Said you could tell me when you found out.”

That was supposed to be his permission, Tony supposed, but he still wasn’t comfortable telling all of Lilah’s personal life.  With Jon’s preconceived opinion, he would find some way to screw it around.  Dorothea might get it, but Jon…

“Dottie…”  Ignoring his brother, he turned to his sister-in-law with his arms folded over his chest, confident in the question he was about to pose.  “You spent time with her.  Do you really think she’d kill her husband?”

Brown eyes blinked slowly as she apparently replayed her time with Lilah.  “It… would be hard to believe.  She wouldn’t even send food back when they got her order wrong.”

That sounded more in keeping with the Lilah he knew.

“My point exactly.  Jon doesn’t know anything about her, except how to make her cry.  What did you say to her, Jon?”

“Make her cry?”  Dorothea wasn’t impressed with that little tidbit.  “I’m asking you again, Jon.  Why were you talking to Lilah yesterday?”

“Yeah,” came a deep voice from the doorway, causing all three Bongiovis to whip their eyes in that direction.  “I’m curious, too.  That little girl was… well, pitiful really.  What’d you say to her, JB?”

Was it childish that Tony felt smug about Dorothea and Richie having his back?  Too bad.  It was comforting to know he didn’t have his head wrapped up in the bed sheets.  He wasn’t the only one who thought Jon was being a dick, and he appreciated the vindication, but adding Richie into the fray made Jon even more irritable.   

“Listen, I don’t have time for this shit.”  He rose impatiently to his feet, fixing Tony with a deadly glare.  “I have a sound check to do and you’re lucky I didn’t put your ass on the ground for that stupid macho power play."

“You're still welcome to try, old man,” Tony laughed, knowing he wouldn't do anything to invite a busted lip this close to show time.

Stepping between them, Dorothea planted the heel of her hand in Jon’s chest.  He wasn't escaping that easily.  “Answer me.”

“You know, I’m not a goddamn ogre!" he exploded, swatting Dorothea's hand away while still standing his ground.  "I asked her point-blank what the fuck she wanted.  I can’t help it if she's sensitive, or what the hell ever.”

“She’s not sensitive,” Tony contradicted.  “I’ve never seen her cry, but I have seen her give you hell.  There has to be more to the story that you're telling.”

“Jon…”

His wife’s single-word warning said not to mess with her, and Jon knew it.  “What?!  I told you!  I asked her what she wanted.  She said Tony.  I asked about her husbands and she clammed up because she wanted to talk to him.  Said if he was okay with whatever-the-hell it was, they’d work it out and, if not, she’d be on the first plane home.  Either way I wouldn’t have to see her again.  That’s it!”

There was almost an audible ‘click’ as the pieces snapped together in Tony's mind.  This explained Lilah’s change of heart.  She was trying to stay out of Jon’s way.

“That explains why she wouldn’t come with me this morning and refuses to come back stage tonight,” he informed his brother accusingly.  All the way to Europe and she couldn’t even enjoy the experience.

“You saying she didn’t tell you that already?” Jon scoffed.

“No, she didn’t tell me!   I don’t know why, but she didn’t.”

“I do.”  Dorothea’s quiet words garnered the men’s attention.  “Lilah mentioned during lunch - quite adamantly, as a matter of fact - that Jon didn’t care for her her, but she was going to do her best to minimize it to Tony.  She doesn’t want you two fighting.”

Tony reached around her and punched Jon in the shoulder.   “Yeah, that sounds like somebody you need to ride out of town on a rail, doesn’t it, Dipshit?”

Dorothea smacked him away with a withering look of warning.  She wasn’t putting up with his shit either.

“Give me your phone,” she commanded, palm held out flat.

Tony responded by immediately reaching for the device clipped to his pocket, but couldn't keep himself from asking, “What do you want with my phone?”

“I assume you have Lilah’s number in there?”

“Yeah.”

“Dial it.”  Determined brown eyes locked into his brother’s blue ones, and wordless communication honed by thirty years of togetherness passed between husband and wife.  “Jon is going to call Lilah and invite her back stage.  When she accepts his invitation and joins us before the show, he’s going to look her in the face and apologize for whatever he’s done.”

“And just why exactly would I do that?” the famous Bongiovi demanded even as the phone was pressed into his hand.

“You’ll do it,” his spouse enlightened him in a eerily quiet voice.  “Because it’s the right thing to do.”