52 - Give and Take

Standing by the elevator bank, Richie looked up from his iPhone when a giggling shriek split the air.  Lilah was almost running to keep ahead of TBJ who had hell-bent determination written all over that smug Bongiovi face of his. 

“Dammit, Jersey, stop!” she squealed, sliding into the alcove where Richie was.  “I hate to be tickled.”

“But I like to make you scream,” Tony countered with a wicked grin. 

The camera dangling from his shoulder bounced into his hip when he pinned her against the wall and pushed his hands up under her leather jacket.  His action caused light to reflect from the rhinestones across her shirt and drew Richie’s eye to the scripted Harley Davidson name. 

Little Miss Lilah makes a good lookin’ biker chick.

“Children, children,” he chided, tucking the phone back into his pocket.  “I’m a lonely, single man.  Don’t flaunt that shit in fronta me.”

“Hey, Rich,” Tony greeted him without turning his attention away from his playmate.

Playmate seems to be doin’ the little brother a world of good.  Maybe I need to find me a little Southern Belle to hook up with.

While TBJ was all blasé about it, not paying any more attention to him than the cursory greeting, Lilah wasn’t quite so unaffected.  Her eyes flew wide and she hastily pushed at the hands around her waist, cheeks flooding with embarrassment.  “Hello, Mr. Sambora.  Happy belated birthday.”

He grinned smugly when the other man’s hands went immediately back to the spot they’d been evicted from, unconcerned about Lilah’s glare.  Tony didn’t give a rat’s ass about Richie.  He was enjoying the little Kentucky girl to the fullest, and Richie was glad to see it.  The boy kept to himself too much.

“Oh, darlin’,” he moaned splaying a hand over his chest as the elevator arrived with a subdued ‘ding’.  “Not only are you making me feel lonely, you hadda go and age me a little more, too?  Screw that ‘mister’ stuff.  I’m just Richie.”

“Sorry,” she said, following him inside the plush car with a contrite wrinkle of her nose.  “It’s a Southern thing, I guess.  It’s rude to assume familiarity.”

Noting that at least one of Tony’s hands was stuck firmly up the back of her jacket, Richie pressed the button for his floor.  He propped his right hip against the brass railing and folded his arms over his chest with a wink.  “It’s all good, baby, and thanks for the birthday thing.  So TBJ, where ya been all afternoon?”

“Hit the button for eleven, too, would ya?  And what do you mean all afternoon?”

Pressing the requested floor, Richie lifted his eyebrows.  “Jon’s been looking for you since the rest of the crew got here.  He even asked if I’d seen you.”

“Ahh shit.”  He immediately started digging for his phone, cursing when the screen didn’t immediately light up.  “I forgot to turn it on when the plane landed.”

“Well, somebody’s not goin’ to be too happy with me again, I see,” Lilah drawled with a sigh. 

“Stop,” Tony commanded quietly as an illuminated silver apple finally appeared.  “It’s got nothing to do with you.  Whatever he wanted couldn't be that big of a deal.  It's not show day.”

Jon had been pretty pissed from what Richie could tell, but he hated to be the bearer of bad news. “I…  dunno about that.  You might wanna head on over to the stadium.  I left him there bitching at Montana about fifteen minutes ago.”

The phone finally back in communicative order, Tony shook him off with the tap of a button.  “I’ll just call.  Montana may have already dealt with whatever it was.”

“Suit yourself.”  Richie shrugged and slid his eyes to Lilah.  “So where have you two been, if you don’t mind indulging my busybody-old-woman side?”

Normally, he wouldn’t have cared – wouldn’t have even thought to ask.  The two of them, though, were spewing happy vibes all over the damn place.  They looked windswept, sun-kissed and all those other outdoorsy things that belonged to the lyrics to a Beach Boys song.  Richie couldn’t help but wonder.

Her twinkling eyes zipped over Tony as he greeted his brother with a “Yo,” before they landed on Richie with a sneaky half-grin and then dropped to the floor.

“We rented a motorcycle and rode down past Cologne.  There’s a castle there.”

“Oh yeah?  That explains the biker-chick look.  You’re into motorcycles, huh?”

Shrugging her shoulder until the front of her jacket concealed every bit of the bling and skin, she admitted with a smile, “They’re growin’ on me.”

He watched the way their fingers tied gently together when Tony reached for her hand saying, “He knows what to do, Jon.  It will be fine.” 

Seemingly without thought, she responded to the tightness in his voice.  Richie’s attention was held like a curious – and envious – magnet as Lilah gave the hand in hers a squeeze and s rubbed a soothing thumb along the outside of it.   He slipped his gaze up just in time to catch her eyes go all googly when Tony smiled down at her.  

Bikes aren’t the only thing growing on ya, darlin’.

“Yeah, gimme five minutes and I’ll head over there.”  Tony hung up the phone with a weary shake of his head.  “I have to go over to the stadium for a few, Bluegrass.  Wanna come with me?”

“Bluegrass?” Richie couldn’t help but interrupt as the elevator slid to a halt at the eleventh floor. 

“She’s from Kentucky.  It just kinda stuck.  Later, Rich.”

Lilah smiled and nodded as she trailed after him.  “It was nice seein’ you again, Richie.  Have a good evenin’.”

“See ya ‘round, darlin’.”

As the car crept upward to his floor, he wondered how much more of Lilah Bluegrass he'd be seeing around for the rest of the tour.

✧✧✧

“So you wanna come with me?” Tony asked again, putting his camera on the desk when they got inside the room. 

Lilah sighed to herself.  It had been such a good day.  The ride, the adventure in the woods – she was dismissing the fact that he didn’t want anything to do with her after the tour – and their trip to the castle had all been so much fun.  He was a pleasure to be around.

Not always talkative, but willing to talk, Tony was comfortable.  His dry humor and unique perceptions amused her and she found that they could banter back and forth about the silliest things.  Without analyzing what she was going to say, she let whatever popped into her head fall out of her mouth and happily found that he spent as much time laughing as she did.  Lilah hadn’t felt free enough to be her uncensored herself in… ever, and Tony seemed to like her uncensored self.

His brother, however, was a different story.  Jon tolerated her at best, and tainting the end of her day with his disapproval wasn’t something she was all that keen to do. 

“I will if you want me to,” she conceded, slipping out of her jacket and draping it over the chair before dropping onto the edge of the bed.  “But I’d rather not.  I can check my email and call home while you’re gone.   You don’t have to babysit me.”

He rolled his eyes and leaned his backside on the desk.  “Good.  I don’t want to have to babysit you.  Now stop being so insecure.  I had fun today, mostly because I didn’t feel like there was any bullshit between us.  Let’s keep it that way, okay?   I’ll speak my mind and expect you to do the same.  No polite games.”

Was that even possible?  Any relationship she’d ever been in had a fair share of pretending involved.  You had to pretend to care about crap you didn’t care about to keep from hurting another person’s feelings, didn’t you?

Lilah Jane, you have never wanted anyone to pretend to care.  You just want to be allowed to pursue your interests without judgment.  Besides, this isn’t a relationship it’s a friendship with an expiration date.  The rules are probably different.

If those rules ever applied to a real relationship, she may reconsider her anti-marriage stance.

“Alright.  No bullshit.”  She placed her palms on the bed behind her and, with stiff arms, rested her weight on them.  “I’m not ready to walk on eggshells around Jon.  Like you said, it was a fun day and I don’t wanna end it on a bad note.”

He gave a single, slow nod.  “Fair enough, but now it’s my turn.  I want to see how he’s going to act with you.  He’s a little pissed right now.  If he can play nice through that, then I don’t have to worry about the two of you butting heads anymore.”

And there you had it.  What she wanted and what he wanted.  There really wasn’t a decision to be made, Lilah supposed.  She’d already told him she would go if he wanted her to.  She just hated that she was going grudgingly, and that choosing someone else’s wishes over hers felt too much like her real life. 

“And…”  Tony pushed himself off the desk to approach the bed.  Looming over her, he brushed the hair back from her face with a sexy smile.  “No matter what happens at the stadium, today will not end on a bad note.  In fact, I'll go so far as to promise it will end on a very goooood note.”

Okay.  The… sexual innuendo thing where he implies that he’s going to do everything you want?  That’s nothing like your real life. 

Lilah could’ve and would’ve gone without any incentive whatsoever.  The incentive that had just be dangled in front of her face, though, stole any trace of resentment she might have had in doing so.

Give and take.  She could do that. 

Happily.