Chapter 49
John pulled a bottle of Bud out of the fridge and plopped down on the couch. Why did women always have to take so long to get ready? He pored through the assortment of magazines on the coffee table; this was definitely a girl’s house. When nothing caught his interest, he grabbed a pack of smokes and went out on the porch for a long awaited nicotine fix. He took a seat on the front step and rolled the cigarette around between his fingers, admiring it, savoring every soothing drag. He was trying so hard to avoid them, but it wasn’t easy. He simply enjoyed it too much. He wondered if Gen appreciated his efforts, or if she even realized what he was attempting for her. He hadn’t ever told her that’s what he was doing, but hell, she should have been able to figure it out by now. Stubbing out the remnants of the first one, he contemplated lighting another when a car pulled up in the driveway.
Stacey jumped out of the car right away. “John! Good to see you again,” she smiled.
“Hey, Stace.” He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a friendly squeeze.
“John, this is my husband Josh. Josh, this is John.”
The two men exchanged pleasantries.
“So, good job on getting her away from the office today. I need someone to do that for me once in a while,” she nudged Josh in the ribs. “So what’d you do? Anything you can talk about? Or should I not ask?” she teased with a wink.
He laughed a little. “We, uh, I met her parents.” His face gave away the fact that it had been unusual event to say the least.
“Ah, Helen and Chuck. What’d ya think? Did they scare you away with their picture perfectness?”
“Nah,” he laughed, “They were really cool, y’know. She’s got a great family.” He led them to the front door, holding it open for them as they walked in. “You’ve got a great family too. Man, I love your kids. They had me crackin’ up the whole time they were here!” he laughed.
Stacey blushed, embarrassed still for asking them to watch her kids. “I couldn’t be sorrier that I had to ask you to do that. I really owe you guys.”
John shrugged it off with a wave of his hand. “It was nothing. I’ve got lots of kids in my family so it’s not unusual to be asked to fill in at the last minute. I really had fun if you wanna know the truth.” He held up a finger, putting that thought on hold. “Just a sec,” he commanded then turned and sprinted down the hallway toward their room where Gen was applying the finishing touches to her lips. “Darlin’ they’re here. C’mon, let’s go.” He called as he walked up behind her and kissed her on the back of her neck. “You’re pretty enough as it is.”
Together, they returned to their guests in the living room. Gen greeted her friends with a bright smile. “Hey Stace, Josh. Whaddaya say we get going?”
They piled into Josh’s SUV and headed to a favorite Caribbean restaurant. Once there, they were seated at a booth in the back. Gen and Stacey ordered one tropical themed drink after another while they waited for their food. They were all but oblivious to their male dinner companions.
Squeezing the lime into his Corona bottle, John looked from Gen to Stacey, then at Josh. “They sure know how to have fun, don’t they? Are they always like this when they’re together?”
Josh sighed and laughed. “They are. They really, really are. It’s nice to not be the only guy this time.”
John chuckled at the thought of Josh being stuck alone with these two wacky women. “I can imagine. Don’t know if I could handle it, y’know.” He sighed, “But I’m glad she has a friend to go out with. She was the only woman around when we were on the tour, y’know, so she had to hang out with a bunch of drunk guys all the time.”
“Ha!” Josh burst out laughing. “I’ve known Gen a long time. I have a feeling she probably had no trouble fitting right in,” he contended with a wink.
“This is true,” John laughed. “That’s my Gen. She’s nothing if not adaptable.”
“Yeah, Gen’s really cool. She’s a lot of fun. She can definitely hold her own. And she’s not afraid to say what’s on her mind. I think that’s a good thing, but then I’ve never had to go out on a date with her.”
“Oh my god! I know! She’s her own person, y’know. But that’s what I like about her. She’s not intimidated by my life or any of the crazy shit that comes with it. She really blew me away when she was out on the road with us, y’know.”
“Oh man, she had such a great time on that trip. What’s that like, being on the road? I mean, I travel a lot, but I somehow think my experiences are way different from yours.”
“Probably.” John flashed a devious grin. “Dude, it’s like nothin’ else on earth, havin’ the girls screamin’ for ya, y’know. I can’t even come close to describing it. But it can go to your head really easy, so I’m thankful that this came along after I’ve figured it out a little bit.”
“Yeah?”
“Man, I’ve said it before and I mean it. If all this success and shit had come along when I was younger,” he reiterated shaking his head, “man, I’d be dead. There’s just so much bad shit that comes after you- drugs, groupies, thieves of every kind. It’s fucking crazy.”
“But now that’s not out there?”
“Hell yeah, it’s still out there. I just know better how to avoid it now… most of it anyway,” he chuckled. “So Josh, what do you do?”
Gen butted in on their conversation. “Josh is a sports commentator on one of the local channels. He covers some of the OSU games.” She felt like she’d been attentive enough for the time being and she turned her attention back to Stacey who immediately got her giggling about something else entirely.
“Well that’s cool.”
As if by some ironic twist, a little boy approached their table. The kids’ timing was uncanny. “Hey, Mr. Taylor, can I have your autograph?”
“Um, sure!” Josh seemed only slightly taken aback by the request. He granted the boys wish and sent him on his way. “Well,” Josh laughed as he held up his empty beer bottle for the waitress, requesting another, “It’s not nearly as exciting as your job, but I have a few fans myself, I guess. The kid’s obviously an OSU fan,” he shrugged. “Gen tells me you’re not into sports.”
“Not as much as you I guess, but I like a few things.”
“Tell him about your commercial, Johnny,” Gen cooed trying to show off her boyfriend for her friends.
John rolled his eyes and laughed; Gen’s halfhearted involvement in their conversation was getting to be humorous. The waitress set down fresh beers for both men and he nodded a thank you. “Yeah, we played for a commercial a few years back for Major League Baseball.”
“Really? That’s enough to impress me.”
While Josh spoke, their meals were placed in front of them. Stacey and Gennie came back into the conversation as they started on their dinners.
“So John, I guess I should warn you, my daughter is in love with you,” Stacey brought up with a giggle in her voice.
“She’s a cool kid.”
“You’re not gonna think that anymore, I’m afraid. She was totally infatuated anyway, you see. When I picked her up from school the other day, she couldn’t stop talking about you...”
Josh leaned over to him, “She’s very impressed by the tattoos, apparently.”
“No way!” John laughingly objected. “She was all over me about them. She told me she didn’t think they were a very good idea.”
Stace shook her head. “Well, that may be what she said to you, but she couldn’t get enough of ‘em.” She paused and took a bite of her food. “So anyway, she wants to go to the grocery store with me on the way home, see. I later found out her reasoning was because she wanted Craker Jacks… for the tattoos, of course. So we go in to get the stuff I needed and she finally persuades me to get her and Alex a box of the stuff.”
“Yeah?” John didn’t see how this conversation was going to supposedly turn him against thinking Megan was cool.
“So we go down the candy aisle and what do you think is across from the candy? That’s right… the magazine section. And being that Craker Jacks are cheap, they’re on the top shelf, so mom has to get them. And while mom is getting them, Meggy is checking out the magazines.” She gave him a wry smile. “Do you know what magazines they put at a six year olds eye level?”
“Oh no!” Gen exclaimed, trying to stifle her laugh.
“Aw shit,” John smiled and looked down at his plate, shaking his head all the while. ”Please don’t tell me you bought one of those things!”
“Well you tell me, Johnny, what you say to a six year old who picks up a Tiger Beat and opens it up to a picture of the guy who just made her breakfast that morning!”
“Oh God.” He was really embarrassed. “I’m sorry, guys,” he laughed. “I am so humiliated.”
“Oh, you wanna see humiliated? Try going to the check out line with two identical teen magazines in your cart and two kids obviously too young to really care about them.”
“Two?” Gen puzzled. “Why’d you buy two?”
Josh chuckled, “Five guesses and the first four don’t count.”
“Alex?” she asked.
“You betcha.” Josh gave them both a knowing look. “Humiliated is having to put a Tiger Beat pin up poster on your sons’ bedroom wall.”
At that, John burst out laughing. “Dude, I am so sorry! But that’s just too damn funny!”
“Yeah, you can laugh,” Josh teased, “But he ran across your latest video yesterday. You know, the live one.”
“Oh boy,” John groaned with mock apprehension.
“The kid is determined to be a rock star now. So you’d better watch out, he’s gonna put you out of a job if you’re not careful. I can never find my racquetball racket anymore. It’s been transformed into a guitar!”
“Aw shit,” John sighed with some resignation, “I really don’t want them to see me that way. That’s not reality, y’know. I’m not really like that.”
Stacey spoke up in an effort to make it not seem so weird. “You know, I don’t really think they do see you that way. These are kids who are used to seeing their dad on TV all the time, remember, so they just think it’s more of the same.”
“Yeah,” Josh added, “I don’t think they’ve put it all together yet. They don’t realize that you’re famous or anything. They don’t know what you do, really. Alex just thinks watchin’ you on TV was like watchin’ home videos or something. They just think you’re Gen’s cool friend.”
“Ah,” Gen purred flirtily towards her boyfriend. “He is my cool friend. And nobody but me knows how cool he really is,” she giggled and licked her lips in her sexy, yet inebriated way.
After dinner, they spent the rest of their evening sitting in the same place, drinking more island themed drinks and listening to the reggae band playing. Their waiter admired Stace and Gen’s free spirited fun and came back with straw hats whimsically decorated with paper pineapples and little parrots that they normally only gave to guests celebrating birthdays. Try as they might though, neither Gen nor Stacey was ever able to coax John or Josh out on the dance floor. They didn’t let it bother them too much; they danced anyway.
Gen felt like she was on top of the world, she was having such a fantastic time. She was thrilled that he fit in so well with her friends and was comfortable in her world. It was like the puzzle pieces were fitting together perfectly. The ideal situation finally existed, she had a guy with whom she was completely besotted, as he was with her, he liked her friends and her parents and they liked him back. “Life is good,” she grinned at Stacey as they moved to the Calypso beat, drinks in hand and their crazy straw hats on their heads.