Feels Like Home

"Bye sweetie. I'll see you after school." Adrienne kissed Joey before he climbed out of Adrienne's new BMW and went inside the school building.

It had been a few weeks since New Years and school had started back up. This was the first time Adrienne would face her boss and coworkers since her whirlwind marriage over the break. Billie Joe and the guys were still on tour but he called every night. He planned to be there the next day for the hearing with David.

Adrienne parked her car in her usual spot and checked herself in the rearview mirror before she went in. She made sure her dread locks were still in the ponytail style she had put them in and twisted her usual tube of lipstick to apply it to her lips. "I need to buy some more." She muttered
to herself as she put the nearly empty tube back in her purse. "A girl's always got to have her lipstick."

As she went to her classroom, she did not pay much attention to the whispers of the students and handful of faculty behind her. She knew that her marriage was in all the magazines beside the pictures of Mike and Tre' coming out of the chapel dressed in marriage attire.

Once Adrienne got to her room and she took off her coat and purse she let out a sigh of relief. The hard part was over. Just showing her face after such a broadcasted whirlwind was a step
towards the next. Adrienne sat down in her chair and started her computer up, it was almost time to begin the day.

A cough followed by "Excuse me Adrienne," however, put a dent in her bubble of self satisfaction.

"Charles, Superintendent Morris." Adrienne stood and watched the two older men sit in the desks in front of her. She had a rather bad feeling about this meeting.

Charles Sinclair nervously wiped his brow with a handkerchief. "Uh, I take it you had an interesting holiday Ms. Nesser,"

"Armstrong." Adrienne corrected instantly. She was not going to hide anything. All she could think about was what Billie Joe had told her before she got on the plane to leave him to come back to Minneapolis.

'If they say anything to you or give you any shit, walk out Adie. Don't fight me on this one because you won't win. We're married and I'm going to take care of you. You don't have to take bullshit from those people just because you love me. I know you enjoy your job and all, but you can apply for one in California if you want. Just don't take their shit.'

"Yes, yes." Principal Sinclair was obviously nervous. "I had heard about your recent marriage, congratulations."

"That is part of why we're here Mrs. Armstrong." Superintendent Morris said. He was an elderly man with deeply wrinkled skin and a slow, deep, scratchy voice. His blue eyes were rather cold and firm behind his thick glasses as he looked down at Adrienne as if she were an inconvenience
to him. "You were warned just before the fall break that if you disrespected this school in any way, you would be terminated. You did not heed our warning."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize me eloping in Vegas could make you blush." Adrienne shot back, her punk-ish confidence spiking in resistance.

"Do not take that tone with me." Superintendent Morris growled. "You are an embarrassment to this school system with your antics and the even more ridiculous acts of your so called husband. You are to be off of this campus by three o'clock today. You may finish the day, but this will be your last. You have put us in an awkwardly bad situation here. The phones are ringing off the hook with reporters wanting to talk to you or get information on you. This school will not stand for it. Announcing to the world that you had a three way on your honeymoon? What were you thinking?"

Adrienne's eyes narrowed. "It was a joke. Don't you have a sense of humor?"

"And another thing," Morris continued. "Dread locks are against this school's dress code for both faculty and students. Just because you have married a celebrity doesn't give you the right to break these rules." He pointed a withering finger at Adrienne's twisted hair.

"Well if I am no longer an employee of this school than you shouldn't give a damn about how my hair looks." Adrienne shot back. She rose out of her chair with her palms flat against the desk. "It is none of your business who I marry and what we do. I don't see the embarrassment of my children and I being happy. Billie Joe does nothing to you. I think just because you don't appreciate his music or what he has to say or the life style he leads you want to punish those who do. Well I don't have to take it. One perk of being married to a rockstar, I have money now and I don't need this underpaying job."

"You are dismissed from this school." Superintendent Morris growled as he stood and nudged Charles towards the door.

"Thanks." Adrienne shot back, fury evident in her voice.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Baby, I'm so proud of you." Billie Joe praised into the phone. "You didn't take shit back in the day and you don't take it now. I just wish I could have seen it."

"I was shaking when I was finished I was so mad." Adrienne said as she boiled noodles on the stove, the phone cradled between her ear and shoulder as she stirred the noodles and turned the eye of the stove down. "It's so stupid and I don't get it fully... but whatever."

"Exactly. Now you have to let me take care of you." Billie Joe grinned.

"Yeah," Adrienne didn't sound as enthused.

"You'll get used to it with time Adie, trust me. I'm going to make you very happy." The reception began to get fuzzy with static.

"Yeah, until you find something else to occupy your time with." Adrienne looked at the clock. "Where are you and when are you going to get here?"

"I'm about twenty minutes away, relax. I'm turning on Pickens now." Billie Joe's voice came in and out of focus.

"I can't. I'm so worried about tomorrow." Adrienne confessed as Joey yelled for her help on his homework.

"Don't worry about it. We have a great lawyer. Everything is going to be fine." Billie Joe lost all service and left Adrienne listening to a dull dial tone.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Well, that went well." Adrienne murmured as she haphazardly dropped the car keys on the table in the hallway as she and Billie Joe took off their coats. They had just come back from the court hearing with David.

"Baby, we still have them." Billie Joe reminded her as they went into the warm living room and sat down heavily on the couch. "Fucking child care department or whatever just has to come
once a week and see that we're happy and normal and healthy and all that shit and then that's it. David pretty much lost and there's no way around it so let's just chill out and celebrate."

"I just don't feel like celebrating." Adrienne said as she toed her shoes off and stretched her socked feet across her husband. "I just don't feel right about it."

Billie Joe put his hands on her ankles. "Don't." He scratched his ear nervously. "Uh, listen, since there really isn't anything holding you here anymore, why don't you guys just move out to California now?"

"Joey's still in school." Adrienne reminded him as she leaned on the cushions and put her hands over her eyes in frustration.

"Yeah, but he doesn't want to be here, he wants to come out to California and go to Hillcrest with Frankito. Just call Claudia and, you know, figure out how far ahead or behind his is compared to that class and all that you know. And, Syd's just in daycare and she hasn't become attached to anyone. I'll be done with touring for awhile in a month and then I'll be there with you guys."

Billie Joe leaned forward on Adrienne's legs and took her hands away from her eyes. Her dark brown met with his green. "It's going to be fine." He promised her as he kissed her hands that were still enclosed in his as he couldn't reach her mouth from his position.

Adrienne let out a huff of air and turned her head away from him and shrugged.

Billie Joe let go of her hands and leaned back to his original position. There was no use saying anything to Adrienne when she was in this kind of mood. He propped his arm on the arm of the couch, sighed and looked the other way.

"Well what's wrong with you two?" Gloria came into the living room from work. "How'd the hearing go?"

"Fine." Billie Joe answered as Adrienne pretended as if she didn't hear her mother. "We keep Joey and Syd but the Department of Child Welfare or whatever just has to check in on us every week for, like, the next couple of months."

"Oh?" Gloria sat down in the recliner. "What would they be looking for?"

"Make sure the kids are happy, healthy and aren't in any kind of danger I guess." Billie Joe waved off the question, he felt a migraine and he really wanted a drink, or a cigarette, or both.

"Well that doesn't sound too bad." Gloria commented. "I'm sure David wasn't happy with that ruling."

"No," This had to be the longest conversation Billie Joe had had with Gloria ever and Adrienne wasn't doing anything to stop it. "He wasn't but he'll have to get over it. The judge suggested, but didn't rule, that we let him have a weekend with them, like, once a month or something."

Adrienne got up and silently went up the stairs.

"What's wrong with her?" As the door to Adrienne's room shut loudly.

"She's just frustrated with everything and I didn't really help." Billie Joe ran a hand through his hair.

"Oh," Gloria curiosity went unnoticed by Billie Joe. "Why is that?"

"Because I just mentioned the fact that there's not really anything holding them here anymore since she lost her job and I just made the point that they could go ahead and move to California."
"Well I think that's a wonderful idea." Gloria said, taking Billie Joe aback.

"You think so?" Billie Joe was choosing his words carefully in case this was one of Gloria's mind games.

"Of course. Everything has just been moving so fast for Adrienne and the kids and I think putting the last piece of it together, all of you going to California, would finalize it and make things more peaceful. Plus, I think Adie needs a change of scenery and a place where she can nest and it can be her home." Gloria leaned back in her recliner and made herself comfortable.

Billie Joe didn't say anything but nodded his head silently.

"Plus," Gloria added, "I have some vacation time coming up. I would love to go to California and help Adrienne move into your house and womanize it. I heard it wasn't anything spectacular."

"It's a five bedroom house but all I have in it furniture wise is a TV, chair, couch, two beds, a pool table and that's about it. MTV keeps calling to do Cribs but I don't think they want to come into my house."

"In need of a woman's touch?"

"In need of any kind of touch really." Billie Joe turned as the door opened and closed as Joey came into the house from the car pool he had ridden home from school in.