Worry Rock

I had always been thankful that Adam had stopped hating my husband a short time before the wedding. My brother had loathed, to put it sweetly, my husband when we had been engaged. He hated him when he and his wife flew to California when I had given birth to Sydney and it stayed that way until we had gotten married the next year. When Adam had flown out once again for the wedding, he and his wife had stayed in the guest room in our house at the time so that they wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel. Billie Joe had known that Adam wasn’t fond of him, and knowing that Adam was the most important part of my blood-related family he wanted to do nothing but please him.

I’m pretty sure that Adam gained the most respect for Billie Joe over the three or four days previous to our wedding. Billie Joe had been on his best behavior while my brother was around, which had meant that during Sydney’s originally scheduled nap time nothing even slightly dirty could go on between the two of us.

I had been woken up early by Billie Joe’s snoring and a bird that seemed to be sitting right outside our bedroom window screaming. Billie Joe lay passed out next to me after a late night with our daughter that he had insisted that he could handle.

I slid out of bed and down the long hallway to the guestroom my brother was staying in with his wife. After hearing a snore of his rip through the room and through the door, I laughed and slid into my daughter’s bedroom. She lay curled up, her small body rising and falling with each breath she took. I leant down and kissed her small head that was slowly developing light blonde hair before I went down to the kitchen and turned on the stove to make breakfast.

After about fifteen minutes I could hear footsteps descend the stairs and stop at the kitchen doorway. I had expected it to be my brother, considering the fact that Billie Joe had always been such a late sleeper and Adam had always woken up earlier than he was supposed to. I slowly turned around to greet my brother to instead feel a pair of arms wrap around my waist and a body press itself against the back of mine. I looked down to see multi-colors decorating the body that was now holding my own.

Billie Joe buried his head into my neck and smiled, sighing in sleepy content. “Why’d you get up?” He murmured into my neck.

“Your snoring is a killer, sweetie.”

Billie Joe sighed once again, his eyes slowly closing. “I’m sorry,” he admitted. “You should have just whacked or punched me a few times and I would have stopped.”

I laughed and placed to frying pan back onto the stove top and then placed my hands on his own, in which were still tightly wrapped around me. “Because that would have casted a great mood for the wedding that takes place in a few days.”

My soon-to be husband grinned widely. He lifted his head and pursed his lips waiting for me to react. I grinned back at him and pressed my lips against his own softly as he managed to turn me around so that we were both facing each other. He took my hands from my sides and pulled them up to his neck so out of habit I wouldn’t place them behind me so they would be on the stove and I would burn myself. I gasped against his lips as Billie Joe pulled away for air for a short moment. Billie Joe pressed his lips back against my own before I could protest, bringing us both into a much needed and missed lip-lock. “Billie,” I breathed against his lips, “Billie, we can’t. My--,”

“Your brother is staying in my house, Joe,” he murmured against my lips, “he’s sleeping a bed I bought and he’s going to attend a wedding that I’m paying for.” My fiancé grinned, his eyes lighting up. “You can’t honestly expect my lips to completely stay away from yours until we’re married, can you?” I giggled and shook my head, his arms locked back around my waist now that my arms were around his neck. Billie Joe smiled and brushed his lips against mine. “I know your brother doesn’t like me.” Billie Joe’s hand slid over my mouth as I tried to protest, “but this is still my house, and you are still my fiancé and well, honestly, if you’re scared your brother wont like me kissing you, then I think he may have a problem on Saturday when we get married.”

I smiled softly and rested my head on his shoulder. “Okay then.”

Billie Joe chuckled at my lack of words. He sighed. “You ruined my morning.”

I lifted my head from looking at my husband and cocked an eyebrow. “I ruined your morning? What? How?”

My fiancé pressed his lips to my own again. “I wanted to wake up early today, come down here and make you breakfast in bed. You’ve already made breakfast.”

I grinned widely and giggled, running my hands through his knotted hair. “You can make me breakfast all next week,” I promised, referring to the week that we would be away on our honeymoon.

“Oh and I will. And once you have it you’ll be begging for more.”

I laughed while going back to pressing my face into his neck. We stood there for a short moment as a smell of something burning floated throughout the kitchen. I lifted my head from the comfortable position and looked at him in confusion. I gasped loudly and spun around, immediately seeing the now blackening food that had been in the frying pan. “Oh shit! No!”

Billie Joe burst into a fit of laughter as I turned the stove off quickly and removed the frying pan. I scowled as I placed the frying pan in the sink and then turned around and whacked Billie Joe’s arm as hard as I could. Through fits of laughter he managed to gasp our words. “What? What did I do?”

I continued to hit my fiancé’s arms and chest, just not as hard so that it didn’t hurt him. “You! You knew my food was burning! And the whole time you’re…you’re trying to seduce me!”

Billie Joe pushed me back against the counter, pushing his body against mine so I was pinned between the two and couldn’t move. “You’re just a bad cook, face it.”

I gasped and struggled to get away from him. “I am not!” I scowled. “This is what I get for trying to do something nice for my fiancé?”

Billie Joe giggled, pushing his chest against my back as he looked over my shoulder. I stumbled with him still holding onto me over to the sink to pick up the frying pan with the dead food in it. I whimpered. “You killed my food.”

My fiancé grinned and pressed his lips against my ear, nipping it lightly. “My sister never told you that, did she?”

Both Billie Joe and I spun around with wide eyes. Billie Joe stood up straighter and let me take a step away from him. “What?” He asked confused.

Adam chuckled as he slowly walked into the kitchen, a genuine smile on his face for what seemed the first time while talking to Billie Joe. “My sister; your fiancé. She failed Home Ec.”

“I honestly don’t know what to do anymore,” Billie Joe admitted sadly, his eyes looking over my sleeping body, “part of me is waiting for her to wake up one morning and tell me that it’s over and she wants a divorce.”

I had started to doze off about an hour ago while Adam’s wife had gone up to bed. Sydney and her cousin were both sharing a room while Billie Joe and I would be sharing a guest bedroom. The original plan had been that we would have returned back to the hotel in the city, but after we had all gone out to dinner that night and had returned to the house at 10:45, Adam has insisted that we had stayed, using the excuse that he and I never saw each other and he wasn’t ready to let his little sister go again.

“I thought about suggesting counseling,” he murmured. His hand meanwhile ghosted over my body and then slid into my hand, “but I don’t want her to think that I think she’s crazy. I don’t want to offend her.”

Adam nodded slowly. I shifted in Billie Joe’s lap, causing him to tense immediately. Adam and Billie Joe both watched me move and murmur inaudible mumbles. My legs had been starting to hurt from lying in an uncomfortable position for the past hour or so. I curled back up against the warmth of my husbands’ body and sighed softly before slowly opening my eyes. Everything around me was completely blurry, but I could still make out my husband. Billie Joe smiled down at me and I smiled back at him, despite the bitter feeling in my stomach due to the fact that Billie Joe and my brother had not only been talking about me, but they had mentioned therapy.

I had never gotten along with therapists. When I was younger I had a problem with going to school due to the fact that my hormones were raging and all my parents thought they could do was send met o a counselor and blame it on only my hormones. Never mind the broke home. I had seen a counselor and honestly, I believe my mother and I got along better than she and I did.

I never wanted to be helped like a counselor offered. There was nothing worse than sobbing and sitting in some room with a woman that did nothing but tell you to share your feelings and tell her why you were crying when I didn’t know myself.

Needless to say, I hadn’t lasted long.

And had I gone now to a counselor, it wouldn’t be much different. I could count on that.

I shifted around on Billie Joe’s lap for a moment, trying to get more comfortable. “What time is it?” I croaked.

“Quarter to one.”

“Oh Jesus,” I grumbled. “You and my brother are idiots. Go to bed you losers.”

Both my brother and my husband laughed as I sighed loudly and closed my eyes again and dropped my head back onto Billie Joe’s chest. “Joe, go up to bed and I’ll be up shortly,” Billie Joe murmured.

I shook my head. “No, I can’t walk.”

And it was true. By just sitting I realized I couldn’t feel my legs at all. I had been lying in such a bad position that they had gone from hurting to being completely numb. The first step I took would be my last. “I’ll carry you then.” Billie Joe hesitated and lifted his eyes to meet my brothers. “I’m…getting tired, too.”

My brother nodded slowly. “Yeah. Of course.”

Billie Joe stood up slowly, letting my body slide from his and onto the couch. He turned back around and picked me up, holding me wedding style as he slowly carried me up the stairs and into the room directed by my brother. I bid my brother a sleepy goodnight as Billie Joe carried me into the room and lay me down on the bed. He kissed my forehead softly, his breath warm against my skin and then turned around to speak to my brother one last time before finally shutting the door slightly. He stumbled through the dark over to the bed we would be sleeping on and fell onto it, crawling over to my body.

I felt Billie Joe lift me up once again and place me underneath only a few blankets on the bed, due to the fact that it was warm. He got up one more time and flicked on the switch for the fan, slid off his pants and t-shirt and then slid back into bed with me, curling his body against mine. He sighed softly and pressed his lips softly to my cheek. “I love you,” he murmured.

I smiled to myself, keeping my eyes shut for only a moment longer. I shifted around so that our spooning position was broken and so that I was now facing him. I rubbed my nose affectionately against his own while both of us smiled. “I love you, too,” I murmured back.

We both smiled at each for a moment. I closed my eyes slowly, fully intended to doze off. “You heard us talking.”

I cracked an eye open. “I know.”

“How much?”

I thought for a moment. “I dozed off for about a half hour.”

I could see Billie Joe nod in the darkness. “When?” He asked.

I hesitated. “Right before you told me to go to bed.”

Billie Joe continued to nod his head slowly. “Alright.”

“Why?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just wondering.”

About if you heard him speaking about the fact that you need therapy.

“Why?” I asked softly. “What were you wondering about?”

My husband curled up next to me and took my hand in his own. He moved his head so that we were sharing the same pillow and every time he exhaled I could feel and smell his breath. Billie Joe pulled my hand up to his mouth and closed his eyes slowly, brushing his lips against my knuckles. “Nothing. I was just asking.” He smiled softly. “Don’t have a cow.”

I smiled back at him, though the bitter feeling was spreading through my body once again. I took my hand from his own to move it so that I could wrap my arm easily around his neck and I did so as if I was now clinging to him. It was uncomfortable, but it was warm and I was as close to my husband as I could be, so it was perfect.

+++

The next days in New York City were bittersweet, including the flight home.

Bitter, due to the fact that we were still in the city, and though I adored seeing my brother, the fact that Billie Joe had been speaking to him about me seeing a therapist and just talking to him about me when he had thought I had been asleep had just given me a nauseating feeling.

“I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. Part of me is waiting for her to wake up one morning and tell me that it’s over and she wants a divorce.”

I hadn’t cried in over a week. Since we got back from my brothers to getting home to California, and a tear hadn’t escaped my eyes then. What was now bothering Billie Joe was my lack of words. My lack of anything.

I was trying not to think about what I had done within the past month, but when you’re not thinking about that, what is there to think about? What kind of day it is? That could only go so far.

Mike and Tre had tried to get Billie Joe into the studio at least three or four times a week at first. But they quickly realized that it wasn’t the time after Billie Joe broke down at the studio. Mike had called me and explained everything. Apparently after being there for a minimum of thirty minutes, Billie Joe had set his guitar down and just broke down. Mike and Tre stared at him in confusion at first before they had rushed to help him.

What Mike had basically called me to say was that my emotions were affecting the family in every way. I had made a full grown rock star cry.

I had taken that phone call as a wake up call and changed immediately.

When Billie Joe had gotten home that night, he hadn’t said anything about his break down in the studio. He most likely hadn’t wanted me to know. He had taken a cab home because he was tipsy and upset, and both of those combined was pretty much an accident itself. When he had gotten home that night he hadn’t said much to me, and what he had said was all mumbles that came from only being tipsy. I had made dinner that night, making extra due to the fact that Sydney’s boyfriend had come over for the day.

Billie Joe sighed softly as I brought him into a long embrace. “I think I’m just going to go to bed,” he murmured. “Come with me.”

I smiled lightly into his hair. “I can’t. I’ve got to clean up dinner.”

Billie Joe chuckled. He pressed his mouth against my own, the smell and taste of alcohol flooding my senses. “I’ll help you clean it up tomorrow.” He smiled softly to me as he re-pressed his lips to mine. “I’m tired. I’m tipsy. I’m home early and I want to do nothing else than take a shower and then lay in bed with you and watch TV. I don’t even want sex tonight.”

I slid my hand into his own and swung them back and forth. “I would love that,” I admitted. “Go take a shower and get that nasty bar smell from yourself and then we will.”

Billie Joe sighed again. He pulled me by my hand out of the kitchen but stopped dead in the threshold. I stopped behind him and closed my eyes for a brief moment, silently cursing at him and myself. “Hey dad,” Sydney piped up.

Billie Joe forced a smile. “Hey Sid.” He hesitated and continued to smile. “Chris.”

The young boy sitting next to Sydney grinned. “Hey Mr. Armstrong.”

“Chris’s mom is on her way,” Sydney said before Billie Joe could say anything. “She’s just running late.” Chris nodded.

“That’s fine,” I said, coming out from behind my husband. “Just as long as it’s not too late.”

I pushed Billie Joe towards the stairs and out of their site. “I’m never forgiving you for this,” he mumbled.

I giggled. “Yes you will. Come on, go take a shower.”

“Never. Now I know why we couldn’t just go to bed. You invited Sydney’s boyfriend over.”

I grinned and continued to giggle as I tried to back my husband to the stairs. “I love you,” I cooed.

“Of course you do. Traitor.”

I continued to giggle into my husbands’ ear as I lead him to the stairs. “Come on. Go take a show and I’ll be up as soon as he leaves.”

Billie Joe scowled. “You’re lucky I love you.” He pressed his lips to my own. “Or I would so beat your ass right now.”

I laughed. “I’d like to see you try.”

The older man scowled again. “Tomorrow then.”

I grinned widely and pressed my lips once more against his before he headed up the stairs and I went to go to clean up dinner that night.

Later that night when we had done what Billie Joe had wanted, cuddled in bed and watched the TV, I had decided to ask him about his breakdown at the studio that day. Billie Joe had lifted his head from its position on my chest and stared at me for a few moments. He then pressed his lips softly to my own and smiled. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. It was stupid.”

But it wasn’t fine. My crappy moods had been taking full affect on my family. The next thing I needed was for Sydney to break down in school and then it would be complete, and I would have completely damaged my family. The conversation that my husband had had with my brother had come from the back of my mind to remind me of that Billie Joe had wanted me to take part in.

Therapy.

I had watched my husband sleep for a while that night. He had passed out not long after we had both settled down that night. Probably within the next hour or two. Once I had made sure that my husband was fast asleep, passed out from what alcohol he did consume I slid out of the bed and room.

I stepped down the stairs slowly and made my way into the kitchen to grab the phone that sat in the charger on the counter. With slight hesitation I picked it up and looked down at it, my eyes drifting to the clock on the stove.

1:43

After another long moment of hesitation I turned the phone on and dialed the familiar phone number, then pressed the phone to my ear. There was a sound of static and then a click to signal that someone had picked up the phone. “Hello?”

I grinned to myself as I perched myself on the stool at the island. “My god you don’t know how much I’ve missed hearing your voice.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Time to tell you how much I’ve missed you.”

Travis chuckled.