Worry Rock

Billie Joe sighed softly against my lips. “You smell, you taste so good.”

I buried my face into my husband’s chest as we both fell against the soft sheets on the bed, our bodies a sweaty, tangled mess. It took me a moment for my eyes to focus on Billie Joe’s multicolored chest that I had missed waking up to every morning. There was absolutely nothing like waking up to the bright ink tattooed into his chest and arms every morning.

I didn’t know what to do, to be perfectly honest. I had no idea what to say to Billie Joe anymore. I was scared to say something wrong and completely destroy everything I had just gotten back.

That is, if I had gotten anything back at all.

For all I knew, Billie Joe had come home extremely horny and figured since I was there, I could be useful in one way or another. I wouldn’t put it past him. Billie Joe Armstrong, yes, was my husband and yes, though I loved him more than I had ever thought I could love somebody, he was still a man. A man who had the hormones of a teenager and could be the biggest asshole I’d ever met.

That possibility killed me.

When I didn’t respond after a moment, I could feel Billie Joe start to shift uncomfortably around me. “Joe?” He murmured.

It took me a minute to realize he was talking to me. I jumped slightly and then nodded. “Yeah?” I answered.

Upon hearing my voice, his body relaxed against mine and the grip he had around my waist slackened. He seemed to hesitate. “I really want to talk about this now.”



I stepped into the large bedroom slowly, peaking my head around the door to make sure Billie Joe was in there. He was.

Billie Joe sat on the bed, his body hunched over the acoustic guitar that sat on his lap that he strummed softly. I smiled softly and listened to his mumblings. He always did this when he was writing a song. He would always find a quiet spot in the large home [which wasn’t very hard] with his acoustic guitar and notepad and would just sit and sing to himself while writing. Sydney and I both knew not to bother him while he was doing so, because the very few times he did respond, he would snap at us because we ruined his focus.

I watched Billie Joe for a few moments and then decided not to bother him. I turned to leave the bedroom and while gently closing the door behind me, catching his attention. “Joe?” He called out.

I hesitated and then turned back around. I pushed open the bedroom door again and poked my head inside. “Yeah, hi,” I murmured. “I’m sorry, I’ll leave—I didn’t realize you were writing.”

Billie Joe grinned and placed his guitar next to him. “It’s alright. Did you need something?”

I knew he must have written something that he was awfully proud of for him to be interrupted and in such a good mood. Hell, for him to be in a good mood period he must have written something that he was awfully proud of. I hesitated. “I just—I just wanted to, y’know, talk to you.”

The forty-six year old looked at me as if I was crazy. “Talk to me?” he repeated.

’Yes,’ I thought to myself, ’talk to you. You know that thing we used to do before I fucked up and you hated me for it? Yeah, that thing.’

“Yeah,” I confirmed, “I wanted to talk to you about what happened,” I took a deep breath, “you know, the whole birth control thing. I think we need to talk.”

Billie Joe flinched. “Oh,” he mumbled. “Oh, right.” He stood up and grabbed his notebook and cell phone. “Listen, I’ve just written a few new things and I’ve actually got to head down to the studio to show them to Mike and Tre, But, I agree, we do need to talk about. Now, just, now isn’t the time, okay?”

If I looked even half as defeated as I felt I knew I must have been a pretty sad sight to see. Instead of verbally replying to Billie Joe, I just nodded. I could almost physically feel my heart drop to the bottom of my stomach that seemed to escape my body at that moment. Billie Joe looked at me for a moment, waiting to see if I was going to break as I had done before. Once he was sure I wasn’t, he kissed my cheek, and was out the bedroom door.

I felt so stupid.

I pulled myself over to the king-sized bed and more or less collapsed onto it, tears threatening my eyes. I felt so stupid. I hated myself for even trying. Within a matter of minutes, the tears were sliding down my cheeks and dripping off my chin.

The bedroom door was pushed open and out of surprise I jumped to a standing position and immediately wiped the tears from my face. I knew it didn’t matter though considering my eyes were bloodshot from them anyway. Billie Joe appeared back in the bedroom and seemed to freeze at the sight of me. “I—um, I forgot my jacket,” he stuttered.

I nodded. “Of course,” I croaked while not being able to think of what else to say.

Billie Joe smiled meekly at me. He grabbed his leather jacket from its position on the arm of a chair in there despite all the times I had told him to put it away and turned out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

With every single step he took his heart seemed to fall more. She was crying, she was crying, she was crying.

Because of him.

As the front man piled into the driver’s seat of his Mercedes, he couldn’t keep his eyes from the bedroom window. For the first time, as he turned the ignition to start the sleek car, he noticed that he was shaking. It wasn’t until then that he realized how much seeing his wife cry because he had pretty much made up an excuse to leave had bothered him. True, he wasgoing to the studio, but it wasn’t to show Mike and Tre a new song. It was simply an escape from the subject that was about to be brought up.

“Fuck,” he hissed to himself.

And as he slammed his fist against the steering wheel, he promised himself that he would correct everything as soon as he got home.

I lifted my head once again and cracked open an eye. “Billie, it’s like three in the morning. I was half-asleep until you got home an hour or so ago and we’ve done nothing but have sex; I can barely think right now.”

He stayed silent for a moment and I began to wonder if my answer had pissed him off or if he had fallen asleep. “Tomorrow then,” he confirmed.

I nodded and turned over so that my back was to him. My head rested on the inside of his arm while he pressed his completely naked body against the back of mine so that we were spooning. Billie Joe pressed his lips to the back of my shoulder and sighed contently into it. I could feel myself start to drift after a while and by now I was welcoming sleep with opened arms. However, it didn’t last long.

Billie Joe shifted behind me uncomfortably. He rubbed my arm gingerly as if trying to warm me up. I chose to ignore it and try to sleep, but Billie Joe ended any hope of that. “Joe,” he whispered.

“Hmm?” I hummed reluctantly.

He was silent for a minute or two as if he was trying to think of what to say. “I—I really want to talk about this.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment; instead I just pulled my husband’s multicolored arms tighter around me and sighed deeply. “Not now, Beej. Please.”

Beej, he thought to himself. I hadn’t called him that in a while now and hearing nicknames as common as that was like a breath of fresh air. A breath of fresh air that was so different from what had surrounded him within the past week or so. “Alright,” he muttered as he pressed his nose into the back of my neck. “Alright, fine. Tomorrow then.”

Billie Joe closed his eyes and placed his nose in my hair. He inhaled deeply, hoping that by having his senses flooded by the scent of his wife that he would be able to fall into an after-sex slumber. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just do that and rid his mind of all the harsh thoughts. Why had all this happened? Why was he now lying in bed next to his naked wife after having sex that, well, as cheesy as it sounded, blew his fucking mind?

It had already been established that he needed his wife. Jesus Christ did he need her. Losing his wife was like--,

“Billie,” I whispered.

Billie Joe’s eyes adverted from the other side of the room that he had been staring at subconsciously to me. He hadn’t noticed that I had turned over to face him, but as soon as he did, he also noticed how cold it was without my body pressed up against his. I pushed myself up with my elbows and leant into him, pressing my lips to his. “I know,” I continued to whisper against his lips while trying to not concentrate on the way his eyes stared into mine as I did so, “that this morning when I asked to talk to you about this that you made an excuse to go to the studio--,”

“I have written a song,” he cut off. To prove it to me, Billie Joe pulled his body from mine and slid his legs off the mattress and onto the floor so that he was sitting up. He went to stand up but before he could I had placed my hand on his smooth shoulder and pulled him back next to me.

“I believe you,” I stated as I pulled his body back against mine. Instinctively, I wrapped the duvet back around his bare body and moved closer. “But I was ready then, Billie. I was ready to spill my heart out and tell you everything that there was to be said.” I paused. “Now, now I’m scared.”

“Scared?” He repeated. “Of what, Joe? Telling me the truth?”

I felt myself recoil as if he had slapped me. “You ran away this morning--,”

“You’ve run away from me plenty of times,” he hissed, “right to Travis.”

An uncomfortable silence spread throughout the room like a wildfire. Billie Joe sighed once again after deciding that that was probably not the thing to have said at a time like this. He wrapped both arms around me and pulled me close against him, his lips finding their way to my forehead where they brushed lightly. “Billie,” I whispered against his bare chest. “Billie Joe, you ran out before I could talk to you this morning.”

“I know,” he agreed, “This isn’t fuckin easy for me either, Joe. You’ve been lying to me. And while doing so, you had me kissing your ass while letting me think it was my fault. Maybe it was my fault, I don’t know. That’s the thing, I don’t fucking know, Joe. I mean, fuck, I’m not even mad anymore. I’m just so goddamn confused. Just let me in, please. We’ve never had a problem with you letting me in before, so why are we now? Is there something else?”

“I can’t talk about this, Billie.”

“Why not?” He asked sharply. “Just do it, Joe. Don’t think about what you’re going to say, don’t sugar coat it for me. If you want to tell me you hate me, that you want a divorce, you hope I get hit by a goddamn train, then goddamnit, do it. It’s better than you not fuckin telling me anything.”

To stop him from continuing with insulting himself and to calm him down, I placed a few kisses along his neck. Eventually he became quiet.

I buried my face as far as it would go into my husband’s multi-colored chest and let out a long breath. Here goes nothing. “I’m pregnant, Billie,” I admitted into his smooth skin, my lips brushing it at every word. “I—we—us; we’re pregnant.”