A Ballad For Beulah

August had rolled in with a horrible heat wave, making everyone with air conditioning oh so happy. Or, grateful that, as Californians, they had an ocean to their left.

Dressed in a stretchy pink, maternity tank top that only came to above her belly button, as well as a black sarong with a Hawaiian design around her waist, Beulah's come hither expression when Mike eyed her in the kitchen was the only thing he saw her wearing.

They stepped around the island, on opposite sides, with their hands carelessly trailing along the smooth surface. Unspoken words traveled in the air between them that caused each other to grin impishly.

And for those of you just tuning in to the metaphorical program, Mike and Beulah had spent the entire night before, into the early morning, having the best sex in quite a few months.

Mike began to blush slightly as Beulah stopped moving and he made his way around to her. Slowly he brought one arm up and wrapped it around her back, pulling her side against his chest as he leaned his head down to nuzzle her neck with the tip of his nose. She was wearing the newest bottle of Jennifer Lopez's Live, since her other bottle had run out, and it made him more attracted to her.

Not that he wasn't already head over heels in love with her before.

The mix of her scent, her smile, the way she lit up a room when she entered it...to Mike, she was incandescent.

As he whispered little things in her ears, which caused her to jerk away slightly with a fit of giggles, the phone rang.

It illicited a groan from Mike as he turned his head in the direction of the wall-mounted, cordless phone. Sighing, he begrudgingly parted away from Beulah and stalked over to the phone.

"You could've let the machine get it," Beulah faux pouted.

Mike threw her a smirk as he picked the phone up. "It's your dime," he spoke into the receiver.

"Hey, Mike. It's Adie."

"Oh, hey. What's up?"

"Well, uh, two things, actually," she replied.

"Sure. Shoot."

"Well, Jakob's been bugging me all morning to ask if Bailey could come over today and then sleepover tonight. Apparently when Billie brought Jake to your house a couple days ago he had a great time with Bailey and it's all he's been asking to do again. So, I was wondering if it'd be alright for Bailey to stay over?"

Mike looked at Beulah, who looked questioningly to him. "Let me run it by Beulah, although I don't see a problem with it." Covering the receiver with his hand he gave a nod of his head. "Adie says Jakob wants Bailey to sleep over along with spend the day." He raised his eyebrows. "Think the wheels are in motion, babe?"

Beulah grimaced. "Please don't mention the wheels," she begged. "And, yeah. I guess there ain't a problem with the sleepover." Then, with a slightly pained look, she added, "It'll be his first one."

Mike smiled sympathetically. "He's only five. It's too soon for you to start feeling empty nest syndrome." Turning back to the phone, he answered Adrienne. "Yeah, the sleepover's fine. What time would you want us to bring him by?"

"Anytime, really. I'll be home all day."

"Alright. Cool," Mike commented. "So...what was this second thing you wanted to talk about?"

"Uh..." she trailed. "Well, um, last month I found some sleeping pills in Billie's suite in Vegas and it kinda worried me a little, and I finally asked him about it last week and he just said it was nothing. And, well, he's been saying that about a lot of things lately and I was just wondering if you had any information that might shed some light on my inquiry."

Pausing, the five foot eleven bassist licked his lips and took in an inaudible breath. "I didn't know of any sleeping pills, Adi. Billie and I haven't exactly been as open with each other in regard to our personal lives lately."

"Yeah, and why is that?"

There was a demanding tone in Adrienne's voice that sent a shiver up Mike's spine. "It's not my place to say." There was a silence on the other end of the line that made Mike wonder if Adrienne was still there or if she'd quietly hung the phone up. "Adrienne?"

"I'm still here," She replied dully. And...almost sadly. "Well, I guess I'll see you later, okay?"

Mike nodded a nod she couldn't see but she could picture as he answered with, "Okay. See you later."

Hanging up the phone, Mike glanced over to Beulah and thanked his lucky stars that there were no secrets between the two of them.

* * *

As Bailey scampered somewhere toward the back of his father's house with his 'secret' half brother, Jakob, Mike stood in the kitchen with Adrienne with one hand in his pocket and the other jingling his car keys up and down.

"Your forehead's all sweaty," Adrienne commented.

"Have you been outside? In the time it took to walk from my air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned house, I was sweating bags," Mike replied as he unpocketed his hand and wipe his hairline free of his perspiration.

"Yeah, I've kinda kept myself holed up so far today. I might go for a swim later. Take the boys in with me," said the dreadlocked wife of Green Day's frontman. "Did Bailey bring his swim trunks?"

"Yeap," Mike nodded. "And, actually...I think Beulah packed him with two in case...I dunno. Some sort of motherly worrying thing." He laughed and then shrugged. "This is his first sleepover and she's at home, reeling with what ifs."

"It happens to every mother," Adrienne smirked. "The first of everything your child does makes us nervous."

Simply smiling and nodding, Mike looked toward the ceiling and gestured to it with his keys.

"Billie upstairs?"

"Yeah. Getting dressed. He's going to a meeting at Adeline about some band we're thinking of signing."

Mike nodded. "Ah." Then, "Well, I guess I'll be heading out now. I'll, um, swing by this time tomorrow to pick Bailey up, okay?"

Adrienne nodded this time. "Sure."

While Adrienne was walking Mike out, Billie Joe was upstairs in his bedroom, staring out the window at Jakob and Bailey darting out the back door, into the yard, kicking around a soccer ball together.

His face was somewhat sullen, but it didn't diminish how elated he felt to see his sons, illegitimate or not, playing happily together like friends.

Running a hand along his mouth, he turned away from the window and moved over to his dresser drawer, pulling the middle most one open and rifling through some clothes until he hit something in the back.

Pulling the object out, Billie Joe was staring down at the a Polaroid picture. But not any Polaroid picture.

The Polaroid picture of him asleep on Beulah's old couch, with a one year old Bailey asleep on his chest.

The same Polaroid he'd sort of forgotten to return to Beulah.

He just studied it for a few moments; thinking back to that night and how he spent it playing with his youngest son. He even remember laying his boy on his chest, and how he fell asleep. But he didn't remember falling asleep, himself.

Smiling at the memory nonetheless, Billie Joe gently shoved the Polaroid into his back pocket; careful not to crunch it.

He gave himself a once over in Adrienne's full-length mirror before heading out of the bedroom and heading downstairs into the kitchen for a bottle of water to take with him for the meeting. He passed Adrienne in the hall as he did so, and smiled at her.

Once he found a water bottle, he uncapped it to take his first swig, but the movement was too fast and he ended up dribbling way too much water down his chin and splattering his pants.

"Fuck," he muttered.

He had no time to wait for his pants to dry and, frankly, he wasn't happy on his choice of choosing the pair in question. So, he made the decision then and there to go back upstairs and change real quick.

Passing Adrienne once again, he heard her mutter something about him running late, but he just nodded and replied a quick, "Yeah, yeah. I know."

Like a madman, he dug through his closet and grimaced at the selection, throwing random pants to the ground like a fickle fashion diva until he settled on a simple pair of denim jeans.

Unbuttoning the wet ones he had on, he shimmied his hips a little to let them drop to the ground and then stepped into the new pair.

Zipping them up in a flash, he grabbed up his bottle of water and darted out of the bedroom, his mind completely forgetting about the picture in the pocket of his discarded pants.

Kissing his wife goodbye, he jogged out to his car and drove off toward his destination, leaving Adrienne to wonder if the blur that went by her was her husband or not.

Shaking her head, she went to the back door and told the boys to come inside for a bit while she went upstairs to straighten up a little, because she knew Billie Joe left a mess in his wake.

And sure enough, she was right.

There were clothes everywhere.

Bending at the knees, the very nine-month pregnant Adrienne, who was due to pop any day, did her best at picking up after her husband when she picked up the pants he'd just been wearing.

And then she noticed something had fallen out of a pocket and cascaded to the floor like a leaf.

Tilting her head, she found herself staring down at the backside of a Polaroid picture.

Grabbing the edge of her bed, Adrienne leaned down as far as she could go, fishing her hand out until she reached the picture and brought it closer to her face.

The back said: April 2002.

"Hmm," she muttered under her breath.

And then, slowly, she turned the picture around...

She stared blankly at it for what seemed like forever, but it was only a few seconds. And she was sure her heart skipped a beat as she swallowed back a lump in her throat.

"Oh, Billie..." she whispered with a shake of her head.