‹ Prequel: Family Reunion
Sequel: Communion

Union

The Romance Patch

"Fuck does life ever get easier?" Billie Joe said to his wife as he hopped out of bed with a hangover.

"Not when you're a parent," Adrienne laughed.

"I better go talk to Jakob," Billie said as he began searching through his walk-in closet for a pair of clean pants.

"Yeah, you should...or I can too," Adrienne suggested.

Billie threw on a black pair of dress pants and a belt and came back out into the bedroom from the closet. "Could you?" he said with relief.

"Yeah..." Adrienne answered.

"Fuck...that'd be great babe. Thank you so much..." Billie said and he sat back down on the bed. Just then he flicked on the television set and was blown away by what he was watching.

***

"Oh no..." Tre whispered.

"Oh my god...everyone's going too see that," Rose said with distress.

The woman behind the counter at Starbuck's stared up at the screen and saw what was catching the couples eye.

"Shit...oh crap. Look there's a shot of us snorting..." Tre said as he felt his heart sink.

"Oh my god..."

It was on the local news, and the television was on mute, but had Close Captioning. It read, 'The drummer, Tre Cool for the ever popular multi-platinum selling group Green Day was seen at a local club last night with his wife of two years Rose. The two were spotted snorting what speculators believe to be either Cocaine or Methamphetamine, also known as 'Speed'. The drummer and his wife were also accompanied by lead singer of Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong and his wife Adrienne. However, Armstrong, nor his wife, were seen doing the drug. But as the man who caught this footage shares, "they were all obviously intoxicated". And seen here is some footage of Mr. Cool buying the drugs earlier that evening, then returning to a secluded, 'celebrity only' back room, where Armstrong and both the musicians wives were partying.'

"Fuck...who filmed this?" Tre said.

"I don't know...Frank...you bought the drugs?" Rose asked, feeling very shocked by it.

"Well...ahh...yeah, I did."

"You gave me drugs?" she said, and was starting to sound very upset.

"You asked for them!" Tre said defensively.

"Frank! Look at me! I'm shaking like a fucking Epileptic!" Rose shouted. "Fuck...forget the drinks...I have to go," Rose said to the woman at the counter and started walking out.

"Fuck!" Tre shouted suddenly and started to follow his wife outside. "Rose, I didn't mean to harm you! I was just really drunk, and I made a bad choice," Tre said.

Rose turned around as she neared their car. "Frank...I just. Oh my God, I can't believe you of all people would do something like this! And to me! Like I know you like to drink a lot...but Speed Frank?!"

"Rose...Rose! Stop yelling...okay? Just stop yelling at me for two seconds!" Tre retorted.

"Fine! What do you want to say?"

"Look, I love you a..."

"Save it! Give me an explanation besides, 'I love you'."

"Rose, I'm really sorry. Like I said, I was very very drunk," Tre said at the same time they both got in the car to discuss it.

"Okay...I'll admit we were both really drunk. But Jesus Frank, you could have killed me, or worse, you could have killed yourself," Rose said as she broke into tears.

"Rose, I know...I know. I'm so sorry. Killing me wouldn't have been worse though," he said as he lifted his hand to her cheek and wiped her tears away.

Rose started shaking her head from side to side slowly, "I'm quitting drinking Frank. We can't do this anymore...we just can't," she said as more tears came down her face. "This is going to destroy our marriage."

"Rose, that's really hasty. We just had one bad night..." Tre said.

"No Frank! I'm quitting and if you give a fuck about me, you will too!" Rose exclaimed and she looked down with a swift jerk of her head.

"I do give a fuck about you! And if that's what it takes, then fuck it! I'll quit too!" Tre yelled as he looked away from her and started up the car. He was feeling slightly mad and he burned rubber pulling out of the parking lot.

"Thank you..." Rose said as she calmed down.

"Yeah well...whatever..." Tre said as he looked at the road feeling cross.

***

"Oh my God, look Adrienne..." Billie Joe said. He had spotted the same thing on his own television set at home. Drunken footage of himself, and also footage of one of his best friends giving drugs to his cousin.

"Oh my, that's last night?" Adrienne asked.

"Yes," Billie answered.

"Look, they were doing it right beside us! Fuck, I never even noticed," Adrienne said. "God, we look terrible."

***

"Billie's going to find out about this," Tre pointed out.

"I know, everyone's going to find out," Rose said sheepishly.

"He's going to kick my ass," Tre said, just dreading the thought.

Rose just shook her head and said no more.

About a half hour later the couple arrived back home to their haven. Rose took off somewhere in the house and Tre collapsed down on the couch in the living room. "Fuck," he sighed.

Just then, when all was quiet downstairs the telephone began to ring. Tre looked up from the couch towards the phone and was scared to think it was Billie trying to call him.

After only two rings it stopped and that lead Tre to believe that Rose had picked it up somewhere else in the house. Tre slowly picked up the phone to see if he could hear anything.

"Hello?" Rose answered.

"Hey, Rose?"

"Oh...umm, hi Billie."

"Is Tre around?" he asked.

The young eastern woman could tell by the tone in her cousin's voice that he wanted to near snap. But obviously he was holding it in until he talked to a certain drummer. "Umm no...he went out..." Rose lied.

"Oh, where did he go?" Billie Joe questioned.

"Uhh, I'm not sure," Rose lied again.

"Oh...hmm okay," Billie said, he could tell she was obviously lying. "Well, did you have fun last night?"

"Yeah, I did. One of the best birthdays I've ever had actually."

"Oh, that's good. Did Tre have a good time too?" Billie asked. He was obviously trying to get at the point without getting at it.

"I think so..." Rose answered.

"Oh...well that's good. Maybe I'll stop by later, I haven't given you your birthday present yet."

"Ahh, yeah sure. That sounds cool," Rose said nervously.

"Good. That's really good..." Billie said in a low voice. He was purposely trying to sound threatening, but Rose knew it wasn't intended to be against her.

"Yeah."

"Okay, well I'll see you later then. Bye," Billie said and hung up.

"Fuck..." Tre whispered into the phone quietly.

"Frank?" Rose said. Right then she heard the phone click again. She sighed, she could tell her husband had been listening into the whole conversation.

She went back downstairs, kicking her bare feet over the cream-coloured carpets she heard the sound of drums coming from her husband's basement studio downstairs. Following the sound down one more floor in the massive house, she found herself standing in front of a drum set, where sat her husband with his back turned to her.

"Frank!" she shouted over his very loud drumming. He stopped playing politely. "Can we talk, honey?" his young wife begged.

"Sure..." he said as he placed his drumsticks down on top of his snare. "What do you want to say?"

"I just...I realize you were drunk last night. And you probably weren't aware of what you were doing. But, I just really wanted to thank you for agreeing to quit drinking," Rose said with a small smile.

"So...you're not mad at me?" Tre asked, a subtle hint of relief showing in his emotions not to mention an enormous sigh.

"No...I'm not," Rose said as she came around the other side of the drum set and sat on her husband's lap. "I can't be mad at you...I love you way too much," she sighed as she leant forward and kissed him on the lips.

As their lips parted Tre looked her in the eyes. "I love you too. And I'm really sorry I let that happen," he said as he held her against him. "You're still shaking..."

"I know," she replied.

"Rose look...I was going to give you your birthday present last night...but we didn't make it home..."

"That's okay," she said with a smile on her face.

"Come here," Tre said as he stood the both of them up off of his drumming stool and took her by the hand, leading her out of the small studio.

"Where are we going?" Rose asked.

"You'll see..." he smiled.

He lead her out into their four-car garage. "What's out here?" Rose inquired.

"I just hid it out here," Tre said as he reached into a work table drawer, set underneath a wall of tools. He pulled out the gift secretly and slowly began to hand it to her. "Here, happy birthday."

"Hmm...what's this..." she gasped suddenly. "It's a honeymoon package to Germany!" Rose shouted.

"Yeah, I thought we could redo our honeymoon, seeing as how it kind of turned into a mess last time. And I want to show you Frankfurt, where I was born," Tre smiled.

"Oh my God! This is fucking wonderful!" Rose said ecstatically.

"So you like it?" Tre asked, even though he could already tell she did.

"I love it! Oh my God..." she said. "You put so much thought into this."

"Yeah I did. I want you to know that I care about you more than anything in the entire world," Tre said.

"Oh my God...you're the best fucking husband ever. I love you!"

"I love you too Rose..." Tre smiled and the two shared a kiss that was passionate to the point of belonging in a romance novel.

Just then the doorbell went off upstairs, cutting the romantic canticle off unfairly.

"Oh, I wonder who that is?" Rose muttered as she looked her husband in the eyes sorrily.

"God, let me guess."