Union

Early that evening, a nerve-racked Mike Dirnt, appeared on Rose's doorstep, once again. Billie Joe answered the door, while Rose hung her head low in the living room with her daughter.

Both returning to the living room, Rose glanced up at Mike, as he returned the glance with a discomforted expression. "Hey Rose," Mike said in a quiet tone.

"Hi..."

"So hurry up man, show me the pictures," Billie Joe said, not taking any notice to Mike's or Rose's strange behavior.

"Yeah okay," Mike said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, and running through its menu to find his picture file. "There..."

"Nice...nice..." Billie Joe said, looking at them through the tiny screen on Mike's cell phone. "We'll have to get them made bigger, but good Dirnt," Billie Joe smiled. "You want to see the pictures Rose?"

"No...I'm okay," Rose said, shaking her head.

"Why? What's wrong?" Billie Joe asked.

"Nothing, I just think it would upset me. I have so much anger towards her," Rose answered, moved her daughter up over her lap, and sighed.

"Okay," Billie Joe said. "So, do you want to get Michelle a babysitter so we can go out and do something?"

"I don't know if I can. I mean, I have to feed her and stuff. I can't really be away from her for that long," Rose said, trying desperately to excuse herself from going.

"Three hours Rose. That's it. We'll go out, have a few drinks and you can come back," Billie Joe said, and turned to Mike. Mike appeared to be in a daze, he would shuffle his feet, then look a Rose again. Shuffle his feet, then look at Rose again. "Man? Are you okay?"

"Huh? Wha...what?" Mike said, snapping out of his daze temporarily.

"Nothing.... Let's just go somewhere," Billie Joe directed.

Rose stood up from the couch, once realizing there was no way she was going to escape it. "Who do I call for a babysitter?" Rose asked.

"I have someone that you can call," Mike spoke up finally, with an escaped smile on his face.

***

Mike choose to go to a strip club that night for his 37th Birthday. For some apparent reason, April wasn't there, and Mike wasn't saying why either. Adrienne, Billie, Rose and Mike all enjoyed themselves some drinks.

Adrienne wasn't allowing Billie Joe to get drunk drunk. She gave him a four drinks rule, which wouldn't even get him half buzzed. He had no problem complying though. He knew if he didn't it would only lose him a week's worth of sex with his wife.

"She's hot!" Rose shouted over the loud music, as she looked on at a female stripper who was performing a pole dance.

"Fuck yeah!" Billie Joe shouted, only to be silenced by Adrienne walloping him one in the stomach with her purse. "Ouch! You're hotter!"

"I better be!" Adrienne shouted with a smile on her face.

"Whoo!" Mike shouted as the stripper jumped off the stage and onto their table top.

Rose half-drunkenly said to the stripper, "Give 'im a lap dance! Iz his Birfday!"

The stripper complied with Rose's request, and was on the rock star bassist faster than you could shake a stick. Mike looked pleased, yet the whole time the stripper was on him, he couldn't help but look at Rose.

"Yah! Look at Mike, he loves that ass!" Billie Joe shouted loudly.

Mike turned beet red. He enjoyed the stripper's ass wavering in his face. Yet he also enjoyed imagining it was Rose's ass in the stripper's place.

***

When a sober Billie Joe delivered a drunk Rose home that night, everyone packed inside the Cool's residence. Mike was just as drunk and flopped out on the living room couch.

Billie Joe carried Rose upstairs and put her in bed. Adrienne paid the babysitter, took Michelle in her arms and went to heat some warm milk supplement; seeing as how mom was too out of it to be able to feed her. And neither should she have, with so much alcohol in her system.

Once everything was settled, and Michelle was fed with a bottle, Adrienne decided that Billie and her best take Michelle home with them.

"Come on man, let's go," Billie Joe said, as he tried to pick a drunken Mike up off the living room couch.

"Just leave him," Adrienne whispered. "He'll wake up tomorrow morning and go home himself."

"I guess. His car is still at the bar though," Billie Joe remarked as he let his friend fall back down on the couch. "Aw, look at the little tike, he's so wasted," Billie joked. "Happy birthday man..."

"Hmm..." Mike breathed out drunkenly.

Billie Joe and Adrienne looked at each other and smiled. "Let's leave a note, about Michelle," Adrienne said, with a very awake baby in her arms.

"'kay," Billie Joe grinned as he jotted down a note, and quickly ran it upstairs to place on his cousin's night table. After that, Billie and Adrienne made for the front door; shutting off all the lights as they went.

With that, the house went as silent as the late night.

***

Mike tossed and turned on the couch for several hours, before finally falling off hard onto the French rug below. "Oww..." he sighed as he reopened his tired drunken eyes. "Fuck..."

Mike couldn't remember where he was, all he could remember was a dream he was having about his best friend's wife.... And I don't mean Adrienne.

Getting up off the floor, Mike began stumbling around in the dark, in search of a lightswitch. He found one some odd twenty minutes later, when he had drunkenly wandered upstairs.

Rose had passed out in her king sized bed, about three hours prior to waking up to a light pouring into the master bedroom from the upstairs hall. Opening her drowsy drunken eyes, she saw a silhouette appear in the doorway.

To her tainted eyes, this silhouette reminded Rose of that frightening night Frank had come home drunk and drugged up on speed. She gasped slightly, but lay idle as this figure came over to her bed and lay down.

"Hey..." a familiar voice said without any signs of aggression.

She became comfortable suddenly, as she realized the figure was not going to harm her. "Hi..." Rose said with a lazy drunken slurr.

Without another word spoken, Mike's hungry lips began to close in over hers. "Mmm..." he moaned, as he rolled himself on top of her, and proceeded to take off the black dress she had worn clubbing that night.

"Mmm..." Rose moaned in return, as she began to pull at his shirt hungrily. "I love you Frank..."

Mike was too drunk to take notice of the fact that Rose had called him Frank. He continued to undress her, and help her undress himself. In each other's arms, the two began to roll amongst the dark sheets, about each other like ravenous wolves.

***

The next morning, Billie Joe returned to his cousin's house with Michelle. Michelle was out cold, after an all night tangent of crying, which kept the green eyed singer and his wife wide awake.

Letting himself inside the house, at near 8PM in the morning; Billie gracefully carried his tiny second-cousin up the stairs, towards Rose's bedroom. He slowed as he made his way down the hall, to see the master bedroom door wide open.

He then stopped completely, when the site of Mike sitting on the edge of Rose's bed, looking down at the floor caught his eye.

Mike looked up, and over at Billie Joe, who was still standing out in the hall with Michelle. He became pale, and coward himself with shame, as he looked away from Billie once again, to stare at his feet.

Slowly with shock, stepping into the bedroom with Michelle, Billie Joe placed the baby girl down in her crib. As he came into the bedroom, he saw on the opposite side, from Mike, Rose sitting, looking down at her feet with tears in her eyes.

"What...what?" Billie Joe managed to squeak out.

"Oh my God," Rose said, clenching her teeth and pulling at her raven-like hair.

"Fuck..." Mike said under his breath. He brought his head up, and tilted it back to look up at the ceiling; avoiding all eye contact with Rose or his best friend.

"This is fucked up," Billie Joe said, before turning out of the bedroom and escaping back down the hall.

In a night slip Rose had already put on, she made chase after her cousin. "Billie! Billie!" she shouted, as she came close to the top of the stairs, and finally got him to stop.

"What?!" Billie Joe retorted, as he snapped his body around quickly to look at her.

"Billie...Billie please don't tell Frank!" Rose begged as she came down the stairs to where her cousin was standing with a cross look on his face. Rose placed her arms around her cousin, desperate for him to tell her he would keep it a secret.

Mike remained quietly sat down on the edge of the bed upstairs, and placed both his hands up atop of his head. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to recall what exactly had happened to lead up to this awkward early morning accurance.

He could half hear Billie and Rose fighting downstairs. Yet he couldn't tell what exactly was upsetting Billie Joe the most about finding his best friend, sleeping with his cousin, who just happened to be his other best friend's wife.

Mike decided he should face the music, and not just leave it all to be put on Rose. So bravely he got up, redressed himself in the clothes he had worn the night before, and made for the downstairs.

"What the fuck?! I know you guys were drunk...but still!"

"Billie! I don't know how this happened! I have no memory..." Rose cried hysterically.

Mike silently came down the stairs, and stopped on the bottom step as he continued to listen to the conversation Rose and her cousin were having out in the living room.

"Mike was over at your house a couple of mornings ago, wasn't he?" Billie Joe asked, almost as though he knew with certainty.

"Yes..." Rose answered truthfully, as she slinked her head down low.

"God damn it," Billie Joe sighed.

Just then, an equally upset looking Mike appeared in the living room doorway. He sauntered over to the couch to take a seat, in what he felt to be the most awkward moment of his entire life.

Billie sighed as he went over to the living room's fireplace and placed his forehead down on the mantel in a dramatic type manner. There was a great silence in the room. In fact the only sound to be heard, came from Rose crying her eyes out beside Mike on the living room couch.

"Okay..." Billie Joe said suddenly, as he raised his head after about a minute of muteness. "Mike, do you care to explain what the hell is going on?"

Mike looked shifty, as he swallowed back a lump in his throat and figgeted his fingers. By how truthful the next words to come out of his mouth were, you'd swear he was still drunk.

He turned to look at Rose and he sighed, "I'm in love with you."