Chapter 12

Heading out to Red Bank a few days later, Brianna ran through the list of items she needed to go over with Jon and hoped she didn’t forget anything.  The album was due to be released in a few days and his calendar was filling up fast with promotional interviews and events. Add to that the finalizing of players contracts for the Soul and it made for a very busy boss.

When she parked and climbed out of the car she looked around, surprised that Copper wasn’t there to greet her as usual. Her knocked was answered by Jake.

“Bianna!” He wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her tight.

“Hi buddy!” She hugged him back. “What have you been up to?”

Before he could answer, they heard a cry, followed by Dorothea’s voice. “Copper! If you don’t stop knocking him over I’m going to put you outside!”

It was a sad looking Romeo that gazed at Brianna from his mother’s arms a minute later.

“Hi Dorothea. Hey little man. You okay? Did mean old Copper knock you down?”

Romeo sniffed, but managed a small smile.

“Yeah. For about the fourth time today.” Dorothea sniffed and grimaced. “Somebody needs a diaper change. Whew! Definitely a Bongiovi.” She started for the stairs, but threw a last comment over her shoulder. “Jon’s in the office.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

As she headed down the hallway towards the office, Jake fell into step beside her.

“We seed a mooie yeterday.”

“Yeah? Which one?”

“Magagassacar.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah. Der was aw dees anmals in de zoo....”

Sitting behind his desk, Jon could hear his son giving Brianna the play by play of the movie. He grinned.

“An den the pengins knocked dem out and dey ‘scaped. An dey went to dis jungle and der was furry anmals,” he frowned, trying to think of what they were called. “Dey wook wike waccoons, but not.”

Brianna had to search her memory for the trailers of Madagascar she’d seen on TV recently. “Lemurs?”

The small brow cleared and he nodded vigorously as they reached the office doorway . “Yeah! An de wemurs payed moosic and sang and danced. I wike to moo it, moo it.”

Brianna fought not to laugh out loud as he shook his little hips and danced across the room. “I see you got your Dad’s dance moves.”

“Hey!” Jon frowned. “Are you saying I’m a bad dancer?”

“Let’s just say you’re no Fred Astaire....or Joey Fatone.” Her brows rose at his mutinous expression. “Are you denying it? I’ve seen you dance remember.”

His lips twitched, but he still mumbled defiantly. “I’m not that bad.”

“Dey pay Daddy to shake hims ass. Wike dis!” Jake wiggled his butt so hard he almost fell over. “Wight Daddy?”

Jon glanced at Brianna to see her hand covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, golden eyes sparkling. He wasn’t doing much better. His jaw hurt from clenching it to keep from laughing out loud and both of them had tears streaming down their faces. It took him a several moments before he could speak. “That’s right buddy. But we don’t use bad words like that remember?”

“But dat’s what you said.”

“I know, but I’m a grown up. When you’re a grown up you can say bad words too.”

Jake gave a long suffering sigh. “Okay.”

Brianna wiped her face. “Ah Jakey...you’re a trip.”

“Where I going?” Jake frowned in confusion.

“Nowhere.” She hugged him. “That just means that you’re fun.”

“Oh. Okay. I wike fun.”

“Daddy and Bri need to work now buddy. Maybe you should go see if Copper knocked down your blocks again.” Jon smiled fondly at his son.

“Okay!”

They watched him run out of the room before getting down to business. They’d just finished going over the band related items when Dorothea came in, sat in the chair beside Brianna and handed over a piece of paper.

“I got the calendar from Steph and Jesse’s school.” She caught Jon’s expression. “Don’t look at me like that. Brianna asked me for it.”

He turned the steely look on Brianna who just raised her brows. “I’m not promising anything, I just thought you’d like to have the full, complete picture of all your options when you’re deciding on your schedule.”

Jon just grunted and looked down at the papers on his desk. “Where are we at with signing that kicker and the backup quarterback?”

“The final meeting – and hopefully signing – is set for the fifteenth, so I....”

“WHAT?! Fuck! I told them I was unavailable that week because of the release of the album! Where am I that day?”

“Boston, so I...”

“God dammit!  They knew I wanted to participate in that meeting! How the fuck can I do that when I’m in Boston?” He stood and started to pace his face turning red.

If he had been a cartoon, steam would have been coming out of his ears. Brianna glanced at Dorothea, who rolled her eyes, and sat back to wait for him to get it out of his system and let her get a word in.

“Doesn’t anyone ever fucking listen to me? Who’s the fucking boss here anyway? How the fuck can I be in two places at once? Is it really that difficult a concept to grasp? It’s not fucking rocket science! Am I surrounded by incompetence?”

Dropping his head back onto his shoulders, he spoke to the ceiling. “Can I not find one person who can do the job I ask them to?”  He swung around to glare at Brianna. “We talked about this! This is your responsibility! How the fuck could you let this happen?”

Dorothea sat forward preparing to respond to her husband’s uncalled for rudeness, but Brianna caught her eye and shook her head. After a moments internal debate, Dorothea sat back, curious to see how her new friend would handle her temperamental husband.

When he didn’t get an immediate answer Jon grit his teeth and growled at his assistant. “Well? Are you going to say anything?”

“So...” Brianna ignored the rant and continued her explanation of the schedule as if he’d never interrupted. “...I pushed the meeting back an hour and booked one of the meeting rooms in the hotel that has video conferencing capabilities. I know you get a lot of information from the ‘vibe’ in the room, and that you like to see the people you’re talking to in these situations. You’ll be able to do that this way. The contracts and notes from the other board members will be couriered to me before we leave for Boston. I know it’s not perfect, but apparently there’s a firm deadline with these players. If you want them, the fifteenth is the only day available, and this was the best way I could find to meet both commitments.” Sitting back, she calmly waited for his reaction and decision.

“Well?” Dorothea couldn’t resist.

Jon just grunted. He wasn’t about to admit to the guilt that was nibbling at his conscience.

“Why didn’t you say that sooner?” Dorothea had to ask.

Brianna shrugged. “I was waiting for him to finish venting. I figured he needed to get it out of his system.”

Dorothea choked on her laughter, reached out and squeezed Brianna’s arm. “Nicely done!”

Another disgusted grunt – along with some mumbling about women and being outnumbered - came from across the desk. “Jakey! Come help me!  Mommy and Bri are ganging up on me!”

The blonde toddler came running in, sliding to a stop next to Brianna’s chair, small fists lifting into a boxer’s stance. “I hep you Daddy!”

“I don’t know,” Brianna was skeptical. “Are you tough enough to take on the monster?”

Blue eyes rounded and looked huge in his small face. “Monster? What monster?”

“The...tickle monster!”

Before he could blink, Jake found himself pulled into Brianna’s lap, surprisingly strong fingers finding all his sensitive spots. Shrieks of laughter echoed around the room. Even Jon couldn’t hold on to his anger in the face of his son’s happiness.

It seemed that he’d brought yet another woman into his life that knew how to manipulate his emotions. Where did these masochistic tendencies come from?