Chapter 36

They walked back out onto the terrace. Night had fallen and Keira was captivated by the city lights. She walked to the terrace's edge and stood there, silently taking in the view. Jon poured them each a glass of wine, then stood behind her and encircled her waist with his arms. She leaned back against him, resting her head on his left shoulder. Neither of them spoke.

After a few minutes, she felt his lips on her neck, and she closed her eyes and whispered something under her breath.

"What was that?" Jon asked.

She laughed softly. "I said, this is one of those moments in life where I just want everything to freeze, and stay the way it is."

He held her tighter, secretly pleased that she seemed to be opening up to him. "Yeah. That'd be nice."

She lifted her glass of wine and took a sip, then leaned her head against him again. "It's hard to believe I'm here…with you."

"Really? It doesn't surprise me at all. I always had a feeling we'd see each other again."

She closed her eyes. "I never had that feeling. Once you got famous, it was like you were in a completely different world than me."

"Well...for a while, I guess I was. But things have settled down over the past few years."

She took another sip of wine and turned to face him. "So what's it like, Jonny?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her curiously. "What's what like?"

"Going out on stage every night, looking out at the crowd, and knowing that 97% of the women—not to mention plenty of the men--there would leave their jobs and their families--their lives--to be with you?"

Jon picked up his wine glass and took a big sip, stalling for time so he could choose his words carefully. He placed the glass down on one of the tables and crossed his arms again. "Honestly?" he asked, his eyes trained on hers.

"Honestly." She tried to steel herself for what he was about to say.

"At first, it was a high. I felt like I ruled the world. I could point my finger at girls in the crowd and say, 'I want that one, that one, and that one...at the same time'. And it was fun for a while, doing the rock star thing. I saw some pretty fucked up shit during the first few years. There's only so many times that you can watch five girls go down on one another, or girls sticking all kinds of shit inside themselves to try and impress you...and then there are the women who will just throw anything away to spend time with you...husbands, kids. Having that kind of control, especially as a 25 year old kid, is pretty messed up. I hit rock bottom. I started to realize that having that kind of power gave me the potential to ruin a lot of peoples' lives. And then I started craving normalcy and all I wanted was to move back in with my parents and hide out for a year or two. I didn’t trust anybody. I started to wonder if anyone in the entire world was sane."

Keira tried to imagine what it had been like for him, but she couldn't. Could anyone understand, who hadn't lived it? She'd had her share of wild nights--drinking too much; leaving bars with her head out the car window, vomiting; blacking out and waking up wondering what had happened the night before. Still, she knew that even her wildest night couldn't possibly compare to some of the things that Jon had seen and done, and she wasn't sure she could deal with that knowledge.

“Is that why you married Dorothea?” she found herself asking, without planning to.

He hesitated. It was a loaded question, and he wanted to be truthful with her. “I married her because I trusted her…and I did love her. And she represented stability, which was something I needed.”

Keira turned to look out at the city again. She appreciated his honesty, but it was still hard to hear. What did you expect, stupid? Did you think he was going to say he never loved her?

Instinctively, Jon seemed to know what she was thinking. “Kathy, I loved you too. You just didn’t want any part of me after the band started to take off.”

Her shoulders tensed. He has no idea how much I loved him, and how much it hurt to leave him. She wanted to lash out, but she couldn’t think of anything to say that would make him understand what it had been like for her.

"I wanted to be with you. I was just afraid to see you self-destruct."

"Then you were smart. I told you before, you missed out on some bad stuff, and that's a good thing."

She nodded, still looking out over the city. He approached her and put his arms around her again. "It was bad timing before, Kathy. But we still have now. We can try again."

"Try what again, exactly?" She asked, hoping that the words hadn't come out sounding harsh.

"Uhhh...being together?" He elaborated.

She turned in his arms so she could look into his eyes. "Jon. I don't think we can be together. Yes, tonight is nice--and what happened earlier was really nice-- but I'm not cut out for being in a relationship with a rock star."

Jon tried to make light of the situation. "So I guess that puts you in the 3% of women who don't want to be with me."

She sighed. "I do want to be with you. I just don't think I can."

He kissed her then, a soft, slow kiss. Once again, she felt her resolve melting away. "You need to stop thinking so much," he said. "I'll convince you that you can't be without me."