10 #GossipGuy

“So how did it go?”

 

Jon squinted stinging eyes and turned into his shoulder, using a t-shirt sleeve to mop sweat from his face.  He shouldn’t have bothered answering the call while on the treadmill.  If he’d known his friend only wanted to gossip, he would’ve declined and let voicemail handle this shit. 

 

No point in giving it to him on a silver platter, the nosy fuck.

 

“How did what go?”

 

“You’re cute, you know that?”  The wise-talking keyboardist snarked.  “Not in the ‘take my panties, please’ kinda way, either.  How was Dr. Stick Up My Ass?  Do you have a Twitter account yet?  Snapchat?  Instagram?  I can’t let an old man like you get ahead of me on the hip, new social media outlets.”

 

Dr. Theodosia Montgomery only kept that stick for show, in Jon’s personal opinion.  It was handy for keeping people at a distance, but she’d very definitely set it aside when confessing she was attracted to him.  Lying alone in bed last night, Jon somewhat regretted his decision to separate business and pleasure.  Oh, he still wanted the good doctor to lead him into the wilds of social media, but he also wanted to know what she would’ve done if hadn’t drawn a line in the sand. 

 

The end result was a restlessness that had him hitting the treadmill early this morning.

 

“You’re a month older than I am, fuckwad.”

 

“Twenty-three days, and that doesn’t mean shit.  You’ve been a senior citizen for more than a decade.  Stop dicking around and give me the scoop.”

 

Staring out at the city beyond his bedroom window with an absent smile, Jon’s feet kept a leisurely pace as he chose to dangle his toy on the string a little longer.  “I might be a senior citizen, but you’re nosier than any little old fuckin’ lady.  Where are your balls, man?”

 

“They’re right here in my hand.  Barely fit, but I can still wrap my fingers around ‘em.  Wanna FaceTime so you can see for yourself?”

 

Years of touring had given Jon more unfortunate looks at those balls than he deserved to suffer.  “Hell, no!  If I never see your balls again, I’ll consider myself lucky.”

 

“Well, if you had just answered my frigging question, you wouldn’t have a picture of them waiting in your text messages.  Stop being an asswipe before I send a pic of the ass I haven’t wiped.”

 

Letting David Bryan get the best of him went against Jon’s nature, but even he had limits, and the one they called The Joker was on the verge of exceeding them. 

 

“Jesus H. Christ, man,” Jon sighed, killing the treadmill’s power and stepping down to pull the sweat-soaked tee away from his body.  “The Doc was fine.  Bent out of shape at first, since she wasn’t expecting me.  My appointment was supposed to have been cancelled.  Some bullshit about no room in her schedule for new clients and all that.”

 

Taking a breath to screw the cap off a water bottle, he guzzled part of it while listening to the complaint from the other end of the line. 

 

“Okay, first of all, you cannot call that woman ‘Doc’.  I don’t care if she looks like Elmer Fudd; no woman should share the same name as a bald, greasy shyster.”

 

“Good point,” he conceded, wiping the back of one hand over his mouth.  He hadn’t even considered their old manager, Doc McGhee, when tagging her with that.  It had just happened, but it wouldn’t be a hard habit to break.  He personally preferred Cookie.  “She answers to Teddi, by the way.  Not Theodosia.”

 

“Okay, that whittled the stick in her ass from a mighty redwood down to a bamboo pole, in my stereotyping mind.  In order to know she goes by Teddi, I assume she didn’t slam the door in your face?  Does she look like Elmer Fudd?”

 

Taking his water onto the terrace, he dropped into one of the outdoor chairs and lifted his face to the sun.  His sunglasses were on the desk inside, so Jon closed his eyes against the glare and enjoyed the rays beating down on his skin.  Sweaty or not, he liked the feel of early summer warming the bones that were getting older every year. 

 

“Definitely not Elmer Fudd.  More like a modern-day June Cleaver.  Average height, slim, blonde hair, blue eyes.  Nice smile.”

 

Very nice smile, in fact.  He’d hadn’t gotten any after the one that accompanied her laughter, but that one stuck with him. 

 

After she committed to the job and decreed there would be no more in-person meetings, she’d let go of both the laughs and the pink cheeks he liked.  Teddi embraced her beigeness by stepping firmly into the role of housemother.  She clamped the lock on her chastity belt and coolly launched into a spiel about contracts, which should arrive by courier sometime today.    

 

When she shifted gears, it put a halt to any further exchange of personal information.  The only thing he’d gotten out of her was the phone number to use for this afternoon’s FaceTime appointment.  In turn, she’d requested his email and used it to send login information for his shiny new Instagram account.  There were also instructions on downloading the app, which was on his list of things to do before their meeting.   

 

As was dealing with the psychotic friend who was enthusing, “Dude.  Nothing wrong with June Cleaver.  She was hot – and she baked cookies.  Does Doctor Teddi bake?”

 

She sure smells like it.

 

Unable to fathom what Joker would do with that information, Jon kept it to himself and blandly groused, “How the fuck am I supposed to know?  I met her for thirty minutes, which I spent convincing her to take on my cause.   Good thing she’s a fan is all I can say.”

 

“She is?”

 

“Yep.”  The water bottle found a spot between the outside of his thigh and the chair so Jon could lift the hem of his shirt.  He hiked it high on his stomach, inviting the sun to do its thing there, too.  “Turns out I’d already met her last week.  Shanks and I went to a Cuban place for dinner, and she was at the next table with a bunch of loud friends.  I heard ‘em say she’d been with us since the early days.  Took a couple of pictures.  Usual shit.”

 

“Well, hell,” David sighed with what sounded like disappointment.  “The bamboo pole just cashed it in.  If she’s got good taste in music that ass stick can’t be much bigger than a chopstick, and she probably just uses it for fun.  I might have to meet this woman.”

 

“She’s way too sophisticated to associate with your lame ass.”

 

“Hey.  I’m the keyboard player for her favorite band.  She’ll be thrilled to associate with me and my ass.”

 

No matter how many scenarios he ran through, Jon couldn’t come up with one in which Teddi Montgomery and David Bryan belonged in the same room.  She was so… not someone who would like dirty jokes, even if they were delivered using big words.  Because David wasn’t dumb by any stretch of the imagination.  He just outrageously and unapologetically voiced every nutso thing that crossed his mind.

 

Cookie would be appalled.

 

Then again, seeing her flustered wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.  Her cheeks would probably turn that pretty shade of pink. 

 

“Maybe.  Someday,” he pacified Dave.

 

“Greedy bastard.  You want to keep the rocker doctor anomaly all to yourself.”

 

“Don’t be a fuckin’ moron.  You’re just trying to get free psychological treatment.”

 

“I’ve paid for enough, why shouldn’t I try and get the free variety, too? But hold the bus….”  There was an imaginary squeal of bus tires as David ran to catch up.  “She’s a shrink?  Whaat?  I thought she was an Insta authority?”

 

Hadn’t Jon told him about this already?

 

“Not a practicing shrink – I don’t think – but one of those degrees she’s got is in psychology.”

 

“Hmmm…” his friend drawled.  “Veddy, veddy interesting.”

 

Jon absolutely did not need Dave dwelling on this.  Nothing good could come of it, and in an effort to distract the nut job, Jon offered up information he had originally planned to withhold. 

 

“So, I’m starting out with an anonymous Instagram name before my verified one goes live.  Like a trial run.  If you think you can be discreet and keep from outing me in the first twenty-four hours, I’ll give it to you.”

 

The carrot of distraction didn’t dangle for more than a breath before Jon heard, “Discreet?  Moi?  Do I need to remind you about the time you hooked up with the tarot card reader in Boston?  The one who predicted the end of your marriage before you ever got married?  I never told Dorothea that shit.”

 

Jon laughed out loud at a memory he’d once savored on a regular basis.  “I haven’t thought about her in years, but really, man.  Who takes a naked tarot reading seriously?”

 

“Well, nobody, but I’ve got to have a ringside seat for your trample through Twitter.  Your ineptness on Insta.  Your face on da ‘Book.  Give it up, brother.”

 

Tarot card readers aside, I knew he couldn’t pass it up.  You get to know a person in thirty years.

 

“Alright, alright.”  The reluctance in providing the information was feigned.  His reluctance to delve into this social media world, however, was excruciatingly real.  Jon hoped he was wrong about how shitty it was going to be.  “It’s jerseykid6232.”

 

“Is that with one ‘D’ or two?”

 

“Just one.”

 

“Cool.  I’ll fire up my own incognito account and start trolling on you.”

 

“Jesus,” he sighed, letting his head drop all the way back against the chair.  “I already regret this, and it hasn’t been ten seconds.”

 

“Nah, you’re gonna love it,” his unbalanced friend assured.  “Almost as much as you’re gonna love the pic of my balls.  I’ll let you go check that out now.  Later, man.”

 

The line disconnected before Jon could reply, but it was just as well.  There were some situations that had no response, and this was one of them. 

 

He took the phone from his ear and squinted one eye at the screen, wondering how to delete the picture without looking at it.  Was that even possible?  Maybe Cookie would know.

 

“Ah, fuck it,” he muttered to himself.  “Just open the damn thing and get rid of it.”

 

Tapping the message, he scrambled to delete the picture of Dave’s balls.  He tried in vain to avoid seeing it, but there was only so much he could do with closed eyes.  The image registered with him anyway, and Jon dropped the phone to his chest with a chortle. 

 

The fucker had sent him a picture of two golf balls.