11.

“This is not working,” Jon muttered, scratching his head furiously out of frustration. Richie agreed, and was having a look over the lyrics sheet he had in front of him. “The chorus just isn’t happening, Rich,” he went on, staring down at it with thin lips. Richie read over the lyrics again and heaved a big sigh, just as the image of Natalie her son came back to his mind.

Grabbing a pen, he slid his chair closer to the table and began writing over Jon’s own handwriting. Jon watched with interest, trying to read Richie’s chickenscratch upside down. “Listen to this, man,” Richie said with excitement, grabbing his guitar. He played directly into the chorus, at which point he began to sing,

“I close my eyes and picture your hand in mine
I still hear your voice, it takes me back to that time
Where I could find a reason to be strong
Seems like lately there’s a whole lot of leavin’ going on”

Jon grabbed the lyrics sheet and sang along with Richie as he continued to loop through the chorus. After three or four runs, Richie stopped playing and both stopped singing. “I think it might work,” Jon said approvingly with a nod. He made a note of the change on another sheet of paper, and put it on a stack in the center of the table. “Where’d that come from?”

Richie’s fingers played over the strings of his (newest) guitar idly. “Natalie,” he admitted, though he didn’t meet Jon’s gaze. He knew how Jon felt about her; they’d already talked about her a few times. She was an all around impracticality, one that Jon thought was better just left alone. Even supposing she was a genuinely good girl, she was still one from Nashville. And supposing she wasn’t all around good, then Richie had no business with her.

“You gotta get away from her, man,” Jon sighed.
“I did. And the whole time I wanted to come back,” Richie confessed. He knew it was silly and rash of him, but he couldn’t help it. He’d always lived his life flying off the handle, rarely had he ever stopped to think things through. He just did it. It wasn’t until the awful turns his life had taken over the past year that he had cooled down a little bit, and he was trying, and failing, to be casual with Natalie. “Anyways,” he continued, “She showed me a picture of her kid.” Jon’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, covered by blonde locks now. “He died a couple years back.”

Jon hadn’t looked at the song like that – as far as he was concerned, he was writing something of a love song. But Richie’s chorus turned it into something much more broad, and he liked it. “This chick is your muse now, is she?” he asked with a hint of a joke in his voice.
“Oh, you’re funny,” Richie shot back, “I don’t suppose I need to remind you how many songs you’ve written about Dorothea.”
“She’s my wife, not some girl I met in a bar.”
“Benny’s is her bar.”
”What difference does that make?”
”None,” Richie shrugged, “Just thought I’d say.”
“Look, man,” Jon said seriously, leaning forward so his elbows rested on his knees, “I don’t know much about this girl. She seems nice enough and she can sing. And I know you dig her, I get it. But is it really worth it? I mean, just suppose she’s not all that you think she is. You don’t wanna be back in that place. And none of us want you there either. We locked those doors, Rich. All of them.” Jon’s eyes and voice had grown stern as he spoke, and Richie paid careful attention.
“I know you and the rest of the guys worry about me. But I’ve learned from past mistakes. Truly, I have. This thing – whatever it is – with Natalie isn’t like what happened with—“ he trailed off, and Jon supplied the names he knew Richie didn’t have quite the heart to say, “Heather and Denise?”
“She’s just a normal, every day, real woman. She lets me be a normal, every day, real man. She makes me feel like I could have a normal, every day, real life. Fuck, she makes me forget all the shit that’s gone down lately.”

Jon studied his friend's face for a couple of minutes and could see that he was fighting a losing battle. Richie had made up his mind about this girl, and Jon knew there’d be no changing it. All he could do was hope for the best, and be there for Richie in case of the worst.

“All right then, Sambora. You do what you gotta do. We’ll be here for you however it turns out.”

---

That night at Benny’s, Natalie was swamped. There’d been a concert down the street, and people had streamed in steadily since it let out. She had all her girls working, and she was bustling back and forth between the stage and the bar to help out wherever she could. A young boy and girl were clogging on the stage, dancing around and laughing as they went. People had begun clapping to the rhythm of their feet, making it hard for anything else to be heard in the place.

In their now characteristic cowboys hats and sunglasses, Jon and Richie watched and laughed along with the rest of the crowd. Richie decided it’d be worth a laugh and a try to get Natalie on the stage with this many people in her bar, but he knew he couldn’t do it alone. There were too many people around to risk moving about and drawing attention to himself, so Richie merely got the attention of the guy in the table next to him.

“Hey buddy,” he called over the drum of feet on the floor and clapping. The guy turned just enough to offer one ear to Richie.
“I’ll give you a fifty bucks if you can get that woman over there – the little one by the bar – to sing a song.”
“You shittin' me?” the guy asked, straightening up in his seat at the offer.
“Swear it. You get her to sing one song, and I’ll give you a fifty dollars right here.”
“You got a deal, pal,” the guy said, shaking Richie’s hand. Richie took a drink of his water and grinned to himself, even Jon had to crack a smile at his friend. They watched as the guy approached Natalie, and as he pointed back at Richie. A dawning realization crossed her face, and she mouthed a nice try at Richie before turning the guy away. This young man, however, was hellbent on making his money that night, and he quickly put Plan B in motion.

In a matter of seconds, the entire bar was chanting her name. Natalie had stopped what she was doing and looked around like a deer caught in headlights. There wasn’t one face in the room that wasn’t turned to her in anticipation, begging and ordering her into the spotlight. Some people even reached out and grabbed her in effort to pull her onto the stage, and after refusing for a few minutes, she found herself standing there where the clogging couple had been.

“Well fuck, somebody’s gonna have to get me a guitar,” she laughed. She was handed one from the side – Richie recognized it as the one he’d given her – and walked back to the microphone. She looked straight at Richie and gave him her best game face, and then pounded out a riff that made the entire place erupt in yells. In the corner, it made Richie and Jon erupt in laughter.

“All you got is this moment
The twenty-first century’s yesterday
You can care all you want
Everybody does, yeah that’s okay”

She smiled mischievously as she sang, and the crowd danced around in front of her. She was obviously enjoying herself, glancing back at Jon and Richie every so often and smirking dangerously.

“So slide over here
And give me a moment
Your moves are so raw
I’ve got to let you know
I’ve got to let you know
You’re one of my kind

I need you tonight
‘Cause I’m not sleeping
There’s something about you, boy
That makes me sweat”

Blue eyes cut back to Richie, reminding Jon of how a certain Bangle tended to perform and send shivers up the spines of men across the nation.

“Oh yeah, this one’s a keeper,” he laughed, amused by her obvious song selection.