Chapter 112

The two women followed the bulky security guard along to the stage, and he found them a couple of seats on one side of the stage, screened from the crowd, but with a full view of the stage. He’d put them on Richie’s side, and Linda grinned as she realised how close they were - the fan pit was just to one side of them. Before he left, he handed them each a set of ear plugs, to protect their hearing from their proximity to the speakers, while still allowing them to hear everything. Sara looked up over the screen, looking around the arena until she pinpointed the owners box, seeing movement inside as Dot got the kids organised. There was a buzz of noise beginning to build in the arena as the last of the audience filed in, though they couldn’t see much from their concealed position. Waiting for things to get started, they sat down companionably, then Linda laughed suddenly.

“So you’re a virgin, huh?”

“Sorry? What do you….”

“A Jovi virgin. You’ve not been to a Jovi show before.”

“Oh. I wondered what you meant.”

“Well, I’d be seriously worried if you were seeing Jon Bon Jovi, and you were still a virgin! I can’t quite see him waiting around for the wedding night.”

Sara just smiled nervously, not willing to continue that conversation, but Linda changed the subject slightly, moving on to tell Sara a little bit of what to expect from a Jovi concert. While they sat, the audience suddenly began to scream, and Sara looked at the stage, only seeing a roadie. When she looked at Linda in confusion, the blond woman laughed.

“They just put out Jon’s white mic stand.”

“And they’re screaming for a mic stand?”

“Yep. Means the band’ll be on soon.” Linda slipped off her seat, as excited as any of the crowd out there.


Back in the dressing room, the guys were getting serious as they readied themselves for the show. They’d changed into their concert clothes, each of them running through their own mental preparations with only a minimum of chatter. After Jon’s family and the two girls had left, the guys had all said how much they liked Linda and Sara, making Richie and Jon grin happily, the grins turning to laughter when Tico commented.

“I can see why you washed dishes for that girl, Jon. What I can’t understand is how you almost managed to fuck it all up.”

“Trust me, I know how lucky I am she gave me a second chance.” Was all Jon said.

At five minutes before the time printed on the tickets, the band left the dressing room. In all the years they’d been performing, one thing they’d become renowned for - as well as giving every crowd a kick-ass show - was their punctuality, and tonight was no different. At seven thirty on the nose, the house lights went down and the screaming intensified, reaching fever pitch as the band walked out on stage.

Sara wasn’t really prepared for the Jon who came out on stage, dressed in black jeans and a dark blue shirt which looked like it was some kind of gauze. Even the way he walked seemed different, and she realised that for the first time she was seeing the ‘public’ Jon as he bounded to the front of the stage with a grin. The band were already playing the intro to the first song, which sounded familiar, but she was surprised when they launched into ‘Great Balls of Fire’. She looked over at Linda, who leaned closer to tell her they quite often opened the show with a cover song. This was the first time she’d seen him perform, and she knew that even as just a fan, she’d have been excited by the show, and the way he took ownership of the stage, drawing the crowd along with him from the first words he sang. As it was, she had to fight the temptation just to walk out onto the stage and grab him, and she contented herself to dance alongside Linda in the shadows at the side of the stage as the guys moved into a Bon Jovi song she did actually recognise - Bad Medicine.

She saw Richie’s grin when he glanced over and saw them, and next time Jon was close to him, he nudged his buddy, inclining his head toward the girls. Jon looked across, and Sara waved a hand, seeing the flash of his teeth as he turned to face her, gyrating his hips as he made his way across the stage toward her. As he got closer, she saw Jon grin again, and realised when Linda gasped that he’d changed the lyric slightly, singing “….you’re an all-night generator when you’re wearing that red dress….”. Sara burst into giggles, shaking her head at him, and Jon was close enough that she saw him wink at her as he turned away, dancing back across the stage to the mic stand.

Linda bumped against Sara. “Red dress?” She asked with a smile. “The one from the pictures in the paper?”

“I guess so. Jon’s only seen me in a dress twice, and the other was black.”

“That was a gorgeous dress. Can see why it’d keep him……um…..‘up’ all night!”

“Linda!!”

They both laughed, then it was Linda’s turn to blush when Richie turned to face her during the final chorus repetition, grinning as he did his little pantomime to ‘you get a little and it’s never enough’. He laughed when she held up her own hands, much further apart than he’d indicated, nodding comically until he laughed. As the song ended, Jon slid his mic back onto the stand, then grinned out at the audience, hands resting loosely wrapped around the mic as he spoke.

“Good evenin’!” He paused to let the screaming die away again. “Thank you all for coming out here tonight to help us support a cause that’s very dear to my heart. I hope you enjoy the show - we’ve tried to shake things up a little, maybe play you some songs we haven’t done live before. This next one, I’d like to dedicate………….to second chances……….and to the women who put up with what idiots men can be.” He glanced sideways at Sara as he continued, “I dedicate it to the woman who was willing to give me that second chance, when I was dumb enough to need it. It’s called Last Chance Train.”

The crowd began to scream when they heard the title, and Jon stepped back from the mic while the intro played, just looking across at Sara standing hidden in the shadows, a soft smile on his lips, then he stepped up again. “October leaves are fallin’, so am I…….” He looked across again when he reached the line “…I smell your sweet perfume….”, and Sara could feel tears at the back of her eyes as she sank back down onto her seat.

Linda leaned closer, speaking in her ear, telling her they’d never played that live before, but Sara was only interested in Jon’s voice, watching him as he performed the song, almost acting out the words. When he finished, the crowd roared approval as Jon stood nodding gently, then as the screaming died down a little, Richie struck up the opening of the next song, and Linda frowned.

“Sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. I don’t think it’s a Jovi song.”

Sara bit her lip before she answered, remembering the last time she’d heard the song, hoping she could control the tears that were threatening to fall already.

“It isn’t. It’s Aerosmith - ‘Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’. Jon knows I love that song. And the swine knows what it does to me.”

Jon didn’t sing it softly as he had up in Canada, but performed a full-out rock version, ending up on his knees in the middle of the stage as he poured his heart into the final lyrics. As he fell on his knees, Linda grinned, knowing that her friend Paula in the audience would be screaming at that, and she turned to mention to Sara how excited Paula would be, but stopped as she saw the tears streaming down Sara’s face. Automatically, Linda reached out to hug Sara, who tried to laugh, but got caught out anyway as she raised a hand to wipe the tears, just as Jon raised his head from where he knelt on the stage and saw her crying. He stood, and actually took a half step toward her, his immediate impulse to comfort her, before he remembered he was on stage. Sara smiled across at him reassuringly, and he returned the smile as he moved to the front of the stage again, putting the mic back on the stand.

While Jon slipped to the back of the stage, taking a quick drink from a black mug and wiping sweat from his face with a towel, Sara and Linda heard voices approaching, and turned to see security guards leading a group of people - mainly women - up to the fan pit. As they watched, Linda suddenly grabbed Sara’s arm to get her attention, laughing as she spoke into her ear.

“You see the girl with the long, strawberry blonde hair?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s my friend, Tara. She’ll kill me if she sees me over here!”

“Why?”

“Because none of my friends know about Richie.”

Sara turned to look at the other woman, grinning at her. “Really?”

The fan pit was filled now, and Tara had managed to secure herself a spot right on the barrier. As Jon sang the next song, ‘You had me from hello’, he worked his way over to the pit, smiling and touching hands with the girls, and Linda grinned when she saw him grip Tara’s hand, seeing the expression on her friend’s face. Jon continued to walk across the stage, until he was standing in front of Sara, so he was right at the edge of the stage and only just visible to the crowd as he sang the final chorus to her. The girls in the fan pit followed his every move, and when Linda saw Tara looking over, she gave a tiny wave, laughing as Tara’s mouth dropped open in shock.

Jon reached out to take Sara’s hand as he repeated the final words ‘from hello’, then as Dave played the last few notes on the keyboard, he took a step forward - out of the view of the main crowd - to press his lips tenderly to Sara’s.

“I love you.” He whispered, holding the mic low behind his back so it wouldn’t pick up his words, then he let go of her hand and went back out onto the stage.