79 - Signing Day

Cassidy was singing to herself as she locked up the cabin and slipped the key in her pocket.  Earlier, when Jon had left, her song selection was melancholy and depressing, but she’d moved on in the half hour since then.

The smallest gold chest was in the Jeep, the letter from her grandmother was in her back pocket and Jon was in her heart – where he always would be.  Regardless of the outcome of this situation, she wouldn’t regret the precious experience of loving him and being loved by him.  At her age, she’d begun to have serious reservations about whether she’d ever find love.  It might hurt like the very devil if he opted for a future that didn’t include her, but she’d still take “loved and lost” over “never loved at all”.

“Right now, it’s time to focus on your future, Glory Star,” she murmured to herself while pushing aside the weeds and branches from the path.  “You take care of you, just like you always have.  Everything else will fall into place.”

She was confident of that.  Jon would come back to her or he wouldn’t but, either way, she’d still be a capable, independent woman who stood on her own two feet.  There was no reliance on anyone but herself, and whether she flourished or floundered was up to her. 

Cassidy planned to flourish.

Sliding behind the steering wheel, she plopped her purse into the passenger’s seat.  The key had just found its way to the ignition when her phone rang and she slipped it from the little zipper pocket on the outside of her little backpack to see Jon’s name.

“He sure didn’t waste any time usin’ my new number,” she chuckled quietly before answering with a pleasant, “Hello.”

“Hey.” 

And that was all.  She waited through a full thirty seconds of silence before asking, “Aren’t you supposed to be buyin’ a football team about now?”

“Not yet.  Where are you?”

She didn’t like the way he sounded.  His voice was so dull.  So… lifeless. 

“Gettin’ ready to leave the cabin.  What’s wrong, baby doll?”

“Nothing I’m willing to discuss,” he intoned flatly.  “I just wanted to talk to you for a minute.  Tell me again what you have planned today.”

“Jon-“

“No,” he interrupted, obviously recognizing the stubbornness in the way she said his name.  “I need you to talk to me, Cassidy.  Be you.”

Lord, I don’t know what’s goin’ on, but would You mind helpin’ him out a little?  Or help me to help him?  I’d appreciate it.  In Jesus’s name…

“Okay, honey.  If that’s what you want,” she succumbed agreeably, not knowing what else to do.  “When I get home, I’m gonna take Uncle Stanley’s share of the gold to Gerald Ray, since Uncle Stanley’s still in the hospital.  Libby took hers with her when she left yesterday evenin’.  I…  I thought I’d call Obie, too.  Check and see if he still thinks I might be suited to singin’ professionally and what he might suggest to move that forward.  Dependin’ on what he says, I’ll call the clinic about my old job and maybe see what it would take to get my nursin’ license in Tennessee or New Jersey.  Just so I’d know.”

A soft exhalation of air found its way through the phone line, but Jon remained silent beyond that.

“Are you gonna say anything at all?  Because, while I respect your privacy, you know you’ll feel better once it’s outta your head.”

“This is not a subject you want to be part of,” he succinctly assured her before changing the topic.  “When you talk to Obie, tell him to send your tracks to John Shanks.  I’ll give Shanks a call later and let him know they’re coming.  Oh, and you might be hearing from Dave.  Said he owes you an apology or something.”

At least he was starting to sound more like himself now, so Cassidy wouldn’t push any more.  She slumped comfortably down in the driver’s seat, willing to let him talk as long as he wanted.  “You know that commentary wasn’t me hintin’ around for you to pull some strings?”

“Yes.”

No explanation, no justification.  Just Jon doing what Jon did and making no apologies for it. 

“Okay,” she relented.  “Thanks.”

She should be relieved that he laughed, but it was so utterly without humor that it only made her want to sigh again.  “Dixie, I’m the one who should thank you.  I haven’t done a fucking thing for you since the day we met yet, for some reason, you fell in love with me anyway.”

“You might see it that way, but I consider it huge that you let me inside you when no one else was welcome.” 

The silence this time was shorter.  “My brother thinks you’re hot, by the way.”

“Oh yeah?”  A slow grin claimed Cassidy’s mouth.  “Which one?  You have two, right?  The body guard and the video guy?”

“Video guy.  Tony.  Matt’s the body guard and probably thinks you’re hot, too.”

“Are either of them single?” she coquettishly teased, knowing the answer wouldn’t matter.  They were probably perfectly nice and handsome guys, but their brother was it for her.

“No.”  Jon obviously didn’t find her teasing as witty as she did.  “And now you’ll never meet them.”

Cassidy laughed out loud at his cantankerousness.  “Whatever you say, baby doll.”

“I say I’ve got ten minutes to meet Clay.  I’ll talk to you in a day or two.”

There was no opportunity for response before the line went dead, leaving her smiling bemusedly through the front windshield.  She hoped he’d tell her what that was all about one of these days but, in the meantime, she’d make herself content that he’d ended the call happier than he’d begun it. 

###

Jon strode confidently into the lawyer’s office, feeling a hell of a lot more like himself than he had thirty minutes ago.  Nobody in this room would ever guess how close he’d been to having a fucking meltdown in the Taco Bell parking lot.  Nobody would ever know that besides him, just like he was the only one who knew what kept it at bay – or, rather, who kept it at bay. 

It had taken about thirty seconds of Cassidy’s voice to avert that catastrophic moment.  Thirty seconds of that gentle Southern drawl to get his head on straight and remind him that it didn’t matter what Dorothea had or had not done to violate the sanctity of marriage.  Whatever it was, he was equally guilty. 

This was about keeping the playing field level and preventing a divorce lawyer from robbing him blind.  He had a guarantee against that now, and he’d use it as necessary to achieve his objective – the objective that was literally within arms’ reach.

“Clay,” Jon stuck out his hand with a smile for the man he’d come to think of as a friend.  “Sorry I’m a little late.”

“No problem at all.”  Rising from his seat at the conference table, the younger man returned the handshake and reintroduced the people around the table. “Jon, you remember my mother, my brother Kenny, my aunts Susie and Amy, and our lawyer, Mike.”

He went dutifully around the table doling out handshakes and social commentary as appropriate until he felt enough was enough.  Then Jon tugged at the hem of the black t-shirt that was becoming his uniform as of late and slid into an empty chair.  

“So are we all on the same page today?” he inquired pleasantly, clasping his hands together on the cherry surface of the conference table.  “Is the Adams family ready to pass the Titan torch?”

The aunts didn’t look all that thrilled as they politely smiled and nodded, but Clay’s immediate family offered a bit more enthusiasm with their agreement.  It looked like they were finally going to pull the trigger.

“Then let’s do it.”

The lawyer jockeyed paperwork from a portfolio with a frown.  Shuffling through, he found a particular page and ran his finger down to the center of it. 

“I’m sorry.  This seems to be the older version of the agreement, before the last changes you requested yesterday, Mr. Bon Jovi.”  He pushed his seat back and scooped up the sheaf of papers.  “If you’ll excuse me, I can get this fixed in short order.  I’ll be right back.”

Jon couldn’t say that he was impressed.  With the size of this deal, the lawyer ought to have his shit together, but what was Jon going to do about it?  He simply nodded, smiled and made small talk with the Adamses.

“Jon,” Clay inquired, leaning across the table toward him.  “How’s Cassidy doin’?  Can I expect to hear her on the radio soon?”

His smile slipped just a little with the change of topic.  “Last I heard, she was weighing her options.  I’m not sure exactly what her plans are as of yet.  I don’t think she even knows.”

“I would think that bein’ a singer would be a whole lot more lucrative than bein’ a bartender.”

That was right.  Clay had no idea about the real Cassidy, and Jon offered him just a little insight because he couldn’t stand that someone thought her nothing more than a cute barmaid. 

“Her skillset is actually much wider than that,” he disclosed pleasantly.  “She’s a registered nurse, among other things, and bartending was just a side-gig to pass the time during her most recent adventure.  I think she’s on her way back home to Georgia now.”

The younger man leaned forward on his arms with a smile.  “Well, I’ll be damned.  I knew she wasn’t the typical bartender, especially for a place like Tully’s.”

Typical was a word that should never be used when describing Cassidy, and Jon squelched the impulse to say just that.  She was a unique and special individual that was entitled to an equally distinctive life.  If she wanted to sing, he’d place whatever calls necessary to make it reality.  He owed her that, if nothing else. 

He owed her much more than that. 

Women had a tendency to paint Jon as some kind of Prince Charming who would ride in on a white charger, sweep them off their feet and transform their mundane lives into something extraordinary.  He wasn’t that guy, and Cassidy had never expected him to be.  Hell, she was the one atop the white horse, swooping in to save him.

His Jersey pride should be rebelling at that visual, but it only inspired another wave of gratitude.  

This personally historic event was the direct result of an early spring day, when he’d been unwillingly dragged on a road trip to a little, run-down bar in Pasquo, Tennessee.  A place he hadn’t wanted to go to hear a woman sing – a woman whom he discovered sang like an angel, with an ass to match.  A woman who sprayed him with Coke, coaxed him out of his protective sunglasses and introduced him to Clay Adams.

Without her, he wouldn't be sitting at this table today on the brink of achieving his dream.  Without her, Clay Adams would be nothing more than another random name without significant meaning.  Without her, he would still be twiddling his thumbs and waiting for an opportunity that may not materialize for another dozen years.

That spring day was a significant turning point in his life – on so many levels – and he would never think of it without fondness.   

All because of her.

“She’s something else,” Jon murmured as the lawyer swept back into the room with a new sheaf of papers. 

“Sorry about that, y’all,” he apologized, coming to stand beside Jon and line up three of the pages on the table in front of him.  “We’ve got everything all sorted now.  These are the signature pages, and we’ll start with you, Mr. Bon Jovi.”

Accepting the pen, Jon’s eyes fixed on the documents before him. 

This was it.  He was only signatures away from being a middle-class NFL owner and claiming custody of the Titans.  The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat and the locker room shenanigans that accompanied both would be his.  Dashing off three mindless autographs would permit him to take possession of the owner’s box at LP Field.

He could visualize it now.  Celebrating a Titans win snatched from the jaws of defeat in the last seconds of the game.  Winning the division.  Making the playoffs.  Going to the Superbowl.

The trouble was that, in each of those scenarios, it was Cassidy by his side in the owner’s box.  It was her smile that he saw and she was the one wrapped in his celebratory hug. 

Dorothea hadn’t helped make this dream happen.  It was Cassidy beside him every step of the way, supporting and encouraging him – making difficult choices to ensure that this moment came to pass. 

“A person doesn’t reach your level of success without understanding the importance of priorities, Jon.”

He swore silently at the voice of Madaline, that damn therapist Dorothea had forced upon him.  Acting as his conscience, she refused to be silent. 

“It’s not easy to choose what will be most beneficial in the long run over what’s merely an exciting and temporary diversion.”

The one thing he vividly recalled from his visit to the therapist’s office was questioning when his happiness would deserve to become a priority, and now he knew.  More importantly, he understood where his true happiness lie.

A football team could never feed his soul the way Cassidy did. 

She was Jon’s priority.   Everything else was just stuff.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he submitted regretfully, laying the pen down on the table and making individual eye contact with each person around him.  “It pains me to do this, but I’m afraid that I have to decline this opportunity.  I’m very sorry.”