Billie watched Stone put on his coat and leave the apartment. It made her feel heavy to see him go.
Johnny cleared his throat and her attention snapped back to the room.
'Sorry Johnny what did you say?' she pushed her hair behind her ear and tried to focus.
'A gig. On Saturday, and next Thursday. Saturday is with the band, Thursday is just you and I and Bo, with the folk choir. It's an afternoon thing. You good for that?' he looked at her directly, his dark eyes sizing her up.
'I don't know Johnny, the last week has been pretty rough. I don't know if Stone told you but I've stopped drinking, it's been pretty ugly.' she screwed up her face in disgust then looked at him with all the exhaustion evident in her body language.
Johnny was one of the few people she was comfortable being raw with. He'd been a rock to her, seen her at her worst.
He'd been the only one with the courage to tell her about Tim's infidelity. He'd told her straight up too, 'Tim's doing you dirty.' No beating round the bush, no kid gloves, she was grateful for his bluntness.
Then when Tim had died, he had been the only one to say out loud what a shit show it was. He'd come with her to the funeral director and looked at all the photos laid out, all the service material and memorial pamphlets and he'd flicked the picture of Tim's smiling face on the front and muttered 'you dumb bastard' and she'd laughed hysterically, while the funeral home staff had shifted from foot to foot and looked anywhere except at the freshly made widow laughing like a lunatic.
Compared to that, him seeing her strung out was nothing.
She rubbed her eyes and blew out a raspberry.
'Yeah ok, I can pull it together, but not if it's at 501. I'm not playing that shithole again.' she looked at him fierce.
'What happened?'
'Some sleazy fuck followed me last week. Grabbed me in the bar and after I told him to piss off, he and his grubby mate followed me up the street. I was just lucky Stone was there.' she acted tough but it still gave her the shivers to think about. John could see it.
'Speaking of Stone, what's the deal?' he threw her a hard look and she felt her face get hot and her nerves prickle.
'Nothing's the deal.' she said, sticking her chin out pugnaciously.
'Nothing my ass,' he pushed harder.
'He looked after me that night. I was shook up and he brought me home, that's all.' she shrugged.
'That's a week ago. He's back huh?'
Billie didn't like being questioned. She didn't know what the Stone thing was, but she knew it wasn't for anybody else. She wanted to keep it close to her chest, like a little charm you tuck inside your shirt.
'It's fine Johnny, he's just being a gentleman.' she evaded.
'Sure. Well, just be wary, he's a sarcastic prick when he wants to be and he's got a ton of cards in his hand, always. Plus he's a big shot, so he comes with a bunch of baggage.'
Billie gave him an 'are you done yet?' look and he threw up his hands.
'Just don't get sucked in, ok. He's part of a massive machine that chews up and spits out incidentals like us.' Johnny's mouth was hard.
'I'm not "sucked in" to anything, so chill ok?' she felt disappointment surge, mostly cuz she knew he was right.
Stone was a rockstar.
It was easy to forget that when he was cruising around being all sweet and normal but she was well aware that he was driven, busy and probably had a stack of groupies and hangers on.
