There we were, Ronnie and I, lying in bed cuddled up to each other. It was late, and all the guys including Jake and Millie had gone to bed long before Ronnie and I had. I had to say, I really did like Millie.
"Jade, are you alright? You seem well off tonight..." Ronnie trailed off and I raised an eyebrow. "You've been very quiet and very still. Normally you're super hyper at this time... You're not having second thoughts about the wedding are you? Because it's a bit late now." I chuckled to myself.
"I'm just off in my own little world. I'm more than happy with you and you know that." I looked up to see him grinning.
"Just make sure you don't think too much - you don't want to overwork that tiny brain of yours." I raised an eyebrow at him before pulling my best pouty face. "No, no, no, no. Babe don't start pulling that face. Anything but the sad face."
"Whatever... Anyway, what do you think of Millie? I think she seems really nice." Ronnie looked at me in disbelief as I asked him.
"I never thought I'd see the day that you approved of one of his girlfriends... You have such high standards for that boy." I rolled my eyes. "But to answer your question, I really like her. I think her and Jake seem like a really good match."
***
I woke up the next morning to the sound of two people screaming at each other. I knew the two voices instantly; Jake and Millie. I sighed and walked out of mine and Ronnie's room, and into the main part of the bus. There they were, fully kicking off with each other.
"Mrs Radke!" I looked at Millie and rolled my eyes. "Can you please tell your son that his behaviour has been unacceptable?!" I looked at her in disbelief.
"You fucking what? Do you honestly expect me to even get involved in your shitty little domestics? And if I did, do you honestly expect me to take your side? I don't even know what's gone on. And I would appreciate if you guys could stop with the shouting, it's early - the guys have to be out late tonight and none of them will be happy if they get woken up by your yappy mouths."
I proceeded to sit down on the sofa before getting a cigarette and lighting it, before sitting my ash tray in my lap. I rolled my eyes as Millie continued to whine and drone on at Jake, and I could see him getting more and more frustrated with her. I chuckled to myself and finished smoking before deciding to speak up.
"Millie! What the hell is actually your problem? Like, what's gone on to warrant you being an absolutely massive psycho bitch?" She scoffed at me.
"He think it's acceptable to text other girls and send them 'x's on the end of messages." I looked at her in disbelief. "It's completely not OK. I should be the only girl he ever wants to talk to and he should never talk to anyone else at all!"
"I'm sorry but are you actually that insecure that you can't even let my son have female friends? Like, sorry but I'm not having you basically lock him up and cut him off from the rest of the world just because you know for a fact he could find someone better. If you don't want him to leave you then maybe you should start by actually trusting him. But I honestly think you've burned that bridge. If you've gonna be a psycho bitch and be disrespectful towards mine and Ronnie's son, when on our bus, that we pay for, then you can fuck off back home. I ain't putting up with this shit, and never ever expect me to take your side over that of my son again. Stupid bitch."
***
Four hours had passed. It turned out that the person whom Jake had texted was actually me, so she really was a psycho nutcase. She had decided to leave after they had decided to break things off. I seriously just wanted Jake to find someone that was decent, but that seemed to be becoming more and more of a distant possibility as time went on.
Ronnie and the rest of the guys had gone out as they were gigging tonight but Jake and I couldn't be bothered so we decided to just stay on the bus and watch crappy TV. I could tell that Jake wasn't happy with this morning's events but it couldn't be helped.
"Mom?" He turned to face me as he spoke. "Why the hell can't I find a decent girl? I try so hard and treat them as nicely as I possibly can but they still just never seem to want me, or the turn out to be nutters." I chuckled to myself.
"Trust me Jake, I think girls just have a thing for bad guys, they always have. Look at me, your real dad was a right dickhead, and Ronnie doesn't exactly have a perfect background but I still married him. You've just gotta find someone that you click with, that you have that spark with, otherwise it's just never going to work. They'll come into your life when you don't expect it." Jake smiled to himself.
"So how did you and Ronnie actually meet?" I chuckled to myself.
"You were only seven so it was a damn long time ago. You kept pestering me to go to a FIR gig even though I hated them at the time and thought that Ronnie was an arrogant asshole. As we watched them, you sat on my shoulders and Ronnie kept his eyes pretty much on mine so I winked at him a few times purely in the hope that I could get you to meet him. It worked and we chilled with them for a while before I went for a smoke with Ronnie and you just stayed inside with Jacky. When I spoke to him I realised that he wasn't that bad and then the next day he texted me and invited us on tour with them as a way for me to make money since at that point in time I had literally nothing, so we went along and did merch. From there we got together and still are today. We had some rough times, we certainly have over the years, but at the end of the day we just had that click and that spark. Trust me Jakey, you'll meet someone when you honestly aren't looking to. Don't chase it - let it come to you."
