Chapter Two

When Eve got back to the counter, she ducked out back to catch her breath. Leaning back against the wall she closed her eyes and blew out a breath.

He’s just a guy.

They say that things in your past that didn’t eventuate were not meant to be, but the night at Sayreville War Memorial back in the early 1980’s was one she’d wished hadn’t just past her on by. John Bongiovi was a pretty popular kid at school and she had a small but significant enough crush on him. Who couldn’t resist blue eyes, freckles and dimples?

Eve had been studying late and was walking through the parking lot and had noticed him bent over his car cursing like a sailor. Being that her father was a mechanic, she knew a thing or two about cars and had offered to help him out. The rain and sleet had whipped around them while they huddled over his beat up old ride. By the time she’d revved his baby into life after a click and a pump of the gas, they were both clammy and soaked. He’d offered her a ride home for her troubles and when he dropped her off, Eve had nearly had her first real kiss—until her father had come out to see who was dropping his daughter off home. She’d cursed her father for that moment.

They never got another chance and Eve had moved only a few weeks later when her father was transferred out of town unexpectedly. She had been crushed but moved on, always paying interest in his career. She had all the albums and she knew every song. So when Jon Bon Jovi walked back into her life after so many years, her head was spinning like a kaleidoscope.

She knew his worth and she knew how devastatingly handsome he’d become, she just never expected to see him again in the flesh. After all this time had past, she was amazed her heart still did flip flops when he stared at her, like it did back in his beat up old car that night.

Get a grip Eve, it’s not like you didn’t go out, fall in love and get married. She shrugged at herself, Pity he was an asshole, the kind your father used to warn you about.

She jumped when again a hand on her shoulder snapped her rudely out of her little dream. “Oh god, Ria!” She held her hand to her chest and sighed.

Jesus, why did he still have this effect on her after so much time?

“Mr Bon Jovi is at the counter asking for you...” she emphasised as she strolled back to the kitchen popping her iPod buds into her ears.

He was? What did he want now? Oh god, the coffee wasn’t off was it? She panicked and flattened her palms down against her apron. Bright and breezy, bright and breezy Eve.

She turned and smiled as she walked out, and nearly swallowed her tongue. He was leaning against her counter smiling, the same blue eyes that could take the heart of her, twinkling away.

What happened to casual and breezy? And you so need to speak.

“Hey, is everything ok? The coffee?”

He waved his hand away, “the coffee is fine, and in fact it’s more than fine... great blend... You’ll have to tell me what that is, but right now, I need to know something – do I know you from somewhere?”

Her heart leapt in her throat. Oh boy, he remembered her?

“Ah – I believe we went to the same high school, Sayreville War Memorial.”

She didn’t want to make a big deal of it, so she smiled but the crease in his brow didn’t relax.

He didn’t remember her? And just like that, the ten pound brick in her throat sank to her stomach.

~

He’d sat there sipping on the most delicious cup of coffee he’d had in months unable to concentrate on his lyrics that sat on a word document in bold Calibri in front of him. He’d known her from somewhere, and it was bugging the hell out of him that he couldn’t remember so he knew he would just have to ask.

When she’d come back out to greet him with her broad smile, his mind flashed back to the day he’d been dumped in the band he was in at school. It had been one of the worst days of his life and the icing on the cake was his hunk of junk car wouldn’t start to get him home. Not to mention it was pouring buckets and freaking sleeting. He was already in a foul mood until Eve Richardson had stopped and helped him. They’d mixed in different groups at school but she was cute with her blond hair, blue eyes and freckles. John at that had never got to know her, until that night.

And now she stood, over thirty years later just as beautiful. He often wondered what it would have been like to kiss her that night, even wondered how she would be in bed truth been known. He’d got too caught up in his band stuff to go back and find out and when he did give her a thought. She’d left town.

“No, no I remember you E-“ The tingle of the bell against the door and a flurry of commotion behind him stopped him dead. Reporters nearly tripped over themselves coming for him.

“Jon – is it true that your wife is trying to take half of your estate for her and her new lover?” one asked holding out his microphone as he fought for 1st place in the augural, let’s see who can reach the rock star first race.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He jammed his hands in his pockets, fished for a twenty and threw it on the counter making a beeline for his things. Collecting them quickly he slipped out the side door slamming it hard behind him as he disappeared down the
side alleyway.

Damn reporters, damn wife, damn stupid fucking divorce that she’d chosen to drag through the public eye. He had to believe it was the idiot she was now with more than her, as Dot was never like that when they were together.

Leaving sunshine curls and coffee behind he cursed, maybe talking with Eve was just never meant to be.