“Lance, please, cut me some slack here. I’m doing the best I can to get away next weekend, but I can’t just run off and leave whenever you want me to.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Brynn…”

It was just another argument in our loving yet tumultuous relationship. I laid my head back on my pillow in yet another strange hotel room, and thought about the events that had led up to our latest fight. We had been together for almost three years, and we had both changed drastically over the course of the relationship. My career had not slowed down at all…hell, sometimes it seemed to just get crazier as the months flew by. Brynn had been a freshman in college when I first met her. Introduced by a mutual friend, we had become close friends before running headfirst into a dizzying yet oddly satisfying relationship. Both of us were stubborn as hell and we knew that our tenacious behaviors caused many of our fights. Right from the beginning she had refused to let me spoil her, even if it was just to fly her out to see me. If she couldn’t pay for it with her own money, then she refused to come. I had always told her money wasn’t an issue, but she insisted that she didn’t want to “use” my money or me. “Mooching” was not her thing. So weeks would pass, sometimes even months, before we would even see each other. Our last fight, I admit, I had started. I hadn’t seen her in almost a month, and I wouldn’t be flying to her town for several more weeks. The desire to see her had forced me to shamelessly beg for her to fly up to New York and see me, but my efforts proved fruitless. Brynn insisted that she couldn’t just call into work and fly up to see her lovesick boyfriend. Her career didn’t allow that. I knew that pleading with her to come see me would be in vain, but I did it anyway, only to end the conversation with the persistent dial tone ringing in my ear after she hung up on me. She drove me crazy, but I was so in love with her that I obeyed her every wish and command. Even when fans started catching onto the fact that I wasn’t as single as I always claimed, she still remained steadfast in her decision to remain anonymous. To quote her: “The last thing I need is a bunch of crazy fans rushing me on campus when they find out my boyfriend is a pop star!” I had to smile at the thought, though. Stubborn, she was, but damn I loved her for it.

“It’s hard for me to say the things
I want to say sometimes
There’s no one here but you and me
And that broken old street light
Lock the doors
Leave the world outside
All I’ve got to give to you
Are these five words when I...”

“Why do I put up with him?” I screamed in frustration and chucked a notebook onto the floor, my dog whimpering and stalking away as I narrowly missed her.
“Because you love him.” Ginny, my roommate and best friend, smiled at me.
“If you say so. I mean, my goodness, Gin. He knows I can’t just pack up and fly out to wherever he is when he needs to see me. It’s been like that for the past three years. Why does he expect it to change now?”
“He misses you, Brynn. That’s all. And let’s face it, you miss him, too…that smile, those sharp green eyes…that puppy dog pout he does when he knows he’s pissed you off…” She trailed off and I picked up where she left off.
“And who could forget that voice? Man…the best sound in the world is his voice when he first wakes up…and his hands…yeah, he has nice hands…” I was shaken out of my thoughts as Ginny hurled a pillow in my face.
“Snap out of it, Juliet…Romeo is in New York and you are here. And if I remember correctly, ‘Lance, I can’t just run off and leave whenever you want me to…’. You did say that, didn’t you?” I rolled my eyes at her and plopped onto the couch.
“Yeah I did. He knows how to get to me, though.”
“You get to see him next weekend. Just a few more days.”
“I know, I know…” I pressed my face into one of the sofa’s pillows and kicked my feet, giving a primal scream of frustration. Lance always knew the exact buttons to push, either way. He knew what would piss me off, but he always knew exactly what to say to make me melt and love him even more. Yes, it was true, he could irritate the shit out of me more than anyone, but one thing was for sure. I couldn’t live without him.

“Thank you for loving me
For being my eyes when I couldn’t see
For parting my lips
When I couldn’t breathe
Thank you for loving me...”

I nervously paced through the airport, continuously running my hands through my hair. I don’t know why I was no nervous; it wasn’t as if it was my first time meeting her. Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen her in so long. After all, it had been almost two months. What if we had both changed so much that it wasn’t the same? I had seen Chris’s relationship with his girlfriend deteriorate rapidly when they stopped spending as much time together. Lord knows I didn’t want that happening with Brynn. We hadn’t even really talked about our last fight. The group was getting ready to release our fourth album, and the promotion and media blitz got in the way of having any spare time to sit down and talk with her. I’m sure she was busy with her job. I had managed to get her a job with Mercury Nashville her senior year of college. She had helped me tremendously in getting my management company off the ground, and she had a lot of experience under her belt without a degree. She had ended up loving her job so much that finishing her degree had almost taken a back burner. In the summertime, she took a couple of classes, but the rest of the year she concentrated on her job. At first, she had started out as a guinea pig, trying to learn the ropes and become acquainted with the workplace. She impressed the CEO, Luke, almost immediately with her ambition and her skills. Slowly but surely she had been promoted into the PR department, working closely with one of the artists I had signed to the label, Meredith.

My mind drew a blank as I heard the arrival of her flight announced over the intercom. I waited patiently, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. My eyes scanned over the people exiting the terminal, hoping she would be one of the first passengers off. Finally she walked through the gate, a shoulder bag slung carelessly over one side. Her hair had almost completely fallen out of her ponytail, and her clothes were wrinkled from the flight. Even so, she always took my breath whenever I saw her. I couldn’t even move for a moment. Slowly she looked up and fixed her eyes upon mine, her mouth breaking into a radiant smile. She ran towards me, her arms outstretched, and I met her halfway, pulling her tightly into my arms. We stood there for several moments, holding each other and remembering what it was like to be in one another’s arms. Finally, she pulled away from me, and I pushed some fallen strands of hair out of her eyes. I leaned down and kissed her gently, glad that she was finally here.

“I never knew I had a dream
Until that dream was you
When I look into your eyes
The sky’s a different blue
Cross my heart
I wear no disguise
If I tried, you’d make believe
That you believe my lies...”

The morning sun filtered through the curtains covering the hotel window and woke me. I lazily stretched my arms out and rolled over, my eyes meeting Lance’s sleeping figure. I laid on my side, watching him, taking in all of the features that I hadn’t seen in so long. His blonde locks were tousled from his sleep, and his long eyelashes rested gently on his cheeks. His pink full lips were frozen in a satisfied smile, and I couldn’t help but grin. There was no doubt he was exhausted...we had went to bed rather late. We stayed up all night, talking, cuddling, and making love until finally we passed out around four in the morning. He was so beautiful, laying there on his stomach, and sleeping so peacefully that I felt guilty about wanting to wake him up. I decided to let him sleep a little longer and carefully crawled out of the bed, heading into the bathroom to take a long hot shower. After I had finished, I quietly exited the bathroom, humming softly to myself while towel drying my hair. A deep whistle startled me, and I looked up to find Lance awake, still lazily lying in the bed and watching me.
“Good morning, baby...” I made my way over to his side of the bed and sat down beside him, running my fingers through his messy hair and giving him a soft kiss.
“Good morning...” My spine tingled as his voice rippled through my body. His naturally deep voice was even deeper from his long sleep and it drove me crazy hearing it.
“Oh, you don’t know how much I’ve missed that voice...” I crawled over him and wrapped my arm lazily around his waist as he chuckled.
“What? This voice?” He made his voice go even deeper than his natural talking voice and I shivered outwardly.
“Yeah, that voice. You better stop!” I laughed at him.
“What are you going to about it if I don’t?”
“Make you pay!” I sat up straight in the bed and growled at him, prepared to punish him for driving me so crazy. Oh, revenge is so, so sweet!

“Thank you for loving me
For being my eyes
When I couldn’t see
For parting my lips
When I couldn’t breathe
Thank you for loving me...”

“Baby, dinner is almost ready, okay?”
I called out from the kitchen, hoping to maybe break her away from her laptop. I heard her mumble what sounded like an “okay” and grumbled in frustration. Her first day here had been amazing...all we did was lay in bed together the whole day and spend time with each other. I was thankful that I was given four days off to spend the rest of her vacation with her. The second day, I had to get up early and go to one radio interview and the rest of my day would have been free to spend it with her. I came back to the hotel suite with Chinese takeout for lunch, only to find her already up and typing away on her laptop. I tried not to show my disappointment, but Brynn had sensed it anyway, and hesitantly closed her laptop to eat lunch with me. The rest of the day had been a little tense, both of us somewhat uncomfortable with each other. I knew she had a lot of work that she left behind to come see me, and I understood why she wanted to stay on top of it. The selfish part of me, though, wished that she could forget about work and spend all of her time with me and only with me. I tried not to let it eat away at me, but now it was the evening of the third night, and tomorrow she would be flying back home. I threw a dirty spoon into the sink angrily and stalked into the living room area, glaring at her.
“God, Lance, please don’t give me that look.” Her back was facing me as she said it. She saved whatever it was she was typing and closed the laptop, slowly turning to look at me. “What?”
“What? What do you mean ‘what?’ Have you been too involved in your work to notice that I maybe want to spend time with my girlfriend that’s leaving tomorrow?”
“Lance, don’t start—“
“I’m not starting anything, Brynn. Excuse me for wanting to spend time with you.” I tried to keep an even tone with her, but my frustration seeped through every word.
“Damn it! Why do you have to be so selfish? You are twenty-three years old, Lance. You’d think you would be over your temper tantrums by now!” She hadn’t even tried to keep her tone in check and angrily shouted at me.
“Whatever, Brynn. Go back to work. I’m guessing that makes you happier. Do whatever pleases you. Don’t mind me.”
I walked back into the kitchen, throwing away the dinner I had made, and grabbed my coat. I made a point to slam the door to emphasize my point. My head hurt from the anger coursing through my body and I walked briskly to a bar across the street. She really knew how to get under my skin.

“You pick me up when I fall down
You ring the bell before they count me out
If I was drowning you would part the sea
And risk your own life to rescue me...”

I jumped as I heard the door slam and listened to his angry footsteps fade away. I angrily unplugged my laptop and took it back to the bedroom, throwing it on the bed. I pulled my suitcase out of the closet and hastily threw my clothes in, not bothering to fold them or organize them. I just wanted to get the hell out of the suite, and fast.
“God he pisses me off!”
I slammed the suitcase shut and zipped it up, dragging it to the door. Before I could think twice, I had managed to gather the rest of my belongings, drag them downstairs, and hail a cab to the nearest airport. I laid my head back on the seat of the taxi, closing my eyes and trying to calm down. The hurt look in his eyes kept surfacing in my mind.

All he had wanted to do was spend time with me.

Suddenly I felt an outpour of guilt, and tears welled up in my eyes. What was I doing? I had accused him of acting like a baby, and now here I was, running away from our problems...running away from him. Me flying back to Nashville was not going to solve anything. In fact, it was only going to make things worse. I got the attention of the cab driver and he turned the cab around, heading back to the hotel. Thank goodness I hadn’t even thought to check out, and still had my room key. I dragged my stuff back upstairs and plopped onto the couch, hoping he would come back soon. I already missed him.

An hour later, I heard his key slip into the door and watched as it slowly opened. My heart went out to him when I saw his disheveled clothes and puffy eyes. He had been crying, and it was all because of me. His eyes went straight to the suitcase, and he looked at me, tears threatening to spill once again.
“I’m sorry.” We both said it at the same time and I stood, looking at him, not really knowing what to say.
“Are you leaving?” I winced at his question, but slowly shook my head.
“No. I was going to...I got halfway to the airport and realized what I was doing.” He nodded in understanding.
“Why did you come back?” He walked towards me and took a seat on the couch, and I sat down beside him.
“Because I love you, Lance. Because I couldn’t leave it like that. It wouldn’t have solved anything...it would have made things worse between us. And I don’t want that.”
“Neither do I.”
“Do you still love me?”
“Of course I still love you, B. You are my world. I’m sorry I said those hateful things and acted so selfish. I know your work is important to you, and I shouldn’t demand that you give it up for me.”
“But baby, I know what you meant. I see where I was wrong. We don’t ever get to see each other, and when we do, all I can think about is work. It’s not right.”
“So it’s both our faults, huh?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Lance. Really I am.”
“I know. And I’m sorry, too. We need to work this out. We can’t keep doing this. We just can’t. If we aren’t arguing on the phone, we are arguing in person. It’s not healthy.”
I nodded.
“Okay...well, let’s do this. I can’t give up my career, Lance. It’s opened up doors for me that I never thought possible. You obviously can’t give up yours. No one says we have to. But we can give each other attention. We can spend time together. We just have to put forth the effort.”
“So...let’s agree to it. One weekend out of the month, is our weekend. No one else’s. We make time for each other. Deal?”
“Deal.” I brought him into my arms and kissed him.
“Thank you.” He whispered.
“For what?”
“For loving me.”

“Lock the doors
Leave the world outside
All I’ve got to give to you
Are these five words when I
Thank you for loving me.”

Song and lyrics © Bon Jovi

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