Monday, December 13

2:00 pm
Melbourne

Hanging out by the pool for awhile.  Much better experience today.  I woke up feeling about a thousand percent better than I did yesterday morning.

Just got off the phone with Cate.  All is forgiven, but she made me work for it.  Well, not really, but she had me going.  She's a  naughty minx, that wife of mine.  If she and Sambora ever truly join forces against me I might as well fucking surrender and beg for mercy.  There would be no hope for my survival, ha ha.

Finally got the balls to call her yesterday, around bedtime her time.  She didn't answer.  I left her a message that started out "Baby, I'm soooooo sorry..." and groveled from there.  It ended with a whiny plea for her to call me and say goodnight because I miss her so much.

So after I left that message I realized I had to drag my ass back up to my room because there was a thunderstorm rolling in.  Perfect.  Even Mother Nature was conspiring against me yesterday.  Made it back to my room somehow and crawled back into my bed.  Well, I was never in it to begin with I guess, so I actually got under the covers and just laid there in the dark, listening to the wine slosh around in my brain.

Then my phone goes off.  It's a text from Cate.  With a picture.  A picture of ME, sitting in one of those big plush chairs at the Rhino, a glass of wine in one hand, a cigar in the other, eyes as wide as saucers, and a giant shit-eating grin on my face.  And at the edge of the photo you can see a smooth, bare hip with a tiny little green strap across it.  The redhead.  And I look like a kid who just saw Santa Claus come down the chimney.

Fucking Richie.  He texted a pic of me to my wife.

So I realize I'm REALLY in deep, and I haul myself up off the bed and stumble over to the computer.  Despite the light from the screen burning into my retinas I manage to send the biggest, most expensive bouquet of flowers on Flowers.com to be delivered to Cate at the Jersey house, stat.  Then I get on Tiffany.com and start looking for diamonds.

My phone pings again -- it's a text from Cate.  All it says was "Worth it?"

Fuck me.  I just KNOW I'm a Dead Man -- and I didn't even really do anything wrong!!!  I immediately try to call her, get her voicemail, leave another groveling, sniveling message, and text her back that I love her and I'm sorry.  I spend the next half hour staring at my phone, silently begging it to ring or beep or something to let me know I'm not going to have to spend the rest of my life trying to atone for my sins.

Finally the phone rings and I realize maybe it's not a good thing.  I'm overwhelmed with dread, can barely croak out a "hello."

"So, you had quite a night." she says.  No "Hi Baby," no "Are you okay," no "Fuck you, you miserable horny Rat Bastard."  I swallow hard and just start blabbering, just spilling my guts and begging her to believe me, that I didn't do anything wrong, I thought of her the whole time, it was all Richie's fault I was there.... and on the other end of the line, there's just silence.  So I take a deep breath and promise never to ever ever ever go to a strip club again, or to even fucking look at another woman, except for when I have to onstage, and to spend the rest of my time on tour locked in my room reading the fucking Bible.

Finally I run out of apologies and confessions and I just sit there, waiting for the shoe to drop.  Waiting for Cate to tell me how disgusted she is with me and how she's never gonna be able to trust me.  My heart is in my throat, I'm sweating bullets, and I want to charge down the hall and kick the fucking shit out of Sambora for diming me out.  And what does my wife say?

"Gotcha."

I could hardly fucking believe my ears.  "What?" I ask.  Then I hear that sexy, throaty, beautiful laugh in my ear and my entire body tingles.  "Gotcha, Baby." she says again.  Then she proceeds to tell me that Richie told her the whole story, about how all I did all night was whine about missing my wife and tell him over and over and over how that sexy redhead stripper reminded me of Cate.  Fucking Richie KNEW this would be the ultimate Punk, and that Cate would get in on it in a heartbeat.

Fucking traitor.

Anyway, so Cate teases me a little more, tells me she loves me and she trusts me completely.  Besides, she says, she'd know if I was lying to her in a heartbeat, with her training and interrogation skills.  Even from half a world away she'd know from the first word out of my lying mouth.  She tells me she knows I'm a man, boys will be boys, she's glad I'm out having fun, and that she misses me too and she'll give me a lap dance to remember when I get home.

Hell Yeah.

Christ, talk about breathing a sigh of relief when that call was over.  She really had me going.  I was ready to kick Sambora's ass, but by the end of the call I was laughing at the whole deal.

Oh, and the mystery of why I was barefoot in the car was solved too -- apparently Sambora also sent Cate a video clip of me completely shitfaced, jabbing my thumb up against the sole of my foot, announcing to the rest of the assholes in the car that I desperately needed to find my "cum-button" because my dick was so hard I thought it was gonna break off.

Yeah, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Anyway, all in good fun, it's over and done.  At least until I figure out how to get even.  With Sambora, not with Cate.  I'm just gonna keep sending her presents and thanking my lucky stars I have an awesome wife with a sense of humor.

And I'm still looking for that damned spot....