Jason grimaced, worry evident on his face. “She wanted to come tonight, and I argued all the way to the door, but finally managed to reason with her. Her feet are the size of footballs, but getting her to stay put for any length of time is almost impossible.” With an exasperated shake of his head, he continued, “This pregnancy may yet be the end of me. I spend all my time trying to get her to take it easy, and she spends all her time trying to prove to me why it’s not necessary. If I have to hear, ‘back in the old days, women had babies in the fields while they continued with their work,’ I’ll explode.”
“You think that’s bad,” Nick piped in, “you should go to a meal with all the women and let them describe their female issues in full detail. I’ll never be right again after that. A man needs to stay ignorant to a certain point.”
With a nod of agreement, Jason bumped his fist against Nick’s shoulder and said, “I feel your pain man, for sure.”
Turning back to Suzy, Jason asked, “So who’s the band playing tonight?”
“Oh, it’s a local rock band that does a lot of 80’s music along with some current Top 40 stuff. I think you’ll like them. I’ve used them before and had nothing but compliments.”
When she looked at Nick again he was studying her in a way that had her raising a brow in question. He quickly turned away saying that he needed to hit the men’s room before his speech. She shrugged it off as she sent Jason towards the stage for the opening speech and met Beth at the back for a final status check.
~~~
Nick met up with Jason and Gray backstage. “Do you think she suspects anything?”
“Nope, nothing, bro. Hell I don’t think she could guess this in a million years. Hey you never told me what happened with the girl in accounts payable who was giving your new numbers to Reva? How did she even have access to that information?”
With a grim look, Gray said, “Apparently there is online access to our cell phone accounts to make changes and dispute charges. It also lists all of our phone numbers. She was fired by her supervisor this afternoon. Reva really didn’t want to tell me who her mole was, but I insisted. We can’t have people like that on our staff. She was actually Reva’s cousin.”
“Damn, I guess family loyalty will get you so far, and then it’ll get your ass fired.”
Jason shook his head. “This whole mess is like something from a bad soap opera. I’m glad Reva finally came forward, though, and hopefully soon you and Suzy will be able to look back on it and laugh.”
Nick chuckled. “She should at least be able to laugh about this evening, if nothing else.”
Jason walked onto the stage for his speech, and Nick clapped a hand on Gray’s shoulder as he prepared to make a complete and utter fool out of himself. If it worked though, it would be well worth it.
~~~
As she settled in beside her sister, she could tell Beth was dying to know what was going on, but with the speeches starting, it was impossible to carry on a conversation without disturbing a nearby table. Jason and Nick were both very good public speakers and used the right about of humor and sincerity to captivate their audience.
Finally, the entertainment portion of the evening arrived and Nick introduced the band as he finished his speech. Soon light rock filled the room as the band eased into the opening set with some lighter songs. After a short break, the lead singer took the microphone and joked around with the audience.
“Our next number goes out to a special lady in the house, your very own Suzy Denton. I’m going to step aside and sing back-up on this one.”
As the lead singer stepped back to make room for the guest singer, Beth looked at Suzy, “What’s going on?”
Suzy shrugged her shoulders, “I have no idea. It’s probably some joke at my expense.”
When the spotlight hit the figure striding towards the lead microphone, Suzy almost dropped the drink she was holding. There standing at center stage in an old pair of faded jeans and a Bon-Jovi shirt from their Crush Tour, stood Gray.
Beth grabbed her arm, pulling frantically. “Did you know about this?”
“OH MY GOD, of course not. What is he doing?”
Suzy’s eyes were riveted to him as he started to speak. “Hey everyone, sorry to interrupt this fabulous band, but they have been nice enough to humor me. I’ll warn you now I have very little singing talent so this might be a good time for a bathroom break.”
As laughter rang out in the room, Gray continued on. “There’s a special lady here tonight who has no idea how much she means to me or the lengths I’d go to in order to show her that she’s now and will always be first in my life.” Then squatting down to eye level with the audience, as if they were old friends, he said, “The woman I love is a free spirit. She was always accusing me of being something of a stuffed shirt, and maybe she was right.”
Gray smiled at the choruses of “no” that rang out in the audience. “Ah thanks guys. One of the things that Suzy said about me early on was that I was probably too uptight to own a Bon-Jovi tour shirt, but as you can see in the name of love, I now have one.”