Chapter nine

Nearly two years later I had a ticket to their show in Hamburg. Thanks to the fan club centerstage, front row. My parents and friends told me that I were crazy, paying so much money for a ticket, but they didn’t know what happened in NY. I didn’t tell anyone. It was Jon and mine dirty little secret, something no one could take away from us.

In the last year Jon’s and Dot’s divorce was all over the news. It’s not exactly that they spilt up and fight, but the press wanted to know every single detail why this long time relationship failed. Somehow Jon managed to keep his private life as much out of the spotlight as possible.

Now I was standing here, in the stadium. I was so nervous. I couldn’t stand still a minute, but I didn’t want to leave my place, because I was afraid someone else would stand there when I would come back. Why don’t they put seats in the interior like they do at Giants?

So I sat and stood in front of the stage with my IPod playing Bon Jovi songs. And again I couldn’t stop the thinking. What if he doesn’t recognise me? Or even worse what if he does and doesn’t want to see me? Maybe it was a stupid idea to come… I was close to leave twice.

Then the supporting act started. Oh, what a nightmare! Gianna Nannini. Even if Germany is close to Italy, we don’t speak Italian. So no one understood what she was singing or saying. After one hour the nightmare was over. I got even more nervous.

Oh, my God, his white mic stand. Was that Tico there in the background? Damn, why do I have to be so small! While I still tried to figure out if it was really Tico, the beginning from “Lost Highway” filled the stadium and Jon jumped on stage.

The moment I saw him the world around me disappeared. There were no longer 60.000 excited fans; there weren’t even the other band members. It was just Jon singing on stage. I only had eyes for him…and his way to short brown hair! Don’t like it! Change it, baby!

During “Lost Highway” Jon didn’t see me. Maybe I had changed too much? But I actually just lost a couple pounds. Not much, I still had the curves he loved. Look at me, please!

They had just started “Born to be my baby”, when he stopped dead right in front of me. For one second he looked at me questioningly, but when I smiled at him a huge smile spilt his face. The girls around me were freaking out, but I knew it was just for me.

The rest of the band realized that something had changed Jon’s behaviour. Before they could lead over into “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” a couple songs later, Jon stopped everything and made them all come together. Even Tico had to climb down from his drums. All I could see was Richie shaking his head, Tico shrugging his shoulders and David looking more or less shocked. But it seemed that Jon got his way, wouldn’t wondered if not and after an awesome performance of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead / Mercy”, they started “In these arms”. I couldn’t believe it. His eyes were shinning with joy when he watched the stunned expression on my face. That night he was singing just for me.

After that it got even better. JOEY! Oh, my God! And then I had to giggle, because you could see that David was trying really hard to remember the right keys. He did it perfect, but his look was murderous. He really wanted to kill Jon in this minute.

The rest of the show was great. Seemed that they got back into the original planned set list. But there was still a little surprise waiting for me. As they came back to play the encore the familiar notes of “Living in sin” filled the air. He really remembered. I wanted to cry.

When they ended the show with “Wanted” a security man came walking up to me. “Excuse me, Miss.” Definitely American, I recognised the accent right away. I looked at him. “Would you come with me please?”

“Sure” I grabbed my stuff and we headed to the backstage area.

“Mr. Bon Jovi asked me to bring you to his hotel. He’s sorry that he couldn’t wait for you, but the fans would probably knock down the barricades. You see this is rather temporary.” He pointed to the fences. Behind them awful lot of people tied to get a glimpse of the backstage area.

“That’s ok. Safety comes first.” I smiled at him. Somehow he seemed relieved that I wasn’t upset.

We had a short and uneventful drive to the hotel. When we entered the lobby the woman from the front desk waved at us. Standing in front of her, I realized that she was a little bit nervous and not sure how to start.

“Well, are you Kris?” She asked curiously. I had to laugh.

“Yes, I am.”

“Oh, thank god. I have a message for you.” She handed me a little piece of paper.

“Thanks.” She nodded and turned to another client. The note was short: Suite 9304 to be in these arms. J. I smiled and walked to the elevators. The security guard just nodded at me and walked over to the bar area, probably checking everything for the after show party.