Chapter 50

It was past 2 am when Richie finally dropped his bags in the middle of his hotel room. Regardless, he was glad he had taken an earlier flight so he could at least get some sleep in a bed rather than an airplane seat, business class or not.

He went to use the bathroom and had a drink of water before texting Sarah that he had finally arrived.

Instead of getting a text reply, he received a phone call and accepted it straight away, switching it to speakerphone.

"Hey." He could barely say before he could hear crying. "Sarah?" He asked worriedly but he didn't get a response.

Her voice sounded far away, as if she had made the call, then put down the phone without thought, which was exactly what she had done.

After a minute or two the crying finally subsided and Sarah amswered the phone.

"I'm sorry." Sarah said. "I started calling you and he just started crying."
"It's okay. What happened? I figured you'd be asleep by now." He said as he opened up his text conversation with Ava to let her know he had arrived as well.
"I'm not sure, he's been fussy all night." Sarah sighed, sounding tired.
"Hmmm," Richie thought, "is he just tired? Was he asleep?"
"Yeah, he was. He just woke up."
"Do you think anything's wrong? If he's sick?" He was a little worried, the past had been scary enough and it made them both scared for Daniel catching even the slightest cold.
"I don't think so. No fever or anything."
"What about teeth?" Richie asked, getting up from the bed, he pulled off his shirt, getting ready for bed.
Sarah sighed. "It's possible."
He smiled a little, knowing how she felt. "He'll be okay." He reminded her.
"I know." She knew it but dealing with a teething baby wasn't as okay. "I thought you were going to your mom's?"
"Yeah, I was but now I'm here earlier so I didn't want to show up at her house in the middle of the night. I'll probably visit her for dinner tonight." He said.
Sarah smiled to herself. "She'll like that."
"Yeah. It'll be nice to see her. It's been a couple months." He finished undressing and picked up his phone to reply to Ava's text, telling her to go to sleep. Then decided to take that advice for himself. "I think I'm going to go get ready for bed."

Sarah agreed, wanting to head to sleep as well to be rested enough to handle Daniel the next day. They said their goodbyes and disconnected their call.

His hotel room wasn't too big, it was comfortable enough to feel like home, that was something he liked about certain hotels, the effort they put in to make their guests feel at home. 

From his suitcase, he retrieved his toiletries bag and carried it to the bathroom so he could brush his teeth before getting comfortable in bed.

Despite it being almost 3 am and having set an alarm for only 6 hours for now, mainly so he wouldn't miss breakfast, falling asleep wasn't as easy as he had thought.

Now that he was here in New York, and technically only a few streets away from Jon's apartment, he felt nervous. He was unsure if it was the good kind of anxious or bad. It had been months since he had seen the guys, texts or conversations had been rare on all of their parts. The uncertainty of how they would all react to seeing him again, gave him an uneasy feeling but on the other hand, he was also excited to see his friends again.

At least Jon now understood what had happenned and how starting a conversation was hard, David and Tico had to be able to understand that as well.

Once he was able to convince himself that everything would be just fine, they were his closest friends after all. After 30 years, they would all understand his standpoint or know how he must have felt to make the choices he made.