Chapter 51

His phone alarm rang much too early. He snoozed it. His body still felt tired but it was 9 o'clock and breakfast would be over in an hour and he would never pass on a free meal. For now, he closed his eyes again.

Minutes later his phone made the same alarm sound. He groaned and silenced the alarm.

His phone screen showed him several notifications. A few texts, some apps and social media. As he moved to sit in bed, so he wouldn't fall asleep again, he swiped away his alerts and opened his texts. One from his mother acknowledging he wouldn't be there in the morning and inviting him for dinner instead. The second one from Ava, telling him good morning. She must have just gotten up for school he thought as he replied to her.

He dressed quickly and headed down to the breakfast area to grab some food. The hotel had an expansive selection of breakfast items and best of all, there was bacon.

After breakfast he got into gear, he showered quickly and got dressed. Then grabbed his leather shoulder bag. That's all he would need today, his guitars and equipment had already been shipped to join the rest of the band's instruments.

Once outside, he had the joy and pleasure of hailing a taxi. He didn't want to deal with private drivers while Jon lived 5 minutes away. Technically he could walk it but he'd rather not. It only took a few tries before he could get a taxi to pull over.

"153 Mercer Street." He said as he got into the cab.

He felt silly when the taxi pulled over just a few minutes later, he told himself to walk back to the hotel later. Pulling out his wallet from his pocket, he asked the driver for his total and paid him in cash.

At the door he rang the bell and waited for an intercom response or the door to be buzzed open.

"Hello?" Came a voice from the speaker in the wall.
"Hey, it's me." He said, knowing Jon would know who would be visiting.
"Rich? Come in." The buzzer sounded as he invited him in.
"Thanks man." He said as he pushed open the door, then headed for the elevator.

Once inside the elevator, as he pushed the button for Jon's floor, his mind offered him a random memory from 30 years ago. When they first started selling out shows and staying at the nice hotels, how Jon used to be scared to get inside an elevator, he would rather take the stairs. Which often meant Richie did the same but now he was chuckling at the idea of Jon taking an elevator every single day.

Luckily the elevator didn't stop at any other floor than the one he needed to be at. The doors opened into a small foyer and he was greeted by Jon, holding the door open.

"Did you just get here?" Jon asked as he let Richie in.
Richie shook his head. "No, I decided on an earlier flight so I got here around 12.30."
"Makes sense, those red-eye flights are exhausting."
"Too old for that shit." Richie said as he followed Jon to the living room.

He sat his bag down beside the couch then sat down himself while Jon sat on the other couch. They had enough time until heading out to meet the rest of the guys for rehearsals. Jon's house was quiet as the children were all out at school and Richie figured Dorothea must be out as well since he had not seen her yet. They talked about the plan for the next week, how rehearsals would go and then the next leg of the tour.

Richie was getting more and more excited to catch up with everyone and play some music again. Their classics were stuck in his brain forever, the day he had to think of how to play Prayer or Wanted would never come, he was sure of that but the songs they wrote last year? He would definitely need a refresher on those ones.

He discussed with Jon how they would let him play at least one song per show, as they used to before. That way Jon could take a break himself and Richie could play something he wanted to artistically. He was relieved when Jon agreed it could be a song of his choice, not the same song each time, which Richie was very happy with. There were so many songs he loved to play and so many he would love to share with his audience which would mean, both Tico and David would need to learn some of his new songs as well. Rehearsals would be interesting.

Soon enough lunch time came around and the two headed out to go grab some lunch before making the drive out of the city to Jon's New Jersey house where they were all meeting at the studio.