Chapter 65

The next afternoon Richie was in his dressing room, getting ready for the show. Sound check was over already and they were waiting for their time to go on stage by hanging out and having dinner. Right now he was alone in his room as he was kicked out of Jon's room after finishing the setlist when his chiropractor showed up. Any free time he had, he tried to talk to someone at home. Ava was busy tonight so he was very happy to talk to Sarah and catch her up on how Caleb was going in the Great North.

A knock came from the door, making him check the time on his phone.

"Be right back." He said to Sarah on speaker phone and went to open the door to find Caleb waiting for him along with his friend. "Come in guys." He opened the door wide enough to let both teenagers through. "I was just talking to your mom." He told Caleb as he picked up his phone again and informed Sarah of Caleb's arrival, promising to call her back after the concert.

Caleb waited for Richie to finish his phone call, "This is Thomas, we pretty much have all the same classes."
"Nice to meet you. Have you guys had dinner yet?" He asked the boys.
"We didn't, we had to catch the skytrain here to get here in time." Caleb explained. "Kind of hoped you'd feed us."
"Yeah, yeah." Richie said. "Let's go get catering then. Maybe I can introduce you to some people."

Thomas looked excited about that and followed Richie and Caleb out of the room.

Richie lead them both down the hall towards the cafeteria that was set up for catering. He grabbed some plates and passed them on to both boys before taking his own plate from the stack and started picking out which foods he wanted.

"Are we eating here or in the dressing room?" Caleb asked.
Richie shrugged. "I usually eat alone or with the guys but I guess they're not having dinner yet." He explained but noticed Caleb's reaction. "We can eat here if you want, I don't mind." From the entrance, he noticed Jon walk into the cafeteria as well and gave him a quick wave. "Why don't you guys find a seat, I'm going to bug Jon quick." He said before walking off and back to the front of the buffet line to meet Jon.

"Hey man," Jon said as he started selecting his food. "You got your kid here?"
"Yeah, we hung out yesterday and he wanted to come to the show, brought a friend." Richie explained to him quickly. "Do you want to come have dinner with us? Thomas is taking the same music courses Caleb is, so could be interesting."
"Sure, sounds good."

Jon followed him to the table the two teenage boys had picked out and they sat down opposite of them to start their own dinner.

"So what do you play?" Richie asked Caleb's friend, assuming he had to play an instrument if he was studying music at university.
"I play bass but I can do some rhythm guitar, some piano. Caleb and I jam quite often."
"That's cool," Jon pitched in, "Who inspired you? What band do you like?"
Thomas answered him quickly. "I like Nikki Sixx, he's pretty cool."
Jon snorted, almost laughed. "He's an asshole."
"We were all kids back then, I'm sure he's grown up too." Richie said patiently.
"Doubtful." Jon said. "So you're a Motley fan?" He asked Thomas again.
In response Thomas said, "Yeah, but I like a lot of 80s bands, Def Leppard, White Snake, Europe and of course you guys too. Anyone that was good in the 80s pretty much."

After dinner, Richie hung out in his dressing room with Caleb and Thomas. Quite happily, he got his guitar tech to bring him three of his guitars that were waiting to be played during the show. It had been a while since he had been able to play with Caleb and it was even better to jam with a new friend.

Although he was enjoying playing some music with the kids, it made him miss how he had not been able to do so for a while. Caleb left for university  6 weeks ago but it felt like it had been much longer. After playing together regularly, it was nice to finally do so again. In the beginning he had been able to show Caleb a few new tricks but now he felt quite proud of all that Caleb had learned and how fun it was to just play and share music with him like that, to have that kind of connection with him that he missed with Noah.

Even with Ava, he could at least play some piano with her, although she was less interested in it than when she was a little girl. Any time he could share the gift of music was a joyful moment to him. In only a few more years, he could do the same with Daniel and teach him some guitar or piano as well, maybe the accordion even.

After their jam session, his guitars were returned to their cases by the stage, ready to be played in a little while.

Caleb and Thomas traded backstage for front of stage and joined the audience for the opening act.

In the back, Richie and the rest of the band started to prepare for their show. He was excited to play for someone he knew personally. Even though he loved performing for all of their fans and making them happy, it was a little different when there was a family member watching them.

Soon enough Sarah would be watching him every night again. That was something he looked forward to very much.