My Rockstar's Secret Baby by Jamie Knight (red seas under red skies .TXT) 📗

clock screamed in the dark, beckoning for relief. Hitting the snooze button, I rolled out of bed, the collision with the hardwood floor shocking me to wakefulness, as the adrenaline hit my brain. Better than coffee and a donut for a pick-me-up, and a lot easier on the waistline.

Seth had booked us each our own room for each spot on the tour. A tender mercy, not just because of Varg’s snoring, and Stig’s early-morning meditation. The way things were, we could indulge in our quirks without driving the others crazy.

A fact which boded well for the future of the band. Though, I would argue that if we hadn’t broken up by that point, it wasn’t likely to happen at all. Ten years could be an awfully long time, no matter how much you liked each other at the beginning.

Dressing as to block the autumn chill, I took the stairs from our upper floor accommodations, and out into the early morning. It was the last date of the tour, and we were home. At least what I once thought of as home.

The place where I’d grown up and knew better than anywhere else in the world. Fine credentials for the title, but there was somewhere else that had started to put up a strong challenge. Not only because it was the place I’d spent as much time as in Bergen, but also because Stephanie was there, with our baby, and she was all alone.

Okay, not exactly all alone, but I wasn’t there, but I intended to be as soon as I could.

The streets were familiar, though still seemed like something from a dream. I’d given thought to buying a map when we’d first gotten into town, just to be sure. Happily, it wasn’t needed, everything being roughly where we had left it.

Completing the circuits that I’d planned out the night before, drawing a map on the branded notepad on the desk in my room, I hit the showers before dressing for breakfast.

We’d agreed to meet in the hotel restaurant, making for and easy commute. Not that one would know it from Varg’s distinctly sour expression.

“What’s with grumpy bear?”

“Not much, just an apocalyptic hangover,” Stig said, stirring his coffee.

There were few things stranger than Stig in the morning. Dressed as would be expected given his career, stirring his black coffee exactly thirty-six times. Not thirty-five, or thirty-seven, but thirty-six, every time.

The tinkling of the spoon inside the ceramic mug provided the soundtrack to his ritualistic perusal of the business section, reading glasses perched near the end of his nose.

I suspected most people were surprised when he joined the band, the general agreement being that he could have done pretty much whatever he wanted.

His parents certainly were under the impression that he was going to be a lawyer. It took a while, but they started speaking to him again, particularly after they actually heard us play, and never really gave up hope, still mentioning it in passing whenever there was a family gathering.

The schedule was tight. We were to go straight from breakfast to the initial sound-check. Seth had planned for two just to be sure.

All our gear was already set up but the venue staff. How we’d managed to fly into multiple cities without any of it getting lost or broken by the airline was a miracle to rival water into wine.

When everything was played and done, we were free to do whatever until two hours before the show, when we would do it all again. No one could ever accuse Seth of cutting corners.

Released into the wide world, I made directly for a café that I knew had internet, the hotel too far away to get back to the venture in good time, particularly if my mission was successful. I hadn’t spoken Stephanie since our sex Skype session earlier that week, much to my shame.

To be fair, it was mostly due to a really tight scheduling combined with a lack of domestic phone service, my American-based account not nearly enough to cover that kind of roaming. Were it up to me, we would have been back months ago. Then again, I would never have had the clout to book such an impressive tour either.

The moment had come. It was time for our sojourn to come to an end with a final show in our hometown.

The turn-out was surprising massive considering they were mostly people who had known us since we were in diapers. It really should have been perfect, and would have been, were it not for one small but all important factor. An absence that made the world seem like it was slightly off-kilter.

It was like a vibration. A subtle wave, rippling through the air, quite apart from the blowback from my sticks. The song came to an end, allowing me the opportunity, to scan the crowd, certain there was a familiar smell, apart from the sweat and beer.

We were nearing the end of “The Northward Wind,” an appropriate sentimental song about returning home after a long journey away, as well as the finale, when I saw her.

She was front row left, flanked by bouncers to keep her from getting moshed. No doubt she told them who she was there to see. Moving as though by forces unknown, I went to the lip of the stage, as Varg and Stig basked in the adoration of the hometown crowd.

With the help of the bouncers, I got Stephanie, replete in a brand-new maternity metal outfit and all, up onto the stage.

“How did you get here?”

“Seth,” she explained succinctly with a laugh, “Have you ever flown First Class before?”

“Yes, actually.”

Seth had sent us off on every flight we had to take in style, which could help explain how issue-free the tour had been.

There was no way to explain it. A scientist would