Time To Waste

Chapter 21: Skyline

Rick was lounging in the dressing room, delving into a good book as the band and crew fluttered in and out around him. This had been one of his few escapes, thus far, for this tour, where everyone seemed to be either fighting, ignoring one another, or trying to act like they weren't fighting and ignoring each other. They had started off well enough, Chris was in good spirits and there was little to no discussion of that incident. In fact, Chris was getting along quite well with everyone until he made the mistake of announcing Jenna's pregnancy. That, to Rick, was where everything had devolved.

At the mention of this, ahem, wonderful news, Ryan had paled to the shade of a Charlie Brown ghost and then turned green around the edges. But, to his credit, he had said not a word as he slunk from the backstage room. He reappeared at show time and acted as though nothing had ever happened, and that was how he'd been behaving ever since. Ghost and Vinny were, obviously, nonplussed and the news meant little to nothing to them.

For Rick, well, that news was shocking. Maybe not in a horrifying way that made him want to turn green at the gills, but he certainly felt a sense of responsibility towards the young woman and her child. Which, he had to admit, could very well be his child. He had aced biology in high school and all that, so, sure, he understood that the chances here were statistically low that Jenna had conceived his child on the one occasion that they fucked when, presumably, she was fucking his best friend on the regular, coupled with the fact that she was supposedly also on birth control. Therefore, the chances that he or Ryan were the baby daddy seemed slim-to-none, and all signs seemed to point toward Chris.

Whatever the case, he wasn't sleeping well knowing that all of this had gone down in such a way as to leave poor Jenna pregnant and still without a clue as to everything that had happened to her. He had tried to broach the subject with Ryan the other night, as they each lay atop their own hotel beds in their room after that gig. The other guitarist had made himself crystal clear: Jenna and her little brat were none of his business, not his problem, and he didn't want to know shit about either of them. He didn't hold any ill will towards her, but he certainly wasn't going to be admitting to any wrongdoing or stepping up to change diapers.

Rick felt very differently but questioned himself for feeling so differently. Maybe it was because his relationship was fizzling out? Maybe if he could focus and find a woman that fulfilled him and made home something worth returning to, maybe he could stop thinking of Jenna. But until that happened, he was stuck in a cycle: go to bed, think of Jenna, dream of the baby, think of Jenna, dream of the baby, repeat.

He saw no change in Chris whatsoever, and that was unnerving. The vocalist still seemed dead set against telling his girlfriend the truth of the matter, and he was, thus, slipping into a state of denial himself. When Rick had managed to corner him in the back lounge one day, offering up a cup of Starbucks to bribe his friend to speak with him, the conversation had not gone well. In short, Chris promised that if Rick told Jenna a word of the truth, Rick would be looking for a new band very promptly.

After six weeks of this shit, Rick was fed up and no longer sleeping well at all. Most nights, he stared at the ceiling, chewed on his fingernails and tried to figure out how he was supposed to survive the remainder of his life without ever speaking a word of the truth to his friend. Worse yet would be seeing her with a little bundle of joy, and never knowing if that child was his own. Worse-worse yet was the idea that Chris might one day up and leave Jenna and the child, devastating the young woman and utterly destroying her heart. He knew the reverse was possible – that Jenna could leave Chris – but he thought it highly doubtful.