Page 35 of Revived

“Hey lady, what are you up to?”

“I’m…” she paused a moment, sighed, then started once more. “Um, I need…” Again, another pause and then she started babbling uncontrollably. “IthinkImightbepregnant.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked as I tried to wrap my mind around what I thought she said.

“I think I might be pregnant.”

“When was your last period?” I asked.

Her shoulders rose and fell as she bit her lip. “It’s never normal when we tour, thanks to the workouts, stress, and whatever. I haven’t had a period since we left.”

“Okay, I don’t suppose you could narrow down when you might have gotten pregnant?”

She shook her head. “Wen and I fuck like rabbits when we get the chance. We were together again for a few months before we left for the tour, then while we’ve been on tour, we’ve spent all of our hotel stops together and snuck away to back rooms whenever we get a chance after shows.”

I laughed at that. “Okay, that was way more than I needed to know about your sex life. So, basically, you’re saying you could be weeks or months along? What makes you think you’re pregnant now?”

She gripped both of her boobs in her hands, then winced. “First of all, these hurt like a bitch. But then the past couple of days, I’ve started throwing up if I smell food cooking or a particularly raunchy stagehand.”

“Okay,” I mentioned as I pulled my phone out to consult some facts. “Sounds like you’re probably between 4-8 weeks, maybe.” I held up my hand when she went to say something. “Please, don’t take that literally. I could be way off, but that’s usually when women start to notice symptoms of pregnancy.” I’ll see if Phoenix can take me to a store in a little while and I’ll grab a couple of tests for you. We can go from there. In the meantime, eat some crackers in between meals, keeping something on your stomach at all times helps to keep the nausea at bay. Ginger drinks help as well. I’ll grab some of each and stock the back room of the bus.”

“Thanks, Mel. You’re a lifesaver. Now, how the hell am I going to announce this to Wen?” She asked, a giddy look moving across her face.

“You might want to wait on that, just in case you have some other issue and you’re not actually pregnant,” I advised.

“Right. Okay. Yeah, I’ll do that. It’ll give me time to think of the best way to break the news. Obviously, I can’t just shout it out at the concert because we’ll never get any privacy. Besides, Wen’s wife will be back in the picture before I could spit the entire sentence out.”

“Wen’s what?” I asked.

“His wife,” she told me. “Don’t worry, they’re legally separated, but she tends to pull him back in by using their daughter against him.”

“He goes back to her?” I asked, shocked.

“Not because he loves or wants her, but because she’s fucking crazy and will literally threaten to hide his daughter from him.”

“That’s awful,” I hummed out.

“It is, and it’s worse when I have to watch him actually go back to her. He loves his daughter, but being a rock star isn’t exactly conducive to being a present parent, so the courts aren’t necessarily jumping to award custody in his favor.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that. It struck a nerve that someone would use a child against a parent in that way, but also that the poor child was stuck in a crazy tug of war that the courts couldn’t judge properly due to someone’s job requiring travel.

Thanks to running into the town to grab pregnancy tests and supplies for Cal, I was the one who had to cancel lunch plans with Gabe on the third day. It didn’t take long at all to get to the store, but traffic made me later than I thought in getting back to the Filmore in Miami Beach, Florida, where the bands were performing that night. It was one of the smaller venues on the tour, which was a nice change of pace, but the smaller venue did nothing to help with the traffic situation. As it turned out, Calista was right. She was definitely pregnant and swore me to secrecy until she was able to give Wen their good news.

Ever since Chevy had made me sit through an entire concert side-stage, it had become a guilty pleasure of mine. I wouldn’t always stand where I could be seen by the performers on stage, but I still got close enough to watch, listen, and feel the energy of the crowd. It was there, in the dark recesses of the side-stage while watching the women of Dusty Rose perform that doubt started to creep into my veins.

There was a woman who had found Wen standing there, watching Cal with an enamored light in his eyes. It was clearly written all over his face, the love he had for her. “Wen!” The woman who had joined him all but shrieked to pull his attention away. When he turned and blinked, surprise, then devastation flitted across his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, so now I need a reason to come see my husband?” She asked, tone snippy.

Wen reached down, grabbed her arm, and tugged her away from where anyone on stage could see. Fortunately for me, it was a bit away from where I stood, hiding in the shadows. “You know damn well that isn’t the type of relationship we have.”

“You mean you don’t want your precious little fuck buddy out there to know I’m here?” She asked in a way that made me feel sure she was playing some evil, twisted game.

“What the hell do you want, Janet?”

She leaned in closer to him, but Wen took a step back, which plastered him to some stacked up equipment cases. Janet ran her fingers down his chest. “I miss you, baby,” she cooed to him, her emotions seeming to shift as swiftly as the stage lighting. “Our daughter misses you. We want you back home with us,” she told him with a pout of her lips as she turned her face up to him.

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