"Holy hell, what a view!" Rob exclaimed as we looked out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of our hotel suite -- he took the words right out of my mouth!
We were in Italy, the European leg of the tour had begun with two nights in Barcelona from where we'd gone to Nimes in the south of France to play in the Roman amphitheatre where I'd always wanted us to perform since I'd seen a concert there when I was about fifteen with my family. The building could hold twenty-four thousand people, which was a lot smaller compared to the arenas we played in on this tour and we had really enjoyed performing in such a gorgeous venue.
The other reason for going there was that I had made a promise to my French family that we'd come and play a gig in the South of France. Although Nimes was five hundred miles away, they'd arranged to go on holiday in the area. They had absolutely loved the gig and it'd been great getting the opportunity to see them again in France.
Next, we'd performed in Nice before heading down to Italy for two gigs in Rome and then Verona instead of Milan to play in another gorgeous Roman amphitheatre.
After the Verona gig we'd spent a night there in the fabulous Hotel Colomba d'Ora which was a mix of old-world artistry and modern Italian styling but this, this was something else.
Tom had come across the Alpin Panorama Hubertus Hotel after I'd told him about one of the birthday gifts I wanted to give Rob at our joint thirtieth birthday party. After playing South America in April, we'd gone back home to London for almost a month to celebrate our birthdays with our friends. Rob had, mostly, planned the party; he'd decided that seeing as I'd pulled such a giant surprise on him for our wedding it was only fair that I allow him to organise it -- although he had allowed me to put people on the guest list!
We'd got each other several presents, and one of mine was a bunch of extreme sports and thrilling activities, one of which being a paragliding flight. We'd done it once all together in South Africa and since then, Rob'd kept telling me that he wanted to do it again so I asked Tom to find the best place for him to enjoy his present while on tour. Tom surprised us with almost a week off between our gig in Verona and the first of our dates in Germany and told me that the Dolomites looked to be the perfect place for Rob to go paragliding.
So here we were, in the Alpin Panorama Hubertus Hotel, surrounded, inside and out, with ultra-modern styling of the highest order, but it wasn't that which had almost taken my breath away.
We'd booked exclusive use of an entire floor of the hotel along with something called the Sky Pool - it was this that Rob and I were now looking out over. To say that it was spectacular would be an understatement!
It was without a doubt simply incredible, yes we'd read the stats, twenty-five metres long, five metres wide and twenty metres high where it cantilevered out from the sun-terrace, it had a glass front which faced the valley between the Dolomite mountains - there was even a large area of glass floor to show the ground so far below, not something for anyone with vertigo!
One more hotel infinity pool it may be -- utterly unique it most certainly was.
Despite the number of gigs we'd played and the miles we'd travelled, we'd been writing songs and now we had a few days off at the hotel, we were going to seize the opportunity to work on the music we'd been writing. We had to weed out the weak ideas and strengthen the really good ones.
What our friends weren't aware of was that after they'd made their scheduled departure on Thursday to spend a little private time as couples in various other places -- Jordan and Grainne to Venice, a place they hadn't been to the last time they were in Italy, the others to Milan, with an artist and model in the party how could they not want to visit such a hub of fashion and design -- Rob and I were going nowhere.
Instead we would be joined by
our
favourite chauffeur and
my
favourite guitar-tech. There was an entirely professional reason for Nick coming to the hotel, we'd recently decided to make changes to the set-list which had tuning and guitar-change consequences for both Rob and I so we
would
be working on those with Nick; on a personal level, Rob and I had finally got around to contemplating having fun with him again over two months after the one short but satisfying session we'd enjoyed.
We had actually tried arranging another get-together a few times since then but something or someone always conspired to interrupt our plans. As had happened before, Nick hadn't been entirely absent from our sex life - he just hadn't been there in person! Thanks to a brief but telling conversation I'd had with Nick, Rob was still blissfully ignorant of what I knew about him. I had no idea how I'd manage to not tell Rob but I couldn't wait to see his reaction when he found out that Nick was built like a horse; I was no carpenter but if I had to guess from what I remembered, I would say that his dick had to be at least nine inches, with a slight curve upward and to the left. Some of Rob's favourite porn involved guys of similar build to Nick but as far as I knew he'd never encountered somebody built that way in reality.
For Rob and I this would be our very private birthday and early first anniversary party -- we'd both agreed that having a three-some too close to the July date would have been too weird -- and we'd been looking forward to it ever since we knew Tom had booked the hotel!
------------
"I found a restaurant with excellent reviews, and it's within reasonable driving distance from here." Damon announced a couple of hours after we'd arrived, we were relaxing all on the sun-terrace outside our hotel floor. "We could go tomorrow night," he said and looked straight at me, "unless we're too wrapped up in working on our new material -- which will probably happen."
I raised my brows,
"Have I ever said no to dinner in an excellent restaurant? Especially in Italy?"
He smiled,
"I guess you haven't!"
"You are
not
going anywhere tomorrow night," Rachel said in her I-know-best voice taking in all of us with a sweeping look.
"Oh, yeah, says who?" Damon asked.
"Me."
"And me," Grainne added.
"Well that's those two banjaxed, you still in?" Rob laughed, looking at Dylan.
"Nope," Alicia put in before he could reply.
"What's going on Rach?" I asked her.
"Yeah, why can't we go to dinner tomorrow?" Damon put in.
"Well you can I suppose," Rachel smirked, sounding smug, "but I for one will be stopping here for the party."
"Party? What party?" Damon exclaimed.
"Rob and Mark's birthday party!" she said.
I frowned at her.
"Rach, sweetie, I'm pretty sure we've had that party already!" I said jokingly.
"Not with the whole crew, you haven't!"
"We're having a birthday party here tomorrow night?" Rob asked in surprise.
She grinned at him.
"Yes, it'll be a sort of a thank you party for the team as well!"
"Whose idea was that?"
"Tom's," she said, "mine too, and Alicia's and Grainne's," she said looking over at them.
I realised that none of us had really picked up on the fact that we'd seen no other guests but then the complex was vast and as our reservation meant that no-one else could use the Sky Pool or the terrace it was on for the duration of our stay we weren't totally surprised. Plus we'd arrived by helicopter, the landing pad was sited just below the hotel and from there, we'd been transferred by car and shown straight to the floor that was ours exclusively for the week -- well we'd thought it was just the one floor turns out the entire hotel was ours until the following Friday!
We didn't go anywhere for dinner.
Although Saturday's shindig hadn't been anywhere near as 'huge' as our thirtieth birthday party, it had still been great to spend time with our team in a more relaxed atmosphere. We had opened a few more presents, and even though we were still waiting to see if we'd get a final one from Nick, I could now say that my favourite gift had been one that Rob had got me, together with Jordan.
It'd happened right after we'd finished unwrapping our gifts at the London party, which had taken ages. Rob had covered my eyes, just like he'd done when he'd surprised me with our island home, and then led me outside, making me walk for longer than I'd expected.
After removing the blindfold, he had wrapped his right arm around my chest and covered my eyes with his left hand.
"Happy birthday baby!" he'd whispered in my ear, hugging me tightly and slowly moving his hand down to reveal a yellow supercar, a MacLaren 720S this time.
