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“Happy tears are the good kind,” he tells me, making me smile.
“They were definitely happy tears,” I assure him, glad that they’ve dried up now.
“Are you ready to head out to the city? Because if you’re not in the mood for a big night out, we can always go home and crank up one of their concerts on the home theatre system.”
I smile at him. “I love that you would go to all this effort and be okay with that, but I’ve never seen these guys play live. We have to go.”
“Awesome.” He opens the passenger door for me.
I get inside, taking my phone out of my backpack and putting the bag on the backseat.
Taking a picture of the tickets, I can’t help the swell of excitement that rushes over me.
I actually get to go see Chaos Burning! I send the picture to Rachel, telling her to guess where we’re going for our date. She sends back a screaming gif that makes me laugh, and tells me she’s seriously jealous, and that I’d better have the time of my life and tell her all about it later.
Parker gets in the driver’s seat and smiles at me. “Ready?”
“Completely.”
Chapter eighteen
Parker
IcantellAmandaloves the gift. She got a little emotional before we got out on the road, and she’s been beaming ever since. Even the thought of the four-hour road trip doesn’t faze her one little bit. I made sure to bring music, so we’ve been listening to all of Chaos Burning’s songs the whole time.
They’re not bad, but if I’m being honest, I’m not super into music. I like how good it makes Amanda feel, how happy she seems when she’s listening to it.
Sean’s the one who likes to put the radio on in the repair shop. It’s usually tuned to a classic rock station, which is fine, too. It seems to help him concentrate sometimes when he’s got a lot to do.
Dante loves this band, and that makes me feel a tiny little bit guilty.
He’s the one who gave me the idea for this gift.
He was complaining about them never coming out to Wolf Creek, so I looked up where they were playing, and my old stomping ground came up, for the day before Valentine’s Day. The exact day that worked out as my date night with Amanda this week.
I know in theory that Dante would love to come out to a Chaos Burning concert with Amanda.
But he never would have volunteered for eight hours of driving with a couple hours of social stuff wedged in the middle when he could be alone with her for hours instead.
In all fairness, I prefer that, too, but it’ll be nice to take her out somewhere on an actual date.
Somewhere that isn’t the fairground in Wolf Creek.
We’ve gotten past the shit that happened there last summer, mainly because it’s one of the only places to go for a night out in this town. We stick to the rides that are open, now, and I’ve slowly been winning her all the different sizes they have of the cute green bunnies on the ring-toss booth.
I also took a fifty from Mason last month to win the big pink bear for Jillian since Phoenix is the worst ever at that game and he’d been promising Jillian he’d win her that bear for months.
Amanda promised she wouldn’t tell her friend I’d won it, but I’m pretty sure Jillian knows.
Phoenix is a nice guy, but he doesn’t have the greatest manual dexterity.
“Have you ever been to Nightshade before?” Amanda asks, turning the volume down on my phone when one of the slower tracks start to play.
“Actually, it’s where I lived before I moved to Wolf Creek,” I admit. “So, I know it pretty well. I used to occasionally borrow a car from Sean to go get pizza and maybe see a movie or two.”
“Do you miss it? It must be more fun to be in the middle of a big city where there’s a ton of stuff to do all the time than it is to be in Wolf Creek.”
“I used to joke that Wolf Creek must have been where fun came to die, but honestly, city life can be kind of crazy. You’d think it would be cool to live as a rogue wolf in a big place, but the gangs that fight over territory out there can be rough. You’ve got to be on your toes if you stick around for longer than a day, or a night.”
