Yeah, probably shouldn’t think about that now. He’d only make himself too damn horny and try to get her back to her house before they even got to the concert.
And he really did want her to see the concert. Wanted to share this part of his life with her.
They kept the conversation focused on innocuous stuff after that. The food, the music they were playing, the movies they liked. They spent at least fifteen minutes discussing Greg’s first film, The Virgin and the Terror. He’d loved it. She pretty much didn’t.
“If you ever tell Greg this, I will cut out your heart, but I just don’t get it.”
“What’s to get?” He set aside his empty plate and dragged his soda closer. She still had half a cheesesteak and he’d have been happy to just sit here and talk to her while she finished. “It’s epic.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, it is totally not epic. I mean, it’s a decent first film. There are worse, I guess, but oh my god, the script is so childish and the acting is kind of horrendous.”
“You know you’re dissing your boss right now?”
She waved away his words with a hand. “He’s heard me say this before so it’s no surprise. Honestly, sometimes I think he’s just as surprised by all the love that film gets.”
“I guess you’ve got to be a teenage boy to get it. It’s speaks to that geeky kid who wants to believe in dragons and slay one for a girl who’ll give her virginity for it.”
“I guess I gave up my virginity too easily, then. I should have waited for a dragonslayer to come along.”
He laughed at her wry tone. “I gave up mine to a former babysitter who had a thing for guitarists. She was only three years older than me, but I didn’t lose my cherry until I was almost seventeen.”
“Wow, a late bloomer.” She shook her head in mock dismay. “And you a rock star and all.”
“Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone. I’ll lose my street cred.”
“You started touring not too long after that, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. We had a song that took off and we were lucky that we had enough material for a full-length album that we cut in, like, three weeks. Then we went out on tour and didn’t stop for almost five years.”
“That must’ve been tough. You guys were so young.”
“Hell, no. It was fucking amazing. On the road with my four best friends, playing music almost every night, partying the rest of the time. The guys we’re gonna see tonight, Silence Divided, they were the headliners on our first tour. They pretty much took us under their wings. They actually met with our parents before we left and told them they’d make sure we were okay. We were five kids from the Coal Region, and we could’ve been the biggest fuckups ever. Hell, every other day, any one of us could’ve died from alcohol poisoning or dehydration. We were teenagers, for chrissake. We thought we had it made. We didn’t have a clue.
“Johnny and Mac made sure we didn’t kill ourselves those first few months. They’d already been through the drugs and the alcohol and the women and were married with kids by that time. We got lucky with them. They taught us how to survive on the road and how to keep our friendships from falling apart.”
“Have you seen them since you overdosed?”
She said it so matter-of-factly, it wasn’t as jarring as if she’d fumbled around and tried to find another word for what’d happened.
“Yeah, they both came to visit after I got out of rehab. I hid out at my parents for a while, and then I got an apartment and I hid there. They helped convince me I needed to get out and that’s when I moved down to Haven.”
“So they’re like mentors.”
“Yeah, I guess. But they’re also really good friends. They don’t tour much anymore. They’re more into the producing end of things now. But they’re two of the best rock musicians I know.”
“Then I really can’t wait to see them.”
The smile on her beautiful face made his fingers twitch with the urge to touch her. Take her hand or cup her face and run this thumb along her lips. Stuff he’d never wanted to do with another girl before.
Because Tru wasn’t just another girl. He knew that. Had known that from the moment he met her. Right before they’d pissed each other off.
Which just proved he still hadn’t been right enough in the head to be in the kind of relationship she deserved or wanted. Now, all bets were off.
He wanted her and he wasn’t going to deny himself any longer. Not that he’d been doing much denying in the past few days anyway. They’d jumped right into the deep end and hadn’t come up for air yet.
As if her smile embarrassed her, she glanced down at her plate and pushed it away. “I think I’m ready to go, if you are. Will we be too early?”
“Nah, the guys are probably backstage already. I’m gonna text them and let them know I’m coming.”
“You didn’t let them know already?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to tell them I’d be there and then bail if . . .”
“If, what?”
“If you didn’t come with me and I decided not to show.”
Her lips curved in a curious smile. “You wouldn’t’ve gone without me?”
Honestly, he didn’t have a clue. What he wanted to say, but didn’t because he didn’t want to frighten her away, was that he didn’t want to do anything without her.
Which was so fucking ridiculous since the first time he’d kissed her had been only three nights ago. But like everything else in his life, the hurricane had taken over and swept him away.
He hoped like hell he could hold on to her until she learned how to navigate that hurricane with him.
“Honestly, I don’t know.” He shook his head, trying to sort his thoughts into order. He wanted to talk to her about this, he just wasn’t sure he had the right words for it. But he’d try. “It’s gonna be tough, getting back into everything. I’ve been gone from the life for a year. Just thinking about it makes me a little twitchy.”
“Are you worried about falling back into old habits?”
“Not really.” He shrugged. “Maybe a little.”
Her smile softened. “It’s tough to go back but to have it be so different. To be so different.”
“Yeah.”
He realized he could just sit here and stare at her smile all night but that would probably get a little awkward for her so he caught the waitress’s eye and she brought their check in seconds.
A few minutes later, they were walking across South Street toward the Theater of the Living Arts, where the doors had already opened so there was no line at the box office.
The concert was supposed to start at eight and the crowd was a mix of ages from sixties down to elementary-school-age kids with their parents. His parents would never have taken him to a concert like this at that age, but then they hadn’t been into this kind of music.
His mom had been horrified the first time she’d come to one of their concerts and seen kids under the age of ten, wearing earplugs but singing along to all the songs sitting on their dads’ shoulders.
Pulling the ball cap lower, he headed to the box office, holding tight to Tru’s hand. A few people loitering in the lobby did a double take but no one came up to him. Maybe because they just didn’t expect to see him there. A year was a damn long time to be out of commission in his world.
He hadn’t gotten a text back from Johnny or Mac yet but he didn’t think he’d have much trouble talking his way inside if they hadn’t left him tickets.
“Tickets for Val Bastian. They would’ve been left by the band.”
The pretty blonde behind the window didn’t look at him as she turned to the side and rifled through a box. When she had to do it a second time, he had a few moments to wonder if Johnny and Mac had stopped leaving tickets for him at every date. No matter where they played, Johnny and Mac left tickets for every member of Baseline Sins. Baz and his band always did the same for them.