“That’s… Wow,” she breathes, but then her smile tips downward slightly.
I give it a full five seconds before adding, “Your siblings are invited.”
“What?” she nearly jumps.
“I got them tickets too.”
“But—” Her eyes are wide. “You already bought them a house.”
“And now I bought them concert tickets. Non-refundable, so I don’t want to hear another word about it. We are all go?—”
My sentence cuts off when Amara leaps towards me, kissing me on the lips. It nearly knocks my coffee out of my hand. When she notices, she immediately pulls back.
“I’m sorry. I’ll get back to work,” she says, though she can’t seem to fully extinguish her smile.
After she leaves, I let my mouth tick in a smirk.
“How is this even real?” Eliza shouts over the music.
We have elevated seats off to the side of the main stage with our own private bar, food, and bathroom.
I asked Amara not to tell her siblings the concert was a gift from me. Or the house. Her siblings have no idea how much she makes, and it wasn’t hard to convince them she’d been saving up for it all along. Or at least so she told me.
I’d rather they be grateful to their sister than to me. I don’t want them to be uncomfortable around me, or feel like they owe me. And besides, Amara has been the one doing the heavy lifting all these years, cutting her own paycheck in half.
They deserve to be happy. All of them.
Amara smiles at her sister and wraps her arm around her. Bella, who is standing on the other side, is dancing and cheering for whatever band is on stage. It’s some girl singer with a raspy voice and a couple of guys with mohawks. Ska music, I think.
Stuff like this isn’t usually my thing, though my family does like going. All the bands I like stopped touring years ago. Music died with them, in my opinion. But considering Mav and Baron are usually at this show, it’s smart for me to be too. Not to mention, Nik used to love it.
While I watch Amara dance and sing with her sisters, my mind wanders back a little. Nik loved music. Crazy music. It kind of made sense with his live-fast personality. It was hard not to think of him when I had that beer with Gianni. The music. The cars. It’s all so eerily Nik.
Suddenly, I stop and look around. Gianni is nowhere in sight.
I step forward and put my hand on Amara who is still shimmying to the music.
“Have you seen your brother?” I ask.
She looks around. The drink in her hand is almost empty and her eyes are nice and warm. “I haven’t. Bathroom, maybe? Or trying to get a drink with a fake ID. I swear, that kid?—”
“I’ll find him,” I tell her.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I walk towards the back of the VIP stage. Mav and Baron are there at the bar, having a beer. They nod at me as I approach.
“Have either of you seen Gianni?”
Baron shakes his head, shoving up from his stool. He knows me well enough to know that I expect help from them.
“Last I saw he was headed to the parking lot,” Mav says.
“The parking lot?” I ask, and then it hits me.
The cars.
