Everyone cheers. Someone yells at me that I don’t need anymore friends. Maxine is clapping.
“Pulling up the tickets now!” Steven calls out over the noise.
I shake my head, “I can’t believe this.”
Aiden huffs, “It’s a concert, what’s not to believe?”
CHAPTER 31
Harper
“Your favorite boy band is The Beach Boys? You’ve got to be joking,” Aiden says, sounding grumpier than usual. I just laugh. He adds, “I suppose I could have guessed.” We look around us and he says, “No, no I could not have guessed.”
We’re in some kind of tropical…bar…cafe…cabaret hole in the wall. It’s like it wanted to be a Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville but couldn’t get approved as a franchisee. There are plastic plants and tiki torches everywhere. Photos of the beach and surfing. A small stage lit with multicolored spotlights. It’s so bad it’s wonderful.
“This isn’t even them, it’s a cover band?” Aiden balks when he looks at the program. “No wonder the tickets were so cheap.”
“There’s a two drink minimum,” I remind him.
He deadpans, “Oh no, you’ll bankrupt me.”
I laugh again.
“At least I got to take you for a Michelin star meal before…this,” he says.
That he did. I got the full Aiden Vanderwell experience. We flew into the city on his jet, which looked like a designer living room inside. We took a chopper to Manhattan. We were whisked through the restaurant to a private corner table covered in tea light candles. A string quartet played pop songs in the corner, waiters wore tuxes, and everyone hung on Aiden’s every word. Wine was presented, and my date ordered multiple appetizers and entrees, since he wanted me to taste it all. And the food...the food!
I close my eyes and moan, “Ugh, it was so good.”
I open my eyes and find his staring back at me, dark and heavy lidded. Hungry. I blush and try to play it off, “What?”
“Trying to decide if I want to buy the restaurant for you so you can have it again or kill that chef so you can never have it again.”
I playfully shove a shoulder into him and sigh, “Don’t be jealous of Marcus.”
“I’m definitely jealous now when you say his name like that.”
“He’s like seventy years old!”
Aiden harrumphs.
But then I make a squeaky sound and sit up when I see the band moving toward the stage. If they even remotely sound like Brian and the boys, I will die. I will die a happy, weird little baker girl who never even learned to surf, right here in this surfer bar.
They start to a half empty audience that is not nearly excited enough.
Because
They
Are
Amazing!
I can’t look away. I can’t stop smiling. I dance, I have my two drinks, I laugh at every single bad joke. I hum along. When theyfinally get toDon’t Worry Baby,I cry. Aiden tucks me into his side and kisses my head, probably concerned, and I don’t even care.
The night goes on to be a couple of the absolute best hours of my life.
_____
