Page 103 of Callow

That allowed me to finally get a chance to take Sabrina out again. This time, without any threat hanging over our heads that might ruin it for us.

I didn’t need Sully’s input for this date, either.

It was all just kind of kismet.

When I’d been checking out venues, I noticed that one of the bands that Sabrina had a concert tee of was playing a local show with another band she said she’d liked.

So I got the tickets and worked out a plan with Daph to make sure she was somewhere safe for the night, so we didn’t have to worry about her.

Because we were heading into the city, going to the concert, then getting a hotel room for the night.

Sure, we’d been together every night since I’d first moved into her bed. But it felt nice to get time together… privately.

“Okay. Is this good?” she asked when she walked out of the bedroom after fretting over her outfit and hair and makeup.

It was the first time I’d seen her with any makeup on since the night of our kayak date.

She’d put on black skinny jeans, some combat boots, and a hilariously spot-on band tee with a black sweater over it.

“That’s perfect,” I said, getting up off of the couch.

“Are you still not going to tell me where we’re going?”

“We’re going to the reunion concert of the band shirt you’re wearing,” I told her.

She actually had to look down to see which band that was. When she did, her face split in a giant grin.

“Really?”

“Really,” I said. “But it’s in the city. So we gotta get moving.”

She was like a little kid for the next several hours. She gushed over all the sights in New York, telling me all of the food wehadto try before we went back to Navesink Bank, bouncing as we waited to get into the venue, getting tipsy and screaming her lungs out, and buying just about everything at the merch stand.

“Lean in,” she demanded for the fifth time as she pressed herself against me, raised her phone, and snapped no fewer than a dozen pictures.

“You sound scratchy as fuck,” I said as she looked through all the pictures she’d taken. At least half of them were selfies of us. And I was absolutely going to make her send me a few of them.

“Too much woo-wooing,” she said as she drafted a text to Daphne, then sent her a bunch of images. Including pigeons we had to stop to talk to, this massive-ass bookstore we passed, the concert, and yes, ones of us.

“Does that mean you don’t want hot pretzels?” She shot me small eyes, making me laugh. “I’ll take that as a yes, you do still want them.”

“And the sesame steak. And the chicken curry. And…”

“We will hit them all on the way back to the hotel,” I assured her, giving her thigh a squeeze.

A text came through, making Sabrina smile. “Daph says we have to take her to that big bookstore for her next birthday.”

“I have a feeling she will talk us into taking her much sooner than that,” I said as Sabrina snuggled into me.

The booze was wearing off. And, clearly, she was the type to get sleepy as hell on the downslide.

“You wanna skip the food and go to sleep?” I asked, fingers sifting through her hair.

“No. I’m staying awake to eat all of that food,” she told me, then leaned up to my ear to whisper so the cab driver didn’t hear, even though he was on the phone, talking animatedly in Hindi. “And then have lots of sex where we don’t have to worry about being loud,” she told me.

Then promptly napped on my shoulder.

Luckily, we were stuck in traffic for a bit on the way back to the street the hotel was on.