Travis POV:
I stopped at Addison Apartments on my way home to pick up Parker from her friend's house.
"How's your friend Sally?" Parker asked out of nowhere.
"He uh... wait- how do you know I was at Sal's?" I asked her. I didn't tell her I was going to Sal's house, so how did she know?
"You always go there silly." She explained.
"Good point. Whatcha wanna do when we get home?" I changed the subject.
"Hmm..." She thought about it. "Can we paint together?"
"Of course! We're gonna need to get some paint though. Lucky for you, I know a really nice craft store around here."
"Yay!" She cheered. We pulled into The tiny parking lot in front of the craft store next to someone's motorcycle. It surprised me a bit that someone was riding a motorcycle in the middle of October. I helped Parker out of her booster seat and out of the car. She held onto my hand as we walked into the craft store.
"Daddy, look!" Parker stopped and snatched a navy blue off the shelf with all the paints.
"What is it?" she held the paint up so I could see it.
"It's Mommy's favorite color!" she hugged the paint bottle. I started to tear up.
"Yes it is." I smiled, trying to stay positive.
"Is Mommy still at work, Daddy?" she looked up at me. The poor thing still thinks her mother's at work.
"I'll tell you later. You have the colors you want?" I said wiping away a tear that slipped. Parker nodded.
"Can I look around?" she asked.
"Sure." She pulled onto my hand and dragged me through the store, stopping and staring at anything that caught her eye. She ran into one aisle, me following somewhat behind her, trying to catch my breath when she accidentally ran into someone. The person was much taller than her, so they didn't fall over, but Parker stumbled backwards and fell onto the floor. I expected the person to just walk away and ignore her, but instead they turned around and almost dropped everything they were holding to help Parker.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" they knelt down in front of Parker.
"I'm okay!" Parker brushed her legs off and jumped up off the floor.
"I'm sorry." They apologized again and stood back up. When they turned around, I realized it was Ashley. She was wearing a purple shirt, black ripped jeans, leather fingerless gloves, and motorcycle boots. I assumed from the boots that the motorcycle outside was hers. "Sorry for knocking her over. I didn't see her." She apologized.
"It's totally okay. She didn't get hurt. It's no big deal." I reassured her.
"Wait- Travis?!" Ashley exclaimed.
"Yep. Heheh." I laughed and scratched the back of my neck.
"So Parker's your kid?" Ashley said.
"Yea- How do you know her name?" I asked cautiously.
"We met at Maple and Chug's house. We had a tea party with Soda." She explained.
"Ohhh. Okay. Makes sense." I smiled.
"So how've you been?" She asked.
"Much better actually. Moved away from my dad finally and that seemed to really help." I told her as Parker walked around the aisle.
"That's great! I'm going to art school in a week so I'm getting all my supplies." Ashley laughed.
"Ooh that sounds fun. Hey um, I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you guys in high school. I was just a stuck-up dumbass."
"It's okay." She laughed. "We were all just kids. And the past is past, y'know?"
"Yeah. Well have a good day Ashley. See ya again soon." I smiled and went to go pay for the paints with Parker.
On the drive home, Parker sang along to all the song she knew on the radio. She helped carry the bag of paints inside and set up the art supplies at the dining room table where we did all our crafts.
Parker dumped the bag of paints onto the table and lined them all up in rainbow order from red to purple (my favorite color), and then rearranged them again from her favorite to least favorite color as I went to go get paper and newspaper to put down on the table.
"Travis!" Sal exclaimed after I picked up the phone.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"Guess what! Guess what! Guess what!"
"What?"
"I got us two tickets for a Murderdolls (shut up i do what I want lol) show on Friday!"
"The who?!" I asked surprised by the name.
"The Murderdolls!" he said.
"I don't know who that is."
"They're a band, silly. Wednesday 13 on vocals, Joey Jordison (from Slipknot) on lead guitar, Acey Slade on rhythm guitar, Eric Griffin on bass, and Ben Graves on drums. They formed in the 90s and were originally called The Rejects. Joey had heard of Wednesday's other band, Frankenstein Drag Queens, started talking to him and asked him to join The Rejects. The band was then renamed the Murderdolls. Then the 3 other original members left and Tripp Eisen joined. He brought Eric and Ben and made a few songs on their first album, Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls. When Tripp left to go play with Static-X, he brought Acey Slade, from Dope, to replace him and finished the rest of the album." He explained.
"Wow. That was a lot to take in." I laughed.
"Heh. Sorry." Sally apologized.
"It's fine. When's the show?"
"8:30 pm." He answered.
"'Kay. Am I gonna pick you up?"
"Sure!" he said.
"Oh, okay. And is it this Friday?" I asked. I needed to know because last minute plans were always a Sally thing.
"...Yeah." He said.
"That's tomorrow, Sal!"
"I know, I know! But it's all I could get. There's not another show that's close enough to Nockfell."
"Ugh. You're killing me, Sal." I joked. Sal was silent. "I'm joking. I'm sorry." I apologized.
"It's okay." He said.
"Dad!" Parker yelled from outside my room.
"Okay I gotta go. See you tomorrow, Sal." I said.
"See ya tomorrow, Trav. See ya."
"See ya." I hung up and went to go see what's up with Parker.
