All characters are over 18 and are fictional. Any resemblance to any real-life persons is purely coincidental.
Thank you to HeyAll for your help.
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Colin was almost done painting the master bathroom; he just needed to get some corners around the toilet, which was very difficult. It could've been easier if he'd taken off the tank, but one of the bolts holding it down was stripped. The only other option was to remove the entire toilet from the floor and put it back, but there was no way he was going to waste his time like that. So, the wall in the back of the toilet would not be painted; instead, he just needed to get enough around the corners so it wouldn't be noticeable.
He was on the floor, getting those few last areas underneath and behind that tank when he heard the screaming. It startled him so much that he jumped up and banged his head against the tank.
"Dammit!" he screamed.
He put his paint brush away and got off the floor to go downstairs to see what the matter was. He found his wife, Erin, in the kitchen, jumping for joy with her smartphone in her hand. While Colin was wearing jeans and a white paint-splattered undershirt, Erin was wearing a simple blouse and light-colored jeans with her hair tied back with a hairclip. She was in the middle of cooking dinner for the family; there were two pots cooking on the stove, and the counter by the sink was a mess.
"What's going on here?" asked Colin. "Your screaming scared the hell out of me."
"I got us tickets to the Dreary Knights farewell tour!" Erin screamed in excitement.
Dreary Knights was a hardcore rock band that Colin and Erin used to be heavily into. In fact, it was at one of their shows where they first met. It was almost twenty years ago, when they were in their early twenties.
Colin went with a couple of his friends, and Erin did the same with hers. They were all down in the stadium's front row, where there were no chairs but a large dance floor. He had already seen Erin nearby with her friends but didn't do anything about it at the time. He never had any luck hitting on random women, so he didn't try anything.
It wasn't until later in the show when some over-bearing drunk guy kept hitting on her and wouldn't take no for an answer. So, Colin pulled a classic move where he walked up to her, took her by the arm and pretended to be her boyfriend. The guy backed off, and Erin was impressed with his chivalry, and they spent the rest of the show together dancing the night away.
They got together immediately after the show, where they separated from their friends so he could take her home personally. They knew there would be a major traffic jam from the audience leaving the stadium, so they waited it all out by hanging out in his car. They talked, mostly about their love for the Dreary Knights, but about pretty much everything else they could think of.
Later, Erin did something she had never done before and slept with a guy she had first met. As spontaneous and wild as she could be, she never did something like that because she felt it was too much of a slutty thing to do. But she was feeling such a great connection with Colin and she insisted they stop by a nearby motel and get a room for the night.
That was the beginning of their romance. They dated, got married two years later, and have had four kids since then. A girl, followed by a boy, and finally boy/girl twins. They thought about having more but decided that four was enough to handle.
They had seen a couple more Dreary Knights concerts in the first few years of their marriage, as well as several other rock shows, but with kids and two jobs, they hadn't been to a single concert since then. They have kept up with the Dreary Knights over the years and watched a few of their shows on pay-per-view, but it was never the same thing as being there in concert.
Then, about one year ago, the Dreary Knights announced their retirement and were going on a farewell tour. The band leader, Dan Knight, who had just recuperated from some health issues he was dealing with, decided it was finally time to retire. Over forty years ago, he founded the band with both of his brothers and a couple of their friends, but over the last decade, both of Dan's brothers and their friends retired and were replaced by new band members.
Dan Knight was in perfect health now, but felt it was time to retire. One of his brothers and one other former bandmate decided to come out of retirement just for the tour. With the return of those bandmembers, it made ticket prices for each event skyrocket.
When Erin and Colin looked into buying tickets for a nearby city where they were going to play, they found the good seats were way out of their price range. They considered just paying less and taking the nosebleed seats just so they could go to the show, but felt it was way too high in the stadium to see or hear anything. Instead, they decided to just get the pay-per-view showing; it wouldn't be as much fun as being at the concert, but it was the only good option they got.
Then Erin got a call from a friend of hers who had tickets but suddenly couldn't go because of a family wedding she suddenly had to go to. The tickets were for a show on the other side of the state, but they were in one of the front sections of the stadium, which would bring them extremely close to the stage. Erin's friend bought the tickets for $1,500, but she offered Erin only $800 for the both of them. Erin was so excited she didn't even think about asking Colin about it and just said yes. That's when she started screaming and got Colin's attention.
"I'm sorry I didn't consult you first about the tickets. But they were half off and this was a once in a lifetime opportunity."
"But $800 is a lot of money," said Colin. "And don't forget the cost of traveling to get there and getting a hotel room for the night."
"Yes, it's all going to be expensive, but we can afford it," Erin replied. Also, wouldn't it be worth it to see them just once last time?"
"What about work and the kids?"
"We can work that out easily," said Erin.
At that moment, their three younger kids had just come back from school. They stormed through the front door and right past their parents in the kitchen, grabbing snacks out of the fridge and screaming at each other. Their parents were telling them all to calm down and pick something one at a time. After they left, Erin noticed the dirt on the kitchen floor, the one she had just cleaned an hour ago.
"Plus, we could use a little getaway, just the two of us," said Erin. "We need a break."
Their oldest teenage daughter walked through the kitchen, not looking at her parents at all but tapping away on her cell phone. She walked to the fridge, grabbed a drink, and walked away.
"Sarah, your father and I may go to a Dreary Knights concert very soon," Erin told her daughter.