Hi babes! So, here is the first chapter of Luck of the Draw. I really hope that you enjoy this one.
Just so that you all know, I have most of this story actually completed, just a few tweaks here and there to finish it. This is a first for me, having a story mostly done when I upload it. So I will be probably update every Saturday, because I love you all so much. And, since i have many of the beginning chapters completed, I won't have to wait a month while i write one, and then upload it.
And now, enjoy!
*June 2, 2014, 2:50 pm*
"Daddy!" The little brunette girl exclaims as soon as she steps out of the front doors of the school to see her father standing outside waiting for her. She turns to her teacher, points to where her dad is, elbow bumps her teacher, and then bee lines it straight for her dad.
"What's up, bear?" he smiles at her as he picks her up and sets her firmly on his hip. "How was school today?"
"It was okay." She shrugs.
"Just okay?"
She looks down and starts playing with the collar of her dad's shirt, "Nobody talked to me again. Or played with me outside during recess. They all think I'm weird."
"I'm sorry, Sara. That's their loss though, because they can't see how much fun you are. But I know a way to fix that."
"Ice cream?" Sara asks, looking up at him.
Her dad, Grant, smiles, "Yeah. Ice cream."
"Can we take some to Gramsy, too?" she asks her dad.
"Of course we can," he smiles at her.
"Yes!" she exclaims, "Let's go!"
Grant chuckles, "Alright, bear." He sets her down on the ground and grabs her hand, leading her across the street and towards their car. "Buckle up," he reminds his daughter, as he climbs into the driver's seat of the car.
"I know," she tells him. "Now come on, let's go. I want ice cream."
"Alright, calm down." He starts the car and backs out of the parking space.
"Hey daddy?"
"Yeah?"
"You're the best daddy ever." She smiles at him innocently from the back seat of the car.
He sighs and glances at her through the rear view mirror, "What do you want, Sara?"
"Why do you think I want something?" she asks him.
"Because," he says, "you're a devious little eight year old girl. And you're being super sweet, which hardly ever happens."
She sighs, "Fine. I have a request."
"What is your request?"
"Will you play my Skye CD?"
"Really? You want to subject me to listen to that music?"
"Yes," she responds, throwing a big smile at him. "And because I'm your favorite daughter, you'll play it for me."
"You're my only daughter, Sara." He rolls his eyes at her wide smile and batting lashes, and then sighs, "Fine. I'll put your CD in."
"Yes!" she pumps her fist in the air in victory.
"Here we go," he says, grabbing the CD from the organizer above him on the sun visor, and slips it into the CD player, "Why do you even like this Skye girl so much anyways? What's so great about her?"
"She's awesome! She's really pretty, she has really good songs, and she's really nice."
"How do you know she's nice? You've never met her," Grant points out.
"I know that. But I've seen a bunch of videos on YouTube of her meeting her fans, and she seems really nice when she meets them."
"If you say so," he says.
"I do," she says determinedly. "And you know what's awesome?"
"What?"
"Skye is having a concert in town next weekend and I really wanna go."
"Why don't you?"
"I need tickets, daddy. And I don't have any money for tickets. And I can't enter the contest to get tickets by myself, because I'm only eight. And I know you can't buy them for me, because you don't get paid very much from your job, so the money that you do make has to go to the bills and other really important stuff."
Grant's face falls at hearing the sadness in his daughter's voice, "I know, bear. I'm really sorry."
"And you know what sucks even more?"
"What?"
"Her concert is the day before my birthday, and it would have been so cool to go."
"I'm sure it would have been," Grant says, glancing at his daughter in the rearview mirror, to see her slightly sulking.
"I bet Skye would talk to me," he hears her mutter under her breath.
A minute later, Sara instantly perks up and gets excited, forgetting about all of her problems, "Oh, I love this song!" she exclaims, "Turn it up, please!"
Grant chuckles and turns the music up, listening to his daughter sing along to her favorite song by Skye. He smiles as he watches her sing and dance in the backseat, and it's then that he has an idea. The perfect idea.
*4 pm, Nursing home*
"Hey Gramsy?" Grant asks, as he lifts his gaze from his laptop screen, to look at his grandmother sitting in the chair across the room from him.
"What is it, sweetheart?" she asks him, not looking up from her knitting.
"Do you know what the website is for that singer Sara likes?"
"Why do you need to know?"
"Sara really wants tickets to go and see Skye perform next weekend, and I thought that I'd enter this contest they're having, to try and get some tickets. And if I win, I'll take her. As a birthday present."
His grandmother looks up from the scarf she is knitting and smiles at him, "Well that's sweet. And I don't remember the exact name of the website, but you can probably type in something like, Skye, ticket contest, in Google, and you should be able to find it that way."
"Thanks Gramsy." Grant smiles.
"You're welcome, sweetie." She gives him one last smile before going back to her project.
Grant puts his attention back on his laptop, clicks on Google, and types what his grandmother suggested. Skye, ticket contest. He hits enter and then waits. When the search finishes, he glances at the results. The first one looks promising, so he clicks on it.
The page loads and instantly, Skye's latest song blasts through his computer speakers. He winces, and then quickly hits the mute button on the keyboard.
"They really should make that optional." He mumbles to himself.
Grant takes a minute to glance around the webpage, searching for any sign of the contest. At the top of the screen, right under the webpage letters, he sees the link for the contest page.
WIN TICKETS TO A SKYE CONCERT IN LOS ANGELES!
He clicks on the link and waits as the new page loads. When it finishes, he begins filling out at the correct information.
Name: Grant Ward
Birthday: March 25, 1989
"Okay," he breathes out, looking at the final component for entry into the contest, "Why do you want to win these tickets?" he thinks for a moment and then begins typing, "My daughter, Sara, really loves Skye, and her music. She is completely obsessed. She's not the most liked kid at her school, but when she's listening to Skye's music, it's like none of that seems to bother her at that moment. She's always going around singing Shake It Off, because according to her, she can relate to it, which makes it her favorite song. She's told me a few times about how going to a Skye concert would be a dream come true, the best thing to ever happen to her. She doesn't know that I am entering this contest to try and win the tickets for her. But if I do win, I am going to take her to the concert as her birthday present. Her birthday is the day after the concert, and I know that it'll mean the world to her to be able to go. I don't want whoever is reading this to think I said any of this to make you to feel sorry for her, it's all just the honest truth. I may have gotten a little carried away while writing this, but she's my little girl, and I would do anything for her, especially if it'll make her happy. If you don't pick me, I completely understand, but I want thank you for this opportunity. –Grant Ward."
"And done," he says to himself as he presses Submit. A second later, the screen changes, showing the sign reading, Thank you for your submission.
*6:30 pm, SHIELD Records*
"Hey Skye," a tall, African-American man says he knocks on the door jamb of the room Skye has at the studio, peeking his head inside, "all of the entries for that contest are in. They're all printed out for you, you just have to read them and decide who gets the tickets."
"Thanks Mike," she smiles up at the man, "you really are the best, you know?"
"So you've told me about a million times," He smiles.
She smiles right back, "Oh, how's Ace doing?"
"He's doing pretty good, thanks for asking."
"No problem. That kid of yours is too cute for words. I miss him."
He chuckles, "Thanks, Skye. I'm sure he misses you too. Do you want me to bring all of the entries in here for you?"
She thinks for a moment, "Nah. I'll come out there. Just give me a minute."
"Sure thing." He smiles at her and then leaves the room, going back out to the main lounge area. Skye yawns and then stands up from her bed, bringing her phone with her, and goes out into the main room as well.
When she gets out into the main room, she sees a large stack of papers sitting on the table in front of the couch. She sighs as she sits down, pulling her legs up underneath of her, "Why did I agree to the type of contest where I have to read many, many things?"
"Because you're a nice person who wants to give two of your biggest fans in LA the best night of their life?" Mike suggests. Skye just smiles at him as she pulls the stack of papers towards her and begins quickly skimming through them.
*20 minutes later*
"How's it going, Skye?" Mike asks, walking back into the room.
"Almost done," Skye tells him, "on the last few entries right now."
"Good," he says, taking a seat in the chair on the other side of the table, "any idea on a winner yet?"
"Nope," she tells him, continuing to skim through the entries in front of her, "These are basically all the same thi—Hang on."
"What is it?" Mike asks, moving to sit next to her on the couch.
"This last entry," she says, picking the paper up from the table, "it's way longer than the rest. And it's from a guy, born in 1989. I was born in 1990, which means he's a year older than me. So that makes him, 25 years old."
"Really? That's kinda odd. Most of your entrants are girls. Usually the parents or older sister entering for the younger kid."
"I know." She replies, "Just give me a minute to read this one." She holds the piece of paper in her hand and reads through the entry, feeling something stir within her as she reads it. "Aww," she says when she finishes, "that's so sweet. He's entering the contest to win tickets for his daughter for her birthday. He doesn't say how old she is, but her name is Sara, and apparently her birthday is the day after the show. It's also sad because I guess people don't like her at her school, but my music helps her forget about all of the problems that she has as school. That's really, really sweet. His daughter doesn't even know he's entering this contest, and he's planning on taking her by himself."
"Wow. That is one dedicated father."
"Tell me about it," she says, "and this guy is definitely winning. He said he didn't want to make us feel sorry for his daughter, but I do a little bit. He is most definitely winning." She holds the paper out and hands it to Mike. "And I want to meet both him and his daughter. She really sounds like she could be my number one fan."
"You got it," he smiles, "I'll take this to get processed right now."
"Thanks Mike."
"No problem."
Skye watches as Mike leaves the room and smiles to herself. Pulling out her phone, she goes into Google and types in the name, Grant Ward. She waits for the search results to load and then begins scrolling through the list of results. She finds the link to a Facebook page with his name and clicks on it, waiting for it to load. When it loads, she takes a moment to admire his page. His profile picture is one of him, taken at a lower angle, and tilted slightly. She assumes that it must have been taken by his daughter when she was younger. In the photo, he's making a silly face, a smile clearly present. The cover photo on his page, is one of him and his daughter together. Their faces are side by side, and they are both smiling wide for the camera, their eyes shut tight, Sara having ice cream smeared all over her mouth. Smiling at the two very cute pictures, she begins scrolling through his posts. His posts consist of mainly things about his daughter, or his friends. There aren't a lot of posts, though, she notices. She scrolls back to the top of the page, she hesitantly clicks on the pictures tab, and waits for them to load as well. When they do, she notices that he only has a few photo albums on the page. She click on the first album, labeled, Sara's First Year and begins scrolling through the photos; most of them of his daughter, Sara, with the occasional cameo of him, or a few other people.
Most of the rest of his photos consist of the two of them together, large smiles on both of their faces. Every so often, there'll be a picture of Sara and another guy, around the same age as Grant, she assumes. Most likely a family friend.
She smiles to herself at seeing all of the pictures of Sara, he must really, really love his daughter, and then closes out of his Facebook page before she accidentally does something that she'll regret later. She sets her phone down next to her and leans her head back, a smile still on her face.
Okay. What did you all think? Honest opinions please. I really want to know what you guys think. I had had this idea for a story, where Grant was Skye's new bodyguard, but then it somehow transformed into this, and I can honestly say, that I am much happier with this one. I think it's going to be way more fun.
So, there you go. See you all next Saturday with the second chapter. :)
Until next time,
Jellybean96 out!
