Left Behind: TT Style

Chapter 7

Date Night

A/N: Hey all! I've gotten a few short reviews from some people who will remain anonymous. I ask all reviewers to: Not give one word reviews, such as "Interesting," "Horrible," "Crappy," etc. If you have something to say, please do! All reviews will be read and taken under advisement.

Not criticize my grammar! I know it isn't all that good. I will do my best to keep everything grammatically correct. If you want to incorporate a grammar critique into your review, I'll let it slide, but just a review telling me a word in my summary isn't spelled right just ticks me off!

Now, thanks to reviewers! Whee!

BehindmyBlueeyes77- Thanks! I thought it was a good chapter myself! Lol. Sad to say we're living in the end times. We need to get out there and witness to others about the word of God. Keep up with your FanFiction stuff. You're doing well.

Titanfan45- I'm doing fine? Good. I shall continue then!

Now, onto the date!

Jake and Mia pulled into the mall parking lot, the truck gliding easily between a blue minivan and a black Corvette. (A/N: I LOVE Corvettes!)

Jake noticed the colors of the cars and laughed, "We're in the middle of a bruise!" He turned off the engine, climbing out of the red Ram to open the door for Mia.

Mia opened the door herself, climbing out and knocked Jake flat with the rear-swinging door. She gasped, "Sorry! Are you okay?" She leaned over to help him up, grabbing his hand and pulling.

"Yea, I'm okay. I was a quarterback on the school football team. I've had worse." He dusted off his camouflage cargo pants and offered Mia his arm. "Shall we?"

She took his proffered arm, locking elbows. "We shall. Want to grab a snack first?" The two walked over to the doors, smelling a mix of perfumes and colognes, hamburgers and fries and coffee.

"Sure. How about a pretzel?" He pointed to a vendor near a clothing store.

"Why not? You can never have too many pretzels!" They walked over and Mia cleared her throat to get the vendor's attention.

"What can I get ya today? The special is a pizza stuffed twisted pretzel with a drink of your choice for only $3.99."

"I'll take one of those," Jake said, eyeing the picture of it on the order board. "Looks good."

"Make it two, please." Mia nodded at the drinks. "I'll have a Diet Coke with that."

"Sure. What can I get you, son?"

Jake squirmed at being called 'son', but said, "Dr. Pepper, cherry vanilla if you have it."

"Coming up! Just gimme a minute or two to make the pretzels." The man set to work and came back with two pretzels a couple minutes later. "There you go. Two pizza pretzels with a Diet Coke and a Dr. Pepper, cherry vanilla flavored. That comes to $9.17."

Jake fished out his wallet and pulled out a ten dollar bill and poked through the change pocket for the 17 cents. He found it and passed it to the vendor, who punched in the amount and handed Jake a dollar back. (A/N- My wallet has a change pocket and a few credit card slots, but I carry spare guitar picks in one of them!)

"Have a nice day, kids." He turned away to help another customer.

The two kids sat down at one of the tables to eat their pretzels. Jake immediately snapped the lid off of his pop and took a swig, followed by a bite of pretzel. "Whoa! This is good! Money well spent, if you ask me!" He looked at Mia, who had taken a bite out of hers.

"Hmm. Not bad, but I've had better." She took another bite, then cracked open her Coke, taking a small sip to wash down the food. "So, you said you played on a football team. What school did you play for?"

"Jump City High School. I was transferred to Steel City two years ago when Mom and Dad moved here to be closer to friends." He asked her, "So, what do you do in your school?" He took a bite of his cooling pretzel.

"Well, I'm on the cheerleading squad for the team, which explains why I think I saw you before at school."

Jake interrupted before she could continue. "Whoa, hold up a second. You're in high school? How did that happen?"

Mia sighed, being used to explaining this for the umpteenth time. "I skipped grade 3 when I went to Steel and District, across the road from the high school." She took another swig of soda and a bite of pretzel and continued. "Anyways, I'm in the band as well. I play Tenor Saxophone in Intermediate and Jazz Band and, please don't laugh at this, but I play tuba in the Senior Band." She braced herself for his laughter, but none came.

"Sax is cool. I've got an old alto sitting around at home. Should have brought it with me. We could have jammed. Doesn't your dad play guitar? I know Dad used to play bass and Mom played the oboe. Man, I HATE that thing. Sounds like a duck being strangled."

Mia laughed. "You're telling me. I sit right behind the oboe player in Intermediate. And yes, Dad does play the guitar. He's trying to teach me how to play bass, but I'm not really good at stringed instruments." She finished off her pretzel and swigged her pop, burping loudly. "Excuse me."

"Nice one! I'll talk to Mom when we get home to see if I can grab the instruments. What kind of guitar does your dad have?" He finished off his pretzel, licking his fingers to get some spilled sauce, then tossed his empty pop bottle into the nearby recycling bin. "Two points! The crowd goes wild!"

Mia laughed. "Nice shot. Dad has a Washburn acoustic and an Epiphone Les Paul Special electric with a Peavey amp, I think." (A/N- I have the above guitar tech. My dad owns the Washburn and I own the rest.)

"Nice. Washburns are good guitars. I've got a blue Gibson Firebird VII Studio bass, with a Peavey amp. (A/N-This is the bass that I want. I love the Firebird series) Dad taught me how to play years ago." He glanced at his watch, seeing it was almost 9:30. "Well, we can continue this conversation in the car. If we want to get home on time, we have to leave now." He rose, chair scraping on the tiled floor.

"Works for me. Wait, we have to pass your place on the way to mine. Call your mom and ask if you can grab the stuff. Saves time." She grabbed his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, punching in her home number. She pushed 'Send' and passed it to him.

Jake waited a second, then asked, "Uncle Dick? Can I talk to my mom for a second?"

He waited again, then his mom picked up. "Mom, Mia and I were talking about having a jam session sometime. Can I swing by the old place and pick up the instruments?" He listened, then smiled. "Thanks Mom. We're leaving the mall now. See you when we get home." He flipped the cell shut and told her, "We're going to have to hurry to get the stuff and get home."

She shrieked happily and ran out the door, climbing into the truck. Jake climbed in after her, put the key in the ignition and cranked it. The engine roared as the truck shot into reverse, nearly flattening a Harley and hit the main road, which was clearing out. About fifteen minutes later, they parked in the driveway of the old Logan house.

Jake climbed out, looking at the blue building, smiling. "Brings back good memories. Anyways, we're here for instruments. Let's go. The door is locked, so we'll have to go around back to find the spare key."

He hopped over the chain link fence, grabbed the key and hopped back over, opening the door. Surprisingly, the house hadn't been ransacked. Everything was where they had left it. The bass and amp was still in Jake's room by his closet, the sax sitting in its case near the bookcase. Jake grabbed the Peavey Basic amp and his bass, which was in its case. "Can you grab the sax? I need to go downstairs and see if Dad's got the drum set in his room still." Jake asked, standing in the doorway.

"Sure. You want me to take those out to the truck for you?" She indicated the bass and amp, holding the sax case in her left hand.

Jake shook his head. "No thanks. I'd prefer to carry these out. If the set is still up, I'll need your help to carry it out." He picked up his stuff and went outside, putting them into the truck bed. When Mia placed the sax in next to them, he waved at her to follow him.

Mia went downstairs to the family room and found a huge Pearl 6-piece drum kit standing in the corner, with 4 cymbals and hi-hats. (A/N- For those who don't know, the hi-hats is the two cymbals on top of each other that move up and down. The 6 pieces mean how many drums it has. In this case, there is one snare and 5 toms)

Jake grabbed two cymbals, taking them off the stands and placing them in a small bag with the word SABIAN on it in white letters. He said, "I'll take the cymbals. Can you take the snare and stands?" He pulled the last two cymbals off and put them in the bag, slinging it over his shoulder and grabbed two stands.

Mia took the snare and stand out, laying it carefully in next to the bass case. When she went back in, Jake had the last two cymbal stands and had grabbed one of the toms.

"Grab the next two toms will ya? They're already unhooked from the main kit." He climbed the stairs and went outside, placing the drums in the bed and went back to get the rest of the kit.

Mia was having a hard time carrying the toms up, so Jake stopped and grabbed one, going back out to put it in the bed. "I'll be back in a second. Here," he said, tossing her the keys. "Start the truck, but don't do anything else." He disappeared into the house, reappearing a few minutes later with the main body clutched to his chest, leaning back to carry it. He loaded it on the truck, then went back for the hi-hats and stand. After it was out, he slammed the lid closed and climbed into the cab, shifting into reverse.

"Call the house and tell them we're on our way." He put the truck in drive and sped off down the road. Mia pulled out her cell and called, telling them they were on their way, asking them to be outside to help carry the stuff in.

Ten minutes later, they pulled in, everyone waiting on the front porch. "Whew. Made it home with five minutes to spare." The time blinked 9:55 PM on the radio in the cab.

"How much stuff did you get Jake?" Rachel asked, pulling out two cymbal stands and walked to the driver side, where her son was getting out.

"My bass and amplifier, the old alto saxophone and the drum kit. I told you we were getting the stuff." He smacked himself on the forehead. "I forgot your oboe. Sorry!" He went to the back of the truck, grabbing a tom and the cymbal bag while Dick grabbed the other tom and hi-hats. Victor picked up the main body and asked, "Where do you want this Dick?"

"Downstairs in the wreck room. We'll organize it down there."

The group went downstairs; placing the various drum items in the same area, then came the bass and amplifier. Dick said, "We'll move the air hockey table to the storage room on the far side. Then we'll move the drum kit into the corner where the table was, but leave some room for two amps. We'll need the socket for the plugs." Victor began setting up the set, saying to the others, "It's been years since I've played, but I think I still got it." He adjusted the snare to be on an angle, positioned the cymbals and pulled out a set of sticks from the cymbal bag. "Anyone want to jam?"

Jake asked, "Do you really need to ask?" His bass was out and plugged into his Peavey Basic 112 amp, ready to play. Dick wasn't far behind, hooking up his Peavey Bandit 122 and plugging in his Boss SUPER OVERDRIVE FX pedal and his electric guitar. Terra asked, "Dick, can I use the acoustic? I wanna get in on this too."

He nodded at it. "Go ahead. It might be a little flat though. I just put some new strings on it." He looked at the others. "What do you guys wanna do? Secular music or Christian?"

Mia said, "How about a mix of both? One Christian, one secular. How about we start with something easy? God of Wonders is the one I want to sing."

Dick nodded; pulling out his capo and sliding it down to the second fret (A/N-Capos are for transposing song keys. If I can't play in the key of E, I'll put the capo on the second fret to play in D.) and played the opening chords for the song with Terra. Jake did a bass slide in, ending up on the right note as Victor began with a small rim shot beat with the hi-hats.

Mia began singing, her voice clean and crisp. Dick smiled. He always knew she had a great voice. He could sing well, but he had nothing on his daughter. When the bridge for the song came around, he clicked on his distortion pedal, going into a guitar solo that he had learned from the lead guitarist of Third Day. The song ended with a bass outro and the drums snapped out.

"Now that was good stuff!" Victor said, smiling from ear to ear. "Why didn't you tell us you could sing so well Mia?"

She blushed. "No one ever asked."

Jake laughed. "Nice excuse. Next song?"

He played the opening bass riff for his favorite parody of Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, Lazy Brain by the ApologetiX (A/N-These guys are a Christian parody group and they rock out loud!) Dick cranked up the distortion and played the opening guitar riff and Victor kept the bass beat on the drums and came in with the snare after the riffs were done. Jake began singing and the time began flying.

Well, it's done! Hope you enjoyed! Next chapter coming as soon as I get the first Left Behind book back so I can copy the message from the pastor's tape to use in Victor's church. Next chapter is the church service.
Same story time, same story channel!

Love, peace and chicken grease!

Dash