Burning It Down, All the Way to Bat Country

Trinity’s POV
After breakfast we decided to go to the living room to figure out what to do for the rest of the day.
“Hey Trinity, we have to go the studio in a few hours, you guys wanna tag along?” I looked at everyone and they nodded, I guess we found something to do today.
“Sure daddy, when are we leaving?” I called back.
“About 20 minutes, go get ready!” We laughed and the guys went to the basement, while the girls went up to my room where all our clothes were put last night.

“Ok, grab your outfits, then we do make up and hair.” I announced, the girls nodded and got dressed, then we all pooled our make up together and did our hair. The whole process took about 15 minutes, then we all clomped downstairs to the kitchen, where we found the boys raiding my fridge.
“Didn’t you guys just eat?” I asked, they nodded, not speaking as their mouths were full of leftover pizza. We laughed and pushed the guys out of the kitchen to the living room.
“alright you two, no more food. Sit down and shut up.” Mistey said. The guys just rolled their eyes and threw a pillow at her.
“Ya know, sometimes I think it’s those two who are twins, not you and Blaze Mistey.” Sarah remarked and we all nodded. We were watching ‘A Shot of Love’ when my dad came in, twirling his car keys around a finger.

“You guys ready to go watch some magic happen?” He asked, and we all cheered and jumped up, racing out to the car. I smacked my head and groaned when I realized we had forgotten the keys.
“Forgot something Trini dear?” I glared at my dad and tapped my few while gesturing to the car.
“Well, daddy dearest?” He laughed and clicked the button, disengaging the locks with a beep, and we all pulled open doors and piled in.
“No Mistey, you can’t sit between us!” Evan screamed.
“Yes I can ya fairy, now quit screaming, you sound like a girl.” She answered and we all laughed, Evan included.

I had dad’s iPod plugged in and ready to go before he even started the car, and just looked at me with a raised brow. I grinned innocently and waited for him to turn the truck on so I could blast Bruise Brothers by Blue Scholars. Dad laughed when the song came on.
“I don’t even know who this is Trinity.”
“How do you not know Blue Scholars??? Ok, they’re this hip hop group based out of Seattle, and they are absolutely amazing, I love them. They mix hip hop and island and rap. This is like one of the best songs everrrr.” I explained and Sarah nodded and piped up from the backseat.

“It’s true Mr. Sanders, the Blue Scholars are absolutely incredible.” Dad grimaced.
“Ok, I’m gonna say this one time, and one time only. Don’t EVER call me Mr. Sanders, my name is Matt. If any of you call me Mr. Sanders again, I’m gonna revert back to my own high school days and put you in a garbage can.” He said with a laugh. The group grinned and saluted.
“Yes sir Colonel Sanders sir!” Evan and Blaze shouted at the same time, and my dad grinned and shook his head.
“Ya’ll have lost your damn mind.” Mistey said, smacking Evan and Blaze simultaneously. So that’s why they didn’t want her to sit between them…. I laughed and dad looked at me strangely, but shook his head and kept driving.
“Dad this is taking foreverrrrrr!” I whined.
“Trin, we’ve been in the car for twenty minutes, we’ll be there in ten.”
“oh..” ten minutes later and we were pulling up to a big blue building.
“THANK GOD!” us girls yelled and Mistey, Sarah, and Blaike climbed over the guys, running with me up to the front door and into the building, where we were stopped by a scary looking dude with long hair and arms the size of my dad’s.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?” He asked and we gulped.
“My name is Trinity Sanders, I’m Matt’s daughter.” His face creased into a grin before I was grabbed in a hug so tight I thought my ribs were gonna crack. He finally let me go, holding me by the shoulders, still grinning like a fool.
“I heard Matt had adopted a kid, and I’m so glad to finally meet you, I’m Kenny, but the guys call me Thor.” I smiled, I had heard about Thor and the roadies, Jason and Mattie.
“Hi Kenny, it’s nice to finally meet you, I’ve heard so much about you!” His face paled.
“Don’t believe the stories, they are ALL lies.” I laughed and nodded.
“Well, these are my friends, the twins, Mistey and Blaze, Evan, Sarah, and Blaike.” They all smiled and waved.
“Hey guys.” By this point my dad had joined us, Uncle Brian in tow.

“Hey daddy, hey Uncle Brian. We just met Kenny, now let’s hear some music!” I yelled and Brian nodded before walking back somewhere in the building. I looked at the group and shrugged before linking my arms with the girls and skipping after him. 4 and a half hours later and we were bored out of our fucking minds, and dad and Uncle Brian were bickering about a guitar riff. I swear, they were acting like a damn married couple.
“Jesus Christ Uncle Brian! Just record the damn riff before I get Lynnie in here!” I finally yelled, getting sick of the arguing.
“But I don’t want to record the fucking riff!” He yelled back, but I had already pulled my cell out.

“Hey Lynnie, it’s Trini. Your boyfriend is acting like a girl and refusing to record a really awesome riff because he doesn’t like it. Yes I know that’s retarded. Ouch man, a month? That’s harsh. Ok Ok, I’ll tell him. Ok love you too, later chick.” I ended the call and looked at my uncle as I slid my phone back n my pocket.
“Lynnie says if you don’t record the riff to the best of your abilities, she’s going to withhold any type of sex or sexual contact for a month.” Brian gulped and quickly turned a bunch of knobs and shit before cranking out the riff, making it sound totally awesome. We all clapped and cheered once it was done. They had been working on a song called 'Almost Easy' and the riff fit perfectly.

“Dad, can we go now, we’re freaking starving!” I asked, clinging to his arm and unleashing the full power of my puppy pout. He laughed and nodded, slinging his arm around my shoulders.
“Ok guys, we’re out, apparently I have to feed these little monsters.”
“I WANNA GO! Can I go? I’m done for the day I promise!!” Jimmy exclaimed.
“Yeah daddy, can Uncle Jimmy come????”
“Sure baby girl, but Jim, your gonna have to follow us, unless you want to cram in the back with the crazy teenagers.”
“I love teenagers, we understand each other.” We all laughed and walked out to the truck. After twenty minutes of fighting about who was gonna sit where, we finally had Blaike, Sarah, and Mistey in the back, Me, Blaze, and Evan in the second row, and Dad and Jimmy in the front.

“Alright guys, Taco bell ok?” after the chorus of affirmative answers, we drove to the designated fast food joint and fought our way out of the truck and to the counter. I walked up looked at the register dude.
“Man, you better be ready for this. I need 5 soft tacos, 4 steak chalupas, 6 bean and cheese burritos, 3 crunchwrap supremes, 7 large sodas, and 12 caramel apple empanadas. You get all that?”

“Yeah, it’ll be 42.86 and your number.” I rolled my eyes.
“How about I give you fifty, and I’ll let you keep the change if you stop hitting on me.”
“What if I don’t?” he asked with a sneer, his eyes fixed firmly on my boobs.
“Well then, this happens. DADDY!” I yelled.
“Yeah sweetheart.” He said, walking over and standing next to me.
“This little creep is trying to scam on me.” The kid gulped and shook his head.
“N.No I wasn’t sir, I was asking if she would like to pay with cash or credit.” He stammered. My dad narrowed his eyes and slapped his card down on the counter.
“Use that and stop trying to scam on my daughter kid, or I swear you won’t make it to your next birthday.” I giggled and went to go sit down with my friends.

“What are you so smiley about?” Evan questioned.
“That kid at the counter was totally trying to scam on me and he wouldn’t let it go when I told him no, so I got my dad on his case haha.” Blaze grinned and held his fist out. I tapped it and laughed.
“You go girl, I knew your hulk of a father had to be good for something.” Sarah joked and we all cracked up. We were still laughing and throwing things at each other when my dad came back ten minutes later with the food. He had learned from the last night time we had eaten with him and just a separate tray with our food on in on the table so we could attack it without him getting mauled. We finished eating in about ten minutes, now we were waiting for Jimmy and Dad to finish. I started singing a random Carrie Underwood song that I had heard somewhere and really liked.

There's some things that I regret,
Some words I wish had gone unsaid,
Some starts,
That had some better endings,
Been some bad times I've been through,
Damage I cannot undo.
Some things,
I wish I could do all all over again,
But it don't really matter,
When life gets that much harder,
It makes you that much stronger,
Oh, some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were,
Lessons learned.

And every tear that had to fall from my eyes,
And everyday I wondered how I'd get through the night,
Every change, life has thrown me,
I'm thankful, for every break in my heart,
I'm grateful, for every scar,
Some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were lessons learned.

There's mistakes that I have made,
Some chances I just threw away,
Some roads,
I never should have taken,
Been some signs I didn't see,
Hearts that I hurt needlessly,
Some wounds,
That I wish I could have one more chance to mend,
But it don't make no difference,
The past can't be rewritten,
You get the life you're given,
Oh, some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were,
Lessons learned.

And every tear that had to fall from my eyes,
And everyday I wondered how I'd get through the night,
Every change, life has thrown me,
I'm thankful, for every break in my heart,
I'm grateful, for every scar,
Some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were lessons learned.

And all the things that break you,
Are the things that make you strong!
You can't change the past,
Cause it's gone.
And you just gotta move on,
Because it's all
Lessons learned.

And every tear that had to fall from my eyes,
From everyday I wondered how I'd get through the night,
From every change, life has thrown me.
I'm thankful, for every break in my heart,
I'm grateful, for every scar,
Some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were lessons learned,
Oh, some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were lessons learned,
Lessons learned.
Lessons learned.

The girls had recognized the song by the chorus and sang the rest of it with me, and by the end we were standing on the table, singing at the top of our lungs. The other customers were laughing and clapping as we took a bow, then jumped off the tables.

“Uh oh guys, pissy looking woman at 12 o’ clock.” Blaze warned. We groaned and turned around.
“What do you think you were doing? You can’t just stand on tables and disturb our customers!!” she screeched. I felt Mistey bristle beside me and put my hand on her arm, silently telling her I would handle it.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but it didn’t look like we were disturbing anyone, in fact, all of these people seemed to quite enjoy it. We are leaving now, however, since you have yelled at me and your cashier was extremely disrespectful, we’ll be sure to never frequent this establishment ever.again. We shall also tell everyone we know what a horrible experience we have here, and trust me, we know A LOT of people.” With that, we all turned, grabbed our stuff, and left. Once we were outside, we all busted into laughter.

“Dude, did…you see…her face? It was like, ‘oh shit, this is not good’.” Blaze managed to choke out between fits of laughter. We were falling all over each other laughing while Dad and Jimmy just looked on in silent amusement.
“Alright you hyenas, you ready to go home?” We nodded and tried to walk over to the car. I say tried because we were all laughing too hard to be effective at anything that required motor skills. Ten minutes later and we were calm enough to get in the truck and leave. We were dancing and screaming the lyrics to ‘Undead’ by Hollywood Undead. Twenty minutes of screaming teenagers later and we were pulling into the garage. My dad turned off the truck and he and Uncle Jimmy bolted out of the car, mumbling something about beer and teenagers. We just laughed and followed, walking downstairs to watch a movie.

Matt’s POV
Jesus Christ those kids are loud. I was in desperate need of a beer and it kinda seemed like Jimmy need a whole keg.
“Dude, warn a man next will ya?” I laughed and nodded.
“You were here last night stupid, you saw how they got!”
“Well yeah, but I thought that was all the caffeine and sugar. But nooo, they’re like that NATURALLY! Holy mother of GOD those kids are nuts.”
“I hear ya man, beer is in the fridge, I’m gonna go find our darling Skittles.” He grinned and nodded. I had decided last night that I was going to ask her out, hearing that she was on a date made me feel sick. I walked upstairs and knocked on her door.

“Come in.” she called softly. I walked in and smiled.
“Hey, how ya holding up?” she shrugged.
“I’m ok I guess, at least my face doesn’t hurt anymore.” I nodded and sat next to her on her bed.
“So, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to…have dinner with me some time? But only if you want too, I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you or anything, and it doesn’t even have to be a date if you don’t want it to be one, we could just as frie.” She cut off my ramblings by hitting me in the face with a pillow.
“Matt, chill. I’d love to go on a date with you. When?” I smiled with relief.
“Um, how about tonight, meet me downstairs at 7?” She smiled nodded.
“Ok, but since really freaking soon, I need you to get out so I can get ready. What are we doing?”
“Dinner, then I have a surprise. Be sure to bring a jacket, it’s not gonna be anything fancy” She nodded again and kicked me out, screaming for the girlfriends to come help her. I laughed and went to my own room to get ready. If everything worked out tonight, I would be well on my way to making Steph my girl.