//chapter//\\three\\

The walk back to Angel's house was full of conversation. She had stopped crying all together, and was now very curious about Scott's life on tour and his family. The two talked all the way to the house, then Scott jumped in the car and revved up the engine. When Angel ran out of the residence, she was crying again.

"What's the matter?" Scott asked with deep concern in his eyes.

"Auntie slapped me!" Angel sobbed, crawling into the car.

"What for? Do you still want to go tonight?" Scott asked, flowing with questions.

"I don't know why. Yes! I want to leave this hell now!" she cried.

Scott backed out the drive, drove a reasonable distance away from the house, then pulled over to give Angel a kleenex and a hug.

"Now what happened?"he asked calmly.

"I told Auntie that I was going to dinner with you tonight, and she told me that I couldn't. She didn't have a reason, but she wouldn't let me come. So I said, 'I don't care what you think anymore.' and she slapped me!" Angel enlightened Scott.

Scott hugged her tighter and stroked her hair. He felt like his father, trying to console one of the triplets after they had scraped their knees. But this was more severe than a scraped knee. Wounded knees will heal. That isn't always the case with wounded souls.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just want to have a good time tonight."

"That's all I want too. I just want you to have a good time. I haven't known you long, but you already mean something to me." Scott smiled. He felt bad for saying it, because he wasn't really sure whether it was true or not. He knew that he was physically attracted to her, and he knew that she was great when she was happy. And yet, he couldn't help but think that it wasn't such a good idea to tell her that.

"You mean something to me too, Scott." Angel said, wiping the tears from her face.

"Promise me that you'll tell me if someone ever does that to you again. I'll give you pager number and you can just page me whenever something goes wrong. It doesn't matter what I'm doing or where I am, I'll stop everything and call you as soon as I can. Well, unless I'm on stage or in an interview or something. You know."

"Yeah. You're the greatest Scott." Angel whispered. "The only people who ever cared about me this much were my parents. Thank you."

Scott wasn't sure what to say. So instead he wiped the rest of the tears off her face.

"Ready to party?" he asked, smiling expansively.

"You bet!" Angel replied, returning his smile.

Scott laughed and pushed the petal to the floor. He was determined to make this the best night of Angel's life.

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