“I’ll stick with water.” I reached for a bottle, but he beat me to it. He removed the cap and handed it to me. “Thank you.”
The date with Dawson was definitely starting off differently than I imagined. In my head, he was just going to grab his guitar and try to charm me out of my panties with one of his songs. The fact he was making an effort to do something different was a little more romantic than I expected.
The driver drove us past the skyscrapers until we were at one of the parks near Lake Michigan. When the doors opened, I felt a bit more of a chill. The wind coming off the lake definitely wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t bad once I got used to it. Growing up in Chicago had made me fairly resilient to anything above freezing.
Dawson carried the picnic basket, along with a blanket, and we walked to a quiet part of the park where he spread the blanket out and took a seat. I sat down with my legs crossed and pulled my dress past my knees. The picnic basket had sandwiches, wine, beer, and a bag of chips. He served me my food on a paper plate and then we started eating. I had resisted drinking in the car, but the moment felt right, so I let him pour me a glass of wine before he started on another beer.
“So, I’m sure you heard all about my life when you watched my date with Markus last night, so tell me about yourself. Who is the man behind Mars Landing?” I bit into my sandwich and looked at him.
“The man behind Mars Landing is pretty much the guy you see in front of you. I didn’t have a traditional childhood, I’ll admit. I grew up in North Carolina. My father was a guitarist and my mother was a singer—they were both in a bluegrass band.” He smiled and shrugged. “I was on stage when I was five, belting out the lyrics to Johnny Cash songs.”
“Wait a minute.” I held my hand up in surprise. “Country music? Bluegrass?”
“Yeah.” He chuckled and nodded. “My agent probably won’t like it when I admit this on national television, but that’s all I really listen to personally. When I was fourteen, I hit a bit of a rebellious streak and started performing with some of my friends, mostly covering eighties hair bands. It wasn’t my passion, but when the guy from the record company said he liked our style, I kind of got pulled into what became Mars Landing.”
“You have creative freedom now, though. You’re successful. Why don’t you just do what you love?” I picked up my glass of wine and sipped it.
“One day I will.” He nodded and took a drink of his beer. “I just don’t want to lose the momentum I’ve got going. Every time I make an album, I say it’s going to be the last one, but when the tours sell out—it’s hard to just give that up.”
“Interesting...” I bit into my sandwich again.
There were more layers to Dawson Mars than I realized. I was happy to see that he felt comfortable enough with me to open up, even if we were on our first date. I knew a lot about Markus, but Dawson was a bit of a mystery.
It was easy for my date with Markus to fade into the back of my mind when I was with Dawson. He was very charming and his voice was so smooth. I started to question my decision to sleep with Markus without even considering the other guys. I knew what I wanted in that moment, but once I was with Dawson, my thoughts were starting to clash. I was attracted to Dawson for sure and it was almost like another fantasy coming to life. Dating a famous rock star was certainly intriguing, but I also knew his history with women. Even he admitted he wasn’t that good of a boyfriend when he was on the road. Trust would be difficult. There were always going to be women throwing themselves at him, regardless of where he went, and that meant I would have to worry about him being true to me.
We finally finished our food and he started packing things back into
the picnic basket.
“So, how would you like to lose these cameras for a little bit?” He looked at me with the picnic basket in his hand.
“What do you mean?” I looked over at the crew.
“Follow me.” Dawson took me by the hand and helped me up.
“Where are we going?” We started walking rather fast and the crew struggled to get all of their equipment together to follow us.
“Up...” He turned to me and smiled.
I had no idea what he meant by that at first. Up? How the heck were we going up? When we got to the edge of the park, I saw a hot air balloon that I hadn’t really noticed before. It was nothing but scenery when I arrived. Dawson ran over to it and handed some money to the man standing next to it. He motioned for me to follow and I looked back at the crew. They were gaining on us and my heart was pounding in my chest from the excitement of the chase. Dawson climbed into the hot air balloon and extended his hand. I had never been in one before and I always wondered what it would be like. It was Dawson’s date and if he wanted to take me up into the clouds, then I was willing to go.
I reached out for his hand and let him help me into the large basket. He started firing it up and the man on the ground quickly began removing the weights. The crew got to us, but they had no way to follow us into the hot air balloon. They waved and shrugged before pointing the camera at us to catch the launch. When the weights were moved, the balloon started to ascend slowly up towards the sky.
“You planned this?” I looked at Dawson in surprise.
“This is one of my hobbies.” He grinned. “I was planning to work it into a show one day, but I never found the right venue.”
“Mars Landing? Literally landing?” I chuckled. “Cute.”
“See, you get it.” He smiled and moved closer to me once the hot air balloon was sailing over Lake Michigan. “Now that we are alone and the cameras are not following us, tell me what you really think about Charles Montgomery’s crazy idea.”
Shit, I wasn’t prepared to be put on the spot.
“Well...” I felt my voice trembling.
“You can be honest. If you’re honest with me, I’ll be honest with you.” He leaned over the edge of the balloon and looked down. “Consider this a truth balloon.”
“It is a bit scary, I’ll admit.” I let out a sigh. “I’m not convinced it will work.”