The phone he pulled out he handed to Tripp. “Put your number in it, I’m going to send you something.”
“O-kay.”
“Just…trust me.”
So Tripp put his number in the phone and handed it back. About a minute later, his phone rang, and he clicked on the link Dez had sent him.
“Holy shit.”
“I know right.”
“Who the fuck comes up with shit like this.”
“I don’t know, but Chez Air is only twenty minutes from here and they take reservations.”
“You really put a ton of thought into this.”
“Was something Zakk and I talked about one night, in between sessions. The original lineup for Tattered Angel had been down in Santa Fe and there was this hot air balloon festival going on. All these balloons floating in the sky, day and night, some shaped like animals, others with patchwork colors that glowed the darker they got. Zakk said he wanted to go up in one then, but Wade pitched a major bitch about it being unsafe and how something could happen to him, and he’d be putting the band at risk in the middle of a tour and basically guilt tripped him out of it.”
“That’s fuckin’ shitty.”
“Pretty much.”
“Zakk should have told him to get fucked.”
“From what I hear, that’s Wade’s favorite pastime.”
“Go figure,” Tripp muttered, glancing down at the images on his phone again. There was no denying the amazing view or how cozy the atmosphere was. “This is wild. Who ever heard of a hot air balloon restaurant.”
“Not me until it popped up on my search.”
“Three courses, isn’t that practically gourmet or some shit?”
Snorting, Dez just shrugged. “I worked in the kitchen for a reason.”
“Point taken.”
Tripp swiped his finger over the phone’s surface, staring down at the images in the digital brochure. There were actual windows, and an elaborately set table, two chairs, fresh flowers in the vase between the couple seated there. The more he read, the better the idea sounded, not just for the sightseeing but for the romance.
“Place like this is liable to be booked up well in advance,” Tripp muttered. “We’ve only got ten more days left here.”
“You won’t know until you call them. At the very least, book it for when you and Zakk come back on your own.”
Okay so he had a point there. “Thanks. I’ll call in the morning.”
“No problem.”
“You were going to take him, weren’t you?”
“Only if you weren’t willing to go up in the balloon with him.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Meh.”
“It says here that I need to order the meals ahead of time. How am I supposed to do that without tipping him off?”
“What are the options?”