All She Wanted (2) (11 page)

Briggs

“Charlie?”

She jumped, the wooden spoon slipping
from her hand, clanging against the tile floor.

“Oh, hi. Sorry,” she said bending to
retrieve the spoon and wash it off in the sink, “I didn’t hear you come in.”
           

I studied her. The look on her face
before I had said her name was the one I had seen only a handful of times. It
was the one that seemed to be marinated in sad, the one that felt like a blow
to my chest.

She smiled, turning to me with her laughing
eyes, causing me to forget my every thought.

“Did you need me?” she asked.

More
than you know.

I shook my head and stared at the
floor. “Uh, I just wanted you to know that I’ll be outside with Cody filling up
water balloons…you’re welcome to join us.”

“Oh, okay…sure,” she said looking at
the stovetop and wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, “I think I’ve probably
done more to detract from his meal than anything else…”

You
and detract could never be in the same sentence.

“Well, if kids can eat jelly beans
called
booger
and
vomit
…then I’m pretty sure they can
handle eating your taco meat.”
 

She laughed and walked passed me, heading
out to the backyard.

**********

One would have thought Angie was
hosting the team from
Friday Night Lights
in her backyard, by the noise alone. These kids were crazy.

Using two fingers, I whistled, the
sound piercing through the yard like a rocket launch.

The boys quieted immediately, freezing
in their tracks.

“Alright, listen up!”

Hey,
that was kind of awesome.

If
only I could get Charlie to listen to me like that.

I smiled at the thought.

“In two minutes we will head across the
street together toward the field. You
will
walk in a single-file line. You will
not
push, fight, hit, wrestle, or give wedgies without my permission to do so,” I
paused for dramatic effect. Some kids chuckled. “Just like the year before,
there are new rules, so listen up. Each of you will work with a partner. There
are six teams represented here. Each team has a color—which matches the color
of balloon you will go for. The object is to get as many of your team’s
balloons off of the giant tarp and into your team’s bucket. Does everyone
understand so far?”

The kids cheered wildly.

“What’s the catch?” Angie yelled from
the patio.

I smiled wickedly.

“There can only be
one
team member on the tarp at any given time. The other one should
be guarding the bucket. Whatever team has the most balloons in the end—of their
color—will be the winners. You may pop any color balloon you see that is not
your team’s color.”

“Can we steal balloons from inside the
buckets, Uncle B?” Cody asked.

“Good question, Cody…yes, you can.”

Excited energy sizzled throughout the
young crowd.

“Line up!”

My eyes roamed the yard as each kid ran
to join the line. It was then that I saw Charlie roll up her jeans and kick off
her heels. The flip-flops she was sliding her feet into looked a couple sizes
too big for her.
They’re probably Angie’s
.

When she joined the line, I couldn’t
help but laugh.

She was barely a head taller than Cody’s
birthday buddies.

This
is gonna be good.

Charlie

Thankfully, Angie had loaned me a pair
of flip-flops so that I could participate in the annual game of water wars. I
was grateful for them. She had decided to stay back with some of the other
parents so that she could frost the cake, but as I joined the group, she patted
me on the shoulder and wished me luck. I hoped I had only imagined the
forewarning in her voice.
 

My partner, a kid named Kevin, had already
deemed me “bucket guard”. I was bummed at first, but quickly reminded myself that
I was twenty-one; he was eight.

Our color was red.

The tarp that lay in the center of the
field was huge and scattered with at least three hundred water balloons.
Apparently several parents had contributed to the small supply, which I had
helped fill up. They had also squirted the tarp with dish soap. I had laughed
several times during the game explanation, thinking that Briggs had taken his dramatics
a little too far, but now I found myself nervous. These boys—though
young—looked ruthless, as did Briggs.

He had teamed up with the birthday boy,
and lucky for me he was several buckets away from team red. I didn’t want to be
anywhere near the crossfire of Briggs. It wouldn’t end well for me, I was
certain of that.

My strategy was a simple one: Guard and
block. But somewhere in my head was a voice that yelled,
“Don’t draw attention to
yourself
, Charlie.”
I vowed to listen to that voice.

As Briggs whistled, indicating war to
commence, I took my battle stance. Nothing and no one was going to steal our
balloons. It was Kevin and I all the way.

“Red rules!” I yelled, feeling a bubble
of adrenaline squeeze at my insides.

Okay,
so much for not drawing attention to myself…

Poor Kevin was slipping and sliding all
over the slick tarp. With six kids going after their color at one time, while
simultaneously trying to fend off attacks, the sight was pure chaos. Briggs was
guarding his blue bucket and laughing hysterically as the scene in front of us
played out. When he caught my eye, I looked away quickly. I did not want him
concocting any evil plans where I was concerned—especially not while I was
surrounded by all this ammo.

Kevin finally staggered off the tarp carrying
four red balloons in his arms. He hurried over to me so he could drop them into
our bucket. After a slap on his back to show my team spirit, I pushed him to retrieve
more. He did.

Only once did someone try a sneak-attack
on my bucket, but I was too quick for him—or perhaps, in reality, they were
not-so-sneaky. All that mattered was my job as
bucket guard
remained in good standing.

Our bucket had nearly twenty red
balloons inside it when the insanity really started. The ground around us had
quickly turned into a giant pool of mud. The water that had been poured onto
the tarp to make it
slick,
had seeped into the already
wet ground causing it to resemble more of a sink hole than a soccer field. The
bursting water balloons that flew all around me only added to this thick sludge.

Just as I let my mind wander to how I could
help Angie with mud-cleanup once back at her house…I was hit from behind. I
straightened immediately, stunned by the slap of water that soaked my back. Blue
balloon pieces fell to the ground near my feet. It was that moment that I
decided to un-man my station for the first time—to retaliate.

After plunging my hands into my bucket,
I ran after Briggs.

I realized way too late, however, that
I should have heeded my earlier intuition. I was no match for Briggs. He was
the expert hunter, and I was Bambi’s mother after the shots were fired.

He hit his target every single time he
threw a balloon at me, while I made
maybe
three. Soon I was just running with no balloons in hand at all.

And where was my faithful partner, now?
The one I had cheered for and encouraged while he had been dying a slow death on
the slippery tarp? He was rooting for Briggs, in fact, all the kids were. And helping
him, too!

If I hadn’t been so panicked I would’ve
been livid at their disloyalty.

I trudged and splashed through the muddy-muck
that was to be my final demise, and with one last scream, the world went upside
down.

Briggs

Okay, so maybe I had started it, but in
my defense it was one balloon.
 

One
.
 

How was I to know that it would wake
her inner-Rambo?

Unfortunately for her, she had the aim
of a windsock in a tornado. When she had started running toward the mud pit, I
knew it wouldn’t end well—at least not for her. I had just halted my launches,
yelling for her to steer clear of it, when her feet were no longer on the
ground. She hit the mud with a smack, sliding on her back.

I felt sick as I ran to her.

 
“Shortcake…
are
you okay? Does anything hurt?” I leaned over her.

She was splattered with mud—and that
was just the part I could see. I was certain that her backside was completely
caked with it. She looked up at me, blinking. Her eyes resembled that of a hurt
puppy. She reached her muddy hand up to me as I hunched over her. I took it
without hesitation.

This is when Charlie went from hurt
puppy to perturbed Pit Bull.

With one, hard, unsuspecting yank, I
fell face first into the mud. Her laugh was the cackle of an evil villain.
 

I wiped the mud from my face as I
surfaced, “Well played, Shortcake.”

I helped her up—our bodies resembling
swamp monsters.

“Will I still get retaliation points
even though my team lost?” she asked, hand on her hip.

Without thinking, I pulled her to me and
wrapped my arms around her as I laughed. And even through several inches of
caked-on mud and grass, I could only think of one thing:

Charlie
Lexington is hugging me back.

Charlie

Clean-up was a bit of a nightmare.

The taco feed was moved to the backyard
as muddy pants and shoes were the common denominator amongst the group. Briggs
and I were the exception, however. The mud we wore covered the majority of our
bodies.

Angie laid a pair of sweats and a
t-shirt on her bathroom counter for me to change into after my shower. When she
first saw us walking toward the house, she laughed for a good five minutes
straight. I now knew why she had stayed behind to frost the cake.

As I stripped off my mud-covered
clothing, my wrist began to throb, a feeling like pins and needles shooting
through it from every angle. I had felt an initial stab of pain when I had
landed on it, but when Briggs had come to check on me, I was much more focused
on his demise than my discomfort.

I stepped into the shower, watching as
the water uncovered my pink skin once again. I stood, letting the heat thaw me
as I closed my eyes.

Briggs
had hugged me.

A rush of nervous, swirling energy
filled the base of my belly.

I didn’t understand it—this connection
I felt to him. Wasn’t it just last week that I had been crying over my broken
heart and now I was swooning over a fireman—one who was sent to babysit me?

Maybe men had it right: Women were
crazy.
       

Washing the mud out of my hair, while using
only one hand, took an eternity. Once I was out, I picked up the pile of
mud-free clothes from Angie. I rolled the sweat pants down a few times on the
waist, and tightened the drawstring as much as I could. They still hung low on
my hips, but at least the t-shirt was long enough to cover the waistband. I
dried my hair and looked in the mirror at my clean, make-up free face. It was
ironic how only earlier today I had hoped to be going to a glamorous party
tonight, yet here I was now,
au natural
.

And celebrating a seven year-olds
birthday.

I walked into the hallway, just as
Briggs stepped inside the house from the backyard. I couldn’t help but smile at
the sight of his ruggedly, handsome face—dried dirt and all.

Briggs
:

“Hey,” I said, not trusting myself to
say anything more. She may have been drowning in my sister’s clothes, but even
still, she was breathtaking.

“It’s all yours,” she said nodding
toward Angie’s room. I was grateful that I hadn’t had time to change earlier
after working on the Honda. A hot shower and clean clothes was the perfect way
to remedy the Loch Ness monster look I was currently sporting.
 

I peeled my eyes from Charlie’s face
and looked down at her arm. It was bent at the elbow and was pressed against
her body stiffly. It was an unnatural pose for her.

Is
she hurt?

“What’s going on with your arm?” I asked.

She instantly moved it down to her
side, but not before I saw the painful grimace on her face. She was hurt.

“Let me see it,” I said, reaching out.

She shook her head, “It’s nothing—really,
my
wrist is just a little stiff from how I landed.”

I continued to hold out my hand, giving
her a look that said, “
You’re full of it”.

She slowly lifted her arm again, biting
her lip as she did. Even in the dim light of the hallway, I could tell it was
swollen. As I rotated it, she winced again, proving my quick diagnosis.

“It’s sprained, Charlie.”

“Really?” she asked. Her voice held
more disappointment in it than surprise.

“Yes, it’s probably minor, but we’ll
need to ice it and wrap it regardless. Come over here and sit down, hold it up
like this while I get you some ice,” I instructed, watching as she elevated it
above her heart.

“Can’t we deal with this a little later—Cody’s
about to open his gifts.”

She must have picked up on my look a
lot quicker this time, because she sat down without saying another word. I laid
the ice pack in a towel and gently wrapped it around her wrist, giving her a
dose of ibuprofen as well.

“We’ll ice it like this for about twenty
minutes to reduce some of that swelling, and then I’ll wrap it for you. Let me
go ask Angie where the first aid kit is.”

“Thank you, Briggs, but since I’m just
sitting here ice-
ing
, you should go take your shower.
I’m fine to wait,” she said, flashing me a weak smile.

I looked at her, contemplating her
request.

“Please…I don’t want you to miss any more
of this party over my stupidity,” she said, trying to make a joke.

My hand reached out then, insubordinate
to the commands my mind had given it. Since the first day I met Charlie, I had wondered
about the feel of her hair—that hair that smelled like an orchard of peaches in
springtime. As I touched it, the damp, ginger waves slipped through my fingers
like silk, leaving me breathless as it fell against her face once more.

“There’s nothing stupid about you,
Charlie,” I said quietly, retrieving my duffle bag from the corner before walking
down the hall to Angie’s bathroom.

Maybe a shower would be the best thing
for me right now.