"Is it done now?"
"No."
"Now?"
"No."
"How about now?"
"For Pete's sake, Poppy, no!" Branch covers his face with a hand and groans loudly. I shrug my shoulders. Can't blame a girl for asking. We've been trapped in here for days. Weeks… With no food or water. Just myself, the walls, and my good boyfriend Branch. "Poppy, the rain will stop. Just not right now. Okey dokey?" he asks with a grin that's borderline grimace.
"Ughh… Branch, we've been stuck in here for hours and hours and weeks and weeks… No food… No water… I think I'm dehydrating," I say, feeling the painful thirst return to me full-force. "I can't go on much lon-oomph?" Branch stuffs the end of a water bottle into my mouth.
"First of all, Poppy, we've been in here for ten minutes. However agonizingly painful they have been to both of us and might as well have been ten hours. Second, yes, you have had food. In fact, you've eaten all of the honey I have put away in my cabinets. As for water, are you happy now?" I nod as I guzzle the remainder of the water bottle down. I pull it away from my lips.
"Okay, so maybe I was a little dramatic. You can't blame me! It's soooooo boring… What do you do in here anyway? No board games, no scrapbooking stuff, no nothing," I say flopping back against the couch, stretching my legs so that my feet are pushed up against Branch's legs.
"When I lived in my bunker, I'd most of the time make more traps and organize my materials I had collected earlier in the day. And yes, you're extremely dramatic," Branch says with a sigh. I sit up and look around. Hmm… What can we do? I look around and something catches my eye. A curtain? I've never noticed that being here before.
"What is that?" I ask and point at the curtain, shortly after getting up to go see it. Branch looks over to where I'm pointing and his eyes widen, presumably shocked.
"N-nothing!" he yelps and runs over in front of me, blocking my way to the mysterious curtain. "Nothing at all. Nothing, nothing, nothing! Heh, heh… Let's go back to the couch and you can pick a game for us to play." I eye him suspiciously. He sure is acting strangely…. And I want to see what's behind that curtain.
"Okay," I say and shrug my shoulders, turning back toward the couch. Branch lets out a big breath. As soon as he starts for the couch, I turn back to the curtain and make a run for it. I catch him by surprise and I manage to make it past him.
"POPPY! WAIT!" I grin and pull open the curtains, expecting treasure or a secret candy stash or poetry. What I actually get is not at all like what I expected.
I find myself staring up at a whole wall covered with cards that I have given him throughout the years. My eyes widen as I look closely at one from when I had several teeth missing. I notice another for my fifteenth birthday. I look at all of the cards and feel an enormous happiness welling up in my chest.
He kept all of these? One card in particular catches my eye. I look at it and recognize it as the card for the last party we threw in the old troll village. The one he smashed right in front of me and my friends. He fixed it? Even though he broke it? I look around and notice a few more that I remember him squishing under his foot. Wow! This is amazing! I feel tears spring into my eyes as I truly think about what a wonderful guy I have. He's so caring…
"O-okay. We've seen that, moving on. Let's go play the game of your choice," Branch says and pushes the curtains closed, shortly after grabbing my arm and dragging me back to the couch. We sit down and he gives me a nervous grin. Feeling a few tears escape down my cheeks, I wipe my eyes with a hand. Branch's face immediately morphs into a worried frown. "Poppy?! What's wrong?" he asks and puts his hands on my arms. I smile through my tears.
"I'm fine, Branch. I'm just really happy. I can't believe that you kept them all and even fixed the ones that you broke. It just… means so much to me," I say and hug him gently. I feel his arms wrap around me and we share a loving embrace. I smile widely and tighten my arms' grip. It feels so nice to be pulled against him and held closely. It's just such a safe and warm feeling. I cuddle my head against his shoulder and push my nose against his neck, taking a deep breath. Mmm…. A woodsy smell….
"So, uh…. You wanna play that game now?" Branch questions. I grin and laugh, pulling away from our hug.
"You're really set on playing a game, aren't you?" I ask, but I go along with it anyway. The whole card thing probably embarrassed him, so I'm going to give him a little mercy. "Okay… I wanna play… Twenty questions!" I announce happily. Branch groans. "Hey, you said I could pick what we play."
"That I did. Unfortunately." I give him an unimpressed look, frowning and raising an eyebrow. He smiles and kisses my cheek. I feel my face heat up and my stomach flutter. Hmm. I don't know why my stomach does flips at every little thing he does.
"Let's do it!" I say. "You think of a troll, thing, or place and I'll ask twenty questions that you have to answer about it. I have to guess what it is before we reach the last question." He rolls his eyes and nods. Branch closes his eyes for a second then speaks.
"Okay, got it."
"Boy or girl?"
"Girl." I grin. This is so easy! I already know who it is.
"Me?" He shakes his head, smiling.
"I think you need to pick a different game." I squeal and latch onto him.
"Aww! It was me!" I kiss him lightly on the lips. He groans but returns it. I smile and pull away, instead resting against him. I think for a second on a different game to play and I grin widely when the perfect idea smacks me right in the head. Figuratively, of course. "Do you have any colorful paper? And a clock?" Branch looks down at me with a scared look.
"This is not going to be good for me, is it?." I smile evilly. Yep, he's not going to like this, but I'm going to love it!
"Branch, my love, it will be splendid."
…
About ten minutes later, I've arranged a super makeshift Twister board. Including a spinner!
"You ready to play?!" I ask eagerly. Branch shakes his head.
"Why did I have to bring up a stupid game?" I wrap my arms around his neck, looking into his beautiful sparkling blue eyes.
"C'mon, it'll be fun!" He settles his hands on my waist and squishes his nose against mine.
"I don't really believe that, but I'll do it because you want me to so badly." I fist-pump and run over to spin the spinner. I watch as it lands on left-foot green. I run over to the board and place my left foot on a green dot. I smile as I stand on one foot.
"Branch, your turn!" I watch as he spins the spinner. Right-foot red. He walks over with the spinner and stands on one foot on top of a red dot.
"Okay, you spin now." I take the spinner from his hand and I get right-hand red. I turn so that I can lay my hand on a red dot and I try desperately to stand on one hand and one foot. I hand the spinner to Branch and he gets left-foot yellow. He moves his leg so that it is resting under my arm. We continually pass the spinner back and forth until we finally are tangled in a nearly unbelievable position. I'm completely under him, his hands are underneath me, my right leg is craned around his right foot, his left foot is touching mine, and we're squished together. At this point, we're just seeing who can outlast the other.
"Come on, Poppy. Give it up. I've got the advantage. Just let go and save us both the pain," Branch says, smirking down at me.
"Well, Branch, if you fall down on top of me, then we're both done and neither of us wins," I say and return his snarky grin. He stops and appears to be thinking. Uh, oh. What does he have planned?!
Suddenly, Branch's lips collide with mine and my legs involuntarily give out from underneath me. He rolls over so that he's on his back beside me.
"Woo! Did it…" I groan and grab his vest.
"Just kiss me, would you? Don't rub it in," I say and pull him so that our breaths are washing over each other's faces. He slowly closes the distance and I move so that I'm resting on his chest. He strokes the side of my face and I squeeze his vest tighter. One of his hands wanders down to my waist. Branch moves the hand that's on my face into my hair and I move one of mine into his. He pulls away from me and gets up suddenly, starting for the door. I raise up and stare after him. "What are you doing?! Get back over here!" I yell, starting to get up.
"The rain stopped, let's go outside," Branch says and I can hear the smirk in his voice. Wait, he can't leave me now! I'm in too desperate of a state to leave his pod!
"Come back here now!"
"Is that a command, your majesty?" I growl and stand up, stomping over to him.
"Yes, I command you to stay right here and kiss me." He leans over and kisses my nose.
"You gotta catch me first," he says and runs out the door quickly. I can't believe him! Well, I suppose I could always chase him into the shed at the community garden. After all, it worked out well for me last time!
"You come back here, Branch!"
Hello, everyone! Another suggestion given to me by FrozenTinkerbellPotter-Lover15! Thank you so much! I hope you all loved it! Anyways, read, review, and have a trollfully awesome day! (See what I did there?) ;) LOL!