Sleepover
"A sleepover?" Hope said, wondering, for a moment if she was a grown woman talking to a grown man. "Like with sleeping bags and popcorn and pillow fights and painting nails and…"
She heard Scott chuckling on the other end of the line. He added: "And making cupcakes and watching movies and playing Rock Band and making costumes for role p-play acting."
Hope's voice, which was edging toward excitement, lowered again questioning: "Playacting?"
"Yeah, you know," he answered, not breaking stride. "Like charades, but with costumes."
"Why would anyone play charades in costume, Scott? Wouldn't it defeat the purpose?"
"Okay, fine," he replied, energetically. "I see what you mean. Not charades, then. More like theatre games, but for a specific film or TV show. Like Star Wars or Beauty and the Beast. Cassie loves it. So do I. And, so will you. That's if we even get to it. Sounds like you are more into the pillow fighting, anyway."
She heard the lilt in his voice. "Simmer down. Your daughter will be there, remember. I imagine this entire event is for her benefit."
"Not exactly," he replied, ruefully. "I know this gir-woman who never had the opportunity for a sleepover. She's kind of hard-nosed from being deprived of fun for most of her life. If you ask me, she could use an opportunity to let her hair down and her inner child out to play."
"Who says I never-"
"-Just say yes and don't over think it," Scott cut in with finality.
She remained silent a few seconds, letting him sweat, but when she heard the dial tone, she knew he had gotten the better of her. She smiled in admiration.
Later that night…
Throw pillows and pillows from all bedrooms and closets had been intricately placed into a quilt-like rectangle in Scott's living room. He and Hope sat feet to feet with cotton balls separating their twenty respective toes. The artist formerly known as Cassie put the finishing touches on the painted phalanges, adding a small jewel to each one.
"Are they done yet?" her dad asked, desperately wanting to wiggle his toes, which his daughter had so insistently demanded remain still during the process.
"Done!" she exclaimed after placing the last jewel on Scott's little toe. She had painted every other foot, switching back and forth from her dad to Hope. She did the same with the jewels. "Voila!"
Hope examined her toes and was pleasantly surprised by Cassie's steady hand and attention to detail. As she looked to Scott's toes, she noticed a more of a haphazard result, which was not Cassie's fault, but the result of her father's fidgeting.
"Your daddy really needs to learn to sit still, doesn't he?" Hope said, winking and nodding conspiratorially.
"For real!" the ten year old agreed, enthusiastically, blowing on Hopes toes.
"Oh, you think, I need to sit still, do you?" Scott said, his voice lowering into a villainous growl. He turn to his right lifting his feet into the air and spinning his bottom, reaching out to grab her and throw her over his lap. While it appeared that he swat her bottom, playfully, he grabbed her left foot and bent it back toward him. "Let's see how you fair against the Toesies Tickle Troll!"
Cassie shrieked in fake distress. "Not the Tickle Troll! Anything but the tickle troll?"
Hope looked on uncertainly. It wasn't the first time she's witnessed something like this, but it was the first time she questioned if she should join in.
"I will torture you with tickles before I gobble up your pretty little toes!" Scott continued in troll voice, turning his gaze to Hope. "And, no one can stop me Mu ah ah ah!"
"Help!" pleaded Cassie, lolling her head back and eyeballing Hope. "Somebody save me!"
Hope hopped into a crouch, cotton balls still between her toes and launched herself at Scott. She dodged Cassie, colliding with Scott's shoulder. He went down on his back, releasing Cassie.
"Unhand her, fiend!" Hope commanded, pressing his shoulder to the ground and looming over him with fierce and flashing eyes. Removing her hand from his shoulders, she placed one firstly on his chest and calls back over her should. "Are you alright, M'lady?"
Cassie's eyes are wide in surprise and joy and she is giggled nervously. Yes! Yes! I'm okay!"
Scott, genuinely surprised by the action, grinned like a school boy. Hope turned back to him, her gaze still threatening.
"What should we do with this toe tickling beast?" Hope asked Cassie. "What punishment does he deserve?"
"Tickle is tummy!" Cassie squealed, animatedly. "He can't stand it. Turn the torture on him!"
Scott's face contorted in to fear and rage as he silently prepared for the onslaught of rib tickling terror.
"Help me, Cassie," Hope entreated. "You take he left side and I'll stay here on the right."
Cassie joined her and they tickled Scott relentless. In the end, he was curled up in a ball threatening that he might pee if they continued. They did not stop. Grabbing a pillow as a last resort, he clobbered Hope in the back of the head. He went over, momentarily, allowing him an opening to get to his feet and arm himself with additional pillows. With a pillow in each hand, he stood ready to fight.
"Toesy Troll is has the upper hand again," he snarled, impishly. He attacked before they Hope and Cassie were fully armed. He swatted Hope in the back and twirled to pop his daughter in the belly. She reacted quickly enough to deflect it with a downward block. The pillow she was picking up with her opposite hand came up fast, but was a glancing blow off his arm.
With all his concentration on Cassie, Scott did not count on the combination of blows, high and low, that came from Hope. They were hard, harder than one might assume in a pillow fight, but understandable given the woman's inexperience. He parried the attack as best he could, but he was being forced back, away, from Cassie.
Scott ducked the last high strike and stepped into Hope's space, his left leg now behind her right one. He grabbed her by the arms and pulled to the pillowed floor. They land softly, as he intended, he on top of her face to face.
"You are a mighty warrior, but no match for the Toesy Troll," he said.
She looked into his eyes; his silly, loving, caring, playful, daring, and courageous eyes. His character face dissipated. She had dropped a wall and he had noticed. Their lips were tantalizingly close and the heat of the recent exertion radiated from each of them. He didn't ask. He must have sensed he didn't need to. He kissed her. He kissed her a second time, which she engaged.
In the heat of the moment, they had both forgotten…
"Gross!" Cassie exclaimed as she rained down pillows on the two prone adults. "So gross! Toesy Troll and the knight aren't supposed to kiss!"
"Says you!" Scott retorted, from beneath an ever growing pile of pillows.
Finally, Scott and Hope were covered in a mound of pillows. "Take that, you ugly, green toe tickler!" Cassie extolled.
The mound sat still.
No responses came from within.
Cassie eyed it, warily. "Toesy?"
Nothing.
"Knight Hope?"
Silence.
The young girl approached the pile, circling it at a safe distance.
"Dad? Hope?"
Suddenly, the mound deflated a bit, which caused Cassie to start.
"Dad! Hope!" she called more urgently, her gamely caution giving way to a dash of fear. She began to pull pillow away and as soon as it was clear that no one was under the mound, Cassie's eyes widened in wonder.
"Looking for us, Peanut?" her father said, placing had on her shoulder.
"GAK!" the girl burst out, jumping a foot into the air. She swung around with all of her might, pulling a pillow the in the shape of Captain America's shield over her head and clobbering her dad in the face with it.
He grabbed her into a bear hug and kissed her flustered cheeks relentlessly. "I guess I deserved that!' he said though a laugh.
Hope stood next to him, nodding voraciously and winking at Cassie.
"Don't ever do that again!" Cassie admonished. "I could die from fright."
"We wouldn't let that happen," Hope said. "Would we, Scott?"
"No way," he replied, magnanimously. "At least, not until the next sleep over."
Hope rolled her eyes and Cassie laughed. The sleep over was a wild success. They made chocolate chip cookies, watched The Incredibles, and rolled their sleeping bags out in the living room, where the pillows had previously been. Scott was on the left, in red, Hope was only the right, in blue, and Cassie was in between them, in a pink Disney princess sleeping bag. Her right hand was in dad's hand and her left hand was in Hope's hand. In just a minute or two, she drifted off the sleep, her dad and Hope gazing at her and each other until they, too, fell asleep.