Hi guys~ Sorry about the delayed-release. I was feeling a bit lazy and decided to rest a bit yesterday since I have officially been writing this story daily for 1 month X'D. All the same, I'm kinda glad that I did cause it gave me a bit more time to mull over the ideas for this chapter and how to go about them X'D There were a few options I was juggling and I think I like the one I ended up going with lol.
Song suggestion: First Love (Tropix Remix) by Lost Kings ft. Sabrina Carpenter
Disclaimer: I own nothing~ I'm not affiliated with CapCom or the Resident Evil IP. Please don't sue, thx.
Subject: Company birthdays
Emma gave a short sigh as she clicked the Email and sure enough it was an announcement of the birthdays for the week within the company. Monday, June 8th - Emma Swanson, the email read along with a few other names. Woohooo. She was officially 40 now. Great. She frowned at that thought. It's not like she could stay in her 30's forever but the passing of time just felt like it was sprinting now when it used to be so slow.
She moves the Email to the trash before continuing on her day as usual. try and work, get Maurice his coffee, put away files, try to work, get files. By lunch, she pulls out her phone to find a few new texts.
[Chris] -Google maps location-
[Chris] Bastion said he'd take out Duke and feed him. Meet you there at 6:30?
The woman smiles at her phone, this was a cute surprise. She knew the general area where the address was, it would be better if she stayed at work a bit later and just left from here. Part of her wanted to see what the address was connected to, but the other wanted to wait and be surprised. She stares at the address a bit longer before deciding to leave it be for now and reply.
[Emma] See you there.
Emma finished her lunch with a smile. Maybe it wasn't so awful that she was getting older. She thought as she had a bit more pep in her step. Organize files, do her own work put files away, get other files and a coffee, and back to work. unlike the morning she did all of this with a smile. Staying later even afforded her a bit of extra time for her current work project to make up for the minor distractions throughout the day.
5:58 rolled around and the more of her co-workers had left at this point. Maurice looked up from his paperwork with a smile before getting up and walking over to Emma's desk. he grabs an armless desk chair and spins that around to sit in it backwards so he could lean forward against the back of the chair "Hey Em what are you still doing here?" he asks with no response as she was looking away at a monitor that was facing away from him while bobbing her head to the music playing from her earbuds.
"Em?" no response. "Emma." nothing. He knocks his knuckles against the desk. "Emma," he says a bit louder, that combined with the knocking finally gets her out of her little daydreaming working stupor. She jolts a bit from surprise as she sees Maurice sitting next to her which causes him to chuckle.
"Earth to space cadet Emma. you in there?" He asks as she takes out her earbuds.
"Hey, yeah sorry. how long have you been there?" Emma asks a bit concerned.
"Couple seconds." he says in response. "you're working late."
"Yeah, just figured I'd get a few things finished up," Emma says as she checks the time. she needed to head out actually.
"Well hey, that works. I was just thinking I could use a bite to eat. I saw it was your birthday too. Maybe we can head out, get a few drinks?" He offers with a smile.
Oh lord. Um okay well. Shit this was awkward. He was really friendly and she couldn't tell if he was just trying to be the cool boss or if he was hitting on her. Was it rude to jump to 'I have a boyfriend' in response? uuuugh. "Sorry I have plans. I actually need to head out," If he tries it again she'll be more direct.
"You worked late when you have plans?" Maurice asks with a confused expression. That seemed a bit backwards to him.
"Yeah, it would have taken longer to go home and then to location," Emma explains as she starts packing up.
"The location. Very mysterious," He jokes as he gets up.
"I don't know exactly where it is that I'm going," yeah okay it was probably a decent enough time for the relationship drop and see if that clears things up with work... "My boyfriend sent me an address and said we should meet there. I figured I'd keep it a surprise since he didn't flat out say where we were going."
"Ah fun, Hopefully. Have a good time then I won't hold you up. We'll have to see about those drinks another time then." He offers and gives a casual wave before heading back to his office.
"We'll see," no we won't. "Have a good night," Emma says as she goes to leave and get to her car.
Chris smiled to himself as he leaned against the hood of his car and waited for Emma. While birthdays weren't particularly important to him he could still recognize the importance of celebrating milestones. he looked over to the warehouse-looking building. It may be wasn't the most typical idea but knowing what he did about Emma, that she was a bit of a goofball when given the chance, something said she may enjoy this. She'd mentioned before that she enjoyed skating because it felt like flying to her. Part of him considered looking for an indoor rink for her to skate around but after the last time, he wasn't really willing to do that again. It hurt like hell and he still had a full week of drills to make it through.
Before long Emma pulled into the parking lot and looked at the building with curiosity. A well-lit sign boldly proclaimed 'EXTREME AIR'. What was Chris up to... She found a parking spot before getting out and looking for him.
"There you are," she says with a smile as she walks over.
"Hey," he replies as he puts an arm around her waist and gives her a peck. "How was work?"
"ugh, I don't wanna talk about it," Emma says with a sigh. "What about you?"
"It was work," he replies, her answer was a bit concerning but he'd drop it since she said she didn't want to talk about it. "Ready?"
"Hard to say, what are we doing here, and where is here?" Emma asks amused.
He chuckles a bit at that, how to explain this. it sounded better in his head and he could already tell that. "It's a trampoline park, Thought you might like to try a different kinda flying."
"That sounds fun, I haven't been on a trampoline since I was a kid," Emma admits before a thought comes to mind. She didn't really get to pick how often she could go to a rink as a kid, that was dependent on how often her mom wanted to drive. So the trampoline in the yard was well used by her and her siblings. "Though, don't you think we're a bit old for this?" She asks causing him to shake his head.
"And that is exactly why we're here. The only thing that changed was that the sun came up one more time since yesterday. If you weren't old then you're not suddenly old now." Chris says as he offers her a backpack with a change of clothes. "Besides I'm 7 years and some change older than you. Are you calling me old?"
Emma gives a short laugh at that "well I mean if the shoe fits" she says jokingly causing Chris to move the hand from her waist so he could ruffle her hair in response.
"Smart Aleck," Chris replies as he returns his hand to her waist.
"Love you too," Emma says amused as she fixes her hair. "Let's check it out." She says before motioning that they should go into the building.
The two head inside and Chris paid for their entry fee. Sure enough, they did stand out a bit compared to the large groups of teenagers and college students. The place was also a bit loud as the teens and young adults shouted to be able to hear each other over the music. after making their way through a small section of tables, lockers and casual arcade games by a food counter, the more of the warehouse was covered by a large section of Trampolines with a large pool of foam cubes to the back wall that people were jumping into. To the right, there was a rather decent-sized obstacle course and to the left, there was a glass wall that allowed visitors to watch as groups jumped around and pelted each other with plush-looking hackie sacks that would create a chalky burst of color on contact.
This did look fun. Emma smiles "I'll be right back," She says and head out to change before returning, wearing a more comfortable set of leggings, a sports bra and a loose white tank top. By the time she got back, Chris was walking out of the men's room having changed as well to more comfortable gym clothes.
"Where to first?" Chris asks after they finish locking up the bag with their work clothes and Emma looks around again. The color tag thing looked more like an end of visit sort of thing or else they'd track the powder around the facility. She could already tell the kids that worked here did not get paid enough to deal with that.
"Maybe the obstacle course?" Emma suggests and Chris nods and looks at it. It didn't seem too difficult to him but he was used to stuff like this, considering Hound Wolf Squad got first place for the BSAA obstacle course competition.
"Sure," He agrees and walks with her to get in line to try it. as they wait they watch the groups ahead of them go through the course. there were 3 lanes for visitors to use. It looked like the rule was that once you fall then you have to get off the course and get back in line to prevent long holding patterns. There were about 12 or so different sections of the course as well, yet most of the people trying got stuck around the 7th or 8th task as they either got tired or misstepped.
Eventually, the two were at the starting position with one of the college kids' taking the 3rd position and their friends cheered him on. 'Kick this grandpa's ass!' one of them cheered which lit a competitive flame. Grandpa? For heaven's sake, he wasn't that old, he was still in his 40's. Suppose anyone older than 20 is automatically ancient to college kids.
Ready, Set, GO! The worker announced and the three were off. Emma had a good start bouncing back and forth from balancing pads since that worked to her strengths but pretty quickly dropped off as the obstacles switched to more upper body strength-focused tasks. She landed in a pit of foam cubes with a soft fwump. she laughed a bit as she watched Chris and the college kid keeps going "You got this Chris!" Emma cheered before getting out and making her way to the side to watch with the others.
4th, 5th, 6th obstacle down. they were a bit different from what they had at the BSAA but once he understood what was required he was able to make his way across.
"Come on Jerry!" "yeah, you got this man!" "Let's goooooo" Cheered the group waiting for the college kid who was clinging to a large padded barrel that slid down a bumpy track. The final bump ended up tossing the young man off earning him a group of sympathetic 'awws' from his peers as Chris kept going.
8th, 9th, 10th Obstacle, and at this point Chris had the group's attention since he was making it further than most of their attempts.
"Holy Shit, grandpa's a beast," one of them says through a laugh as the others cheer upon seeing Chris make it through the 11th obstacle by the skin of his teeth.
Emma frowns a bit at that, it was rude but still. "Come on Chris! You're almost there!" Emma cheers and the others mimic that.
"Time!" calls one of the workers as Chris finished the last obstacle. "Nice work man, here," they add and give him a slip of paper with a coupon on it.
"Thanks," Chris smiles and accepts the paper while catching his breath a bit, that was a fair bit longer than the course at work. As he walks back he looks over the paper which was a voucher for the Color Tag room. "Well that was a nice warm-up," Chris says with an air of confidence as he approaches Emma who gives him a peck on the cheek.
"You did great," Emma says with pride.
"Where to next?" Chris asks as they walk away from the course.
"Might as well try bouncing around a bit," Emma replies and leads the way to the main section of trampolines where a few teenagers were trying different tricks by jumping over hurdles and doing flips. The two test it out a bit to see how strong the flexible fabric was and it had a decent spring to it. Emma Smiles a bit as she remembers various stunts and games she'd play with her siblings. After a solid jump, she curled up in the air to do a 'cannon ball' bounce which rocketed her higher into the air causing her to flail a bit before landing again.
Before long as the two got used to it and gained confidence they tried various smaller stunts. Emma does a front flip, bonuses and does a backflip. Good, she still remembered how to do those. "Wanna try a game of Horse?" Emma offers knowing well enough that they were both at least a little bit competitive.
Chris raises an eyebrow at that "Run that one by me again?"
Emma shakes her head "One person does a trick and the other has to copy it and if they fail they get a letter. 5 failed rounds mean you lose."
"Ah," Chris replies as he understands. "Okay, you go first then." he offers to figure he should get a better understanding of how the game works.
The two went back and forth offering different challenges, each time they got a bit more complicated in their attempt to stump the other. This eventually got the attention of the teenagers who would occasionally try and replicate a stunt or heckle the pair when they fell. While the obstacle course was Chris's domain this was becoming more and more apparently Emma's domain as she was more accustomed to moving around in the air.
"You're up," Emma says as she gave Chris a pat on the shoulder. 4 to 3 in Emma's favor.
"Right um" he was kinda running out of ideas. he looked around before nodding "got it." With that he got half of a running start to bounce over a hurdle, continue running and bounce back off one of the rammed trampolines to backflip off it thanks to the assistance of the springy material. With that done he steps to the side to get out of the way and makes a gesture of 'after you'.
Emma laughs and goes over to where Chris started. taking the same half of a running start and the following along. the score remained.
"Damn, thought I would have got you with that one," He admits and shakes his head before giving her a peck. This was actually causing him to work up a sweat. "Your turn."
"Mkay, let's see if I can get that winning point," She says with a snicker before looking around and nods. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to pull this one off but she had a lead so she could take a slight risk.
She moved to be in line with one of the Trampolines that gave her a good runway for the pool of foam cubes. After a few test bounces, she hurried forward, bounced for one front flip, landed on the trampoline at a slight angle that sent her forward into a second flip which she added a spin to before landing in the pool of cubes, practically disappearing as she sunk in.
Chris watched with a low chuckle while overhearing some impressed chattering from the teens while some insisted that they could do the same thing. "Can I just give you the letter on that one?" Chris offers while shaking his head, there was no way. The request earned him some heckling. He waited for Emma to get out of the way before giving it an attempt. he took the same running start, got the first flip in, landed bounced forward, and couldn't keep the momentum for a second, let alone to spin during it, and instead, he landed on his stomach in the foam pit.
Emma winced at the belly flop but chuckles slightly after noticing he was okay. "And that's game." She says as she waits for him to make his way back over to the edge while some of the kids tried the same trick with similar results to Chris.
"Good game," he says as he gets out and stands by Emma before checking his watch. they'd been here for about an hour and a half at this point. "Did you want to check out that last area before heading out?"
"Sure, we could use a tie-breaker," Emma says as she walks with him out of the main trampoline area.
He nods at that, they didn't really have any sort of bet going for this but he accepted the excuse all the same. outside of the plexiglass wall were two lines one with a red carpet runner and the other with a blue runner. Chris got into the Blue line while Emma got into the red line and joined what appeared to be two larger groups of college kids. it was a tie-breaker after all so they'd need to be on opposite teams.
"Hello and welcome to extreme Air's ultra color battle. You'll have 15 minutes in this area. The first half of this will be a game of dodgeball. if you're hit then you're out and you need to stand to the side. once it's down to the final person everyone is free to rejoin the mat for the remaining time as a freestyle game of tag and throw the colored chalk bags as you see fit. we do ask that you avoid aiming for people's faces. To avoid injuries, please follow the guideline of One person per trampoline square." The employee explained before starting to hand out multi-color chalk sacks and a pair of goggles to each person as they walked in. "Red to the left, blue to the right" he'd repeat each time someone walked up to him and he gave them their 3 chalk bags.
Eventually everyone had their positions. Emma jokingly gestured a silent taunt to Chris with a cheeky grin which he returned.
"On the count of 3." the worker says. "3,2,1" A loud buzzer rang announcing the start of the game as 15 minutes showed on a large digital timer on the far wall.
the second the buzzer went off a flurry of chalk filled the room, as each person was hit it made more and more dust making it a little bit harder to see.
"out!" called one of the workers as Chris was inevitably hit due to being a bit of a larger target.
"Out!" called another as Emma was hit shortly after.
It took another 4 minutes or so leaving 9 on the timer before the Referee announces "Blue team wins!"
"And that's the match for me," Chris says as Emma lightly swats his arm.
"You were out before me," She points out with an amused smile and he shrugs smiling in return.
"Everyone back to your starting position for the battle royale" one of the workers called. Emma gives Chris a peck before hurrying off and picking up a few of the color sacks on her way.
"3,2,1" a worker announced and again the buzzer announced the resuming of the timer. while before they had been avoiding targeting the other, they were exclusively throwing the chalk at each other at this point as they laughed.
Where did she go, Chris thought as he looked around the large dusty area to try and figure out how he lost sight of her only to feel something hit his rear. He turned around to find a snickering Emma and sure enough, there was now a bright Neon green chalk print on his backside. While proud of her aim she then notices the agent spot her and start heading straight for her, oh shi- She quickly turned to book it out of range while still gasping for air through chuckles. It didn't take Chris long to catch up with her and hook her waist with his arm and come to a stop to get her to stop moving as well before leaning around to give her a quick kiss her which she returns before chuckling more. She was hardly surprised to feel the texture of one of the Chalk bags gently smacked against the side of her face which now sported a large neon pink chalk mark that matched the chalk bag in Chris's free hand.
"Hey! One person per Trampoline!" one of the workers called causing them both to wince through their laughing before moving away only to hear the ending Buzz as the timer hit Zero.
"Awww, Can we be like that when we get older?" they heard one of the college girls ask their significant other who laughs and agrees.
Gee thanks. Emma thought before chuckling to herself. "Suppose we should head back and wash up." She suggests and Chris nods.
"yeah, hopefully, this stuff comes out easily or it's going to be an interesting day at the office for both of us." Chris points out as they make their way back to the lockers to collect their stuff.
"Oh gosh, I didn't think about that," Emma admits though she wasn't too worried, it was just chalk, surely that would wash out easy enough.
"It will probably be fine," Chris replies as he puts in the locker code to open in for them. the two gather their belonging and start heading for the door to go home for the night.
Well this was a fun chapter XD I enjoy getting to write ones where they get to relax a bit and have fun =v= for those that might be curious, the other options I was debating between were Dance lessons, Chris packs up a picnic for a night under the stars, and drunk painting class where you're encouraged to goof off and make a bit of a mess. Lmao if anyone needs a unique date night idea feel free to use any of these X'D I might still save a few of these for future chapters so if you feel like you would have preferred one of these options, don't worry they're not off the table completely just because I didn't use them this time.
Review Responses:
Tayna - LMAO I'm glad it amused you as much as it amused me X'D I wasn't sure if the joke would be too crass but at the same time I couldn't resist.
Guest1995 - ye boi~ still progress to be made but he's curious enough to look and see if it's possible XD