A/N – Yay! I updated this one really soon, didn't I? Enjoy every one. Oh, yeah, and thank you so much for the reviews!
DISCLAIMER – I do not own any of Meg Cabot's characters. Meg Cabot owns them.
Ch. 3 Picnics and Fireworks
"Your turn," I smiled at Ben while spooning an Oreo Flurry, one of my most favorite desserts.
"Um. I'd rather not." Ben said; his mouth full of the chocolate ice cream he'd been eating off a cone.
"Come on, that's not fair!" I demanded. "I told you mine!"
We were lying under the shade of a giant oak tree at the park. It was a glorious day, with the sun glittering up in the sky. My younger cousins were busy bombarding each other with water guns, running around terrorizing anyone and everyone in sight. I hear their shrieks of laughter in the background. Ben and I were hiding away in a secluded area of the park so that we would not have to lie in fear, wondering when the little monsters would strike.
Earlier, Grandpa Andy – he's the chef of the household and can cook a mean grill – was busy cooking for all twenty of us. We had hamburgers and hot dogs. It felt like the Fourth of July in March. Every one was here: my uncles, and their families, Grandma and Grandpa, and of course, my little terrors – er, cousins. And I say this with affection. Well, everyone except my father. Dad had a lecture down in U.C.S.D. (UC San Diego) and couldn't make it. And Mom? She just told me to have fun while she stayed home, working on her latest fashion designs.
But, besides Mom and Dad – and, right, my dad's entire side of the family (but I suppose I accepted the fact that I just won't get to see them in this lifetime) – every one was here at the picnic.
That's why, not only was the whole My-Uncles-Would-Like-to-Murder-Ben thing was a nightmare (for me at least), and actually the drive back, and bringing him in one piece to the park, and all. No, that was nothing. Nothing compared to introducing him to my entire family.
That was like comparing snow-fall to an avalanche.
I haven't blushed so many times since the day we had "Sex-Ed" in Health my freshman year. Having Mr. Young (who, ironically was around the age of a hundred-and-ten) saying the word, "Penis" six times in a single sentence was nothing, nothing compared to introducing Ben to no less than twenty people, explaining,
"No, Uncle Brad; no, Aunt Josie, Ben and I are not going out."
"But he is such a nice boy."
"You heard Chris, Josie," Uncle Brad growled. "They aren't dating."
"Well, all I'm saying is," Aunt Josie inclined her head, "that it wouldn't hurt, Chris. And…"
My five year old cousin, Laura asked, "Are you two getting married, Chris?"
I saw Ben flushing form a pinkish-hue to a deep, dark maroon color. And I admit that I began feeling too warm for my comfort ages ago. "Um no Laura, honey. We are not getting married… Ben is a friend who is a boy, that's all."
Little Laura wrinkled her little nose in deep thought. "Then how come," she finally said, tugging on her white-blond pony tail, "You never brought any boys to the picnics before?"
I could have died on the spot right there from morbid humiliation. It was like living out the movie, Terminator, but in a much more sick and twisted, conspiracy-sort of way. It was like they had all plotted out even before I arrived here, to kill me with embarrassment. Well, they succeeded, more or less.
So hiding from my little cousins wasn't the only reason, let's say, that I was hiding in this secluded lace with Ben. My horrifying, inquisitive relations happened to be another. Reason, I mean. Okay, okay; albeit, they acted much better after the initial introductions (which felt like they would never end) were over with. My Grandpa Andy even managed to engage Ben in some friendly conversation about sports. Which reminds me: I should get Grandpa an extra-nice present when his birthday comes around.
So after the whole Meeting and Greeting Nightmare, (it makes me think about the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when the guy's parents come to visit the in-laws, really), we sat down for some ice cream. Until the water guns came about, that is.
The sun was already setting in the sky – the days were short, even if the weather was great – unraveling yards of silk-red ribbons into the rouge-colored night.
And that's where we were, under the tree, talking – more like arguing. I stared at Ben, disbelieving. "So you're not going to tell me?"
"What's there to tell?" He threw up his hands with insistence.
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Come on, just answer it: what was the most extreme thing you ever did on a dare?" And when he shook his head, I informed him, "I told you that I had to tell at least four older men – much older men – that I thought they were hot. And I told, like, no one ever about that. Besides my friend who where there, I mean," I amended.
Ben just kept eating his ice cream in cool silence.
"Fine," I said primly. "I understand that you just are simply too boring, or else too smart to do something as stupid as a dare…"
"Hey!" he stared at me, surprised.
"No, it's fine. Really," I told Ben. I acted as though I didn't care. "We could talk about something else –"
"I had to put underwear on my head and ask my neighbor for some sausages," he said in a rush.
I blinked. Then I started cracking up. "You-you-?" I couldn't form a cohesive sentence I was laughing so hard. "You-I-can't beli-" Then I started laughing all over again.
"All right, that's it," he said half-way smiling; Ben reached over to my Flurry, took my spoon, and flicked some ice cream at me.
I paused.
"You did not," I said slowly. "You just did not fling my Flurry at me." By now Ben was trying his hardest not to laugh at me, and hold it all in. He was failing miserably. Finally, he let it all out with a, "Yes. I did," and it all came out, Ben was rolling on the grass, clutching his stomach. Now, I am not the one to just sit back and be outdone by anybody. So, I wiped some vanilla-and Oreo cookie flavored ice cream off my face. I then sweetly walked up to where Ben was lying helplessly on the ground, unable to stop laughing that he was already gasping for breath. Then I kneeled sweetly next to him, and just as sweetly poured the contents out my Flurry cup over Ben's laughing face.
I dusted my hands, and with a satisfied smile, began rising, but Ben grabbed me by the wrist, and pulled me down with him. He wasn't laughing any more. But I certainly was.
"Think that was funny, don't you?" He asked.
I chuckled out, "Yes. It was. Very much so."
"Oh," he said. "All right." Then took with his hand the chocolate ice cream off the cone he had been eating from, and began slathering it over my face as I shrieked and giggled a helpless, "No!" I kicked and flailed my arms and legs, but he had me pinned down good.
"That's not fair!" Those were the words I cried when he was done and let me go. I sat back up, and began trying to clean up my face. We took one look at each other and began laughing all over again. "Oh, that Flurry is all over your face Ben," I howled between giggles. "I want to eat it, but then I'm afraid I would have to then lick it off your face."
"Um, not such a good idea," Ben was attempting to get the Flurry off his face, too. "What would your relatives think if they saw you… and me like that? After all those insistences you made about us not going out?" Ben gave me a wry grin as I felt my face heat up once more. It was a rather funny sensation, really, with all the chocolate-flavored ice cream right there to cool it – my face, I mean – off.
"So, you heard that?" I apologetically asked him.
With another one of those smiles, Ben just told me, "Kind of hard not to overhear when every one is being silent, trying to listen what you have to say." This wasn't the first time I felt silly – stupid – for bringing Ben here. What made me think of it any way, but for the fact that he had called to take my offer on the whole tutoring business, and I was afraid if I didn't say "yes" to him now, he might change his mind.
Still, it didn't make me feel any less pathetic, nor make the day any less of a nightmare than it was already. So, for the second time today, I apologized to Ben. I owed him at least that much. "I'm sorry for – well, for everything, actually – my family, the Flurry," I gestured with my hand. "The whole, hellish day, really."
"Hum," Ben thought, as he rose. "Well, I guess it's not every day I get ice cream poured on my face by a deranged-"
"Hey!" I protested, as Ben helped pull me up to my feet, and we began walking back.
"- girl. I'm just telling things as I see them," He raised his hands up in defense, as I smacked his upper arm. With a laugh, he told me, "And then have a death-threat given to me by her uncles-"
"-when was this?" I asked. "Did they really?"
With a raise of his left eyebrow, he said, "I wasn't supposed to tell you; but any way…"
"-Nah-uh!" I was shocked.
"… then be ambushed by her entire family- something I'd hope never to experience until I was at least married," Ben rambled on, as though I had not interrupted. I began to laugh once more. "And after that, be fired at with water-guns, and have to be forced into hiding with the Ice Cream Lady…" he started cracking up too.
After he regained his composure from all of the laughing, Ben ended his speech by saying, "Yes, this had indeed been an once-in-a-lifetime – hopefully – experience. I think we could use those water guns, right about now." Our faces were almost clean, except – at least mine – was very sticky. We did need some water. "Care to track down the Toddler Commandos, Chris?" He asked, referring to my little cousins –and, of course, their water guns.
"I think you've had enough adventures, Odysseus," I told Ben, calling him the main character of Homer's epic Greek poem, "The Odyssey." Odysseus went from Greek isle to Greek isle for many years, unable to return home, because he pissed off the god of the seas, Poseidon, "To last you twenty years, at least. Let's just get back."
By then we were already there. I saw all the adults clearing up the last bit of the picnic things. The stars were coming up and Uncle Brad…
… He brought out the fireworks.
Literally. Uncle Brad was technically the pyro. of our family. Of course he just brought what was left over from last Fourth of July; the little fire crackers, and all sorts of other explosives that set off jets and streams of shimmering gold, red, blue, green and purple sparks. There were ones that crackled, ones that hissed and whistled. Everyone stood back and awed and gasped in amazement.
Uncle Brad even fished out those sparkly ones on a stick that people could hold, and it looked like the want of Cinderella's fairy godmother. While we where there, I was standing right next to Ben, and so I snuck a glance to see what he might be thinking.
I was astonished to find that Ben was smiling. He was genuinely having a good time, cracking jokes with Uncle Dave – who was the first of three to come around. Under the firecracker light, Ben's eyes were bright and happy, and he seemed at peace, like he enjoyed being here, and felt like he was one of us. Ben's brown, wavy hair glittered with red streaks from the evening light. I saw his profile. It was a rather good profile, actually. Ben's nose wasn't crooked, or too large. It was kind of like a noble one. Like an aristocratic nose – but not stuck up; in a good way. His lashes were long, and left lengthy dark shadows on his cheeks, and his lips –
"Something wrong?" Ben turned and whispered to me. He had caught me staring at him. Oh God! Ben leaned forward, and said words in my ear that caused a shiver to go up my spine, which it probably shouldn't have because the only words that Ben said were, "What time am I tutoring you at?"
Nervously –and I'm rarely nervous – I leaned toward him and on my tip-toes, I whispered back in his ear, "Eleven o'clock next Saturday. My house?"
