Football
A/N: SO sorry. I was rushing this morning. Here's the actual chapter 19.
She was peeling potatoes when an audible roar came from beneath their feet.
"What was that?" she jumped, nicking her finger.
"Here." Lucy held out a tissue. "They're watching football. Enough said."
"I don't understand. I've never watched a football game. I saw a soccer game once with a friend. He called it football. He was from-,"
"Back up." Lilah said, "You've never been to a football game, live?"
"It's much better than watching it on TV." Katherine said.
"I've never seen one there either. I don't own a TV." She explained. They looked at each other.
"How are you at washing dishes?" asked Lucy, slinging an arm around her shoulder and turning her in the direction of the basement stairs.
"We have to wait until the end of the play." Lucy whispered. The players with white jerseys jumped on top of one with a green jersey and everyone groaned except Mark, who jumped up and pumped his fist in the air before glancing at the others and sitting back down quietly.
"Guys." She spoke loudly to capture their attention.
"Huh?" they grunted as one, eyes glued to the TV for the replay.
"This is Tempe." She dropped her voice. "Football messes with their short term memory." Tempe nodded, a little intimidated. Lucy raised her voice again and spoke slowly and clearly, as though speaking to someone slightly deaf with a limited grasp of English. "Are you listening?"
"Uhhn."
"Are they barbeque?" asked Seeley without looking away from the TV.
"We didn't bring chips." Lucy said slowly and distinctly near his ear, then gave up as the play started again. After that was a commercial break.
"I hope they're not ketchup." Seeley said, turning to them.
"What do you want?" Greg turned and asked curtly.
"Interesting response. I have a feeling it's going to come back to haunt you." Lucy said with narrowed eyes before going back to her purpose. "Tempe's never seen a football game."
"Oh, it's so much better at the stadium." Mark said.
"No, I mean never. As is ever. As in, she doesn't own a TV." The flurry of talking and pulling that ensued ended suddenly when the commercials ended. Tempe was sitting on the arm of Seeley's chair. Mark was in the other chair, as he appeared to be cheering against everyone else. The play ended and they stood as one, arms up and shouting angrily at the TV. Tempe tried to duck Seeley's arm and fell. No one noticed, but they started explaining the game to her all at once. She nodded along but didn't catch any of it. Then they were back to screaming at the TV. When the next commercial break flashed up on screen, Seeley turned to her and asked,
"Where are the chips?"
By the time the game ended and Lucy called them up for dinner, Tempe was talking just as heatedly about the game. Mark had tried in vain to convert her to his team, but a simple analysis of the statistics they flashed up told Tempe that the Booths' team was better by far. The scoreboard agreed.
The dinner was wonderful. Everyone talked, laughed, and ate themselves sick. Even before she was fifteen, her family had never had a Thanksgiving dinner this big and rowdy, but she liked it. Washing dishes was filled with even more discussion of the game and took forever because Seeley, hands covered in suds and dripping, would frequently turn from the sink to gesticulate wildly as he explained a concept, and Jared ran off to find his white board, and Mark fled at some point, and Greg and Tom were trying to show her what the different passing patterns were in the overcrowded kitchen while drying the dishes, which led to some close calls. There was one incident when Jared came back and decided that a plate made an acceptable replacement for a football, but Seely snatched it out of the air before Greg had to choose between the plate flying at his head and the three in his arms.
By the time they were done, it was nearly 6:00, but nobody was ready to think about food.
"We'll eat something late while we're watching the highlight reel." Seeley told her. The entire family packed into three cars and drove ten minutes to a park. Lisa sat on a blanket with Ben and Chris and Kelsey, and the rest of the group divided along gender lines and marked their touchdown zones. The boys won the toss and got the ball first. Jared was the quarterback.
"Hut!" he yelled. The ball went to Seeley and Tempe ran after him. She threw herself at his legs and he went down.
"OW! Jeez, Bones, what are you doing?" he complained.
"I – you had the ball."
"We're playing touch football, Bones. You tag the person with the ball." He wiggled his hands.
"Oh. Oops." She tagged him.
"Not now!" he laughed. The next time Tempe got near the ball, Parker had it. She scooped him up and started carrying him back down the field.
"Hey! No fair!" he complained.
"No?" she tickled him. He squirmed and laughed. The girls won, despite the best efforts of the boys. Lilah scored three touchdowns and forced two fumbles. Mark was really not having a good day, but he laughed through it. Not as much as everyone else, but that wasn't the point.
A/N: Me again. There's only two more chapters, but then I have several different epilogues that could possibly work together but would be very long. Let me know what you want.