"Happy Valentine's Day!"
Carly was sweating heavily. Her heart was beating quickly. She was breathing hard and fast. This thing on her face sure didn't help much. Every nerve in her body was alive. She kept turning her head left and right to keep an eye on her flanks. The gun in her hand seemed glued to her grip. Her finger was almost on the trigger, right beside it like Sam had shown her. And she kept the gun tucked against the chest of the black coveralls she wore.
It was dark and close in here, except for the white flashes of the strobe lights on either side of the area. The sound of explosions and rapid-fire machine guns filled the air from a dozen hidden speakers. It was like crouching in a midnight thunder and lightning storm without the rain.
Her back was to the upturned piece of plywood. She could feel it just brushing against the padded back of her vest. She tilted her head back and forth to get the helmet to sit better.
Across from her was Sam, her grey-green eyes wide with adrenalin and probably a grin of joy from ear to ear behind the mask. All Carly could see was her bright eyes through the goggles, but she knew Sam well enough to deduce the rest. Sam was having a blast.
Sam was crouching on her ankles beside the wreckage of a burnt out sedan, facing Carly. Her gun was held the same way as Carly, but Sam seemed more familiar with the weapon. It looked more to be a part of her, an extension of her body. She didn't hold the paint gun as much as meld with it.
Carly thought about shouting to her again, but figured that Sam would still never hear her.
She watched as Sam waved her left hand, palm out, in front of her face, toward Carly. She made a finger gun with her hand and inverted it, upside down. Then, she pointed a finger at Carly, two fingers at her own eyes and pointed to her left, Carly's right. She pointed to herself and made walking fingers to her right, Carly's left, and curved her hand around behind Carly's position. She pointed at Carly again, then to her left, Carly's right, showed her five splayed fingers, crossed index and ring finger, and two fingers. Then, she lowered her arm almost to the ground and waved a flat hand side to side quickly. All the time staring directly at Carly's eyes.
Ok. Hoping she remembered everything that Sam had taught her, Carly gave Sam a thumbs-up signal. She turned to her right and slid to the side of her barrier, and dropped to her right knee, counting to ten in her head, readying to lean out to the exposed side of the barrier and fire out her weapon. At ten, she repositioned her left leg out into the open and leaned that way, pointing the business end of her compressed air paint gun toward the snapshots of wood and metal barricades and pulling the trigger again and again, feeling the air-propelled balls fire from the barrel, the gun vibrating in her hand. The power of it was addictive.
In the flashes of strobe light, as she fired, she saw the running figure of Sam like stop-motion frames of a film, running toward the right side of the barricade, gun up. She dropped to her kneepads and skidded past the barricade, fell to her right side and had the barrel pointed to the area behind the barrier. Then, she was suddenly motionless, lying on the ground.
Was she hit? Carly was up in an instant, racing for her fallen friend. She dropped to her knees beside Sam and rolled her onto her back, looking for paint spots, finding none. Sam was pointing to their right, behind the barrier. Carly slowly looked up to see two figures standing, guns raised to the ceiling, paint covering their heads and backs and fronts and facemasks.
Carly looked down at the shining eyes of her best friend who was looking back up at her. Sam reached up and softly patted the side of Carly's facemask.
Carly rolled her eyes. Only Sam would consider a night of competitive paint ball to be a typical way to spend Valentine's Day. But, then again, where Sam was concerned, nothing they did together was ever typical.
It was a fun date, though, she had to admit. Every year since they had met, Sam had made this day special. They had decided early on in their friendship that February 14th was going to be their day. Nobody else's. Sam had nobody else to share it with except for Carly. She had told her every year that Carly was the only person that she loved enough to spend this day with. It had started as childhood innocence, best friends forever, and became tradition. And not for the first time, Carly could think of nobody else that she would rather spend this day with. There was nobody closer to her than Sam.
Sam sat up and looked at Carly, tilting her head to the side like an inquisitive dog. Her eyes flashed a look that was undecipherable to Carly. Then, she leaned in and tapped the fore of her helmet to Carly's, their goggles almost touching, and her eyes began to smile, brighter than the sun. Carly could feel herself getting lost in those orbs of Sam's. Then, Sam stood up and pulled Carly up with her, standing together, hands holding hands, inches apart, still staring at each other.
Sam banged their mouth guards together as they stood. It must have been accidental, but it seemed to linger for a moment, as if time froze for them.
Carly gave Sam a look of confusion through the goggles, not sure what she was feeling or what was going on. The rush of battle? The joy of victory? Sam only gave her a slow nodding, as if she was agreeing with something unsaid.
Then, Sam pointed to the safe area, took Carly by the hand and led them off the field of battle, leaning her mouth guard as close to where Carly's ear would be. She shouted something over the noise. It was difficult to hear clearly, but Carly was pretty sure she understood what the blonde had said.
The paint ball game was Carly's Valentine's Day gift to Sam.
What Sam had just said was her gift to Carly.
Carly smiled. It was all she ever really wanted.