Page 127 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

They’ll be hunting for us, and they’re better, but if there’s always two of us (I reason), it better leverages our team-size advantage.

After finding a patch where the shades of green match our outfits, I motion for Khloe to crouch down, and she gestures to her silk dress. I stare her down until finally, face crumpling like a toddler, she crouches down gingerly.

And then we wait and hope that the DJ successfully swayed the quartet to our side.

I have a watch, because I’m a normal human, to better coordinate the second part of my plan.

Overhead, the photographer’s drone whirls around. From the speakers, like some Hunger Games ripoff, the DJ announces, “We’re approaching the five-minute mark,” because not all of Team Vi is wearing watches and can be trusted to be checking the time.

I cross my fingers that we haven’t lost too much of the numbers advantage before the quartet pauses and the DJ takes over, with a truly decibel-level blasting of “Ride of the Valkyries.”

Because I knew it was coming, because all of Team Vi knew it was coming, and also because there are zero Techers who don’t have at least a little emotional scarring from the song, Team Vi doesn’t flinch.

But the Techers? Many of whom are likely Brody-trained best shooters?

They startle.

Hard.

A couple curse so loudly I can hear them across the garden, even though they’re well outside my range. Two jerk up mere feet in front of us, and Khloe and I put up in unison. As agreed upon, we both shoot left, then right. We’re focused on taking out one shooter at a time, as if this is a game of attrition.

The guy in front of us goes down, tripping over his own feet in surprise. His partner falls next.

And then . . . we run. This time, Khloe’s the one who finds our next hiding spot, a little grove that has nice coverage and lots of green for us to blend into. This time, Khloe doesn’t argue with me. She’s already covered with leaves and dirt—she crouches and motions for me to hurry up.

We catch our breath and wait for the announcement.

Amazingly, miraculously, Team Vi didn’t lose a single shooter in that first batch. Brody’s team lost ten.

Ten.

I feel a warm, tingly sensation, something that’s not as pure as joy and is probably closer to glee. It’s been so, so, so long since I’ve let myself have something like this, an activity that is silly and irrelevant and exists only for the chaos it causes, the ephemeral memories.

Khloe and I both put a finger to our lips over our masks and smile at each other. We’re never going to be friends, but there is an odd camaraderie, two grown women in our wedding best, crouched in the mud with our paint guns.

The DJ doesn’t announce it this time, but at the ten-minute mark, the quartet (playing a lovely rendition of “Moonlight Sonata”) is overtaken by Metallica. Because the Techers haven’t figured out the pattern yet (because two song changes, two of any data set, just isn’t enough to formulate a pattern, even if they were looking at their watches), Team Vi peels off another set of victories.

Over the speakers, the music pauses and DJ XR says, “Oops. My bad, guys, was that a little loud? It looks like Team Brody took some more hits. You’ll have to wait on my official count.”

Since Vi didn’t have a plan beyond filming for prosperity (not posterity, because influencers always have to be monetizing), she let me take over the strategy.

I’m sweating after our second five-minute interval, and because the humid Hawaiian air feels sweltering, I take off the jacket, hoping it’ll act as a lure.

The waiting feels interminable.

I asked Vi to make the sacrificial play at the fifteen-minute mark. She stumbles out into an opening as the DJ narrates.

“Guys, it looks like the bride might have something to say. It looks like she’s approaching the wedding archway . . . Is she surrendering?”

No one shoots her, because she is, after all, the bride.

But several of her influencer friends are stationed in line of sight.

Khloe and I are buried too deeply to get a direct view, but apparently this part of my plan does not go… as well.

Team Vi has the numbers, but Team Brody has skill.

DJ XR’s voice comes over the speakers again. “So that was awesome, and I can tell you all right now that the photographer says she’s getting some of the best shots she’s ever gotten, but I think we’re down to, like, Team Vi has ten, and Team Brody—is that right? Only two left on Team Brody. The groom and the best man.”