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I crossed my arms in front of me and gawked at him. “Not really fair there, Matt. You know that I’ve come a long way since then. I’ve been here a few weeks now, nearly a month, and have I given you reason to doubt me?”
He tilted his head, his eyes sparking with a mischievous grin and then he slowly shook his head. “No…you have not given me any reason to doubt you. I stand corrected. I am sure that tomorrow will be amazing.”
This time I felt that he was teasing me even harder, but I wasn’t going to worry about that. I would prove him wrong if it was the last thing I did. “It will be amazing and it’s really quite a shame that you won’t be here.” I smiled at him and let out a snicker of my own. “Have a good evening, Matt.” I turned around and left him to stand there. I honestly didn’t think it would be that big of deal.
However, the next day, I was thirty minutes into it and thinking a totally different story. Four boys, including Cody, loaded up in the back of my vehicle and I took them to get ice cream, making that our first stop.
It was all simple enough, but after each getting their ice cream cone and taking a seat in the booth, the simple turned into chaotic. “I should have gotten chocolate,” Bryce, one of the boys said.
Another boy, Jason, tried to taunt it in his face that he was eating chocolate and that irritated Bryce, so he flipped his hand up, catching the cone and knocking it from Jason’s hand and onto the floor.
Jason shot up. “Are you kidding me? That was a jerky move,” he shot back.
That caused Bryce to stand up and defend his actions. You shouldn’t have been rubbing it in my face. Cody and the other boy, Max, were watching it all unfold and eating their ice cream, as I stood up and got between the two. “It’s alright boys. We’ll fix it.” I heaved a sigh and got up, hurrying to get some napkins to clean up the mess. One of the employees noticed the fiasco and came over to help out, which I appreciated. Once we had it all cleaned up, Bryce looked at his vanilla cone and the ice cream was running down the sides.
“Yuck,” he murmured. He walked over and tossed it in the trashcan, then looked at me with a pleading look. I looked around at the four of them. “I’ll get you both a chocolate cone,” I said. They seemed happy with that and I went over and bought two more cones, this time making sure Bryce got his chocolate one. When I got back to the table, with the cones in tow, Bryce looked at it. “Maybe I wanted strawberry.” I glared at him and he snickered. “I’m kidding…chocolate is great.” He grabbed the cone and the kids happily ate their ice cream as I tried to focus on my own, before it melted and got everything sticky.
That was just the beginning of the day. After the five of us had our ice cream gone, we all loaded back up in my vehicle and headed back to Matt’s house. When we got out of the vehicle, I asked the crazy question of what everyone wanted to do. That elicited four different responses, everything from video games to playing with the football in the backyard. I saw a problem, so I wanted to fix it. “How about we compromise?” I asked. “Let’s put the suggestions in a bowl and draw one out and that’s what you can do first. Deal?”
They seemed apprehensive, at first, but then agreed to do it my way. I wrote down their four suggestions. Play video games, play football, watch a movie, and play War. I wasn’t sure what it entailed to playing War, but I wrote it down anyway.
“Who wants to draw out the winner?” I asked.
“You should do it Tasha,” Cody suggested. That actually made a valid point, since the others would argue over who should draw out the choice. So, I held it up, so it wouldn’t appear I was cheating, then swished them around and pulled out game number one. “Football,” I said. That was met with three other groans, but we all traipsed out to the backyard and got the football anyway.
I sat back and watched as they got on two separate teams and started their game. After a while, it seemed like they were forgetting the fact that the majority didn’t want to play the game and they started to get into it. I was pleased with myself that the compromise seemed to work.
At least that was for the first twenty minutes and then Bryce was running with the ball towards the goal and Jason must’ve still had it out for him because of the ice cream situation, because he ran into Bryce tackling him to the ground and literally pinning him down.
“Ouch!” Bryce hollered, the minute his knee hit the ground. I jumped up and ran to him.
“Are you alright?” I asked. Jason rolled off him, looking too please
d with the tackle. Bryce rolled onto his back and held his knee. Even through his pants, I could tell he was bleeding underneath. “Bryce, I’ll clean you up,” I said. I helped him up and he leaned on me to walk back to the house, but after a while, he started walking normally.
I took him into the bathroom and he sat on the toilet. I pulled his pants up and sure enough he had a gash on his knee. I wasn’t certain how to fix it, but wound up playing it by ear. I looked in the medicine cabinets and drawers and located antibiotic cream, gauze, and tape that I could cover over the gauze.
“Does it hurt really badly?” I asked. I first wiped it off, to clean it, then put some cream over it.
“It stings, but I’m tough,” he said.
“I can see you are,” I said smiling. I finished cleaning him up and taping the gauze to his knee. “There. You’ll be good as new,” I said.
“Thanks!” He pulled his pant leg down, then stood up.
That’s when I heard Cody. “Uh…Tasha?” I looked to find him standing at the door, his fingers squeezing his nose, as blood was dripping onto his shirt.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Uh…I kind of hit him with the football,” Max said, following up the rear.
I groaned and looked at him, then helped him into the bathroom. This was a long afternoon already, I wondered when it would be time to get these kids home.
That didn’t come for another two hours, but after I got Cody cleaned up, we had least settled on just watching a movie, because it was a lot tamer than football and I certainly didn’t want to play a game called War, because it looked like they had already been through a war.
When the movie was over, I told them that I needed to get them home and that caused them to groan, but I was beat and figured that to regain my sanity, I needed to get them home. Plus, Matt would be home soon, and the cook would start preparing their supper.
We got in my vehicle and I took them on the path that each one led me to their home. I smiled and waved as they got out of my car one by one. Even though every bone in my body was tired and I just wanted to crash into my bed, I kept up appearances. When I got back to Matt’s place, I saw his car in the driveway. My freedom was near.
