Chapter Fifteen

"Hurry up, Ross!" Teri yells, growing fruastrated. "Or I'm leaving you."

We were heading to the Fourth of July Parade when Aunt Debbie called, at the last minute, to tell us to pick up Ross.

"I'm coming!" Ross replies.

"You have ten seconds to be down here and I'm out."

Ross scurries down the stairs, breathing hard. "Ready"

"About time" Teri says, opening the door and walking out.

"Can you go pick up James and Dylan?" Ross asks, putting on his seatbelt.

"No." Teri says, putting the car in drive." We're already late as it is."

"If we're late then it won't hurt being a little later." Ross tells her.

"I said no." Teri replies, pulling in front of a trunk. "You better be glad I picked you up."

We arrived at the parade and Gina waves at us.

"I got us candy" Chris announces, showing us his full bag of candy.

"What did you do?" I ask."Push little kids out the way to get them"

"No. I actually-"

"That's exactly what he did" Gina says, interrupting Chris.

Teri laughs. "Way to go, Chris" Teri praises, giving him a high five.

"I thought I was the immature one" Ross says.

"No trust me you are." Teri tells him.

"And beside" I say "it's free candy."

Gina shakes her head, sadly. "I'm with you Ross. They're the immature ones."

Ross thows his hands in the air. "Finally! Someone agrees with me."

After we leave the parade, we head to Kenny Park. They set up dozens of tables under the trees and games to win an stuff animal or something.

We walk around and Ross spots his friends.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Teri yells.

Ross waves her off and Teri glares at him.

"I'm not playing with you, Ross"

I grab Teri before she can do anything to Ross. "Let's go."

"Look!" Teri says, pointing.

I follow her gaze and groan. She spotted the dunk tank.

"This is gonna be so much fun." She says, grabbing my arm and dragging me to it.

"Or horrible" I say.

Teri ignores me and we wait until it's our turn to enter the dunk tank. I try to talk my way our of it but the man who push me to my red tank, said it's for a good cause.

He's right. The dunk tank earns money by the crowd who pays to dunk us and all the money they earn goes to a charity.

I'm all for it as long as I don't get dunk. So for I'm doing good. Five people tried to dunk me and they weren't having much luck.

They almost dunked Teri but she's hanging on. I look at Teri and she looks at me.

The crowd gets larger and larger as the seconds past by. The more people who comes means the more chances we were going to get dunk. I know at some point we were going to dunk but I can always hope, right?

"Is that Ross?" I ask, looking at the blond headed boy heading our way.

"Forget Ross." Teri says. "Look who he brought with him"

Standing behind Ross is Shawn and Hayes. They have a mischievous smirks on their faces.

"Ross I'm gonna kill you." Teri threatens.

"Just because you couldn't dunk us doesn't mean you go find guys who can."

"It's for a good cause." Shawn says, smiling.

"Shawn, you better not." Teri warns.

Shawn looks at Hayes. "Should we do it?"

Hayes pretends to think about it before evilly smirking. "I think we should."

The crowd goes wild when the guys pays and gets their three balls.

Hayes stands in front of my red tank and amusement shines in his grey eyes.

I already know what he's going to do. He's going to wait until his last chance to dunk me.

He throws the first two balls but he barely misses the target. He smirks and throws the last ball. I feel it go by me and I hear Teri's scream before the seat I'm sitting on disappears and I'm in the clear water.

I stand up and move my wet hair out of my face. I stand there for a second before pulling myself out the cold water and grab a towel.

"Give it up for these two lovely girls for hanging on the longest." The owner of the dunk tank annouces.

The crowd cheers and I make my way to Teri.

"See it wasn't that bad. They even took picture of us." She says, holding the picture in her hand.

"It wasn't" I agree, drying my hair. "Did you see where the guys went?"

She shakes her head "No but we'll see them later."

"Oh man!" Chris says. "I missed it. Thanks a lot Daire"

Daire rolls her blue eyes. "Not my problem."

"Who dunked you guys?" Gina asks.

"Shawn and Hayes." I tell her.

"Oh it's that why they left?" Chris says.

"Exactly why they left." Teri says.

***

The sun is setting and cars are heading to the beach for the finale of Fourth of July. We carpooled with Chris and Gina. The others went with Daire.

Teri is mad because Shawn asked Sarah, his friend from college, to come with us. Teri's jealous. She'll get over it.

"It's five minutes." Gina says. "Can you hang on for five minutes?"

"Five minutes is a long time. Five minutes of them doing something." Teri tells her.

I roll my eyes. "I doubt Shawn would make a move on her with Daire and Hayes in the car with him."

"Besides" Chris adds. "who will dare cheat on the beautiful Teri Fletcher?"

"Yeah you're right. I'm overreacting."

"Yeah you are." Gina agrees, parking beside Daire's car.

We grab the firecrackers and head to the beach. Teri steps in between Shawn and Sarah, wrapping her arms around his waist. Sarah didn't seem to care. I don't know why

Teri hated her, she seems like a nice girl.
Chris hands me a sparkler and I frowned. I wanted to explode something.

"Why'd you hand me this?" I ask. "I want that." I point to the big box next next to him.

He smiles. "That's for the big kids."

"Yeah sorry Audrey" Shawn chimes in.

I cross my arms. "That's not fair."

"That's what I'm saying." Gina says, staring at her sparklers.

After agruing with Chris for a few minutes, he finally let me pop one. I lite my sparkler and like those girls on TV I spin around, having fun.

The main event is about to begin. And as much as I love popping firecrackers, I love watching them even more.

I sit on the sand and look at the night sky. I don't need a sixth sense to know he's staring at me. I can feel his eyes on me and the fluttering of my heart.

"You're going to miss the fireworks if you keep staring at me."

"Good." He says. "I rather watch you. You're more beautiful."

I turn my head and he's closer than I thought. He's so close. His eyes darts to my lips and my heart pounds out my chest.

He starts to lean in but the sound of expolsions stops him.

He pulls away and faces the night sky. I see nothing but the vivid colors of red, white and blue.