Remind Me...

Chapter 3 - Incentives

I awoke to a very exited, lively little town on Friday morning.  Feeling the buzz, I got to work as quick as I could, smiling to people left and right.  Already new faces could be seen around town as the locals hosted the tourists who flow to this beautiful little town every year, just to experience the excitement of the olive festival.

“Hey Lilly!” I heard Faith’s exited voice as I made to enter the door to my place of work and turned to wave at my friend.  “See you in a few, Faith”, I call back, smiling at her.

Entering the shop, I found Mr Green and Sam ready to leave to go to the centre of town to join in the festivities.  We were closed this weekend, but still doing duty at various points around town during this time.  This morning we also had our wood chopping contest.  The thought immediately reminded me of a pair of blue eyes that had been running around my mind lately.

“There you are, Lilly!”, Mr Green greeted me excitedly.  “Come on, let’s get going.  This is going to be fun!”  He giggled like a schoolgirl, leading the way out the door.  Sam rolled his eyes at our boss’ behaviour before motioning for me to follow Mr Green, which I did while he locked up.

Reaching the area where our contest was being held, I noticed that quite a few people had gathered already.  Not being used to such excitement over chopping wood, I mentioned my surprise to Sam.

“Oh, there will be more coming, you’ll see,” he smiled at me while motioning to the steadily forming crowd.  “Our contest is also a sort of show of strength between the farms in the area and they take it very seriously.  Not to mention that the guy who wins today gets a lot of female attention,” he winks at me. 

My eyes strayed over to where I could see Daniel warming up, already bombarded by some of the local females chatting him up.  He had taken off his normal plaid work shirt and was now only wearing a black muscle shirt, which of course did its name justice in showing off some of Daniel’s best assets, paired with a three quarter length, tan coloured shorts.  Already my mouth watered as I watched his leg and arm muscles flex as he went through a warm-up routing of some sorts. 

Yip.  If he was trying to catch some of the ladies’ eyes, that would be the way to do it. 

I fanned my face and tried, unsuccessfully, to look away from his strong shoulders before I felt my heart flip when he suddenly looked up and smiled a quirky smile straight at me, effectively catching me in the act of ogling him.  I blushed, smiled a small smile and turned away quickly, thankful that Mr Green chose that moment to start explaining my duties to me again and showing me my post.

About 40 minutes later our competition area was packed with spectators, all buzzing with excitements and cheering for their favourite.

There were 12 men and 2 women competing today and I was stunned to see the women step up to the large wooden blocks they would be cutting their wood on.  Mr Green grinned at my stunned expression and told me that the women worked alongside their men on the surrounding farms, so this was normal for them.

Well, tickle me pink.

Taking a last sneak peak at Daniel’s fine form, I jumped to attention when I heard the announcer count the contestants down for the first leg of the competition, based on normal woodcutting.  My jaw dropped to see how fast they cut the larger pieces at their feet into halved, smaller pieces.  Wow, these guys could wield an axe!

At the end of the first leg, 8 of the contestants moved on, as the 6 with the least pieces were eliminated.  One of the women were eliminated, while one, a good-looking brunette who kept throwing Daniel cocky smiles, moved on to the next round.  They took a 2 minute break and I moved to hand them each a bottle of water.