The Championship

VIII: Backyard BBQ

Backyard BBQ Bash:

Bleary eyed and half-asleep, I was in total shock when my bed sunk down under the weight of three extra people. I opened my eyes to see Paul, Lilly, and Reid all laying on my bed in a huge pile and grinning at me.

"Better get up, kid." Reid said with a grin, "The others are gonna be here soon."

Lilly began giggling, and it was way too early for me to try and figure out what that meant, so I lazily rolled off my bed and onto the floor, still rubbing at my eyes.

"Atta girl," Paul said, patting me on the head as they all gradually got off the bed, "We're gonna go downstairs and start helping your mom, you get dressed."

Paul and Reid filed out of my room slowly, but Lilly stayed. Wordlessly, she walked over to my closet and began rifling through it. I was thankful for the help.

Unlike Lilly, who was always dressed to the nines, my everyday wardrobe consisted of athletic shorts and usually one of Parker's old football sweatshirts that fit oversized on me. Lilly had a frown on her face, her forehead wrinkled in concentration until she pulled a white flowy sundress out of the closet and tossed it on the bed.

"Aha!" she exclaimed, "Perfect."

"Absolutely not," I whined, "This is a barbecue! I can't wear a white dress."

"Yeah, and you're almost eighteen years old. Be a big girl and use a napkin," Lilly replied, rolling her eyes.

"You are absolutely awful," I protested, but knowing there was no arguing with her, I picked it up and walked to my bathroom to change.

It didn't take long before Lilly and I were walking downstairs to get an assignment from my mom.

Her hair was thrown up in a bun as she ran around the kitchen. "Oh good, you got her up!" she exclaimed, "And she looks very nice, thanks for that Lilly."

"Hey!" I shouted out, giving her a look of mock offense.

My mom rolled her eyes at me with an affectionate smile and told me to get started on the lemonade.

Lilly and my mom went outside to begin decorating, hanging streamers and playing with color schemes, something they knew that neither I nor the boys were very good at.

I was halfway through squeezing lemons and filtering out the pulp, following my mom's recipe when I heard the faint noise of footsteps. I had about two seconds for them to process before my shoulders were being jolted along with someone yelling, "Boo!" in my ear.

I jumped, turning quickly to see Paul having backed away with Jason and Reid standing in the doorway to the kitchen bent over laughing. I hit Paul's arm, "That was not funny!" 

"You're right," Paul said, sobering up his laughter and putting on a serious face for a moment, "That was hilarious."

He resumed his laughter, feeding off of Reid and Jason.

I mumbled "whatever," under my breath and returned to the lemons. Moments like these always made me question why I'm friends with boys.

The three of them took seats at the barstools to my right and began watching me intently. After a few minutes I sighed and turned to them with my hands on my hips, "Don't you guys have something better to do?"

"Nope, Mama P told us to take a break from all of our hard, strenuous work." Reid replied with a smirk.

"Oh and you've chosen to spend it here with me. How lucky I am," I muttered, rolling my eyes.

"Pftt, don't flatter yourself, Sydney. We're only in here cause of the A/C." Paul said with a smirk.

Finishing the lemons, I began adding the sugar water I had already prepared and began to mix with a big wooden spoon.