A Few Hundred Poppies

16. A First Date

"Oh god, West, you asshole! Not here, not here, not here!" I whisper-screamed as West yanked me down by the sleeve of the olive HazMat suit. The protective gear was padded with a scratchy material on the inside, and I could barely resist the urge to squirm in it. Allah knew when these were last washed, if they'd ever been cleaned.

"Shut up, midget! I know what I'm doing!" he hissed back.

"This is so fucking stupid, they're gonna see us any moment!" I said, voice even more hushed this time by the realisation of the proximity of our faces. Granted, there were two fat, ugly, worn out helmets between them, but his face was still deliciously close, enough for me to see the minutest ridges along his eyelids as his gaze darted around the field. My friends may have thought that they were being clever by tricking West into teaming up with me, but I was having a very hard time concentrating on the game with his tense arms and shoulders constantly bumping against mine.

Nevertheless, with Troy and Lee already knocked out from the two teams, our duo still had the best odds of winning. We'd been hiding behind a decent trio of bushes that our rental suits perfectly blended into, but West decided that it'd be a good idea to shift behind the two stacks of vibrant tires.

"What makes you think that you're better than me at this?" I said, extremely annoyed, desperately trying to crouch to a smaller height to avoid being spotted while West reloaded his gun.

"Because you have no idea where the hell Ever and Art are hiding," he said, licking his lips. This was completely unnecessary and drew my attention to his lips, making me want to slap myself in the face.

"And you do?" I inquired, admittedly a little jealous. He rolled his eyes, motioning to the tall pair of blood red oil drums about 20 metres away. Squinting, standing impossibly still, I caught a glimpse of a wisp of orange that could only have been Art's hair.

"You've got great eyes. Like, eyes for finding people, not beautiful eyes or whatever," I rambled, mentally smacking my head against a tree trunk as a smirk reached up to his eyes. "I mean, yeah, I see Art."

"You've got bad eyes. Like, eyes for finding people. They're ugly as fuck," he muttered, not so much like he didn't mean it, making me look down at the ground, not knowing what to do. "Focus. Ever's there too."

My eyes snapped up, and sure enough, the tip of the white sneakers peeking out from behind the drum were definitely Ever's. I scoffed. "Those bloody snitches, they're teaming—"

"—teaming up against us, yes. But I know what they're playing at. They're gonna come running out the moment they see one of us," West muttered. "By the way, I'm sorry for what's about to happen."

As I looked up, confused and a little anxious because of how he'd said it, West grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me so hard that I crashed onto the piled up tires, making them come toppling down. "WHAT THE?!"

Ever emerged from his refuge, and West shot him down within three seconds. The next moment, he was on top of me, covering my whole body with his. Bewildered, I gaped up at him. Before I could yell his ears deaf, Art materialized from behind the drums, screaming like a madwoman, showering pellets on West's huddled form.

"This is not what I planned, but whatever. Wait till she gets closer," West said, his breath fanning my face as his hair tickled my nose. God, I have no idea what guys are doing smelling girls' hair all the time, because it definitely should be the other way round.

As soon as Art was within reach, I fired two bullets with much struggle from underneath West, trying to ignore his body moving against mine. One of them hit Art straight in the stomach.