This time we sit on top of the picnic table so we can all sit together.
Parker goes first again. “When I was about ten, we went on a family vacation to the Grand Canyon. My parents decided to take the scenic route, which was the most boring time of my life. Fallon and I were stuck in the backseat of my mom’s mini-van for hours. On day two of the trip, I was in desperate need of something to do. Fallon was ignoring me. She always seemed to have a book in her hand, or she was writing something.” He rolls his eyes at the memory.
“By the time we were in New Mexico, I had enough so I started singing. At first, I was making up songs, but then I moved to singing along with my iPod. Both were irritating Fallon because she couldn’t concentrate on her reading.” He laughs, poor Fallon.
“I like all sorts of music. I downloaded a bunch of miscellaneous, free songs. I listened to one and used it to torment Fallon.” His eyes glow, fully in the moment of his story.
“What song was it?” I ask. “Sing it for me.”
The other boys groan but smile at the same time. They most know this story already.
“You asked for it. It has to be sung in a proper, fake Cockney accent.” With that, Parker starts to sing and the others join in immediately.
After they run through the chorus three time, I put my hand over Parker’s mouth. “Okay, okay. I get it. Poor Fallon,” I say through my giggles.
“Oh, it was even worse because I kept going, and my dad joined in. The song only had the ‘second verse, same as the first’ line, but we must have done it a hundred times. Fallon was so mad she wouldn’t talk to us that night.” He laughs hard enough to clutch his stomach.
I poke him in the side. “I loved your story, but you better never sing a hundred verses of that to me.” An evil grin spreads across his face, and I backpedal quickly. “Let me clarify and say no more than five verses.”
“You’re no fun.” He pokes me back as he glances around. “Who’s next?”
“I’ll go. Mine’s short,” I tell him. “When I was fourteen, my foster sister, Mia, wanted to hear a local band perform for free at a party in the park. Since the park was only a few blocks from our house, we had permission to go.
“Mia was seventeen. She had a huge crush on the bass player, who was nineteen. She wanted to wait for them after the concert. I agreed, and we waited off to the side for them to pack up.” I suppress my laughter as my brain jumps ahead of my storytelling.
“She wanted to watch for them, so my back was to where they come out. I was talking to her about this puppy I’d seen earlier that week. I was being animated, and she didn’t notice them walking out. They also didn’t notice us standing there. While I was talking, I threw my hands back and smacked the bass player in the face.” The laughter escapes, and I struggle to regain enough control to finish the story.
“I spun around and saw the guy leaning over, holding his nose. His bandmates were laughing behind him about how he let a little girl take him out. I leaned over and saw that his nose was bleeding. I couldn’t apologize enough. He assured me that it was fine, but before I could say anything else, Mia walked over and put her arm around him. She checked out his face and told him we didn’t live far. They walked with us back to our house, and Mia fixed him up. They started dating right after that, and the last I heard, they’re getting married next summer.” It’s hard to believe my nearly breaking someone’s nose could bring two people together.
“Okay, Lucca. You’re up.” I grin at him.
“Mine’s a quick one, too. So, you all know my padre was a professional footballer. My madre would take me to every game when I was little.” At least his mom paid attention to him when he was little, not that four isn’t little.
“I don’t remember any of this, but I’ve seen the video. My parents have also told this story hundreds of times. During one practice, we happened to be there. I remember liking to kick around the ball. I didn’t like clothes. I used to take mine off any chance I got. No one actually saw this part, but I ended up taking off all my clothes. I was three, mind you, so I didn’t care who saw me naked. Can’t say much has changed there.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, and I close my eyes. Bad idea. Now, I picture hot, tanned, Italian muscles standing in front of me.
“After taking all my clothes off, I end up running onto the field to try and kick the ball. We only know this because I yell ‘Ball!’ over and over. This is the part that was caught on camera. I was dodging around people who were only halfheartedly trying to catch me because they were laughing so hard. Finally, the goalie caught me.” A chuckle escapes, and Lucca tries to control himself. “He ended up lifting me up really high. It was something they all used to do with me. They would swing me around when they played with me. This time, though, I ended up peeing in his face. He had enough sense not to drop me.” At this point, Lucca laughs so hard he can barely talk.
I peer over at Noah. “Can you find that footage?”
Noah nods and winks at me.
“Poor guy,” I add, thinking about what it would be like to have someone pee in your face.
“He thought it was funny. He didn’t pick me up for a long time after that, though.” Lucca laughs again.
“Jay, it’s all you.” I point at him.
Jay starts. “I was out hunting with my dad and my uncle one day. My uncle had just purchased a new rifle, and he wanted to try it—”
“Wait!” I interrupt him. “Your funny story starts out about a rifle?”
“It gets better,” he reassures before continuing. “My uncle is a terrible shot. My dad tried to convince him not to buy a rifle, but he looked up to my dad so much for being a SEAL he bought it anyway.
“My dad didn’t want him going out by himself, so he made my uncle promise to wait until we could visit. The day after we got there, he wanted to go out. My dad insisted on taking me with them because he was worried my uncle would get hurt, and someone would have to go get help while the other person stayed with my uncle.”
His poor uncle. At least, he tried.
“We walked about a mile and a half, maybe two miles, before we stopped and looked for a good place to rest. My dad didn’t want to go too far out, because if someone did get hurt, we wouldn’t be in a bad spot to be rescued. At this point, my uncle wanted to take out the rifle and show my dad the features from the scope to the barrel. My uncle started to look down the barrel, and my dad jerked the thing out of his hands before he shot himself, which made my uncle mad. He started yelling at my dad.”
I’m horrified on his father’s behalf. It’s obvious this uncle hasn’t hunted much if he doesn’t know gun safety rules.