Prideful

Four

The water's like ice against my sunburn.

"Shit!" I mutter, quickly backpedaling to the shore. Hope laughs.

"C'mon, you can do it Mia!" She encourages.

I scream as water hits the side of my head and whip around to see Brian standing on the dock, water gun in hand and a grun on his face.

"Oh, now you're asking to get drowned." Hope says matter of factly.

He just laughs. Only to be cut short by the handful of freezing water I toss in his face.

He starts to fire again, but I duck and, judging by the shriek behind me, get Hope stuck in the crossfire.

I dive in, bracing myself as I gradually adjust to the freezing water completely.

Standing up a few meters away, i push brown hair out my face in time to see Hope chuck a thick wad of mud at Brian, who's been momentarily distracted by Mason slamming the truck door shut.

The mud land in his jet black hair with a satisfying, and comically loud, splat.

She ducks into the water so only her nose and forhead are above the surface, her red hair floating around her like blazing seaweed.

I see what her plan is when he fires the water gun. She goes under completely before the missile gets to her.

And proceeds to give me a small heart attack when she emerges behind me and grabs my shoulders.

She giggles slightly and hugs me from behind once I recover, before dramatically falling back into the lake and swimming past me.

I find myself laughing out loud at her antics. She's always been able to make me laugh, and that's not an ability many people have.

I dodge an attack from the water gun only to be hit with another stream when the first hits the surface of the lake.

I turn to Hope, thinking it was her, but Mason's laughter tells me otherwise.

"How about this, girls against guys? Whoever gets in five hits to both members wins." I suggests. Hope nods in agreement and Brian and Mason shrug.

"Why not? What do we get if we win?"

"Extra snacks from our stash."

"And if you win?"

Hope thinks it over for a moment.

"We get to dump a bucket of water on you to wake you up."

Brian purses his lips. "Fine." Mason looks genuinely alarmed.

She rubs her hands eagerly, an evil smile spreading on her face.

"I'm already starting to regret this..." Brian muses. We scoop up handfuls of mud inconspicuously.

"Too late." Two splats sound and mud coats both their faces.

We both dive into the water as they fire.

Girls 2
Boys 0

She gives me a thumbs up underwater and I nod before swimming back to the surface with a handful of mud.

I hit Mason square in tbe chest and duck under before he can so much as react.

Hope gets hit with a squirt of water, and in return Mason is hit with three globs and puts down his gun.

I grin at Hope and she returns the look easily.

I narrowly avoid a stream of water from Brian who looks legitimately worried.

I laugh and a smile flits across his facw for a second, allowing Hope to hit him twice in the face.

2 more.

We win easily.

Mud coats both their clothes by the time we get out the water and flop down on the sand next to each other.

"Alright, you win." Brian grumbles.

Hope cackles and I smirk. "So, lake water or brita water?" I ask.

"Uh...brita." Brian says.

"Great. Can't wait for tomorrow morning!"