home run

fireworks

The next day, Leigh embodied the definition of 'lounging around'. Of course, she had to work a half a shift earlier in the day at the bbq, but after that, she had the apartment to herself. Anthony had another game so Leigh relaxed on the couch, cuddled up with Theodore and watched it from under a blanket. They lost, which sucked, but they had a day off tomorrow and Leigh made sure to text him and distract him from the error he made by sending him puns and stupid jokes the second the game ended.

She made sure to pass out early, though, since the next two days would be the busiest she'd be since when she had to work on her parent's farm.

July 3rd began with Leigh quietly tiptoeing into the bathroom at 5:30 in the morning, brushing her teeth and pulling her hair up into a high bun. She changed into a sports bra and a muscle tee as well as running shorts and headed out the door. Leigh was waiting outside of the apartment with her backpack and dufflebag for only a couple minutes before her cousin pulled up the the curb to pick her up.

It was a quiet ride between her and her cousin Will until he stopped at a Dunkin Donuts and bought them some iced coffee with his fiancee's card. Finally after a couple sips, they began to talk about the upcoming two days.

"You'll be with me again this year, we're going to be doing the uh, Oak Lawn show and Wheaton one."

"I go where ever you guys point me, honestly." Leigh sipped her drink again and took out her phone to send a snap of the road to Anthony.

"It's pretty cool since we're gonna be using fives at the Wheaton one, too." Will said and Leigh groaned.

Every year, for a couple days during the summer, Leigh makes sure to get off from work and her internship obligations to spend all of the daylight hours doing grunt work to help her cousin's firework display company. He isn't the boss of the merry group of twelve guys, but he's climbing the ranks. This year, Will was the boss at the two shows he was in charge of for the 3rd and the 4th. This means that he was also Leigh's boss for the two days. However, he was the one cousin she liked to spent time with and she always left with more knowledge than she came with.

The manual labor almost saved her during her sophomore year of college, distracting her and getting her out of her head during one of her darkest times. For that, she always made sure to help Will out with whatever he needed.

"Hey! They're pretty!" He defended the use of the five inch shells that would be used but Leigh just shook her head.

"The racks are heeeavy." She sighed, looking out the window at the highway. The really pretty fireworks that everyone enjoys— the ones that go up into the air and 'break' into big, beautiful displays are shells. Each shell goes into a mortar, usually a tube of special plastic. Racks of fives have seven mortars in them, this makes the racks VERY heavy.

The ride continued and they reached a small town over the border of Indiana to meet with the other twelve pyros and pick up the rental trucks. After that, Will and Leigh's truck was loaded with boxes of pyrotechnics and adorned with stickers advertising the truck had fireworks in it.

They were then on their way to Oak Lawn at the brisk hour of seven. Usually Leigh tried to avoid this early hour but to no avail. Anthony woke up and began to snapchat her back, interspersing texts throughout.

how is ur day off so far?

It's looking up! Made myself some breakfast and now I'm sitting in my underwear watching ESPN.

no way. pics or it's not happening

Leigh chuckled lightly, only a little bit envious of Anthony's morning.