Forever & Always

Chapter 20

"So, hold the stick like this, and keep a firm and steady wrist," Shane instructed, as he wrapped my fingers around the lacrosse stick's handle. 

After school let out, Shane and Liam offered to teach me, Sara and Lacey how to play lacrosse on the beach. They brought a bunch of sticks for us to use, a couple of balls, and drew out a long rectangular shaped "field" in the sand for us to play in. So far, it was going interestingly. 

Shane was showing me the proper way to hold the stick, while Liam was still busy explaining the rules to Sara and Lacey. 

"Wait, so I CAN hit you with this to get the ball away from you?" Lacey asked, twisting the stick in her hand. 

Liam sighed, sounding tired already. "I mean, you can, but not like you're smacking me in the back of the head or anything. Little nudges and bumps and stuff, not going fucking Rambo on me."

Sara rolled her eyes and Lacey laughed. "This is going to be fun!" Lacey yelled over to us. I gave her a thumbs up and hoped she was right. I wouldn't have put a stick in her hands, but whatever. For that matter, though, I wouldn't put a stick in my hands either. It's not that I get super competitive, which was my concern when it came to Lacey. It was that I get angry very easily and handing me something that can so easily be turned into a weapon doesn't strike me as a good idea. 

I turned back to Shane who was laughing at Liam's feeble attempts to ensure no one left with a  concussion today. 

"Okay, so we throw this to each other and do our best to catch to catch it in the nets," I said, trying to make sure I had this right, "and we make our way down the field, hoping to throw the ball into the net,  and that's how we score?" 

I thought I had it down and props to me for getting all of that out of my mouth in a some what eloquent fashion. I didn't identify anything as a "thingy" once so round of applause for me. 

Shane nodded his head, smiling. "That's it," he said proudly. He turned with me to see how Liam was doing with the girls. 

Sara had somehow gotten her hair tangled in the netting of the stick somehow and both Liam and Lacey were trying to separate them. 

"Oh shit, stop yanking!" Sara yelled, her face turning red, as Lacey ran her finger through the knot. 

"Will you stop moving?" Liam yelled to her, as they finally get the two pulled apart. 

Sara was breathing heavily, still flushed with color. "This," she declared, holding the stick into the air, "is an instrument of torture." 

"Yeah, especially if you know how to use it," Lacey added, poking Sara in the side that she left wide open when she held the stick up. 

When all of the commotion as settled, it was time to play. Since we had an odd number of players, Shane had elected to switch in and out with Liam since they were the experienced ones. That worked for about five minutes before they both joined the game and it was two against three, Shane and I versus Liam, Sara and Lacey. 

Lacey bent down and ran two fingers through the sand, and tried to rub them on her face like that black eye liner stuff, but it didn't work out as she had planned. "Okay, but you got the sentiment," she whined, wiping her hands off as we all took a minute to laugh at her. 

"Oh, fuck you guys," she laughed, as Liam passed her the ball and the game was back on. Since we didn't have goalies, and no real goals, the game was by definition, a clusterfuck. But it was fun!

Lacey threw the ball over my head and Sara barely caught it, the ball almost rolling right out the netting. 

"Holy shit, you guys, I did it!" she exclaimed, almost dropping it.