Body Paint and Water Guns

I collapsed on the floor after dropping the box in the corner. Scraping caused me to lift my head slightly. I snorted as I watched Melissa push the box across the floor lackadaisically.

“STFU, bitch.” She gave me the bird and kept pushing. I rolled my eyes and dropped my head back to the floor, my groan of pain overpowering the loud thud of my head against the hardwood. “Screw this.” I saw Mel stop not far from the door. She sprawled as wide as her small body would allow, kicking the door shut in the process.

“I’d say we’re officially moved in, lil’ sis.” She gave an indifferent cheer, weakly raising her left arm into the air, hand in a loose fist. “I wonder if Bee is having as much fun as us.”

“You’re joking right? She probably sweet talked the movers into carrying everything in and setting it up. Stupid bitch.” I laughed, knowing Mel was most likely right. Our middle sister, Brittany, had a knack for charming her way out of heavy labor. In reality, she was just a lazy ass who didn’t do work unless it would get her noticed or entertain her. Since moving fell into neither of those categories, she almost certainly didn’t lift a finger unless it was to direct the movers on where to put her crap.

Mel and I, on the other hand, were too cheap to tip the movers. Instead we decided to bring all our stuff in on our own. Looking back on it, that was a stupid decision. We haven’t got that much muscle and we had to bring in two bedroom sets, dressers, couches and an infinite number of boxes.

“I’m ordering pizza.” I pushed myself off the floor and sauntered into the kitchen. I was too tired to cook and Mel couldn’t cook. I shuddered remembering the first and last time I had her cook dinner. I would never know how she managed to get the chicken raw on the outside and overdone on the inside. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

I stopped in the middle of the kitchen looking for the phonebook. It took me a second to realize that we didn’t have one since we just moved in. I cursed to myself silently, going back to the living room. Mel had dragged herself closer to the couch, though she was still five feet away. I went over and kicked her foot, getting no response. Of course she would pass out on the floor. Loser. I shook my head and grabbed my car keys and wallet. I would just have suck it up and cook tonight. I gave one last glance at the sleeping girl on the floor and walked out to my car chuckling.

Two weeks after we moved in, I had a day off work. Utterly bored, I wandered around the house looking for something to do. I ended up in the garage, digging through the tool box. I had used some hairspray and a lighter to fry one of the cookies Mel made a few days ago and I was seeking to destroy the evidence with a hammer. She’s weird about her cookies. From the corner of my eye, I saw our stockpile of water guns. They were scattered amongst the left over the cans of paint. My eyes widened as an idea struck me.

I ran back into the house, checking my watch. I had four hours until Mel got back from classes and Bee got off work. It was more than enough time to set everything up. Making my way to the front door, I grabbed my shoes and jacket. Hopping from one foot then the other, I jammed my feet into my worn out Converse and then wormed my way into my jacket. I snatched my keys and wallet off the foyer table and left.

I had to drive for about 20 minutes before I found the hobby supply store. Happily, I skipped inside after parking. Yeah, it got me strange looks, but I was used to those. I pulled a cart from the long queue and made my way to the paint aisles. Choosing the color paints to use was hard. I immediately crossed yellow and orange off the list since Mel and I couldn’t handle those colors. After 30 minutes of debating with myself, I picked out lime green, electric blue, blood red, hot pink and black. Unsure as to how much I would need to fill all the water guns we had, I took a case of each. We’d find something to do with the left over paint-- most likely a prank of some sort.

“That’s a lot of body paint. Planning something?” The cashier raised an eyebrow skeptically as I set the last case of paint on the counter.

I refrained from rolling my eyes and said, “I’m not. But my boyfriend might be. He called me earlier and told me to get lots of body paint, black lights and be ready for a wild night.” The old lady behind me in line made a disgusted noise as the young cashier snickered. He wished me luck, helping me load the paint back into the cart after I paid. I smiled innocently at the old lady and she glared at me.

Once home, I moved the body paint into the garage. I then turned to all the boxes we had stacked along the wall. It was safe to say we didn’t use our garage for our cars. I parked on the front lawn and Mel parked on the curb. More often than not, Bee parked her car in our driveway, leaving her car there over night. She lived four houses down on the opposite side of the street, but spent most of her time at our house.

I started dragging boxes to the backyard. We had intended to use these in our fort room, but Mel would have to get over that. Surveying the yard, I began placing the boxes to form an obstacle course of sorts. I made as many hiding places as I could without them being obvious. About half way through setting up, I added random boxes and box pieces to make it into a maze as well. I used anything I could find to weight down the structures so they wouldn’t tip and domino the whole setup. Once all that was finished, I brought out the stereo system, placing speakers strategically to make it surround sound.

“Lynds...what the fuck are you doing? And where the hell are you?” I popped my head out one the of the portholes cut into the side of a box.

“Hey Bee. You wanna do me a favor?”

She looked around the yard suspiciously before her eyes landed on me. “Have you committed? Sure thing sis.”

“No you cumquat. I’m going to fill up our water guns with different colors of body paint. Can you make a list of the point values for each gun? The bigger ones being worth more points. Then when I’m done, can you hide them around the back yard?” She rolled her eyes, muttering about my insanity and went back inside. “Thanks sis!”

Mel walked in the front door just as Bee was coming in the back. I jumped up from the couch, pulling Mel to the backyard.

“Happy Friday sissy!” She stared around in awe. “So we’re going to do some makeshift paintballing the Lyndsey way. Bee, if you’ll explain the rules.” I fake bowed to her. She rubbed her temples, once again muttering under her breath before telling Mel how to play and about the water guns.

When she finished, Mel and I went to our rooms to changed into our play clothes. Yes at ages 21 and 24, we still had a “play clothes” section. I ran back downstairs to find Mel and Bee talking about work. They both worked in the mall not to far from the house, in the same store. I never really paid attention when they told me the name because I tried to avoid the mall at all costs.

“Okay you two idiots. Have fun shooting each other with paint. I’ll be inside watching Soul Survivors.” With that, she went inside. I plugged my iPod into the stereo and put it on shuffle. Mel and I looked at each other for a few seconds before we took off into the yard looking for water guns.

I think we found our first ones at the same time. I pumped the Super Soaker, listening to Mel cackle evilly over the sounds of Avenged Sevenfold’s Scream. I smirked, army crawling around a corner. I saw her bare feet and gagged. I’m guessing she heard me because she appeared in front of me seconds later. We had a stare down before starting to shoot each other. Hot pink paint coated Mel’s shirt and legs while I got sprayed with electric blue. I broke the facedown, going in search of one of the smaller guns to tuck into the waistband of my shorts.

The war raged on for another hour or so before we ran out of guns. We fell out on the patio cracking up and smearing excess paint on each other. Bee emerged from the house snorting.

“You two are nuts. Where are the guns? I’ll count the poi-” She stopped, eyes transfixed on the fence to the right of the patio.

“What? The guns are in the piles over there.” I pointed to the left side of the yard. She smiled nervously and waved. Confused, I turned to Mel. She shrugged.

“Bee, what the hell are you staring at?” She pointed to the fence. I rolled my eyes. “If I look and there’s nothing there, I’m going to- well hello there.”

Jason Berry, Thor, M. Shadows, and Danny were leaning over the fence slightly, Danny with a video camera in hand. They all waved at us, laughing. I helped an awestruck Mel off the ground and dragged both her and Bee over to the fence. I had to work to keep my eyes off Jason’s arms. The muscles called to me, begging to be stroked, just like his eyes seemed to be begging me to flirt with him.

He smiled cutely, shielding his eyes from the setting sun. “We couldn’t resist seeing what was going on when we heard Avenged blasting through the yard. That was some paint war you two had.”

I bit my lip nodding. “Yeah, and it took forever to setup.”

Mel finally found her voice, but I wish she hadn’t. She cut off whatever Jason was going to say next. “Danny, did you tape that whole thing?” He smirked, nodding. “Oh brother.” Matt and Danny laughed. “Wait...are you still recording this?! Shut that thing off!” She tried to grab the camera, but he moved just out of her reach. She growled lowly and he flipped it off, hiding it from her. “Much better.” She grinned, glancing at Matt.

“So we know that you girls know who we are, or at least who I am-”

“We know who all of you are,” I interrupted while stealing a glance at Jason. His eyes were locked on me.

Matt shook his head, half smiling. “Alright then. Can we know who you are?”

Bee finally broke from her hushed conversation with Thor. “That’s my older sister Lyndsey and our baby sis Mel.” The guys looked confused, but I didn’t blame them. We looked nothing alike. Bee was 5’9” to my 5’6” and Mel’s 5’5”, Mel was white while Bee and I were black, and we had none of the same physical features.

“Don’t ask. Just believe it.”

“So...” Jason looked directly into my eyes, freezing me in place. “Can I be the one to get you dirty next time?”