From the Ashes

"All filled?"

"Check."

"Ice in the cooler?"

"Check, check."

"We're good to go, soldier." She gives me a lazy salute under her grin before she closes the trunk to hide our ammo for the water balloon fight that happens every day on the last day of school here in the student parking lot. I'm just turning the battery off on Kaitlin's car, A Day to Remember shutting off abruptly, as loud screamo music comes flying across the parking lot in the form of a white truck. Kaitlin leans casually against her car, biting the end of a pair of sunglasses as the truck screeches to a stop in the spot beside us. Sage and Roman are in the front of it, showing off for us as they growl along with the fast-paced music, Sage head banging wildly as he plays air drums, and Roman making a "hard core" face as he shakes his hair about and plays the air guitar. Kaitlin and I bust up laughing, the sound of our mirth covered by what I think is Bring Me the Horizon. As the key modulates and the refrain of the song comes on, both boys lean out the window toward us, Sage sprawled across Roman's lap to do so, and start mouthing the words to us out the open window.

"We will never sleep! Cause sleep is for the weak! And we will never rest! Till WE'RE ALL FUCKING DEAD!"

Kaitlin and I both screech at their rendition, the boys accentuating the pauses in the beat to stare wildly still at us both before continuing their intense lip-syncing with the music. The song ends with more furious head-banging, and both boys suddenly halting in ridiculous poses when the music cuts out.

"You guys are RIDICULOUS," Kait manages to squeak between fits of laughter, using the car for support. I wipe imaginary tears of laughter from my eyes with big sweeps of my hand as I giggle uncontrollably. By the time we settle down from the amusement of their little show, both boys have hopped down from the truck.

"You guys ready to get your asses beat?" Roman grins from underneath his dark head of shaggy hair, giving the bed of his truck a loving pat. Three big coolers are nestled innocently in the pickup. I give a shrug after I hit the lock button for the trunk, and toss the keys to Kaitlin from the other side of the car.

"Bring your fury, for I'll not hold back mine," I purr with an evil smirk, standing my ground with a leisurely stance as Roman turns to stand directly in front of me. We're almost pinned between the tiny space left by the two vehicles. His chest bumps against mine slightly as he leans his head down close to mine to return my look.

"Better watch your back then, darlin'," he growls playfully, leaning even closer to me to rest his hand against Kaitlin's car.

"Better watch your pride then, sweet thang." I give him a flirtatiously diabolic wink before ducking out from under his arm to grab Kaitlin and start off towards the school with long, swinging steps.

"Damn!" Roman's incredulous voice floats behind us.

I power my way through the second half of two finals in the morning, and between classes I notice the school itself is practically alight with excitement. The chattering buzz that fills the crowded halls isn't dull or sluggish like normal, but quite the opposite. The seniors seem especially pumped for their last day of high school ever. I stop a few times in the hall throughout the day to be attacked by, or do the attacking, of a senior I'm particularly fond of. It's hard to think that this will be me next year.

During study hall, the teacher is talked into playing music from their computer while a few students play games of hangman on the front board, and I chat with Sage about the upcoming vacation we'll be spending together. He always kept to himself in school, I've noticed, but I'm pleased when he warms up to me a little. He compliments me on my summer dress, and I on his The Devil Wears Prada shirt, and he then tries to persuade me to join up with him and Roman to take out the rest of the school at the water balloon fight in a few hours. I graciously decline on the account of a rivalry between myself and Sir Spade, enjoying Sage's pleasant nature as opposed to Roman's flirtatiously aggressive one. I feel almost relieved when I talk to him, and I notice it's because I'm not in a constant state of emotional "flush-tration" around him, I think to myself with a hidden chuckle.

The rest of the day seems to fly by. The classes I have to take finals in go quickly because of concentration, and the others because the teachers and students are celebrating the last day of school. Mrs. Frann's class at the end of the day seems to go on the slowest because she actually makes those of us who are going to be in Mrs. Farthing’s AP Physics class next year get into our partnered groups while she goes around the room to see how each pair is doing as far as plans. Roman appears at my desk when she gives us the order to group up. I open my mouth to say a snide comment about how we're going to be sick of each other before our first week is out, when he plops his ass down on my lap. My sentence garbles into wheezes as I whack him on the back a few feeble times.

"Roman!" I croak with a laugh, and he leans his torso back against mine. He bats his smoky eyes innocently.

"Yes?" Involuntarily taking advantage of the situation, I wrap my arms around his muscular body, trying to pull him off. I start to sputter something else when he interrupts me with a pleasantly angelic look. "Damn, Allie, you're comfy. Oop, there's my seat over there, my bad." He slithers off of my lap, and I aim a hard kick at his ass before he takes the seat of the desk in front of me. He stifles a curse just as Mrs. Frann rounds onto our group to interrogate us on our planning progress for Mrs. Farthing’s project.

She's pleased to hear we've already gathered the maximum supply requirement, and soon moves on to the next pair of lucky Advanced Practice students. I lean against the desk towards Roman to cup my face delicately in my hands as I bat my electric blues at him. I flash him the daintiest of smiles as he narrows his eyes at me.

"Oh, you're gonna be groveling after the fight, 'Leithea," he growls as the corner of his mouth slides up into an evil smile. I tilt my head to the side, knitting my brow ever so slightly.

"I'm sorry... kiss my what?"

I will always enjoy the looks he gives me when I surprise him.

Kaitlin is just signaling me when the bell rings, and Roman and I lock eyes for a moment before both sprinting toward the door. I scurry out after Kait before hip-checking Roman out of the way, and his trail of laughing invectives fade as we scurry down the hall. Having already cleaned out our lockers in advance during our free period in chorus, we are one of the first to leave the school and reach the parking lot. We even have the advantage of parking close. In a flash, Kait unlocks the trunk and is pulling out guns and opening the cooler while I nimbly hop up onto the bed of Roman's truck.

"Oh my god, Allie!" Kaitlin screeches as she strings a super soaker around her shoulder, "You're a genius!"

"Quick, help me lift this..." I unlatch the back of the pick-up when balloons start to fly from farther down the lot. Kaitlin grabs one handle of the first cooler as I hold onto the other, and we carefully lift it to the ground. I'm going for the second one when I hear a shout, and Kaitlin is throwing me a super soaker.

"Hey!" Roman's voice calls from the entrance of the school, and I look up briefly from my dirty work to see him and Sage sprinting towards us. Kaitlin starts to pump up her water gun as she shrieks in laughter, pelting the unarmed guys with jets of high-pressured, long-range shots of freezing cold water. Both boys yelp and cover themselves when she aims below the belt. I count our losses and just kick the second cooler over, the balloons and water spilling out and rolling off the bed of the truck to smash onto the asphalt below. The boys put on bursts of speed as they see the sabotage in motion, and I stand armed and ready in the bed of the truck, holding the huge soaker like an AK-47. The look on my face is as fierce as my stance, and with a grin, I note how dramatically the skirt of my dress is billowing in the breeze as balloons fly by me left and right.

Shouts and laughter fill the whole parking lot as more and more students spill out to join the fray. I start shooting the boys as soon as they're in range, and they are now getting hit from both sides. They're already soaked by this point, while Kait and I are still relatively dry. Sage stops to try and wrestle the gun out of Kaitlin's hands, and she screeches in laughter as she just empties her ammunition wildly in the struggle. Roman charges at me with the full force of a bull, his gaze burning with a fiery grin, filled with evil intent. He ignores the jets of water I'm buffeting him with, barreling through them as they glance off his already soaked body. I finally take a step back as he clears the bed of the truck in one bound, not even pausing when he snatches me up in the wink of an eye. I give a shriek when he hauls me over his shoulder and bounds down off the truck.

God damn, this boy is stronger than he looks!

The water from his soaking shirt seeps into my dress as he carries me over to Kait's car, where Sage has subdued her as well. He pats my butt before tossing me into the open-top mustang. Kaitlin gives a howl from where Sage holds her back, and as I struggle to scramble out of the awkward position I was dumped in, Roman hoists our cooler full of balloons and half-melted ice from the trunk and steals it away back up in the bed of his truck. Sage leaps up to join him, and they both start to rain a barrage of balloons from our freezing cooler, and their remaining one from their elevated vantage point up on the truck. Kait and I take refuge on the other side of her car, and Kaitlin smacks herself in the forehead while I carefully snatch a few old liters of pop from the trunk, now filled with ammo for our water guns.

"Why the hell didn't we put the top up on the 'Stang!"

"I don't freakin' know!"

"Damn!" she curses, "Damn, damn, damn!" She smacks her forehead in agony on each curse.

For the duration of their water balloons, we exchange shots from around the car, getting hit by a good number of well-aimed ones even behind our refuge. With only enough left to carry in their hands, they leap off of the truck to assault us point-blank. We shriek and laugh as we discover they left some of the ice-water balloons for last, grabbing us and popping them right against our heads so that the freezing water runs icy streams down our whole bodies. After every last balloon has been exhausted over our heads, Roman grabs me around the waist and lifts me up against him, both of us soaking wet. The skirt of my dress clings to my legs as he swings me around, roaring his triumph, and it's all I can do to clutch my arms around his neck and hold on. Finally he stops, grinning up at me through matted, soaking hair. My heart warms at that look, and I can't even help tangling my fingers in the long, soaked strands of his dark hair at the back of his neck as I laugh warmly down at him.

The huge smile slowly relaxes on Roman's face, but his eyes remain intent and fixed on mine as the look he's giving me changes ever so slightly, and I hold his gaze as a flowering curiosity blooms. That familiar warmth blossoms in my chest again, though, as he slowly loosens his grip on me, and I slide slowly down his chest as he starts to let me down. I clutch his shoulder as he does, his soft gaze never leaving mine. I only realize how close our faces are when my feet touch the ground, and his head is still bent to maintain that proximity. A thrill of excitement rushes through me as my pulse rockets when my brain, fuzzy and drunk with this intoxicating effect, realizes that he's leaning in to kiss me. His breath is warm on my face as his nose lightly touches my own, and his eyes search mine tenderly.

I give a wild shriek as icy cold water is dumped over my head. Shocked and dazed, I continue to squawk wildly as I jump away from Roman. He is sputtering too, gasping from the cold as he shakes his head like a dog. Sage and Kaitlin both high-five each other, the empty cooler hanging between them.

"Well, since you guys changed up sides, so did we," Kaitlin purrs, vixen-like. Roman and I pause to give each other bewildered looks before both barreling after the mutinous pair.