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Talia was ecstatic when she and the others walked outside. A carriage being pulled by two horses was parked. Talia runs to the front and starts petting one of the horses as the others chatter loudly, excited to be driven by horses.
“You’re so…Handsome,” The blonde tells one of the horses as she bends down to check. The other one pushes his head towards her, causing her to laugh. “Don’t worry, I have two hands,” she hums, now petting both, “And you are…beautiful,” she grins at the other
Alex watched her with a grin; as everyone piled in, he walked to her. “What do you think about Bonnie and Clyde?” The woman questions him.
Alex raises an eyebrow, looking between the two horses. “You’ve already named them?” He questions.
“Of course, everyone needs a name, even horses,” Talia argues causing Alex to smile.
“Okay, well, we’ve gotta get going,” he tells her; she nods and grabs his hand, leading him toward the back of the carriage. Alex stops, and Talia turns to look at him. “Come on,” she tells him.
“I’m riding in my car, I’ve got some stuff to do before I can get to the spot,” he explains.
Talia nods and moves to stand right in front of him. “Tell me something in Spanish,” she grins.
Alex hums. “Te ves preciosa, amor,” (๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐) he tells her, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, causing a happy jolt in Talia’s stomach.
“What does that mean?” The blonde questions and Alex grins.
“None ya,” he tells her causing her to scoff.
“Okay, asshole,” she jokes, hesitating before standing on her toes and giving him a quick, sweet kiss before making her way to the back of the carriage.
Alex was stunned with a lopsided grin on his face; Talia had kissed him on the lips in front of their family and friends; he knew that was a big deal for her and felt prideful she felt comfortable enough to kiss him in front of people.
โโ
The sound of children yelling with joy and adults chatting happily filled Talia’s ears as the carriage pulled into the lake where the group and others with their families and friends would watch fireworks. Everyone piles out, Talia makes sure to thank Bonnie and Clyde before helping the adults find an open spot.
Lenny finds a good spot, and everyone starts putting their stuff down when Talia feels a tug on her tank top; she turns to see Greg and Andre, an inflated mattress behind them; Talia raises her eyebrow. “What in the world do you two need that for?” She questions.
“Where gonna shoot Andre off it, will you help?” Greg questions as Andre looks at him.
“I thought you were going first,” the boy says, causing Greg to shrug.
“Times have changed, dude,” he looks back at Talia with a hopeful expression.
“Who’s “we”?” She questions.
“Me and Owen, he’s already in the water,” Greg explains; Talia shrugs, not seeing a good reason not to.
She strips her tank top and shorts off, leaving her in her two-piece white bathing suit.
She watches as Greg and Andre’s eyes widen, and she rolls her eyes hitting the sides of their heads. “Come on, googly eyes, let’s go do some fun shit,” she grabs the inflated mattress and starts carrying it to the lake, Andre and Greg following close behind.
โโ
“Okay, it’s in position,” Greg calls Andre and me Andre as he and Owen stand up; the two now have the inflated mattress halfway on the edge of the green floating platform in the water.
The two make their way to the ladder of the diving board, and Owen starts climbing. “I don’t know, man. This thing looks crazy,” Andre says nervously.
“It’ll be fun. Come on, me and Owen spent all morning blowing this thing up,” Greg tells him as he starts climbing.
“Don’t worry, we won’t let you get hurt, buddy,” Owen calls to him with a reassuring smile despite the fact he doesn’t know if he will be okay or not. Andre nods and hesitantly starts climbing onto the mattress.
“You should be alright,” Donna adds with a shrug.
“Should be?” Andre questions a look of worry on his face.
“Yeah,” Donna says with a smile to assure him.
“Don’t worry, just don’t belly flop and you’ll be just fine,” Talia adds with a thumbs up as Andre sits at the edge of the mattress.
“Ready?” Greg calls to him as he and Owen stand at the edge of the diving board, ready to jump; Andre looks up at them.
“Go!” Owen yells, the two jump, and Talia watches as the boy flies through the air with a girlish squeal; he hits the water with a splat and resurfaces a few seconds later.
“Let’s do that again!” He exclaims his hands up as people around him cheer.
“No way, I’m next!” Talia yells as Owen and Greg take turns climbing the ladder, Talia crawls onto the mattress and sits at the edge.
“Ready?” Owen calls to her; she puts her thumb up, and seconds later, she is flying through the air, a yell of joy leaving the blonde.
Alex looked around for Talia when he got to the lake, but he couldn’t find her, which confused him. He heard a scream that he recognized, and he looked toward the lake, his face paling as he watched Talia fly through the air.
He dodges through people as she lands in the water, getting knee-deep into the lake water before Talia pops up. People cheer for her, and she has the biggest smile on her face; Alex sighs in relief; this woman would be the death of him.
Talia’s smile widens as her eyes land on Alex and she starts swimming towards him, “Alex, did you see me?!” She exclaims as she runs into his arms with a laugh.
“Yeah, are you okay?” He questions, pulling away to check her for any injuries holding her jaw with his fingers delicately, much like he did at the restaurant when he had ripped that asshole waiter off of Talia.
She loved how gentle he was with her, how caring and kind he was even when she was a complete asshole to him; he always put her above his own needs, and that scared Talia.
The blonde puts her hands over his and he stops his search for wounds to stare into her gorgeous blue eyes that he dreamed about every night. “I’m okay,” she assures him with a soft smile.
“You’re going to be the death of me, love,” he sighs with a smile of his own.
Talia hums “Love,” that’s new,” she grins.
“I mean if you don’t like itโ”
“No,” Talia cuts the brunette off “I love it,” she assures him.
The two pull away when they hear Greg yell; looking up, they see him fly through the air before dropping into the water with a splat; everyone cheers for him as he pops back up, a giant smile on his face as Talia and Alex clap and cheer for the boy.
โโ
Talia watched with distaste as Dickie Bailey walked up to her group and her, his four friends close behind, as he demanded a rematch for a basketball that happened thirty years ago.
“You really wanna do this Bailey?” Lenny questions from his spot next to his wife and son, Keithie.
“My five against your five,” Bailey tells him, a beer in his hand; Talia wanted to slap it out of his hand just for the fun of it.
“Oh, boy, look at this,” Lenny says, chuckling slightly at the end as his eyes find Bailey’s friends behind him. “I see the boys stayed in shape, huh?” He questions, though he was clearly being sarcastic as they weren’t close to being in shape; all of them held either food, beers, or both. Talia gives a disgusted look as one of them burps.
“Robideaux, good to see you,” Lenny speaks to the one on the far right, the one who just burped.
“Lenny,” Robideaux nods in his direction.
“If you’re looking at me, I don’t know,” Lenny jokes as the man has two lazy eyes; Marcus, Talia, and Eric laugh, and even Rondeaux laughs. “Look, we just wanna eat some watermelon and relax, if you’re alright with that,” Lenny explains.
“Oh, no, it’s not alright. You’re not gonna weasel your way out of this one, Feder. Wiley snuck out of intensive care to see you finally get some justice,” Bailey explains.
The group’s eyes fall on Wiley, who has his whole body in a cast; Talia hides a laugh behind her hand. “Yo. You best be getting to balling, Feder,” the man yells.
“Oh, hey, Wiley. Was the field goal good?” Lenny questions with a smile.
“Yeah, the first time I ever heard that one,” he answers.
“Okay, sorry, man,” Lenny chuckles.
“Oh, uh, do you want me to get something off the top shelf? Heard that one a lot, too,” Wiley replies, causing Eric, Lenny, and Owen to laugh.
“He’s praising Jesus,” Talia mumbles to Alex, who chuckles.
“Seriously, Dickie, let us just hang out with our families. We wanna relax,” Lenny tells the man.
“Yeah, they’re afraid of us. That’s what it is,” Tardio, with a mouthful of food, scoffs, his friend’s laugh.
“We’re afraid you might eat the ball before we even start the game,” Marcus speaks up.
“Same old, Higgins. He can talk the talk but he can’t…I forget the rest,” Robideaux replies.
“Booyah!” The bald one says, putting his arms out like the group just got burned.
Talia scoffs. “Oh please, I’ll wipe the floor with your bald head, then smack him so hard he’ll see straight again,” the blonde speaks up, pointing at each man. Eric laughs as Marcus gives his daughter a high-five, proud of her.
“We got Rob here with the bad foot. You can’t do it right, buddy?” Lenny questions Robbie, looking at him.
Robbie stands up, holding his piece of watermelon, looking at Lenny. “I think if the Buzzer was here, he’d want me to try. I think he’d want us all to try,” Robbie tells him.
“Was that Wiliame Shatner?” Lenny questions looking between Marcus and Eric with a grin as the two start laughing.
“All right, let’s do this, then,” Lenny grins with a shrug.
“It’s on,” Wiley says causing everyone at the lake to cheer.
“Game to 21,” Lenny says as he stands.
โโ
The fathers approach the basketball court, changed into “WaterWizz” shirts and basketball shorts, and the crowd cheers seconds later the crowd cheers louder as all their wives, including Rita and Talia, come out from behind the firetrucks in cheerleader costumes and pompoms, shaking their pompoms in the air with whoops.
Talia stops in front of Alex with a smile at his reaction to her outfit “You like?” She hums with a little spin.
“Adore,” he replies, causing Talia to blush as he brings her into a kiss, causing the crowd to cheer again. Talia pulls away with a permanent grin on her face and goes to sit on the bench with the others.
A man in a striped T-shirt and a bowl hat on his hand that had been claimed the referee tosses the ball into the air. Eric and one of Bailey’s friends jump into the air at the same time; Eric hits the ball to Marcus, who catches it.
The women cheer, and Sally even stands dancing as the ball is passed to Eric; Lenny runs down the court, and Eric passes it to Lenny as he has one of Bailey’s friends practically breathing down his back.
Lenny catches it and makes a half-court shot, causing cheers to abrupt; all the women jump up from their seats, shaking their pompoms.
“Lucky shot,” Wiley says with an eye roll, though no one paid him any attention.
Malcolm gets the ball and runs down the court “Defense, defense, defense!” The women cheer as they sit back down on the bench. Malcolm tosses the ball to Bailey, who catches then tosses it to Robideaux, who shoots it into the hoop.
Talia boos but starts cheering when Robbie gets the ball “Hey guys. Motion ’78,” he instructs.
Robbie acts like he is going to go right, confusing Robideaux before he tosses the ball to Marcus, Talia cheers loudly for her father.
Marcus moves the ball in a circle in Tardio’s face before tossing it to Eric who catches it. The man starts running with it when he is trapped by one of Bailey’s friends. Kurt has Malcolm right behind him; he taps his chest. “To me,” he mouths to Eric.
Eric tossed the ball to him, and it bounced off his head, causing the crowd to groan. Lenny catches it and shoots the ball toward the hoop; he makes the shot, causing cheers to erupt.
“Show me what you got. Say what?” Deanne says as she stands.
“Hey, Y!” Marcus exclaims as he walks near Wiley “Where’s the M-C-A?” He questions with a chuckle; Wiley doesn’t get the joke at first but gives a short laugh when he does before his expression turns tight.
Curly starts barking causing Robideaux to get confused “What the hell is that? Sounds like owls having sex,” he says as he dribbles the ball, Lenny steals the ball as he’s distracted and Talia lets out a whoop as she praises Curly calling him a “Good boy,”
Lenny runs while dribbling the ball, passing it to Marcus, who makes the shot, causing the crowd to cheer.
“What are you doing?” Bailey questions throwing his arms in the air as he looks at Robideaux, annoyed he got distracted.
The game continued, and Bailey’s team got a few balls in, along with Lenny’s. Talia let out a cackle when Malcolm tossed the ball, he missed the hoop and instead hit a woman’s beer out of her hand. “You made me spill my freaking beer!” The woman exclaims.
“Honey, why does everything always have to be about you?” Bailey questions as he grabs the ball from beside his wife’s feet.
“Why do you always have to be such a dink?” Bailey’s wife fires back.
The game continues; Eric and one of Bailey’s friends look exhausted, and the two men stop by one of the hoops, panting from exhaustion.
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t even breathe,” Bailey’s friend pants.
“I haven’t felt my legs since the second quarter. Hey, you wanna fake injuries?” Eric questions.
“You got it,” the man agrees; both men yell in fake pain as they both pretend to be hurt.
Sally stands up. “Oh, hon,” she frowns, going over to help her husband.
“This is ridiculous. Somebody’s gonna have a heart attack,” Marcus speaks up as he pants.
“What are you doing? Is that it?” Lenny questions as he watches both his friends and Bailey all stop and pant, making their way to their families.
Talia stands up from her seat and makes her way to her father, grabbing his arm. “Sit down before you fall down, old man,” she tells him with a grin as she helps him sit.
“I’m not old enough for you to be calling me old man,” Marcus argues as Talia gives him a water bottle.
He gulps it down, and Talia laughs. “Sure, pops,” she hums, leaving him to go back to the bench.
“What do you say we, uh, bring my son and your son into this?” Lenny questions, looking at Bailey; they were the only two left on the court.
“Done,” Bailey agrees.
Lenny looks at Alex and calls him over, Talia smiles and gives him a wink as Roxanne cheers for her son.
“Hey, Tristian,” Bailey calls to his son. The man stands and makes his way over. “And, hey, somebody fills up that jug with some boss water for the Hollywood kid,” Bailey teases.
“It’s Voss, with a V,” Alex rolls his eyes at the man’s poor grammar.
“Ooh hoo,” Tristan teases as he walks over, his eyes falling on Talia, a grin making its way onto his face. “My offer’s still open, sweetcheeks; you should look into it,” he tells her.
“I’d rather look into a loaded gun,” Talia hisses back causing Tristan to scoof.
“So you choose a Hollywood kid over me?” He was bewildered.
“Hollywood kid or not, I can still kick your ass,” Alex speaks up, taking a threatening step forward; Lenny puts his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Later,” he mumbles to him; Alex nods and backs off, his blood boiling as he looks at the man in front of him.
“Would you mind if I touch your belly?” Wiley asks Deanne “I love babies. I love to feel them kick,” he explains.
“Yeah, go ahead,” Deanne shrugs.
“Oh, thank you,” Wiley says, he bends down all the way to try to touch her belly, his hand falling on her breast instead.
“That’s not my baby, that’s my boob,” Deanne tells the man with a disgusted look on her face.
“Oh, I like to feel those too,” Wiley tells her. Eric goes to stand up, and Talia chucks an empty Gatorade bottle at his head.
“Fucking pervert,” she grumbles under her breath her eyes going back to the court.
“Alright, take it out. Come on,” Bailey tells Lenny as all the men start moving.
“Sixteen to 16. Half-court, two on two. Let’s go,” Lenny speaks up, causing cheers to erupt.
“Keep your feet off the line this time,” Bailey tells Lenny pointing at the line before tossing the ball to Lenny.
“It’s a tied score. Tied score. Let’s see something.” Lenny speaks, tossing the ball to Alex, who passes it right back. “Nice throw,” he compliments his son before tossing the ball into the hoop, and cheers erupt from the crowd again.
“We’re up 19-16. Let’s go,” Lenny tells Alex as Alex gets the ball. Alec sneers at Tristian in front of him and he tosses the ball to him with as much force as he can. Tristan grunts at the force.
“Alright, son. Give me the ball,” Bailey told his son; Tristan passed him the ball, and Baikey passed it back. He starts dribbling the ball and tries getting past Alex, when he realizes he won’t be able to, he passes it back to his dad.
Bailey dribbles the ball as he runs, Alex and Lenny being blocked by Tristan. Bailey shoots the ball and makes it in. “Oh, yes. It’s raining threes on Hollywood,” the man chuckles.
Talia was one of the few who saw his foot on the line. “Foul!” She exclaims “His foot was on the line!”
“It ain’t raining three’s! It’s drizzling twos!” Kurt exclaims he had seen his foot on the line as well.
“That’s alright, good shot,” Lenny tells him, he was going to ignore Bailey’s mistake.
“Ain’t no threes, his foot was on the line!” Kurt argues.
“Next basket wins. Let’s go,” Lenny decides as Bailey passes the ball to him. Lenny passes it back “This is it, pal,” he tells him as Bailey passes the ball back to him. Leny passes the ball to Alex, and Talia cheers, “Take his ass out!” She exclaims as she waves her pompoms through the air.
Alex dribbles the ball attempting to get Tristian off his back; he knows he won’t be able to without cheating, so he passes the ball back to his father.
Lenny tricks Bailey by pitting the ball over his head before quickly tossing it to Alex from the side, Alex slips past Tristan and goes to make the shot when Bailey gets in his way. Alex curses lowly before moving through the two and getting to the hoop.
Leny blocks the two Baileys as every screams for Alex to shoot. The brunette looks over at Bailey’s wife, who has a sad look on her face; he frowns and then looks back at the Baileyseys being held back by his father.
Finally, Feder shoots the ball up, and everyone holds their breath, expecting it to go in.
It didn’t. The ball bounces off the side, and Tristian quickly grabs it, tossing it to his father, who makes the shot, winning the game.
Alex looks over at his dad, and Lenny smiles, walking over to his son; he claps his hand on his shoulder and nods. “I’m proud of you,” he tells him. Feders needed to learn to lose while Baileys needed to learn to win.
Alex hugs his father and soon the rest of his family joins it, his mother telling him how great he did.
When he finally pulled away, a certain blue-eyed beauty jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his middle.
Talia looks at him with a smile as she twists his brown locks in her fingers behind his head, “You’re a good loser, Alex Feder,” she hums.
Alex looks at the blonde with nothing but pure adoration in his eyes “If this is what I get when I lose, I don’t mind losing,” he grins.
Talia crashes her lips against his, her stomach fluttering as it does every time she kisses him; she loves that feeling because she only feels it when she is with Alex and nobody else. Alex Feder was her person, and she was his person.
โโ
Talia sat between Alex’s legs as they watched the fireworks, the sky filling with smoke and different colors. It was beautiful for Talia.
Alex’s gaze would switch from the sky and Talia, a smile on his face when another firework would be set off and Talia’s face would fill with wonder and joy.
Beside the two, Owen sat with Amber, her head leaning on his shoulder while a permanent blush sat on his face. He slowly slid his hand into hers, and she looked up at him and smiled, lacing their fingers together and laying her head back on his shoulder.
The beautiful moment is ruined when Marcus stands up, a bow and arrow in his hands “Alright, everybody. The last one to stay in wins!” He yells.
“No, no, no, Dad!” Talia exclaims; it was too late as the arrow is shot off by Marcus.
Everyone scrambles away and Talia is thrown over Alex’s shoulder as he starts running with the blonde. “Wait, my Dad!” She yells to him as her drunk father looks for the arrow in the dark sky
Alex sets Talia down and goes for her father, picking him up; Marcus puts his arms around the man’s neck as Alex and Talia run. “Now I get why you like him so much!” Marcus yells drunkenly to his daughter, who rolls her eyes.
๐๐ฎ๐ญ๐ก๐จ๐ซ’๐ฌ ๐ง๐จ๐ญ๐
๐๐ก๐….
๐๐จ๐ฉ๐, ๐ง๐จ๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ฒ๐๐ญ, ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ฌ. ๐๐ง๐ ๐ฆ๐จ๐ซ๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ฉ๐ญ๐๐ซ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ ๐จ๐
๐๐ฅ๐ฌ๐จ ๐ ๐๐จ๐ง’๐ญ ๐ค๐ง๐จ๐ฐ ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐๐ง๐ข๐ฌ๐ก ๐ฌ๐จ ๐ข๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ฐ๐ซ๐จ๐ง๐ , ๐ฌ๐จ๐ฆ๐๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐๐ฌ๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ญ ๐ฆ๐ ๐ค๐ง๐จ๐ฐ, ๐๐ง๐ ๐ ๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ฅ๐จ๐ ๐ข๐ณ๐ ๐ข๐ญ ๐ ๐ ๐จ๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฐ๐ซ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐๐ฌ, ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฆ๐ ๐ ๐จ๐จ๐ ๐ฅ๐ ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ง๐ฌ๐ฅ๐๐ญ๐. ๐ญ๐
๐๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ ๐ ๐๐จ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ฉ๐ฌ 2????
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