Lakeside Love

Light Up My Night

I walked down toward the beach with my two axolotl plushies in hand. Brayden won the first one with no problem, so he decided to go for a second one. Now I had one for each twin. After walking around for a while and standing through the whole parade, we found a free picnic table to have dinner at before the hotdog eating contest.

"Next year is gonna be my year," DJ said, sitting down with his plate of five hotdogs.

"You're gonna enter next year?" I asked him.

"Yeah-huh. Can't enter until you're a legal adult, which is next April!" he said.

"You seriously think you can beat my dad, who's been the reigning champ for the past five years?" Brayden asked.

"If I believe hard enough, I can!" he said.

Without warning, he shoved two hotdogs in his mouth at the same time. I nearly choked on the soda I was drinking.

"Thanks again for the axolotls, Bray," I said, once we all calmed down.

"Any time. I'm glad they'll each have one," he said.

"Have you thought about what you want? Boys or girls?" Opal asked.

"Hmm. Not really. One of each would be cool though," I said. "My sisters really want boys, you know, since we're the only siblings and we have no brothers."

"When do you find out?" Brayden asked.

"In about three more weeks. It's when I have my anatomy scan," I said.

"Please don't tell me you're planning some kind of forest-fire cringe gender reveal," Opal said.

I laughed. "No. Definitely not. I don't think I'll even do one. I'll probably just have the tech tell me right there."

"What! No! That's no fun at all. You should do something. Even if it's small, like a cake," Opal said. "Please let me plan something? Please?"

"Uh...sure. If you really want to," I said.

I watched as Brayden leaned over and whispered something in her ear. A smile made its way across her face. She nodded and said, "Perfect!"

"Attention spectators! The hotdog eating contest will start in just fifteen minutes! This is your last chance to enter if you want to compete!" said someone over a loudspeaker.

"We better hurry up then," I said, taking a big bite out of my own hotdog.

We rushed to finish our food and packed into the mosh-pit style viewing area for the hotdog eating competition. There was a long table with five guys sitting at it. One of them was Rick, who was stretching and cracking his knuckles.

People were bringing out big trays of hotdogs, setting them up in front of each contestant while the crowd cheered. I watched as an old man with a cane walked up to the microphone.

"Hello everyone! How are you all doing tonight?" he said. We cheered and he gave a smile. "I'm glad you're all excited!"

"That's the mayor," Brayden said to me. "Mayor Lewis."

"Wait. Stop. Mayor Lewis? Like..."

"Uh-huh," he said, chuckling. "Sometimes it feels like we're basically Pelican Town."

"And because it's the Fourth of July, for the past twenty years we've watched grown men shove hotdogs in their faces...for some reason," said Mayor Lewis. He turned to the contestants. "Well, God bless America. There's buckets by your chairs if you throw up. Now, let's eat some hotdogs!"

The crowd roared with applause and they counted down. I don't know if it was seeing guys stuffing hotdogs in water and then down their throats, or if my hotdog just wasn't sitting right, but I had to run out of the crowd. I lost my dinner in a very gross port-a-potty, bought a water bottle, and went back to my friends.

"Everything okay?" Opal said, right as Rick was getting his trophy.

"Yeah. Just pregnant. I know it's supposed to be called 'morning sickness,' but I feel like I'm always more nauseated at night," I said. "I'm honestly getting tired. I kinda want to take a break before the fireworks. Do you guys wanna hang out at the firepit for a little while?"

"I'm down," Brayden said.

"Ditto!" said DJ.

We walked back to my place and sat down at the firepit. I got the lighter from inside and lit up the firewood. I finally took my feet out of my shoes and leaned back in my chair. I honestly wanted to take a nap before the fireworks but I didn't want to kick everyone out of my backyard.

"Where's your dad at, Kimi? I haven't seen him all day," Opal said.

"Oh, he's on the fireworks committee this year. He's in charge of the whole thing. Now that he has that promotion at his fireworks company, he said he wants to 'show off his new skills,'" I said.

"Man, I remember when he was about to lose the house a few years ago because he couldn't pay the mortgage while he was away at re—" I watched as Brayden stopped himself. I'm sure DJ knew where my dad was, but Opal didn't. "While he was gone for a while and we did that big fundraiser."

"Yeah. They grow up so fast," DJ said.

I chuckled. "He really has come a long way. I'm proud of him."

We spent some time listening to music and pulling up funny videos on our phones. Opal pulled up these old YouTube videos of something called Charlie the Unicorn. I'd never seen them before. They literally came out right around when we were born. She said her mom loved them when she was in college.

I thought they were pretty funny. As someone with two siblings around all the time, I honestly related to Charlie. The poor guy just wanted some peace and quiet, but those two other unicorns dragged him to candy mountain and a bunch of other places, then took his kidney. His life was nothing but misery.

We all used my bathroom to avoid the awful port-a-potties, then walked down to the beach for the fireworks. Everyone had either chairs or a picnic blanket. DJ said he had the perfect thing for us to sit on in his backpack. The guy pulled out a tarp.

"DJ, really?" Opal said.

"Hey, it's big enough for all of us and it gets the job done!" he said.

We unfolded the tarp and DJ handed out the candy that was in his backpack. The tarp sucked, but the surprise candy really made up for it. I sent a quick, encouraging text out to my dad.

Good luck, Dad! I'm sure the show will be great!

He responded a few minutes later.

Thanks, lass!

Music started playing over the speakers, then the fireworks started. They were coming from all different angles, and they were all different shapes. I would've enjoyed it so much more if I wasn't shivering.

"Psst." I looked over at Brayden. He'd unzipped his sweatshirt and motioned for me to come closer. "I've got room for one more."

"Thanks, you're the best," I said.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon!

I rolled my eyes. They literally played this same old song at every single fireworks show.

As the fireworks kept lighting up the sky, I huddled closer to Brayden. By the end of the show, his arm was around me. I was hardcore blushing. I mean, of course I liked Brayden, but I had no idea he'd feel the same way about me: the bald, pregnant girl with emotional damage I hadn't even begun to tell my friends about. But that was okay. For now, I'd just see where life would take me.