Chapter 63

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63. Search & Rescue

            It took Chase a total of five hours – more than that if he counted the snack breaks in between – but he was finally done and he couldn’t have felt prouder about himself. In the backyard, facing the swimming pool, the guest bed erected proudly on top of the grass. It was all there: bedframes, the canopy, the sheets, the mattress.

            He had draped sheer white drapes over the canopy, and in the evening breeze, the long sheets fluttered gently in the wind. Fairy lights twirled around and up the bedposts and dangled down from the canopy. It took him forever to figure out how to do the wiring to get electricity that far out on his lawn, but that was nothing compared to the work he put in so Krislynn could roast marshmallows in his backyard.

            In order to have a campfire, he pulled out a gigantic patch of grass with his bare hands, and had to dig a deep hole in the middle so he could put the firewood inside. He wasn’t even sure if he did it right; he looked it up on the Internet at the last minute, but regardless of all that, he was done! His hardships were over!

            “See!” He boasted, standing back to admire his handiwork against the sunset. “Wasn’t that hard. Told you I could do it. Piece of cake.”

            Krislynn waltzed passed him holding a box of candles in her arms and made him raise an eyebrow just watching her. Excitement had completely possessed her the moment he came home with the shopping list she demanded of him. Now she skipped and danced around him like a Disney princess – that treacherous way Disney animations made their characters skip about as if their bodies defied gravity.

            “Come quick,” she sang. “We still have to scatter candles everywhere. Oh! It’s going to be so pretty once it gets dark and we light them all up.”

            “Yeah… we’re not doing that.” Stopping in her tracks, Krislynn turned around and stared at him in horror. “Look, you said you wanted lights so I went out and bought you lights and decorated the crap out of it. We are not doing candles too.”

            “Why?” She cried.

            “Because it’s a fire hazard,” he shouted. “What if the wind knocks it over while we’re asleep and burn down my house?! Do you realize why I had to dig the fire pit all the way on the opposite side of the yard? Don’t you ever think?”

            “Don’t you have insurance?” She retorted.

            “Is that your back-up plan?”

            Deciding that her method of persuasion obviously wasn’t working out, Krislynn promptly changed tactics. “I’ll be careful,” she begged. “Besides, if your house burns down, you’ll be mad – yes – but we’ll be laughing about it two weeks from now.”

            “No, if my house burns down, I’d probably still be pissed off at you five years from now.”

            She pouted. “Please Chase?”

            “No.”

            “Please!!”

            “I said no.”

            She let her lower lip sink to an impossible length and furrowed her brows to give him the best puppy look of her life. “Please.”

            “No. Why do you even want candles anyways? I can turn the pool lights on. It’ll look like it’s glowing. Isn’t that good enough?”

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