Missed Me, Missed Me, Now You Gotta Kiss Me

Dumped on the Ass

  I laughed. "Don't pout, Liam. It doesn't become you."

  We laughed for a few minutes straight, and I was just getting dirtier lying there in the dirt.

  "Well," I sighed. "Do we go get 'um?"

  "Huh!" Liam snorted. "They're already at the barn by now. Nope," he grunted as he stood up. He smiled down at me as he offered me his hand. "Looks like we're walkin."

  "Psh. Great," I muttered, grabbing his hand and letting him haul me to my feet. "You sure they can't get out?"

  Liam gave me this 'oh-get-real' look. "Yeah. I'm sure."

  Right. Cowboy. The fences and what-not is perfect and patrolled daily....well, that's what they did in the movies, anyway. I had no doubt Liam was as pristine. He sure liked to forget how anal he was. Stinking cowboy-even though I was grinning as I thought all of this.

  Currently, we were quite possibly in the worst part to be for the horses to ditch us. It took us maybe an hour to get sufficiently stuck in the middle of nowhere near the crest of the hill.

  "Don't worry," Liam said, reading my thoughts. "Once we get down the hill to the creek we'll get right to the house."

  "Oh." Damn, he really did know the place by heart.

  We walked on for a few minutes in comfortable silence. That is until I noticed Liam grinning. I was afraid to ask why, but he answered in his own by grasping my hand unexpectedly. "C'mere, I gotta show you somethin'." And he towed me the opposite of our destination.

  I was rather suspicious of what this "something" was, but I followed him anyway with the blind trust I seemed to have only for him.

  In a few minutes, though, we were down hill and in a vaguely familiar creek bed. It was long since dry, though.

  Liam waited as I took it in before saying, "You recognize this place?"

  I looked around again. With a gasp, I realized the place. Though the tipi fort had been taken down long ago, I still recognized the place. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine everything how it used to be; the full, calm creek bed, the ramshackle tipi with the big blue, too-big carpet beneath...And two scruffy eight year olds....

   "Mom only had a few old sheets," I yelled as I walked up the hill. There were two ways to the fort: walking across the hill a ways and down into the thicket, or directly through the stream. Usually we went through the stream-even though my rubber boots had a hole in the left boot-but being as though I was carrying stuff, I took the longer route.

  Liam was still tying the three big tree branches together with hay twine when I got there. His nose was scrunched up, his eyes narrowed, in concentration.

  I set down the wild Lion King, and snowflake sheets. "She said she might have a rug, too, but she has'ta find it first."

  Liam nodded distractedly.

  Rolling my eyes, I walked over to the creek and waded in through it. Immediately, my left boot flooded with water, soaking my already damp sock. We were stupid for being outside, as it was the beginning of March and there was a strong, cold wind passing through. Mom had bundled us up in two coats, beanies, scarves, and gloves. If she knew the two layers of thick socks she put on me were just getting soaked-or that we'd taken off our scarves and second coat-she'd flip out.

  "Piper!" Liam growled. "Quite foolin aroun' an' help me! Jeeze."

  I sighed, running through the water. "Comin', comin'. Ya don't hafta bite my head off, ya craphead!"