"Ki how the fuck are you so late? It takes like a minute to get here..." Acacia mumbled from the island she was leaning over as she grabbed another pretzel from a yellow bowl.
"Sorry. I uh... got tied up with Andi being a dumbass not knowing how to do the laundry without fucking up my jeans."
"He's a grown ass man, you'd think he'd be better at this." Lyra laughed joining the conversation.
"Right?" Ki pointed over to her as she found a spot for herself to lean onto the island.
"Who's Andi?" Hana said in a weird way as she was in the middle of chewing her food.
"My brother's boyfr... fiancée."
"Oh so another person I haven't met. Great." Kat threw her hands up, rolling her eyes in the process.
"You're not missing out, trust me." Ki laughed, reaching over to the middle of the island to grab a pretzel from the bowl.
"Yes you are. She's lying." Acacia whispered, leaning towards Kat.
Ki threw one of her pretzels at Acacia and glared at her with a concerning look. Acacia turned towards Ki with a pissed expression and hissed back "what" with a mean smile.
Ki flipped her off, all the while smiling and popping a pretzel into her mouth.
"So what do you guys want to do?" Hana piped in.
"Stare into each other's eyes and spill our deepest, darkest secrets." Kat said in a completely monotone voice.
Hana took a step back from the counter, and Lyra looked at her with a sense of amusement and confusion.
"Let's save that for later, yeah?" Lyra half laughed.
Kat laughed seeing the responses her two friends gave. Of course, she wasn't being serious.
"Can we go to Walmart?!" Acacia gasped.
"What the fuck?" Ki sighed.
"Why?" Kat motioned her hand out towards her.
"Um... okay?" Lyra pondered.
"Have you ever played Walmart bingo? It's hilarious... we can split off into teams and the team with the least amount of boxes checked off buys dinner." Acacia explained with a grin.
"Actually that sounds like a good idea. I'm down." Hana shrugged.
"Yeah but there's not going to be even teams..." Kat pointed out.
"That's okay... we can... um..."
"Let's do two and three." Lyra suggested.
"Me and Kat are a packaged deal." Hana draped her arm over Kat's head.
Kat pouted, probably from being used as an armrest.
"Okay so um lets draw then. I'll say I'm one team and Kat and Hana are another. We'll put two and three on pieces of paper to decide who gets the third member, then split from there." Lyra said, already writing down numbers on a post it note pad that was on the counter.
She pulled the yellow note off the pad, and ripped it into halves, crumpling them up into two balls. She placed them on the counter and then Acacia mixed them up, covering her hands so that neither side saw which one was which.
"Okay Hana, pick one." Acacia said, standing back from the counter.
Hana leaned over and picked up the smaller of the two balls, smiling as she showed the unfolded result to Kat.
"We call Acacia." Kat smirked.
"Sorry Lyra, you're stuck with Ki." Acacia grinned as she high-fived her new team mates.
Hana, Acacia and Kat were all nodding their heads and talking in quiet whispers as they laughed about what pranks they would likely play on the other team, and how they were going to win.
Lyra, however, didn't seem to think they were going to beat them. She grinned as she folded her arms over her chest.
"So who's driving?"
————————
They all barreled out of Lyra's moms mini van singing the lyrics to Crazy in Love by Beyoncé.
Lyra swore it was only because her mom had the CD in, but Ki caught her singing every single word without hesitation.
It made her laugh.
Lyra was the kind of girl that shamelessly blared early 2000's music on her way to Walmart, yet blamed it on her mom with an embarrassed blush on her face.
Yep, that was Lyra.
It was cute how she thought they couldn't even tell.
"So I'm sending the bingo pic in the group chat. If you get a bingo or run out of time, send it in here." Hana said to the group, typing on her phone.
They all walked in a single file line, spreading across the entire parking aisle.
"Got it." Lyra said, saving the image to her phone.
Ki didn't even pull hers out, she knew if Lyra knew what they were doing then everything would be fine.
"Acacia and Ki you'll keep time. Set the clock for thirty minutes, when it goes off everybody meet back at the car and we'll compare results." Kat said pointing over to the two. "Oh... and pictures or it didn't happen." She added a wink.
"Got it." Ki mumbled watching her feet, as to make sure she didn't trip and fall on her face right in front of her new friends.
"Everybody ready?" Hana smirked as they approached the doors.
Lyra glanced over to Ki, and Ki met her face with a mischievous smile.
The group took their last steps towards Walmart as a whole, and then as the doors whooshed open, they split into two.
"Go!"
————————
Ki and Lyra had gotten seven things checked off in the first ten minutes, but now it was becoming harder and harder.
"Do you think we can find someone peeing in the toy section?" Lyra said, her forehead crinkled in thought.
"Do you really want to take that chance?" Ki raised her eyebrows.
"What about a barefoot child? Easy one right?"
"I guess." Ki shrugged.
Lyra had confidence that they were going to win, but Ki quite frankly was noticing that the other team probably had divided and conquered with their extra member, and were currently two boxes ahead of them.
"I feel like a lot of these categories are mean." Lyra frowned as they walked through the baby clothes section.
"Yeah... little bit." Ki agreed.
"I almost feel bad playing it, but if it means free food... I can't turn down a good deal."
This resulted in Ki smiling while Lyra wasn't watching. She was a few steps in front of her, but still looking back every once in a while to make sure Ki was behind her.
Ki followed Lyra's motions, not actually looking at her, but rather just following what she saw out of the corner of her eye. Ki was actually scanning the aisles for anything they could use as bait.
That being said, she didn't really notice when Lyra abruptly stopped in front of her.
Ki ran right into her back, losing her balance and falling straight back onto her ass.
She hit the tile floor with a painful thud, cringing at how much of a dumbass she just made of herself in the middle of a damn Walmart.
"You okay?" Lyra turned around, offering her hand out immediately.
"Yeah... I'm just... I wasn't paying attention..." She mumbled, hiding her face behind the hair that fell out from behind her ears.
"Okay..." Lyra laughed back, a hint of curiosity in her tone.
Ki hesitantly took the hand that was outstretched to her and pulled herself up quickly.
"Thanks." She whispered, letting go of Lyra's hand.
She felt a little strange as she let it go. It's almost as if she wanted to keep ahold of it for just a few seconds longer. Ki wanted to feel her pulse against her fingers, and wondered if maybe hers was beating at the same rate. She wanted to feel her skin again, and the soft ways it lifted her up off the floor.
Ki pushed all these thoughts away as Lyra started walking down a different aisle.
There was no way she was thinking about this as hard as Ki was.
————————
bitch #1 👿
four minutes left losers
delivered:
shut ur fuck acacia
lyra 💫
you get her ki
bitch #1 👿
wow you guys are really showing that team spirit
kat ganderway
I know who I'm drawing on tonight
lyra 💫
you're doing what
kat ganderway
nothing ;)
delivered:
don't you touch me
delivered:
there's a chance you might get hurt
kat ganderway
haha yeah yeah heard it all before
bitch #1 👿
okay just this once I would take Ki seriously. she punched me in the face once because I slammed her locker when she wasn't expecting it
bitch #1 👿
it's okay tho I'm used to it
delivered:
I'm sorry okay. I just... It's a habit
hana garrett
a habit to punch people in the face?!
delivered:
it's hard to explain
delivered:
just don't touch me
kat ganderway
noted
———————
"We have ten you guys lost big time!" Kat yelled as she held up her phone in her hand, running across the parking lot.
"Well..." Ki whispered, leaning over towards Lyra who was leaning against the van. "What now?"
"Shit." Lyra sighed in defeat. "We knew they were gonna win."
"To be honest... yeah."
"Are we accepting defeat?"
"I've got ten bucks." Ki frowned.
"Guess were going to McDonalds then." Lyra sighed as the other team ran up to the van with their victorious grins on.
"Did you even get five?" Hana teased.
"Pssh. Yes... we got eight." Lyra gave a mocking grin.
"Eight?" Acacia laughed. "With Katashi on your team? Were you even trying?!"
"Not really, no." Ki responded with a sarcastic smile.
"Come on guys." Kat rolled her eyes. "You didn't even try?"
"Yes we did, Ki was just scared of the pedophiles." Lyra said throwing out a side glare at Ki.
"Oh shut the fuck up, that was only one time."
"Whaaaaat?! Come on Ki, who cares about safety these days?" Acacia mocked her.
"You are all pieces of shit and I hate you." Ki grumbled, starting her walk to the passenger side door.
"So what's for dinner guys?" Hana said branching her arms over her two smaller teammates.
"Hmmm I don't know I kinda feel like..." Kat started, before Ki interrupted.
"You're getting McDonald's."