chapter 10: fawn's heart

~fawn~

       I set my homemade potato salad on one of the tables designated for food anyone is bringing to the summer potluck. We've had quite a few people sign up to play baseball, so I won't be surprised if we get an abundance of food.

       Though having more than enough food is never a problem. If someone didn't want to bring home their leftovers, I always offer to take it then donate it to a homeless shelter or women's shelter. They're always grateful to get any type of donation, and it's definitely better donating the food than throwing it out.

       Aunt Cecelia organizes the food on the table, making sure people will be able to find whether something is vegan, gluten free, or any other dietary restrictions. The point of the summer potluck is to make sure everyone is included. It would kind of be hard to include people if we don't offer all types of food.

       "Were there a lot of people that signed up for the game?" Aunt Cecelia asks.

       I nod. "There's enough for six older teams and two younger teams. I figured that if the kids want to play more than one game, we can switch the teams around so it's different each time."

       "Well, I hope everyone has fun. There's no way my knees will allow me to play, so I'll be cheering you on from the sidelines."

       I smile at the memory of the last summer potluck we had where the sport we played was flag football. Aunt Cecelia and Uncle Winston are a bit too old to be playing sports, so they settle with watching the games. And I will admit, they are a bit biased when it comes for the team they root for. As long as I'm on the team, they'll want it to win. 

       Not that I have a problem with it. 

       People slowly trickle to the baseball field, setting their food on the tables if they brought something to the potluck. I help Aunt Cecelia organize the food before she tells me to rest up since I'll be playing the first game of the day. I try to tell her that organizing food isn't taking up that much energy, but she won't listen.

       She likes it when I help out but other times, she would rather me rest because according to her, I help out a bit too much.

       It's not my fault. Aunt Cecelia and Uncle Winston have done so much for me. I need to repay them back somehow.

       She keeps shooing me away so eventually, I choose to sit down on one of the bleachers to relax, even though I definitely don't need it.

       I look around to see who has arrived here. I end up spotting Marius who's looking a it out of place so the moment he sees me, I wave him over. He hesitates before he walks over and sits down beside me. I don't blame him for feeling out of place. The town has always been so close-knit, and he's the first person that has moved here after five years.

       Not including me since I used to visit Aunt Cecelia and Uncle Winston all the time before moving here. I wasn't exactly a stranger to Port Orthos.

       "Just a heads up, Ellie's on your team," I say. "She's the woman over there." I point over to where Ellie and Alyssa are having a conversation. "The non-pregnant one, of course. She can be very intense when you're on the same team as her. You might have to be prepared for a lot of yelling and bossing around."

       "I can probably handle it," Marius says. "When I did little league, I had the worst teammate you can ever have. Getting mad at his teammates for stuff we couldn't control, swearing at us, calling us names. Keep in mind, this was little league. I was probably around ten?"

       "Ah, good, so you'll probably be immune to Ellie's comments," I say. "Normally her wife can get her to chill out, but she's pregnant and can't play. It's harder for her to chill Ellie out when she's on the field." I pat Marius's shoulder. "I wish you all the luck."

       As it turns out, Marius truly can handle Ellie's comments during the game. Kind of. My team is playing against his, and I can tell he's getting the slightest bit annoyed whenever Ellie calls someone on her team 'more useless than a bag of peanut shells'.

       At least it's not as vulgar as her insults last year. She's probably taming her insults since there are a lot of kids here this time as opposed to the last summer potluck. 

       That, or Alyssa is bribing her in some way. Yeah, that one is definitely more believable than Ellie being considerate of other people's kids. She's great with kids, don't get me wrong, but she also doesn't believe that they should be sheltered by vulgar words.

       To make sure the games don't go on for too long, there are only going to be four innings. There are a few games that are going to be played, so we want to make sure everyone gets to play without the potluck dragging on too long.

       By the time we come to the bottom of the fourth inning, the score is tied. Unfortunately, the opposing team is the one at bat, so if they score even once, they win. I'm not entirely competitive, so I won't care if I lose.

       Ellie, on the other hand, is very competitive and will rub it in our faces if her team wins. They have two outs, so we just have to get them one more time and the game will end with a tie. 

       Marius is currently at third base, waiting to be able to run home. I'm acting as the catcher, so it will be up to me to get him out. Brent is at bat and hits the ball once it's pitched. Kevin almost catches it, but he fumbles it so it doesn't count as an out. He's quick to recover and and throws it to me so we can at least try getting Marius out.

       I catch the ball, but I'm not sure if I'm able to get Marius out in time since the two of us end up crashing into each other. We fall to the ground with Marius on top of me.

       "Out!" the umpire calls, causing both my team and the audience watching to cheer.

       Marius doesn't move to get off of me. Instead, he's just looking at me. "Your eyes," he eventually says.

       "Yes, I have eyes," I say. "Good observation."

       "N-No," Marius says. "One's blue and the other is green."

       "Yes, that's called heterochromia."

       "It's beautiful."

       My heart starts to beat rapidly, no matter how much I tell it not to. "O-Oh. Thank you."

       "Hey, lovebirds!" Ellie suddenly calls. "Are you going to get up or are you going to lie there forever?! We've got to get the next game started!"

       Marius quickly gets up and helps me up as well. "Sorry."

       "It's okay," I say. When Marius isn't looking, I glare at Ellie, but she just smiles innocently. Some best friend.

____________________

fawn: i have heterophobia
marius: you mean heterochromia?
fawn: that too

anyway if you would like to read these two as a cute lovey dovey couple but you're impatient (like me), you can read my christmas book this year called silent night, snowy night. fawn and marius are already dating in it hehe. (there won't be any spoilers on how that happened though, don't worry)

it was hard writing this because i wrote a chapter of them being in love, and now they're not :(