Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Stella beamed at her grandson. “Shall we start with the older couples and work our way down?”
“Kaylee and I will go first,” Ty said as he took his wife’s hand. They entered the area that had been made into a small pen with panels set up in a large circle. I was assuming it was so the balloons would stay in that area.
“Okay, there are fifty balloons. You have one minute to try and pop as many as possible!” Stella said as she held up a stopwatch. “On your marks, get set, go!”
Ty and Kaylee started stomping on the balloon, but each one kept slipping from under their feet. They ended up laughing more than anything. In the end, they had only popped seventeen balloons, but they both wore huge smiles on their faces.
Stella used a blower to blow the balloons out of the makeshift corral. Then the kids all started playing with the balloons.
Ty brought another bag in and dumped the balloons out.
“Goodness, who blew up all of these balloons?” I asked Nate.
“If I know my grandmother, she has a machine she used to do it.”
“You guys take game nights seriously, don’t you?”
Nate looked at me and laughed. “We do.”
The next couple was Brock and Lincoln. They had popped twenty-five. Tanner and Timberlynn were next. Timberlynn was laughing so hard that she started to do the pee-pee dance and declared she was about to pee her pants, to which her granddaughter Maggie said, “Do you need a big girl diaper, Grammy?”
Blayze and Georgiana were next. They argued for the first twenty seconds about how to pop the balloons and only got ten.
Morgan and Ryan got thirty-one, the highest yet. Rose and Bryson sat out the game, as did Avery and Beck.
Kipton and Hunter tried to beat Morgan and Ryan but only tied them.
When it was Lily and Maverick’s turn, they smiled and declared they would be the winners. They were nowhere close to being winners, with only nine balloons popped since they were both laughing too hard to even try.
All eyes turned to Bradley and Mackenzie. When her face turned bright red, and she shook her head, Merit, Bradley’s mother, gasped. That caused Lincoln and Timberlynn to do the same.
“What’s happening?” I asked Lily.
“Mackenzie is pregnant.”
“What?” I asked. “How do you know?”
“How far along are you?” Merit asked.
Bradley took Mackenzie’s hand in his. “Fifteen weeks,” Mackenzie softly said. “I’m due March 19th.”
Cheers erupted as everyone waited patiently to congratulate the happy couple. I’d met Mackenzie often over the last few years. She helped run the you-pick-it farm that Merit and her brother Michael owned. Once the congratulations were over, Josh and Sophia stepped into the corral. They ended up getting thirty-six.”
My mother and Stella went next. They spent more time on the ground laughing than anything, which in turn had everyone else laughing.
“Last but certainly not least, Nate and Haven.”
Nate took my hand and pulled me into the corral. He bent his head so only I could hear him. “Okay, we need to play this differently.”
“How so?” I asked.
“We need to sit on them.”
My head lifted, and I looked at Nate and grinned. “You’re brilliant.”
He nodded. “I know.”
With a roll of my eyes, I pushed him away. “You take that side, and I’ll get this side.”
“No amount of planning is going to help you!” Josh cried out. “You can’t beat thirty-six.”
Nate scoffed and said, “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars we can!”
“You kids ready?” Stella asked.
“Let’s do this!” I said, jumping in place and cracking my neck. Nate looked at me and laughed.
Once Stella said go, I dropped to my ass and started sitting on as many of the orange balloons as I could. Pop! Pop! Pop! It was one balloon after another. I could hear cheers coming from all around me. I didn’t dare look at Nate, but from what I could hear, he was popping as many balloons as I was.
“Ten seconds!” Stella called out over the balloons popping. When the whistle blew, I fell back and stared at the sky. I had long since shed my jacket because all the running, jumping, and cheering had overheated me. I rolled to my side and moaned.
“There are only five balloons left!” Tanner called out. “That is forty-five balloons! Nate and Haven are the winners!”
Nate stood over me, a wide grin across his handsome face. “We won.”
I nodded. “I think I broke my tailbone. All that dog walking didn’t prepare me for this battle.”
Nate chuckled and reached down to help me up. When I stood, I winced. “Okay, maybe it’s just a bruise.”
Moving his mouth to my ear, he whispered, “I’ll massage your battered body tonight.”
My lower stomach instantly tightened with the images that popped into my mind. “I would like that.”
He moved his mouth and kissed my forehead. “You’re a trooper. Thank you for doing all of this.”