Page 92 of Ardently Yours

“I also know how to cook corn on the cob with a campfire. And afterward, we can play games and make s’mores. Those are melted chocolate and marshmallows on graham crackers.”

Henry bravely stiffens his spine. “I’ll try it."

Groove Is in the Heart

Arden

Charlotte hauls an ugly,avocado-green plastic basket full of square beanbags off the porch and comes to stand about thirty feet from a wooden board on the lawn. It looks like a short ramp with a single hole at the end.

“Cornhole,” Charlotte intones to her enraptured audience, indicating the wooden ramp with a sweeping hand. “Sometimes there are two boards, but Miller cornhole is always played with one board. The idea is to toss your beanbag into the hole. The distance is set at twenty-seven feet. However, depending on the age of the player, we let them move a little closer, to be fair since they don’t have as long of a reach. Three points are awarded each time you get a beanbag in the hole. One point is awarded if your beanbag lands on the board. Zero points are awarded if your beanbag lands in the grass.”

She gives me a sly look out of the corner of her eye. “Also, if your beanbag lands on the board, but bounces off, falls off, or in any way isdislodgedbefore your bags are tallied, it doesn’t count.”

I smirk because I see exactly where she’s going with this.

She waves the purple beanbag in her hand. “We play to twenty-one points. This is a team sport.”

Since I’m the biggest, train physically every day, and have the obvious advantage, I’ll take it easy on Charlotte. I don’t believe in throwing a game. Ever. Not even when playing against children or women more than half a foot shorter than I am, but I believe in fair play. The two youngest kids should be a reasonable handicap. “We don’t have even numbers. I choose Bronnie and Gabriel for my team.”

Bronnie wraps her arms around my thigh and looks up at me, her eyes shining with pride. “No one ever picked me first. I’m always last.”

Right there and then, I decide. It doesn’t matter what game we’re playing in the future. I’m picking Bronnie first for my team for the rest of her life.

I tug gently on her pigtail. “Are we going to kick butt?”

She steps back and throws those arms and legs again. “Oh, yeah.”

Charlotte looks at Henry with a smile. “It’s you and me, Henry.”

He smiles back at her. The children all had baths after smearing themselves in chocolate, then clambering over sand dunes and kicking around on the shoreline. He’s currently wearing khaki shorts and a long-sleeved white Oxford shirt. He unbuttons the cuffs and meticulously folds them up his forearms.

“One last thing. Smack talk is encouraged and interference is allowed, but you aren’t permitted to physically stop or touch a beanbag once it’s been released with any part of your own body. Tools, however, are permitted,” Charlotte says.

“And you aren’t ’llowed to hurt nobody,” Bronnie adds.

“Exactly,” Charlotte agrees. “Either of those gets you kicked to the sidelines. And what’s rule number one?” she asks Bronnie.

“You have to have fun!” Bronnie says authoritatively.

Does she expect us to play a game where mayhem is not only permitted, but encouraged? What’s the point if there aren’t strict parameters to ensure appropriate sportsmanship? “I don’t believe smack talk and interference are real rules, Charlotte.”

“When you’re playing with a Miller, they’re the only ones that count.” She winks.

I stay where I am as she makes her first toss and shows the kids how it’s done.

Bronnie chants, “Choke, choke, choke!!!”

Despite Bronnie’s directive, Charlotte does no such thing. Her beanbag lands directly in the hole. She swipes a hand over her head in fake slo-mo, shakes it out, then gives Henry a high five.

Henry looks both shocked and delighted by this surprising turn of events. The calculating look he sends my way would be terrifying if it weren’t so funny.

Bronnie goes next. She takes a purple beanbag and makes a running start for the closer line her mother made for her with a jump rope. She throws overhand, even as I yell, “Go, Bronnie! You can do it!”

Her mother yells, “Impossible! It can’t be done!”

Bronnie’s beanbag lands less than an inch from the hole, and she throws both arms in the air. “Point!”

There’s no way.She flailed that thing with zero rhyme or reason. She didn’t even aim. It has to be a lucky shot.

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