Page 102 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

While Pen started mixing lemon drops, I walked back into the kitchen to cut the cake and bring out a tray with forks and a server. Then, just for extra incentive to get my friend to open up to me, I rummaged around the cupboard until I found the Hershey’s chocolate bars, graham crackers, and jumbo marshmallows. S’mores workedalmostas well as lemon drops. The two of them together? No can defend.

Now we were only missing Sierra. She stayed in her room despite Pen calling for her three times. Okay, time for reinforcements.

I held out my hand. “Pen, lemon drop—stat.” While she poured the drink, I found a stick off of the patio and charred the end of it to sanitize it, then I impaled a fat marshmallow on the tip and heated it to burnt perfection. We didn’t mess around with those lightly browned, slightly melted abominations. Pen, Sierra, and I understood to make the perfect s’more, you had to suffer. I’m talking charcoal on the outside and white molten lava on the inside. Cracker. Chocolate square. Mouth-cauterizing sugar and the top cracker.Thatwas how you made a s’more.

Then Pen and I set off to ambush our best friend. Sierra sat at the end of her bed, staring out the window at the starrynight. We knew she wouldn’t open up yet. The lemon drop peace offering was only the first step. Sierra was no lightweight. We had to play the long game. Pen handed her the drink.

“Thanks,” she said, sniffing it first, as if she didn’t know right away what we brought her.

“What?” Pen asked. “Do you think we poisoned it?”

Sierra laughed, shaking her head, and then she took a sip. “But I know what you guys are doing and it won’t work.”

“What we’re doing?” Pen asked innocently. “You mean, trying to get you downstairs to sit with us around the campfire?”

Si raised her eyebrow, puckering in her way of expressingbullshit.

“Look, Si…” I held up the plate of molten goodness and her eyes grew huge. Called it. Sierra Winthrop never could resist a homemade s’more. She reached for it, but I it just out of her reach. “Nuh-uh…” Then I sniffed the treat and made an overexaggerated moaning noise. The classy woman holding a lemon drop in her lap, growled at me. “If you want it, Si, then you have to join the campfire festivities.”

“Is Pete there?” she asked.

“Yes,” Pen answered. “But so is Ant and Blake. They’ll keep him occupied.”

“I don’t know…” she started and no. She didn’t get toI don’t know.

I waved the plate with the s’more under her nose. “Come on, Si. It’s cooling off… you know you want it.”

She tried to grab the plate from my hand, but I was too quick. “If you want it, you know what you have to do.” I waved the plate again. “The power of the s’more compels you!” I shouted and both she and Pen busted a gut laughing. Whatever worked, right?

“Fine,” she reluctantly said as she stood from the bed clutching her drink, then she snatched the plate from my hand. “But I’m not talking.”

“About what?” Pen asked, still laughing. At least this way, we’d get her downstairs to ply her with alcohol. The drunker she got, the more she’d glare at Pete. And the more she glared at Pete, the more she’d spill. It was one of our more brilliantly evil plans, if I do say so myself.

A reluctant Sierra dragged her feet down the stairs and dragged them even slower out to the back yard. To their credit, the men hardly glanced her way and I knew it took everything in them not to. Especially for Pete. He wanted Sierra like a bear yearned for honey.

We offered her the chair farthest away from Pete and she sat, then took a huge bite of s’more in. “It’s cold,” she whined through her mouthful of food.

“Okay, give it here.” I made the mistake of trying to take it away. Sierra snapped her teeth at my hand. “Right, I’ll just make you another. Drink up.”

Penelope lifted the glass to Sierra’s lips by pushing up on the bottom of the glass. While Si sipped, I made her another s’more. Then I made one a piece for me and Pen. But then the men looked like they could use a s’more about now too, so I made one for each of them.

As I handed them out, I got a kiss from Blake, a “Thank you” from Ant, and probably a “Thanks” from Pete, but I couldn’t hear over Sierra saying, “He’s the enemy!”

Uh, the enemy? Since when was sweet, sexy Pete Rutherford the enemy? Pen fixed Si another drink. And then another. And then another. Boy, that woman could be stubborn when she wanted to be. Pen and I needed answers.

“And that’s another thing…” Sierra slurred, as if she’d been having a conversation in her head and just decided to let us joinin on it, too. “What gives him the right?” she asked us earnestly, but I had no clue how to answer. And then, just like that, Sierra slumped in her seat and started snoring.

“Uh… I think you went a little heavy-handed with the vodka,” I said.

“It could’ve been the triple sec,” she replied, and when I shook my head, she dropped her face in her hands. “I like the flavor.”

Okay, so Operation Get-Sierra-Drunk-and-Get-Her-to-Spill-All-the-Juicy-Gossip was not only a mouthful, but officially a bust. I was more than ready to try for a Plan B and a Plan C, D, and E if necessary. I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. I wasn’t that creative.

As I watched my friend sleep off her drunken stupor, she just looked so uncomfortable, I decided to walk her to bed. I set her empty glass down on the cement next to her chair then wrapped my good arm around her waist to lift her up into a standing position. I still had to take it easy with the collarbone. Pen, Blake, Ant, and even Pete stood to help me, but I waved them away. I could take care of her. And I thought maybe she wouldn’t like witnesses should she say, puke on the way up or something. Did I relish the thought of cleaning up her puke? Nope. Would I do it for her? Absolutely.

“I got this. Could you make me a drink, though, Pen? I’ll need it when I get back.”

I learned way back in high school that Sierra could walk on command. Whether drunk or asleep, she’d pick up her feet for me. It made helping her out of parties easier on my back and knees. As a scholarship kid, I couldn’t risk getting busted for underage drinking or anything like that, which left me the job of DD. And, you know, the people closest to me in the world got home safe.

---