Chapter 5:
After Buffy and William’s little chat in bed that one night, things pretty much went back to normal around the household. Buffy was happy that her temporary insane trip was indeed what it was—temporary. She decided to stop over analyzing every little aspect of her and William’s life and just be herself. After all, William didn’t seem to have a problem with the way their lives were running, so why should she worry?
As the end of June went by and the beginning of July started, Buffy already had enough distractions to keep her mind from wonder. It was getting close to that time of year where chaos was not rare in the Pratt home. For the Fourth of July, Buffy and William always played hostess to a BBQ for a bunch of family, friends, and neighbors. The party was always a success, but also tons of work. It didn’t help that Sarah and Matthew’s sleep away camp was scheduled to start the day after the 4th of July. Buffy’s items on her shopping list was at its all time high, after buying hamburgers and hot dogs she had to remember not to forget sunscreen lotion and a first aid kit.
Buffy had to admit, it would have helped if it wasn’t Sarah’s first time leaving home for an extensive period of time. With Matthew, when it was his first time away at camp, Buffy called the camp more than her son called home. After the third day, the overstressed mother finally got the point to relax once she talked with Matthew and got the third degree that she was embarrassing him in front of all the other kids when he kept getting called away from activities to speak with his mother. Buffy learned the hard way that her son was resourceful and can adjust to any kind of environment. However, he was a boy…and boys were a little bit different from girls. So, once again Buffy was an overstressed mother when packing her little girl way for camp.
“Buffy, she doesn’t need this much shampoo.” William mentioned as he looked inside the tiny pink duffel bag and pulled out two bottles of L’Oreal. “The camp says they will provide the kids with toiletries.”
“I am going to give them shampoo William…” Buffy argued, “Matt takes it every year and I’m giving it to her. I mean, we have no clue what their shampoo is made of…could be just hand soap and water thrown together in a bottle.”
“Whatever happened to the term ‘roughing it’?”
Buffy shoved the shampoo bottles back in the zipped baggy so they would explode on Sarah’s clothes, and put it back inside the duffel. “That term is outdated” she muttered.
“Hardly….they will have to learn to live without the comfort of their own things sometime, love. Might as well be sooner than the later.” William pointed out.
“….fine….we can do that….” Buffy continued to fold tiny pink underwear and little socks coming out of the laundry basket and stuff them inside the duffel. “Next year….”
William rolled his eyes while his back was turned from his wife.
“She’s a girl, William. Packing a suitcase is always going to be this way; unnecessary shoes and dresses will forever be our fault.”
“If you know it’s a fault already, why don’t you fix it?” he asked.
“Like I said, we’re girls…packing is our one fault that we can admit to…we don’t change it, we work around it.”
“It’s funny, our little queen world traveler isn’t up here packing herself…how do we know it’s not you instead of all girls?”
Buffy turned around and put her hands on her hips, facing his smirking face. “Don’t you need to clean the grill?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Mommy do you want a cookie?”
Around the island in the kitchen, Buffy’s mother, Matthew, Anya, and Sarah were decorating the desserts for the party tomorrow. It was crunch time on getting things done and Buffy and William needed every hand they could find to help out, including the very small.
“Sarah, no eating cookies, those are for tomorrow…mom, your making sure they don’t eat them right?” Buffy looked glanced over at Joyce and noticed she looked like a guilty grandmother.
“I figured one wouldn’t hurt.” Joyce shrugged.
“You let them have two.” Anya said as she licked a spoon full of blue frosting.
“Tattle.” Joyce scowled Buffy’s friend.
“Mommmmm….” Buffy whined as she grabbed a paper towel with water on it and started to clean up Sarah’s sticky hands, “You’re going to spoil their dinner.”
“No she won’t.” Matthew argued as he licked the sticky hands.
“Okay, okay, okay…everyone who hasn’t completed the second grade is to report outside in the yard to bug their father.” Buffy leaned over to peek outside the sliding glass door to see William scrapping the grease off the grill. She gave an evil smirk when she thought about the torture he’ll receive in about five seconds from two sugar addicted kids.
The two giggling children raced outside, Sarah calling her fathers name while Matthew went straight for his soccer ball.
“Oh Buffy, you didn’t have to send them off…they were fine, plus William’s busy.” Joyce comment as she went back to frosting the flag cake.
“Oh don’t worry about him…he had it coming.” Buffy smirked when she thought about him trying to be smart with her earlier about her packing techniques.
“How long do I have to keep making these?” Anya sighed, as she sat down a cookie on a plate.
“Well how many did you make?”
“I don’t know…we lost count.” Anya shrugged.
“Who was keeping count?” Buffy asked as she check on the decorative designs Anya was creating on the cookies.
“Sarah…she counted up till…well, how far can she count up to?” Anya asked.
“Please don’t tell me you guys made over a hundred cookies.” Buffy pleaded.
“Okay, we won’t….” Anya shrugged.
Buffy rolled her eyes, “Where are the rest?”
“Dining room dear.” Joyce said.
“Mom, I told you to keep an eye on her.”
“I was!”
“Not Sarah, her!” Buffy pointed to Anya who was licking the spoon, not caring that she was just insulted.
*~*~*~*~~
“What are we looking for again?” Anya asked while she sat on the second to last step on the basement stairs.
“Well, I’M looking for tiki torches that you place outside.” Buffy said as she searched through a box that had shovels, hoes, racks, and other gardening tools, “I’m unsure what you’re doing...oww.”
“You alright?” Despite Buffy’s cry in pain Anya didn’t move from her spot, nor flinch in concern.
“Stupid hoe…has sharp edges.” Buffy complained.
“Bleeding?”
“Nah…just scratch…no tetanus shot for me.”
“So, how’s kinkytown?” Anya asked as she dug under her nails to remove some dirt, or maybe it was a chocolate…she wasn’t sure.
“Kinky what?” Buffy panted after she pushed a heavy box to the side.
“You know, you and William…bringing sexy back and everything.”
“Anya!” Buffy scowled, “Shh!”
“Oh no one can hear us down here!” Anya waved it off, “I scream orgasm until I lose my voice and your mom still wouldn’t hear. You got good constructed walls.”
“I hope so…you’re husband helped built this house.” Buffy laughed.
“I told him to make them super thick for your late night activities.” Anya smiled.
“You what?” Buffy turned around a bit too fast because she found herself landing on top of a dusty old box.
“Kidding, kidding…” Anya waved as she walked toward William’s old pool table in the corner. However, when her back was turned from her friend she had the guilty look of admitting she did tell her husband to make the walls super thick for that specific reason.
Anya pulled out the eight ball from the one of the pockets and started rolling back and forth on top of the table top.
“How come you guys don’t play pool anymore?”
“I sucked at it pretty much.” Buffy laughed.
“And William?”
“He was good…real good; won a lot of date money playing...got to go to a lot nice restaurants thanks to that.”
“So he stopped because….?”
“I don’t know. No one wanted to play with him after his band split up…Xander wasn’t any good…”
“Xander’s good!” Anya defender her husband.
“I meant at playing pool.” Buffy turned around and said, “Not in bed.”
“Xander’s good at everything.” Anya pouted.
“Say that to him and you’re golden.” Buffy pointed her finger at her friend.
“Already am.” Anya stuck out her tongue and wiggled it at her friend. Buffy laughed.
“Are you going to help me?”
Anya sighed, “Do I have to?”
“No…I’m not going to force you.” Buffy shook her head at her friend’s unwillingness to help. She froze when she thought up an idea, “I’ll give you five bucks if you find them.”
“I’m on it.”
*~*~*~*~*
“Hey, look at this!” Anya called out from the corner of the basement.
Buffy picked up a box that held the outdoor Christmas lights and sat it aside. Her basement was more of a mess than when she first came down. She turned when Anya picked up a big box and started to carry it toward her.
“The tiki torches wouldn’t be in there…they would be loose.” Buffy shook her head at what Anya found.
“Forget about that for a second. I found something that I’M even interesting in…” Anya smirked.
“What?”
Anya sat the box in front of Buffy’s feet so she could read what William wrote in black permanent marker.
‘Spike’s Things’
TBC…