By then, Bobbie Jo had gone into the office and then come back with a bunch of balloons that had been reduced from eight. They had popped a balloon at five o’clock when the party started and were planning to do so every hour until midnight.
Tarr had attended fancy balls, and award ceremonies, and galas, but he much preferred this small-town brand of fun to anything he’d done in Las Vegas or Calgary or San Antonio.
“Momma, it’s your turn to pop,” Bobbie Jo said.
Her mother sighed, as if Bobbie Jo had told her she had to go outside and stand in the snow for fifteen minutes. She set her knitting on the arm of the chair and stood with a groan. “Oh, all right,” she said. “How do I do that?”
Bobbie Jo held out a big crochet pin used to hold down blankets to foam pads. It was metal and a couple inches long and shaped like a T, so that someone could actually hold it.
Tarr had not popped a balloon yet, as Tucker had done the five o’clock, Alex the six, and Bobbie Jo the seven. He had no idea what the order was, but he figured Bobbie Jo’s parents would be next, so they could go to bed any time after nine PM.
“Any balloon, Momma,” Bobbie Jo said, grinning at her like the woman had never annoyed her in her life. Tarr admired someone who could hide their emotions and feelings like that, because he really couldn’t.
Her mother fretted about which balloon to pop, and just as Bobbie Jo exchanged a glance with Tuck, she selected a lavender one and jabbed the pin at it. It popped with a loud noise, of course, and her mother shrieked and jumped back. Confetti fell out of the balloon, and Bobbie Jo caught some of it in her hand.
“It’s orange and yellow,” she said, turning back to Briar.
She held a laminated card in her hand, and she scanned it for a moment. “Orange and yellow are the Peach-O Rings for our hourly snack, and it’s game hour.” She made it sound like a grand thing, and Tarr grinned at her, because he knew that she did not enjoy board games. They’d played cards when the power was out, but he couldn’t get her to do much more than that.
“All right,” Tuck said. “We’ve got lots of two-player games here, like Connect Four, and Tarr and I know lots of card games that just take a couple people.”
“We’ve also got Pass the Pigs,” Bobbie Jo said. “It’s one of my favorites. And Tuck just put a pool table in the front living room to make it a game room.”
“We also have video games in the theater room downstairs,” Tuck said. “And we can put a movie on after that if anyone wants to go down there.”
“We also have real food ready,” Bobbie Jo said. “Tuck just needs to bring in the smoked meats, and I’ve got scalloped potatoes, vegetable beef soup, hot rolls, and grilled asparagus to go with it.”
“And the Peach-O Rings are right here,” Briar said, indicating a big bowl on the end of the counter. Their seven o’clock snack had been chocolate-covered pretzels, and a bowl of those still sat there as well, along with the peanut M&M’s from their six o’clock balloon pop and their party-opening bowl of caramel popcorn.
Tarr loved to eat, and he left Briar to claim a spot for them at the dining room table with their mugs of hot chocolate while he went to get their food. Deacon and Alex started a game of Connect Four, but as soon as Tarr finished eating, he made eye contact with Briar and said, “You want to try a video game in the theater room?”
He didn’t think for one moment Tuck or Bobbie Jo would leave their party and go into the basement. Nor would her parents. Alex and Deacon might come down, but Tarr was hoping he could enjoy some time alone with Briar if he snuck away under the pretense of playing video games in the theater room.
“You go get it started,” she said. “And I’ll help Bobbie Jo clean up a little bit.” She was always hyper-aware of that, and Tarr didn’t want to argue, so he left her to do that.
He did go downstairs, the noise of the chatter and games fading into blissful silence. He turned on the game machine and navigated with the controller to some of the mini-games that he and Briar could play, just in case anyone else came downstairs.
It took Briar fifteen minutes to join him, and she also made no pretenses about playing a video game. She simply climbed into the same luxury lounger as him, tucking her shoulder under his arm and draping her arm across his waist.
“This was a great idea, cowboy,” she said. “Maybe if we take a mini-nap, we’ll actually make it until midnight.”
“You think I brought you down here so you could have a mini-nap?”
Briar giggled. “Mister Olson,” she chastised. “Why else would you bring me down here?”
Tarr chuckled with her and smoothed the ends of her hair down over her bicep. “When I was younger, my mom and daddy always made us set goals for the year on New Year’s Eve.”
“Oh, yeah?” she asked. “And what would childhood Tarr set a goal for?”
“It was usually some sort of weightlifting goal,” he said. “An increased weight or a faster time in the sprint or, you know, to get one-hundred percent on my times tables. Stuff like that.” He smiled just thinking about it. “I gave up doing it when I left home, because I thought it was kind of stupid.”
“Do you want to set some goals for this year?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He closed his eyes and enjoyed being in the moment with Briar. “What would they be? Train five horses? My life is pretty simple.”
“You can still have meaningful goals,” Briar said.
“What would one of yours be?”
