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“Parrish. Parrish. Parrish.”
This chant was accompanied by an apparent attempt to roll him out of bed. Adam rolled over on his own accord to escape the onslaught, but it followed him.
“What.”
“You said you wanted to learn my family’s holiday traditions.” Ronan stopped long enough to give this non-explanation, then changed tactics to grabbing Adam’s arm and pulling.
“Well, right now I want to sleep.” Adam tugged futilely at his captive arm. “Can it not wait an hour?”
“You misunderstand, this is a holiday tradition.” Adam managed to reclaim his arm for a second, but Ronan snatched it right back. “Last person left in bed gets forcibly removed by everyone else.”
“That’s a shit tradition,” Adam protested. “How many shoulders have you dislocated doing this?”
“Just one,” Ronan said, as though it were an acceptable number of casualties. It probably was, for the Lynch brothers; none of them did anything halfway. “It was the year Declan turned 13. He was a moody-ass teenager who never wanted to get out of bed.”
“I’m sure the injury improved his mood. Let go, I’m getting up.”
“That’s not how it works,” Ronan protested, though he let go anyway. “You’re supposed to resist until you’re overcome by my superior forces.”
“You should’ve brought backup forces, then,” Adam grumbled. “At least let me get breakfast before you initiate me into any more traditions.”
“Sure thing,” Ronan agreed, suspiciously easily. “I already made breakfast.”
Despite how Ronan sounded, there was nothing suspicious about breakfast that Adam could see. He did rush Adam into clothes and boots and outerwear right after breakfast, but that wasn’t suspicious, it was just Ronan.
Ronan marched them out to the toolshed and armed himself and Adam with hatchets. “It’s greenery time,” he announced.
Adam squinted at his hatchet. “If you want another tree, this is an inefficient way to cut it.”
“Not trees,” Ronan scoffed, “Greenery. You know, boughs and garlands and shit.”
So they tromped out to the forested area at the back of the Lynch property. Adam observed for a while, until he worked out Ronan’s criteria for “greenery”: long, pliable evergreen branches that could easily be woven through the bannisters, or wherever it was that needed to be garlanded.
They soon had a pile of tree limbs. Ronan sorted through until he found two long branches and handed one to Adam.
“En garde, Parrish,” he said, flourishing his branch in mimicry of a fencing stance.
Adam lifted his own branch more slowly. “Let me guess, this is a game you play with your brothers for an excuse to whack each other?”
“Don’t you know shit about fencing?” Ronan asked. Rhetorically, Adam assumed. “You don’t whack, you just tap.” He demonstrated by poking the tip of his branch into Adam’s chest. “Whacking is reserved for longsword fighting, which is only done with sticks from the scrap lumber pile.”
“Right, because that sounds safer.”
“Are we having safety or fun? Come on.” Ronan whipped the branch back and forth. Adam brought his up to meet it.
They parried back and forth until Adam got in a third consecutive tap and Ronan threw down his branch in mock disgust.
“You do know about fencing, don’t you?” Ronan accused. “You’ve been practicing in secret so you can beat us all.”
“Yeah, that sounds like me,” Adam said sarcastically.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Ronan responded seriously.
Adam thought they would transport the greenery inside and commence decorating with it, but he should have known their activities wouldn’t be that linear with Ronan in charge. When they reached the line of hay bales along the pasture fence, Ronan dropped his bundle on the ground and strode purposefully to the end bale.
“Too heavy for you, farm boy?” Adam asked.
“I remembered another game,” Ronan said, ignoring the jab. “Come on.”
“You have a holiday tradition involving hay bales?” Despite Adam’s dubiousness, he set his branches on the ground next to Ronan’s. He knew they wouldn’t make any more progress towards the house until he cooperated with...climbing the hay bales, apparently.
“Not holiday, specifically,” Ronan admitted from where he now stood on top of the bale. “It’s a good game though.”
Adam sighed and made his way up the hay bale. He was tall enough that he only had to grab the twine at the top of the bale and jam a foot into the hay layers halfway up in order to pull himself to the top. A small boy, though, would have needed multiple steps on the hay “ladder” to make it up. He suspected the climbing used to be a game in itself for the Lynch brothers.
“Ok, I’m up. What’s the game?”
Hay bale races,” Ronan declared enthusiastically.
Adam made a considering noise. The hay bales were certainly lined up close enough to easily run down the whole line, but-- “Wouldn’t it be easier to time the other person from the ground?”
“No, that’s a fucking time trial .” Ronan put all his considerable disdain into the term. “We’re having a race .”
Adam sized up the hay bales again. “No. No way is there room for all three of you to have run side by side.”
“Well, two,” Ronan said nonchalantly. “Matthew was too little to keep up. He usually fell down a gap between bales.” At Adam’s aghast look, he protested, “He was fine! He just bounced off the bales and climbed right back up.”
“Riiiiiight,” Adam drawled. “So what you’re saying is, there’s barely room for two little boys, but you think there’s somehow room for two grown adults.”
“Fine,” Ronan huffed, “We’ll do this game instead then.” He grabbed Adam by the waist and maneuvered them both until they stood facing each other very close together, with their backs to the rounded sides of the hay bale. “First one to knock the other off wins. Ready, set--”
“ No,” Adam interjected, though he was tempted to use one of several dirty tricks he could think of that would most likely result in an immediate win. “Neither of us needs a concussion or a broken bone or whatever other injuries you can get from flying off a hay bale.”
“Hay burn,” Ronan offered helpfully. At Adam’s questioning look, he clarified, “Like rug burn, but with hay.”
“Sounds unpleasant. I’m getting down.”
“Fine, we can go do boring adult shit if you at least slide down the hay bale with me,” Ronan bargained.
It didn’t look like there was much sliding to be done before their feet hit the ground. “Fine.”
They were finishing lunch when Ronan announced, “Good news!” In a tone that suggested Adam might have a different opinion about the news.
Adam quirked an eyebrow at him.
“I remembered about playing chicken,” Ronan explained.
Adam at least recognized this as a game, but that was the only thing it had going for it. “Like in the highway? No wait, let me guess, one person drives down the driveway and the others stand in the driveway as long as possible.”
“That would be a great game,” Ronan approved, “We should play it with Declan’s car. But I meant like actual chicken chicken.”
“Tell me you’re not setting up a ‘why did the chicken cross the road’ joke.”
“It’s a real game!” Ronan protested. “We go to the chicken pens and annoy the roosters.”
Adam considered what he’d learned about Lynch family “games” so far. “And the winner is the person who avoids rooster attack the longest?”
“Where’s the fun in that? The winner is the first to get attacked.”
“And the prize is puncture wounds from an angry rooster? I fail to see any motivation to win this game.”
Before Ronan could respond, Adam added, “ Also let me remind you that your roosters have cowboy spurs because, and I quote, ‘I forgot what rooster spurs look like and anyway they look more badass like this.’”
“God, you’re such a killjoy,” Ronan grumbled, mostly in jest. “We can wear the tall mud boots. All the joy of rooster attacks and none of the chance of injury.”
Adam still didn’t get the joy part of this game, but he supposed they needed to feed the chickens anyway.
Declan’s Volvo parked just as they entered the chicken pen, and since the pen was close to the house, Matthew spotted them immediately. They headed over.
Declan leaned on the gate and took in their boots, and the sticks Ronan had brought along to poke at roosters, and the butter-wouldn’t-melt expression on Ronan’s face. He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”
“Good to see you too,” Ronan replied innocently. “Don’t feel left out, your mud boots are on the porch.”
“I’m bringing our luggage in,” Declan said. “No ER trips allowed.”
“I wanna play!” Matthew cried.
As Matthew dashed and Declan stalked towards the house, Ronan yelled after them, “And Parrish had a great idea for a different game of chicken we should play later!”