Chapter Text
who's the losing frog
“What were you saying?” said Ryan, holding the phone close to Haley’s face, now recording.
“Let’s compete,” she repeated herself.
Ryan couldn’t help but smile at Haley’s words, more so at the tone she said them in. But also at how cute her face looked in the phone camera, all zoomed-in.
“What do you mean?” He took a step back to zoom out.
Haley stayed still, only passing her hands through one of her braids, then looked to the side as if in thought. “It would be fun.”
Ryan put the phone away in his pocket. “That’s good,” he said, referring to the few seconds he’d just recorded. “You’re serious, though?” he asked, a chuckle filtering through his speech.
“Mm-hm,” she nodded.
Ryan followed Haley outside, keeping a tight hold of her hand as she eagerly led him outside. It was still unbelievable when he looked back at where they’d just been and see a giant nut standing there. It made him laugh each time he looked at it. His smile only got wider when he turned back around and saw Haley looking at him expectantly with that same, innocent smile he wore.
Before long, they’d arrived at a log on the ground that served as a seating place. It was outside of the general area of the place, so he’d only glanced at it before, never coming close to it. When did we go downstairs? Ryan thought to himself, but his confusion was interrupted with Haley's voice.
“Here's the first game.” Haley nodded at the log in front of them. “We’re gonna take turns sitting on it. First me, then you sit by my side, then I sit by your other side, and over and over until there’s no more space. Whoever doesn’t have space to sit again loses.” She was still using the same tone as before. “There’s three games, it’s best of three. Loser has to make dinner.”
Ryan looked at her with confusion, trying to communicate “what did you just say?” without saying it upright, but his efforts went unnoticed.
He tried to communicate his feelings to a nearby frog that was passing by, but he didn’t seem of any help.
“When did you come up with this?” he said, not really expecting her to answer.
She shrugged.
“Aright, then,” he sighed.
As Ryan sat down next to Haley, she started laughing. And not a quiet laugh either, she burst out laughing, almost falling off the log. She was laughing at what they were doing, at the game she had come up with herself.
“This is so dumb,” she muttered under her breath.
“You chose it!”
“I know,” she said, “sorry. Let’s start.”
They looked at each other. Keeping eye contact, Haley got up and sat on Ryan’s other side. Then Ryan did the same. Then Haley. And they started laughing. Haley started it, and Ryan, as all other events today, had followed along. It was a weird but cute dance, consisting of slight arm brushes, intense eye contact, and a repeat of the sequence they’d fallen into.
It was dumb, like Haley had said, but they were having fun. Though, Ryan seemed to have started taking it a little bit too seriously.
He’s competitive. He’s said it before and he’ll probably say it again. It’s something Haley knows all too well—they’re married, after all, so it wasn’t a surprise when his eye contact sparkled with something more intense than happiness after Haley challenged him. He needed to win, she could see it in his eyes.
So it was unfortunate when they neared the end of the log and, based on the space left and Haley’s giggles becoming slowly uncontrollable, he realized this was set up against him (judging by her face). He glanced at the trees in pure disbelief of what was happening before his eyes, but it seemed like even they were against him.
The same frog he’d spotted before glanced at him, or maybe he was going insane, and gave him a disappointed look for not noticing this earlier.
His body was on auto-pilot at that point, so, as he was trying to read the frog’s expression, his hips hit the dirt ground.
Haley burst out laughing yet again, but quickly helped him get up.
The same pretty face that had just betrayed him was now trying to help him? Ryan couldn’t be-leaf it. He couldn’t believe that someone like Haley, with those pretty braids and sweet smile, would do something as wicked as that. But alas, the game continues. He still has two that he can win.
“Aw, you won! It’s not fair,” he grumpily said.
“It’s my game, you make your own if you want to win.”
“I’ll win the next two. mark my words,” he said, pridefully.
“Second game’s three laps around the nut house,” Haley said, having led Ryan to the beginning of the stairs that led to the house, though they wouldn’t have to climb them; not yet, anyway.
“Oh-hohoho.” He rubbed his hands together, shaking his head. “I’ve got this one on the bag,” he said, confidently.
He noticed Haley’s sweet stare, but he couldn’t let that persuade him. He wouldn’t say it was so much competitiveness, as it was confidence. He knew he could easily win. And Haley—who knew his backgrounds in running—should know that his hype was justified. But he hadn’t realized he’d fallen right into her trap, and let her lull him into getting his hopes up. She gave him this one so he wouldn’t feel so bad later, having not won a single one.
Ryan spun around in place, glaring at all the trees that had previously doubted him. This had really gotten in his head, but he’d never admit that.
He got in place, taking a deep breath of the fresh air, surrounded by nature. “Ready when you are.”
Without giving further notice, she sent off running. Ryan’s jaw dropped in shock at Haley’s foul play, but he couldn’t waste any time, so he started running too. The air hitting his face served as a wake-up call. If the trees and frogs were part of the enemy, at least the air was with him.
He quickly catched up to Haley and flew past her. He could hear her footsteps speeding up, but it wasn’t enough to get him. He couldn’t lose. He was sure he wouldn’t lose.
“I’m not making dinner,” he said tauntingly as he passed by what had been the starting point.
First lap was finished, two left. He stopped and waited for Haley to finish her first, only to taunt her and get to running again.
Haley was chuckling, maybe, or better said, huffing. She looked at him with that same admiration she had for him at the start of the relationship. That admiration that came from him being passionate about the things he loved. In this case, it was running. He might’ve started to figure out why she chose these games. And why she was letting him win this one.
At the end of the third lap, Ryan stopped in a cartoon manner, dramatically stopping with the soles of his shoes. Then, he turned around to welcome Haley in second and last place.
“Look who’s the loser now,” he said, wickedly.
“I didn’t call you a loser,” she said, offended, as if she had just been accused of eating the last cookie in the cookie jar.
“It was implied.”
“Yeah, sure,” she chuckled.
“What’s the next game, anyway?” He was getting impatient. He wanted to win these silly games really bad.
“Flower picking?” he said, emphasizing each word slowly. “Really, Haley?”
He wasn’t against the act of flower picking itself, but rather he thought it just… wouldn’t work as the epic finale of the competition (he was definitely taking this way too seriously).
“It’s not just ‘flower picking’,” said Haley, stressing the words the same way Ryan did, “it’s looking at the flowers, then picking the prettiest one you see. And whoever has the prettiest one wins. And I get to keep it.”
“Alright.”
Ryan looked around, were there even any flowers in this place? Based on his past mistakes of being played by Haley, he decided to stay around the places she searched through. Wait for her to stand in the trees and look around for any flowers that could be even half as pretty as her final pick, then watch as she walks away happily to search in another spot. He would then sneakily look around where she’d just searched and hope he’d find something good. He was going to win this one and the whole competition.
He was looking around, desperately searching for something, anything, when he got interrupted by Haley calling for him.
“Ryan!” There was excitement in her voice.
He feared she’d found a flower as pretty as her, but he was pleasantly surprised to instead find a baby frog on the floor, jumping around.
“It’s so pretty and cute!”
“It is!” he said.
Its little feet, the muddy green color—it was almost identical to the one that had been making fun of Ryan all day, but this one was actually cute, and not gross-looking. Maybe because it seemed so happy. He crouched to see it up close, when it jumped onto Haley’s direction. He smiled happily at it. “Goodbye, little guy,” he whispered oh-so quietly that Haley couldn’t catch it and only the frog could.
“Have you got your flower yet?” asked Haley.
“Oh,” he’d gotten distracted by the frog. This was all Haley’s plan. He just knew it.
She skipped away happily and with a confident air. She definitely had hers by now.
He returned to his spot and ran his fingers through the grass, asking for a divine intervention. The sun was setting, and he needed to get Haley a flower worthy of her.
He began to walk back, defeated, when right by the corner of his eye, he spotted it—a beautiful light blue flower. He didn’t know enough about flowers to know which kind of flower it was, but it sure was pretty.
He walked back to the stairs where this had all started, holding the flower in his hands like he was holding a bouquet and was about to arrive at his crush’s door to ask her out. Though instead of a bouquet it was a sad, floppy, light blue flower.
Haley arrived a few seconds later, holding a beautiful flower. Even from afar, Ryan could tell it was the second prettiest flower he had ever seen, being held by the prettiest flower he had ever seen.
“Look who’s here early,” she said, grinning.
That’s when he realized. He’d been played again. He recognized that flower as the one that Haley had been raving about when they had first arrived at the Airbnb, after she went for a walk around the property. Fool. He should’ve known Haley had a trick up her sleeve, especially now that they were tied.
“You cheated!”
“No, I didn’t. There weren’t any rules to begin with. You’re mad because you lost,” she teased him.
He laughed, defeated. “Let’s rest, I’m tired.”
Ryan held Haley’s hand, their fingers intertwined with each other’s. They were tired, especially Ryan. All that mental fighting with their surrounding nature really tired him out. They walked to the hanging chairs that where hung outside, to a beautiful view of the forest in front of them—this time, they didn’t have creepy faces that judged him.
They sat, (or, leaned back) on one of the hanging chairs, and Ryan wrapped his arm around Haley’s shoulder, caressing it with such love and care he hadn’t shown her in a few hours because they’d been competing.
“You know, this is only the start of our journey,” he began to speak, “we’ve got hundreds of hours of driving ahead of us.”
“Yeah…” she sighed.
“Who knows what we’ll do. The places we’ll go to. The coffees.” His mouth was watering at the mere thought. “But the most important part is enjoying every part of it. It might be hard, but we can do this.”
“Do you think we’ll reach the goal?”
“Oh, definitely.” He turned to her and nodded.
“Make sure to get enough sleep, don’t want you falling asleep on the wheel.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah…” She turned to him. “Oh, you rascal. You’re trying to distract me from the fact that you lost!”
“Whaaat? N– no…” he chuckled, nervously, “how could you think I’d do that?”
She shook her head in disappointment. “Ryan Michael Trahan,” she spoke slowly.
“Full name, too…” he muttered.
“I think it’s time we go inside. You, me, and a homemade meal.”
He laughed lightly, “okay, then.”
They walked inside and Ryan took the phone out of his pocket. He opened a certain app, then turned to Haley, who was lying on the couch.
“How ‘bout delivery? I know a really good and yummy barbecue place around here.”
Her head popped up from the couch and she stared at him, slowly shaking her head.
“I’ll get back to you, Trahan,” she then drastically changed her tone from mad to enthusiastic, “sounds delicious, can’t wait!”