A couple of weeks after the She Believes Cup, Kelley talked Hope into planning a beach vacation with Ashlyn, Ali, Christen, Julie, Alex, and Tobin before they had to start playing again. The couple talked to the others about the vacation and of course all of them said yes. Hope even talked Becky and Carli into coming so that they could have a little extra 'adult' supervision to keep Ashlyn, Christen, Tobin, and Kelley from doing something really stupid. Plus, they needed judges for their next food challenge because they all swear that Julie cheated during the last one.
The group got together one Wednesday afternoon and looked through beach house rentals that would fit the ten of them. They ended up finding a place along the beach in St. Augustine, Florida that looked promising and was within the budget range. It was a pale blue, two story house with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a patio that led out to the beach, and a really nice looking front porch. It was the best house they could find so they took the chance and booked it.
***
Carli thought they were going to get kicked off of the flight to Florida before they even got on the plane. Becky brought cinnamon rolls for breakfast, forgetting about how hyped up Ashlyn, Tobin, Christen, and Kelley got when eating sugar. The Fantastic Four, as their girlfriends referred to them as, started a game of Get Down Mr. President amongst themselves and tackled Christen to the floor in the middle of the waiting area at their boarding gate. Security quickly made their way over to the four girls on the ground and separated them. The rest of the group had quickly moved to the other side of the waiting area, acting like the insane women that attacked an "innocent" bystander weren't their teammates/girlfriends. Once the security issue was cleared up the four simply resorted to playing slaps.
"They're grown women I swear," Julie whispered to the man sitting next to her who was staring at her friends.
"Well, they certainly don't act like it," the man said grumpily, annoyed with the Fantastic Four.
Julie just sighed and turned back to continue her conversation with Ali. Damn Carli and Becky for being responsible adults and making them get to the airport three hours early. She was starting to get bored and considered starting her own game of slaps with Ali just to annoy the man next to her. However, Carli could tell what she wanted to do and was giving her a death glare.
***
Finally, they were able to board the plane and the Fantastic Four were beginning to crash. They were asleep before the plane even took off, each laying on their girlfriend's shoulder. Ali asked for napkins from the flight attendant as she came by taking drink orders so she could wipe off the puddle of drool beginning to form on her shoulder. She kept a mental note to tease Ash about it later.
Christen woke up about two hours into the flight, feeling slightly nauseous. Julie quickly handed the brunette a barf bag and began shuffling around in her bag for some medicine. Luckily, the striker was able to suppress the need to vomit long enough for the medicine to kick in. During that time Julie held onto her small girlfriend (okay, maybe Chris was almost as big as her but she wasn't so she still qualified as small) and gave her belly rubs until she felt better. Hope and Kelley, who were sitting next to them, looked over and fake gagged. She had been told on several occasions that she and Christen were a "sickeningly cute" couple.
Not to long after Christen woke up did Tobin wake up, leaving Ashlyn to be the last one of the Fantastic Four to wake up. The midfielder put on her best puppy dog look before looking at her girlfriend.
"Can we play Monopoly Deal?"
Alex smiled.
"Of course we can, baby."
Tobin sat up so Alex could get the card game out of her bag. They both pulled down the flight trays in front of them and began to set up the game. There were a few close calls on who was going to win, but Tobin ended up taking it all. As a result of this, Alex threw one of her famous "I lost a game I always win" tantrums. The poor flight attendant had come check on the situation, warning that if she disrupted the peace like that again she would be banned from the airline. This calmed the striker down and the couple decided that maybe Monopoly Deal on an airplane was not a good idea.
Kelley couldn't sit still to save her life. It wasn't necessarily her fault, she was just naturally a very hyper person. She was hyper and happy and ugh. Hope couldn't get enough of her squirrely girlfriend. The freckle-faced right back was her kryptonite, but the badass keeper would never admit how much of a hopeless romantic she truly was. Just watching her girlfriend bounce her leg impatiently while staring out the window brought a small smile to Hope's face.
Ashlyn hated flying. It wasn't the actual flying part that scared her, it was the take off and landing that terrified her to no end. So it was only natural for her to wake up from her nice four hour nap just as the plane was about to land. Ali, who looked like she had been trying to sleep, felt the blonde tense up beside her. The brunette opened her eyes and held onto her adorable blonde keeper. She swore she heard Ashlyn let out little whimpers as the plane was shaken by turbulence during their descent. As soon as the plane landed and people were beginning to leave, the blonde rushed to get off the godforsaken plane, Ali close behind her.
Now that the group was in Florida, the first order of business was food. The group had taken the 8:00 flight so it was lunch time when they arrived.
"Extra large pizza anyone?" Tobin joked, playfully elbowing Hope as they headed to the luggage terminal.
"Oh my god, never again," Julie answered.
"Hey, you're the one that ate a dozen donuts in three minutes."
"Yeah, but donuts are really good and easy to eat."
"What about some chicken wings then?" Christen jokingly suggested.
Alex visibly gagged.
"Definitely not," Alex said.
Carli and Becky looked at each other, confusion written on their faces.
"Did we miss something?" Carli asked.
"No," the four couples replied together.
It was then that Carli and Becky understood why Hope asked them to tag along. There was no way those eight would survive on their own if they didn't have actual adults with them. For example, when they got to the house the first thing they did was lock one of the keys in the rental house. If Carli hadn't thought to grab the spare before they left to get groceries, they would be sitting outside waiting for someone to get there and open the door. Later on in the grocery store, Becky had to say no to almost everything the eight women picked out to eat. The only things she allowed to stay were the fruit snacks, the goldfish, the capri suns and the boxes of dinosaur egg oatmeal (because according to the eight of them regular oatmeal is boring).
The most obvious reason Hope asked them to tag along came up the second day they were there. Carli and Becky were supposed to be the judges for their next food challenge.
"Is that why Julie ate a dozen donuts in three minutes?" Becky questioned.
The eight of them nodded to confirm that, yes, they had all eaten a dozen donuts in under eight minutes.
"What about the wings and the pizza?" Carli asked.
"Well, the challenges started out with Tobin saying she could eat an entire extra large pizza alone so later that night Tobin, Ashlyn, Julie, and I ended up eating extra large pizzas by ourselves. To get back at Christen, Alex, Ali, and Kelley for laughing at us as we endured the pain of overeating, we made them eat forty chicken wings for their food challenge. The donut challenge was just something we all did as an excuse to eat a dozen donuts," Hope explained.
"And this next challenge is...?"
"Eat eight seven-layer burritos from Taco Bell."
"So you're telling me I have to go to Taco Bell with Becky and order sixty four burritos for you guys?"
"Yeah."
Carli stood up and grabbed her jacket from the back of the couch.
"Come on, Becks. These dorks want burritos."
With that, Carli and Becky walked out the front door, leaving the four couples to their own devices.
"Wow, I didn't think it'd be that easy," Ali admitted. "I thought they'd at least try to talk us out of it."
"Who cares? This way we can make sure no one cheats," Tobin turned her gaze to Julie.
"I still don't get how I possibly could have cheated. I was sitting right there with you guys," Julie defended.
Tobin just shrugged and latched onto Alex, nuzzling her head into the striker's chest. Smiling at her girlfriend's antics, Alex began running her fingers through Tobin's hair, eliciting a happy hum from the midfielder. Kelley made a fake gagging sound.
"You two are disgustingly cute," the defender teased.
"Oh, please. Don't act like you and Hope are any better. I catch you guys making heart eyes at each other all the time while cuddling," Tobin commented.
"Then you have those two," Christen said, pointing over to where Ali and Ashlyn were making out on the floor, Ali straddling the keeper's hips.
Ashlyn parted from her girlfriend long enough to say, "You have no room to talk. Tobin told me about the time she walked in on you two, you dirty birds."
Julie and Christen turned to look at Tobin, giving the midfielder a disapproving look.
"What? I was really freaked out afterwards," Tobin defended.
A smirk came to Hope's face as she asked, "What was so bad that you scared poor little Tobin?"
Both Christen and Julie were blushing.
"We are not talking about this right now," Julie said.
The other couples just laughed at the two. They were the biggest cinnamon rolls on the team, but if they had scared Tobin with their sexual activities, it must have been pretty bad. Long story short, Tobin and Alex are very loud and the things Alex yells implies that they're doing pretty dirty shit.
After a while of everyone just sitting there and cuddling, the group decided to play a game of Monopoly Deal.
***
"I'd like to order sixty four of your seven-layer burritos," Carli told the acne faced teenager standing at the register in the Taco Bell she and Becky had gone to.
"I'm sorry, you'd like to order how many seven-layer burritos?" the kid asked to clarify that he'd heard them right.
"Sixty four, and do you mind putting eight in each bag?"
"That'll be one hundred fifty five dollars and thirty five cents, ma'am. We will separate them for you."
Becky reached for her back pocket and pulled out her wallet, sliding her credit card out and handing it to the cashier. The transaction was made and the two had to wait for half an hour before all of the burritos were made and shoved into bags. Grabbing four bags each, the women headed out to the car, Carli getting in the driver's seat and handing all of her bags to Becky in the passenger's seat.
"Why exactly are we letting them do this to themselves again?" Becky asked Carli.
"To get back at them for being children."
"How is this going to do that though?"
"Becky, my dear friend, these burritos are full of beans and they're going to eat eight of them each. They're probably going to be living outside for the rest of the week with all the windows open and candles lit in every room."
The woman in the passenger's seat let out a small chuckle.
"They're such dorks."
***
Carli and Becky could hear the yelling as soon as they opened the car doors. Both women sighed and grabbed all of the food bags, making their way to the front door.
Tobin, you fucking cheater! they heard Alex yell behind the closed door. She sounded very hurt and upset. I trusted you and you cheated, with Kelley I might add! Hope, I can't believe you let this happen!
Thinking that the worst had happened, the women opened the door to find that the situation wasn't what they thought at all. Monopoly Deal cards were scattered all over the living room, some even found in the kitchen later on that night. Alex stood with her back to Becky and Carli, still yelling at Tobin and Kelley. The midfielder and defender were laughing so hard that the women standing in the doorway thought the two were going to shit themselves. The other five women were sitting on the couch, cards still in hand, trying to stifle their laughter.
"Children, what are you doing?" Carli asked.
Alex turned around and it was obvious that the striker had been crying.
"Kelley and Tobin cheated!" the distressed girl exclaimed.
"We didn't cheat," Tobin said through bursts of laughter.
"She's just mad because she lost," Kelley explained.
"I only lost because they cheated!"
Carli sighed and took the burritos to the kitchen, followed by Becky.
"Tobin, Kelley, apologize to Alex for whatever it was you did and come eat your damn burritos," Becky commanded.
"But we didn't do anything!" the women in question whined.
"Just do it."
Both Kelley and Tobin apologized to Alex before standing to get their burritos.
"I suppose the eight of you have rules, correct?" Becky clarified.
The eight women nodded in unison. They sat at the dining room table and dumped their food out of the bags, waiting for the signal to begin eating from Carli.
"Are you all ready? Winner gets seventy dollars, everyone else gets ten for finishing. Begin eating."
Alex was determined to win this challenge. She just wanted to win something and be able to rub it in Tobin and Kelley's smug faces, no matter the cost. The striker wasn't even taking the time to wipe the sour cream off of her face. Oddly enough, Hope was in the same boat as Alex. She felt she needed to redeem herself from the pizza challenge and the donut challenge. Hope Solo was not going to lose another one of these food challenges even if it killed her.
It seemed to the others that Ashlyn, Kelley, and Tobin were bored with the challenge. They were just casually eating their burritos as if it was just any ordinary dinner and they weren't in a contest where seventy dollars was involved. It was revealed later that since they had already won a challenge they were just going to let someone else win. Plus, they thought it was funny to see that it came down to Hope and Alex.
Christen, Ali, and Julie had all come to the conclusion that they should just let Hope and Alex battle it out. Watching two of the most composed women on the team shove burritos in their mouth to gain seventy dollars was entertaining in it of itself. What would be even better, though, was afterwards when one of them came in second and got really angry about it. That was really what all of them were waiting for.
Sometime during the challenge Becky decided to take a picture of the eight women and put it on Instagram. She captioned it with These ladies decided to do a food challenge while on vacation. I really wish they had picked one that wouldn't smell as bad. All eight of them were tagged in the picture and later got onto the defender for posting such a bad picture of them all, even though they had to admit it was pretty funny.
Around the fifth burrito, Alex started feeling really sick. She knew it was probably a bad idea to keep eating like she was, but she was just too stubborn and competitive to stop. Hope was only one burrito behind her and she was hoping that if she kept this speed up she would win. To her satisfaction, she did win, and made it her goal to rub it in Kelley and Tobin's faces. The striker claimed her prize from a surprised Carli and sat next to Tobin, trying to fight the urge to vomit.
Hope finished right behind Alex and flipped her chair in aggravation. She just wanted to win one of these damn challenges. Kelley just laughed at her girlfriend's anger.
"Calm down, babe. It's not the end of the world," she said between giggles.
"All I want is to win one of these fucking challenges," the keeper said through gritted teeth.
Ali and Ashlyn finished next, not exactly motivated to win, but not wanting to come in last place. They were just there to enjoy watching Carli and Becky try to contain Hope's tantrum. The others finishing their challenge went unnoticed since they were all too busy laughing at Hope. Alex was probably going to be dead before sunrise.
***
When the eight women woke up the next morning there was no sign of Carli and Becky. They had checked their bedroom, the beach, and every room in the house before they found a note written in Becky's handwriting on the kitchen table.
As much as we love you ladies, you guys stunk the house up after the burrito challenge. Carli and I are at a hotel just a few miles away from here. We left you some candles and air freshener in a box under the table, though they probably won't do you much good. Call if you need us, and, for god's sake, open a window.
-Carli and Becky