Will
Will: genuinely fearing for my life. craziest taxi ride ever. this guy seriously can't drive
Nico: omg?? get out wtf
Will: too late we're already almost there
Nico: how far??
Will: ten minutes. probably less.
Nico: kk see u soon!!
Will: see ya :)
I put down my phone and looked out the window. The taxi ride from the airport to Montauk was long and awkward. I was never good at small talk, and apparently this guy wasn't either.
Once we finally arrived, I paid the cabbie and grabbed my suitcase and backpack from the trunk, shivering as I stopped out of the car.
So much for global warming. I don't know what I was expecting, but all week the weather in New York was cold, and it's already mid-March. I checked the forecast for the next few days we'd be in Montauk, and it was all the same. In the 40's (touching 50 if we were lucky), cloudy, and wind. It was such a contrast to the beautiful Texas sun I'd been experiencing the past five days. That groundhog is such a lie— there's no way this counted for an early spring.
I dragged my bag through the sand and up to the door, pushing it open.
"Hey, Will's here!" Jason called as he looked up from the couch.
A chorus of heys and hellos came about as everyone filtered in from different parts of the house.
My heart almost stopped when I saw him. Nico. We hadn't even been apart for a week, and we'd texted nonstop, but not seeing him face to face still felt like I was a drug addict suffering from withdrawals.
"Hi," I breathed, staring at him, willing my face not to go pink.
"Hey."
I broke eye contact first so to not seem suspicious. Frank helped me roll my oversized suitcase into one of the bedrooms in the back as Hazel followed behind us, complaining about the weather and how it was supposed to rain tomorrow.
*******
"Let's play Shame," Piper suggested. It was later that night, after eleven. We'd spent the day exploring in town, although it was freezing the whole time.
Now, we'd all showered and changed into comfy clothes and had just been binge-watching trashy television and eating junk food for hours when someone suggested we do something else.
"Shame?" Hazel asked, intrigued.
"Yeah. You've played it before, remember?" Piper turned to all of us. We were sitting in the living room, pillows and blankets strewn everywhere. "It's like never have I ever almost, except when it's your turn you name something you have done. Something weird, embarrassing, shameful. And if anyone else has done it too, they write a letter on their forehead. Whoever's the first to get all five letters of shame is the winner."
"I don't know..." says Annabeth. "I feel like that could get... bad."
"Oh, I remember that game. We played it at camp. There's another rule— you get one plead the fifth. You have to elaborate on what you did when you write a letter, and people can ask you questions about it, but you get one free card to skip anything about one of your letters." Hazel replies.
"We can play something different if you guys don't want to," says Piper.
"No, I like yours. I think it'll be funny. And could make things interesting," Leo adds.
