Roll the Dice

five. the oldest established

{Dedicated to Corlaya, who presents extremely compelling arguments about the nature of Gossip Girl and is my inspiration for being kind. You're fantastic, Lay!}

I wasn't quite sure why Dacey was tagging along with me and Cara, but I couldn't quite complain about her company. After all, I was running through a particularly woody part of a park with my phone strapped on my left arm and a water bottle in my right hand. And I was accompanied by an especially ornery cross country runner, namely Cara, who hadn't received her usual Skype call with her boyfriend who was vacationing somewhere in Brazil.

Also, like the rest of the week, today was so swelteringly hot, even in the early hours right after dawn, that I could practically feel all the water in my body being drawn out by the sun rays.

And even the shade from the trees didn't help me.

My only comfort was in telling myself that there was no way in the world that science would ever allow that to happen. That thought was destroyed when I realized that I'd drank all of the water in my water bottle the moment I no longer felt any liquid splashing around in the container.

Dacey must have noticed the despair that must have been melting off my face due to the heat rather than sitting there flatly and stopped our group by grabbing hold of both Cara's and my shirt. "Hey, you okay?" she wheezed in my direction. Or at least I thought it was in my direction.

I bent over as well, hugging my legs so that my face was pressed against my knees. "Yeah, I think," I mumbled out, my voice a little muffled.

When Dacey and I stood up properly again, we both met Cara's stormy dark eyes. Her hands, balled into fists, were resting on her hips—probably not a good thing. Was it a little weird of me to think that her eyes were remarkably similar to Dom's when they were angry? Probably not because they both had horrid tempers, if I had to say so.

"You guys are really good at slowing me down," Cara grumbled. She was bouncing up and down on her heels as she stared me down. "And have you been running your daily mileage? You were supposed to do five miles yesterday."

I let out an extremely long sigh through my nose, which was somehow possible because I'd regained a little bit of the air I'd used up why running. "Of course I ran them, Car."

Of course I didn't mention that I'd walked one of those five miles instead of running consistently like I was supposed to.

But it really wasn't my fault that my brother had forgotten to pick up my mother's birthday present like he was supposed to. Someone had to take care of that mess, and my dad, as fun as he was, was never good at chastising my extremely irresponsible asshole of a brother.

Cara raised an eyebrow at me. She didn't even look out of breath, even though her tan cheeks were a shade redder than they'd usually be. And how was it possible that not a single flyaway hair had escaped from her high ponytail? I knew how she was able to do that—she'd caught my lie.

I wished I was a walking lie detector like she was.

I stood back up, now placing my fists on my hips like Cara did. "I'm sorry; I didn't take a break day like I was supposed to, and my legs hurt like hell." I paused, glancing at Dacey, who looked blissfully confused. "But Cara, you're not Coach Matthews, so you don't really have to worry about my mileage."

"Mm, whatever," said Dacey loudly, pushing her bangs over her forehead once again. She reminded me of myself when I first started running for cross country—I had terrible stamina, and my forehead sweat really annoyed me to no end. "But, like, can we rest? I swear, it's taking everything in me to not collapse and die."