Roll the Dice

six. the biltmore garage

{Dedicated to Miksha, one of the coolest people I've talked to and one of the best cabin mates ever! Her sense of humor is absolutely perfect, and plus, chemistry. Chemistry.}

"So you were telling me about the plan?" I said to Dacey, who was opening a very large bottle of ginger ale and pouring it into a huge bowl rather haphazardly. Some droplets of ginger ale got on my little white dress, to my indignation, and I let out a little squeak.

Dacey bit on her lip to keep herself from laughing out loud, but her hands were shaking so much anyway that it didn't matter to me.

I crossed my arms over my chest, shifting my weight to my left leg. "Seriously, Dacey. Some maturity, if you have any?"

Shaking the last bits of ginger ale into the bowl, Dacey smiled widely, flashing me her teeth in that way and shrugging. I let out a little chuckle myself—the insincere little bitch. Dacey put down the empty ginger ale bottle and looked straight at me, completely serious now. "All right, did you do as I asked?"

I rolled my eyes. "First of all, you don't know how incredibly difficult your tasks are. I can't even wake Carter up in the morning before 10am—and you're expecting me to drag him out of his room to socialize with a bunch of high schoolers?" I put my hands on my hips. "Dude, you've got to be realistic here."

"A straight answer, Lottie." Dacey's blue eyes were wide. I supposed she was trying to pull off the puppy dog look, but she didn't have brown doe eyes. Maybe she could try the look on my brother later...if he got out of his room.

"Fine." I sighed. "I had to blackmail my mom into dragging him out and forcing him to socialize. And that's as far as I got. I can't guarantee that he'll stop by a high school bash, you know."

Suddenly, someone clasped a hand on my shoulder, and I jumped a little, shrieking. Cara darted around Dacey, her dark eyes laughing, and slung an arm over Dacey's shoulders. "You're a little skittish today, aren't you?"

I scoffed. "I am not. You guys are just laughing at me way too much, which, by the way, isn't nice or polite in any way."

"You laugh at us all the time," Dacey pointed out, leaning her head on Cara's. Cara smirked, flicking her high ponytail onto her other shoulder.

"She's got a point," Cara said, patting Dacey's head affectionately. "It does feel good to have the upper hand sometimes, doesn't it?"

My mouth dropped open. Why were they being so mean to me? What had I done to deserve it? I glanced up to the sky, which was quickly darkening even though wisps of orange, red, and purple still were trailing wistfully after the disappearing sun.

It must have been the morning run. When Cara had asked me why I'd taken so long to check out the sound, I was only able to stutter out a vague description of a team sport going on and nothing else.

Dacey hadn't pushed the point, but she must have known that my temporary inability to form sophisticated thoughts was due to Dom—that stupid Dom Amaro.

I quickly gathered my thoughts once again and pushed both Cara and Dacey back a little so that they stumbled. Shit, my cheeks were beginning to feel unusually warm, even in the musky hot summer air of the evening. The two of them were going to tease me again—unless I came up with something else.

Hurriedly, I cleared my throat. "Um, Dacey, about the plan..."

"A plan?" Cara reached for the cranberry juice, which was lying right next to the bowl of ginger ale. "Please don't tell me it's about Carter."

I snapped and pointed a finger at Cara. "You're pretty good."

"But what's the plan?" She cracked open the seal on the cranberry juice and poured it into the ginger ale with a little more gusto than necessary. (She thought that making punch was her area of expertise, disregarding the fact that anyone who knew how to frequent the grocery store and how to measure liquids could do the same thing.)