Roll the Dice

thirteen. guys and dolls

[Dedicated to Ari, who is not only a fantastic writer but also a wonderful friend with the best sense of humor I've ever met. In addition, she loves to tease me with spoilers of her book. Oh my.]

"Hey Carter!" I called over Dacey's head, which was a lot more difficult that it seemed since Dacey was a good three inches taller than I was. "Where'd you put the damn birthday candles?"

"I don't know where the fucking things are!" he shouted right back to me as he attempted to adjust the blinds. I dropped the knife I was holding and hurried over to him. He sent me an annoyed glance. "What are you doing?"

"You're not supposed to close the blinds," I griped, opening them again. "Cara's pretty smart, and she won't fall for the whole cliché surprise part in the dark thing." I stopped to slap Carter's arm. "You're so shitty at this whole organizing thing."

Carter hissed, rubbing his arm as if I'd slapped him with a very heavy piece of rubber or something. "Well, your directions weren't very specific. And I don't even know why you're trying to make me work because you know that's never a good idea."

Huffing, I glanced back into the kitchen, where Dacey had taken up the knife that I'd put down, and turned back to my brother. "Don't be a jackass. I'm a mess right now because I have to supervise everyone because you're all obviously a bunch of five-year-olds who don't know how to fucking do anything!"

"Calm your tits, sis," Carter muttered, sending me a quizzical glance. "Why don't you go supervise the soccer jocks outside?"

After looking around the living room, which was modestly filled with some more of my, Cara, and Dacey's friends, I determined that everyone inside would be fine without my hovering. So I gingerly navigated through the people setting up banners and decorations and headed out to my backyard.

The "soccer jocks" seemed to be having way too much fun with inflating the kiddie pool to be doing any work. I stood in the doorway with my hands on my hips, squinting at the lot of them snicker wildly as one of them, Evan, actually, somehow aimed the air hose in his face while another jock pumped the hose. They were all such three-year-olds, and so, it took them a full minute to realize that I was standing there.

A dark head darted out from underneath the so-far uninflated pool. Dom crawled out to the side of the pool facing me and put the widest grin he could possibly muster on his face. "Hey," he said, completely failing to subdue himself when one of his teammates guffawed and somehow flipped over.

I watched disapprovingly.

Dom swallowed his next laugh and contritely pointed to the air pump. "We're just, uh, getting things set up, like you told us to." There was a plethora of stifled giggles after he finished.

Obviously, these rising seniors were extremely mature.

I exhaled loudly. "Did you guys at least get the slip and slide running?"

Dom nodded a little too brightly, and his friends must have not gotten that he was overcompensating because they were mirroring him like they were part of a group of bobble heads.

"Huh." I walked around the lot of them, keeping an eye on them warily all the while. The guys didn't seem to get it – they all were acting like clueless puppies nowadays – because they were now grinning as if they'd all scored spectacularly with some hot girls. I sniffed. "I somehow doubt that."

"Oh, we proved you wrong," said Dom, who shrugged.

And I was wrong. As I stood on top of a little hill (it wasn't quite one, but I never could really name that particular land form in my backyard), I stared down at a rather elaborate and rainbow colored slip and slide, as promised by Evan. It was pinned down impeccably, and the guys already had the hoses up and ready like they were going to set up a waterpark. I puffed out through my mouth and turned slowly to face them.