Sweet Expressions

My Ice Cream Habit

"It's your turn to roll, Sang."

Breakfast was over and cleaned up quickly, leaving us with the remainder of the morning and part of the afternoon free before Meanie and I had to arrive at the school for art class. Dr. Green had left with Mr. Blackbourne and several of the boys for his shift at the hospital, with the implicit instructions to those that had remained that I was to relax until it was time for Gabriel and I to go. I lay on the floor in front of the snakes and giraffes game Luke had pulled out and set up on the living room floor for us. I leaned over, my elbow digging almost painfully into the nape of the usually comfortable carpet, and threw the pair of die. Luke and Gabriel craned their necks to see what I had thrown.

"Two."

I groaned and slide my pink piece back almost to the beginning. Victor held his hand out for the dice while I received condolences and began shaking them, readying to throw for his turn. He paused and held the little white dotted cubes out to me on his open palm, putting them right up to my mouth. I raised an eyebrow at him and them when he seemed to be waiting expectantly for something. He insistently held them further under my mouth.

"Blow on them Sang."

I frowned and looked around at the boys observing us. "Why?"

Kota continued to worriedly tap at the phone he had been poking at ever since breakfast without looking up. "It's for luck, just humor him."

I skeptically stared at Victor, who still held the dice up insistently to my mouth. "I just threw a two and had to slide down one of the longest snakes in the game. I'm probably not the best candidate for blowing luck onto dice."

Victor shrugged and continued to hold them up to me while the boys chuckled. I shook my head, grinning, and blew. He smiled like he had won the lottery and tossed them to the middle of the board underhanded. Everyone leaned forward as they rolled to a stop and chorused in when the numbers could be read.

"Seven"

Kota began chuckling to himself, his eyes still on his phone. I looked ahead and counted to the snake Victor's piece would have to slither down and then dropped my head down on the carpet, tilting my head so I was looking up at him. "Told you so."

Victor smirked and moved his piece down just above mine, his eyes warming in intensity toward me. "Just means I get to have my player closer to yours. That's lucky in my book."

I hid my face in the crook of my elbow to hide my smile and burning cheeks. Gabriel rolled onto his back towards me and threw his arm out, bumping my elbow and tugging at it.

"Uh uh. No more hiding, Trouble. Your face. We wants to see it."

Kota added a whispered "So we can keep an eye on you" that I'm sure he didn't want me to catch. I lifted my head and grinned hugely at him. He finally looked up from whatever he was doing on his phone and gave me the eyeball. It just made my grin bigger. Luke finished his turn by climbing his player up a giraffe's neck with bonus monkey sound effects and looked up at Gabriel eagerly.

"Come on Gabe, roll the dice. It's your turn."

Gabriel groaned and flipped over on his stomach, grabbing them up and shaking them loosely. He sighed heavily as he prepared to throw.

"After we're done with this game I say we take Trouble out for ice cream. It's McFudging hot today."

Gabriel froze mid-throw, letting the dice fall by themselves, straight down from his hand to clatter down on the board. I clapped a hand over my mouth, unsure whether I should laugh or gasp in shock. Luke blinked up at him, the game forgotten. "Wha...what? What did you say?"

Gabriel was still frozen with his hand still out in the rolling position, his face a mask of pure horror. Kota sat up and gawked at him, letting his phone drop far enough down into his lap for me to see he was texting with Mr. Blackbourne. The words "her" "distract" and "idea" jumping out at me before the glass surface glinted and I couldn't read the screen anymore. I shook it off and refocused on Gabriel, the text would have to be fodder for the approaching interrogation I had in store for him. Luke hadn't recovered from Gabriel's...slip, and was still staring at him in disbelief along with Victor.

"Dude, did you just?"

Gabriel smacked his head down on the carpet and banged his head a couple of times, then looked back up at us all, his eyebrows furrowed in anxiety.

"Fuck no. No, I did not just mo-ther-fu-cking...no. God, Luke, you heard nothing. Stop looking at me like that!"

Luke's slow creeping smile during Gabriel's rant had an unavoidable giggle bubbling up through my fingers. I hid my face again and let the giggles take over my shoulders. Gabriel poked at them, trying unsuccessfully to hide the laughter in his own voice.

"Oy, don't you go hiding away again Trouble, when this is all your fudging fau...shit."

Victor and Luke were now howling with laughter on the floor and my own shoulders were shaking so hard that I was having trouble catching my breath. I looked up through my fingers to see Gabriel covering his eyes, laughing, and Kota chuckling and intensely texting on his phone. I wiped at the tears that were accumulating from laughing and tried to calm myself, only losing my battle to will the giggles down twice. Luke was still chortling and putting the game back into it's box, shaking his head and narrowly avoiding Gabriel's good-natured punch to the arm.

"And here I thought I was the one who held the title of 'Sugar Prince' in our family."

Gabriel's next smirking punch found it's mark and made Luke giggle all the harder. Kota laughingly got up from the floor and stood above me, holding out a hand to help me up and putting his phone into his back pocket in one motion. I took the proffered hand, glad to be getting off the carpet. Everyone rose right after me and Luke put the game away while I rubbed at the carpeting indents in my elbows. I heard the jingle of keys from Victor and got suddenly surrounded around my waist by Gabriel's arms from behind. He tapped at the back of my foot with his own foot and slid it under mine when I lifted it questioningly, doing the same with the other side so that I was standing on both of his feet. He blew in my ear, making me squeal and the others laugh.

"Come on Trouble, before I completely lose my fucking well deserved reputation. Superior ice cream followed by brain-freeze inducing ice-water chasers await us."

He began rock-walking us to the door, and now I was giggling for an entirely different reason as I bumbled and bumped awkwardly along with him. Victor shook his head and held the door open for us and the others as we made our way outside, off to get Gabriel's ice cream adventure underway.