Roll the Dice

thirty. new york city

[Dedicated to Wattpad. This is incredibly cliche, but without the opportunities that this site has presented me, my life would have been very different and much less amusing, to say the least. Thank you so much.]

For her first party, Audrey Burke had really outdone herself and all of the seniors in the history of Excelsior Prep. Of course, I did suspect that she had a lot of help from the Mercier twins (one of which was her boyfriend), who had so many connections that I wondered about how they kept track of everyone's names. But really, she was a great host...but I knew that her hosting stint would go downhill after she would get drunk.

But that was all right. We all knew that she was going to be under a lot of stress as the co-editor-in-chief of the school's literary magazine, The Aquiline. The girl had to let loose some time.

(As the president of the Classic Rock Appreciation Club, I also felt like I could slightly understand through what she was going. However, managing the CRAC didn't really require as much energy as editing did, so I didn't really think so...)

"I don't know how Audrey managed to rent out this swim club, but she's a fucking genie," Cara called over the din of everyone shouting and laughing at the same time. "You know, my family can't even get in here normally."

Dacey wiped a bead of sweat from under her eye before responding. "My family had a membership here, like three years ago, but then they increased the membership fee and it got too expensive."

When the two of them looked at me expectantly, I could only shrug sheepishly. "Honestly," I shouted, "I hadn't even heard of this place before we were invited." The both of them sent me scandalized stares. "What?"

Sighing, Cara said as she shook her head, "You need to live more, Lottie."

I shuffled a little closer to my best friends because my ears couldn't handle the task of interpreting what they were saying as well as separating their voices from the inconsequential racket of other people's voices. Then, momentarily, I completely forgot what we were discussing and spent a couple of seconds blinking at them blankly. Cara blinked back at me before nudging me. "You need to live more, Lottie," she repeated loudly.

I blinked a couple more times before answering, a little outraged. "What do you mean—I need to live more? I have two best friends who are nuts, okay? One of them decided to get me to play matchmaker to get her with my brother"—I coughed loudly and turned to a reddish Dacey—"and the other one had a boyfriend whose name I didn't even know until she broke up with him!" Cara's lips tightened. "And also, I got myself in a relationship with a guy who still hates it when I talk about my favorite topic."

I couldn't help glancing over to the refreshment table where Dom was chatting with his ever-present best friend, Evan. And it was stupid because upon meeting his eyes, I felt a surge of heat rush to my cheeks, and I was almost convinced that what I had said wasn't true.

But it was. Dom was there for me, and I was there for him, for what little that meant.

Dacey cleared her throat pointedly and loudly enough that Cara and I could have heard her from halfway across the world if it wasn't for the chatter surrounding us. "Lottie."

I snapped back to reality. "Yes! Um, right. Right." I blinked a little for good measure. "Yeah, um, what more do you want from me? I like to think that my summer was pretty eventful."

"Let's hope it stays that way," said Cara dryly. "Over the school year, you turn into a hermit whose only passion seems to be that classic rock club." She caught my expression and snorted. "I'm kidding, you hoe. You actually weren't that bad last year even though all of us were dying under our AP work."