VICE

| IF WE CAN'T LIE TO OURSELVES |

"Hey, man!" Sam called as he slammed the door to his best friend's car behind him, "See you tomorrow."

He turned around and rested his forearms on the car window and leaned slightly into the car, "And don't forget, I want details first thing when I see you." His face was graced with that signature smirk he always got when he knew Austin was about to do something between the lines of remotely and really stupid.

"I'm gonna pull it off, you know." Austin said cockily, turning to face his friend, "So you better have the cash ready. I can think of a couple of ways to put it to good use."

"Can we go now, please?" Nicole impatiently whined from the backseat, her mouth in a frown as she paid most of her attention to her phone.

"What's got you so on edge, sweetheart?" Sam smirked at her.

"Oh, nothing," She huffed, taking her eyes off the screen for a second. "I've been looking forward to this since last week. I have a feeling he's seriously gonna do it tonight and I wanna get the whole thing on video. I have a bet of my own to win." Her eyes twinkled with emotions that were a cross between mischief and excitement, a look Austin associated with his sister.

"Great idea! Why didn't I think of that?" Sam exclaimed with sudden realization of the prospect of making this situation even more unbearable for Austin. 

"Video? What video?" Austin glanced back at his sister with surprise, "And what do you mean by a bet of your own? Who else knows about this?"

"Relax, dear brother. It's no big deal. I just thought it would be a little bit fun to earn money off of this. So I kind of told Gina, Hannah, Kelly, Claire and Max." Nicole replied, oblivious to the homicidal look Austin was sending her way.

"Why would you do that?" 

"It's ok. Hannah and Max totally think you'll pull it off, Claire and Gina think you're gonna chicken out and Kelly doesn't care. She's still mad at you." Nicole went on, not the least bit fazed by her brother's reaction .

Sam cleared his throat and stood up straight, "Ok, this looks like it's gonna take long and I have crap to do, so, bye!" 

He turned and walked away briskly.

The inside of the car remained silent as Nicky went back to her phone and Austin just sat there, staring through the windshield and pondering whether it was a good idea what he was about to do.

For one, he was not very fond of their father. What he planned to do was not a great or smart idea. He was just doing it to try and prove a silly point to his best friend, and the growing audience he had just found out about made him even more nervous.

"Is there any chance this car is gonna start moving any time this century?" His sister asked, kicking the back of the driver's seat.

"Stop kicking me!"

"I only kicked the seat. And stop whining."

With that, he pulled out onto the street and started for home.

"Getting cold feet, are we?" Nicky asked, a knowing smile painted on her face through the rearview mirror.

"Dream on," Austin said, eyes fixed on the road ahead and a small smile working its way onto his face. I can totally do this, he silently reassured himself.

Why was any of this worth it, again? At this point, he had no clue other than an unknown force inside him that was involuntarily driving him.

Sam's house was only a five minute drive from theirs and it was not long before they were pulling up into the driveway of the modern five bedroom split-level that they called home.