Lie Until You Laugh

23- Sparklers

“We must party!” Stella declares the next day as we sit in the game room with Brian, Mason, Andrew, and Liam. The three guys are playing a video game and the three of us girls are playing foosball in the other corner of the room.

“We must party!” I agree eagerly, shooting the ball into Mason’s goal with my little red pegs that act as soccer players.

“You agree?” Stella wonders, looking at me with a surprised expression on her face.

I nod with a small shrug. “I do. It’s the Fourth of July- we should celebrate.”

“You seem very giddy about that,” Mason observes suspiciously. “What’s got you in such a good mood?”

“A good mood?” I echo. “I’m not in an exceptionally good mood today, I don’t think. Anyway, back to this celebration- is there going to be a campus party or are we celebrating on our own?”

“They have some fireworks in the field across the street from campus, but it’s open to all of the Vaughn schools, so it’s pretty busy. We usually go to the beach and light off sparklers and small fireworks there,” Stella supplies.

“Oh,” I sigh, a little deflated that I won’t be seeing Penn today. I try not to think that though, because it makes me sound like I’m some obsessed little girl or something and I’m not. After we kissed last night against his car, we drove home in silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence- at least, it wasn’t for me- it was a comfortable post-first kiss kind of silence. I didn’t speak at all because I was too busy focusing on not sounding like a giggling idiot by letting myself giggle, which I successfully did not do. As he dropped me off at my dorm building, he said goodnight and I said goodnight back and that was the end of our night last night.

“Why?” Stella grins. “Is there a certain instructor that you were hoping to run into at the party?”

I blush and grab the foosball ball from Mason and toss it onto the table to distract myself from Stella’s question. “No, that would be absolutely ridiculous.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Mason says, stepping away from the foosball table so that I can’t use the game as a distraction. I hit the ball anyway and, without any defenses, it flies right into her goal.

“I’m not lying!” I squeak. Usually, I’m an okay liar but, given the circumstances, I’m obviously not that great at hiding my giddiness.

“What happened?” Stella asks, her voice bubbling over in excitement. “I was right, wasn’t I? About Penn? I WAS RIGHT, WASN’T I?!”

I shrug and plop down in one of the bean bag chairs between Brian and Andrew. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Stella.”

“Where were you last night?” Mason probes, taking none of my crap. She plops down on my lap so that I can’t escape their questions anymore. I guess I don’t mind telling them what happened, I just hope that they don’t go around telling everybody, which I trust that they won’t.

“I wasn’t at the bonfire,” I supply vaguely. “I went to dinner instead.”

“With Penn?” Stella urges excitedly.

I nod. “With Penn.”

“The instructor?” Liam wonders randomly from where he’s sitting on the couch, probably beating Brian and Andrew at whatever video game that they’re playing right now.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” I say softly. “He took me to dinner but it was a friendly thing, not like a date or anything.”

“This is fabulous!” Stella shrieks, jumping up and down beside my bean back chair as Mason continues to sit on me, making sure that I don’t make a run for it at all. “Where did he take you? I must know.”