One Summer

Chapter 12

Four days. Four days was all it took for Casey to convince Dad that we should have a house party. She'd won Mum over pretty quickly, and once she had Mum on her side, it was only a matter of time before Dad would fold too. After nearly two decades of marriage, he still can't say no to her. Mum was absolutely thrilled that we were the ones hosting a party. We'd hosted dinner parties before, but that was always for the adults more than us teenagers. I'm sure Mum wouldn't be too thrilled in the morning when she saw how much clearing up would need to be done.

Mum and Dad were downstairs moving anything valuable and breakable into the garage whilst Casey was running around making sure everything was exactly where she wanted it. I could hear the constant clinking of glass as she arranged, and rearranged, all the bottles of alcohol she had forced Dad to buy for us. I had taken a shower earlier this afternoon because I knew that there'd be a mad rush for the bathroom this afternoon. Chris had been in the shower, singing off key, at the top of his voice for the last 45 minutes and I was glad, as I ran my straighteners over my clean hair, that I didn't need to go in there again. The dress Casey had bought me was hung on the front of my closet so it wouldn't get creased. It was definitely something I would absolutely never buy myself, for starters it was black velvet, and I don't think I had owned anything velvet since the 90's. It had a sweetheart neckline that dipped in between my breasts and thin spaghetti straps. It was so tight there was no way I could wear a bra underneath, but thankfully I didn't have much that needed support. It was skin tight down to the top of my waist where the skirt flared out slightly, and it stopped near the top of my thighs. I thanked God that Casey had made me sunbathe pretty much every day, so I had a lovely, even tan. I definitely couldn't pull off a black dress if I was still as pale as I was at the start of summer. My favourite thing about the dress was that it had pockets. They were just deep enough for my phone to fit in without falling out whilst dancing. I could hear Casey coming up the stairs, shouting orders at my Dad as she did so.

"He's gonna strangle you one day, y'know?" I told her as she entered my room.

Casey snorted. "No, he won't. I think he secretly loves it."

"Being bossed around?"

"No," she replied, sitting on my bed and crossing her legs, "You finally having a house party."

"I'm not having a party. You're having a party in my house."

She dismissed my comment with a wave of her hand. "There's so many people coming tonight, it's very exciting!"

"Is Jake coming?" I inquired. I had hardly seen him since the day we'd gone trampolining because he'd been really busy at work.

"Yes," she sighed. "Don't panic, your lover boy is coming."

I chose to ignore her comment. "Who else is coming?"

"Hmm, let's see." She began ticking people off her fingers. "Me and you, obviously. Chris, the Richards' and Ava. Alex invited Dan and some of his surfing buddies. He also invited those people he's been hanging out with, that are staying at the Wilson's. It's an open invite really."

"Fantastic," I muttered under my breath.

"People will be arriving in half an hour, so you need to get a move on."

"I'm almost done!" I protested.

"You definitely need more highlighter," she told me.

I rolled my eyes. "Can you leave already?"

Casey flipped me off and left my room.

"Wear the pink eyeshadow," she yelled from down the hall. "It's about time you started wearing colours!"