Roulette (2)

Harper slammed the trunk a bit too hard after finishing putting her bags inside eliciting a loud yell from Miles. “I said be careful with my baby!”

            “Calm down, dude! Your ‘baby’ is fine!” Harper climbed into the front passenger seat happy that she didn’t have to sit in the back, for once. She glanced back at Miles and gave him the finger before sitting back and putting on her seatbelt. KayZee had already started driving away when Harper realized she forgot her favorite headphones. The cordless ones that were grey and had flashing blue lights on the ear cups. ‘Crap…Now I have to listen to Jenna talking shit about people at school.’

            Fortunately for Harper, Jenna pretended to be asleep almost the entire ride to the cabin, only giving herself away a couple of times when she started smiling. To be honest, she was loving the fact that Luka and Mateo were sitting close enough to each other. She kept waiting for them to start talking to each other, but it never happened. Mateo had fallen asleep only a few minutes after the group began their trip, and Luka had his earphones in listening to music the whole time. He must have been trying to avoid Mateo and just gotten bored, electing to continue playing his same favorite songs on repeat.

            “Uh…that’s no fun,” Jenna whispered to herself.

            “What isn’t?” Miles asked.

            Jenna glanced at Miles, suddenly getting the best idea shed ever had in her life. She quickly took out her phone opening the texting app. Miles stared at her confused. Jenna was shady sometimes, and apparently this was one of those times. Which meant Miles wasn’t going to like where this was going. Jenna furiously typed something into the text box, then stared blankly at the headrest in front of her, holding her phone tightly in her hands as they rested on her lap. Miles felt his phone vibrate. He never turned the ringer on. He got annoyed at the sound when he’d receive several Twitter notifications at once.

            Looking down at the screen, he read the text message that he’d gotten. It was from Jenna. ‘The fuck is she planning?’ he thought. The message read: “Let’s play Roulette”.

            Miles looked at Jenna, who was still acting as if she couldn’t turn her head to the left. His eyebrow raised involuntarily as he looked back down at his phone. By now, he knew not to say anything about this out loud. ‘What the hell is Roulette?’

            “I don’t have a revolver, Jen…” Miles sent his own message to Jenna who looked down and read it.

            Miles watched her Jenna type her response so quickly he wasn’t sure he’d be able to understand it when it reached his phone.

            “Not Russian Roulette. This is different. Its like truth or dare, without the dare.”

            “Where’s the fun in that?”

            “You have to ask a question and if someone knows the person is lying they figuratively take the bullet. I brought vodka, though. So, if someone gets called out they have to take a shot of Belvedere. All the fun you could ever want.” Jenna finished the message with a winking emoji which Miles stared at for a few minutes. He felt that it was weird for her to send the emoji when her face was so stoic.

            “You’re crazy…but it does sound like fun.” He felt a large smile spread across his face. He wasn’t sure what Jenna was up to, but there was alcohol involved. Any reason to party was good enough for him. And Miles loved to party.

***

            KayZee pulled into the driveway of her parents’ cabin, and everyone except for her was impressed at the beautiful building. The house stood two stories tall and was surrounded on all sides by huge, bare trees collecting snow on their branches. Harper wouldn’t stop talking about how much she loved the paint color; brown on the outside with white window and door frames, and shutters. The sun room built off to the side that didn’t get much use in the winter was also painted white. Mateo, thinking the walkout basement was the front entrance, walked directly towards one of the sliding glass doors.

            “Hey, KayZee! Why are your front doors made of glass? Isn’t that dangerous, or something?”

            “Because those aren’t the front doors!” Harper yelled. “Stupid…”

            “Oh…” Mateo picked up his bag and joined everyone else at the real front door as they funneled in.

            Harper grimaced at the mounted heads of a wolf, a buck, and a bear above the fireplace. She hated that people hunted animals for sport but understood the point of hunting for food. Even if she didn’t like it.

            “Uh…so, does your dad hunt, KayZee?” Harper asked, bumping into a wooden coffee table.

            “Nope. He just thought they looked cool, so his friend gave them to him,” KayZee replied. “My dad just likes to show off. Anyway, there are three bedrooms upstairs, two downstairs, and there’s a murphy bed in the basement. I’ll let you guys pick where you wanna sleep.”

            “Dibs on the basement!” Mateo said much too loudly before running off the wrong direction.

            “It’s the other way…” KayZee stated.

            Mateo ran across the room to the other side of the house where the stairs to the basement were. The lights were off, and even with the floor-to-ceiling windows, it was rather dark. He turned the light on, half expecting there to be a masked murderer standing at the base of the stairs with a bloody chainsaw. Of course, there wasn’t so Mateo walked down the stairs to check out the basement, excitedly pulling down the murphy bed and placing his bag on top of the mattress. Pulling the bed down revealed a shelf at the top of the large, wooden case that housed bed sheets.

            “This is awesome!” Mateo began to happily jump up and down. “It’s like Scooby-Doo! Without a secret room to get dragged into.”

            Miles stared in the direction of the basement stairs. “The funny thing is…he doesn’t like basements. He’ll probably end up sleeping on the couch,” He chuckled. ‘Or on the floor next to my bed.’