Best Vacation Ever

TWO

~SIX DAYS TO CUBA~

~FAYE~

I FaceTime Lori twice before she picks up.

"Finally!" I exclaim, even though her screen is dark and I can't see her. "I have news and it's huge! Can you come over?"

"Faye?" she groans. There's rustling on the other side of the phone, and then a light turns on. She's in bed. "It's late, I have work tomorrow. What's going on?"

"It's only like nine p.m., grandma. You need to come here. I have news!" Lori and I do everything together. We've been best friends since ninth grade, but sometimes her responsible nature gets in the way of my fun.

"Last time you said you had 'news,' it was that Jenna McAndrews got highlights that you thought 'washed her out.'"

"They totally did." That was when Jenna and Adam were dating, so Lori got to see them firsthand when she walked past the pair of them in my kitchen.

Lori rolls onto her side, her eyes half-open. "Well, I can't come, so tell me the news."

I can barely hold in my excitement. My smile takes up almost my whole portion of the screen. "Ray's appendix burst today, and they rushed him to the hospital! Isn't that great?"

Now Lori sits up in bed and rubs her eyes. Even half asleep, she's gorgeous. Her brown hair doesn't even stick up in every direction like mine does in the mornings.

"That sounds awful," she says. "Why are you acting like we've won the lottery?"

I was going to ease her into it, but I just can't hold it back anymore. "Adam is letting us come to Cuba with him next week!" I blurt.

She's silent for a moment. "Are you saying we're invited to Cuba with your hot older brother and his friends? What does that have to do with Ray's appendix?"

I huff. I wish we could just speed up this whole explanation thing and get right to the jumping-up-and-down-with-excitement part, but Lori is practical.

"Okay, first, ew. Adam is not hot. His friends are, but he's an ogre."

In both the literal and figurative terms of the word. He's mean, on top of being the uglier of the two of us, at least in my opinion.

He's only fourteen months older than me, so he's only a grade ahead. But if you didn't know we're related, you'd never realize it since he barely blinks at me in the halls. Even so, all through high school, girls have come up to me to say that Adam is hot and ask me to put in a good word, which is annoying and useless since Adam pretends I don't exist.

Adam and his friends just finished their first year of university and are celebrating by going away on an all-inclusive tropical vacation. I've been wanting to go on vacation forever, but my parents wouldn't let me go without them unless Adam comes too, and he would rather die than voluntarily go to Cuba with me. I'd pleaded with him to let me and Lori come, but he refused, adamant that it was a guys-only, no-little-sisters-allowed trip. Nothing's swayed him, and I haven't had high hopes because Adam's never done anything nice for me. Desperate, I was about to offer to do all his chores for the year, but thankfully I didn't go that far because it all worked out.

I prop my phone up against my pillows so she can still see me while I sort through the piles of clothes I've dumped onto my bed. The trip is in exactly six days, and I need to figure out what to wear.

To Lori, I say, "Since Ray can't go to Cuba, his brother Freddy felt guilty going and canceled. That completely screws over Adam and his friends since they were getting a group rate. It's so last-minute that no one else can come, and they already had to ask Dylan's cousin to come to cover Eli's cancelation. So now there are two free spots! Adam can either sit around with his dick in his hand or let us take their place!"