Roll the Dice

twenty-one. more i cannot wish you

[Dedicated to Safiye, who I swear is one of the most talented writers I've ever met on this site. I'm seriously in love with her books and writing ideas, and she is goals, okay? Goals. <3]

"Well, I'm sorry I didn't get you your milkshake," Cara said flatly to Dacey, who pouted as she slouched in her seat at the booth. "But you really should have spoken up before the waitress walked away, so I'm going to say that was all your fault."

"Mean," moaned Dacey, putting her chin on top of her folded hands. "But it's not even like it's impossible for you to get me a milkshake now." She tipped her face up and opened her eyes wider at me. Oh God-was she going to use her puppy dog look on me? Goodness gracious. "Come on, please? Please, Lottie? Just one milkshake?"

I tapped my fingers on the table, shrugging. "If you wanted a milkshake, you could have come the other day when Josh's mom forced the lot of football players to run an organic milkshake stand." I wiggled my eyebrows at her. "I would have even given one to you for free."

Both Cara and Dacey rolled their eyes at me at the same time, which was a little creepy. Cara shook her head at me. "Since when do you know Josh?"

"Through Dom," I said before thinking properly. Immediately, I bit my tongue and sank down in my seat as soon as my two best friends exchanged a suspiciously devilish look and turned to me at the same time. What was up with their synchronized movements? Did they not know that it was incredibly frightening?

It took the two of them an extra minute to decide who was going to speak up, so I took that time to take out my phone and pretend that I had a social life outside of them (which I did, in fact, have-my cross country teammates other than Cara). At this point, I'd do anything to make it look like I didn't have Dom on my mind.

However, the sad truth was that Dom was on my mind, and to be extremely specific, the same image of him just before our lips touched kept flashing in front of my eyes every time anyone, including myself, mentioned his name. By now, I was almost convinced that his face (and those eyes) was some sort of a traffic signal by now often his name started or stopped conversation in throughout my day.

Dom.

Oh, there went a second as I attempted to hide the rapidly reddening flush spreading over my cheeks. And there went a moment of dignity.

Cara spoke up before our back-and-forth game went on for too long-after all, she was always the decisive one in our group of friends. (Actually, she was the one who came up with the idea for us three to meet at the diner.) "Lottie, you're one of the most transparent people I've ever met in my life," she started, leaning forward with folded hands. "And I'm sorry to inform you that you've been hanging around Dom for so long that it's hard to deny that you have a thing for him."

"That's putting it mildly," Dacey cut in, shooting me a smile. I supposed it was half a good thing and half a bad thing that she'd forgotten all about her milkshake due to her discussion of my...relationship with Dom.

(Now I was very certain that our conversation topic change from milkshakes to Dom was a bad thing. Was it really that difficult for my friends to find a topic that didn't involve me and my horrifying love life? I supposed it was. Their lives must be extremely boring...but again, they could never be bored if they were witness to almost everything that happened between me and Dom.)

"All right, all right," I burst out, waving my hands in front of me in a very weak attempt to hide my face, which felt like it was bright red. "Whatever, you've all known forever that I have a thing for Dom, and could we, like, move on? Please?"

Cara and Dacey looked at each other again, narrowing their eyes. After maintaining their staring thing for a couple seconds, they nodded at each other and turned back to me. (Seriously, I was starting to wonder if I was facing their doppelgängers and not them.) "No," they declared to me at the same time with scarily steadily eyes.