Bait d.v.

Chapter 5

"Dinner is ready!" I shout from the bottom of the stairs. Earlier Daniel and I set the table while my mom talked with his parents and Mariah. Jaiden stayed upstairs with everyone else. I also got to play with Skyler, he's so cute. All of a sudden I hear a stampede of footsteps coming from the stairs.

"We heard dinner was ready?" Kevin asks as if they've all been starved for a week.

"You heard right." Everyone sits at the table. Daniel was heading to the seat next to me but Kevin's hungry self stole it. Kevin turns around and notices that Daniel stopped right behind the seat. He was about to sit somewhere else until Kevin stopped him.

"Sorry man, didn't mean to steal the seat next to your girl." He pats the chair and goes to sit next to Dinah. Let's just pretend we didn't hear that. Daniel sits down and smiles at me before looking towards my mom.

"OK, dig in." She announces.

~~~~~~~~~~

We all had a great time. Dinner was so good and Daniel is really funny. He had me cracking up the whole time. Guess what, during the dinner when my mom was talking with Daniel's parents, she brought up the idea of a sleepover.

And with my mom's amazing charm, it's happening. Mariah's busy tonight and Jaiden had to watch Skylar while his parents ran errands so it's just me, Tati, D, Devin, Kevin, and Daniel.

"We're back!" D yells as they both bust into my room.

"Great?" I say in more of a question. "Now why were you guys in such a rush?"

"We just wanted to get here before the boys." Tati sits next to me in my bean bag chair.

"You don't have to squeeze me, there's other chairs you know." I try to sit up a bit.

"Cassie, you're such a good luck charm. We just met you today and now we're gonna have a sleepover with the cutest guys in the neighborhood!" D hops up and down on the bed. Tati joins her and they start squealing on the bed.

The stairs sound with footsteps so they quickly sit down and act casual. The boys walk in the room laughing about something and toss their bags in a corner. Devin and Daniel sit down but Kevin goes to close the door.

"We should play a game." He rubs his hands together.

"Oh no." Devin says.

"No, this isn't a bad game. We're saving those for later." Devin rolls his eyes at Kevin. "You guys know Assassin right?" Everyone nods their head. "Oh, then no need to explain. OK let's play."

Kevin moves the bean bag chairs go the side and everyone sits in a circle. I get a piece of paper and rip them into six pieces and put a black dot on one. Then I make sure they're all folded and put them in a cup. Everyone picks then puts theirs back.

If you don't know how to play, whoever gets the black dotted paper is the killer. The killer is supposed to wink at a person to kill them and when you die you move out of the circle. The killer wins when there's only two people left, including them. If you catch the killer you call them out and start over. If you're wrong then you die.

Luckily in this game I was the Assassin. Tati was on my left, then Devin, Daniel, D, and Kevin on my right. Everyone looks around at each other and the second D looks at me I wink at her and she scoots back. Then I look at Kevin, wink at him, turn away so no one thinks it's me.

"I'm dead." He says in a funny accent and everyone laughs. Next person I wink at is Devin while everyone else is distracted by laughing. Phew, no one has caught me yet. I only need to kill one more person.

Daniel and I make eye contact but right before I get to wink he turns to Tati. She looks at me and I wink at her.

"Yes, I won!" Daniel and I make awkward eye contact but I try to let it go. I know everyone is thinking about how Daniel is the only one I didn't kill. I can't stop thinking about it myself but it wasn't intentionally. "Another game?"

~~~~~~~~~~

We all decided that this was the last game. They already killed D and Tati. D was salty because she said she always dies first which is kinda funny. Next person they kill is Devin. It's just me, Daniel, and Kevin left. I take one quick glance at Daniel and he winks the hell out of me. Tbh that was really hot, but it's just a game.

"I won." Daniel says smiling at me. Now I can't stop thinking about earlier today when he winked again. It still could have been at D or Tati though. But wow is he a good winker.

"Now for the serious games." Kevin says as if he's an announcer.

"You said later." Devin looks like he's not looking forward to these so called serious games.

"It is later. Anyways the first game we are playing requires a quarter. Quarter anyone?" D hands one to Kevin.

"We're playing Turn Ons and Turn Offs. It's not that hard," Kevin flips the quarter and catches it. "Heads, turn on, tails, turn off. Who wants to go first? No volunteers OK, I vote the lovely Dinah." He gives her the coin. "Before we start, we're playing the eye candy version. Your turn on has to be something someone in the room has or something you've seen them do."

Dinah had a nervous look on her face and flips the coin. It lands in her hand and she flips it onto the back of her other hand.

"Heads." She says. "Turn on is when a guy wears bracelets." She passes it to Daniel who is sitting next to her then pulls out her phone. Mine vibrates and she looks up at me. We got to exchange numbers after dinner.

7:30 p.m.|Dinah: phew, played it safe

I look around and notice all the boys are wearing bracelets. I bet Kevin was trying to get her to say something about him.

7:30 p.m.|Me: well played, my friend, well played

"Heads." He looks me up and down then turns away. "Curly hair." He smiles and glances at me. Then he passes it to Devin and he flips it.

"Heads. Swear this coin is rigged." He thinks about it a little. "Big butts." He casually says and every laughs, some more than others. "I don't know what's so funny." Everyone laughs even more. He passes it to Tati then holds himself up on his stretched out arms behind him.

"Tails. Turn off is being too short." She passes me the coin. Please get tails, please get tails.

"Heads." Daniel and I make eye contact so I look away and try to think. Don't say it, Cassie, don't say it. "Man buns." Why did I say it? I pass the coin to Kevin and glance at Daniel. When I do he's smiling. Looks more like a satisfied smile to me.

"Tails. You know what, this coin is rigged. Let me flip again." He flips two more times and still gets tails. "Tails, again. Turn off, when girls give me rigged coins and I can't flatter them." He raises his eyebrows at Dinah. "Another round."