White Washed

Chapter Twenty | Poolside

When I finally came back to consciousness, I was first aware of two very important things. One, I was still much too tired. And two, the light was much too bright, preventing me from just rolling back over and sleeping some more.

I tried, anyway. I rolled onto my other side and covered my head with the blanket, then put my pillow over that. It didn’t help.

I sighed and sat up, glaring at the big, picture window that was letting all the sunlight possible into the hotel room. I jumped up from the bed and yanked the curtain closed, huffing in anger.

Some burst into a fit of giggles and I turned to Laurie with her eyes closed, laughing. I glared at her and she opened her eyes, meeting my gaze evenly. She started laughing all over again. “You’re...so...grumpy.” She managed to giggle out.

Sammy coughed and then started chuckling as well. Before long, everyone in the room was laughing, besides me. I pouted and went back to my bed, covering myself up again.

“Amelie, it’s nearly ten o’clock.” Noah said, pulling the covers off of me and turning me over to look at him.

Sammy grinned at us. “I’d be careful if I was you, Noah. Amelie’s pretty vicious in the morning. She's like a tiny rabid bear.”

I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “All right, all right. Enough humour at my expense.” I got up from the bed and walked over to the coffee machine, turning it on.

Laurie hopped up too, clapping her hands together. Cass looked up at her from his spot on the floor, glaring just as grumpily as I was.

She grinned down at him excitedly. “Everyone get ready and then we can go to the mall. We can get something to eat for lunch there and then do something until supper.”

I gave her a confused look. “Are we staying here another night?”

She nodded, determinedly. “There isn’t enough time in the day for us to shop, eat and then go home. So we’ll do all we want today and then go home tomorrow. We’re just missing a little school, who cares?”

Sammy chuckled, shaking his head. “Girls and their shopping. I’ll never understand.”

~  ~  ~

We split up at the mall. Cass, Laurie and I went to Starbucks and the other boys went their own way — probably to a sports store.

We wanted to hit all the best clothing departments, plus all the shoes stores and a few other random stores. However, as Cass fervently reminded us, we needed coffee first.

By the time we got to Starbucks, Laurie and I were nearly going out of our minds. Cass was so grumpy we’d both hit him in the head at least once. We hadn’t eaten breakfast, so we were all hungry, and I felt hung over. My head hurt, everything was too bright and too loud and I was snippy.

Laurie tried to keep an amused look off her face, but it made an appearance. Whenever she wasn’t making an annoyed face, at least.

As soon as we stepped into the Starbucks, Cass sighed in relief, taking a deep breath. He turned to Laurie with a smile. “Smell that?” He asked. “It’s the smell of happiness.”

Laurie and I both laughed. Cass and his coffee.

As he went to order three cappuccinos for us, I leaned over to whisper to Laurie. “Tomorrow morning, we are having the hotel send some coffee up to us before he wakes up.” She giggled and nodded.

We’d made coffee this morning but Cass had only had one, small cup and clearly that was not enough for him.

Once we were served and finished in Starbucks, we started wandering around. We stopped at every single shoe department store we saw, Debs, Hot Topic, Spencer Gifts, JCPenny, Sears, Urban Outfitters, Target, Olympia Sport, Target and Forever 21.