Page 19 of Derivation

“Mufasa dies?” Arlowe asked. “Spoiler alert.”

Gabi hadn’t even noticed her in the room, so she must have been in the garage before her interjection.

“She’s kidding,” Sarai said, following Arlowe into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Gabi greeted. “Also, I was told there would be brownies.”

“Right here.” Enya nodded over to a plate of brownies. “They’re chocolate-peppermint. I wanted to try something different.”

“Oh, really? That’s cool.”

“Those are Violet’s favorite,” Sarai explained. “Enya’s been missing her.”

“We all have,” Enya added.

“Well, that’s nice to hear,” Violet said, walking into the kitchen with Stella close behind.

“Hey. You’re late,” Arlowe noted. “Sex?”

“We were hanging out with Jen and Haley, and we lost track of time,” Violet said, ignoring Arlowe’s sex comment.

“We’ve been replaced,” Arlowe joked.

“Who are Jen and Haley?” Gabi asked.

“Stella’s best friend and her girlfriend,” Violet shared.

“They’re about to move in together, so I think they invited us over to Haley’s place, where they’ll be living, to try to butter us up to ask us to help them move,” Stella explained. “Oh, brownies!”

“Chocolate-peppermint,” Enya said and held the plate up to Violet, ignoring Stella.

“My fave. Thank you.”

Violet smiled at Enya and took a brownie.

“So, game night, huh?” Stella asked. “What are we playing?”

“I picked up a few. Want to go out there and pick with me? I’m thinking something with teams,” Arlowe said. “Or, we could skip the board games and the cards and go classic with charades. You and Violet, me and Gabi, Sarai and Enya.”

“You know Enya will barely play. Trying to sandbag me, Arlowe Romano?” Sarai asked.

“No. I’ll be on Enya’s team, then. You can take Gabi.”

“I feel very welcome right now, being tossed around,” Gabi said sarcastically.

“Try being me,” Enya replied. “No one wants to be on my team because I don’t really want to be here at all.”

“Oh, come on. I’m sure it’ll be fun,” Gabi said. “Why don’t you and I team up together? Arlowe and Sarai can be on the same team and probably argue so much that they’ll end up losing no matter what.”

“Oh, I like her,” Violet said, chuckling.

“Charades sounds like fun,” Stella added.

“Fine. But you two, keep it rated PG in there. I don’t want you acting out whatever you do in the bedroom,” Sarai said, which made Gabi laugh.

They went into the living room, with Arlowe following behind, holding a bowl for all the clues to go into. Then, they each took a few slips of paper and wrote down some clues before folding them up and tossing them into the bowl.

“So, you’re moving in here?” Stella asked Gabi.