Page 54 of Playing to Win
Chapter 17
“Oh my lord, that did not happen!” Aria was on the wooden floor of the arena, holding her sides and howling with laughter. It was seven-thirty in the morning and they had just finished practicing for tomorrow’s game. It was the only time the entire squad could get together. Most of them had other jobs or school in addition to being a Thunder girl, so weirdly scheduled practices were often the norm.
Callie didn’t mind practicing on her birthday. In fact, she wished she had practice. And class. And a game. That way, she wouldn’t have to worry about her family trying to pull a surprise birthday fiasco.
“It was kind of funny. You should have seen the look on his face. I thought he was going to cry,” Callie said, a slight grin on her face.
“Did he keep the dumb thing?”
“Keep what?”
“The cat, idiot!”
“Oh, yeah. I told him it could be my birthday present.”
“Oh, man. Dimples has it bad.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because no man lets a stray cat throw up and take a shit in his high end luxury vehicle and still keep it. Not unless he loves the woman begging him to keep it.”
Callie felt her face turning a brilliant shade of red. “Aria! There’s no way he’s in love with me! We’re not even dating! We’ve only hung out a few times.”
Callie refrained from mentioning Kyle had, in fact, made things official with her the night of the cat vomit fiasco. If she mentioned that to Aria, Callie would never hear the end of it.
“You might not think you’re dating, but I guarantee you he does. He’s probably planning the names of your firstborn child.”
“Aria! You are ridiculous!”
“Nope. I’m not. Haven’t I told you how long my mom and dad dated before they got married?”
“No. Enlighten me.”
“Three weeks.”
“What?”
“Yep. Daddy said he just knew the moment he met her. ‘Why wait when you know?’ is what he always told me. And you’ve known Kyle what? Twice that long? You should be planning your children by now,” Aria said, a wicked grin on her face.
“Well, that is not going to happen,” Callie told her vehemently. “Like I said, we’re not even dating.”
“Sure you aren’t. You just keep telling yourself that, dearie.”
Callie stuck her tongue out. “What about you? If your parents found love so soon, why haven’t you found your soul mate yet?”
“Because, honey, I’m simply too much for one man to handle. Now, let’s go try to figure out what we’re going to do for your birthday.”
“I told you, Aria! I don’t want to do anything!”
“Fine. Let’s go talk about all the fun stuff we won’t be doing for your birthday while we’re sitting around eating old hot dogs on stale buns and cake off the sale rack at Wal-Mart.”
“So what’s the plan?How are you going to get her to Chuck E. Cheese without suspecting anything?” Kyle was sitting on the couch at Callie and Cassie’s house, Cassie perched in the recliner, her legs hanging over one of the arms. They were waiting for Callie to get home from class so they could enact their birthday plan.
“I just planned on telling her that I had to pick up Jamal’s kid for him.”
“Does he even have a kid?”
“Yes. Jamal just doesn’t like having her in the spotlight.”
