Page 27 of Wish For Me

“I don’t know, Dad!” she cries, throwing her arms up in the air—and elbowing Cade right in the face. “I’m completely hammered, okay? My decision-making skills are not at their best.”

Then she realizes what she said and slaps a hand over her mouth. “Oh my god, I didn’t mean that. I’m not hammered. Not even a little. I’ve never even been drunk. I’ve never drank anything at all. Right?” She turns to Ash with wide, pleading eyes, and her twin scoffs.

“Sure, Vi. You’ve never had a drink in your life.”

Cade glares daggers at her while rubbing his abused cheek. Daisy is openly laughing, but Daltrey at least attempts to keep a straight face. “Don’t let her go wandering off in the woods alone, okay?” he says to Ash. “Probably keep her off the sled trail, too.”

“And it might be a good time to start giving her some water,” Daisy manages through her giggles.

When they walk away, Violet turns to us with wide eyes. “I totally fooled them! They have no idea I’m drunk!”

I roll my eyes. “You sure did, babe. Let’s go find the coffee cart, okay?”

But we don’t even manage to get Violet moving in that direction when there’s a horrible mechanic squelching sound, then Leo’s voice echoing through a megaphone. “Okay, everybody!” He’s climbed on top of a chair in the middle of the carnival space and everyone stops what they’re doing to listen. ”I hope you’ve all been having a great time, but now’s the event we’ve all been waiting for.”

“Karaoke?” Bodhi calls hopefully.

Leo gives him a scathing look. “This might be your wedding man, but there’s no way in hell I’m doing karaoke.”

“Even though he loves you very much,” Rose shouts, and Leo narrows his eyes at his wife.

“If that’s enough interruptions—”

“Leo, where’d you get your boots?” River calls from somewhere near the roasted walnut stand. “I’ve been looking for a pair like that.”

“And your hat is very fetching,” Will adds, just because he knows it will irritate him. “That fancy little fluff ball on the top really suits you.”

“Hey, I made him that hat,” Rose calls back.

Leo closes his eyes briefly, probably contemplating his mistake. That comment was just inviting my idiot cousins to act like, well, idiots, and continue to interrupt him.

Alex takes control of the situation by grabbing the megaphone from him. “It’s time to play capture the flag!” she calls, and everyone cheers. “And this isn’t your typical kiddie summer camp version. We’re talking a snow and ice themed death match to the finish.”

“Glad you provided so much alcohol before this death match in the snow and ice,” Fox shouts. “Sounds super safe.”

“Who needs to be safe when there’s glory on the line?” Everly shouts, and there’s more cheering.

Leo eventually gets the megaphone back and goes over the rules. They’ve designed some kind of snowball fight/paintball/capture the flag game which will require us to break up into teams and battle each other in the woods surrounding the property. Alex and Leo brought in specially-created pre-packed snowballs—which is apparently a thing you can buy. They’ve all been injected with dye which means every time someone gets hit, they’ll have a big colorful splotch on them, just like in paintball. Getting hit means sitting in place until someone else on your team can come and tag you back in, without getting hit themselves.

The rules seem a little complicated to me, to be honest. But maybe that’s just the fact that Violet isn’t the only one who’s been imbibing at the party. I’ve had my fair share of spiked cocoa and cider.

My somewhat fuzzy brain has nothing to do with the nearness of a certain asshole pastry chef. Definitely not.

Apparently, Alex and Leo pre-planned all the teams, probably to prevent the inevitable shenanigans that would have occurred had River and Fox been allowed to play together. I am a little surprised to find out that they’ve put me, Cade, Vi, Ash, and CeCe on the same team. Everyone always likes to complain about what troublemakers we are when we’re all together. The mystery of why they made that choice is solved when Leo presents us with our team vests. Everyone has to wear a padded nylon vest for protection, just in case the snowballs freeze too solid. But while the rest of the teams are given simple team-colored vests, ours are emblazoned with giant neon green letters spelling out Team Little.

“Hilarious,” Ash says drily, grabbing his vest from his grinning brother-in-law. “Bet you guys have been planning this for ages, huh?”

“Super creative,” CeCe says, rolling her eyes.

“What?” Leo asks in mock-innocence. “I thought you guys would like to have custom vests.”

“You get that we’re in college now, right?” Cade asks.

“Aw, Cadey,” River says, stopping to ruffle his cousin’s hair as he walks by. “You’ll always be my little buddy.”

Cade shakes him off and I watch while CeCe’s eyes flash. Uh oh. I know that look. If my older cousins were smart, they’d drop the whole thing.

“Thanks, guys,” she says in her sweetest voice—another warning sign—as she tugs her vest from Leo’s hands. “We’ll be happy to play as a team.”