Page 41 of Playing to Win
“No! Most definitely not! I don’t want Kyle dragged into your fiasco of parties! No way! Just please, let me have a normal, boring, uneventful birthday for once in my life. Take me to a nice restaurant. Buy me a cake from Cold Stone Creamery and call it good. I’m serious.”
Cassie’s face morphed into a perfect rendition of pouty butt. “But we want you to have a fun birthday, Callie. Please?”
“Cassie, I get it. Poor Callie didn’t have a mom growing up and Dad had to plan birthday parties my entire life. Every year there was a missing place around the table where my mom should have been. But Nana helped my dad. It wasn’t a tragic Hallmark movie moment where it was just me and Dad crying over a burnt cake he seriously overcooked, missing Mom. I had good birthdays. Really. I just don’t want another one where someone lights their hair on fire or I black my eye. Please?”
“Fine,” Cassie continued to pout. “But can we at least invite Kyle?”
“Of course you can invite Kyle. On one condition. No singing.”
“Callie!”
“No singing or the deal’s off.”
“Fine.”
“Pinky swear?”
“You’re a big meanie, party pooper, you know that?”
Callie held out her pinky, eyebrow raised. With a sigh, Cassie reached over and joined her pinky with Callie’s.
“Sometimes I hate you, you know.”
“No, you don’t,” Callie grinned. “You just hate that I’m stubborner than you.”
Kyle was just aboutto head out to the floor for practice when his phone started ringing. He stared at the unknown number. Usually he avoided them like the plague. Unknown numbers were from the devil, he had learned early on in his career. Everyone he wanted to have his number had it, but for some reason, a voice inside his head was telling him to answer. Cautiously, he punched answer.
“Hello?”
“Kyle?” someone whispered.
Great, a crazy stalker, he thought. Last time he was listening to his inner voice.
“Look, I don’t know how you got this number—”
“This is Cassie, Callie’s roommate,” the voice whispered. “Do you remember me?”
“Yeah, I remember you. Why are you whispering?” Kyle asked.
“Well, because Callie is in her bedroom getting ready for class, and our walls are thin and she would kill me if she knew I stole your number off her phone.”
“Okay,” Kyle said with a smile. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re calling, though.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, her birthday is coming up and she hates parties. She actually has good reason, because the last few parties we have planned have been crappers and she’s naturally wary of what we might do this year—”
“Cassie, would you mind getting to the point? I was supposed to be on the court like, five minutes ago.”
“Oh, sorry. Anyway, she made me pinky swear I wouldn’t plan anything or have them sing, but I don’t want to just have some boring old eat supper and cake and that be all. She deserves something fun after we screwed up all the other ones. So I was wondering if you could think of something fun to do on her birthday and make it a surprise. I would tell you who to invite and all that. I would even help you plan it. We just have to be sneaky and it has to be a good idea. Are you up for the challenge?”
Kyle thought about it. It was risky, especially since Curly had told them no parties. But he felt like he knew her well enough now that he could plan something that would be successful and maybe even tear that wall down completely he felt like he was doing a pretty good job at weakening.
“You have yourself a deal.”
“Yes! Okay, I gotta go! Thanks, Kyle! By the way, I’m rooting for you!”
With a smile, Kyle put his phone back up in his locker and trotted out the door. It was nice to know he had one of Curly’s friends in his corner.
“Hey, Daddy.”Callie smiled as her dad answered on the first ring. “Just got out of class and about to go in the center to practice for the game tonight. Whatcha doin’?”
