A Year Of Celebrations

April Fool's Day

By SamanthaNave

Darkness greets my groggy eyes as I lift my head from my leather and cypress scented pillow.

What woke me?

I peer over my shoulder to find a Nathan shaped lump lying within arms' reach from me, his soft snoring telling me he's deeply asleep.

Well, it wasn't him.

Confused, I gently slide out of bed and silently make my way out of the dark room. My ears pick up a slight creaking sound coming from the bathroom, and I tiptoe across the hardwood floor of the hallway. A light seeps out from a tiny crack of the open door and with my heart racing I sneak over to peek inside.

The first thing I notice is blonde hair being held up with a black clip, and I feel my tight body deflate in relief. With a huff, I wrench open the door, causing Luke to squeak in surprise as he spins around to face me.

"What are you doing?" I whisper to him so my voice won't carry back to the bedroom. Luke slumps against the edge of the sink and begins to rub a hand across his chest.

"You're getting too good at sneaking around," he says instead of answering my question, raising my suspicions that he is indeed up to something. I cock an eyebrow at him in a silent demand for him to fess up. He tries to maintain his innocence by acting completely clueless, but I keep my unwavering gaze on him until he finally cracks. "Okay, fine. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." I roll my eyes at the Harry Potter reference and feel like Kota is going to regret introducing Luke to the movies.

"Luke," I warn sternly. He chuckles to himself before gently pulling me into the bathroom and silently closing the door behind me.

"I was actually going to wake you up when I was ready. I need your help," he says as he turns to face the sink. I notice a black box with bold white letters spelling out 'let's get inked' on the front.

"With what?" My stomach starts to flip with that promise of mischief dancing within those chocolate deeps of his eyes. "Why am I getting a feeling you're about to get us into trouble?" His mouth pops open in fake surprise as he covers his heart with both hands.

"Me? Get you into trouble?" I glare up at him since he and Gabriel are the cause of most of the trouble I've gotten into. "Okay, okay, we might get into a little bit of trouble but today is the day it'll all be worth it."

Confused, I'm about to ask what's so special about today when he raises his lit phone with his calendar on display. One day in particular is circled in red with happy face emojis dotted inside the box.

"It's April Fool's Day," he excitingly informs me as he bounces on the balls of his feet.

Yep, we're definitely going to get in trouble, I think as I reluctantly reach around him for the box. Opening the top, I pull out the folded piece of paper with the instructions on it and begin to read through them. Might as well see what I'm getting myself into.

It's a kit for a temporary tattoo that will last up to two weeks. Some of the tension in my shoulders loosens up, knowing it wasn't as bad as I was fearing. Luke's been known to do a lot worse.

"How do you plan to accomplish this without waking him up?" I ask as I read the many steps on how to apply the tattoo, one being to hold a warm towel over the application for up to fifteen minutes.

"With a little help of this," he announces with a flourish of his hand to reveal a familiar tiny brown bottle.

"Isn't that what you used to knock out my step-mother?"