We spent the last few days relaxing, clearing our heads and taking a break from our week that was about to become crazier.
It was Matthew's birthday.
Matthew turned 18 today. It was weird cause he sounded like much more of an adult than Hailey and me. I'm 16, but I'm only a year younger than Matthew since I have a late birthday in October. Matthew said he didn't want a party, however Hailey and Luka were in the process of planning him a surprise party.
When I woke up, I opened up my luggage to see if it was still there. I saw the white box wrapped in a dark green bow. I got ready quickly. I put on my outfit for the day, with a light pink bikini under it, before grabbing the box and heading downstairs. Everybody was already down there. The boys were there as well, around the table with empty plates.
"There you are, we were waiting for you." Luka said, making an annoyed face.
"You'll survive. I'm here now, aren't I?" I reply, pushing his shoulder teasingly moving his arm he was resting on off the table.
Ms. Graham walks over to us, putting bacon and eggs onto everyone's plates.
"Thank you!" I say to her and she gives me a warm smile, "Happy birthday Matthew." I say.
"Thanks, Morgan." I hand him my gift and he opens it. It was a gold thin chain necklace. He put it on immediately.
"Dude, we have to go to the inflatable water park today." Leo suggests.
"Isn't that meant for kids?" Matthew asks, slightly confused.
The boys grin at him. I look at Hailey, confused. She looks at me like she has no idea what's going on either.
When we finish breakfast, Luka rushes us out the lake house and into his car. We drive for a while before we go to Alexis's lake house. I put the window down to hear their conversation.
"Lexi, do you have your swimsuit on?" He asks.
"Yeah?" She replies, looking at the car, confused.
"Okay, come on."
She follows him without hesitating, even though she has no idea what's going on. Luka does the same at all the other girls lake houses. Nobody seems to know where we're going. We drive for about twenty minutes before pulling into a driveway. Luka walks up to the front desk. I follow him.
"Reservation for Oliver Taylor" Luka says.
"Oliver Taylor?" I look at him.
"It's under my dad's name."
The employees give us all life jackets and we walk to the lake, staring at the massive inflatable water park in front of us.
"Race you guys to the end." Colton yells, before sprinting into the lake.
My inner child comes out when everyone jumps in the water, swimming as fast as they can to the inflatables. I climb on and sprint. When Hailey catches up to me, I push her into the lake. I mean I felt kind of bad in the moment, but I needed to win this race. When Leo catches up to me he shoves me, and I almost fall into the lake before I tackle him, sliding us both across the inflatables, causing us both to win the race.
When Hailey catches up, finishing last in the race, she grins at me before pushing me into the lake. I wipe my hair out of my face before I climb back up, laughing.
"To be fair, you deserved that." She said.
"Yeah, you're right." I reply, catching my breath.
She helps me up and we climb up to a cliff. She grabs my hand before counting down. She didn't even get to finish cause Leo pushed us off. When we get the water out of our eyes, I see him in the lake beside me.
"Did you fall in with us?" I ask, making fun of him.
"Shut up." He replies, annoyed that I find this so funny.
"Do you guys have any song requests?" We hear an employee say from a microphone into a speaker.
I look at Hailey, knowing she's thinking of the same song that I am.
"Dancing Queen by ABBA!" We shout. Back at the lake house, they used to have a record player. Ms. Graham's favourite song is Dancing Queen and she played it all the time on the record player. One time, Hailey and I caught Matthew listening to it and whenever he asks Hailey to play music, that's the first song she chooses.
Matthew laughs in embarrassment when he sees Hailey and I holding hands dancing to it. We move over to him and grab his hand, pulling him into our little dance circle. Hailey starts singing along to it and I join in. When the song ends Matthew puts us onto his shoulders and runs off the inflatable structure and into the lake. I grabbed onto his arm feeling it in the moment. It was firm solid. When we get up, I'm still holding onto his arm.
"Like what you feel?" He asks me.
"No, I think you forgot arm day in fact." I reply, teasingly.
"I wouldn't have been able to carry you both into the lake if I forgot arm day let's not forget."
We notice everyone on the top of the slides. We all climb up and see them preparing to go down.
"There you guys are. We were waiting for you all." Alexis says. We climb onto the slide with them and slide down.
We spent the rest of the day playing tag and trying to accomplish the obstacle course. Luka and I finished it successfully, but everyone else kept falling. Leo blamed that we made it slippery and that's why but when they tried it again later, they still fell. When we heard our time was up we had one last race before getting off. Matthew won, determined to get there first.
"Thanks for planning today guys." He says to the boys.
"Of course buddy. We've been friends forever. You needed a fun day."
"So do you guys want to come over for a movie tonight?" Matthew asks.
"Yeah, but how about we go to my place instead. We just renovated my movie room and my family is going home tonight." Lily suggests instead.
"Sounds perfect. Thanks, Lily." He says.
When we get back to the lake house I get into the shower. Hailey walks in and waits for me to finish showering so she can. We're extremely close, like sisters, so we're comfortable sharing the bathroom together.
Once wrap the towel around me, I get out of the shower and she gets in. I dry off and put my outfit on for tonight. I knew something Matthew didn't know. We weren't going to Lily's for a movie night.
We were going for a surprise party.
We sent out some invites, but I already know those people are going to invite their friends and those people will invite their friends. I tried to make my outfit the least noticeable possible, so Matthew wouldn't get suspicious. I put on a light blue backless t-shirt and white jean shorts. I paired it with some gold jewelry.
When we got downstairs I saw some boxes from Matthew's favourite local pizza place. When he got to the dining table, I could see the excitement in his face. He opened it immediately and grabbed a slice. Matthew has always had a specific pizza order. He likes to make a custom pizza, with cheese, ham, black olives, onions, and pineapple. I don't understand how someone could like pineapple on pizza.
"Come on Morgan, just a bite." He says, holding his pizza up to my face.
"No," I say, backing away giggling, "you do this every time."
"It's so good though. How could you not like pineapple on pizza?"
"It's not my thing. I don't know what to tell you. Pineapple with cheese just does not sound appetizing to me."
"But it's not just pineapple with cheese. It's pineapple with cheese, ham, black olives, and onions." He says before taking a big bite of his pizza, closing his eyes like it's the best thing he's ever eaten.
When we finish dinner I put on my shoes and see Lily's car pulling into our driveway. Matthew is in a hoodie and shorts, but Hailey insists him to change into something nicer because Lily wanted us all to dress "fancy."
He didn't know what was going to happen that night, though.