"Ugh! Not again," Stacey groaned in frustration.
Chloe laughed beside her. "Don't tell me you burned the sausages again."
Stacey stared at the barbeque pit with a pout. The dark spots on the sizzling sausages seemed to stare back at her as if emphasizing her terrible cooking skills. "It's not my fault! I've never really cooked before and you know how I feel about fire," she replied defensively.
Chloe placed a hand on her shoulder. "Alright, if you can find someone else to take your place, I'll let you off. We all know you'd rather chillax with your boyfriend at the pools anyway."
Stacey frowned. "But who should I ask? My brother can't cook either and we all know Hailey's even worst. Remember the last time we asked her to make a salad?"
"Oh my gosh, she nearly blew the whole house up... I don't even know how someone can be that bad," Chloe said with a chuckle. "How about Estella?"
"Yeah, I'll ask her. I'm pretty sure she can cook better than any of us... apart from you of course."
Chloe gave her an amused look. "You do know that sizzling sausages isn't meant to be difficult right?"
Stacey rolled her eyes and began walking towards Hailey's swimming pool. Her boyfriend was sitting on one of the white chairs beside the pool and he waved at her with a smile when he noticed her. She waved back and told him that she would join him soon. Her light blue eyes swept across the pool and she noticed Hailey sunbathing on one of those giant doughnut pool floats. She was wearing dark sunglasses and rather skimpy bathers, but that was kind of expected of Hailey. Stacey then saw David and Estella chatting happily in one of the corners of the swimming pool and she instantly felt bad for having to disrupt them.
Still, she walked towards them and cleared her throat. "Hey Estella, could you help Chloe with lunch? I kinda burned the sausages. Twice."
"Sure thing, I'll be there in a sec." Estella planted a kiss on her brother's cheek, swam to the side and began to climb out of the water.
Stacey ignored the annoyed look her brother was giving her and gave Estella a grateful smile. "Thanks so much. If I tried to cook any longer, I would've poisoned you all to death before Christmas even comes tomorrow."
Estella giggled. "No worries! You go and enjoy yourself for a while," she said with a wink as she gestured at Cody with her eyes.
With the burden of sizzling sausages off her shoulders, Stacey skipped happily to Cody, grabbed one of the plastic chairs and sat beside him. "Hey babe, hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long."
Cody switched off his phone and beamed at her. "It's fine, I was busy surfing the web for some ideas on what to do tonight anyway. I mean, it's Christmas Eve, and the gang's all here. So, we might as well do something fun as a group tonight, right?"
Stacey and her friends had decided to spend Christmas Eve at Hailey's place since her parents were out for the day and did not mind her throwing any parties. As long as nothing was broken and any mess was cleaned up before they got back home. Plus, Hailey's family was rich and lived in a large, fancy house with a swimming pool. At first, Hailey had suggested inviting half the school but after a serious argument with Chloe, they decided to invite a small group including David, Estella and Cody.
"That's true, but what do you have in mind?"
"We could go bowling or ice skating at the city tonight. They're great activities for a group of about six teenagers and won't involve the police visiting us at midnight," Cody replied. "Anyway, do you want to go for a swim?"
"Nah, I'm good." Stacey closed her eyes and relaxed as she let the blazing sun tan her arms a bit. Though there was no snow or any opportunities for snowball fights during Christmas season in Australia, celebrating the special occasion during summer had its perks. For one, she could spend most of December and the next couple of months at the beach, pools or outdoors with her friends.
Cody then started telling her about his plans for the holidays and how he was going to visit Europe for a fortnight with his family in January. Though she was happy for him, Stacey knew she was going to miss him a lot during those two weeks and made him promise to call her often while he was travelling around Europe.
"Lunch is ready!" Chloe suddenly yelled from the barbeque pit and that got everyone's attention.
Hailey and David climbed out of the pools and Stacey and Cody made their way towards a large plastic table that Hailey had brought out for lunch. Estella was carrying a tray of sizzled sausages and various salads to the table whilst Chloe was carrying bread and bottles of soft drinks. When the food was all on the table and they had all gathered around, David said grace and the hungry teenagers started eating.
"So, do we have any ideas on what we could do tonight?" David asked before taking a sip from his can of coke.
"We could just spend the night at Hailey's and exchange Christmas gifts at midnight," Chloe suggested.
"And play spin the bottle!" Hailey suggested excitedly, to which everyone gave her disapproving looks.
Estella poked at her potato salad with a plastic fork. "Absolutely not!"
"Aww c'mon."
"I'm not interested in that either," Stacey confirmed and looked up at Cody expectantly. "Cody has some ideas though."
Hailey crossed her arms. "All right. Fine. You non-single people ruin all the fun."
"Well, we could go bowling or ice skating at the city tonight. The cost is affordable if we go as a group," Cody suggested.
"And a lot more appropriate too," Chloe stated and raised an eyebrow at Hailey. "So should we do a vote on which one we should do?"
"Sounds like an idea. Okay, all in favour of bowling, raise your hand," Stacey commanded and counted two hands. "And in favour of ice skating?" Five hands went up this time. "Well, we have our winner... ice skating in the city it is."
🎄 🎄 🎄
"This was a terrible idea!" Hailey announced after slipping on the ice for the hundredth time. "I can't ice skate even if my life depended on it."
Stacey laughed as she held onto Cody for support. "Most of us can't, that's why it's fun. And anyway, you're still doing better than Chloe," she admitted and pointed at Chloe, who was still holding onto the sides of the ice skating rink for support.
"That's true." Hailey gave Chloe an intimidating smirk and waved teasingly. As a response, Chloe showed her the finger and glared back.
As Stacey continued to try skating slowly with Cody, another couple breezed past them quickly and made them lose their balance. "Oh crap," she said and managed to drag her boyfriend down to the icy ground with her.
The couple that had rushed past them was now circling around them skilfully. "Need a hand sis?" David asked with a cheeky grin.
Stacey looked up and saw David and Estella circling them like birds waiting for their prey. "Can you guys get lost? We get it, you guys are experts at this."
"Well to be fair, we did have plenty of practice," Estella replied as she held David's hand. "Dave tends to take me on ice skating dates every month or so."
"Yup, and it sure is fun watching you and your friends fall over every time," David laughed and began skating away with Estella.
Cody frowned and helped Stacey to her feet. "If I'm honest, I've never seen your brother so cocky."
"It kinda runs in the family for things we're good at," Stacey mumbled. "He will pay for it though." She brought out her hand and flicked her wrist in David's direction with precision, causing the cool air around her brother's feet to suddenly shove in another direction violently.
To her delight, David lost his balance and the couple fell to the ground in shock. "Stacey!" he yelled out angrily, knowing what she had done.
Stacey giggled and turned her attention to Cody, who was laughing at her power misuse. She glanced at her watch and noticed it that was only minutes away before midnight—minutes away before Christmas. Slowly, she led Cody to the corner of the ice rink and held him close.
"You know, I've had such an awesome time with you. I'm really going to miss you when you leave for Europe next month," she confessed as she rested her head on his chest.
Cody rested his chin on her head and embraced her in a hug. "It's only for two weeks babe. And I'll make sure to call you every day and text you when I can. I'll even bring you back a souvenir," Cody assured.
Stacey glanced briefly at her watch. One minute until Christmas, she thought. She stood up straight, placed her arms around Cody's neck and leaned in for a kiss. "Merry Christmas babe," she whispered in his ear.
"Aww, will you look at that. These two decided to ditch the group to make out in a corner," a familiar voice exclaimed.
Stacey quickly turned around and nearly lost her balance. "C-Chloe?"
"Hey, I'm here too you know," Hailey said and appeared from behind Chloe.
Somehow, the two of them had made their way to them and had left the sides of the ice rink for support. Stacey grinned and approached them. "Merry Christmas!" She hugged the two of them awkwardly whilst attempting to keep her balance. "Hey, I got an idea. We should link arms and skate around the ice rink together."
"That sounds like a dangerous idea. I'm in," Chloe said with a chuckle and began linking arms with Hailey and Stacey.
Stacey linked her other arm with Cody's and they began slowly skating down the area as a group whilst other skaters stared at them with amusement. So far so good... Hailey suddenly wobbled, lost her balance and dragged them all down to the ground with a yelp.
"At least it wasn't my fault this time," Chloe declared and rubbed at her sore elbow.
They all laughed cheerfully as they rested on the icy ground for a while. Stacey realised that this was the best Christmas Eve she has had in a long time and wanted to cherish every moment of it with her closest friends. "I love you guys," Stacey announced with the biggest smile on her face.