I step towards them and Aiden notices me a second later, he turns his water gun on me but I’m already two steps ahead. I let the Nerf bullets fly.
I hit Aiden right in the chest and upper arm before he even has the chance to take proper aim. I screech out as the water soaks me but with my bullets flying around the room and both Tully and Aiden desperate to get out of the way, their aim resembles something a little similar to a little boy toilet training.
Tully screams and water goes everywhere. Within the space of two seconds, my room is drenched and bullets line every available surface within sight. I’m going to be cleaning those bad boys up for days. I can just see it now; when I do the laundry, I’ll find one in the bottom of the basket, when I do my makeup, there will be one hiding beside my mascara, when I climb into bed, I’ll feel one rubbing against my toes. On and on. It’ll take me years to find every last one. Hell, I found one last week hidden under the couch from when Noah and I had our fight all those weeks ago.
I distantly notice Dad and Aria standing in my doorway. Aria laughing and squealing as she gets splashed while Dad just gawks at the state of my room, probably at a loss for how to handle the situation.
When all the bullets disappear and the water runs out of the guns, we all fall into uncontrollable fits of laughter. “Holy shit,” Tully roars. “Look at your room.”
“Yeah, thanks. I’m trying to ignore that right now,” I tell her, wiping the tears off my face before finding a towel and drying myself off. “You’re cleaning all of this up, by the way.”
“Hell to the no, motherfucker,” she grins.
Aria eyes go wide before she booms out with laughter. “Tully said a bad word.”
Tully’s eyes go just as round before horror flashes across her face. “Shit,” she panics before slapping a hand over her mouth. “I did it again.”
Aiden walks forward and grabs the towel out of my hands before pulling me into a tight hug. “Happy eighteenth,” he sings before releasing me and getting busy wiping down my all my electronics before anything gets destroyed.
“Why, thank you,” I say with a beaming smile as I turn to my best friend. “How the hell did Noah allow you out of bed to do this?”
“Please,” she scoffs. “As if giving him the slip was hard. I’ve been practicing for this very moment since I was a kid. I think the more important question is how the hell you knew to be prepared?” Tully side eyes Aiden as though he gave me some kind of warning and his hands shoot up before he starts pledging his allegiance to his fake girlfriend.
“Are you kidding?” I laugh. “You’re Tully Cage! I’d be an idiot to assume you weren’t going to pull some ridiculous bullshit on my birthday. I’ve been prepared for this for months. The water guns though…that was definitely a surprise.”
A devilish grin rips across Tully’s face. “Speaking of surprises,” she says slowly.
My heart races as terror takes over. That’s not something anyone should ever want to hear come from the mouth of Tully Cage. “What did you do?” I demand, straightening as I search out my closest exits.
Her laughter overtakes her grin and fear grips me. “It’s nothing bad,” she promises, waving her hand around.
I raise a brow. As if I’d be stupid enough to believe that.
“No, really,” she tells me before grinning at Aiden who’s clearly in on the secret. “You’ll like this surprise. At least, if it was my birthday, I’d definitely like it. In fact, I’d love it.”
“Oh, geez.”
“Come on,” she says, reaching forward and grabbing my hand with her good one. “Trust me, you’ll thank me later.”
Tully pulls me out of my bedroom and starts heading towards the front door, leaving the mess in my bedroom behind. Though, to be honest, I don’t really care. A mess is a mess and it’s still going to be there for me later. I can clean it up tomorrow, but maybe I should fix my bed so I don’t have a wet mattress when I climb into it tonight.
Tully gets me to the front door before turning to me and holding onto both my shoulders. “Remember when the boys tapped us to the lamp post?”
“Yeah,” I laugh, remembering the fond memory of being stuck there for over an hour while the boys pretended we didn’t exist. “How could I possibly forget that?”
Tully goes to push open the front door. “Well, consider this payback.”
I step over the threshold and uncontrollable fits of laughter instantly take over me as I find my boyfriend, duct tapped to the tree that resides outside my home. My eyes rake over him. His arms are taped way above his head and he wears only a pair of sweats. His fine body is on display and from the less than impressed look on his face, I’d dare say he’s not happy about it, and he’s probably cold too.