Tyler leans back in his seat, looking towards the car’s screen to check the time. Ten more minutes. Perfect. Everything will be ready by then. His eyes move towards the door, making out the silhouette reaching down to kiss a baby on the forehead.
Another one sits down on the seat in front of her and reaches her arms out to take the baby. His lips thin. It would have been great if Jade could have made it too. He’d asked, but had been told she felt too tired for a party.
Still. Every one else would be there. And some other people none of them knew sinceLiahad thought it was too small. He’d have argued against it, but the party was at her house. So, he supposed she could invite anyone she wanted.
Thankfully, he had managed to convince her to tell them to come ter. So Tori wouldn’t suspect anything when they got there. Tyler had almost forgotten how difficult it was to get them to keep anything a secret. Yet, having to change the subject every few moments the past week had more than reminded him.
It didn’t look optimistic since it wasn’t the only thing he didn’t want them to tell. He was surprised Tori hadn’t noticed with how overly excited they all got around her. Even Ally and Brooke.
He smiles, checking the time again. She really did attract a certain type of people.
Two minutes. Good enough. If he had to wait any longer, Tyler thought he might have jumped out of his skin. Every minute seemed to pass by like a lifetime now that they were so close to the finish line.
Knocking at the door, he moved back to gnce through the windows. He could vaguely make out the image of someone moving to the door, almost tripping in their speed. A muffled curse and swish of the curtains ter, the door swung open.
Tyler grins as he meets her eyes. “Ready to go?”
“You say that like you haven’t been here for more than ten minutes,” she says with a smile. “But yes, I am. Just let me get my bag.”
He supposes he should have known she’d notice the car. But the truth is he still doesn’t know if he can keep acting normal in front of her. Granted he’s been doing a great job of it so far, even if he does say so himself, but Tyler’s not about to try his luck.
It’s far easier to do that when you’re also preparing a surprise. “Hi Jade!” He smiles as she comes into view, Raine held in her arms.
“Hello, dear,” she smiles back. She looks around for a moment before leaning forward. “Everything prepared?”
“Yes ma’am,” he whispers in the same tone. “There’s just a few little things, but Nina’s got it handled.”
“Wonderful,” she grins. “You kids have fun alright? And V,” she says asToricomes back with her purse, “Don’t worry about a thing. Just focus on the now.”
There’s definitely a conversation here he doesn’t know about. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious. However…“Yeah don’t worry,” he says to Tori, “Lia’s going to be disappointed if you make our first sleepover in years sad.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she replies, rolling her eyes. To Jade, she says, “I will. But call me if you need me.”
Tyler exchanges a knowing look with Jade, stifling a smile as Jade gives her a pointed gnce. Honestly.
“What did we just talk about?”
“I know,” Tori says, voice almost a whine, “but I still want you to promise me that you’ll tell me if anything goes wrong.”
Is it the car crash that makes her act this way? He’s not sure. It has been more than six years, but if he had to guess he thinks she just doesn’t want to lose another set of parents. Doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.
“Sweetheart, nothing’s going to go wrong,” Jade says with an fondly exasperated tone. Silence. “Oh alright,” she says with a helpless smile, “I promise that if on the slight chance something goes wrong in our own house, I’ll call you.” He’s impressed she can make that sound both annoyed and sincere.
“Fair enough, I suppose,” Tori says on a sigh. Tyler’s distracted by a buzz in his pocket. Good.
“Well on that note, I think we should head off,” he says with a wide smile. “You know how impatient Lia is,” he adds when Tori gives him a questioning look.
“And yet she’s also the one who compins about early days and can barely get somewhere on time,” she says without heat, a fond smile pulling up her lips.
“Alright, drive safe,” Jade says nudging her out the door and throwing Tyler a conspiratorial smile before closing it.
“Ready to go?” He repeats his earlier question.
“Very funny,” she replies, already heading towards his car.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he murmurs, smiling when she ughs. Good. Objective one done.
When they pull into the driveway of Lia’s house, it’s very quiet. To be fair, that was the pn, but he thinks they might have overdone it. He tries not to gnce at Tori as they get out of the car, afraid his face might give the game away before they even get to the door. Internally, he curses his friends for being so all or nothing.
“Why is it so quiet?” Tori turns to him with a frown, “Where is everyone?”
As he feared, it made her suspicious. Shit. Come on. Think of something. Uh…“They’re probably out the back,” he says with a smile.
“Out the back,” she repeats. “For what? It’s winter.”
That it was. “Lia’s mum started a greenhouse a while back, she probably wants to show them the flowers.” Which wasn’t entirely a lie, so it should work.
A beat. Then two. “Oh. Okay,” she says with a smile. Tyler internally sighs in relief, mentally patting himself on the back.
“Come on, let’s go in.” Walking towards the door, he makes sure to be just a step before her. He knocks on the door and then steps back to be just a step behind her as they walk in. The curtains are down so it’ll be dark inside.
One. Two. Three. The door swings open.
“Surprise!” A flicker of a switch and the curtains roll upwards, revealing the banner and decorations inside. The sound of party whistles accompanying the ‘surprise’. Their friends jumping into view from behind the stairs and the table.
Tyler smiles, moving forward to see her face better. It spreads as he takes in her wide eyes and gaping mouth. Oh my. He feels his face hurt from how far it splits his face. They’ve managed to render her speechless.
“You guys,” she says, grinning as she finds her voice. Even if he wasn’t happy with their pn, he’d think it was worth it for the joy on her face. “I can’t believe you did this!” She looks around the room, taking in the birthday decorations on dispy.
Zach grins. “It was Tyler’s idea.”
“Yeah well,” he begins when she turns the look on him, “I wasn’t really happy with the way it went st time. Figured we could use a redo.” Silence. “Happy birthday, Tori,” he says with a smile.
Only to yelp when all of a sudden a body barrels into him, reacting just in time to catch her before they both fall. She doesn’t seem to notice, or care if she did, instead squeezing him in a tight hug. His arms react automatically to return it.
“Thank you,” she whispers before pulling away. Far too soon. He’s left staring after her as she turns to throw her arm around the others as well, before moving over to do the same to those she couldn’t reach.
His eyes follow her, hands on auto pilot as he shuts the door behind them and moves to get further into the room. Brooke gives him a thumbs up before moving to pull Tori towards the food. It was one of the things she’d helped prepare.
Ally huffs a ugh as Tori’s eyes widen at the sheer amount of it. Yeah. Okay. They may have gone a little overboard.
“Is this all for us?” She gives them a questioning look, lips twitching into a smile.
“Yes and no,” Brooke tells her, “We might have made a little too much,” she shrugs. “Good thing Lia invited a bunch of other people as well.”
“They’re not gonna be here for an hour though,” Ally adds, “so for now we’ve got it all to ourselves. And it gives you time to look around!”
Torilooks like she wants to say something but then thinks better of it. She shakes her head with a fond huff. “Alright. Show me what else you’ve got.”
There’s only a few other things. Mostly they just wanted to get her here and give her a redo of her birthday. So Lia convinced her parents to turn their backyard into a mini golf circuit with a prize at the end. He’s still surprised they agreed to it.
Although, he suspects it has to do with Tori herself. From what he now remembers, all their parents had liked her a lot. Not that he can bme them, who wouldn’t like a happy kind child who their child has a lot of fun with.
A gnce upwards shows them watching them with smiles as Zach excitedly circles her, nudging her to go outside. Tyler should probably follow them before he gets left behind. But as he gets there, the exhaustion of the past week catches up to him and he has to take a seat before he embarrassingly faints.
He’s gd he can see still see her face split into a grin from this position, because he doesn’t think he’d be able to move right now even if wanted to. He sighs in relief, eyes closing and lips splitting into a smile. Jesuschrista party was a lot of work.
When they weren’t at school or around Tori, they’d been busy getting the equipment for the course. Not to mention pnning what food they were bringing and how to get her there. Making the decorations and the photo board she’d yet to see was a lot of work too.
It was a pain none of his friends could drive for one reason or another. Whether they didn’t have their license of access to a car. He didn’t mind it too much. Not when the result was seeing her walk around the course like a little kid. However, it meant he hadn’t had very many moments to rest.
Oh well. He stretches his legs out, testing their strength. They didn’t feel like they’d stop working on him now, so he decides it would be safe to get up and follow them. They’ve gone out of sight, but it’s not hard to find them. He just has to follow the sound of ughter.
“I can’t believe you made a whole course!” Tori ughs, leaning down to check the fg.
Nina leans back with a sigh, “Tell me about it. I thought Lia had gone insane when she suggested it.”
“Excuse you,” Lia says with a gre, “It was and is a spectacur idea.”
“A pain to move though,” Zach says and then jumps back when Lia goes to flick him for it. “What? It was!”
“Yeah,” Tyler says, “and neither of you were much help.”
“Do you see any muscles on these arms?” Nina gives him an incredulous look, “I wasn’t going to get crushed under it.”
“But you’re fine if we did!?” Zach turns to her with an accusing gre, and pointed finger.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Nina says back, “you wouldn’t have been crushed. Lia’s dad helped, didn’t he?”
“It was still heavy as fuck.”
Tyler thinks he might need to intervene before this actually turns into an argument. Except, he’s not really sure how to go about doing it. Lia looks entirely on Nina’s side and Brooke and Ally just seem amused, so that’s no help.
“Why didn’t you just hire people to move this in?” Tori looks both amused and confused. “Wouldn’t that have been better? You already had to pay to get the equipment so why not get them to put it here as well?”
See. This is why they needed her. If he were to be honest, the thought just hadn’t crossed his mind. He exchanges a look with Zach and then Brooke, moving to Lia as well. Nina catches his eyes and shakes her head. Good, they’re agreed. None of them are going to tell her that.
“It would have been less personal,” Ally says, one of the other people that had jumped in to help set up the course. Tyler gives her a thumbs up behind Tori’s back, smiling in relief.
“Hmm. Okay,” Tori says. “Is there anything else you want to show me or can we just start on this now?”
“Only a few things,” Tyler tells her, “but it can wait. Let’s py before the crowdLiainvited show up and we don’t get a chance.” He ignoresLia’sgre and turns to the others. “What do you guys say?”
“Sounds good to me,” Brooke says with a shrug.
Ally has a wide grin.“Let’s get this party started.” He grins back, huffing a ugh.
“What she said,” Zach says.
“Come on,” Lia says shaking her head, “the clubs are over there.”
“Great!” Tori says, practically jumping with excitement as she follows after.
Tyler exchanges a gnce with Nina as they follow after. Neither of them needs to say a thing to know they’re both thinking of the same thing. It’s nice to see her so happy after the disaster of the st time.
The sadness hasn’t crept in for her and they’re going to make sure it stays that way. And kick her ass at mini golf. That too. They hadn’t been able to come to a winner st time, after all. He’s not about to miss the opportunity for a rematch.
He smothers a smile, picking up his golf club. The only question is, are they going to go by the traditional rules of the fun ones. Either way, it’s sure to be a lot of fun. If it doesn’t end in an argument for whatever reason.
With two more people this time, they split into two teams, picking up the minated cards organised on the table. Music starts to py as soon as they get in position. He doesn’t need to look back to see who started it.
It can only be Zach since the asshole monopolised the pylist. He doesn’t know why he chose Mad Hatter for this moment, but he’s just gonna roll with it. Even if it is a little distracting.
Tyler ignores it, lines up his shot and swings. A grin splitting his face victoriously as it goes in first shot.
“Beginner’s luck,”Zachsays with a huff.
“You wanna bet?” Tyler replies with perhaps a little too much smugness.
“Do you really want to,” Tori asks lightly, “we know how the st one of those turned out.” The small gre he gives for that only makes her ugh.
Nina cackles behind them, leaning over to fill Brooke and Ally in. He sees their eyebrows rise before they grin, giving him amused looks. Great.
“Really?” He turns a deadpan look toTori.
“Yep,” she replies, grinning. “Now prepare to lose. I’m not going to easy on you this time.”
Tyler would be offended if she didn’t then swing and get it into the hole first try as well. He meets her smug look, meets Zach’s gaze, and grins. “Game on.”
