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“Why aren’t they here yet?” Grian complained, bouncing on his toes. Gem bit her lip as she glanced at the time on her comm. It was 3:14, nearly a quarter hour after the scheduled time for their sleepover to begin. She returned her gaze to the window she’d been staring out of for the past seventeen minutes.
Her eyes caught on a familiar green sweatband. “Martyn’s here!” she announced to her brother. Grian was at the door in an instant, yanking it open to wave enthusiastically at Martyn. The blond waved back.
“Where have you been?” Gem demanded as soon as Martyn was through the door. He shrugged, pulling off his shoes.
“Sorry. Got held up.” He glanced around. “Am I the last?”
“No, you’re the first,” Grian informed him. “Fifteen minutes late.”
Martyn grinned. “Whoops.”
“C’mon, you can dump your stuff upstairs,” suggested Gem, gesturing toward the stairs. Martyn nodded, giving his dad a quick hug before abandoning him to talk to Gem and Grian’s moms.
Of course, no sooner had they reached the room they were sleeping in than the doorbell rang. “BigB!” Grian exclaimed, all but sprinting down the stairs. Gem and Martyn followed at a more reasonable pace.
“Is that everyone, or is Netty coming?” Martyn inquired.
“She is not,” answered Gem. The fifth member of their friend group had been sick for the past few days and hadn’t been able to make it.
“Happy birthday, guys!” BigB called from the doorway.
“Thanks!” Gem replied, barely stopping herself from saying ‘you too.’
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to say that,” realized Martyn. “Happy birthday!”
Gem snorted. “Good job.”
“I do my best.”
“Right,” Grian interrupted, “who wants to play a board game?”
―― <> ――
Gem bent in half, laughing hysterically. “How?” she asked. “How did you get from zebra to piñata?” She gestured to their game of modified Telestrations.
“It’s not my fault Grian thought my dog was a llama!” BigB complained. “You’re the one who made the llama shaggy instead of fluffy!”
“Yeah, it was clearly a piñata!” Martyn added.
Grian was grinning so hard his face looked like it hurt. “Another round?”
“Actually,” Gem interjected, checking her watch, “we should leave for dinner soon.” They all stared out at the pouring rain.
“…We have umbrellas, right?” Grian finally ventured.
“Yup,” confirmed Gem.
“Can your moms maybe drive us?” Martyn wondered. “Since, y’know…”
“Nah, we’ll be fine!” Grian was on his feet before Gem could blink, shoving BigB and Martyn toward the door. “C’mon, Gem!”
Despite Martyn’s protests―which Gem couldn’t say she disagreed with―they were soon out in the rain, clutching their umbrellas for dear life. Grian skipped ahead, dragging Martyn with him and hollering something along the lines of “I’m siiiiinging in the rain!” while BigB and Gem followed at a more reasonable speed, with enough distance to claim they’d never met Grian in their lives.
It was a relief to arrive at the sushi place, although Gem was pretty sure her feet would never be completely dry again. They found seats and stumbled their way through ordering. Gem got her standard triad of maki―avocado, tuna, and salmon―and Grian copied her, minus the tuna, claiming to be “saving room for dessert.” Martyn got a standard California roll, and BigB ordered some abomination of a combo roll, solidifying Gem’s theory that sushi was the best measure of someone’s character.
“If you were an animal, what type of animal would you want to me?” Martyn asked out of the blue as they awaited their food.
“Scarlet macaw,” said Grian without hesitation. He turned slightly pink as everyone cracked up. “No―wait―I’ve thought this through, let me explain.”
“Yes?” BigB urged. “Go on.”
Grian straightened up and clapped once. “So,” he began, “I have to be able to fly. That’s my number one requirement. And I don’t want to end up as a pet, so I won’t be a canary or something dumb like that.
“I also don’t want to deal with this weather constantly. And I don’t want to die flying into a window, either, so I’m thinking somewhere uninhabited. Tropical checks all those boxes pretty well.”
“And out of all those tropical birds, why did you pick scarlet macaw?” Gem questioned.
“Because they’re the prettiest,” Grian answered, as though it was obvious.
Food arrived, and there was peace for about three minutes before Grian, being the gremlin he was, was lifting his chopstick toward the wasabi. “Should I?”
“No,” said Gem emphatically.
“Wait, I actually want to see that,” BigB commented. Martyn got out his comm, presumably to film it.
“I’m doing it!” Grian stuck his chopstick into the wasabi, then his mouth. His face contorted instantly, eyes squeezing shut. Martyn struggled to keep the camera steady as he laughed.
“Ah, this is great!” chuckled Martyn. He checked his comm. “Shoot, I didn’t switch to video mode.” He held up a picture of Grian with the chopstick halfway to his mouth.
“I’ll do it again,” Grian offered, chugging water.
“No, wait, I want to do it,” Martyn decided. “Here, record me.” He handed BigB his comm.
Somehow, Grian did end up doing it again, while BigB and Gem politely declined setting their mouths on fire. They did, however, end up with some excellent video footage, which they were rewatching when Martyn decided he needed Dr. Pepper.
“No,” Grian retorted immediately. “No, nope, and no. You’re addicted.”
“Didn’t you say yesterday that you were going to stop with the Dr. Pepper?” BigB wondered. Grian caught on immediately.
“Yeah, he did,” Grian agreed. “Figures he would immediately give up. Seventy-two percent of New Year’s Resolutions are broken anyway.”
“Really?” Gem asked.
Grian shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Why’d you pick seventy-two percent?”
“It just sounded like a good number.” The answer was so undeniably Grian that after a second, all four of them cracked up.
“The point is,” BigB interjected, “Martyn went back on his promise.”
“I never said that!” Martyn complained. “I would never give up my Dr. Pepper! Stop trying to gaslight me!”
“The point is, you can’t have it,” said Gem, trying to gain some semblance of control.
“Why not―”
―― <> ――
That night:
“Gem?” Grian’s voice pulled her out of the place between sleep and wakefulness where she’d been lingering.
“Yeah?” muttered Gem, prying her eyes open. BigB was asleep in the corner, facing the wall, and Martyn’s snores filled the room. She wondered why Grian had woken her up.
“You know how this is our fourteenth birthday?” He began.
“Technically, three days from now, but yes.”
“Do you ever think about how this is our last birthday with these people? Like, we’ll try to keep in contact when we go to high school, but eventually it’ll fade, won’t it? No birthday will ever be like this one.”
“Yeah,” Gem admitted, fully awake now. “But I don’t think we’ll ever fall out of contact with these two. Netty, too. And besides, we’re twins. We’ll always have one constant, no matter how old we are. No matter how annoying you are sometimes.” Grian stuck out his tongue.
“I guess so. We’ll just have to make a pact to keep in contact with our friends.”
“Are you sure that’ll work?” Gem teased. “Seventy-two percent of New Year’s Resolutions fail, after all.”
Grian shoved her over. Worth it.
“I suppose you’re right,” he continued after a moment. “We’ll always have each other to spend our birthdays with.”
“Yeah,” Gem agreed. “Always.”