Victory!

Fueled by fruit and rightly proud of a job well done, the fox - err, "bandicoot" - danced on screen as the points kept ticking up to blow the current high score out of the water. Cassie had gotten pretty good at the game, but her dad was right when he said that it was so much more fun to just go out there and run from danger yourself. Naturally mom was even more justified to point out that he was just a sore loser. Capturing the image to gloat online to her friends and followers, the first reply had nothing to do with with her accomplishment.

UR mom

Very nice. Unspoken and harmless, there seemed to be an ongoing battle to determine who answered the quickest - given the contents of the half-sent message, one of the contenders was automatically out of the running. The kind of person that was quote unquote "respectful enough" is answer asap (usually within five minutes of contact), if she didn't know for a fact who was replying to the automatic alert, the bespectacled blonde might have been offended.

Srry. UR mom said u would b over at 4. Its 5:30.

Cassie sighed to herself and turned the game off before texting Ella directly. If she'd told the older girl once, she'd told her a million times that there was no need to apologize every single time that a message sent before it was ready. Honestly she had no idea why she kept bothering to teach that lesson when her mom would just undercut any progress by complimenting the girl on her "impeccable manners". Racing through the list of contacts to the heiress, she wrote back:

Dad is taking 4EVER! Change venue?

Generous with the vast fortune she would gain unlimited access to someday (why there was a limit on how much she could touch now versus in the future was redundant when anything that had been taken seemed to regenerate the next day, often with interest), this year's Halloween party was being sponsored by the Adler family. On her own volition, Ella had volunteered to help the entire Drake family (including the extended members) with their costumes. Ella's mom had rented out the entire rec center for the night, and no expense was being spared - the band was going to be both relevant and live, the staff was going to be on-hand so there were no accidents (especially at the pool), and there was even going to be a costume contest. Frankly Cassie felt that it would be rigged in favor Ella, but the other girl swore she wasn't going to enter.

Aware that her cousin of sorts (no one really knew how to label the relationship, just that uncle Sam had taken the heiress under his wing) had a crush on some guy, Cassie figured that that was true enough. Lame as it was to cut out when so many people with complicated histories were going to get together under one roof, it was a no-brainer that the other girl would probably be ducking out early to spend some quality time with her mystery beau. It was just what teenagers did, and probably the part she was most dreading about getting older. Despite not being interested in whatever it was the teen thought she was going to get up to, Cassie was still curious to know who it was that had Ella so wrapped around his finger.

Musing if it was someone she even knew, there was a long pause on the other end of the conversation, which was presumably new arrangements being made. Whatever the hold up was, the reply came quickly enough. See u soon.