Chapter 44

A year later, it was time for Sam's 21st birthday. I had been working on a car for him for months. Jessica had bought it for him and I told her I'd fix it up. She had moved into the apartment across the hall with Sam a few months earlier. Watching the 2 of them together was almost like watching Dean and Cassie together. They were completely happy.

Jess and I basically set things up the same way dad and Dean had set me up. Jess made him breakfast in bed while I put the finishing touches on the car. It was a dark blue 1981 Pontiac Trans Am. All I had to do was detail it and put a big red ribbon on it.

Sam was a little frustrated when I got to his apartment cause Jess wouldn't let him study. I could hear them arguing about it through the door before I knocked. I thought it was kinda funny. The argument stopped when I knocked and Jess answered the door.

I asked if Sam was ready for his present yet. Jess turned around and asked him the same question. He looked a little surprised and then nodded. We waited till we got to the front door of the building before we put the blindfold on him.

We guided him down to the bottom of the stairs and then I left him standing there with Jess while I went to start the car. He thought we were gonna take him somewhere and said it was gonna be hard for him to get into a car with the blindfold on. I walked back over to the steps of the apartment building and sat down behind them.

Jess was teasing Sam about having him right where she wanted him when a familiar sound caught my attention over the engine of the Trans Am. I looked up the street and saw dad and Dean sitting in the Impala. I smiled and waved at them. Dean waved back and dad shook his head. They didn't want Sam to know they were there.

I was so interested in dad and Dean that I didn't notice Jess had finally taken the blindfold off of Sam. I heard her say my name as she was explaining to Sam where the car had come from. Suddenly I got picked up and swung around in a big hug from my little brother. He said thank you and then put me back down.

Zach and Becky pulled up in my Camero at that point and asked if we were ready to go. Sam asked where we were going and Zach smiled and answered "Vegas." Out of the 5 of us, Sam was the youngest. Zach, Becky, and Jessica were all a year older than him. We'd been planning this trip for quite awhile and decided to turn it into a birthday party just the day before.

Sam started to protest and Jess told him he was going if we had to tie him up and throw him in the trunk of his brand new car. He laughed and then gave up and got into his car. I climbed into the back seat of my car and we headed for Vegas.

We had just hit the highway when my cell phone rang. Dean wanted to know where we were going. I told him we were taking Sam to Vegas for his birthday. I heard Dean laugh and tell dad what was going on. Dean told me not to do anything he wouldn't do and to call him in a couple days to let him know what happened.

I told him I would and then hung up the phone. Becky asked me who that was and I told her that my older brother had shown up at my apartment just after we left. They had all heard quite a bit about my older brother and wanted to meet him. She asked me to call him back and have him meet us in Vegas, but I said he was only in town for a few hours and had to get back to work. She got a pouty look on her face and then went back to reading her book.

We made it to Vegas in 6 hours. I contacted a friend of Caleb's when we got there and managed to snag us a 3 bedroom suite for free at the Luxor. Jess and Sam took one room, Zach and I took one, and Becky got the other. We stayed in our suite the first night and pigged out on room service. I think we had more fun the first night in our room than the entire week we were there.

Except for Sam, we each took turns playing the sober person for a day so we could keep each other out of trouble. We decided Sam had to stay drunk so he wouldn't worry about the week of school we were missing. That actually worked out pretty good. He was too busy kissing on Jessica and playing blackjack to think about school.