Chapter 9

The next morning, I woke up at 0600 hours. I slipped into some track pants and a tank top, and walked into the kitchen. Everything was dark. I looked around, and saw the end of a streamer on the ground. I tried walking towards it, but was interrupted by the lights coming on, and confetti flying all over me.

"HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY BETH!" everyone shouted.

Happy Birthday BETH!

Looking around, streamers lined the ceiling, balloons littered the floor, and on the island in the middle of the kitchen was a beautiful, blue iced cake. I started giggling uncontrollably with joy. But someone was missing.

"Where's Emile?" I asked. Carter chuckled.

"Uhhh, well, umm," he started. "Jun and Emile were messing around with the streamers, and well, Emile got a bit tied up…"

I laughed hard, and Emile stood up from behind the counter. He was well and truly tied up in streamers.

"I don't know what to say!" I breathed out. I walked around the room and gave everyone hugs. Jake walked over to me and said, "Happy Birthday, Beth."

Staring into his eyes, I got lost in them. I was daydreaming about how good it would be to kiss him right now, and suddenly I actually felt his lips against mine. I gasped, but then I started kissing him back. We broke away from each other, and then he enveloped me in a hug. All around us, the team chorussed "Awwwwwwww!"

Emile handed me his newly sharpened knife to cut the cake with.

"Remember Skye, when you touch the bottom, you have to kiss the nearest boy!" Kat laughed. I cut the cake, and turned around to kiss Jake again slowly.

We ate the cake, and then we ran outside to have some fun. The team had already prepared some water balloons and we had a massive fight. In the end, we were all drenched and laughing as if spartans don't have a care in the world. I found a footy, and we played a game of football, then we had a game of basketball. Jun ran around spraying everyone with disinfectant spray due to us all being sweaty and dirty from the games. (Yeah, in this story, Jun is a clean freak) Without realizing, we played all day, and before we knew it, the sun was setting on the horizon.

Going inside, we went straight to our warm, soft beds.