Just Roll With It: a Just Us novel (25 page)

"C'mon, little fucker!" Malik loudly whispers while fumbling with it.

"You've never practiced safe sex, have you?" Willow questions, with an eyebrow raised.

My coffee comes flying out of my mouth. Laughing while swallowing is not my strong suit. Well, as Roman and I quickly found out, swallowing is not my strong suit in general. After a moment of everyone staring at me, and maybe making a sarcastic remark or two, the conversations continue. Thank Thor.

I'm starting to pick up on a lot of the paintball terms and inside jokes so now I can partake in conversations and joke around with the rest of them. Roman had a paper to write so he was busy but decided to meet up with us after he finished. I was first to spot him pulling The Ghost
into the lot. If we want the party to remain a surprise, we'll have to stop the planning for now.

"Shhhhh."

"What if we—" Malik starts to say, but Willow is quick to interrupt.

"Shut up, he's walking in." She slaps him hard in the arm, exhibiting the amount of comfort they have with one another.

Roman sits down in the spot next to me and throws his arm over my shoulders.

"Hey, guys, hey, sweetheart," he says aloud, then gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

"Hey, babe."

"What are you guys talking about?" He scans the stoic faces surrounding the table.

"Um …" Malik is first to hesitate.

"Well …" Willow begins to cover for him but then loses her train of thought and swiftly re-directs her gaze to the tile floor.

"I was thinking about coloring my hair, and they were all giving me advice on what colors," I intervene, since no one else seems to be quick enough on their feet.

"Oh, yeah? Nice, what was the winning ballot?" he asks me.
Damn
. Hadn't thought ahead far enough.

"Purple!" Lyle belts out with a huge grin on his goofy face, the same one I've felt like bitch slapping more than once.

"A couple of purple highlights mixed in with regular highlights, is what he means." Willow jumps to my rescue. I guess girl code really is a thing.

"Awesome. I'll do it tonight," he tells me while he messes with a strand of my hair.

I almost spit out my coffee, again, as it burns its way down the wrong pipe.

"W-What?" I cough in confusion and panic.

"I can do highlights, they're easy."

"What, did you go to Cos school or something?"
Please say no, please say no.

"Of course not." Thank goodness. "I had a couple of female friends who did, though, and I always went to them to get free haircuts."

I roll my eyes. "Oh, well doesn't that explain everything."

"Hear me out. When I was there, all of the girls liked to flirt and shit because I was usually the only guy in the room, straight guy, anyway."

Willow glances at Malik like she's telepathically telling him something and I don't know what it's about, but I hope it's not a
this poor girl
look.

"So anyway, when I was there pretending to care about whatever those girls were talking to me about, I started watching and observing. It was actually pretty interesting. I picked up a lot. Including highlights."

What did I get myself into?
If I want to keep the surprise I'm going to have to go through with it or he's going to know something’s up.

"Do you trust me?" he asks, with his serious face on.

"The hero always asks the same thing before he makes the girl do something incredibly stupid, like jump off of tall buildings, or … Well, actually most of the time it is jumping off of buildings."

"Well, yes. But the hero always catches her," Roman points out.

"Not in
The Amazing Spider Man 2
! I'm pretty positive she dies," I try to sound fierce.

"
Dark Knight Rises
," Thomas monotonously throws out there.

"Oooh, this is fun.
Mission Impossible
, when Tom Cruise can't save Keri Russel," it's Willow piping in now.

"
Bourne Supr
—"Lyle starts, but Roman interrupts him.

"All right! I get it, I get it. But, for the record, in
Dark Knight
and
Mission Impossible
, the girls don't fall off of a building."

"No, one burned to death and the other had a bomb in her brain, so much better," I nod my head and say sarcastically.

"I think we're getting off topic. Not at all relevant to me doing your hair."

"Unless, you chemically burn my head!" I start rubbing frantically at my scalp to emphasize my point.

"I'm better than you think. I'll dominate that shit, I do my mom's all the time."

First off, what he said is the cutest flipping thing I've ever heard. Secondly, picturing a tough guy with tattoos going down his arms all shirtless and toned doing his mom’s hair while smoking a cigarette, does make me want him to do mine as well.

I'm sitting on the sink with my back against the mirror watching Rome mix the hair dyes. After coffee, we went right to the beauty supply store and picked out a bleach and a purple. Roman says he will have to use bleach for the highlights, but the purple will be fine without bleaching first. At the store he bought two bowls and two brushes I guess are designed for hair coloring. Then, a few minutes ago, I watched as he sat on the toilet lid and began cutting strips of tin foil one by one, forming a pile for him to grab as needed.

"Ready?"

"Let's do this."

He separates my hair into sections, placing the foil underneath, and zig zags through it with one of those combs with the pointy end. He brushes the bleach in, and once he's confident with his work, he folds the foil. He reaches my bangs and starts swapping between bleach and the purple.

I peer up at him in the mirror and am mesmerized by his focus. His forehead is creased, and his brows are knitted as he concentrates. His eyes dart up to mine because he knows I'm staring, and a corner of his mouth quirks up. Right as he was about to open his mouth to say something, the door bursts open.

My body jerks at the sound. In the reflection, I see Roman's face pale and his mouth snap shut. When it dawns on us someone is part way through the door and walking in here, we both spring to the door and slam it back shut before the intruder was able to get in.

"Jebus fucking crisp! How the hell? Is she … She scared the crap outta me. And why didn't she knock?" Roman scratches his head with the pointy part of the comb he's still holding. Part of me hopes there is some purple die splashed on it so I won’t be the only one.

"Yeah, she kinda does that sometimes. I didn't even give her a key for this very reason. Enzo's a traitor."

"Honey, are you okay in there? What's going on in there? Was Roman who I saw in there? Are you two doing something naughty?" my mom shouts through the door and proceeds to open it again. With his hand already resting on the door from before, he easily pushes against my mom’s efforts and it snaps shut again.

"Seriously, you two! What are you doing in there!" She sounds annoyed now.

I start giggling uncontrollably. I don't even know why. "Well, Mom, if we were, in fact, doing something naughty, would you really want to see it?" I yell back from inside the bathroom still in a fit of giggles.

Roman is smiling now too, probably an effect of my laughing, but he still looks a little uncomfortable with his nose crinkled up. "I don't want your mom to get mad about me dying your hair purple," Roman whispers to me.

"She won't," I tell him while I draw my bottom lip into my mouth out of habit and nerves. "She'll probably be ecstatic, actually, she's always thought I've been too much of a goody-goody who doesn't do exciting things, not saying this is super exciting or anything but …" I realize I'm rambling so I stop myself by biting my lip shut again.

"Stop."

I get a confused look on my face, I had already stopped my babbling before he spoke the word. "Stop what?"

"Stop chewing on your lip, it's too sexy, and your mom's on the other side of this door."

"Sexy?" I tease, batting my lashes and puckering my lips. "Don't you wanna give her something to really walk in on?"

His mouth falls open. He shuts his eyes and tilts his head toward the ceiling and growls. "Your killing me, Bee."

"Fine then, time to meet our fate." I deliberately open the door as slow as possible to intensify the delivery to a very curious mother.

Her arms are crossed, and she's leaning a shoulder against the wall. She's looking at me after patiently waiting, something she's doesn't do very well, as if nothing wicked weird is happening. Considering I have a head full of foil and look like the kids and Joaquin Phoenix in the movie
Signs
, I was expecting at least some sort of reaction. Sneaking a peek behind me into the bathroom, she surveys the evidence of what we were doing. With her famous poker face in place, she darts her eyes to Roman. After giving him a short once over, probably to ensure all of his clothing is in order, she finally grabs her stomach and doubles over, practically convulsing with shrieking laughter. The reaction I was expecting in the first place. 

My chest fills with achievement as I look around the connected hotel rooms at my handy work. Since Roman's birthday happened to fall during spring break, we decided to go with an over the top exaggerated amount of spring decor instead of birthday decorations.

Everywhere you look, pastel colors, eggs, chicks, and bunnies flood the space. We made a banner and wrote a big Happy Birthday, you know, for clarification. We painted it in pastels with Easter eggs and patterns, and we cut out the part of the Chicago tournament signs with Roman's face on it to glue on as well.

The crepe paper is strung up perfectly across the ceiling and walls while bounds of balloons and paper center pieces lounge about in no particular order. If a unicorn and the Easter Bunny were to
bow-chicka-wow-wow
under a rainbow, thus birthing out a legion of minions—depending on which one is the female, scratch that, it doesn't even matter which one is female—this is what it would look like. Exactly what I was going for.

It came to me when Lyle brought up how his birthday is so close to April Fool’s day, being only one day after. When I realized how Easter came early in April this year, a piñata filled with pastel eggs and bunnies exploded in my brain. When I suggested the idea over coffee everyone was onboard immediately.

Willow agreed to help me with the shopping since we didn't trust the most important responsibility to the guys. The guys have been admittedly helpful with the hanging and taking orders portion of our event. Shopping for the decor with Willow proved to be beneficial. Turns out, she is a super cool person and we've decided it's now crucial we become friends. Same as with Enz, it's like I decided I happen to enjoy this other human's company, so we should start doing stuff alongside each other.

Speaking of Enz, out of the guys helping to throw the shin-dig, Enzo only knew Lyle and they’re not very close yet, so he also came with us girls. After a successful trip to every party store and dollar store in town, we head to the rooms to help the hypothetical unicorn and Easter Bunny get it on.

Today is April Fool’s Day, and a Wednesday, so chances are he won't be expecting a surprise party. Luckily, it is spring break. We don't exactly live in a tourist area—
add sarcastic laugh here because we're in the opposite of what you would call a tourist area
—so the hotel rooms were reasonable. Even with two adjoining suites, each having two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living area equip with pullouts, wasn't bad. With most people heading south for the week to escape the Michigan Winter we call spring, the hotels were having good deals.

I was told upon checking in the only other people here tonight were a few business men and they were located on different floors at the opposite end of the complex. We collectively decided to inform the hotel staff we were indeed throwing a party and might get a tad loud. We thought if we told them upfront we would get in good with them for our honesty.

I take one more check around to make sure we have everything. Bags and boxes of packaged salty foods,
check
. Capacity filled coolers and ice buckets, happily leant by anyone and everyone who would happily lend them,
check
. Cake with same silly picture from the paintball tournament signs, edible and printed on it,
check
. Silly string,
check
, beer pong supplies,
check
, drunk checkers,
check
, playing cards,
check
. Atomic-Anarchy,
check
. I think we're good.