New Twins in Town Pt. 01 Ch. 03

"Okay, but that doesn't explain how you got away with your tongue sticking out," Miles added.

"'usn' it?" Pixie asked with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

The twins exchanged a glance.

"Seriously?" Miles scoffed.

"Ahem," Joe waved at Miles and nodded.

"Second witness," Melissa repeated.

"I dunno, dude," Chris still hadn't gotten a chance to see the item. "Could be legal".

"It is legal!" Pixie stated, "And in a little over an hour. So am I!"

Miles finally looked at the date on the card.

"Oh woah, it's your birthday!"

She plucked the ID back from him and kissed the air between them.

"Not yet," she teased then looked to the sky. "The sun and the moon can have their special day on Monday. But tonight is all for me."

The friend's exchanged smiles, not sure what she was eluding to.

She let out a playful giggle, still dancing around the group, "So, we should do something special, right?"

"Tomorrow? Yeah, is there anything you had in mind?" Zoe wondered.

"Noooo. Tonight!" Pixie corrected, "We should do something at midnight. Like, go skinny-dipping!"

The smiles turned to uneasy glances.

"Sweetie... I don't know if that's such a great idea," Seph hated disappointing her friend.

"We got curfew in a few min," Joe pointed out.

"And I gotta say," Miles added. "The fact that one of the people I'd potentially be skinning dipping with is my sister is not a selling point."

"Mm-hmm," Zoe agreed.

"Prudes," Pixie giggled. "Thats an easy fix anyway. Miles, you'd stay on one side of the dock and Zoe would stay on the other. You'd practically be in different zip codes."

"If you two both go, I'm definitely going," Cleo was suddenly much more invested in the conversation.

"Hmmm, well Cleo, seeing as I'm the birthday girl, I think the option to switch from one side to the other would be exclusive to me. So, you'd have to choose if you'd want to be on Miles's side or Zoe's."

"Oh..." Cleo said quietly, her cheeks growing red.

"Oh, you're too easy. Of course I'd let you join me in the middle. You're the Queen. How could I deprive you of that right? Heck, we could stay on the dock and enjoy the view from there."

"N-naked?" Cleo's eyes doubled in size.

"Well, it wouldn't be much of a birthday celebration if we weren't all in our birthday suits."

"Slow your roll, girl!" Zoe finally stated. "I just don't see how we could make this work."

"Maybe if we'd gone earlier, we could have snuck off to another part of the lake," Mel rationalized. "But I don't see us getting over a half-dozen people out of the cabins at roughly the same time."

"Plus," Seph added, "I've always suspected they do cabin checks around midnight"

Pixie realized she wasn't going to turn anyone around on this. She tried to hide how let down she felt that her friends would rather not celebrate her birthday how she'd imagined.

"It's okay guys," her voice faltered slightly. "Maybe some other time?"

Mel spoke up first.

"Definitely!"

"Yeah... maybe," Chris said worriedly.

"I think I might be able to talk myself into it," Seph added reluctantly.

"Hell yeah!" Cleo said, not bothering to keep her excitement in check. "And like I said, if you get them to do it, I'll definitely be there"

Seph gave her a suspicious glance.

_____

Eventually, everyone in their group agreed to at least consider the proposal.

Pixie insisted that, in lieu of going skinny-dipping, everyone give her a birthday hug instead. She kissed everyone on the cheek as they did so, and apologized for being a "brat" regarding sneaking out after curfew.

Miles was the last to receive his hug. However, instead of kissing him on the cheek, she met his lips. She tasted of fresh fruit. He tried not to smile too widely as they parted. No one else had been watching to notice she did anything different for him.

"Thanks for making my birthday so special," she whispered in his ear before skipping off to her cabin.

"You were right," Miles looked over at Zoe. "She is a very unusual girl."

The group followed Pixie's lead and headed toward their respective cabins. Miles could still taste Pixie's lips on his own. Between her slender build and the way she kissed, there was no doubt in his mind.

He trailed behind the others, kicking the dirt as they guided him towards the twin lampposts that guided them to the cabins as a realization settled in his mind.

Pixie was not the girl from the lake.

Saturday, August 19, 4:00 AM, Belews Lake Campground

Anxiety about getting caught, wondering who joined him at the lake Tuesday morning, then worrying about his friendship with Seph, all caused Miles to struggle to find sleep his first few nights.

His agitation was quelled with her rejoining the group at the campfire. Nearly enough to get his mind off his first swim. The kiss from Pixie also did its part to temporarily cleanse those thoughts from his mind. On top of everything else, he was exhausted from having to run around all day, which he'd concluded with playing and singing for nearly two hours.

By the time the vibrations of his watch alerted him that his time for rest was over, he'd felt like he'd slept more in the past five hours than he had over the past five days.

He hurriedly extracted himself from his bed and got ready to make his nightly trek. By now, Miles had a fairly decent routine set up for sneaking out. He'd learned that, between the snoring and perhaps just the fact that they were all exhausted too, he didn't need to take as long getting out of the cabin. He still knew if someone did notice him, he could always use his excuse of needing to use the lavatories.

The night felt unusually bright. The clouds that had provided him with so much cover the first night were completely absent. Now, a nearly-full moon illuminated his pre-dawn saunter. He was a few dozen steps into the woods when something unexpected happened.

"Is someone there?" A voice whispered from the dark.