Welcome to Rose Valley

Nineteen

The next few days had gone by smoothly, I still felt weary, but it was dwindling day by day. I didn't have a nightmare last night, which I am ludicrously happy about as it feels like I have finally got some decent sleep.

The evening of day one, after more exploring of the house, we had discovered that a games room with a bar had been put in on an underground level, something Julian didn't realise but was over the moon with. It had been fully stocked with all the fancy stuff, both alcohol and snacks.

Dad had left a little note on top of the bar which said: Enjoy kids, please don't die! Followed by a smiley face.

The games room was really cool. In the middle, there was a pool table, seemly brand new and unused. On the left side, a dart board was hung. There was two massive poofy couches facing a huge flat screen which had all the movies you could ever want already downloaded into the system. There was also a brand new sound system with an iPod attached and a fully paid subscription to Apple Music.

The rest of the days of our holiday were spent underground. We had drunk almost a third of the alcohol already and I would not be surprised if the rest of it went on New Year's Eve.

The day before New Year's, we had split into two groups. Poppy, Aylee and I had a girls day. We had music, face masks and a lot of wine, while the boys were sent off to the basement to keep themselves busy.

On the morning of the 31st, we were all stood around in the kitchen, chatting. I had a bowl of cornflakes in my hand and was shovelling them in before they lost their crunch.

"It's like you haven't eaten in days!" Ollie mocked as he flipped bacon.

"I don't like soggy cornflakes, gotta eat them quick!" I said in between spoonfuls.

I finished the bowl and quickly washed it. Ollie handed me a bacon sandwich, which I immediately turned and gave to Poppy, who was stood behind me. Once everyone, but me, had their bacon, Ollie gave me the fifth dirty look in ten minutes.

"Mate stop glaring at me. Its not my fault I don't like bacon!" I snapped but couldn't help my smile.

"Yes, it is your fault," he huffed.

I shook my head and as the mature adult I am, I stuck my tongue out at him. Everyone munched on their bacon while I munched on some toast. When we were all done, we retreated downstairs again.

Julian and Kasper went straight over to the pool table, racking it up while the rest of us draped ourselves over the couches. Poppy stuck in the first Transformers movie, but mostly to be on in the background.

Within twenty minutes, Aylee and Dustin were asleep, Ollie was engrossed in Candy Crush on his phone and Poppy was invested in reading one of her favourite books.

"Fancy darts?" Luca asked me, which I immediately agreed to.

We made our way over to the dart board, grabbing three darts each. We started the game.

"So, how are things with Kasper?" Luca asked, keeping his voice low.

"Honestly Luca, fantastic," I said, hitting a ten.

"He seems really smitten by you, and that's saying something," Luca told me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well," Luca hit just off the bullseye and scowled at the board, "He always seemed to lonely, always brooding in some corner with Julian. He also didn't really attend school that often either."

"Really?" I hit the bullseye and did a little dance, grinning at Luca.

"Yeah, you made him a better student." Luca attempted a serious face but ended up smiling.