13 
13 Lauren
“OH, C’MON!” KHLOE STUCK OUT her lower lip and made giant sad eyes at me. “It’s not late, we don’t have to be at the stable until eleven thirty tomorrow, and how many chances does a girl get to have a giant sleepover like this?”
I kept a straight face, trying to make her think I was still considering her idea. But I’d already said yes in my mind. Khloe and I were alone in my bedroom. The guys were at Taylor’s house and the other girls were checking in with their parents, laying out clothes for tomorrow, and doing whatever they wanted around my house.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Do you really think anyone will want to play a game?”
“YES!” Khloe bounced off my bed, ran across the room to where I stood, skidded to a halt, and bounced up and down on her toes. “Yes, yes! They will totes want to! Please, LT!”
“Hmmm. I guess . . . okay!” I grinned. “I already thought it was a fab idea five minutes ago. I couldn’t stop from letting you beg a little.”
“Argh! I hate you!” Khloe said, throwing her arms around me.
“Ouch!” we both screamed at the same time.
“Khloe!” I jumped away from her.
“What?! Lauren!” Khloe’s mouth hung open.
“You shocked me!” I said. “Literally. Static electricity shocked me.”
Khloe covered her mouth and looked down at her fuzzy leopard-print socks. “Omigod.”
We both giggled. I put up a hand, gesturing for Khloe to stay away.
“Don’t come any closer,” I said. “You might knock me out next time or something. Jeez.”
Khloe grinned, proud of herself. “Well, I think you’re rocking the I-just-rubbed-a-balloon-against-my-hair look. You’re welcome.”
“What?” I turned around to face my mirror. My long hair hung in its usual waves. I eyed Khloe in the mirror. “Get ready, Kinsella. Game. On.”
A short (very short!) while later, Khloe had rounded up everyone and we were in the game room. It was a room that Becca, Charlotte, and I had always brought friends to. But once Mom and Dad heard of my plans for Christmas, they’d added a mini-fridge and snack bar. There was a pool table in the back, a dartboard on the far wall, a TV and couch and plenty of floor space.
“Okay, everyone take some of these and a pen,” Khloe said. She held up the white index cards that she’d asked me for. The seven of us—Brielle, Ana, Carina, Lexa, Clare, Khloe, and I—sat in a circle on the carpet. We each had tea, soda, or hot chocolate beside us.
We all took a few index cards and one of the blue gel pens. Khloe had insisted that all the pens had to be identical. Easy, since I had a million blue pens.
“Anybody ever played Totes Honestly?” Khloe asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
“I’ve never even heard of it,” I said.
Khloe grinned, her lips shimmering with peachy gloss. “That makes it even better. It’s really easy. We’re all going to take turns ‘Hosting.’ If it’s cool, I’ll be the first Host to show you how it works.”
“Cool by me,” Carina, who sat on my left, said.
“If I’m the Host,” Khloe continued, “that makes the rest of you Bluffers. To start, I would take my index card, write ‘Totes honestly . . . ,’ and then finish the sentence with something that’s true. I wouldn’t show any of you my answer. You guys, the Bluffers, will write the same question and an answer you think is really true.”
“Can you do an example?” Lexa asked. She sipped her hot chocolate. “Sorry! If I don’t ask, I’ll get confused.”
“No problem!” Khloe said. “Of course. So, I’d do this. . . .”
We watched while Khloe wrote: Totes honestly, my fave TV show is_____.
“Now, you guys do the same and write what you think I’d say. But don’t let me see,” Khloe instructed.
I wrote: Totes honestly, my fave TV show is Sing. I kept my hand over my card while everyone else finished.
“Pass them to me, please,” Khloe said. We handed her the cards, and she shuffled them around très fast. “I’m doing this so you guys can’t tell my card from yours anymore. Okay, so now I’m going to read the cards aloud, and the Bluffers have to try and guess whether the card I read is true or not.”
“Oh, cool!” Brielle said. She pulled her blond hair into a messy ponytail. “This game is going to be awesome.”
Everyone else chimed in with the same responses.
“Thanks, guys,” Khloe said. “We can keep score or not, really. Up to us. We’ll take turns playing Host, and every time make sure to start your card with ‘Totes honestly.’ Oh, also—if you really don’t know the answer, you don’t have to vote for your card. You can choose someone else’s answer as yours—no one will know.”
“Ooh!” Ana squealed. She sat on Khloe’s right, with Clare next to her. “I have so many lines. I could play Host forever.”
We laughed.
“Me too!” Clare said.
“So about scoring,” I said. I paused and let a few seconds pass as my friends looked at me. “I say we keep score. First person with ten points wins. How about the loser has to do a dare of our choice?”
“OMG!” Carina said.
“LT!” Khloe said, pretending to wipe away a tear. “I’m so proud.”
“Whoa, Laur,” Bri said. “Brill idea! Maybe you should text Sasha and tell her that you’re channeling Heather.”
“No, I’m not,” I said quickly. “I’m not saying we should do a mean or scary dare. Just something fun.”
“Chill,” Bri said, shaking her head and smiling at me. “I was totally teasing you.”
I stuck out my tongue at her. “Who can we trust to keep score?”
“I vote for Carina,” Lexa said.
Soon Carina had a legal pad and had written all of our names on a fresh sheet of paper.
“I think Khlo should go first, since she thought of the game,” Lex said.
“Go, Khloe!” I chanted.
I looked around as my friends cheered on my bestie. Khloe sat directly across from me, then, in counterclockwise order, it went Ana, Clare, Bri, Lexa, Carina.
“Let’s use these”—Khloe held up our cards—“as my first turn. Hope you guessed right, girls.”
Khloe held up the first index card. “ ‘Totes honestly’,” she read, “ ‘my fave TV show is Reality Stars.’ ”
We all started answering at once.
“False,” I said.
“False,” Clare answered.
“True,” Lexa said.
“True,” Carina said.
“False,” Ana said.
“False,” Bri said.
“Under each person’s name, I’m going to write that answer, T or F, and then put a ‘one’ if that person guesses right,” Carina said. She carefully recorded all of our answers.
“Next card,” Khloe said. “ ‘Totes honestly, my fave TV show is Sing.’ ”
We shouted answers as Carina scribbled on her notepad. Soon we’d gone through all the cards.
Khloe waved the index cards, smiling. “So . . . totes honestly, my fave TV show is . . . Sing!”
Carina crossed out and circled a bunch of things on her paper. “We have two points awarded to Lauren and Clare!”
“I almost answered wrong,” Clare said. “I thought you might have put that new prep school murder mystery show as your favorite.”
Khloe laughed. “I almost said that too. But Sing is still my favorite. Who wants to Host next?”
“You go,” I said to Clare. “You won a point.”
The group agreed with me. “Mine is, ‘Totes honestly, I dreamed about blank last night,’ ” Clare said.
I scrawled down Totes honestly, I dreamed about riding at the stable last night.
We handed our cards to Clare, who shuffled them and read each one.
“ ‘Totes honestly,’ ” Clare said, reading the last card, “ ‘I dreamed about kissing a boy last night.’ ”
Khloe giggled. “Ooh, I hope for your sake that’s true!”
Clare blushed and shook her head.
Each of us answered true or false. I called out “False,” sticking to my answer.
“So, last night,” Clare said, “I totes honestly dreamed about kissing a boy.”
“Claaare Bryant!” Khloe said.
“Details, please!” Lexa said, laughing.
Brielle raised her mug. “To lucky Clare for dreaming about kissing last night.”
Clare’s face almost matched the color of her curls. “Oh, I’m so going to regret telling you guys that!”
“We’re not playing another round until you spill, Clare-bear,” Khloe said. “Who was he?”
Clare covered her face with her hands and groaned. “Garret.”
“Omigod! I knew it!” I said. “You totally like him!”
“Clare, good choice of boy to dream kiss,” Khloe said. She reached over to high-five her friend.
“Your dream guy is best friends with KK’s boyfriend,” Lex said. “How perfect is that?”
We forgot all about points, and the game changed from Totes Honestly to Garret and Clare.