Page 75 of It's Always Sonny

“How can you hear us?” I ask loudly.

“Hearing aids.”

PJ lifts her scarf around her face so no one can see her laugh.

Chapter Twenty-One

Parker

At dinner, everyone is comparing bingo cards. Sienna and Chris are in the lead, with Cool Teen Noah right behind them. The wind has picked up and is blowing icy gusts into the pavilion, but with a potentially unsafe number of space heaters in the pavilion, no one seems to mind. It’s staggering how much this family can accomplish in one day.

Already tonight, they’ve done the Oreo face challenge, blown bubbles onto the top of a water bottle, and now they’re trying to build houses with playing cards. That particular bingo space stipulates that they have to build a house with a small child, so the little kids are getting farmed out to cousins and aunts and uncles, placing a card here, knocking down a whole house there when the wind doesn’t do it for them.

It’s hilarious.

Lauren and Amber sneak away from their groups and head straight for me, laughing conspiratorially.

“Hey, everything okay?” I ask, not sure why they’re coming toward me.

“Oh, we set the kids up to wait until the last possible minute, and then push the thing over.”

I snicker along with them, and we watch as it plays out exactly as Lauren and Amber set up.

Anthony and Gabe are on a team with Felix, Noah, and a few others. They’re acting all cocky because their house of cards is almost done. Sonny’s team has consistently been derailed by the wind, because they’re closest to the edge of the pavilion, and the various other teams have succumbed to acts of toddler terrors more than once. But now that Lauren and Amber mention it, Felix has been uncharacteristically easygoing the whole time.

Noah keeps throwing looks at Sonny and the other older cousins he clearly looks up to.

“Bruh, we’re gonna smoke you,” he yells to Sonny.

“Are you done yet?” Felix asks. They only have a handful of cards left to place, and Anthony, Gabe, and Noah are moving with surgical precision.

“We’re so close, bud,” Anthony says to Felix.

Then Felix looks at Amber, who holds out her hand in a “not yet” gesture.

The group sets up another card and another, and Felix watches and waits.

“Are you done yet?” Felix repeats.

“Just a few more cards, pal,” Anthony says.

Felix narrows his eyes and counts the cards in their hands. Noah puts up a card, and Felix says, “How many left?”

“Two more cards, little dude,” Noah says.

At this, Felix’s eyes brighten. He looks over at Amber, gives her a huge smile and thumbs up, and Amber nods and snickers with a vengeful glee.

"Wait for it …” Amber says.

“Ladies and gentleman—” Noah starts.

But just as the last card is about to be set down, Felix screams, “AH-CHOO!” He throws his hands forward as if they’re part of his sneeze.

The cards go flying.

Laughter circles the pavilion like a wave in a sports arena.

Lauren and Amber are in hysterics, and it’s impossible not to join them. Sonny and Chris are in tears, as are several of the other cousins.

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