Slightly behind, with Christian, Amy, Kate and Dani

Dani sat relaxed in the back seat, with one leg crossed over the other as she uploaded the photos she took to her page. She'd been getting calls all morning, mostly from her parents, one after the other, pestering her about preparations and rules and whatnot. It was pretty typical she thought, her mother wanted her to be safe, her father wanted her to be smart. Dani just wanted to have fun, having spent most of the morning taking group pictures and making videos of her packing everything she was going to take and sending it to the group chat.

This would be the last major vacation before school ended, and a lot of these people would travel down diverging paths towards college or work. Dani wanted to make it count, make it as entertaining and unforgettable as possible. Hence why she'd blatantly ignored her father's rule for no **** and was already bringing along a few cases of beer, some vodka and a couple bottles of rum.

The cheerleading captain looked to her left, spotting Kate leaning up against the window and having a nap. Christian and Amy were in the front seats, with the former driving them given he was one of the few people in the group with a license. Dani shifted up in her seat a bit, and leaned forward to peak in on the two lovebirds.

"How're we looking Christian? Nearly there?" she asked.

With a nod, Christian looks briefly at the GPS, "Yeah, says it's only about fifteen minutes now. How's Kate?"

"Still napping. Poor thing really can't handle long car trips" Dani chuckled, sitting back and rubbing the **** girl's knee.

"So-" Amy piped up, "These other three that are coming? Like, Mike, Brianna and... James? ... They're gonna be cool right?" she checked, knowing little about the trio that would be along for their holiday.

Christian provided the answer before Dani could think about it. "I know Mike, he's a cool guy. He's not a typical party boy but he's laid back and friendly, I think you'll both get along with him."

"He's the Australian guy right?" Amy double checked with her boyfriend.

"Yeah that's him." he confirmed.

Dani validates the opinion, "I've talked with him a few times, I think it'll be fine."

"He's dating that redhead girl that's coming isn't he?" Amy followed up, turning in her seat to face Dani, but once again Christian provides the information.

"Nooo, nono, they've just been friends for ages. People think they're dating but he tells me they're more like siblings. I thought they were together as well, but no, dude's a single pringle."

The brunette perked an eyebrow up. "Hm. So the Aussie's on the market huh?"

Christian chuckled, "Easy there Dani, maybe wait and see if you two get along before you try and throw your hooks into him. I'm not certain he's the type for hookups."

"Shame.." Amy chimed in, "He is pretty cute."
The light scowl from Christian came almost immediately, poking his girlfriend in the nose.
"What? I just meant he's almost exactly Dani's type!" the blonde argued in her defense.

Christian relented, rolling his eyes and returning his focus to the drive. Dani smiled to herself in amusement, used to this sort of display from the two of them. Admittedly the cheerleader had been looking through Mike's page the night before, Christian asked her to have him and his friends along rather late notice, so she wanted to do her usual background checks to make sure he'd be a good fit. It was however, a little difficult. Mike didn't upload all that much to begin with, and what he did post was normally scenery, moments with his friends or his Dad, or a meme. Dani didn't detect any immediate red flags though, so she took a gamble. It would probably be fine, but she knew virtually nothing about the other two. In any case, as long as they weren't going to bring things down or sour everyone else's moods, she wouldn't have a problem.

"Where's Nathan? Is he meeting us there?" Amy checked in, breaking the momentary silence.

"He left from my Uncle's place like an hour ago, so he'll probably only get there sometime in the evening" Dani answered. "Which I'm perfectly okay with. Gives us at least a few hours without his crap to deal with."

"Why IS he coming anyway?" Christian asked, knowing Dani's frayed relationship to her cousin.

"My Dad insisted that he be there, to make sure we don't go too crazy with the place... don't really think he knows how much of an animal Nathan can be but whatever, at least he's 21 which means if we need more booze we can get it through him." she explained.

He and Amy just went along with it, they weren't massive fans of Nathan either, given when they were in the earlier years of high school he was still around in his senior year, and there were many unpleasant stories about him, most of them involving girls. "Well, fair enough. We'll just hope he can behave himself."

With that the three of them drove on in relative silence for the rest of the ride, with some breaks in between for idle chatter and conversation.