With This Heart(33)

I laughed because it seemed so cliché, but to my surprise everyone instantly agreed and started shifting chairs into a circle. I’d never been to a party, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the premise of Drink or Dare. Luckily, my drink of choice would be H2O. Everyone scrambled to position their collapsible chairs by their friends, and at the end of it all, I was stuck by Jason while Beck and Lia ended up on the other side of the bonfire. The hint of a smirk on her face told me she was pleased with the arrangement. Maybe she was a wizard. Witch. Whatever. Maybe she’s a dude.


If this were a movie, that’s the moment where I would have taken a big gulp of some kind of alcohol. Instead, I untwisted my water bottle cap and took a long sip. The same drunk girl that initiated the game a few minutes ago jumped up and clapped her hands.

“ I’ll go first! If you choose Dare, you can’t chicken out and choose Drink after you hear the dare! Those are the rules!” she instructed with what she probably thought was a cunning stare, when in reality it looked like a she was a winking pirate. Argh. Maybe being the only sober one would have its advantages.

After she’d perused the entire circle, her gaze landed on the guy to my right that was swaying back and forth in his chair. I leaned away from him, which brought me closer to Jason. He smiled down at me and propped his arm on the back of my chair.

“ Ian! Drink or Dare?” she called, stepping closer to him.

Ian grunted and stood up, obviously choosing dare. The entire ring of partygoers cheered and scooted to the edge of their seat in anticipation of his dare.

“ Strip your clothes off and jump in the ocean!” she demanded. Wow, this girl was going for the full monty right off the bat. What would this game end with? A giant orgy on the beach?

Without a moment’s hesitation, Ian turned to me and held out his beer, as if I was his assistant during his dare. I took it because I didn’t really have a choice, and then he gave me a loose grin and started to strip. This guy was less than a foot away from me and he was literally giving me a strip tease like I was a bachelorette. Best bonfire ever. He unpeeled his shirt and then flung it around his head like a helicopter before tossing it to a girl across the circle. She caught it with a wild cheer while he started on his pants. He let them drop onto the sand, as if they weren’t the second to last thing concealing his member from my gaze.

“ I’m a GROWER!” he yelled as he dropped his boxers and took off in a wild run toward the ocean. Everyone was laughing, but I just sat there, holding his beer and looking down at his Star Wars underwear, thinking how he’d regret not having them once he resurfaced from his wild dare.

Jason leaned in and whispered in my ear, “That was quite an introduction to Drink or Dare.” I heard him say it, but just as he began to speak, I shifted my gaze from Ian’s boxers up to Beck. He was watching me with his trademark grin, except the bonfire shadowed its appearance so that his features were masked in a mysterious glow. Staring at each other over that bonfire, it became clear that there were one million ways to view the world, but that Beck and I saw everything in the same wavelength. Like life was one big private joke that we got to share.

Ian didn’t return from his swim, and the girl that caught his shirt had wandered off after him, so the game had to continue without them. A girl sitting a few seats away from Lia volunteered to pick the next contestant. She stood and spun in a circle, but stopped on a dime when she reached Lia. Lia, of course, chose dare. The entire show seemed a little too rehearsed, and when her dare surfaced, I knew that it was.

“ Lia! Kiss one of the people sitting on either side of you. Your choice!” My stomach contents felt like they were about to surface all over the bonfire. Her choice my ass. There was a stoned guy practically asleep on the left side of Lia and perfect, amazing Beck on the other side. Lia did a wonderful show of feigned innocence, cupping her hand over her mouth and giggling. Best actress ever .

Beck was trying to catch my eye over the bonfire, but I couldn’t pull my gaze from Lia. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and shifted her body toward Beck. I wondered if she ever played the Virgin Mary in any church plays. She definitely had the act down pat.

“ You okay there?” Jason asked, breaking me out of my daze. I looked down to see my hands wringing out the plastic bottle in my hand. I’d completely destroyed it while I’d been staring daggers at Lia.

“ Oh, yeah. I’m fine,” I lied, dropping the bottle onto my lap in an attempt to look normal.

I didn’t watch the kiss; I stared at the crackling flames and listened to everyone’s cat calls. It was a strange experience to behold. Fiery jealously didn’t sit well in my stomach and the longer I sat there while the game continued around me, the longer I thought I might explode. Jason got called on, but he opted to chug a beer rather than accept a dare. I was grateful for that. But then Beck was called upon.

The same girl that started the game off stood and pointed at Beck. “You have to give someone a lap dance. The hottest guy or girl here!”

I laughed, cracked up in fact, and the people around me shifted and gave me awkward stares. I admit that I looked crazy, but I just couldn’t let the universe off on this one. It needed to know how God damn funny it could be at times. Lia blushed and her friends cheered and gave her encouraging words. Everyone assumed Beck would give a lap dance to the girl who had kissed him and who was clearly the prettiest girl at the party. Predictable . But then Beck stood up and started walking around the bonfire toward me and I started laughing even harder. A nervous laughter mixed with all the jealousy that had been building inside.