Authors: Monica Alexander
“He’s right,
Michelle
,”
Tania
said, from my other side.
Michelle
shot a glare back at
Tania
before she
turned around to face Byron. “Fine,” she said.
“I’
ll play by your stupid rules.”
With that, she grabbed Byron’s cheeks and forced his face down to hers, pressing her lips hard against his.
I watched Byron win
ce at how rough she was being.
Then, he sc
reamed, “Ow!” and pulled away. “What the hell
,
Michelle
?” he asked, his hand flying to his lower lip where I noticed he w
as bleeding just a little bit.
Michelle
had
actually
bit him.
To my left, she was smiling triumphan
tly, as if she had won.
I knew my
eyes were wide as I watched it
all unfold.
I couldn’t believe she’d actually bitten his lip enough to draw blood.
Poor Byron, I thought, as he put a napkin to his l
ip and slunk back to his seat.
He looked genuinely hurt as he looked across the table at
Michelle
.
“Geez, it was just a pair of panties
,” he mumbled from behind the napkin.
“Okay, my turn,” I said, in an effort to break the tension, as everyone around the table seemed to
have frozen as they watched the
slightly vampiric
scene unfold.
I reached forward
, pulled out
a piece and read what it said.
All
I saw was the word ‘DARE’.
I looked up at Byron, who had the side of his bee
r can pressed against his lip
s
.
His eyes lit up when he saw what it was.
“Oh, you got the dare block.
I put a few of them in
there to mix things up a bit.
The way it works is
that the person to your right
gets to pick a dare for you to do, and you have to do it,” he explained
, mumbling slightl
y since the can was still covering
his lip
.
I looked to my right
and saw
Michelle
sitting there with
a satisfied smile on her face.
She looked over at me,
then back at Byron
and said, “Oh, this’ll be fun.”
Crap
, was all I could think.
She’d better not make
me
kiss Byron’s bloody lip. Gross.
“Okay,”
Michelle
said
, bringing her hands together.
“I want you to go over there, t
ell that guy that you think he’
s hot – loud enough so we all can hear – and then kiss him.”
I looked up to where she was gesturing. Thankfully it was in the opposite directi
on of where Byron was sitting.
There were three guys
sitting in the living room
, so I wasn’
t sure who she was referring to. T
hen I real
ized that one of them was
Cute Coffeehouse Guy
and he was staring at me.
Great.
“Um, which one were you referring to?” I asked, hoping it
was the blond guy next to
Coffeehouse Guy
.
“Sexy, d
ark hair, sitting
next to the
semi-cute
blond guy,”
Michelle
said.
My stomac
h jum
ped into my throat.
Coffeehouse Guy
.
Great.
Well, at least
he didn’t remember who I was.
For all he knew, I was just some
random
girl who was summering here
– who thought he had kissable lips. Awesome.
“Okay, fine,” I said
bravely
, not wanting to earn a lecture
from Byron about following the D
rinking Jenga rules
.
I took a moment to chug the rest of my beer for extra liquid courage,
got up from my seat
and walked right over to
Coffeehouse Guy
who was appraising me with a questioning look on his face.
L
ightening flashed outside the window and thunder rumbled
overhead
,
as
if punctuating what I was about to do.
“Hi,” I said.
“I have to tell you’re hot, okay.”
“Okay,” he said
slowly, giving me a quizzical look.
“You are so hot,” I said
,
loudly and a l
ittle dramatically, causing the
people around me to turn their heads, mostly likely wondering if I was drunk and a
bout to make a fool of myself.
Then
I leaned down,
pecked
Coffeehouse Guy
on the cheek and turned around and walked away before I could see the expression on his face.
I smiled at
Michelle
as I returned to the table.
She sh
ook her head. “No.
That doesn’t count.”
“What?” I asked, think
ing she must be smoking crack.
I opened my new beer and took a long pull.
“Why?”
“Because you had to kiss him on the li
ps,” she said.
“You didn’t specify,” I said, shootin
g her a satisfied look that told her I’d already thought of that. She opened her mouth to protest
then shut it quickly when she realized I was right.
“Ha, she got you there, Mich
,” Byron s
aid, earning
a glare from
Michelle
.
“Whatever,”
Michelle
said, angrily pushing away from the table
and stalking out of the room.
“Thank G
od,”
Byron said
when she was gone.
“That girl is psycho!”
I laughe
d, as I’d sort of been thinking the same thing after she’d drawn blood.
As we started playing again, I shot a glance back at
Coffeehouse Guy
and smiled at him.
He returned my gesture before looking away again.
“What was that all about last night,” Molly asked, as
we sifted through clothes at one of the
many surf shops on the island.
Outside the rain was coming down in sheets and every few minutes a giant clap of thunder would shake the foundation of the wooden building we were in
.
After the rain
started the night before, it
hadn’t
let up
, and we’d had to call Molly’s brother-in-law Simon to pick us up
from the party
.
“What was what?” I asked, trying to think back to
what she might be talking about, as I looked through a rack of bathing suits.
The latter part of the night was fuzzy at best.
“You and Zack,
”
she said, holding up a short hot pink skirt, making a face and putting it back.
“Who?”
“D
ark hair, light
eyes,
usually has a guitar attached to his hands
.
”
“Oh, him
,” I said
recognition dawning on me
, as I finally learned
Cute Coffeehouse Guy
’s name.
“I just got dared to kiss him while we we
re playing this drinking game.
It was nothing
.
I di
dn’t even know who he was
.”
I decided not to tell her than I’d been fantasizing about him for the past week or that I
’d met him before
and had thought he was
pretty much
the hottest guy I’d ever seen.
“Hmm,” was all she said.
“What?” I asked, perplexed by what her hmm had meant.
I couldn’t read her
, and I was suddenly fearful she was hooking up with him
.
“Nothing.
Forget I said anything.”
“Okay.”
I didn’t want to pus
h the issue.
Molly was as private
as Chase, so I figured prying would only
serve
aggravate her.
I let the questions burning in my brain drop, figuring I might get a chance to ask them some other time. Or maybe I wouldn’t.
***
Later that night, after the storm had passed, we were gathered at a large house on the east end of the island that was being rented by twelve college students from U
NC, including Byron,
Tania
and
Michelle
.
I hadn’t really been in the mood to go out, thinking I’d like to stay in and watc
h a movie, but Keely had guilt-tripped
me in to going
.
She was complaining about wanting to go out, and wanting some bonding time with her big sister, so I caved and got dressed for the party.
As soon as we got there
, I could tell it was
over-
crowded.
It seemed
the UNC students had invited fifty of their closest friends down for t
he weekend, and
there were close to
a hundred people in the house.
Chase disappeared with Molly as soon as we got there, so Keely and I fought our way to the keg on our own.
We weren’t in the long line for more than five minutes when Keely ran up to the front
to
talk to
the cute guy manning the beer.
I watched her lean over, cup his ear with her hand and whisper
something that made him grin.
She stepped back, smiled
,
and
I
watched as he handed her two bottles of beer from the cooler he’d been sitting o
n.
She walked back to me with a triumphant smile on her face.
“Nice job,” I said, taking the beer she handed me and stepping out of line, ignoring the looks of annoyance from
the people closest to us.
“How’d you swing that?”
“Well,” she sa
id, taking a sip of her drink.
“I told him he was the cutest guy at the party, and that I wouldn’t mind keeping him company in here if he co
uld hook me up with two beers. So he gave us some
from his stash.”
“That was nice of him,” I said
, realizing that my options were now to hang with Keely and
Keg B
oy or hang out by myself.
Great.
So much for sisterly bonding. S
o glad I came
.
She grinned wickedly.
“Well, I might have also promised
him a few more things, but I might not have.”
“Keely!” I exclaimed, realizing what she’d just admitted
to me.
“I thought you were seeing M
att
and Jared
.
Do you really want to take on another guy?
”
“Always,” she said, grinning. Then she shrugged. “
I don’t really feel like being pinned down
.
Matt
’s from Ohio
, and Jared lives in England
.
It’s not like we’ll have some long-dis
tance connection after August.
Besides, they’re
not here to
entertain me, so I had
to find someone else to do it.”
I sighed. Classic Keely.
Sh
e had no trouble getting guys.
She
had trouble holding onto them.
She always
tried to juggle too many
and they all ended up getting hurt and breaking u
p with her. But
she ne
ver seemed to be phased by it.
She always had some
one else waiting in the wings. I guess it
was sort of liberating if you thought about it.
“Okay, gotta g
o,” she said, hurrying back to Keg B
oy, taking a seat on his lap and throwing her arm around his neck.