“ 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.