“Dare, lick the floor.” Quinn shakes his head at Donnelly and slides off the stool. “You’re sick, bro.”
Donnelly smirks.
“Need a puke bucket?” Farrow banters.
Quinn humphs and kneels down. Licking the floor in point-two seconds. Then he’s back on the stool. We roll. Cosmic justice at play, Donnelly loses a dice next.
“Truth,” he reads a napkin, “how much longer do you see yourself working in security? ‘Til I’m dead or fired, whichever one comes first.” He sucks his cigarette and slides the pack to Akara. Filmy haze of smoke clouds the air. It doesn’t bother me, but I’m not much of a smoker.
Donnelly loses another dice. “Truth, who has the best ass here?” He drums the table and then points to Oscar. “For the self-esteem boost.”
“Aw, fuck you.” He messes Donnelly’s chestnut hair.
We all laugh, but in the back of my mind, I think about how he’s chosen two easy truths. Leaving behind more difficult ones.
And after I make a bad bet, I lose the round. One dice gone, and as I pick a truth or dare, no one speaks. Air strains.
I flatten the napkin, black pen scrawled across, and I read, “Truth, worst sex you’ve ever had?” Fuck.
Farrow curves his arm protectively around my waist but leisurely swigs his drink. I can handle this, and I’d be pissed if he spoke on my behalf. So he’s not trying.
“Please tell me it’s Farrow,” Oscar says. “The guy needs knocked down a couple pegs after landing you.”
Farrow’s amused smile gradually expands. “Feeling threatened? You really did need that self-esteem boost, Oliveira.”
Oscar claps.
“Worst sex I’ve ever had…” I draw their attention. “Is easily a girl I hooked up with a couple years back.” I rest my forearms on the table, sort of leaned forward. “She started crying about five minutes in, not upset. Just overwhelmed. She kept saying how she loved me—and I get it, that’s not that big of a problem, but we agreed to a one-time, one-night thing. And I don’t really like fucking people while they’re crying.”
Quinn winces. “Damn, bro, that’d kill me too.”
Akara pats my back.
Oscar nods, not even marginally surprised. “I bet people lie to you about their virginity all the time too. Just so you’ll still fuck them.”
“Lied,” Farrow corrects his misuse of present tense.
Oscar throws a peanut at Farrow, who catches it and throws it back.
“Probably,” I tell Oscar, and I think that the truths or dares can’t be more sexual than that. But I’m also not that damn lucky.
Next rounds fly by, and Quinn is out of the game, losing his last two dice. He accidentally keeps choosing Donnelly’s dares. He sniffs Donnelly’s armpit and then tries to chug whiskey while doing a handstand.
“Truth,” Oscar reads after he finally loses a dice, “tell us your most recent lay.” He ties a blue bandana across his forehead. “Cleveland—”
“No way,” Quinn says.
“Learn, my little bro, you take the short windows of time, and you make it happen. Your dick will appreciate you. Just like my dick appreciated the tour’s hairstylist.”
“Olana?” Akara asks.
“Ol-ana,” Oscar says like fuck yeah.
Akara inhales. “She’s a babe.”
“Top-shelf,” Donnelly agrees.
I hired her, so I’m starting to feel protective. But I realize that Olana could easily be talking to the female FanCon crew about the bodyguards. In the same exact way.
Farrow loses his first dice the same time he lights a cigarette. He’s smoked around me a few times before. “Truth.” He blows smoke upwards. “Who’s the sexiest person here?” He catches me staring at him, and his brows lift. “It’s not you.”
He’s about to name himself. I couldn’t care less about being the “sexiest” guy in any damn room, but I crave to beat him at something.
My brows furrow at him. “I didn’t fucking realize you were on the Sexiest Men Alive list. Unless your name is Maximoff Hale.”
They laugh, and Farrow can’t detach his gaze from mine. I lassoed him somehow, and the more intensely he stares, the more blood pumps south.
Fuck me.
I skim his mouth.
His Adam’s apple bobs hard, and he reluctantly tears his gaze. Putting his cigarette back in his mouth, he says, “You’re something else.” He picks up his dice and announces to the table, “I’m the sexiest bastard here. Clearly.” His hand on my waist subtly slips beneath my T-shirt, on my skin. Warming me—God, that feels more than good.
Next round.
Akara loses. “Fuck.” He picks out of the hat. “Truth, describe losing your virginity.”
“That one time at band camp…” Farrow banters.
“Hilarious,” Akara says with a warm smile, and he even explains to me, “all Farrow remembers about me from high school is that I was on the drumline. And I remember nothing about him.”
His lips quirk, and he taps ash on a tray.
“I was sixteen,” Akara tells everyone. “First girlfriend. Both of us were virgins, and my parent’s place has a pool house. We decided we were ready, and first time, I made her come.”
I swig my water. “That was beautiful,” I say, sarcasm thick.
“Pay up.” Donnelly holds out a palm to Oscar.
“Fuck you, Akara,” Oscar curses. “I bet fifty that Quinn would get the Hale sarcasm first.”
I screw my cap on my water bottle. “I did it to Farrow first.”
Donnelly opens a new pack of cigarettes. “We eliminated Farrow from the bet since you always rib him.”
Farrow steals the cigarettes out of Donnelly’s hands. “Go bet on your Cobalts and leave the Hales alone. Or go for the Meadows—”
“No, off-limits,” Akara says, defending his client. There are some moments, some small, others big, that I see and feel how much love and pride they carry for the people they protect.
For three famous families.
For us, and it means more to me than I can ever articulate. I end up smiling, one that courses through my whole body and brightens every fucking piece of me.
We play the next round.
Oscar loses and reads a truth, “Oldest person you’ve fucked? Maybe a forty-year-old a couple years ago.” He shrugs. “I was twenty-eight.”
Another hand, and I’m down a second dice. Here we go. I reach into the hat. Unfurl the napkin.
I read the words silently. “I can’t drink,” I say with the shake of my head. A dare to take three shots of whiskey is a hardline that I won’t let anyone peer-pressure me to cross.
Cigarette between his lips, Farrow tosses the napkin shred back in the hat. “Pick again.” Fuck me and his movements. My blood heats at his sheer confidence that matches and wrestle-fucks mine.
I choose again. “Truth,” I read the neat scrawl that I think belongs to Thatcher. “What’s your greatest fear?” I pause, not needing
to contemplate long. “Watching someone I love die.”
Farrow rubs my back beneath my shirt, and we all roll again. Making bets, Donnelly loses his last dice and picks the three whiskey shots dare.
My phone vibrates as the guys start pouring shots. A text message from my little sister Kinney at 3:24 a.m., a witching hour, means only one thing.
I asked the Ouija board if you suck and the ghost told me yes. – Kinney
She’s still pissed that she’s not allowed on tour. I text back: I love you more than the ghost hates me. I pocket my phone. At my choice of words, I instantly recall the past. Something my dad said to me once.
I can practically hear his voice.
“You can hate me for two days, Maximoff, but I’ll love you for a thousand more.” I was almost seven, and my parents grounded me for the first time. I screamed, “I hate you!” at my dad. Not thinking, not realizing how much that must’ve hurt him.
And that’s what he told me.
The memory sticks with me for a while, but I try to retrain my attention on the game. Donnelly downs his third shot.
Farrow swigs his energy drink and studies my expression.
I’m alright. Our eyes meet, and I just move out of instinct more than anything. I wrap my arm around him, sort of clutching the base of his neck and shoulder. My thumb gently skims his skin—
“You shouldn’t be touching,” Thatcher tells us.
Fuck. I drop my arm. Feeling like shit. I don’t value touching Farrow over the jobs of SFO. I don’t.
I’m just juggling a relationship with these major consequences—and I never claimed to be good at any of this.
Farrow snuffs his cigarette on the ashtray. “I was wondering when our chaperone would show up.”
“I never left,” Thatcher retorts. “Remember that.”
“I’m choosing not to,” Farrow says easily.
Thatcher opens his mouth, and Akara says, “Moving on.” Thatcher nods and the game continues with another hand.
Farrow loses. “Dare, let the person you least like write something on your chest.” He already tosses a pen at Thatcher, and then he grips the hem of his shirt. He looks at me with a rising smile that says, try not to get hard, wolf scout.
I glower, my tongue running over my molars. Don’t fucking smile, Maximoff.