Page 25 of Choose the Bears

“No.” She looked at him askance for even suggesting that. “Nothing wrong with it, obviously. Someone has to do the job. We all need groceries.” She leaned forward, arms crossed around her glass. “I wanted…” She looked sideways at us, as if trying to anticipate our response. “I wanted to be an art teacher. I loved art at school and thought teaching kids to paint would’ve been awesome.”

“Not that.” Everyone told me I was excellent at reading people, able to pick up tiny micro-expressions, and I saw them now. It was in her voice, her stance. This was a revised, cut down, cultivated dream, one she’d adapted from the first real one. “You wanted something else first. Something…”

Imogen frowned, shooting me a look that was not friendly before sighing.

“OK, if you’re gonna be that picky. I wanted to be an artist.” Her eyes dropped down, and she traced strange shapes on the worn wood of the tabletop. “I wanted to paint and draw all damn day, lose myself in creating, forget the whole world existed.” A social smile was slapped on as she faced us again. “But my mum was clear there was no money to be made that way, so I needed to find something more practical to do.” Her lips pursed, but she forged on. “In the end, I didn’t do either, so… now that we’ve gotten the obligatory work conversation over, who’s next?”

I loved the way she leaned back in her chair, arm slung over the back. It made me think there was something just a little cocky about our girl in the right circumstances.

“Truth or dare?” she asked.

Kyle leaned forward, crossing his arms and placing them on the table with a kind of easy grin I frankly envied.

“Dare.”

Chapter 14

Imogen

Well, I hadn’t thought this through, had I? But in my defence it’d been a long time since I had people over for dinner, hung out with anyone other than Mike and his buddies, or played truth or dare for that matter. I was also just a little distracted by Kyle’s very big, very muscly forearms as they landed on the table. He had biceps as big as my head, I knew this because I spent a moment visually measuring them.

“Um…” I looked behind me, seeing the open pantry when an idea struck. We had a shitty game we used to play when still teens and that had me getting to my feet. The guys watched, slightly confused, as I opened a packet of Weet-Bix and placed one of the very dry, very dense biscuits of compressed wheat on a plate. Usually served with tons of milk and sugar to make it palatable, I carried it over to the table and set it before Kyle.

“Um… maybe I shoulda chosen truth.” His strange gold eyes rolled up to meet mine. “Is it too late to change?”

“Chow down.” Lucas pushed the plate closer to Kyle.

“Eating dry Weet-Bix?” Kyle grumbled. “I thought I’d just have to streak up and down the stairs or something stupid.”

“You’d rather introduce yourself to my neighbours naked?” I asked, tilting my head to one side.

“No, I?—”

“Eat up or admit defeat.” Asher’s responses always sounded like they were being torn out of him, but his tiny smile caught me by surprise.

“What happens if I don’t eat this arid wasteland of breakfast biscuit?” Kyle poked it with his finger.

“Then you’re out.” I declared that confidently, remembering the rules now. “You don’t get to ask or dare us to do anything.” I nodded to the couch. “You get to sit there and watch, bored.”

“Hmm…” He looked at the Weet-Bix, then me, and back again before grabbing it in those massive hands.

Weet-Bix was made of lots of grains of wheat that had every drop of moisture dried out of them, then they were hammered flat before being sandwiched together into a kind of biscuit. No fat, no sugar was added, just dry, dry wheat. It meant they were high in fibre and absolutely disgusting to eat dry, unless you slathered it with butter and a little Vegemite. I offered Kyle no such relief now. He stared at the biscuit mournfully before picking it up. Smiles broke out around the table, right as he took his first bite.

That god-awful crunch made clear just how dry this was, and then he tried to chew. The no-milk biscuit would be soaking up all of the saliva in his mouth, making it almost impossible to chew. His eyes screwed up, his jaw working frantically, but by the chuckles around the table, we all knew what he was going through. Mashing the wheat up into particles small enough to swallow needed moisture to help the process.

“Mph?”

Kyle tried to indicate something, spraying half chewed wheat flakes everywhere, then stabbed his finger in the direction of the fridge.

“No milk,” I said, shaking my head, because this brought me back. Instead, I swiped the wine bottle from the counter and filled his glass. “Eating a bowl of milk and cereal is no dare.”

I watched him swallow that bite down, his eyes watering as he gulped a mouthful of wine.

“Holy fucking shit…”

“Only about five more bites to go,” Asher observed dryly.

“Why didn’t I pick truth?” Kyle muttered over and over again to himself, right before he took another bite.

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