Page 26 of Choose the Bears

This took me back to a time before Mike, where me and my friends would sit around doing something dumb, sometimes with a bottle of wine stolen from our parents’ stash. Kyle seemed to sense he had an audience, now exaggerating the difficulty he was having with the dare. The moans, the groans, the rolled eyes, they had me cackling, right up until he finished the last bite, even sweeping his finger across the plate to eat the last few crumbs.

“Right.” Those eyes were molten gold right now and bore straight into me. “Your turn. Please say dare.Pleasesay dare.”

“Truth,” I replied, taking a sip of my drink. “I’m not stupid. There’s a whole box of Weet-Bix there your boss paid for, and I only want to eat it the nice way.”

“How did you and Mike meet?”

My smile faded, and right then I wished like hell I’d chosen dare. My mouth would’ve been just as dry, and I’d have something to shove in it instead of it hanging slightly open.

“Jesus, Kyle—” Lucas hissed, but I shook my head.

“No, its fine.” I stared into each one of their eyes, daring them to look away. “You’d have to be wondering how I ended up in this situation.”

“Less than you’d think,” Asher told me, but didn’t explain further.

“We went to high school together.” I stared at the plate, taking in each crumb left. “He was one of the bad boys, and I was this geeky girl who spent her time in the library or the art room. Guys didn’t notice me, not until he did.”

My finger traced the graceful line of the wine glass’ stem.

“He was my first kiss, my first…” I looked up then, remembering I had an audience. “My first everything. Love bombing, the first time I read an article about that I recognised what he’d done. Treated me like I was the most important person in the entire world, which was seductive enough in itself. People thought we were the perfect couple until…”

Until the charade became too hard to maintain and the cracks started to form. Until I was forced to confront the fact the guy I’d given my heart to wasn’t who I thought he was. The cruelty, the neglect, the disinterest coupled with intense affection when I started to pull away, all had my head spinning, losing all sense of up, down, right and… wrong. I said something to that effect and then came back to the present, letting go of the past for now.

Fuck, this was way more embarrassing than I remember this game being as kids. I think the worst thing I’d been dared to do was wear some guy’s shirt, not confess my tragic relationship woes. I forced myself to smile, sitting up straighter.

“Well, you’ve heard my tales of misery. What about you guys?” I scanned the table, taking in the way each one of them sprawled in their chairs. “Any crazy ex’s in your history? No bunny boilers?”

“No,” Asher replied for all of them, so definitively I thought he killed the topic dead, but I was determined to revive it.

“No one ever slashed your tyres? Tried to turn a hookup into marriage?” I persisted.

“No, there have been no women in my life.”

“Oh. Ohh…” I glanced at all three of them, thinking I saw them more clearly now. “So you’re…?” The three of them as a gay throuple was a possibility, but how did that explain Lucas’ response last night? Bisexual, my mind supplied helpfully. He could be bi, but that meant I was grinding on… “Oh shit, you’re together?”

“What?” Lucas frowned then looked at the others. “We’re a sl— team, but?—”

“You think we’re gay?” The long, slow inspection Kyle made of me had me abandoning that theory as soon as it was formulated. “No, not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, but no. We work together. We’ve been close friends since high school. Also, if I was going to do dick, it wouldn’t be Lucas’. He snores.”

“And the toxic gas that escapes your arse every time you eat eggs is enough to make sure I’d never want to go near yours,” Lucas shot back.

“You think I’d be bottoming for you?” Kyle asked. “Fuck you. I give off distinct top energy.”

He reached over and ruffled Lucas’ hair, something that earned him an elbow to the ribs. When Lucas raked his fingers through it to settle his hair back down, he met my eyes.

“Me either.” His confidence seemed to be evaporating by the second. “Girlfriends I mean. I haven’t…” My eyes widened, remembering last night, the way it’d felt straddling his hips. I’d never felt like he was anything other than completely in control. He shot me a sheepish smile as if in response to that. “Never even kissed anyone before.”

Jesus. I stared openly, a small shrieking voice inside told me to look the hell away, but I didn’t. I caught the vulnerability and the strength in those golden eyes, right before Kyle interrupted.

“So truth or dare, Imogen?”

“Dare…”

Why the hell had I said that? I was determined not to. Sad stories, embarrassing questions, I could deal with all of them, but putting myself into a stranger’s control, letting them tell me what to do? I was not keen on that at all, something confirmed by Kyle’s sly smile.

“I dare you to kiss Lucas.”

It was a challenge fit for teenagers. We’d used the game as kids to ‘make’ someone do the thing they really wanted to do, just like spin the bottle, but I wasn’t a child anymore. I saw the look in Lucas’ eyes and knew what I had to do.

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