Page 41 of All Our Nevers

“Were you in on this?” Sophie asks him Nolan, grinning ear-to-ear, clearly loving every moment of this.

“Mhm,” Nolan smiles back. “Couldn’t let Lia have all the fun torturing you.”

Then Sophie turns to Owen. “You too?”

“Um, no,” Owen says, raising his hands in innocence. “Had no idea.”

When Sophie looks away, Owen’s eyes dart to me. I’m used to his ire by now, but the vibrancy of what I see in his expression surprises me. There’s genuine anger there. It’s only a moment—he recomposes himself quickly—but what the fuck? Does he really hate party games that much? Or does he just hate this idea because I’m the one who came up with it?

I decide to ignore him, passing an Andy-head and a Sophie-head to each person in the circle.

“The rules of the game are simple. I’ll read a prompt and we have to vote whether the answer is Sophie or Andy. Whichever one of them is the winner has to take a drink, plus everyone who got it right.”

“It’s a drinking game?” Andy asks, and I can practically see his stomach roil from yesterday’s vodka shots and this morning’s hangover.

“Just a sip!” I insist. “You can do it, tough guy.”

“We get to vote too?” Sophie asks, then shoves the last of her s’more into her mouth. She glances down at her marshmallow covered fingers, momentarily frozen in place. By the time she looks up again, Andy is holding out a napkin for her.

“Yeah!” Nolan says. “That’ll make it juicer when you guys disagree. We’ll just count down from three before we put up the signs, so you can’t give the answers away.”

“Everyone ready?” I ask.

They obediently put their s’mores and twigs and plates down and get into position: one face-stick in each hand.

I pull out the Notes app on my phone and smile down at the first prompt. “Who said ‘I love you’ first once they started dating? Three… two… one.”

Nolan and I both vote for Andy, obviously. He’s such a fucking simp. But when I look at the other people in the circle, I’m shocked to see Andy, Sophie, and Owen all holding up Sophie’s smiling face.

“What!?” Nolan and I yell in unison.

“Are you really that surprised?” Sophie shrieks, loud enough that I’m sure the whole block can hear.

“Yes,” we say in unison again.

Nolan adds, “He’d been talking about telling you how he felt for weeks. He didn’t say it when he asked you on your first date?”

“I actually asked him on our first date,” Sophie says. “So no, he didn’t.”

“Andy, bro!” Nolan yells. “Are you serious? I thought you had that whole ice skating idea?”

Andy is pink-faced and cringing, the bridge of his nose pinched between tense fingers. “The activity was my idea, but Sophie’s the one who suggested we go on a date. I really fucked up that whole thing up to be honest.”

Sophie says, “No you didn’t,” just as Owen says, “Yeah, you kinda did.”

“Wait.” I twist to face Owen, whose vote for Sophie is still raised in the air. “Did you know that or were you guessing?”

“I do talk to my brother, you know.”

“Yeah, I, um…” Andy clears his throat uncomfortably, then says to me, “I needed someone to talk to while Sophie was living at your place.”

“Hello?” Nolan says, waving his arms in Andy’s face. “What about your best friend of ten years right here?”

Andy looks cornered, unsure what to say, and I actually feel a little bad for him. I’m opening my mouth to speak up on his behalf when Owen beats me to it.

“It’s not like you could’ve been impartial. Sophie’s your best friend, too.”

“I guess,” Nolan concedes.