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“Sure. It’s a fun game and drinking is allowed,” he lifted both his brows in a playful gesture. “Vote,” he pointed at me.
“Never have I ever,” I wasn’t going to play a game that implied I had to tell the truth with Lucas and my older brother present. Not that I had a problem lying. I did that all the time, but why risk getting caught in a lie, when there was another possibility.
“Cole? Little Spencer?” Ty asked them to vote.
“Whatever the birthday girl decides,” Lucas said with a grim look on his face. He wasn’t in the mood for a game, but he would play anyway.
“Does it matter what we think, considering you already have three votes and there are only two of us?” Hannah cocked her head sideways.
“I suppose not,” Tyler stood up and waved to the kitchen. “Go outside then. I’ll bring the wine.”
Ten minutes later Hannah and I were all holding a glass of wine, Lucas and Dylan a beer, and my brother was having a scotch. The bottle was on the ground, next to his leg.
“Never have I ever broken a bone,” Tyler said.
The guys drank, Hannah and I didn’t. I looked behind my shoulder. I could see Elizabeth and Troy through the kitchen windows. It made me calm my nerves a little.
“Never have I ever sexted,” Dylan teased.
We all drank. Tyler made a disgusted face.
“Dude, that’s my sister over there. Watch it with the questions, okay?”
“Never have I ever had a threesome,” Hannah challenged Tyler.
Lucas and I laughed. Dylan had no clue why, but when my brother gulped his scotch in one go without tearing his eyes from Hannah’s face, he figured out it was directed to him somehow. He leaned forward, and they fist bumped.
Men.
“Never have I ever stolen something,” Tyler looked at my best friend, and, when she lifted her glass to her lips, I found out I was missing something here.
“Never have I ever lied to my best friend,” Lucas said. I didn’t move. He lifted an eye brow, suggesting I was cheating by not drinking. I closed my eyes in actual physical pain. The tears I managed to swallow back at the dinner table were now burning my eyes.
“Excuse me,” I somehow managed to say through my clenched throat, and I ran inside and straight upstairs to my room as fast as I could. I heard Hannah’s heels as she was following me. I just wanted to calm myself down before I lost it in front of everybody.
Just as I entered my room, I heard Lucas’s voice behind me.
“Keep him downstairs or he’ll be flying out the window,” he slammed the door in Hannah’s horrified face.
“Why did you do that? You humiliated me,” I pointed at him going round in circles, trying to calm myself down. My tears were falling down my face.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he roared at me. “The reason we played that stupid game was because he acted like an ass at the dinner table. You told him nothing.”
“You have no right,” I cried. “You treat me like shit and then you pretend to be concerned about someone else hurting my feelings?”
He didn’t answer. He was just staring at me. Jaw clenched. I was furious.
“I don’t need you. I don’t need your attention and I certainly don’t need your protection. Especially from Dylan. Back off.”
“He’s an asshole, Clem. I can’t believe you don’t see it.”
“You don’t know him,” I argued just for the sake of arguing. I cared about my fingernails more than I cared about Dylan.
“Neither do you. You’ve known him for five minutes. You’ve known me your whole life.”
He was barely moving. The exact opposite of my behavior. I was circling the room like a wild animal he was trying to catch, and it made me want to escape him even more.
“Don’t settle. You deserve better,” he tried reasoning with me.
