“This isn’t fair, guys,” whines Alice. “I’m totally the drunkey-est right now. Why do I have topick?”
“Drunkey-est?” I laugh way harder than I should. “Hey Christina, Alice is so drunkey rightnow!”
She just shakes her head at us. “I think you’re both a littledrunkey.”
“Don’t pretend you’re not drunkey too,” Iaccuse.
“Can we please stop sayingdrunkey?”
Alice interrupts us with a scream as the Jenga tower comes crashing down. Tiles scatter across the surface of the coffee table. One narrowly avoids falling into mydrink.
“Well, that means three more shots for me!” Alice cries gleefully. “And you guys get to give me adare.”
“You can probably think of a better way to embarrass her than I can,” I tellChristina.
We eventually settle on making Alice drunk text some guy she likes. We sit around waiting to see if he’ll reply until Alice’s eyes start to droop and Christina offers to let her crash in the apartment for the night. She just nods and zombie-walks to Christina’s room, pulling the door closed behindher.
“Well she went from one hundred to zero pretty fast,” Iremark.
“Yeah, that’s drunk Alice for you.” Christina shrugs. “One minute she’s climbing up on a table, next minute she’s lying under it, fastasleep.”
“Did you guys meet atschool?”
She nods. “First day of class. She’s one of my best friends now. We do kickboxingtogether.”
I’ve slipped into the dull, end-of-the-night kind of drunkenness that makes everything feel heavy. A Jenga piece lies between my feet and I lean down to pick itup.
“Want to play?” I ask with a slowgrin.
She glances at the whiskey bottle. “I don’t think we have enough liquorleft.”
I risk getting up from my chair and taking Alice’s spot on the couch. “Well then, no skips. And no towers. No Jenga, in fact. We’re doing this the old fashionedway.”
Her leg is just an inch away from mine, both our feet propped up on the coffee table. I feel my pulse quicken when she shifts her body so that it’s leaning towards mine. I should be pushing her away right now— not with my hands, but with my words, with my dickhead comments and unquenchable ego. I should fill the inch of space between us with jokes so immature and irritating she’ll never want to close thegap.
Instead I lean towards her and murmur, “Truth ordare?”
Her eyes find mine, our faces closer than they ever have been before. “Truth.”
I crack a smile. “Truth is forwimps.”
“Oh yeah? Then why’d you skipone?”
My grin fades as quickly as it appeared. “I’m asking the question right now, notyou.”
I pause to consider what I’ll ask. My gaze travels down to the line of smooth skin visible between the edge of her t-shirt and her jeans. I want to run my fingers along it, hook my thumb into her belt loop and pull her into me, onto me, falling back on the couch and taking her with me as I slide my hands around to grip herass.
“When did you lose your virginity?” I blurtout.
Well, looks like I don’t even have to try to beimmature.
I expect her to get offended, but she just laughs. “When I was seventeen. I had a boyfriend who was nineteen. My parents didn’t know abouthim.”
“Teenage rebel,huh?”
“I guess. Looking back, I don’t even think I really liked him all thatmuch.”
“Did you like thesex?”
