I couldn't decide when the game of truth or dare had become so iniquitous. It had started out innocently enough. Lick the toilet seat, who's the celeb you would do? That kind of thing.
Maybe it was the fact that Jas' mom had left us unattended for the evening to go line dancing at the hall; we were technically adults after all, we could be entrusted with some responsibility. But I suspected it was when Jas' older brother, who was home from college decided to crash the room and insisted on playing. His dares had been along lines far less innocent, like drinking shots or removing articles of clothing.
Jas was—not so subtly—trying to get him to leave, but the other two girls were falling all over him and acting like...well they didn't normally act like that or they wouldn't have been friends of mine.
The truth was, I couldn't really blame them. I had had a secret crush on Kane since the second year of high school, I met him the first time I stayed over with Jas and he was home for the weekend.
The guy was seriously hot, and funny as hell. I tried not to let my blush show as my mind pulled up the memory of that first meal together when he had made me snort milk out my nose, and embarrassingly all over my plate of food at the family table.
I sighed to my self, I don't even know why I came back after that, I would never live it down.
"Hello?" Kathrine's voice broke into my mind and I think I blinked stupidly. Kane was watching me, a knowing look in his eyes. He fingered the tip of his nose as though he had read my mind and knew what I had been thinking. I couldn't stop my cheeks from reddening furiously. Damn him.
"What?" I replied.
"Your turn space head. Truth or dare?"
"Er..." better play it on the safe side, I really didn't need more embarrassment. "Truth."
The other girls in the room groaned in disappointment, someone called me a chicken. I shrugged. That I could live with. Another milk incident I could not.
"What is your biggest turn on in a man?"
Oh boy, I should have picked dare. I struggled to keep my eyes from Kane, but I could feel him staring at me, his gaze boring holes through my skin. Heat flushed to my cheeks again.
"Uh...dark hair?"
"Not good enough. You pick truth you have to go details. Man up girl," Jas stabbed. Just because she was mad at her brother didn't mean she had to take it out on me.
"Blue eyes....and a good smile?"
Even Carry rolled her eyes.
"That could be half the guys at Farthworth college," Kane snorted. "Your truth needs to be specific, if it's your biggest turn on only one guy should fit the bill."
He said it casually, like it didn't matter and leaned back on his elbows, showing of a set of very nice pecks. I cleared my throat and pulled my eyes away. But I couldn't answer. Not truthfully anyway. It was too mortifying. How could one admit that their biggest turn on involved the man sitting across from them, their best friends brother?
Instead I tried to think of the lie that would leave my pride hurting for the least amount of time...
"Jas!" Jas' mother's voice sounded from the entryway above.
"Oh, shit!" Kathrine quickly pulled her tank top on over her bikini top. Jas and Carry pushed the shot glasses and bottle of rum beneath the bed.
"Jas?"
The door opened a crack and Jas' mom peeked her head inside.
"What's up mom?"
"Hi girls, Kane are you bothering them? Never mind it doesn't matter, I just got called for an emergency shift at the hospital, I'm sorry but you girls will have to go home."
The room filled with general discontented sighing but the three of us who did not belong picked up our overnight bags.
"I can take Carry and Kathrine into town when I go to work, Kane can you drive Ava home?"
"Sure mom," he said, there was nothing in his voice to show he was either pleased or displeased with being relegated to chauffeur. I wished there was, because my heart had just skipped several beats.
I shouldered my bag and tried not to look as Kane rose from his prone position, he lead the way through the door, up the stairs and into the night. I followed quietly, partly because that last truth had snatched my equilibrium and partly because the man's backside was entirely distracting.
He opened the passenger door to his sporty little Camaro and waited for me to slide in.
"Pretending to be a gentleman?" I teased. He snorted and closed the door in my face, working his way around to the other side.
The car started as soon as the key turned and he pulled out of the drive almost immediately afterward, hardly allowing any time for the adjustment between being at a full stop and being at highway speed.
I lived a ways off into the country, a fifteen minute drive at least. That should have excited me, considering I had been thinking of moments like these for three years, but instead I was finding it highly uncomfortable. Normally Kane treated me like Jas, a younger sister, but talking about my turn ons had changed that feel, and now there was a strange tension in the car. I mourned that a bit, was he trying to avoid me coming on to him, gently letting me know he's not interested?
I wished he would just say, I figure it would be better that way, or at least less awkward. I was a big girl, nineteen last week. Surely I could handle a little rejection.
I was busy watching how his big hands maneuvered the shift stick, there was something mesmerizing about his fingers, though I couldn't quite pin it down, and it took me several seconds to realize we had pulled down a dark road that was not my driveway.
Kane guided us off of the road and a ways up a small turn off, then he rolled to a stop and cut the engine.
Sudden nerves stole my brain. Somewhere I knew he must be thinking along the same lines I had been thinking, or at least wanting to make out. But I couldn't reconcile the idea—which had only ever been in my head until now, and then in the most private places I could find—with the reality that seemed to be taking place.
"Uh, what are you doing?"