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“Notthatkind of distraction, either. Jeez!” She rolled her eyes with a laugh. “Truth or dare, anything goes.”
“Really,” I met her challenge.
“What, I’m not scared. You scared?”
I scoffed. As if. “You’re on.”
“On for what?” Skater Boy asked from behind Sydney’s chair, hauling her out of it and into his arms, and what.A freaking.Traitor Sydney was!
“Baby!” she squealed, and I kind of wanted to throat punch her. Three-wheeling wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time, especially not when the whole point here was to pull me out of this ridiculous, black-heart-splintered-open funk I was in.
She threw me aplease don’t kill mepout from over his shoulder, and I pretended to think it over, figuring the jail time wasn’t worth it anyway, and settled on acknowledging that I was being a bit selfish. I shrugged with a half-hearted smile, keeping my black cloud from raining on her parade. (Her lovesick, traitor parade.)
Full honesty, I was happy for her. It just kind of sucked, you know? In that selfish, I don’t want what I’m missing to be shoved down my throat right nowsort of way.
I pushed away the feeling, buried it somewhere, and smiled. An actual one this time. “Truth or dare,” I answered Skater Boy’s lingering question. “That’s what’s on.”
“Ah, sweet!” He fell into Sydney’s chair, pulling her down with him. “Can I play?”
“Yes.” “No.” Sydney and I both answered at the same time. Me, with the former. Her, with the latter.
“You can definitely play,” I plowed right through whatever she was about to say next. The least they could do was provide me with some entertainment on this three-wheeled bus.
It was like she didn’t trust me or something.
I mean, rightfully so, butha!Screw that.
“Cool!” he said, oblivious, and I laughed under my breath as Sydney shook her head, visibly biting back a handful of curse words even though she was holding back a smile, too.
The party quickly grew around us, but we stayed on our own planet, truths and dares flying between us like it wasn’t a thing.
“Okay, Skater Boy.” I zeroed in on him when he picked truth—again,lame. “What’s your real name?”
He choked out a laugh.
Joke was on him, though, because I was pretty sure Sydney didn’t know his name either, hence the reason the name Skater Boy had stuck in the first place.
When her eyes widened, my suspicion was confirmed, and I barked out a laugh as he answered, “Damien.”
“Damien.” I nodded, pulling myself together. “That’s a good name. We should probably start using it, huh Syd?”
Her look was slightly murderous, and I laughed even harder.
“I like Skater Boy. It’s cute.” She shrugged.
“Yeah, me too,” I relented. “Skater Boy Damien—oh, hey.” I turned to face him again. “Sorry about that whole cock-blocking thing, by the way.” (Re: faces in vulnerable places before I started wailing that I wanted to leave the party, or however Sydney had explained it. I didn’t really remember.)
His head fell back in laughter. “No worries, it’s all good.”
Sydney’s glare went from murderous to serial-killer mode before she tucked it away. A smirk slipped into its place. One that said there was about to be some payback headed my way.
“Olivia,” she said my name in its four separate syllables, her tone way too sweet. “Truth or dare?”
“Is that how this works? Isn’t it Damien’s turn now?” I quipped.
“Whatever,” she growled. There were at least a dozen other threatening words on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say any of them without giving herself away.
We held each other’s stare, and then we both cracked the hell up. Because that’s just what we did. Our friendship was full of passive-aggressive, pain in the ass, genuine love and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.