7
ELLIE
“No more dares,” I shout over the music pounding so loudly from the speakers that I can feel it in my throat.
I wobble and shift my feet as the last Red Devil cocktail goes straight to my head. Gabriella grins devilishly, tucking her straight blonde hair behind her ears.
“I’m not going to promise anything,” she says, linking arms with me and turning us so that we’re surveying the dance floor. The Red Devil bar is heaving tonight, and as the lights flash in time to the pulsating beat, I struggle to make out a single face.
“It’s time to go home,” I say, already worried about whether I can still carry myself to the door.
“It’s time to dance,” she says, tugging me straight into the throng of moving bodies, throwing her free hand in the air with abandon. I swear my friend has zero inhibitions. I only keep up with her because of her overuse of my kryptonite.
Well, maybe kryptonite is the wrong way of putting it. She knows that if she wants me to push my boundaries, she needs to throw out a dare. Most of the time, she gets away with it because I enjoy the chance to do things outside my usual comfort zone. Tonight, I drank at least three more drinks than I would have.
“We need to hook up with some sexy guys,” she says when she’s finally stopped walking and starts dancing. Under the flashing lights, her silver sequined dress comes alive like a sparkling rainbow.
I grimace, not liking where Gabriella’s train of thought is heading. “I don’t want to hook up with anyone,” I remind her. “I’m already the talk of the boy’s locker room.”
She swivels on her black chunky platform boots, scanning for potential sexy boys. There’s no shortage in here, but there’s no one I’m interested in. Even the sexiest man isn’t a patch on just one of the Townsend triplets, let alone all three. “What about him?”
Across the dancefloor, Elias is leaning over to speak to the head cheerleader. His eyes fix on her ample cleavage. So much so that he almost topples over and lands headfirst between her breasts. “Yeah. He looks like a real catch,” I say.
“Yeah. Might be hard to snog someone whose eyeballs are caught between someone else’s tits.”
I snort, glad that she noticed even in her drunken state.
“What about him?” This time she points to a skinny dude who’s leaning against the bar, nursing what looks like a soft drink. I guess he’s an art student because he has some patches of paint on his arm.
“Can we just dance?” I ask. “Or, if you want, I can dare you to snog Mr. Eyeballs Elias.”
Gabriella bends over at the waist, cackling loudly. “That is the best nickname ever,” she squeals.
“If Celine wasn’t dating Eddie right now, she’d definitely go for the guy at the bar.”
“True.” Gabriella nods in agreement and carries on looking.
“Oh,” she says, her eyes widening.
“What?” I turn to follow the direction of Gabriella’s gaze, finding Colby, Sebastian, and Micky standing by the entrance. I duck immediately, trying to hide behind a tall man who’s gyrating with his girlfriend behind me.
“Why are you hiding from them?” she asks.
“No reason,” I say. I still haven’t confided in Gabriella about what happened, and the gossip must not have reached her yet. “Well, no reason other than they’re annoying as shit.”
The half-lie leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Gabriella narrows her blue eyes and twists her mouth into a one-sided smile. “You know that I’m aware you lust after those gorgeous hunks of men,” she says.
I open my mouth to deny it, but she claps one of her hands over my mouth.
“Don’t do that, sister. Don’t lie to your friend.”
My shoulders drop, shame washing over me. “I can see their unbelievable manliness and ‘chiseledness’–is that even a word?–but still find them annoying as shit.”
“You can,” Gabriella agrees. “But you know that usually means you want to have their babies, but you’re hiding behind your self-constructed fear-elevated barriers.”
“I think you need to drop your psych class,” I say, dancing with one eye on my stepbrothers as they make their way to the bar. Their manliness is out in full force tonight. Tight shirts hug their broad backs and bulging biceps, and their jeans are snug around their asses and ridiculously muscular thighs. They move in such a similar way, their legs in synch as they walk.
“I see you watching them,” Gabriella says.
“Only so I know where they are. I don’t want to bump into them. They’re just so dull. Always talking about football.”
“I heard they’ve been volunteering to teach football to kids in a deprived neighborhood across town.” Gabriella wiggles her eyebrows, pleased that she’s found a tidbit of information that goes in the triplet’s favor.
“They are?”
She nods. “It’s a charity thing organized by their coach. It was on the student website.”
“Mmm…”
Gabriella grabs my hands, spinning me under her arm in a ridiculous formal dance move. “Mmm is right. Not such bad guys, after all, are they?”
“Volunteering doesn’t make a difference,” I lie. “They’re probably just doing it to make themselves feel less like douchebags.
“I don’t know. Colby’s been helping Kain with his classes. You know how much he struggles because of his ADHD.”
“Why’s he helping Kain?” I ask.
“Because he loaned Kain some notes when he saw him struggling, and then Kain said how much it helped him, and Colby offered to tutor him for a couple of hours a week.”
I glance across the dancefloor at Colby, who now has a bottle of beer in his hand and is waiting for Seb to finish paying. He’s always seemed so self-centered to me. He is more interested in getting his way and making other people compliment him. Out of all of them, the only one I would have thought would have been selfless in any way is Micky. A couple of years ago, he befriended a stray cat, and now it lives in his room. It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, but he loves it.
I twist away, not liking where Gabriella’s stories are taking my train of thought because if Colby, Seb, and Micky aren’t the assholes I’ve convinced myself they are, then I have way less reason to suppress all my pent-up sexual feelings about them.
My conversation with Dornan echoes through my mind. Which one are you crushing on? He asked me. What I didn’t tell him is that I can’t separate them in my mind. When we were in the closet, for those seven minutes, they were like one person. They were so focused on my pleasure that the three men became a single six-handed entity.
Now, when I get fluttery sexual feelings at the memory of that night, it’s with all their almost identical faces in my mind. Colby with the permanent furrow between his dark, serious brows. Micky with the small scar that runs along his chin and the soft look in his eyes. Seb with that quirk of a grin and his devilishly sexy dimple. I imagine them standing over me, Colby with his arms folded, Micky reaching out, and Seb leaning against the wall.
I can’t separate them, even in my fantasies.
“You’re thinking about them, aren’t you?”
“I was thinking I need to use the bathroom.”
Gabriella flashes me another knowing smile and grabs my hand. “Awesome. Me too. And on the way, we can say hello to your manly chiseled stepbrothers.”
“No…” I blurt, but as soon as it comes out of my mouth, I realize they’re now standing directly in the path to the lady’s room, and there’s no way to avoid them.
“Hey, Micky, Colby, and Seb,” Gabriella says smoothly. “Looking good.”
They know my friend, but they’re not exactly on super friendly terms, mostly because I’ve avoided hanging out in their vicinity whenever she’s come around.
“Hey,” Colby nods. I can see his brain working on remembering her name.
“Hey, Gabriella,” Micky says. Of course, he’d be the one to remember.
Seb nods in my direction. “Ellie.”
“Hey.” The greeting sounds more like a squeak, and I blush, dying inside at how awkward this all is. “Nice dress,” he adds, his pretty eyes trailing down the full length of my body. I know I don’t imagine him folding in his bottom lip seductively, the same lip that teased my nipple.
My dress is nice. It’s emerald-green stretch cotton, almost the same color as the Townsend’s eyes, and it clings to every curve. Paired with my New Balance, it’s cute and comfortable. But I don’t want him to notice anything about what I’m wearing because when he does, it reminds me of how urgent their hands were in pushing up my dress in the closet and how easily they accessed all my most private places.
Gabriella is staring at me with the most annoying smug look on her annoying smug face.
“This was nice,” I say, stepping around Colby and dragging Gabriella with me.
“Nice,” she snorts as I push open the restroom door. “You are really uptight, my friend.”
“I am not uptight.”
“Soooo uptight,” she says. “So uptight, you’re almost ready to snap.”
Maybe she’d be less critical if she knew I came face to face with Micky’s perfect cock last night. Probably not. If I described it in all of its glory, she’d tell me I was a fool for not dropping to my knees right then and there.
We disappear into stalls, and as I relieve myself, I clasp my face in my hands, trying to regain my composure. Seb, Colby, and Micky don’t even need to touch me, and I’m an overheated mess of a person.
“You know what?” Gabriella shouts through the partition.
“What?”
“I dare you to fuck at least one of those sexy hunks of men. In fact, I don’t just dare you, I double dare you!”
“You can’t dare me to fuck someone,” I squeal, shoving my dress down over my hips, my eyes bugging out at the thought.
“Why not?” We open the doors simultaneously, and I stare at my friend in disbelief.
Dares are usually about fun and lighthearted stuff. More alcohol, a fumble in a closet, a kiss with someone, maybe. That’s as far as anyone has ever gone. But sex is a totally different matter.
“A sex dare shouldn’t be a thing,” I say, already praying that Gabriella’s going to see the error of her ways and take back the dare.
“A sex dare should absolutely be a thing,” someone says from inside an occupied stall. “I wish someone would give me a sex dare.”
Gabriella claps her hands, her silver bangles jingling like bells at Christmas. “I’ll give you a sex dare,” she says. “Anything to help a girl out.”
“Gabriella,” I say. “This is a disaster!”
“I didn’t dare you to fuck them all,” she says, resting her hands on her hips. “Although that would be mind-blowing fun. Think about all those gorgeous muscles rippling and working to give you pleasure, all hot and sweaty with arousal.” She fans herself with her hand. “All I’m daring you to do is fuck just one of your sexy stepbrothers. Just to know what it’ll be like. I mean, they’re all identical. How different could they be in the sack?”
I could tell her right now what happened in the closet. I could tell her about the damage Dornan’s dare has already done, but I don’t because that’s not how dares work. And as much as I’m objecting, now she’s set the dare, there’s no getting out of it.
The last words my dad said to me ring in my ears.
You’re a coward.
It was a cruel, throwaway comment from a man who never understood the power of words. It’s a comment that’s lodged deep in my heart like a shard of glass that can never be removed for fear of bleeding out.
Because I think he’s right. I am a coward. I never push myself hard enough. It’s one of the reasons that Mom spends so much time gushing about my stepbrothers. They’re dynamic go-getters, and I’m just happy coasting, apparently. The only time I ever let myself go is with a dare. And every time I go through with a dare, however stupid, it’s like I’m sticking a big fuck-you finger up at my dad.
Dares make me brave, and I like being brave.
“You can take it back,” I say hopefully, just as the girl who’s one hundred percent into sex dares steps out and beams at us. She’s dressed like a crazy art teacher, with brightly colored clothes and frizzy multicolored hair; an abstract painting brought to life. Gabriella and I look at each other and smile as we have the same idea.
“The guy in black,” we say simultaneously.
“What?” she asks.
“Your sex dare,” Gabriella clarifies. “There’s a guy out there to the right by the bar, dressed all in black. He has paint on his arms.”
“Paint? Sounds cool.”
I want to tell her that the word cool is no longer cool, but I don’t because she seems so happy. She washes her hands and then proceeds to give both Gabriella and me a hug.
“Good luck with your sex dare,” she whispers in my ear, giving me a wink as she leaves.
“You see,” Gabriella says, pressing her hands to my inflamed cheeks and squashing them like an overzealous Italian grandmother. “I’m like a sex genie, making everyone’s wishes come true.”
“You think I’ve been wishing to fuck one of my stepbrothers?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes, I do. In fact, I think you wish you could fuck them all. But I won’t go that far with the dare. Not now. Not until you tell me it’s what you want.”
“Oh, that’s so kind of you,” I huff. “You want to make sure your sex wishes actually end in satisfaction.”
Taking me by the hand, she heads for the door with me trailing behind. “Well, I can’t guarantee you a good time. I just hope whichever one you choose will deliver.”
I don’t tell her I already know one who is guaranteed to provide satisfaction. Micky and all the special things he can do with his fingers and tongue. I guess if I’m going to go ahead with this dare-and just the thought of it has my panties wet–I should choose the one who’s already proven himself. And I’ve already seen him naked. Somehow, that makes this whole thing less daunting.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” I say as we hit the dancefloor again. The alcohol in my body is making everything way fuzzier than is ideal. If I was sober, maybe all of this would freak me out rather than make my nerve endings buzz with anticipation.
“No, my darling. You’re the crazy one because you’re going to go through with this dare, aren’t you?”