Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
JESSE
I t was just a dress.
I’d seen her wear countless dresses over the years. Most of them shorter than the one she now had on. They were almost always black, too. This was just another black dress.
Except it wasn’t.
It was satin and there was a slit up one of the sides, revealing her leg. It had the kind of straps that made me want to walk over there and peel them off her shoulders until the whole thing was pooled at her feet.
“You look nice,” I said, my voice quiet.
“Thanks. You good to head down?” she asked, not quite looking at me as she walked out of the room.
As we approached the kitchen, she stopped abruptly and turned around. I just about managed to stop myself from crashing into her, but she still stumbled backwards. I reached out to catch her as she overcorrected and fell against me. Our chests pressed together; her arms were warm under my hands as she relaxed into me.
“Sorry. I just…you look good as well,” she said. The barest of blushes spread along the top of her cheekbones. It made them look sharper.
She shimmied out of my loose grip and carried on to the kitchen. I rushed to catch up with her.
“Thanks,” I whispered to her as we rounded the corner into the room. I didn’t miss the goose bumps that prickled along the side of her neck.
* * *
Xander and Darren cooked another great meal, but I barely tasted it, put off by Drew testing whether looks could kill for the duration of dinner.
His death glances had started with Clara, but when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to give him the time of day, he turned his attention to me.
I didn’t know how he managed to eat any of his own meal. He was so focused on watching my every move. When Clara leaned over me to take food off Becky’s plate, his eyes narrowed, like he was hoping to learn at that moment that he had manifested the ability to shoot lasers out of them should I even think about laying a hand on her.
I wasn’t the one who made first contact.
As Clara tried to get more leverage to reach Becky’s plate, she rested her hand on my upper thigh, which brought her breasts into contact with my arm. I moved it out of the way to give her more space and looped it over the back of her chair. It meant that I could no longer feel her chest against my arm, but she was clearly using it for support because when my arm moved, her hand gripped harder onto my leg. The bite of pain made me jump, and I caught the edges of her mouth tilt into a smile.
“Let’s play a game!” Drew snapped.
Clara rolled her eyes as she moved back to sit on her chair properly. My hand moved to her shoulder. I waited for her to shrug it off, but similar to yesterday, she let it stay there, and I started playing with the strap of her dress.
“What game?” Samuel asked. Something about the way Drew’s face changed told me that I wasn’t going to like whatever came out of his mouth.
“Never Have I Ever.”
“What, are we eighteen?” Rachel scoffed.
“There are new people in the group, so we should all get to know each other.” His eyes zeroed in on my fingers, brushing against Clara’s skin.
I was the only new person here, and even then, I wasn’t that new. I didn’t know two people at this table. Although I couldn’t say I knew Gavin all that well.
“Don’t see why not,” Gavin agreed, and suddenly, it was all systems go.
Shot glasses were lined up and filled with tequila while parents filed out of the dining room, reminding us not to get too crazy.
“Who’s gonna start?” Danielle near squealed.
Clara seemed to be actively trying to make herself smaller beside me.
“I’ll go. Never have I ever failed a test,” Rachel opened. Samuel, Danielle, Gavin, and Drew all downed their shots.
“Really, mate?” Drew asked me as he refilled their glasses.
“No follow-up questions. He didn’t drink. Let’s go right,” Rachel said. Going right meant Clara was next. She took a deep breath.
“Never have I ever drunk so much that I’ve thrown up.”
Almost everyone knocked their shot back. Me included.
“I’m sure you puked on your eighteenth,” Becky said as she started refilling glasses.
Clara shook her head. “That was Lucy. I held her hair back.”
“Oh, shit, yeah.”
Once Becky screwed the lid back on the bottle, it was my turn. I thought carefully about what I said.
“Never have I ever been stood up,” I said.
Clara knocked back her shot and slammed the glass down. Shit, I thought that would have been safe. As far as I knew, Drew was the only person that she had ever dated.
Unless…
Drew didn’t look too happy with me as he left his shot alone, which confirmed my suspicions.
I lost track of what was going on for a while as I tried to figure out how exactly Clara and Drew had gone from an aborted date to near marriage. Part of me wondered if she would give him another chance now that they were in the same place again and the dust had settled. She had clearly done it before. Why wouldn’t she do it again?
When I zoned back in, it was Samuel’s turn.
“Never have I ever been cheated on.”
Rachel laughed quietly before chucking her shot back. Lucy knocked hers back as well. Rachel went to start refilling their glasses when Drew looked between me and Clara and then slowly sipped his shot down.
“Excuse me?” Clara spat out.
“No follow-up questions,” he said smugly as he held his glass out to Rachel for a refill. She sloshed more tequila into his shot glass, ignoring the spillage that went over his wrist and sat back down.
Something had shifted. We all seemed to be holding our breaths, waiting for the next shot to be fired.
Gavin was next.
“Never have I ever faked an orgasm,” he said. All the girls took a shot, and Drew, once again, slowly raised his glass to his mouth and tipped it back.
“Unbelievable,” Clara muttered quietly.
It was his turn again. Clara took a deep breath, and without even thinking, I moved my hand from her shoulder to her leg. As my hand made direct contact with the bare skin of her upper thigh, she flinched before she placed a cool hand on top of mine.
I moved my thumb up and down the inside of her thigh and felt her slowly relax.
“Never have I ever almost married the wrong person.”
There were three gasps. One came from Clara. Judging by the twin looks of shock on Becky and Lucy’s faces, I guessed the other two came from them. I assumed their reactions were to do with Clara, but then Rachel stood up sharply and knocked her shot back before rolling her shot glass in disgust at Drew.
“Fuck you,” she spat as she rushed from the room.
Drew seemed undeterred by Rachel’s reaction and knocked his shot back with a smirk. I felt a weird sense of satisfaction roll through me when Clara followed suit. When her shot was gone, she pushed my hand off her leg and walked out.
With those two gone, it was clear that the game was over.
Drew’s overall demeanour suggested that his plan had gone exactly as he wanted, although I suspected that Rachel was collateral damage.
“The best bullet I ever dodged. Be warned,” he said to me.
“Are you not the one who arrived here expecting the two of you to get back together this week?” Lucy asked, her voice barely concealing her anger.
I didn’t wait to hear Drew’s answer.
I went to find Clara.