Chapter Five
By one in the morning, the party had thinned to the stubborn and the bored. Coats were a mountain by the door. The air smelled of brownies and beer. Someone had written DON’T LET DAN USE HIS PLAYLIST on a napkin and taped it to the speaker, which only made Dan try harder.
Bryce leaned against the wall, sipping from a bottle that had gone warm an hour ago, and watched the room wobble between conversations.
It felt good. The noise, bodies, something to ride that wasn’t his thoughts.
Every few minutes, his gaze found Sage. He couldn’t help it.
It had somehow become a habit now. Just a quick check to make sure he was good.
Make sure he was laughing. See his gray eyes light up when he smiled.
“Okay, children,” Dan called, clapping his hands over his head. “Spin the bottle. Clean version. Mostly.”
Groans, cheers, and then people moved. They slid the couches against the walls, and a circle formed. Bryce told himself to sit it out. “Don’t let Dan run the rules,” Sage told him.
Then Lizzie dragged him by the wrist. “You’re fun when you’re tipsy.” She grinned as she said it. “Don’t rob us.”
“Consent?” he deadpanned, already folding to the floor.
“Verbal and enthusiastic,” she shot back, still grinning.
Bryce raised his voice. “Ground rules. Nothing creepy. No harassing. If someone opts out, you split the brownie tax.”
“What’s a brownie tax?” Lizzie demanded.
“Means you owe the tray,” Bryce said solemnly.
“Approved.” Tara nodded. “No creepy. No harassment. If someone says no, it’s no. No exes. No bragging later.”
Sage looked fine with his back straight, palms on his knees, mouth relaxed like he wasn’t thinking about the night at all. When his eyes flicked to Bryce, it was a quick look. Bryce’s chest tightened, and he exhaled.
“You in, Everest?” Bryce asked.
“Sure.” Sage dropped into the space left open for him.
Dan rubbed his hands together. “All right, children. Let’s ruin friendships.”
“Two rules,” Tara said, pointing. “One. If it lands on someone you’ve dated, you re-spin. Two. No tongues unless both parties say yes.”
“Third rule,” Lizzie added gleefully. “No backing out like cowards.”
“Consent beats your rules,” Sage said dryly.
“Fine,” Lizzie conceded. “Consent and chaos.”
The bottle went around. The early rounds were loud and harmless.
Lizzie to Tara. There was a dramatic squeal, a loud smooch to the cheek, then giggles.
Dan to Gage followed with catcalls and a quick peck that had the whole circle wheezing.
Someone to someone else Sage barely knew.
It was awkward, funny, and over in the blink of an eye.
It was dumb, and it was light, and it should’ve been nothing but noise.
Bryce’s turn came. He spun too hard. The bottle rattled against a knot in the wood, skittered, slowed, and pointed at the blank space between two strangers.
“Re-spin,” Tara shouted.
He spun again. It clacked past Sage, past Lizzie, past Dan, and landed on Tara herself.
Tara cupped his jaw in both hands like a proud aunt, kissed him once, and said, “Hygienic. Ten out of ten.”
“Thank you?” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand because that seemed like the right joke. Everyone laughed like it was.
It kept going. The room grew warm. Music hummed under the chatter. Bryce passed a water bottle to someone who needed it and took a swig himself. He wasn’t drunk-drunk anymore. Tipsy now, the edges softer, but his brain had sobered up just enough to start thinking again. That never helped.
He kept not looking at Sage and kept failing.
Sage sat two people over, long legs crossed, gray T-shirt soft in all the places Bryce’s eyes didn’t need to learn.
His hair fell forward when he leaned to say something to Dan, and he pushed it back with his fingers.
The motion should have been nothing. Bryce felt it anyway.
He smiled at nothing and everything; the party blur was easy to ride.
Lizzie made the circle bark with a suggestion: “Let’s up the stakes. Two minutes in the closet.”
Groans. Whoops. Someone yelled, “We’re not in middle school!”
Bryce’s throat went dry. He lifted the bottle, took a sip, and then put it down again.
“It’s a small closet,” Dan said, wriggling his eyebrows. “Very intimate.”
“We are not doing anything anyone doesn’t want,” Tara said, the look she gave Dan sharp enough to cut cardboard.
“Consent and chaos,” Lizzie sang.
“Chaos is optional,” Sage said mildly.
Bryce tried to laugh and only managed half of one. He could feel his pulse. It was just a game. He’d played worse. He’d kissed strangers and laughed in the morning. But this circle contained exactly one person who could make his lungs forget how to work.
Don’t land on him. His brain said it with the calmness of a mantra. Don’t land on Sage. Don’t.
A guy named Matt spun. It landed on Dan.
Catcalls. Two minutes in the dark sounded like a punishment for both of them, and they still went in, laughing, banging the door on the way.
They came out red-cheeked and grinning. Someone yelled, “Look at those puffy lips,” and it was all ridiculous and easy again.
Bryce’s shoulders came down a notch. The room tilted back to fun. He let himself breathe.
“Everest,” someone said. “Your turn.”
Sage glanced at the bottle, then around the circle. His eyes passed over Bryce like a hand brushed along a sleeve. No catch, no pause. Fine. Good. Bryce’s chest still went tight.
Sage’s mouth twitched. He leaned forward and spun.
Green glass caught the light, flashed, whirled. The whole room leaned with it like one organism—breath in, breath out, waiting for direction.
Bryce didn’t breathe.
It slowed. Stuttered. Clicked past Tara’s knee, past Gage’s shoe, past the empty space where Lizzie’s leg had been a second earlier when she shifted.
And stopped. Pointing straight at Bryce.
A whoop went up. Dan yelled, “Fate!” Lizzie did a tiny drum roll on her knees. Tara shouted, “Oh, this is going to be good.”
Heat followed, rolling through Bryce’s chest fast and wide. His skin went prickly along his arms, like every hair had been waiting to stand up.
He looked at Sage.
Sage was already looking at him. Not with the casual glance from before. Not neutral. Not daring either. Something else. Different. Bryce tried for a joke, but nothing came out. He could hear his own heartbeat. He curled his fingers into his jeans and told them not to shake.
Lizzie clapped her hands. “Closet, boys!”
Dan whooped. “Two minutes! The rules demand it.”
“I hate all of you,” Bryce said, and they all laughed like he’d meant it to be funny.
Sage stood up slowly. “You heard the crowd,” he said, voice steady. “Scientific method.”
Bryce barked a short laugh that felt like it scraped his throat on the way out. “Pretty sure this is not peer-reviewed.”
“Peer-pressured,” Dan corrected.
“Consent,” Tara said again, firm.
Sage flicked her a look, then faced Bryce. “You good?”
There it was. The thing that cut clean through the noise. The thing that worked on him every time. Bryce swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.”
Sage’s mouth softened. Not a smile exactly. Relief maybe. Or just readiness.
Bryce got to his feet. The room looked different now that he had stood. Faces tilted up, eyes bright, a circle of people he liked, who he hoped would forget this in the morning or turn it into some joke. His palms felt stupidly warm and clammy, and he wiped them on his jeans.
They crossed the short distance together. Bryce reached the closet first and put his hand on the knob. It stuck like always. He jiggled. The door sighed open on that old, familiar hitch. Winter coats greeted him along with things they’d shoved in there to keep them out of the way.
Behind him, Lizzie called, “No planning your weekend in there. Puffy lips or it didn’t happen.”
“Add that to your rule list,” Dan told her.
“Add ‘shut up,’” Tara shot back.
Laughter rolled in. Bryce heard it like it was down a hallway. He glanced sideways at Sage, close enough now to see the tiny nick near his jaw where he’d shaved too fast, the way his gray eyes went darker at the edges when the light dimmed.
You can say no, his brain offered it up like a lifeline. You can back out. You can laugh it off and sit down, and nothing changes. He didn’t move away.
Sage stepped inside first, turned so his back touched coats, giving Bryce the easy space by the door. “No letting rip,” he said, deadpan.
“Ha,” Bryce managed and stepped in after him. He pulled the door partway closed, the room outside falling to a stripe.
“Just rub your lips,” someone stage whispered. “We won’t know.”
Sage huffed a laugh. “Like they’ll believe that.”
Bryce swallowed. “I’m too good to resist.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Sage said, but his voice had gone a shade lower.
He lifted a hand, not quite touching. “Ready?”
Bryce’s mouth answered before his better sense did. “Yeah.”
He closed the door.
Darkness slipped over them, soft and breath warm. Coats brushed his shoulders. He could hear the faint thump of music through the wall, the murmur of their friends, the quiet of Sage breathing two inches away. The game had rules. The room had none. His chest felt tight.
“Let’s get this over with,” Sage murmured.
Bryce found himself smiling in the dark, nerves jumping. “Yeah.” He leaned in. And the world narrowed to the shape of Sage’s mouth coming to meet his.