26. Max
MAX
People were always shocked by Will’s penthouse, expecting a typical bachelor pad but finding instead a modern space with floor-to-ceiling windows, warm oak floors and minimalist furniture. The kind of place that caused you to reconsider all of your preconceived notions about Will.
Tonight, however, the penthouse was transformed, with the usual signs of a decent party: empty bottles on the kitchen counter, a tower of pizza boxes on the coffee table and music that was normally low enough to talk over but loud enough to make you feel less self-conscious about talking.
Now, though, Bob Seger was blasting through the speakers.
Grace and Bridget were sitting at one end of the sectional with ginger ales in their hands and laughing so hard they kept spilling their drinks.
The reason for their outburst? Seth, who had convinced a couple of other teammates to help him with his dare: re-enacting the Risky Business dance scene.
He was doing a pretty good job, but he still looked ridiculous.
Even Simon, normally cool and collected, was clapping along and laughing his head off.
Emma had taken a cab earlier, leaving her blue scarf hanging over the back of the couch where we had been sitting.
I could still feel the weight of her legs resting on mine and the warmth of her body leaning in.
That was what undid me: she hadn’t even thought about it.
The way she had settled, without thinking about it, unconsciously trusting me to be the thing she leaned on.
And God, I had noticed every detail. The faint brush of her knee against my thigh when she moved.
How right she had felt, laughing with Simon about salsa nights and making Will butcher the word chiaroscuro until everyone in the whole room was laughing.
My hand had been itching the whole damn time to move – to rest over her shin, her knee, something – just to make the moment seem more than a coincidence.
And I hadn’t wanted her to be anywhere else.
“Your turn, Finn,” Will said, dealing two cards from the deck like he was running the world’s most chaotic poker game. “Truth or…
“Dare,” I said automatically. I had been saying ‘dare’ since I was twelve and trying to act like the bruises were from hockey and not from home. Dares are simple: you either do it or you don’t. Truths are more complicated.
I flipped the card over.
Kiss for 20 seconds the person you’ve been wanting to kiss.
I barked out a laugh which sounded too loud in my own ears. “Of course that’s the one I pull now.”
“Now?” Simon echoed, with one eyebrow raised.
Will was already looking for his phone to set the timer.
Bridget leaned forward, her smile sharp. “Well, look at that, fate has a sense of humour.”
Grace didn’t say anything, but she tilted her head, and looked at me with that strange X-ray vision she’s had since I was a kid, like she could hear the extra beats when something wasn’t just a joke. I kept looking at the card as if staring would change the words. It didn’t.
Fuck. Just my luck.
They all jumped in at once – laughing, teasing, and shouting out suggestions.
Someone said “Bridget, obviously,” and she laughed a little too loudly.
The card was like a heavy puck in my hands.
I could forfeit. Will’s rules meant you could bail and take a punishment.
Usually, this meant taking a shot of something that shouldn’t be legally sold as a liquid.
I’ve taken hits to the collarbone that hurt less than those shots.
But mostly, I couldn’t think about forfeits because there was only one person the card meant.
Only one person it had meant since a woman with green eyes and a British accent told me I was arrogant and somehow made me want to be better just to annoy her.
If I kissed anyone else on a dare, it would be a lie; if I didn’t kiss anyone, the whole room would still know the truth because I am many things, but subtle isn’t one of them. My face has always been a traitor.
“Or you could kiss the host,” Will said, fanning himself with a card. “I’m very giving.” There was laughter all around.
I sat there too long, holding the card between my thumb and forefinger, trying to make the clock go back; then, all of a sudden, Emma appeared back in the living room. “Sorry,” she said. “I left my scarf…”
In my head, every sound in the room changed pitch. The music faded away, and Will’s running commentary blurred. She wasn’t looking at me; she was scanning the armchairs. I was already on my feet, before I could change my mind.
“Where you going, bud?” Will called, grinning.
“I need you for a dare,” I said, trying not to let my voice shake as I looked at Emma.
“Is it going to take long? My taxi is waiting.”
“Just twenty seconds.” I held up the card, as if the words on it could help me explain what I couldn’t.
She took a step toward me, curious and a little cautious. “Okay. What do I need to do?”
I gave her the card. She read it, then looked up at me. I swallowed. “That’s you,” I said, honest because there was no point being anything else. “If that’s okay.”
For a moment, the room held its breath. Bridget put her glass down.
Simon straightened almost imperceptibly, ready to intervene if I was being an idiot.
Grace’s hand was near her mouth as if she were going to cover it.
Will, God bless him, was already hovering his thumb over the start button on his phone.
Emma’s gaze didn’t leave mine. A nod, small but sure. “All right.”
“Timer ready!” Will announced.
I stepped closer, the space between us getting smaller until I could smell her – a hint of something floral that always punched a hole straight through my composure.
I raised my hands and asked again with my eyes, because if there’s one thing I promised myself I’d be good at as a man, it’s not being a coward about consent.
She tipped her chin up just a little bit. Yes.
I cupped her face. Hesitant at first, because she mattered and I didn’t want to bulldoze that with show. Her skin was warm under my hands. Her jaw flexed once, then relaxed.
I kissed her.
The first brush was careful, a test to see how the ice handled the blades.
Her lips were soft and still. The world did that hockey-arena thing where the roar in your ears suddenly goes into a tunnel and all you can hear is the thing in front of you and the air in your lungs.
I breathed her in, and something inside me uncoiled.
I pressed harder and she answered. At first, it was subtle – a tiny lift and a pressure that said I shouldn’t be afraid to mean it. I wasn’t. Not anymore. I let the kiss deepen, just a notch, while I ran my thumbs along her cheekbones as if I could memorize the shape of the moment with my hands.
Her mouth parted, and I met her there, a slow, deliberate slide of my tongue against hers that threw sparks down my spine.
The room disappeared. Someone somewhere said something about seconds, but the number didn’t matter as much as how Emma’s fingers found my shirt and grabbed it.
I leaned into her, and she leaned back, and for a heartbeat I forgot the rules, the card, and all the dares I had taken because I was too young to say I wanted something.
We found a rhythm without thinking; we just gave, answered, and gave again.
The kind of kiss that starts out unsure because everyone is watching, but then you don’t care who’s keeping score.
Her tongue stroked mine and I let mine chase it, coaxing and then just plain wanting.
If my hands slid lower a fraction to cradle the hinge of her jaw, and if her breath hitched and sent a bolt straight through me, I wasn’t going to apologize for taking what I had wanted for so long.
“Uh – twenty!” Will’s voice broke through the music, laughing. It was the kind of laugh you make when you’re witnessing something you didn’t think you’d see outside of a movie. Others joined in: someone whooped, someone clapped, someone said, “Holy…” and didn’t finish.
We didn’t stop because of them. We stopped because your body needs breath at some point.
I pulled back a centimetre. She followed by a centimetre.
We hovered there, not touching but still touching, our breaths messy and shared.
I kept my hands on her face because I didn’t quite trust the room not to spin if I let go.
We stared at each other. Up close, her eyes were greener than they had any right to be. I wondered if I would ever get used to that colour. I hoped I wouldn’t.
Finally, she said, “My taxi’s waiting.” It was a whisper that somehow sounded clearer than a shout. “I really do need to leave.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
She shook her head, which made her cheek touch my thumb and do terrible things to my balance. “Don’t worry,” she said, strengthening her voice. Her British briskness came back into place. “Enjoy the rest of the game.”
I didn’t drop my hands right away. She didn’t move right away either. The world was once again hanging in the air, but in the best way. Then she glanced past me at the room, with everyone probably looking at us, and she took a half-step back. I dropped my hands.
She grabbed her scarf from the couch and wrapped it around her neck. Before leaving, she turned to look at me. “Don’t kiss anyone else,” she said, and it sounded like a challenge and a promise at the same time.
I gave her a smile, the one I only saved for her. “I haven’t kissed anyone since the bookstore,” I said, which wasn’t a line or an oath, just the truth. “I’m not about to start now.”
Something flickered across her face: maybe surprise, maybe relief, or both. She nodded once. “Goodnight, Max.”
“Goodnight, Emma.”
And then she left. Silence held for half a beat, like the puck at centre ice just before it drops and everything goes chaotic. Then Will let out a long, low breath. “Well,” he said, fanning himself with his phone. “That was… family-friendly.”
“Barely,” someone said, and there was a wave of laughter.
I managed to move and sat down. Grace bumped my knee with hers. “Hey,” she softly said when I looked at her. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, and my voice sounded steadier than I felt. “Yeah.”
“Good,” she said. “Because if you had kissed anyone else, I would’ve thrown this pillow at your head.”
The game continued, but the atmosphere had shifted, with everyone pretending nothing had changed after the kiss.
Will dealt another card to someone who wasn’t me.
The laughter started again. The music got back to where it belonged.
I felt like my mouth was branded, not because I was embarrassed, but because I had finally done one clean thing the way I meant to do it.
I thought about twenty seconds and how long they can be if you’re counting and how short they are if you’re where you want to be.
I thought about the bookstore aisle and how a voice can wrap around your life without meaning to.
“Finn,” Will said, poking my shoulder with a grin. “Back on Earth?”
“Mostly.”
“Good. Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” I said, surprising myself.
Grace gave me a look, soft but knowing, as if she had been waiting for me to choose that. “Well,” she said lightly, “that’s new.”
Will didn’t show me a card. Instead, he just asked, “Okay. True or false: you planned that, right?”
I laughed. “False. But I’ve been hoping for it since aisle seven.”
Grace snorted. “Aisle six,” she corrected. “Children’s books start at six in that store.”
“Right,” I said, and smiled at her for knowing that detail.
Bridget slammed the dare deck down on the coffee table and announced she would take the next one. Will told her to pick a truth just to prove she had one. I let it wash over me and held the taste of Emma’s yes in my mouth like something I wasn’t done learning.
Twenty seconds, give or take. Long enough to change the way the room looked when I opened my eyes. Long enough to hopefully make the next time seem less like a dare and more like a choice.