The beauty of having to wear a large (purple velvet) penis-and-accompanying-balls deely bopper (‘Double meat and two veg all round,’ Sasha’s sister Lucie’s very posh friend Tara had yelled when she’d distributed them) was that when you leaned forwards it obscured most of what you did.
Evie waited for Lucie’s friend Nags to finish sloshing tequila into everyone’s shot glasses.
‘Right,’ Nags said, sitting down. Oops, she’d missed her chair. Up she got. ‘Chair moved,’ she said. ‘Okay. On the count of three. One. Two.Three.’
While everyone else tipped their heads back and downed their shots, Evie poured hers into the pot of the large yucca plant behind her. She’d spotted the yucca when they’d arrived at the restaurant and had manoeuvred herself into the closest seat to it. She’d now tipped three out of five shots in there and was a lot more sober than everyone else. It was lovely that Sasha and Tara had invited her – along with thirty-seven other women – to Lucie’s hen night, but she was helping out with a school Duke of Edinburgh training day tomorrow, and it would be torture with a hangover. Plus she wasn’t that keen generally on getting over-pissed.
Nags stood up again and banged the table with a fork. Oh, God. If there was one thing the last hour had taught Evie, it was that Nags had a lot of ideas that Evie didn’t like.
‘It’s time for Truth or Dare,’ Nags announced. Exactly. Evie didn’t like that idea.
Fifteen minutes later, it was Evie’s turn.
‘Truth,’ she said. There was no choice. The first three victims had gone Dare. Nags had a big list that she was ticking off. The first three had been: ask a man at the bar for his number (that had been Lucie and she’d gone for someone with a wedding ring and he’d still given her his number and tucked it into her bra top – Lucie had been free with the champagne before the tequila and she’d found thathilarious, where Evie wouldn’t have been quite so pleased); let the rest of the group sign you up to Tinder with your real details (the woman who’d got that one had just got engaged and wasn’t happy); and go braless for the rest of the evening (and the woman who’d got that one was wearing quite a see-through top and also wasn’t happy). Truth had to be safer. And what did she have to hide? Absolutely nothing.
‘Oooh, I have a big question for you,’ Sasha screech-slurred before anyone else could speak. Everyone went quiet and leaned in. ‘I always want to ask you this and I never do.’ Really? Evie and Sasha didn’t have secrets from each other, surely? ‘Do you fancy Dan? Like really fancy him? Because I love you both and I think you’d be perfect together. And I’ve thought for the past few years that maybe you like each other. Do you?’
Okay. The whole Dan thing was the one big secret Eviedidhave from Sasha. The kiss the night before her twenty-second birthday. The very full-on, amazing kiss, since when she’d hardly seen Dan. And the fact that for a long time Dan had been her secret crush. She thought about him much less now, because she hardly ever saw him, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to lie, especially since she was a lot soberer than everyone else.
‘I mean, he’s lovely,’ she said. Good start. ‘Really nice. Of course he is. And good-looking. Of course. But he’s yourbrother. I’ve known him forever. I mean, he’s almost like acousinto me or something.’ He really wasn’t. ‘I don’t think there’d ever be any kind of spark.’ She was going on too much. She needed to stop talking. Pretty good lying, though, if she said so herself.
‘Hmm. I’m not sure.’ Lucie waved a dildo wand in Evie’s direction. She was slurring even more than her sister. ‘Peoplealwaysfancy their friends’ siblings.’
‘That’s what I think. And you looked alldreamywhen he kissed you under the mistletoe that time,’ Sasha said. ‘I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to embarrass you.’
Very restrained of Sasha. Unfortunate that her restraint had gone out the window now, though.
‘Ha,’ Evie said. ‘Dreamy. I was probably a bit pissed.’ She remembered it well and, yes, she had had a bit too much mulled wine, but it had been more than that. She’ddefinitelyfelt a bit dreamy. ‘Also, if you remember, I have a boyfriend?’ So silly. She should have mentioned Euan immediately rather than wittering on about why she could never fancy Dan. That would have been the end of the conversation. And probably a lot more convincing.
‘Is he the one for you, though?’ Sasha said. ‘I know youthinkyou want boring, but do youactuallywant boring? Oh.’ She clapped her hands over her mouth. ‘Oops. Did I say that out loud? Evie, I’m really sorry. I love you and I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s fine.’ Evie shook her head and smiled. It wasn’tthatfine. This was one of the downsides of being the sober one. Drunk people said brutally honest things and you remembered all of them. At least her mum didn’t say stuff while drunk that she wouldn’t say while sober. Other people really did, though.
Maybe Evie should just abandon caution and get plastered herself.
‘Isabel. Truth or Dare.’ Nags had turned her attention to the woman on Evie’s left, hooray.
WasEuan boring?
No, he wasn’t. He was just sensible. And sensible was great. Sensible didn’t force you to wear huge penis deely boppers, drink too much and play Truth or Dare.
Evie looked around the table. Everyone else was having a lot of fun, screaming in delight at Isabel’s dare (twerking her way round the restaurant – the best one so far – Isabel was having fun too).
Arguably, Evie would have more fun if she binned all the sensibleness.
Maybe she wouldn’t chuck her next drink in the yucca pot.
‘So this is nice. BFF,’ Sasha said three hours later.
It really wasn’t.
They were sitting on the floor together in a loo cubicle in a not-very-nice nightclub in Cheltenham. Evie had been vomiting into the toilet basin and Sasha had been holding her hair out of her face.
‘I feel guilty,’ Sasha said. ‘I was drinking a lot faster than you but you’re the one vomiting. I’m kind of thinking you should practise drinking a bit more.’
‘Or never ever touch alcohol again,’ Evie croaked. Her mouth tasted beyond disgusting, her head was killing her and things were spinning around her. This hadn’t been boringly sensible but it wasn’t fun either. ‘I have to be at D of E practice at school at eight thirty tomorrow morning.’
‘That’s bad.’ Sasha hugged Evie’s shoulders. ‘Sorry you feel rough.’
