Peyton continued as if I hadn’t said a word. “You roll a one or a five and you have to tell the truth. Two or a four gets you a dare.” She grinned. “Three or six means you’re drinking, baby!”
“There’s no way I’m getting out of this, is there?” I asked.
“Nope,” Rosa replied cheerfully, filling each of our shot glasses with the whiskey.
“I’ll go first,” Peyton said, rolling the dice around in her palm before dropping it on the table. A three. “Bottoms up!” She grabbed her shot glass and downed it before wiping her mouth. “Who’s next?”
The first few rounds were pretty benign. I took a truth on my first roll and was relieved when it was Rosa asking the question. Peyton thought a truth was wasted if she didn’t ask an uncomfortable question about sex. With Rosa I merely had to state what I’d do if I won the lottery.
“I’d fund the STEM Gems for the next decade and try to expand it to more schools,” I answered without hesitation, referring to the science club I ran for girls after school.
“God, you’re such a nerd,” Peyton muttered, taking the dice back for her turn.
Two shots and three truths later, I finally rolled a dare.
Peyton rubbed her hands together. “This needs to be good.”
I sighed, already resigned to the fact that I was probably about to sing on the bar top. Instead, Peyton’s eyes fixed on a point behind my head. “There’s a really hot guy over there,” she began, and right away Rosa and I turned around. “Don’t look!” Peyton hissed, too late. She rubbed a hand over her forehead. “I am dealing with such amateurs.”
“Heispretty cute,” Rosa mused. “And he keeps looking over here.”
“He’s been looking for the last half hour,” Peyton informed us. “And now Grace is going to go make his night.”
“I’m not kissing a stranger,” I said automatically.
“I’m not going to make you kiss him,” Peyton assured me. “I just want you to go sit on his lap?—”
“Absolutely not.”
“—and give him your number.”
I groaned. “Peyton.”
“That’s your dare, babe. You know the rules.”
I bit back a curse. In Peyton’s messed up version of this game, refusing a dare meant doing a shot every time anyone else at the table rolled a drinking number. My liver wouldn’t be able to take it.
“Oh, come on,” Peyton said, reaching over to smooth my hair—which I’m sure was looking pretty crazy by this point in the evening. Late summer heat in Texas was a nightmare on my frizz prone curls. “You’re a gorgeous, intelligent, funny woman. You can approach a hot guy in the bar.”
“Definitely,” Rosa agreed, attacking my mouth with a tube of lipstick.
“Get off,” I muttered, trying to brush her away, but the girl was stronger than she looked.
“This isn’t hard,” Peyton said. “You just walk over there, giggle, ask if you can have a seat, and give the guy your number.”
I looked to Rosa, hoping for some backup, but she merely shrugged, grinning. “It’s Peyton’s dare.”
“I hate both of you,” I muttered, standing. They both cheered and I closed my eyes, knowing we were attracting attention now. “I mean, Ireallyhate you.”
“We love you too,” Peyton said. “He’s the one in the blue polo shirt. Brown hair. Get to it.”
I downed the rest of my martini, took a deep breath, and turned to the table in question. I knew who she was talking about right away. Halfway across the bar, two men were sitting at a table. The blond one had his back to us but the guy in blue was still shooting little glances our way, smiling. As I watched, the blond guy stood up and headed off in the direction of the bathrooms.
“Now’s your chance if you don’t want his friend to be your audience,” Rosa said, pushing on my back to make me stumble forward. Certain you could fry an egg on my face, I set off towards his table.
“Hey there,” I said, doing my best to sound friendly and not like I wanted to jump off the side of a building.
“Hey.” The guy’s voice was pleasantly warm. Deep. Even from that one word I could tell he wasn’t from Texas. And he was grinning in a way that told me he knew exactly what was happening here.
