“Yeah, and you already know all of mine,” Cole agrees.
“But I don’t know Ezra anywhere near as well as I’d like to,” Bree pouts. “And you don’t know Seth! Plus it’s fun and we’re too drunk to do anything else.”
“This — is true,” Cole intones. He glances over at me, and I shrug. “Okay, do your worst.”
“Never have I ever —” She taps her bottle against her chin as she looks the two of us up and down. “Never have I ever been cosmically reunited with the long-lost best friend that I neglected to tell any of my friends or loved ones about.”
Cole and I both drink, and Cole starts to laugh. “You keep harping on this —”
“I am notharping—” she says loftily.
“Youare, it’s almost like you’re —” He sits forward with a speed I didn’t know any of us were still capableof. “Bree, are youjealous?”
“No—”
“Babe,” Cole says seriously. “Do we need to go talk?”
“No, it’s just —” Bree waves her hands. “Never mind, let’s just play. Coley, it’s your turn.”
Cole stares at her for a moment, but then settles back into his seat, his eyes wandering around the circle. “Never have I ever gone down on a woman.”
I toast Cole and take a deep swig, and Seth does too. A moment later, Bree takes a small sip.
I raise an eyebrow, but neither Seth nor Cole seems remotely fazed.
“I went to art school!” Bree exclaims. “Everybody has a bicurious phase.”
“Being bi isn’t a phase.” I’m surprised that the words make it out of my mouth, but I guess I’m pretty fucking wasted. Beside me, Cole shifts just a little closer to rest his knee against mine.
“Yeah, I know,” Bree agrees, and stares into the fire.
Seth puts his arm around her, then clears his throat and looks across the fire at Cole. “I’m actually a little surprised you haven’t.”
“What can I say? When I was in preschool, the teacher asked me what my favorite color was and I said it was glitter. I never needed to do anything to confirm that I felt the way I did. But hey, I don’t need those skills like you do.” He nods over at Bree. “I knowthisone is probably keeping you busy.”
Seth blushes all the way to his roots, but Bree brightens, leaning her head against Seth’s shoulder. “You know, I’m pretty sure that’s how I knew I wanted to marry you.”
Seth peers down at her, an indulgent smile on his face. “Really, now?”
“Picture this —” Bree says to us, and I’m not sure I actually want to. “It was the first day we met. I’m in the sound booth recording my lines, andthisadorable guy comes and sits in on the session. We get to talking afterwards, and then we don’t stop talking, and we order takeout and stay until long after everyone else has left for the night. And then he brings me back to his office and gets me up on the desk, and well — I heard wedding bells. It hadn’t even been a day!”
I bury my face in my hands, and I’m pretty sure my entire head is on fire. “JesusfuckingChrist, you guys, we arebrothers—”
Then everybody erupts at once. Bree is miming something with her fingers that I don’t want to think about in context, and Seth is grabbing her hands and giggling. I’m still covering my face, and Cole is right next to me, trying to peel my hands away. Suddenly he straightens up, the picture of mock decorum, and we all do our best to imitate him.
“Excuse me, you miscreants,” he says archly. “ I believe we were playing a game. Ezra, it’s your turn.”
I try to imitate his posture, my mind racing forsomething to say. I’m already feeling like I’ve put myself out there a little too much, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “Um— never have I ever had a threesome.”
It doesn’t necessarily surprise me that Bree and Cole drink, nor that Seth doesn’t. When I look over at Cole he shrugs. “It was hot when it was happening but it got complicated afterwards. I don’t think I would do it again.”
There’s something odd in his voice, and he looks at me steadily, the firelight reflecting deep in his blue eyes. I feel like something is passing between us, but I’m not sure what. I can hear the music, but not the words.
“My turn?” Seth asks, and we all look at him. “Never have I ever— Never have I ever felt more like I have a real family than I do right now.”
We all stare at him for a beat, and I’m puzzling out whether or not he has the syntax of that statement right as it pertains to the game. But then Cole is raising his bottle, and so is Bree, and I do too, because he’s right. Something is shifting, something I can’t name, and it’s a field of liquid gold, spreading across my mind.
We’re all looking at each other, and the mood is impossibly soft. But then Bree grabs a couch cushion and thwacks Seth across the middle.
