The Dare

by Elle Kennedy

  “What’s the street name?”

  “Manchester Road.”

  I turn right onto Manchester. The street is lined with bare trees whose branches sweep across brown lawns and skim the ground where the last snow of the season has finally melted. The old Victorian homes aren’t as big as the ones a few streets over, but the houses here are nice. I know this street.

  “Number forty-two,” Taylor supplies.

  Fuck me.

  “What is it?” She stares at me, alarmed by the look on my face.

  “This is Coach’s house.”

  She blinks. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I mean this is Coach Jensen’s house. Forty-two Manchester Road.”

  “But this is Chad’s house.”

  A strangled laugh pops out. “Hey babe, let’s play a game—”

  “What are you babbling about?”

  “—It’s called ‘Guess Coach Jensen’s first name.’”

  There’s a beat. Then Taylor’s cheeks go pale. “Oh my God. IS IT CHAD?”

  “It’s Chad,” I choke out between hearty chuckles. I can’t stop laughing. I know, I know, a total dick move, but come on—what are the fucking odds?

  Taylor shoots me a glare, as if this is somehow my fault, and I can only imagine what’s going through her mind. I know Coach Jensen is a standup guy, but Taylor doesn’t know him at all. Right now she’s got to be asking herself if she’d want someone like me, someone like Hunter or Foster or any of those other hockey bros sliding into her mom’s DMs.

  Honestly, I can’t blame her. Hockey men are definitely a handful. We’re animals.

  The numbers on my dashboard blink from 7:13 to 7:14. I glance toward Coach’s house. The curtain moves in the living room window.

  “T?” I prompt.

  She digs her fingers into her temples, then releases a heavy breath. “Let’s get this over with,” she says.

  Before we even reach the porch, the front door swings open to reveal Brenna. “Oh, this is perfect!” She shakes her head with a look of amused pity. “You dumbass.”

  “She’s talking to me,” I assure Taylor.

  “Obviously,” my girlfriend replies.

  The girls hug and compliment each other’s outfits. I’ve already forgotten what Taylor’s wearing, because I’m busy trying to figure out if her mom marrying Coach makes us brother and sister until I realize Coach and I aren’t related. My brain’s stuck in neutral.

  “You still have time to run, Con,” advises Brenna. “Go. Run free, you sexy Viking conqueror.”

  Taylor turns to study me.

  “What?” I demand.

  “You do look like a sexy Viking conqueror.” Then she grabs my hand and grips it tightly. “And you’re not going anywhere, Thor. You’re my wing-man, remember?”

  “I agreed to the job before we discovered your mom’s banging my Chad.”

  “She’s banging my dad,” Brenna corrects with a snicker.

  “Can we please not discuss our parents’ sex life?” Taylor begs.

  “Good point.” Brenna opens the door wider and takes our coats, hanging them up in the front hall. “You seriously didn’t know?” she asks me.

  “Did you? Because a warning would’ve been nice.” I hear voices coming from the back of the house and figure everyone else is in the kitchen.

  “I knew I was meeting Dad’s new girlfriend’s kid, but I had no idea it was Taylor—or that she’d bring you. This is the greatest night of my life.” Brenna goes running into the kitchen ahead of us like a fucking tattletale. “Hey, Dad! One of your goons is here.”

  Coach is already grimacing at me when we turn the corner to find him and a slender blonde standing at the counter picking at a cheese plate.

  I gulp. “Uh, hey, Coach.”

  “What are you doing here, Edwards?” Coach growls. “If Davenport’s in jail again, tell him he’s spending the night. I’m not bailing him out agai—” He halts when he catches sight of Taylor.

  The blonde raises an eyebrow at her daughter.

  “Hey, Mom. This is Conor. Conor, this is my mom. Doctor Iris Marsh.”

  “Nice to meet you, Doctor Mom—I mean Doctor Marsh. Fuck.”

  “Language!” Brenna chides me, and it takes all my willpower not to flip up my middle finger.

  After the awkward introductions, the women go to the dining room while I help Coach in the kitchen. I’m not sure how I’m ever going to recover from calling Iris Doctor Mom to her face. I haven’t done the whole meet-the-parents thing since middle school. And that was just Daphne Cane’s dad chasing me out of his driveway for using his trashcans as a skate ramp.

  “How ’bout a beer,” I say, opening the fridge.

  He yanks it from my hand and shoves the door closed. “Don’t be a dumbass tonight, Edwards.” Man, he and Brenna are so much alike. It’s scary.

  “I’m twenty-one,” I drawl. “You know that.”

  “Don’t care.” Coach brusquely drags a hand over his buzz cut. He’s dressed in a suit and tie, with a hint of cologne and aftershave wafting off him. It’s his standard uniform every time there’s a stodgy campus grip-and-grin to attend. Not sure what I expected Coach on a date to look like, but it wasn’t this.

  “Only thing going down your throat tonight is water or juice or my fist,” he warns.

  “Sounds delicious.”

  A death glare hits me square in the eye. “Edwards. I don’t know why I’ve been cursed with sitting through this dinner with one of you knuckleheads—I assume I ran over a unicorn or set fire to an orphanage in a past life—but if you act like an idiot tonight I’m going to have you doing bag skates every day until graduation.”

  There goes any hope I had of Coach being my ally in surviving this night.

  I keep my mouth shut. Hell, I don’t even comment on his weird unicorn murder fantasies, because I’ll do anything to avoid bag skate punishment. I’ve never puked so much in my life as the time the team showed up late and hungover to practice after driving to Rhode Island to prank Providence College by hoisting their equipment trailer onto the roof of their arena. Coach Jensen had us on the ice until midnight skating suicides. Poor Bucky tripped and fell into our puke bin. Next time I show up at practice and there’s a huge plastic garbage can in the middle of the ice, I’m just leaving the country.

  For his part, Coach looks nervous while he shuffles around the kitchen hunting for serving bowls and tongs. He’s got platters laid out with leafy garnishes like something out of an ’80s cookbook you’d find in a used bookstore. Although I can’t deny the kitchen smells good. Like smoky barbecue. I wonder if he’s cooking ribs.

  “What can I help with?” I ask, because he seems a little scattered.

  “Grab some serving spoons. Second drawer over there.”

  As I wander toward the drawers, I try to make conversation. “So this thing with you and Dr. Marsh—is it serious?”

  “None of your damned business,” is the response.

  I promptly stop making conversation.

  The timer on the oven beeps.

  “Get that, will ya?” he says and tosses a dishrag at me.

  I open the oven and a blast of hot air smacks me across the face. I don’t even have a second to consider my eyebrows may have been singed off before the fire alarm blares.

  23

  Conor

  “Fucking hell!” Coach thunders, lunging toward the oven.

  I’m not sure what stops me from just throwing the door closed. Probably the thick cloud of smoke pouring out and distorting my field of vision.

  “Oh my God! Dad! THIS IS WHY I DON’T LET YOU COOK!”

  Brenna bursts into the kitchen shouting over the piercing alarm with her hands over her ears, just as Coach grabs an oven mitt and picks up the roasting dish, burning his other hand.

  He jolts, tilting the tray, which splashes scalding hot juices onto the bottom of the oven that ignite on the red-hot heating element.

  Flames burst out of
the ferocious black mouth.

  While Brenna runs her dad’s hand under the cold faucet, I heroically beat the flames back with the dishrag, trying to get close enough to shut the damn door. But the heat is almost suffocating and the fire is only getting bigger.

  “Babe, move,” someone orders, and suddenly Taylor rushes in front of me and tosses a heap of mashed potatoes on the source of the flare-up.

  The oven coughs out a plume of smoke and we all rush outside to the sound of the fire engine approaching and the sight of red lights bouncing off the trees.

  “Who’s up for Thai, am I right?”

  “Not now, Brenna,” growls Coach. Cradling his injured hand, he watches as firefighters run into the house to survey the situation.

  The flashing lights twinkle across the worry on Iris Marsh’s face. She pries Coach’s hand from his chest to inspect the damage.

  “Oh, Chad. You should get the EMTs to look at that.”

  Before he can protest, she waves her hand and a woman with a big duffel bag comes rushing over to tend to his burns.

  Beside me, Taylor entwines her fingers with mine and cradles my arm for warmth. We’re pathetic, a shivering and embarrassed spectacle on the front lawn of 42 Manchester Road. Neighbors peer out their windows and stand in their driveways wondering what the commotion’s all about.

  “I’m sorry, Coach,” I tell him, wincing at his red palm. “I should’ve tried to close the oven door.”

  He barely flinches while the EMT pokes at his burn. “Not your fault, Edwards. Turns out I’m the dumbass.”

  “You know,” Iris says, “Thai sounds great.”

  A couple hours later, we’re the last ones in the Thai restaurant that just reopened a few months ago after—appropriately—a fire.

  Coach has ditched his coat, Taylor let me leave my tie in the Jeep, and Brenna is still wearing the bright red lipstick she dons for all occasions.

  “I appreciate the quick thinking,” Coach tells Taylor while reaching for another spring roll with his good hand. The other one is now bandaged up like a boxing glove.

  “I don’t know what made me go for the potatoes,” she says sheepishly. “I went in there thinking about looking under the sink for a fire extinguisher. That’s where they always put them in apartments. But then I saw the bowl of potatoes and was, like, let’s see what happens.”

  “I might have killed us all,” he says, laughing at himself. “Good thing you were there.”

  The damage to the Jensen kitchen wasn’t too bad, thankfully. Scorch marks being the worst of it. It’ll be a hell of a mess to clean up after the firefighters went in there to make sure it didn’t flare up again, but I told Coach I’d get the guys to come help out after the insurance people have their say.

  “Taylor’s experienced with all sorts of pyrotechnic disasters,” Iris informs the group.

  “Mom, please.”

  “Really?” I slide a glance at Taylor, who’s slumping down in her seat. “Was she setting these fires?”

  “There was a period of, I don’t know”—Iris mulls it over—“maybe two or three years from elementary to middle school when I’d be in my office grading papers or in the living room reading, while Taylor was in her room with the door closed. A terrible sense of quiet would descend over the house just before the smoke alarm went off, and I’d rush upstairs with a fire extinguisher to find a new charred hole in the carpet and a puddle of melted Barbie dolls.”

  “She’s exaggerating.” Taylor smirks despite herself. “Mom, you’re so dramatic. Change of topic, please.”

  “No way,” I object. “I want to hear more about the pyro-anarchist of Cambridge.”

  Taylor smacks my arm, but Iris accepts the invitation to elaborate about the time her tiny blonde terror got sent home early from a slumber party for setting another girl’s pajamas on fire.

  “They were barely singed,” Taylor insists.

  “With her still in them,” Iris finishes.

  Coach starts in on a “that reminds me of the time” about Brenna, which she somehow deflects toward me and the team. But I’m not paying attention anymore. I’m too busy copping a feel of Taylor’s thigh, because something about the idea of her being the menace of the quiet shady streets of Ivy Lane gets me a little hard.

  “I’d like to know…” Brenna takes a performative sip of water from her glass because I guess it’s been five whole minutes since she was the center of attention and if boredom sets in, she self-destructs. “What your intentions are, young man, with our dear daughter.” Brenna’s dark eyes take on an evil gleam as she scrutinizes me.

  “Excellent question,” Taylor’s mom agrees. Iris and Brenna have nearly polished off their second bottle of wine and at this point have created an unholy alliance I don’t believe I’m comfortable with.

  “Oh, we just met tonight,” I say, winking at Taylor.

  “Yeah, he was my Uber driver.”

  “She was like, listen, this is going to sound crazy, but my incredibly rich and eccentric great-uncle died and in order to get my share of the inheritance I have to show up to this family dinner with a boyfriend.”

  “And at first he said no,” Taylor adds, “because he’s a man of honor and integrity.”

  Coach snorts.

  “But then she started crying and it got awkward.”

  “So finally he agreed, but only if I’d give him a five-star review.”

  “What about you two crazy kids?” I say to Coach. “You being safe?”

  “Don’t push it, Edwards.”

  “No, he’s right, Dad.” Evil Brenna is on my side now. I prefer it this way. “I know it’s been a while since we had the talk, so…”

  “Don’t start,” he grumbles at Brenna, although Taylor laughs and Iris seems blissfully unbothered.

  Taylor hadn’t told me much about her mother beyond what she did for a living and that they were close. So I wasn’t expecting a woman still showing glimpses of strutting through the streets of Boston in a leather jacket and Sid and Nancy shirt with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. A punk rock PhD. She’s very attractive, her eyes and hair the same shade as Taylor’s. But her features are sharper—high cheekbones, a delicate chin. Not to mention, tall and runway-model thin. I can understand where Taylor gets some of her insecurities.

  “There was this one time…” Brenna starts in again, and I tune her out, my gaze sliding to Taylor.

  She has no reason to feel insecure. She’s gorgeous. I don’t know, sometimes I just look at her and it hits me all over again. How hot she makes me, how badly I want her.

  My hand’s still in her lap, and suddenly I’m acutely aware that we didn’t get any time to fool around before I picked her up for dinner because we both had homework to finish and she was running a little behind getting ready.

  I inch my hand up, just a little. Taylor doesn’t look at me, doesn’t flinch. Her thighs squeeze together. At first, I think I’ve overstepped, but then…she spreads them. Inviting my hand to roam higher.

  Brenna is spinning some embellished bullshit about her internship at ESPN and some fight that broke out among a couple of the football commentators, keeping the parents entertained, while my fingers wander under the hem of Taylor’s skirt. I’m careful, methodical. Taking care not to make myself conspicuous.

  As Brenna makes grand hand gestures and rattles the table with her story, my fingertips brush the fabric of Taylor’s panties. Silk and lace. Jesus, that’s so hot. She shivers, just a little, under my touch.

  Swallowing the saliva that suddenly fills my mouth, I slide my palm over her covered pussy and holy fuck I can feel how wet she is through her underwear. I want to slip my fingers inside and—

  I yank my hand back when the waiter suddenly appears and places the check on the table.

  As everyone jumps into the dance of fighting for the bill. I sneak a peek at Taylor to see her eyes glinting with mischief. I don’t know how she does it, but this girl constantly finds ways to surprise me. Letting me feel
her up under the table isn’t something I thought I’d find in her playbook, but I love that this side of her exists.

  “Thank you,” she says after we’ve all said goodnight and are heading for our respective vehicles.

  “For what?” My tone is a bit husky.

  “Being here for me.” Gripping my arm as we walk to the Jeep, she gets up on her toes to kiss me. “Now let’s go back to my place and finish what you started in the restaurant.”

  24

  Taylor

  On Sunday morning, while Conor’s out with the guys helping Coach Jensen get his kitchen in order, I do laundry and clean my own disaster of an apartment. It tends to be that the deeper into the semester it gets, the more my habitat starts to resemble the harried chaos shuffling around in my head.

  When my phone rings, I drop the fitted sheet I’m struggling to fold, grinning to myself. I don’t even have to check the screen to know who it is. I knew this call was coming, and I knew it would happen this morning. Because my mother is the most predictable person on the planet and basically it went down like this: after driving back to Cambridge Saturday afternoon, she would’ve stayed up reading and grading papers with a glass of wine, then gotten up this morning to start her own laundry and vacuum, all the while rehearsing in her head how this conversation would go.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say, answering the phone and plopping down on the couch.

  She gets right to the point with a soft opening: “Well, that was some dinner.”

  And I politely laugh in agreement and say, well, it wasn’t boring.

  Then she agrees and says, good spring rolls, too. We’ll have to go back to that place.

  So for two minutes we’re just stuck in a ping-pong match of platitudes about pad thai and plum wine until Mom works up the nerve to finally ask, “What did you think of Chad?”