The Dare

by Elle Kennedy

  Sasha and I have taken up a strategic position near a stack of speakers to deter others from trying to talk to us. She also commandeered some expensive champagne, which is dribbling down our dresses as we drink straight from the bottle while watching Charlotte run around the dance floor chastising sisters for twerking on their dates in front of concerned boomers. We had to leave the DJ booth because alumni kept asking Sasha to play Neil Diamond and ABBA and she threatened to take the next one’s eye out with a fork, so I forced her to take a break.

  “You should go dance with Eric,” I tell her, spotting him on the floor. He seems to be having a great time despite the fact that his date’s all but abandoned him to the wolves.

  “And miss the chance to judge everyone condescendingly from the corner? Do you not even know me?”

  “I mean it. Just because I’m resigned to wallow in self-pity doesn’t mean you have to suffer with me.”

  “That’s exactly what it means,” she says. “Or, you could chug the rest of this bottle and get white girl wasted on the dance floor all over some overdressed trust-fund boy.”

  “Not in the mood.”

  “Oh come on.” Sasha takes another swig of champagne and wipes her mouth with her arm, painting it with lipstick. “We got all dressed up and shaved our legs. The least we can do is have something to regret in the morning.”

  Ha. I already have regrets. For example, what the hell I was thinking when I picked out this ridiculous dress? The tight black fabric makes my tits look like two squished hams and every fold and lump is pouring out like toothpaste from a tube. I feel disgusting and I can’t remember why I’d been so excited looking in the mirror and imagining Conor’s face when he saw me.

  Oh wait, I remember why—because I’d let Conor fool me into believing I was beautiful. That he didn’t see a chubby girl or just a pair of breasts, but me. All of me. He made me believe I was something desirable. Worth having.

  And now I’m left with the ill-fitting disappointment of what could have been.

  I’m annoyed to notice tears dripping down my cheeks, and I tell Sasha I’m going to evacuate some of that champagne. The restroom is stuffed with Kappas touching up their makeup, one stall occupied by a loud vomiter who has two Kappas holding her hair back. Another stall contains Lisa Anderson, who’s locked herself in with her phone and is drunk-texting her now-ex Cory over the protestations of her sisters banging on the door.

  After using the toilet, I’m washing my hands at the sink when Abigail and Jules walk in laughing. My stomach knots when their malicious gazes take in me and my smudged mascara.

  “Taylor,” Abigail calls loud enough to make sure everyone’s paying attention. “I haven’t seen Conor all night. He didn’t stand you up, did he?”

  “Leave me alone, Abigail.”

  She looks perfect, of course. Shimmering silver sequin dress and perfectly curled platinum hair, not a strand out of place. No sweat beading at her hairline or makeup dripping down her neck. Barely human.

  “Uh-oh.” She comes to stand behind me, watching us in the mirror with a mocking pout. “What’s wrong? Come on, we’re your sisters, Tay-Tay. You can tell us.”

  “He did stand you up, didn’t he?” Jules says in a condescendingly sweet voice, as if she’s talking to an animal. “Oh no! And your mice slaved all day making you a pretty dress for the ball.”

  “Joke’s on you,” I snap back dryly. “We broke up.”

  Abigail laughs, then gives me a sarcastic grin. “Well, of course he dumped you. I mean, after a month it stops being funny and then it’s just sad. You should have listened to me, Tay-Tay. Could have saved yourself the embarrassment.”

  “Oh my God, Abigail, fuck off.” My last thread snaps. The bathroom goes deathly silent and I become aware everyone is staring at us. “We get it, okay? You’re a miserable cunt who mistakes bitchiness for a personality. Get a fucking life and get off my dick.”

  I stride out of there, skin buzzing. A sort of delirious high overwhelms me as I return to the banquet hall. I’m dizzy from the lights pulsating to the music, the bodies thrumming on the dance floor. God, telling her off was so good I want to go back for seconds. If I’d known unleashing on Abigail would feel this amazing, I would’ve been doing it six times a day.

  After nearly half a bottle of champagne, my taste buds feel fuzzy and maybe my head does too, so I head for the bar and ask for a club soda with lime.

  “Taylor,” a voice says from behind me. “Hey. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  A guy slides in next to me. Tilting my head back to look at him, it takes a few inches before I realize it’s Danny, one of the skyscrapers from Malone’s the other night. He cleans up nicely in a sharp tux.

  “Do me a favor, then,” I say, taking my drink from the bartender, who I think was in my elementary mathematics class last semester. “Don’t blow my cover. I’m in disguise.”

  “Oh yeah?” Danny orders a beer and moves in a little closer. “As what?”

  “Haven’t figured that out yet.”

  He laughs for lack of anything better to say. Truthfully, I don’t know either. Lately I’m not sure what’s actually me and what’s a role I’m trying to play to please everyone else. I feel like I’m trying to live up to some expectation that becomes a little harder to define every day. Never quite achieving the image I set for myself and having a harder time remembering where I got the idea in the first place.

  People always say we come to college to find ourselves, and yet I’m becoming less recognizable each morning.

  “You look nice, is what I meant,” he says shyly.

  “Who are you here with?” I ask him.

  “Oh, no, no one,” he tells me. “My parents were invited by their friends, Rachel Cohen’s parents, so I kinda got told to come.” He takes an awkward swig of his beer and I can almost see the moment he convinces himself to go for it. “You know, I wanted to say something the other night. I mean, I should have, but I got the impression you were seeing someone?”

  Oh. “Yeah, no, it was just…a casual thing.”

  “So then it’d be okay if I wanted to ask you out sometime?”

  Sasha and I catch each other’s gaze across the room, and her eyes are alight with approval. She gives me a nod that says you should hit that. Then she grabs Eric and they make their way to us.

  I don’t know how to answer his question without sounding like I’m committing to something, so I stall and take a long sip of my drink while Sasha approaches.

  “You found each other,” she says with too much excitement. Then smirks at me like I’m being punished somehow. “And neither of you have dates, so it all worked out.”

  “Actually,” I start, “I was thinking I’d go—”

  “You still owe me a dance,” Eric reminds Sasha as she puts an arm around me to stop me from running away.

  “Taylor loves to dance.”

  I’m going to kill her in her sleep.

  “Dance with me?” Danny. Sweet, shy Danny. He holds his arm out like they do in the movies and I know he means well. And since I can either go willingly or have Sasha make a scene, I accept his invitation.

  The four of us make our way onto the dance floor. It’s an up-tempo song, thankfully, so Danny doesn’t feel compelled to hang on to me. We start out in a loose foursome until it becomes apparent that Eric and Sasha have been looking for an excuse to get all up on each other all night and then I’m left with the awkward moves of a skyscraper who can’t judge his own foot size. To be fair, I’m not giving him much to work with.

  “Dance with him,” Sasha leans in to hiss at me, only halfway pulling herself from Eric’s grasp.

  “I am,” I snap back.

  She shoves me at him, which forces him to catch me. Danny’s smile says he thinks it’s my coy way of saying, please, hold me closer, to which he obliges. I tense up but he doesn’t seem to notice. Sasha meets my eyes again with an insistent look that says TRY, DAMMIT!

  But I can’t. My head’s
stuck on wondering what’s happening with Conor and Kai. Has he made the drop? Is he safe? Not that I think Conor can’t handle himself, but what if something went wrong? Ten grand is a lot of money to be carrying around. He could’ve gotten stopped by police, or worse. There are a hundred ways tonight might have gone wrong for him, and I can’t even find out if he’s okay. He’d just ignore my call and then I’m right back where I started—worrying about him, afraid for him.

  It occurs to me I could have done more. I should’ve told his roommates or Hunter to stop him. Or to watch his back at least. Damn it, why didn’t I do that?

  If something happens to Conor, I’d never forgive myself.

  I’ve just decided I have to make a call when I hear a low growl of warning and Danny and I are suddenly yanked apart.

  33

  Taylor

  “What the hell, man?” Danny shoots forward to confront the intruder, while I stand there blinking in confusion.

  What the hell indeed. What is Conor doing here?

  “You’re done here,” a tuxedo-clad Conor answers, his tone cool and efficient.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Danny frowns. Takes another step. Although he stands a few inches taller, his build is slight compared to Conor’s more muscular frame.

  “You heard me.” Tension pours off of him, and there’s a barely contained fury in his eyes as they burn through mine. “Thanks very much, but you can go now.”

  “Hey.” Eric steps beside his teammate. “I don’t know who you are, but you can’t be—”

  “I’m her boyfriend,” Conor snaps, but his intense stare remains fixed on me.

  “Taylor?” Danny prompts. “He your boyfriend?”

  I glance at Danny, then back at Conor, and I’m momentarily startled. Conor standing there under the flashing lights in a tailored black tuxedo, his hair combed back from his face…it’s like meeting him again for the first time.

  I’m struck by the pure sexual magnetism of this man. For the last week I’d been so busy being mad at him that I’d forgotten how hot he is. Enough to turn the heads of nearly every female in the room. Even a few alumni are peeking over their shoulders, while their middle-aged husbands take a turn at feeling inadequate after leering at twenty-year-olds all night.

  “What are you doing here?” I finally ask, ignoring Danny’s question.

  Sasha grabs my hand and squeezes it. I don’t know if it’s for moral support or she’s thinking of making a run for it with me, but I squeeze back even though I can’t rip my eyes from Conor’s.

  “You invited me,” he says thickly.

  “And then you dumped me.” The anger returns without warning, and I cling tighter to my best friend’s hand. “Consider that your invitation revoked. It also means you don’t get a say in who I dance with.”

  “The hell I don’t,” he growls. He takes my other hand and pulls me forward. Like a fool I allow my grasp to slip from Sasha’s.

  “What are you doing?” I demand with bitterness searing on my tongue.

  He tugs me against him and holds me close, and it’s like my body remembers even if my head is trying to forget. “Dancing with you.”

  “I don’t want to dance.”

  And yet I melt into him. Not because he wants me to, but because despite the anger and hurt, my nerves respond to his touch. It’s simply natural with him.

  I look over my shoulder, seeking out Danny’s gaze, and I know he reads the apology in my eyes because he nods ruefully. Sweet, shy Danny. Life would be so much easier if he was the one my heart pounded for, but he’s not. Because life isn’t fucking fair.

  “We need to talk,” Conor says.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Good, that’ll make this easier,” he replies, guiding us to the beat. He moves and I move with him. Not hearing the music so much as feeling his intention. It’s a charged, fervent, passionate exchange, as if our bodies are fighting to put themselves back together. “I’m sorry, Taylor. For all of it. Ignoring you and blowing off tonight. I didn’t mean any of it.”

  “You left,” I tell him, with all the repressed rage that has built inside me over the last week. “You walked out on me.”

  He nods sadly. “I was ashamed. I didn’t know how to talk to you about what was happening.”

  “You broke up with me.”

  The accusation hangs in the air. Even while our bodies touch and our eyes meet, there’s still distance between us. An electric fence of regrets and betrayals.

  “You backed me into a corner. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You’re an asshole,” I say, seething at the pain he’s put me through this week. It doesn’t go away just because he shows up here looking good in a tux.

  “You look gorgeous tonight.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I mean it.” He presses a kiss to my neck, and my mind flashes back to the last time we were together.

  Lying on my bed. His mouth. His bare skin against mine.

  “Stop it.” I push him away, because I can’t think when he’s touching me. I can’t breathe. “You tossed me aside and it was so easy for you. It’s not just that you blew me off and broke up with me. It’s what you chose to do instead of just talking to me. You’d rather lose me than tell the truth.” My eyes start stinging. “You made me feel like shit, Conor.”

  “I know, babe. Fuck,” he bites out, messing up his hair as he scrubs his hands through it.

  I suddenly realize others have stopped to watch the drama unfolding, and I fight the urge to sprint under a table.

  “I didn’t give him the money, Taylor.”

  “What?”

  “I was halfway to Boston and I couldn’t get your face out of my head. So I turned around. Couldn’t go through with it knowing what I was doing to us.” His voice cracks. “Because the worst thing about all of this, the worst thing I could have possibly done, was lose your respect. Nothing else matters if you hate me.”

  “If that were actually true—”

  “Damn it, T, I’m trying to say I’m in love with you.”

  And before I can blink, he kisses me, all his regret and conviction distilled into the warm, engulfing sensation of our lips meeting. In his arms, I feel steady again, finally upright after being thrown askew. Because when we aren’t together, the world feels misaligned. Conor gives me balance, sets the ground flat again.

  When our lips part, he cups my face with one hand, dragging his thumb across my cheek. “I mean it—I’m stupidly in love with you. I should have said it sooner. I’d blame repeated head trauma, but I was just an idiot. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m still mad at you,” I tell him honestly, though with a little less ferocity.

  “I know.” He smiles. A bit sad. Still sweet. “I’m prepared to do some pretty intense groveling.”

  I catch movement from the corner of my eye and turn to see Charlotte making a beeline for us with scowling church lady eyes.

  “Well, you’ve caused a scene and everyone is looking at us,” I say. “So you can start earning my forgiveness if you get us the hell out of here.”

  Conor surveys the dance floor, his silver eyes sweeping over our audience of Kappas and their dates and the scandalized blue-blooded alumni glowering in disapproval. Then he bestows his familiar impish grin onto the crowd.

  “Show’s over, folks,” he announces. “Goodnight.”

  He entwines his fingers with mine and together we make our escape.

  I’ve always hated parties anyway.

  34

  Conor

  Taylor invites me into her apartment, and we take turns not knowing where to stand or how to sit. She tries the couch first, but she has too much to say and it doesn’t all quite come out in the order she wants to say it until she gets some traction under her feet and starts circling the room. So I take the couch next, except my muscles are still burning off the adrenaline and the lactic acid is building up. So I paste myself into a corner trying to work out if she can love me
back or if I’ve already lost her for good.

  “I spent all this time trying to understand why you were being like this,” she’s saying, “and without any input from you I was left with all these worst-case scenarios.”

  I hang my head. “I get it.”

  “Like I was a bet. Or you finally saw me naked and were like, yeah, no. Or some sick part of you just liked knowing you could hurt me.”

  “I’d never—”

  “And so you have to understand that even though it’s all cleared up now, I’ve already lived these scenarios in my mind,” Taylor says quietly. “They didn’t happen, but they also did, you know? In my heart, you dumped me this week because I wouldn’t fuck you, because your boys put you up to it, because you met someone else. I put myself through the wringer because you were too chickenshit to communicate with me.”

  “I know,” I say, hands in my pockets, staring at the floor.

  I realize now that the damage is done, that no matter the grand gestures and sincere apologies, sometimes you hurt people too much and push them too far. There’s a limit to what you can ask someone to endure for your bullshit.

  And I’m terrified Taylor has reached her limit with me.

  “You have to give me more than that, Con. I believe you’re sorry, but I have to know I’m not signing myself up to get run over again.”

  I clear my throat to rid it of the gravel lodged there. “I didn’t want you to know me this way. I came to Briar to be better, and for a while I thought I’d escaped my past.” I swallow. “I did such a good job convincing myself I’d made a clean getaway that I stopped looking over my shoulder. Hell, I even started to believe I was a different person. Somewhere along the way I think I forgot why I kept people at a distance. And then you happened. I mean, Taylor, I never saw you coming. It was shit timing for us, but I can’t regret trying.”

  “What happened?” she asks.