“Oh, you do, do you?” Did I have a favorite color?
“I do,” he said.
“Okay. What is my favorite color?”
“Interesting question,” he said. “Most people in high school would have said black, going from your hair and your wardrobe. But I know it’s royal blue.”
“It is.” Might as well be. Now that I thought about it, I did favor jewel tones in my decorating, such as it was.
Really? Breck asked. I would have said purple.
Gray, Wesley said.
With a click of my jaw, I shut the coms off, though it was rather a case of closing the barn door after the cows had gone. One day I would remember none of my conversations were private.
“I propose a sliding scale,” Eric said. “Two hours of my time for a solid, honest answer. One hour for half-truths. You owe me twenty dollars for each evasion, and a lie gets you lunch with me and my dad.”
“Who is the judge of my truth?” I asked.
“Me.”
“How will you know if I’m lying?”
“Jake, I always know when you’re lying.”
That was true. He always had known. Hell, I hadn’t even been able to lie to myself when Eric was around. But that had been Jake. Carson lied for a living. “I’ve gotten much better at it over the years.”
“Fine. Then I’m going to assume everything is a lie and adjust upward for your apparent sincerity. The less you lie to me in the beginning, the more likely I am to believe you in the future.”
“What do I have to do to get an overnight?”
Eric laughed. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself, Carly. I’m not that kind of a boy.”
I smiled. “I’ll start with a kiss.”
“You’ll start with my half-hour lunch break.”
“I thought you were the boss?”
“I am. That means I’m busy,” he said slowly as if he was talking to a child.
I scoffed. “Seems like a lose-lose to me. We’ll have to find you a better dream. So, what do I have to do to get a date?”
“You can bank your hours, or you can give me some big, ‘lying under the stars when we were sixteen’ truths. Remember those?”
“God,” I said. “Yes. I remember those.”
“We didn’t lie to each other then,” Eric said.
“That was a long time ago.”
“It was,” he answered. “So, truth or dare?
“I already told you a truth today.”
“And you’ve already lied, so we’re going to start from zero. Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” I said rising to the challenge in his voice. “What do I earn for a dare?”
“You get to avoid telling me the truth. But you have to do the dare.”
“Fine. I pick dare.” I had told enough truth today.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Positive.”
He smirked. “I dare you to call your mother and tell her you’re in town.”
Damn it. I’d forgotten what it was like to be with someone who knew me. Who knew what got under my skin and what would motivate me. “What? No! No. I can’t.”
He shook his head. “Truth or dare. It’s how the game works.”
“Then I pick truth.”
“Too late. That’s not how the game works.”
“What if I don’t do it?”
“That makes you a big fat cheater and ends the game for good. And I’ll call her and tell her. Either way, you’re going to see her. One way, she finds out from you. The other, she finds out from someone else. Which do you think will go better for you?”
I sighed. “You didn’t use to be so manipulative.”
“You didn’t use to be so sketchy. People change.”
“I’m not sketchy!”
“You are highly sketchy. I’m surprised you’re allowed within five hundred feet of a school.”
I burst out laughing. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll call my mother.”
“Now. While I’m watching.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Not even a little.”
“But you’ve missed me?” I couldn’t hear it enough.
“Jake, I missed you every fucking day for years. Now call your mother.”
What could I say in the face of that? What else could I do but call? I pulled out my phone. “She’s going to yell at me.”
“Yes. She is.” His phone rang. “Shit.”
“Ryan?” I asked while he checked the number.
He nodded silently, his mouth twisted in a grimace as he answered the phone. “Hey,” he said. “I’ll be right there. Sorry, it took longer than I thought. Yeah. I know. More probiotics. I know I’m not eighteen anymore. I’ll be out in a second. Just gotta wash my hands.”
Eric looked like he was waiting for me to say something snarky about Ryan, but I thought I’d gotten my point across. If you bludgeon someone with your opinion, it gets their back up. They fight back. But plant a seed and it will grow, bothering them while they try to sleep. “So how frequently do I get this truth or dare?” I asked.
“As often or as little as I want.”
“This seems very unfair. You hold all the power here.”
“So I do. How does it feel, Carson? Kind of sucks having to wait for someone to come to you so you can talk to them, doesn’t it?” He shoved his phone in his pocket. “I have to go.”
I nodded.
“Call your mother,” he reminded me. “I’ll be checking in with her in the morning.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. “I don’t want to talk to her alone.”
He sighed. “Fine. Ask her to meet you at the rink. I’ll give you a tour and play referee.”
I let my shoulders visibly relax. It was weird, but letting people do favors for you often made them trust you more. They saw you as more vulnerable, needier, and less threatening. “Thanks. That would be great.”
He looked at me as if he wanted to say something else, and his eyes dropped to my mouth. Then he looked away, shaking his head. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Call me in the morning.”
I grabbed his arm as he started to turn. “Ask me again,” I said.
He searched my eyes. “Okay,” he said, nodding slowly. “Okay. Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” I said immediately.
“Why did you come back?” he asked, still looking me directly in the eye.
“For you. I came back for you.”
His expression didn’t change much, but his lips pressed together tightly and his nostrils flared. I had to hope that was a good sign. He nodded again, almost to himself. “Okay,” he said softly.
I dropped his arm and he stepped back, his hand going to the spot I had touched. I wasn’t sure he was aware of the movement. Then he smiled. “But you still have to call your mother. No take-backs.”
I grinned. This might work out after all. “I will. And thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He walked across the bathroom, stopping with a hand on the door. He turned back to me. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said.