“Truth,” I shrugged, refusing to let the evil wench dare me into a fucked-up situation. Everyone knows you can’t recant on a dare. If she told me to drink lighter fluid, I would have to do it. Then, I’d spit it in her face and light her ass on fire.
She grinned wickedly and leaned closer to me, the stench of alcohol on her breath blowing right into my face. “Is it true you watched your parents die?”
“What kind of question is that!?” Vicky objected before I could respond, outraged on my behalf.
It was official: Julie was Lilith in the flesh—a demonic blonde with giant tits. I stared at her, waiting for her to take it back, but she never did. What happened to my parents wasn’t a secret in Ponty-Poole.
This was my father’s hometown. News of his passing had spread like wildfire.
Did I watch him and my mother die? Not exactly. My mother managed to wrap her Subaru around a tree, trying to avoid a head-on collision with a drunk driver. Accidents happen all the time. I knew that. But everything that could have gone wrong in this scenario did.
Her shoulder restraint didn’t lock up like it was supposed to, launching her face-first through the windshield.
My father died on impact. His head took a fatal hit, and he just slumped in his seat. I remember crying for him to do something, stuck in the backseat with a jammed seatbelt of all things, not yet realizing he was gone.
Three hours.
That’s how long I sat with their dead bodies until a passerby finally noticed the truck.
As for the drunk driver? He never stopped, never came to check on us, and he didn’t get any help. I later found out he died shortly after that night, so justice was never served.
My mother lived through a full thirty minutes of pure agony, fading in and out of consciousness. I could see her blood dribbling down the windshield and tiny bits of glass embedded in her skin.
I tried to comfort her as best I could. I soothed her with lies, for both her benefit and mine, knowing she wasn’t going to be okay. Tears streamed down my face and my heart crumbled in my chest. I felt those same tears burning behind my eyelids now.
What kind of asshole asks a question like that? It was so hard living without them that I hardly mentioned their names.
Their death seemed to have been the catalyst of some screwed-up curse.
It was another reason I didn’t like getting close to people. Death was always dancing over my shoulder, her skeletal hands constantly reaching for someone I cared about.
“You don’t have to answer that. Please ignore her. She’s a stupid slut.” Vicky squeezed my hand, offering me a pained smile before shooting Julie a murderous glare.
“I’ll ask you something different,” she chirped a second later, trying to lighten the mood.
“Okay.” I forced a smile, burying the pain like I always did, desperate to move away from the topic.
When her question came, I was once again caught off guard. I really should have expected it. Vicky had been hinting at it for the last two months and had never received an answer.
“Soooo, Rose. Do you or don’t you have a thing for Con?” Vicky asked, a little too loudly.
All three of them stared at me, eagerly waiting for an answer. Darcy was the only person who knew I had a minor obsession with the guy, but that was between us. Shifting on my knees where I knelt on the floor, I tried to think of a way to answer.
“Your boyfriend?”
“My what?” Vicky sputtered, drops of liquor flying from her mouth.
“I thought…never mind,” I rushed out.
Why did I say that?
Me and Darcy had spoken on the phone for hours about our suspicions, but they were just that. Darcy had a theory that all the Burrows were adopted, which could be true, but I’d never seen a parental figure at the Burrow household.
The entire situation was odd to me.
Vicky was clearly black. Con and Justin weren’t. I wasn’t a medical genius or anything, but I was quite sure one man’s sperm couldn’t make such a drastic switch in ethnicities. Not only that, but there was a weird bond between the three—and it wasn’t remotely brother or sisterly.
“God, Rose. Gross,” Vicky sputtered with a laugh, offering no explanation for the obvious.
“So?” Julie questioned, leaning towards me, blowing a breath of alcohol into my face.
“I want a dare,” I blurted out abruptly.
Vicky’s face lit up like a star on top of a Christmas tree. I knew right then that I’d screwed up.
“She chose dare—no take backs!” Julie sang. I had the strongest urge to deck her in the face.
“I dare you to go upstairs to Con’s room and get a kiss. On the lips.”
Pure mortification immediately began to set in. I couldn’t do that.
“Isn’t that a little childish? A kiss on the lips?” I attempted to coolly play it off, quirking a brow at her.
“I dare you,” she said again, her voice taking on an annoyingly high pitch.
Molly shifted in obvious discomfort, shooting me a look that seemed to say, you don’t have to do that.
The four of us sat around staring at one another for a few minutes before I finally decided.
Screw it.
Snatching the Jack Daniels out of her hands, I gulped more than a decent bit down, ignoring the way my throat burned and my eyes watered. Wiping my mouth with the back of my palm, I gave the bottle back and stood up.
“A dare’s a dare.” I had no idea if I said that for their benefit or mine.
Wandering out of the room before I lost my nerve, I made my way up the dark stairway to the upper level. It was like walking a plank for judgment day. I’d either be shoved overboard and devoured by sharks or get to rejoice because I survived.
Five Finger Death Punch’s ‘Wrong Side Of Heaven’ spilled down the long hall from behind Con’s door. I knew exactly which room was his, and with every step I took towards it, my heart beat a little faster.
Once I reached it, I slowly raised my fist to knock and then dropped it back down to my side again. My stomach was inundated with fluttering.
Was I really doing this?
Me and Con didn’t talk all that much. In fact, the last few weeks, while I was growing closer to Vicky, he hadn’t really been around.
Perhaps that was for the best, though. I shouldn’t have thought about him the way I did.
I definitely shouldn’t have been outside his bedroom door, tipsy, considering doing something I couldn’t take back.
He was meant to be an unattainable fantasy I craved from afar—like a good dream you wouldn’t dare wake yourself up from for fear of never dreaming it again.
So why was I going to poke the beast?
Well, that’s human nature, isn’t it? To want what we can’t have. To crave what’s bad for us. There’s something about the forbidden that makes it irrevocably desirable.
Before I could think about the ramifications my actions could cause—or force myself to care—the large white door swung open, and I took a step back.
Con’s masculine, woodsy scent filtered out of the room and straight into my lungs. He wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of black drawstring sweats that sat a little low on his tanned hips.
Holy fuck.
I stared at the sharp V and the toned cuts on his abdomen, taking in every solid bump and line of his abs.