Until We Break

by Jamie Howard

  Fifteen minutes later I’m shivering from the combination of wind and rain. I curse myself for not at least thinking to bring a jacket. Head down, I keep my eyes trained on the white line that traces along the edge of the road. Water starts to puddle along the pavement, and the ground next to it has already turned into a sucking pit of mud.

  Hours, days, years pass—or at least that’s the way it seems. Trying to peel back the curtain of rain, I can just make out The Edge in front of me and pick up my pace. By the time I reach the parking lot, I’m running, my hands gripping the brim of the cap to keep it from flying away.

  I take the steps two at a time and sigh in relief as I scoot underneath the overhang. My ears are ringing, and I stick a finger in one and give it a wiggle. It doesn’t help. A dull headache pulses around my temples from the incessant beating it just took from the rain.

  Right now a headache is the least of my worries. Dropping to my knees, I search through my purse until I come up with a bobby pin. Perfect.

  Kneeling, I snap it in half, makeshifting a tension wrench. Inserting it in the lock, I add in the second piece of the bobby pin and start to wiggle it. As the tumbler begins to shift, the handle turns and the door opens.

  I fall inelegantly forward, barely managing to get my hands underneath me so that I don’t land flat on my face.

  “Sloane?”

  I roll up on an elbow and squint up through one eye. “Hey, Luke.”

  He offers me a hand and pulls me up. He raises an eyebrow at the two bobby-pin pieces in my hand.

  I toss them over my shoulder. “Uh, sorry. Didn’t realize anyone was here.” I follow him through the door and close it behind me.

  “We were boarding the place up and locking everything down, but the weather got too bad. Thought it would be best if we just stayed here.”

  “We?” I ask, squinting through the dimness. The power must be out, because there’s an army of candles set up on nearly every horizontal surface.

  A few indistinct shadows shift, but my eyes haven’t adjusted enough yet to make out who it is.

  “Haley, Blaire, and Harrison are here.”

  “Great, a party.” My words drip with sarcasm. I wonder how far away the next building is and contemplate heading back into the storm. “Well, don’t let me interrupt. I’m just going to head into the little girls’ room and put on my change of less-wet clothing.”

  Twisting the strap of my purse so that it twirls back and forth, I slip into the bathroom and strip. The change of clothes in my purse isn’t dry, but I can’t wring any water out of it, so it’s an improvement. I paw through the contents of my purse, surprised to find most of it dry or mildly damp. I don’t have a change of shoes though, so barefoot it is.

  Padding my way across the wood floor, I duck underneath the bar and rummage for a glass and the bottle of Jack. Popping back up, four faces watch me intently.

  I hold the Jack in one hand, my glass in the other. “What? I’ll pay for it.”

  “What are you doing here?” Haley asks, not bothering to disguise the displeasure in her voice.

  “Trust me, if I had known all of you were here I would have just stayed in my car.”

  “How far did you walk in this?” Harrison asks.

  I add some ice to my glass and pour the amber liquid in. “About a mile.”

  “Shit,” Luke says. “It’s nasty out.”

  “You don’t say.” I feel a water droplet snake itself down the back of my neck, plummeting down my spine. Running my fingers through my hair to squeeze out the excess water, I shake out my damp shorn locks.

  “What did you do to your hair?!” Blaire shouts, finally joining the conversation.

  “I cut it.”

  “You don’t say.” Luke throws my words back at me.

  “It’s so … short,” Blaire says.

  “I like it,” adds Harrison, earning him a punch in the arm from Blaire. He traps her hand in his, drawing it up to his mouth for a kiss before lacing his fingers through hers and holding it in his lap. “What? I do. Right, I forgot: we’re mad at Sloane.” He rolls his eyes.

  “Ah, well then, I won’t offer to make any of you drinks.” Plucking a straw from the container, I slip it into the overly large glass that was definitely not meant for drinking straight Jack, and duck back under the bar. “Please, pretend I’m not here.”

  Retrieving my purse from the floor I cross the room to one of the booths. Ignoring the seats, I hop up on the polished surface of the table and scoot back until I’m leaning against the wall. I stretch my legs out in front of me, crossing them at the ankles, and lean my head back against the wall. I take a long pull through the straw, reveling in the feel of molten liquid running down my throat and curling into a nice warm ball in my stomach. It takes a little while longer for the feeling to spread its way outward to my frozen toes, which are just now regaining feeling.

  Crossing my fingers that everything’s still functional, I pull out my iPod and headphones—the nice big old-school ones, not those damn earbuds that I used to use. Those things hurt like a bitch.

  I scroll through my playlists, pick one, and press play. Tension leaks from my muscles as they uncoil under the influence of Jack and some tunes. As the songs fade in and out, I pick up snippets of conversation.

  “… date for the engagement party?”

  “… makes me feel boring, like a…”

  “… radio? Have you heard any…”

  “… could be fun or dangerous…”

  Someone taps me on the foot. I slide the headphones back so they hang around my neck, the murmurings of Halestorm buzzing below my ears. It’s Haley. Surprising. That wouldn’t have been my first guess—or my second or third.

  I lift an eyebrow at her.

  She lifts her chin up a notch. “We’re going to start up a game of Truth or Dare, and we wanted to see if you’d like to join us.”

  “What are we, twelve?”

  She stuffs her hands onto her hips. “We’re stuck here and we’re bored, so either you want to play or you don’t.”

  This could be … interesting. My lips curl upward in a smile. “Fine, I’m in.”

  “There are rules,” Blaire says as I hop off the table and make my way toward them.

  “Like?”

  “Like, if you’re going to play with us, you have to keep the questions civil. No nastiness.”

  I roll my eyes. “What’s the point of playing if you want to keep things boring and tame?”

  Haley bristles at the word “boring,” and I recall the snatch of conversation I picked up. If I was going to hazard a guess, I’d say that I made her feel boring. She is boring though. Was this game a way for her to try to show me up?

  “The point,” Harrison says, “is to have fun.”

  “May I suggest a twist?” I ask, leaning one arm against the bar so I can see all of them.

  “You can suggest,” Luke says, eyeing me narrowly, “but that doesn’t mean we’re going along with it.”

  I swirl my straw around my half-empty glass of Jack. “For whatever reason, you guys are including me in this game of yours, probably so you don’t look like jackasses, but you’re also worried that I’m going to ask inappropriate questions or come up with shocking dares. So I suggest Truth or Dare Hat.”

  Harrison cocks his head to the side. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s Truth or Dare Hat?”

  “Everyone writes down a handful of truth questions and dares and they all go in a hat, or in this case since we seem to have a lack of hats, at least dry ones, a glass. One glass for truths and dares, and another one that has everyone’s name in it.”

  “So, you don’t get to choose whether you want a truth or dare?” Harrison asks.

  I shake my head. “Nope. Luck of the draw.”

  “What’re the names for?” Luke asks, leaning forward on his elbows, the candlelight flickering over the planes of his face. In the soft lightning, his eyes look like still waters on fire. My stomach does a little flip
as I look at him, and I quickly shift my focus. Fucking hormones.

  “Inevitably, some of the dares require you to do something with or to a person, so that’s how they get chosen.”

  Blaire purses her lips. “This doesn’t prevent you from putting any number of insane questions or dares in there.”

  “True, but I have as good a chance of picking one of them as you do,” I point out. “And you also have the opportunity to put in intriguing questions and dares yourselves. And since there are four of you and one of me, the odds aren’t exactly in my favor.”

  When they say nothing, I tweak Haley’s soft spot. “How boring are you guys? C’mon. It’s just a game.”

  “I’m in,” Haley says, her face drawn into a determined expression.

  Excellent. If she didn’t annoy the bejeezus out of me, I’d almost be proud of her bravado. “Fine,” Blaire sighs. She looks at Haley. “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “Boys?” I ask.

  “I’m down,” Harrison says. I turn my gaze to Luke, daring him with my eyes.

  He scrubs a hand through his long hair. “For the record, I think this is a terrible idea, but … I’m in.”

  “Wonderful!” Vaulting onto the bar, I slide over it and pull out four more glasses. “This kind of game is always better when done less than sober, so…” I pick a bottle at random, fill the glasses, and push them around.

  Haley’s nervous energy hangs around her like a cloud. She takes a big gulp of her drink and then promptly chokes on it. Luke slaps her helpfully on the back.

  I pull open a drawer. “Do you have paper somewhere around here?”

  Luke joins me on the other side of the bar and pulls open a drawer on my right. Spotting the paper, I reach out for it at the same time he does and our hands bump each other on the way to their destination. A shock travels up my arm, jump-starting my heart. I barely resist the urge to jerk my hand back. Christ, maybe I really am twelve.

  I flick my gaze to Luke, but he seems completely unaffected. He scoops up the pens and paper, passing them out. We all take a good fifteen minutes writing down our questions and dares. Blaire scribbles something down, shoves it in Luke’s direction, who nods. Looks like they’re plotting against me. Bring it on. At the end, the glasses are overflowing with pieces of paper so we transfer them into bowls for ease of picking.

  As I shove the cap on the end of my pen, another crack of thunder rumbles through the air, the accompanying flash of lightning slipping through the minute cracks in the boarded-up windows. I reach for the bowl in front of me and give it a shake. “Alright, who’s going first?”

  “I’ll go,” Harrison says, rubbing his hands together. Swishing his fingers around the pieces of paper, he grabs one and unfolds it. “‘Have you ever had a one-night stand?’” he reads. “Yes, I have. That was easy.” He grins.

  “My turn!” Blaire plucks another piece of paper from the pile. “‘When was the last time you had sex?’” She nibbles at her lip. “Um … yesterday?”

  Harrison nods. “Unless you’re having sex with someone else.”

  She shoves him playfully in the arm.

  “Your turn, Luke,” Blaire says, passing him the bowl.

  “‘Have you ever had a sex dream about someone in the room?’” he reads. “Yup.” He winks at Haley and she blushes. When his eyes quickly flicker to mine and then away again, I laugh to myself. You and me both, Luke.

  Haley reaches for the bowl. “‘Do you have hair down there?’” She looks like she just swallowed her tongue, which earns an eye roll from me. “I … yes.” She shoves the bowl in my direction, the glass gliding smoothly across the polished surface of the bar.

  “Hmm,” I wiggle my fingers over the bowl. “Which one to pick.” I snatch one at random. “‘Have you ever gone a whole day without wearing underwear?’ Yes, more than once. Currently, actually.”

  Harrison takes the bowl from me, wasting no time making his next pick. “‘Put on a blindfold and name everyone by touch.’”

  “Ooo, the first dare,” I say, hopping down from my perch on the bar. Luke reaches underneath the bar and tosses a cloth napkin to Blaire, who ties it around Harrison’s head. She waves her hand in front of his face, and when she gets no response, she turns him so he’s at least facing in the right direction. We all stand in the same general area, forming a line.

  He stumbles forward, groping in front of him and grabs Haley’s boob. She squeaks and he snatches his hand back. “Sorry; uh, that’s Haley.”

  He waves his hand to the right and immediately identifies Luke. Not hard being that he’s the only guy. When he comes toward me, I hold perfectly still. His hand lands on my shoulder and he smiles. “This is Sloane, she’s the shorty here. Which means”—swiveling to the right he fumbles for Blaire, wraps his arms around her, and lays a loud, smacking kiss on her neck—“This must be Blaire.”

  She tugs off his blindfold. “You’re very lucky you were right.”

  Reaching behind him, he passes her the bowl.

  “Let’s see … ‘Kiss…’” she reaches for the names. “‘Haley.’”

  Harrison gives her a thumbs-up sign, and Luke’s grin would rival the Cheshire cat’s.

  Haley opens her mouth to say something, but without warning, Blaire walks over and covers her mouth with her own, kissing her thoroughly. When she pulls back a few seconds later, Haley is still standing frozen in place with a deer-in-headlights expression on her face. Blaire on the other hand, is grinning.

  “Your turn, Haley.” She passes her the bowl and Haley just stares at it. “Haley?”

  “Oh, right. ‘Where is the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?’” She chews on her lip as she thinks. “Umm, well, I’d have to say…” She clears her throat and fixes her gaze on the wall. “The foot of the bed.”

  I catch Luke’s eye, thinking back to our conversation in the diner, and then crumple over as I’m racked with hysterical laughter. God, why is Luke with this prude? I mean, this is a guy who was getting it on right outside The Edge, in front of me.

  Even Blaire’s mouth is hanging open as she stares at her. “You’ve never had sex anywhere other than a bed?”

  “Why?” Haley shoots back. “Where’s the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?”

  “Me?” Blaire considers it. “In the bathroom at a club.”

  “That’s just … gross,” Haley says.

  “Gross? Try exhilarating,” I reply.

  Blaire turns to me with a smile that catapults me back in time five years. “What about you, Sloane?”

  “Hmm, that’s a tough call. I’m going to have to say … in a gondola in Venice.”

  “Time out.” The words fly out of Harrison’s mouth. “What about the pole guy?”

  “Who do you think I was with?” I take a pull on my straw, feeling a little buzzed.

  “Anyway,” Blaire says, stealing the bowl. “I think its Luke’s turn.”

  He gives the bowl a shake. “Actually, I was supposed to go before Haley, but since you skipped me…” He grabs a piece of paper. “‘Drink a full glass of whiskey in twenty seconds.’”

  “I’ll get it,” Haley says, ducking underneath the bar. Filling it to the brim, she smiles up at him as she hands it over. Tipping his head back, his Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. He slams the glass down on the bar and gives his head a little shake. A few longer strands of his hair land on his forehead, but he swipes them back.

  “Another easy one,” he says, and passes the bowl off to me.

  The pieces of paper are dwindling, so I choose carefully. “‘Give a lap dance to…’” I reach for the other bowl and pinch one of the papers between my fingers. Everyone holds their breath as I unfold it.

  Chapter 35

  Luke

  Sloane glances up at me, a wicked smile spreading across her face as she unfolds the paper.

  “‘Luke.’”

  No fucking way. I tear my gaze away to find a fuming Haley sta
nding next to me. Any minute now I think smoke will come pouring out of her ears.

  “Really?” she yells. “You put that in there?”

  “Actually, I didn’t.” Sloane lifts her shoulder in a half shrug, that smile still playing about her lips. Folding the slip of paper, she tosses my name back into the glass.

  “Uh, my bad. Haley,” Harrison says sheepishly. “That was one of mine.”

  Blaire gives him a look, but he holds his hands open in a What do you want me to do about it now? gesture. Haley’s nostrils flare as she looks at Sloane, then me, and then back again.

  Sloane heaves a sigh. “If you’re too insecure to let me give your boyfriend a lap dance, I guess I can try to find something more boring to do.”

  I barely prevent myself from dropping to my knees and shouting a “Praise, Jesus!”

  As Sloane reaches for the bowl, Haley wraps her hand around the edge of it and yanks it away. “No, do it.”

  “Fantastic,” Sloane says, rubbing her hands together.

  I wonder if Haley realizes Sloane just played her.

  A litany of curse words continues to run through my mind, each new word colliding with the last until its one giant string of profanity scrolling through my mind like the stock ticker in Times Square. This is not going to end well.

  Sloane grabs a chair by its back and drags it into the middle of the floor. She slaps the seat and crooks her finger at me, all the while maintaining that smirk. I have a very strong desire to pour out a double shot for myself, but Haley would take that the wrong way. Or the right way.

  As I get comfortable in the chair, Blaire, Harrison, and Haley sit perched on stools at the bar. At least they’re off to the side so I won’t have Haley’s face hovering around behind Sloane’s back. Talk about a mind fuck.

  Sloane scrolls through her iPod, looking, I’m sure, for a good song.

  “My lap-dance skills are a little rusty,” she says. “It’s been a while since I’ve given one of these.”

  “You’ve given lap dances before?” Harrison asks.

  She grins. “I did some stripping for a little while in Prague.”

  Harrison’s jaw hits the floor. I think I have a similar expression on my face.