The lounge is nearly dark. The desk lamp has been switched off, the bottle is on its side by the couch, and the only light left comes in from the corridor through the door someone left open. Ross Yardley is still there, sitting on the floor with his back to the couch and the notebook open on his knee, writing by the corridor light.
He does not look up when you come back in. He does not look surprised, either.
"They left,"
he says, and it is not a question.
"I stayed because the last round is mine."
He closes the notebook and sets it on the carpet in front of him, then slides it toward you with two fingers. It is open to a spread of three columns, and in all three, the top line is your name, written in the same flat hand he writes everything in.
"Fabian thinks I keep the score so he can see it. I keep it so I can."
He looks up at last, and his eyes are steady in a way that is worse than a stare.
"You did not lose tonight. I wrote it down before the bottle stopped. Which means the last dare is the one I give myself, and I am giving it to you instead. Stay, and ask me what I have been counting."