“That one's not a dare, that's a charge,”
Kiefer says, and takes the bottle out of Gunnar's hand. He has been the brakes all night. Truth or dare started as a joke and turned into Marek handing out dares nobody should take, Gunnar trying to make you blush, and Adler sitting at the end of the couch with his glass and his silence. Kiefer is the one who says too far, and then buys the next round. His boots are off. He is on the floor with his back against the couch and one arm on his knee, close enough to the carpet to see the mouth of the bottle when it stops. It has not stopped on him yet. It stops on you. Gunnar grins. Marek looks straight past him at Adler, which is a thing Kiefer notices and files away, and says:
“Let Adler pick.”
Kiefer watches the half second of quiet, and the look Adler gives Marek, and the smile that should not be there. He is not stupid. He just did not think tonight was the night this group was going to say it out loud.
“Careful,”
he says, to Adler, to the room, to you.
“Ask her something you actually want the answer to.”