Page 32 of Double Dared
“There’s time,” I said.
“There isn’t. It’s on Sunday, and I need to go shopping tomorrow morning. We need shit to, you know, cook.” He drank his beer with frustration, which I couldn’t blame him for.
I searched my sleeve for more loose threads, but none were there. “Sorry,” I said. “You probably shouldn’t count him in. What can I do to help tomorrow?”
Jason watched me for the longest time. Long enough that I began to frown back at him. “Why haven’t you asked Harrison?” he asked.
I scoffed dismissively and looked away. “Why would I? He’s not one of us.”
“See, I thought he was kinda one of us.”
“You thought wrong.” As had I.
Jason was quiet for a little while, and then he rested his arm on the table and leaned in a little. “Taylor, you do realize we know, right? It’s not like you worked hard to hide it.”
“Know what?”
“I wasn’t gonna do this,” Jason said, his face seeming honestly regretful. “We agreed to wait for you to come to us, but you’re clearly not doing well. And I think it’s better if we talk about it.”
“What do you think you know?” I asked coldly. But before he could answer, I told him. “It was fake, Jason. The whole thing was a prank. I wanted to mess with you for putting me up to it. And I succeeded. There you go. I win.”
Jason didn’t laugh. He looked at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was, but he didn’t react in any way I’d imagined while that whole thing was going on. “You faked it.”
“Yeah,” I said, searching for some pride to inject into my tone. “The party at our place? I sprayed myself with water and did my buttons wrong. You should have seen your face when you noticed. And before that, you three were literally buzzing with curiosity.”
He didn’t jump into a fun retelling of all the situations that were now complete with context. Vibe-killer. “You two agreed to do that.”
“Yep. Planned the whole thing and all.”
Jason leaned back and drank a little, then tilted his head the other way as if to see me from a different angle. Like it would reveal something. “Okay.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You think I’m lying.”
“I never said that.”
“You do. You think I’m making this up,” I said. “You think we were together, and for some reason, we split, and now I’m saving face by lying about it.”
“Nope,” Jason said.
I lifted my hands and shook my head, waiting for him to say more. “Then what?”
“I think that you tried faking it,” Jason said. “Even if that’s the dumbest prank I’ve ever heard of. And I think that something happened to turn it sideways, and now you’re hurting.”
“I’m not hurting,” I insisted. “Look at me. I’m fine. And you noticed that Harrison is a dude, right? I’m not interested in guys. Never was, never will be.”
“So what? He was becoming your friend,” Jason said. “And now he’s not even invited to our cookout.”
“Yeah,” I said, shrugging in surrender. “Something happened, and we’re not really talking, and it was all too fast to call him a friend. People move on. And I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Jason said in the end. “If you say you’re fine, you’re fine. I’m not gonna drag it out of you. I just thought, the way you danced that night and he watched…”
“You thought wrong,” I repeated. He’d watched mebecause he had wanted to get his girl back, and he’d wanted to help me with a prank. He’d watched me that way because he’d been on a stage throughout high school and was practiced in acting. And when I’d taken the leap with the character of my own, kissing him in a sweet moment like last week, he’d reminded me just how fake it all was, given me strict notes, and disappeared altogether from my life.
Screw him.
He was probably back together with Emma already, because that stupid, childish, possessive impulse that had driven me to kiss him had done precisely that. It had made Emma realize, against all odds, just how good it was with Harrison and how terrible it would be not to have him in her life.
Jason didn’t bring it up again. Instead, he settled in his chair and gave me the time to turn my mood around. I asked him about his Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, and he said he was considering retiring Dud the Cave Troll.
