Stay With Me (She's With Me #2) - Jessica Cunsolo Page 0,56
were too busy fuc—”
I cut him off by lobbing a pillow at his head à la Annalisa, and he laughs, shutting the door as he leaves and makes his way back to the group.
The drinking game we settled on was king’s cup. Basically, we sit in a circle with our drinks and a deck of cards in the middle, and take turns flipping over the top card. Every card is assigned a meaning, the end goal being that someone has to drink.
For example, two means you, so if I flip over a two, I get to choose someone to drink. Three means me, so whoever pulls a three has to drink. Seven means heaven, so the last person in the circle to raise their hands in the air has to drink, and so on until we finish the deck, shuffle, and repeat.
Aiden plays with us, and despite him not being much of a drinker, the alcohol is barely affecting him as far as I can tell. But four full decks and an endless number of empty beer bottles later, the rest of us are all pretty much smashed, Mason, Chase, Julian, and Charlotte the worst of us. It’s a good thing Aiden got the twins’ presents sorted out, along with the stockings, before we started, or else it’d have been a very disappointing Christmas for Jackson and Jason.
Mason and Chase are drunk because instead of taking regular sized drinks when it’s their turn, they basically take two giant gulps or chug half their beer. Julian because he was a really good Question Master the first game and kept screwing everyone over, (if you pull a Queen you become Question Master until someone else pulls a Queen, and if anyone answers any questions you ask during that period, they have to drink), so for the rest of the night, everyone has been targeting him as retribution. And Charlotte’s plastered because she’s a lightweight.
“Whose turn was it again?” Noah slurs as I sit back down on the floor with a couple of beers for whoever’s empty.
No one answers, not to be rude, but because we all remember that he’s the current Question Master.
Instead, Mason flips over the top card. It’s an eight, which means he gets to make up a rule that lasts throughout the entire deck, and every time you break it, you need to drink.
“If you say ‘no swearing’ again, I will dump my entire beer on your head,” Annalisa threatens.
The no swearing rule in the second game is pretty much the reason most of us are a bit more than tipsy.
“Now, now, Anna. You can’t coerce the rule maker.” Mason smiles drunkenly. “Okay, if you pull a card with a suit of hearts, you need to kiss the closest person of the opposite sex on your … left!”
Mason is the closest person of the opposite sex on my left. No matter how hard I tried, fate put me right beside him.
“I don’t want Noah planting his lips on my girl!” Julian announces, throwing a heavy arm around Annalisa.
“Why? Scared she’ll realize she’s madly in love with me and dump you?” Noah retorts.
“More like I don’t want her catching whatever you’ve got,” Julian counters.
“Relax, it doesn’t have to be on the lips,” Mason clarifies, and everyone settles down.
We continue playing for a couple of rounds and then Chase pulls a six of hearts. I know the exact moment he realizes what that means, because his entire face lights up bright red; the closest girl to his left is Charlotte.
“Ooo, Chase and Char! You know what that means!” Mason smiles, excited that he gets to witness his rule in action.
Chase looks completely stunned, and Charlotte giggles then raises her bottle.
“Cheers!” she says to me and Annalisa, because six means chicks.
We take a drink of our beers, and when Charlotte’s done, she puts her bottle down, puts her hands on Chase’s face, and kisses him right on the lips. I think she stunned everyone, but she probably broke Chase. I wonder if she stopped his heart completely. From the angle I’m sitting at, I can’t even tell if he’s kissing her back or not. She pulls away quickly and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Okay, it’s your turn to go, Aiden,” she says like she didn’t just kiss her best friend who’s secretly in love with her.
Chase, however, is in a complete daze, a slight smile on his face as he looks off blankly in the distance.