Paul's dare

For whatever reason, I decided it would be smarter to go for Paul first. I didn't want him getting too excited about the game, and this seemed like a good way to set reasonable expectations. Hopefully one of the other girls, or Harry, would give Joan her first turn, so that she wouldn't end up falling in Jack's lap. His idea of a fun game was more like an evening of goalkeeping. I hoped that by the time the storm got really bad we would move on to other things so I could enjoy my friends' company. "Paul, truth or dare," I said.

He sat up, looking surprised that he had been picked, or maybe just that I knew his name. We didn't talk much, despite the similarities in our course loads. The guy always seemed off balance when a girl was actually talking to him. "Dare," he said with a new light in his eyes. What was he hoping for? What could be so fantastic about receiving a dare? Either way, I planned on taking it easy on him. Otherwise Jack would start getting ideas, both about him and about the other girls around the circle.

"Why don't you run a lap of the floor?" I suggested. It was the farthest thing from interesting, sure, but we were just getting our feet wet.

Paul looked crestfallen. He watches too many movies, I thought. What kind of movies, I didn't want to know. But he still got up and braced his hands on his legs for a second. "Just the third floor?" he said.

"Yeah, that's the dare."

He nodded, maybe trying to look determined. Like how we thought of him depended on his ability to circumnavigate Bean's third floor. "Alright," he said, opened the door, and sprinted out.

Jack watched him go, looking bored. "You're making the fat boy run?" he said.

"Jack!" Lea snapped. "Even for you, that's awful."

"Don't act like you don't notice it too," he said.

Lea angled herself as far away from him as she could without removing herself from the circle. "It's just basic manners. I know your parents like burning down the Amazon rainforest, but I thought they would be able to teach you how to talk like a human being."

Jack's grin was leering. "That's the nice thing about money, Lea, you don't have to listen to what mouthy bitches think," he said.

We all stared. Usually he didn't unveil his true feelings so easily. He was nasty, but he liked to couch it within three layers of 'jokes,' 'kiddings,' and 'all in good funs.' There was a look in his eye that I didn't normally see, though I tried, in general, not to look at him at all. It was possible that the family stuff he'd put off until after the storm was taking a bigger toll on him than I expected. Maybe deep inside him there was a little boy who was really scared for his grandmother. That was the good news. The bad news was that it looked like that fear was turning him into something even darker.

Paul came skidding through the doorway, panting and doubling over. "How long was that?" he asked.

"Oh," I muttered, looking for an excuse to stop thinking about what was inside Jack. "We didn't keep track, I'm sorry. But it seemed pretty fast to me. It's your turn, whenever you're ready."

Paul straightened out and wiped some sweat from his forehead. I saw Joan's mouth fall open, like she was a twelve year old boy watching clips of Pamela Anderson on Baywatch. The girl was more down bad than I thought. He took a second to catch his breath and then looked around the room. "Jack, I guess. Truth or dare?"