youngblood | a.i.

fourteen || lick, shoot, suck

"Truth or dare?" I asked, picking up my drink again.

"I don't think I want a dare from you," he laughed to himself.

"I'll go easy on you then," I said as I threw back a swig of the tequila I had left in my cup. "If you could beat the shit out of one other team member with no repercussions, who would it be?"

I watched as he looked around the circle, spending a few extra seconds on a few people before finally picking up his cup. "I'll drink to that one."

"Oh, come on! That was an easy one!" I defended. The rest of the team around me seemed to know more than I did, but what's new?

"Ashton slept with his girlfriend last year," Calum spoke beside me, informing me of just what I didn't know.

"Why was that so hard to admit?" I whispered back to Calum, watching as the guy I'd asked the question to continued to take his drink.

"Ashton doesn't know Ollie found out," Calum whispered again, continuing to look across the circle, eliminating the attention from us and the information I just learned.

"Okay, someone else spin," I announced to the circle as I tried to keep myself from laughing. 

"Fine," one of the random members finally yelled. He leaned in, spinning the bottle. I was still laughing when the bottle started slowing down, and I finally started catching my breath when I watched the neck of the bottle land on me.

I took a deep breath before looking up at the guy who spun it. "Dare."

I watched as the gears spun in his head, his glance dancing between mine and the rest of the circle. When he finally settled on one, he laughed to himself before speaking the words into the air.

"Take a body shot off Irwin."

I listened as the rest of the circle broke into laughter, both Ashton and I staying silent as our glances locked. We sat staring at each other as the noises around us were drowned out by our competitiveness. I couldn't read his expression well enough to tell if he was turning it down or not, so I continued watching his every slight change. Finally, I shot my eyebrows up, asking him for his response.

"Come on, Annie. You're not gonna do that, are you?" Mikey called from across the circle, making the noise around me fall back into focus. My glance broke from Ashton to Mikey, comprehending his question before looking back to Ashton.

"If he agrees to it," I spoke as I stared down Ashton. I watched as he ran his tongue along his bottom lip in focus, finally breaking into a small smile as he considered it in his head. The circle around him continued to pressure him to do it, making him smile more as he looked me up and down to decide if I was serious or not.

When my body language read the way I intended, he continued to not believe me. "No way you're actually going to do it," he shook his head.

"If you agree," I nodded, leaning forwards slightly to challenge him. "And as long as it's not Fireball- I hate that stuff."

Ashton watched me as I responded, biting his lip once more before shaking his head in disbelief. "Come on, it's not like I'm going to fall for you over a body shot," I tacked on. 

With those words, something in Ashton changed, like he wanted to challenge that last statement specifically. "Fuck it," he stated as he stood up. "What do you want?"

"Tequila," I nodded to him as we ignored the growing rowdiness of the circle around us.

"Lick, shoot, suck?" he asked with a questioning expression.

"Lick, shoot, suck," I repeated back, agreeing.

I watched him disappear into the kitchen, the sound of the circle around me finally registering to my senses. They seemed more excited than I was over this. I was only doing it to challenge his competitiveness.