A Daring Game of Secrets

Chapter 3

I stood with the red cup in my hand and Ryders arm draped across my shoulders. Pretty much the second Aria and I arrived he was waiting on me with a beverage of who knows what. My guess is beer. Or maybe vodka... your guess is as good as mine. I didn't plan on drinking it just yet, maybe even not at all. On second thoughts, if I need to spend all night with Ryder and he starts drinking then I might just down this cups contents in a few seconds flat.

Aria wasn't too happy about spending any time near her brother but that was up stairs. Obviously she forgot about the group of boys he hangs about with not having a girl to be with considering they'd probably been with most of the girls here before. Her and Kevin seemed to hit it off and even though we just arrived she was obviously a little tipsy. If she was sober she wouldn't have spent the last five minutes playing with his jacket, feeling his muscles and complimenting how soft his hair was. Maybe a little tipsy wasn't the best kind of description. Perhaps half gone would have been a slightly better choice of words. But then again, he was just as bad as she was. Practically every two second he would take hold of the bottom of her purple shirt. It looked like he was feeling the material but he was probably just thinking about how it would look lying in heap on the floor along with every other piece of her clothing. Man slut? I think so.

Me on the other hand wore a union jack tank top and a lightly ripped pair of blue full length jeans along with my white converse. I didn't want to look too done up, I mean I'm spending the night with Ryder for Christ's sake. If I wore a huge sweater not only would I be dying from the heat but the constant pestering because he'd know I was wearing half my closet so he couldn't get too close to me or my bare skin. But then if I wore less trying to appear confident then I would be showing way to much skin, look desperate and get tagged as a total slut. The way I see it is you have three choices. Legs, belly or cleavage. You can pick a max of two that you show but all three means you're just desperate. Guys probably haven't even noticed that some girls do that but I'm one of those girls. So, if a guy doesn't know about these then they don't know when youre avoiding them. For instance, my full length jeans cover my legs- check. The tank goes about three inches past the waist of my jeans and is loose fit which means no belly- check. And not too low of a neckline meaning that leads to no cleavage on show- check. Bet you didn't think there was so much effort and thought put into my outfit.

Ryder took another gulp of the surprise liquid we both had. It was his second cup but I know for a fact that Ryder is anything but a lightweight. That kind of makes him sound like an alcoholic but he isn't. It's a party thing for him.

I felt his hand lightly rub my shoulder which got my attention. I wasn't used to it so it tickled causing the corners of my mouth to turn up as I looked at it on my bare shoulder.

"what's got you all smiley?" he asked in my ear as he pulled me a little closer. He saw the smile? Dang it! I was looking the other way, I never even thought he could see my face from that angle.

"I'm not smiling." I mumbled clearing the look off my face and trying to stay serious. He could not think I was enjoying his company. Aria couldn't think I was enjoying his company. No one couldn't think that. It wasn't true.

"you haven't touched your drink." he looked at me as though he knew something was wrong. Im a really that obvious? He hardly knows me yet he can see exactly how I feel. It takes some people years before they figure me out. I hate him.

"I'm not that thirsty."I muttered looking away from him.

"come dance then." he urged. "even aria bet you to it." I turned to see my best friend dancing with Kevin hunts. One of Ryder's crowd that although i didn't know well I knew he was one of the 'irresistibles'. Like Phoenix and Ryder and every other guy that were considered one of the group, he always got the girls attention and seemingly now was no different, but I'd like to believe it's because arias been drinking.

"five minutes." I said firmly as he took my hand. With this being Ryder and all I thought he'd have me grinding up against him like what he usually tries but he didn't. We were dancing like normal people!

Then I actually went on for longer than five minutes and I'm not going to lie, I did drink a little bit and I was a little tiny bit tipsy. Just enough for the dancing to change to what I expected but thankfully aria had went to change after someone spilled their drink on her and we'd stop by the time she got back. If she caught me with her brother doing this, the world would most definitely end in a purple flame.

"good to see you still know how to dance." he said in my ear, loud enough for only me to hear. I swear if I was sober I'd cringe but that didn't seem to be happening any time soon.

"just the way you like it?" I asked. God, was I flirting? I am, aren't I? Jesus Christ, I am. God I can't believe I'm doing that.

"you know me so well." he said a little quieter. With the music blaring it was almost like a whisper but if the song were to suddenly end then and there everyone would have heard. Everyone.

"Well, you're hard to forget."

"I've heard that before." he said again in my ear. We went quiet for a while, just moving to the beat as before. Now we were really getting into it and from the way I was feeling right there I never wanted Aria to come back but I really hope that's just the drinks talking. Ryder was the first of us both to speak. "so I've been meaning to talk to you."

"yeah?" I asked, not really paying much attention. He could have been telling me about his dog being able to burp the alphabet and i might not even notice. I don't think that's why he wants to talk to me though... mind you, it's the best reason I've got at the moment. "What about?"

"last summer." now that I heard. That was a touchy subject.

"could everyone please settle down and take a seat. It's time for the games to begin."

"we should hurry, if we want to get a seat and all."

You could see everyone had something to drink. I sat on the armrest of the sofa next to Ryder who kept his hand on the small of my back, knowing that I couldn't tell him to move it without aria knowing it was there in the first place. Aria was sat two people away from us. Everyone had been given a pen, a bit of paper and an envelope but still with no clue why.

"so how this works is everyone writes down their biggest secret or at least something you don't want anyone to know about and then put it in the envelope with you're name on it but you can't let anyone see what you write."

So I wrote it.

Then I put it in the envelope.

And handed it to the girl that was collecting them in.

That was all a mistake.