Two weeks have passed since Valentine’s Day and we’re doing really well. We’ve kind of come into a routine depending on our schedules. On the nights that we do get to spend time together, we usually spend them at her place because her movie collection is massive. Tonight, however, we were spending it at my place. Sophia and Jeremiah were coming over and we were all going to have some drinks and relax. I felt bad for him because he had been pulling two to three twenty-four hour shifts per week and I could tell it was starting to get to him. I rarely saw could all just stay in and relax.

Changing out of my work clothes, I put on some basketball shorts when I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it, I found Emily standing there with bags in both of her hands. What had she done now? She was smiling from ear to ear. I moved out of the way so she could enter the apartment and she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. The simple gesture made me smile. In just a short period of time, I could already see a change in her and I liked it. She wasn’t as guarded and she hadn’t tensed up as much when I touched her. I saw those all as very good signs.

She walked into the kitchen and began to unload them. It looks as if she bought out the liquor store. There were various brands of liquor and some mixers. It looks as if she’s ready to party. The last time I’d seen her drink was on Halloween and I didn’t want to think of that shell of a girl that I had seen that night. Tonight was going to be about making new and better memories.

She’d finished unloading them and was starting to make drinks for the both of us. It didn’t matter to me what she made as long as she didn’t make any of those fruity concoctions that I knew girls drank.

She stirred them, turned around, and handed me a glass. I was skeptical because it wasn’t see-through and I didn’t see what she put in there. I eyed it suspiciously causing her to start laughing. I didn’t know what she found so funny. I took it from her but didn’t take a sip. That caused her to laugh even more.

“Come on, Mattie. Don’t you trust me?” She was trying to act innocent, but I knew better.

“It’s not about trust, sweetheart. It’s about the unknown. I have no clue what you put in this drink and I’m kind of scared to find out.” I wasn’t lying. I really was scared. I wasn’t afraid to admit it either. There was no telling what she and Sophia were going to get me and Jeremiah to try and drink tonight.

“Oh, come on and drink it. I promise I didn’t give you anything too crazy,” she said through her laughter.

Okay, it was now or never. I guess one sip wouldn’t hurt. If I didn’t like it, then I would just fake it until I drank the whole thing and make my own drinks from now on. I took a small sip from the glass and was shocked that it was a Jack and Coke and it was the perfect mixture. Strong enough to taste the liquor, but not overpowering where it made me cringe at the after taste.

“Well done, sweetheart. You’re a woman after my own heart. Brown liquor is my drink of choice. Well, that and tequila,” I admitted. For some reason, clear liquor didn’t agree with me, but give me a bottle of Jack Daniels and that was all I needed.

“And to think that you didn’t trust me enough. Admit it. You thought I was going to make something fruity didn’t you?” I could lie, but I didn’t see her believing me.

“Well, yeah I did. You and Sophia are always drinking them and I thought you were going to torture me by making me as well.”

“I would never do something like that to you,” she said innocently. I seriously doubted that though.

We were on our second drink by the time Sophia and Jeremiah showed up. Now the fun could begin.

We all went into the kitchen to make some more drinks. Emily got out the blender and was making a pitcher of margaritas for her and Sophia while Jeremiah and I opted to make Jack and Cokes.

Once everyone had made their drinks, we sat down at the table while I grabbed a deck of cards out of one of the drawers in the kitchen. Once I had retrieved them, I sat down and started to shuffle the deck.

“Alright, what shall we play first?”

They all named off different types of card games we could play, but ultimately we had chosen to play Asshole since everyone seemed to already know how to play that game.

I finished shuffling the cards and dealt out all them. It seemed that every time Jeremiah had laid down a card, I had the same one causing me to be able to skip Emily. This could be fun because every time someone was skipped in this game they had to drink. I typically didn’t play while drinking liquor because it caused me to get drunk quicker than I would like. By the end of the game, Emily had already finished off one drink and was on another. She didn’t seem too tipsy and she wasn’t even mad that she was the one that was the Asshole at the end of the round. The girls that I usually played with back home would always be pissed if they were Asshole, so it was refreshing to see that she was taking it in stride.

We all continued to play until we were three games in. The girls had gone in the kitchen to make another pitcher of Margaritas and when they came back, Sophia had something else in her hand, as well.

She sat down and poured herself a drink and threw down what she had in her hand on the table.

“Alright boys, who wants to play a real drinking game?” Sophia asked.

Jeremiah and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows because we didn’t know what game she was referring to since what she threw down on the table was dice.

I was intrigued, so I asked what game she wanted to play.

“Well, it’s called Three Man. Ever heard of it?” It seemed that the girls were the only ones here that knew how to play, but I was down. I agreed that I would play as long as we could do a practice round so to speak so I could get the rules of the game down and Jeremiah agreed as well.

“Well see, here’s how you play. You roll the dice and depending on what number appears, depends on the action you take. If they equal a seven, the person to the left of the roller drinks. If they equal an eleven, the person to the right drinks. The first time either a three appears on the dice or they equal a three, the person who rolled it gets to pick who is the three man. Every time a three is rolled until the three man himself or herself rolls one, the person who is three man has to drink. Once he or she rolls a three, that person gets to choose the next. If they equal a nine everyone drinks. All other numbers cause the players to pass their turn and the next person rolls. Sound simple enough?” What are these two getting us into? This game sounds simple if you aren’t the three man, but if you are, it sounds like that person is getting screwed. I was never lucky when it came to dice games, but hopefully my luck would change tonight. I definitely didn’t want to be three man.

We played two rounds for practice and the games really began. Low and behold Sophia rolled the first three and chose me to be the three man. This should be interesting. I just hoped I wasn’t going to be puking my guts out later. The effects of the alcohol were hitting me already and this game was going to make it worse because it was so face paced.

By the time the fourth go round went by, I was still three man and on my second drink of this game alone. That would total about six drinks for me so far if I were counting correctly. I couldn’t roll a three to save my life. Everyone else seemed to think this was hilarious except for me.

The next time the dice were in my hands I actually rolled a three. The choice was going to be hard because they were all cracking jokes about how much I’d had to drink already. I finally settled on choosing Jeremiah. The girls loved that idea. I wasn’t going to be the only man here suffering from their shenanigans.

Jeremiah had lasted about six rounds before he chose Sophia to be the next three man. She seemed up to the challenge though.

An hour later we had all decided to take a break from that game because the night was hardly over yet and we were all beyond tipsy. We moved into the living room and sat down on the couches to just talk while the alcohol settled.

We had been talking for about thirty minutes when Sophia jumped off the couch, clapping her hands. It was never good when a woman acted this way and had a devious look on her face, especially this woman. She was a spitfire and sassy to put it mildly.

“I have the perfect idea on how we can pass the time while we are waiting to drink some more.” I didn’t like the sound of that, considering this woman seemed as though she could come up with some wild ideas. Plus, her last idea was causing me to regret making my drinks as strong as I had.

We all waited for her to make her suggestion. Hopefully it wasn’t something completely crazy.

“I suggest that we all play truth or dare, but not some ordinary truth or dare. A person can forfeit to complete the dare at this time, but can choose to complete the dare at a later date. They can only do this once though, so you must choose wisely.”

“How long does the person have to complete the dare if they choose to forfeit it tonight?” Jeremiah asked.

“The person will have two weeks from tonight to complete the dare. If it’s not completed within the allotted time frame, he or she must pay the rest of us fifty dollars apiece,” Sophia explained. That seemed fair enough. The only problem was that I was scared to know what this girl could come up with to dare the rest of us to do.

We sat there debating on whether or not we wanted to play this game. It reminded me of when I was younger and used to play in middle school. Only this time we were older, so the dares would probably be more extreme than what a middle schooler could come up with.

After a few minutes, Emily, Jeremiah, and I had reluctantly agreed that we would play truth or dare. Sophia seemed thrilled. I couldn’t help but wonder if she had something up her sleeve when she suggested that we played this game.

We determined who was going to start the game by rolling one of the die that was used during our previous game of Three Man. Unfortunately, Sophia had beaten us all by rolling a six. Now we just had to wait to see which one of us she would choose.

She chose Emily first asking whether she was choosing truth or dare. She took a big gulp of her drink and surprised all of us by choosing dare. Sophia started off small by daring Emily to take a shot. It seemed as though she was leading up to something though because she had this strange look on her face.

We all took turns daring each other to do silly things, from eating Catsup from the bottle and licking the floor. It felt good just to do something fun and out of the ordinary. Maybe Sophia was on to something because Emily seemed to be really enjoying herself and letting loose.

We were all another couple of drinks in when things started to get very interesting. Sophia had dared Emily to flash everyone and being the person she is, she actually blushed at the thought. I don’t think that she actually would have done it if it weren’t for the alcohol, but after a few minutes of hesitating she lifted up her shirt. I tried to block Jeremiah’s view and he shoved me out of the way. She was covered by her bra, but he didn’t need to see her without a shirt on. It covers the same as a bathing suit top and he had already seen her in one of those, but I still had reservations about it.

Once she had put her shirt back down, Emily got a sneaky look on her face. I hated to think of what evil plan she was going to come up with next and get payback on Sophia.

She gave me a sly grin and I knew that she had come up with something good. She turned toward Sophia and asked her what she was going to choose. I had a feeling that either way she was screwed because I think Emily had a devious plan in the works.

“Dare,” Sophia replied, as she took a sip from her drink.

“Well, well, well. Sophia it seems that you have gotten yourself in quite a predicament because I have the perfect counter bet. I dare you to kiss Jeremiah and I mean really kiss him. Not some peck on the lips either. I mean a full blown five-minute kiss,” she dared, with a laugh.

I looked over at Sophia and she was scowling over at Emily. I wonder what would make her pick this sort of bet for Sophia. I also wondered why Sophia would be scowling over at her if there weren’t more to it than that. I knew that Sophia and Jeremiah could possibly have something going on, but neither admitted it. Not even after we seen them kiss on New Year’s.

Glancing over at Jeremiah, he had a big grin on his face. He seemed to be enjoying himself and loved the fact that Emily had dared them to kiss. He also seemed to be enjoying the fact that Sophia looked as though she was going to lose her cool.

Emily reached across me to get her phone off of the table and went to the stop watch. She really was going to time them. Now that’s hilarious.

“Alright, hun. Time’s ticking. Get to it,” Emily demanded. She was enjoying this more than she should be.

Sophia turned and scowled at Emily before she made her way over to Jeremiah. She looked at him and just went for it. I turned my head away because I didn’t feel like I needed to share in their moment, but Emily was all about it. She was trying to contain her laughter.

When their five minutes were up, the stopwatch went off and Sophia and Jeremiah separated instantly. Both look affected by that kiss, but neither would look at each other.

We sat and waited for another few minutes so Sophia could regain her composure. I looked over at Emily and she actually looked nervous. She probably should be because Sophia looked as if she was on the war path.

Sophia asked Emily truth or dare and I think she contemplated on truth, but she actually chose dare. It was probably the alcohol talking again. I just prayed that Sophia didn’t make Emily do anything crazy.

“This dare is going to cause the rules to change a bit because it involves Emily doing something that she can’t do here. I know typically we shouldn’t change the rules this late in the game, but I think this is a good one. Emily, I dare you to get on stage and sing in front of other people. I don’t mean for just a few seconds either. I mean you have to sing the whole song.” Really? That’s what she was going with. When Emily was around us, she didn’t mind letting loose, but she didn’t do well in crowds and she didn’t like being the center of attention.

“So what’s it going to be? Do you accept this dare?” Sophia taunted. I think that she wanted Emily to forfeit so that she would feel like she won.

“I accept, Sophia. I just hope you’re prepared for what’ll happen,” Emily replied. This is going to be interesting. I could see the wheels turning in Emily’s head and I could tell she was formulating a plan. I had a feeling that things were about to get interesting.