Gray Emmerson

Truth or dare.

The game that could either make you or break you. A quite popular and well-known method that made the night more interesting, forced you to do anything stupid and ruined some years of friendships. It was nothing but a wild game for party's like this, which I'd honestly rather stay away from.

Picking a truth for those who liked to play it on safe and were afraid to take some action, but were okay with answering the most nerve-wracking questions. Or picking a dare to those who were nothing but daredevils: people who could do anything without being afraid of the following consequences.

What would be your pick?

Right at this moment, I was sitting down in a circle full of drunk teenagers, not knowing why I even agreed on doing this in the first place. Jokes on me, if it wasn't for Elaine begging me for over half an hour to play this game with him, I wouldn't have been sitting here. Besides Sara, Matthew, Elaine and I there were three other random people that I've never seen before. At some point, a crowd gathered around us which made playing this game even harder for me.

Party's were never my scene: I never liked being the centre of attention, being around large groups of people or being socially active with people I did not know personally. I didn't even dance nor play games like these so what was I even doing here?

Thank god Matthew was here to play as well, somehow that boy really felt like moral support to me. Plus, he liked apple juice! That's a huge bonus for Matthew.

''Alright people! This is how it goes down!'' Sara yells with her annoyed high-pitched voice to get everyone their attention. She put an empty beer bottle in the middle of our circle as she continued with her explanation. ''Each turn, every one of us spins the bottle to ask someone to pick truth or dare! Since this is my party, I'm going to be the one who starts!'' She giggles as fake as she could while flipping her hair over her shoulder, crawling over to spin the bottle.

And probably to show all of her female parts to Elaine, and probably the rest of the male crowd who had been standing here to watch.

With one strong turn, she flips the bottle. Seeing the bottle spin at such high speed, increased my level of anxiety by each turn the bottle took. Maybe it was the loud unknown crowd, the lack of personal space in this room, or just the stress of the game, but my insides were killing me at this point and I wanted it to stop. My insides shrank, my breathing picked up and I couldn't stop fidgeting with my shirt.

Please don't end up on me, please don't end up on me, please don't end up on me..

As if the holy spirits heard my prayers, I let out a relieved breath when I saw that the bottle stopped turning at Matthew.

''Truth or dare, brother dearest?'' Sara asks with a tiny smirk on her stupid face and watches her brother as if she enjoyed putting her brother in difficult positions.

Which the devil probably did.

''Truth..'' Matthew easily answers as he shrugged, clearly not seeming to care about this game.

How did people do that? I'm literally dying on the inside right now. I'm not joking: if I were fast enough to jump out of the window, I would have. I just want to escape this cursed place. It's literally the home of the devil?!

''Such a buzzkill you are Mattyboy..'' She rolls her eyes while shaking her head, her tone laced with that nasty attitude of hers. ''Who.. was your last crush?'' She asks with a grin that looked as ugly as the Grinch.

God, that role would suit her perfectly.

''Oh, that's easy.. Definitely Emmerson over here..'' He answers casually, even nodding towards me which made my eyes widen in shock as I gaped at them while trying to catch some air.

What did he just say?!

''Wait, you're gay?!'' Sara gasps surprised, apparently also not so familiar with her brother's sexuality.

And honestly, I didn't exactly see this coming either.

''Yeah I like dicks, so what it's 2021 Sara?'' He asks her to break the ice, saying it as if it was the most normal case on earth.

''That you're gay is one, but why would you even crush on someone like that?! That even worse than being gay! Gray is literally the worst you could pick!'' She continues yelling at her brother, making everyone laugh around us.

''Cut it off, Sara!'' I hear Elaine talk to her, but I wasn't paying much attention to it.

Because it wasn't just Sara who was as surprised as I was. Everyone was staring between me and Matthew, making me want to sink through the ground.

I couldn't handle all of the attention I was getting right now: all eyes on me, people whispering probably bad things about me and even receiving some of the nastiest looks I've ever seen. It made my hands even more sweaty, my stomach hurts me from the crazy amount of nerves I had and suddenly the oxygen just vanished into the thin air.

For a couple of seconds I tried to focus on my breathing instead of my thoughts and feelings because if I did that, I wouldn't have been able to stay strong.

Matthew and I made eye-contact somewhere in between all this happening. I didn't know if it was from the panic I was having or if I just was at loss for a second while watching his face. His piercing grey eyes found their way between his strawberry blonde hair that fell over his forehead. My eyes were fixated on the dancing freckles on his cheekbones. He playfully winked at me which made me even more confused about the situation.

Was he being for real or was he just joking?

''Anyway, now it's my turn!'' He laughs excitedly, breaking me out of our staring-competition, as he started spinning the bottle.

Thank god, this time it ended on Elaine.

''Truth or dare, Bolton'' Matthew asks, crossing his arms in a quite dominant way for some reason.

''Easy Heart, dare of course!'' Elaine yells before even thinking about it, watching Matthew with this quite competitive look which I couldn't exactly pin down.

Typical Elaine, he never thought about the effect of his actions until he experienced it. That boy loved being reckless and making spontaneous moves. It wasn't a surprise to me that he picked dare. He loved daring more than playing it on the truth.

''I dare you to kiss my sister until you both can't breathe anymore'' He smirks, watching them both amused.

''Such a softy Matthew.. You know that won't be torture for any of us'' Elaine has this mischievous twinkle in his eye and crawls over to Sara, cupping her face and smashing his lips on hers.

It made me want to gag, seeing them kiss as if it was some sort of war: you literally saw everything happening there.

And with everything, I really mean everything.

As fast as I could I turned my eyes on the ground, not wanting to watch what was happening in front of me. For something that seemed to take like an eternity, they finally stopped kissing after a while as they sat back on their spot. There were even some people clapping for them which made me roll my eyes.

Did people really enjoy watching two dogs kiss each other?

''Let's see who the next victim will be..'' Elaine grins in excitement, spinning the bottle around.

I already had this feeling on who it would end up this time, that would be me.

And guess what? I was right, it was my turn now. I'm so going to die.

''Gray..'' Elaine smirked at me, watching me with his cheeky eyes. ''Truth or dare?''

People were watching me with a curious look in their eyes: probably thinking I would go for the easy way out. But honestly, I didn't even know what I should have picked, I mean I didn't want to look even more like a loser by picking the truth, but I also didn't want to pick dare if that resulted in nothing but a mess.

Don't even ask me how I had the guts, but I finally picked one. One of which I knew was about to put me in some sort of trouble.

''Dare..'' I answered, trying to keep my stoneface on.

''I dare you to kiss someone, someone Sara is going to pick!'' He smirks amused, watching me with his drunk ass.

That he's making me have my first kiss, okay. But that Sara will be the one picking?! Oh, hell no that is even worse than selling me to Satan.

''I can pick huh? Then too bad for you Elaine, I don't want the loser to kiss my brother so he can kiss you!'' She giggles and seemingly enjoys this.

I didn't even know what I was feeling or thinking with all of this. She wanted me to kiss Elaine? I've never even thought about kissing someone, so the last person I would think of kissing with was Elaine.

Every single person was looking towards me right now, probably waiting for me to either give a reaction or kiss my best friend already. It was getting me on my nerves, my heart was beating like crazy and my body was trembling at the thought of doing this. My head was clouded by the current events that were happening in front of me: should I not give a damn about the world and let Elaine take my first kiss or should I stand up for myself and finally go back home? I didn't know what decision to make.

But there was someone who already made that decision for me.

''That's fine by me'' Elaine says as if it was no problem to him at all.

''Wait, what?!'' I ask in shock, watching my best friend with big eyes as my heart dropped in my stomach.

Was he really being serious?!

''Relax, Gray, you know I'm not gay and we've been best friends for over years. It's just for fun'' He grins, obviously carried away by the amount of alcohol he must have had. He scoots towards me and whisps in my ear, so nobody could hear his next words. ''Maybe it's better to experience your first kiss with me.. You could practice while we're both aware that we're staying friends'' He shrugs, watching my face for a reaction.

He wasn't fully wrong on that.. I was nineteen and never had my first kiss. I could better experience it with my best friend than anybody else, right?

Right?

For a couple of seconds, I stared at his pale face. His once styled hair started to fall in front of his face, the black strands started to fall in front of his piercing blue eyes while he made strong eye contact with me. His blue orbs almost seem to consume me into the clear ocean they brought me to. It was a calming ocean that told me it would all be okay.

I don't know what happened, but those hypnotizing eyes instantly put me at ease which made it easier for me to carefully cup his face and softly place my lips on his.

The party, the loud music and talking people were all fading away into the background. My lips slowly moved against his as he led me through the kiss, which I gladly followed. His lips felt soft, but still a bit rough in a good way. He was noticeably being careful with me, not kissing me too hard nor kissing me with lust. It felt like it was just pure. Our lips moved against one another as if they were two fitting puzzle pieces that belonged together: it felt so good and for a second I had nothing to worry about. It was like everything at that point felt complete and answered all of my questions.

The kiss was not what I was expecting my first to be like: it was much more calming and intense than people actually described. Everything inside my body was screaming at me for more. My skin got consumed by the goosebumps, my insides were tingles like a heavy fire and every thought I had was disappearing.

It was just Elaine and I.

After what seemed to last for a second, which in reality was probably many more minutes, we pulled away from each other. A wave of shock overwhelmed me as I kept staring in his bright blue eyes, panting from the heaviness of that kiss and trying to ignore the butterflies that were dancing inside my stomach. The urge of holding on to him and wanting to go back to kissing him got through me.

Holy moly, I kissed Elaine,

And I liked it...