‘Dare,’ Oscar said.
They were all sprawled on the couches, the windows darkening. A mixture of full and empty glasses covered the coffee table, along with cheese, crackers and grapes. Dom’s Bluetooth speaker crooned in the corner. Oscar had chopped some wood, and now the fire was crackling. The scrunched-up newspapers under the logs looked like black roses. The flickering light felt faintly magical. Anything could happen.
Clementine sat between Oscar and Dom, nibbling on a dry cracker, wondering if the whole weekend would pass like this—everyone gorging themselves on food she shouldn’t have and alcohol she couldn’t drink, just in case there had been a miracle and she was pregnant. Being the only sober person at a party was tiresome. She supposed she’d have to get used to it.
Felicity looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, ‘I dare you to give Clementine a foot massage.’
Oscar looked at her for permission. She laughed despite herself and rested her feet on his lap. He got to it, working his thumbs deep into her arches. She let out a hum of pleasure. ‘Good dare,’ she murmured.
Cole’s eyebrows went up. ‘Sounds like you got skills, bro.’
Oscar wasn’t bad-looking, in this light. Clementine supposed most men would be more attractive while rubbing her feet. But tonight his deep-set eyes, which normally seemed haunted, instead looked soulful. Between that and the five o’clock shadow, he had the aura of a poet—though Isla claimed he didn’t even read, much less write.
Yes, Clementine thought. If I don’t get Dom tonight, Oscar wouldn’t be too bad.
‘My turn to ask someone now, right?’ Oscar said, compressing Clementine’s heels.
Dom leaned back on the couch, taking up far too much of it with his spread arms and legs. ‘That’s the rule.’
‘Cole,’ Oscar said. ‘Truth or dare?’
Cole smiled warily. ‘Truth.’
Oscar’s face was grave. ‘Do you … pee in the shower?’
Everyone laughed, especially Clementine, who knew he absolutely did.
‘It’s more efficient,’ Cole said defensively, which only made them laugh harder.
‘I’m with you, buddy,’ Felicity said. ‘Why waste a flush? Save the planet.’ She let Cole think she was on his side for a moment, then added, ‘Where do you do number twos? The sink?’
‘Okay, give me a break.’ Cole cracked his knuckles in an ominous way. ‘Truth or dare, Isla?’
She tucked her dark hair behind her ears and leaned forward. ‘Truth.’
‘Who was your first celebrity crush?’
Looking relieved, she cleared her throat. ‘Tristan Bancks, from Home and Away.’
‘He was cute,’ Clementine agreed.
‘Before my time,’ Felicity said mildly.
The reminder of Felicity’s youth was grating. Clementine found herself touching the edges of her eyes, feeling for crows’ feet. Her mother had gone grey at thirty-five. If she didn’t get pregnant soon, she’d look like a grandma when she took the child to the playground.
‘My turn,’ Isla said. ‘Dom—truth or dare?’
The corner of Dom’s mouth twitched. ‘Dare.’
‘Give Oscar a lap dance.’
Oscar’s hands stiffened around Clementine’s feet. Dom looked so taken aback that Clementine couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Well, I’m giving a foot massage right now …’ Oscar began.
Clementine snatched her feet away. ‘Oh, don’t let me stand in the way.’
Cole was guffawing, but Clementine noticed that Felicity, usually the wildest of the bunch, looked tense.
‘Relax,’ Isla said. ‘If either of you is too chickenshit, you just have to take a drink instead. That’s the rules, right?’
Cole looked down at his mostly empty glass. ‘Wait, am I only supposed to be drinking when I refuse a dare?’
‘I’m not chickenshit.’ Dom sounded uncomfortable, but as usual he covered it with braggadocio. ‘I’m just not sure Oscar can handle me.’
‘I’ve never had a lap dance,’ Oscar said. ‘But it’s my understanding that all I have to do is sit there.’
‘That’s all you’re allowed to do,’ Cole said.
Clementine raised an eyebrow at him.
‘At least in the movies,’ he added hurriedly, and everyone else laughed.
Isla had been Clementine’s maid of honour and had organised a stripper for her hen’s night. The guy had been older, thinner and grosser than she’d expected—definitely more of a McConaughey than a Tatum. Clementine couldn’t remember whether she’d been instructed not to touch him, but it was a moot point, because she hadn’t wanted to. His bronzed skin had left orange stains on the table. Clementine and Isla had giggled at his sparkly little thong, but afterwards Clementine had felt a twinge of disappointment that her last night out as a single woman hadn’t been sexier.
The laughter had broken the tension and seemed to give Dom confidence. He stood up. ‘All right, Oscar. Brace yourself for all this.’ He shimmied, rubbing his hands down the sides of his body.
Isla scooped up Dom’s phone and started swiping through songs he’d downloaded. She stopped at ‘Need You Tonight’ by INXS. Clementine and Cole chortled, while Felicity watched on, still looking wary.
Dom strutted slowly over to Oscar, catwalk-style, taking the long way around the coffee table.
‘Quit stalling,’ Isla said.
When Dom reached Oscar he turned his back on him, put his hands in the air and lowered himself into a crouch, hips rolling the whole way down. Though he was hamming it up, he was clearly a better dancer now than he’d been in school. Clementine found she couldn’t look away.
Placing his palms on the floor, Dom straightened his legs and waggled his arse in Oscar’s face. ‘How long do I have to dance for?’ he asked.
‘The whole song, I reckon,’ Isla said.
‘I’ll get you for this.’
She smirked.
Oscar tried hard to cover his discomfort. ‘Has anyone got five dollars? To tuck into Dom’s belt.’
‘On the house for you, big boy,’ Dom purred. He turned and straddled Oscar, pushing his chest forward into Oscar’s face.
Isla screamed with laughter. It seemed funny to Clementine, too, but other emotions started to creep in. Beneath the mock-seductiveness, Dom’s moves felt aggressive and predatory. He wasn’t just giving Oscar a lap dance—Dom was threatening. The way one male dog might hump another, showing the pack who’s boss.
This unsettled Clementine but also fascinated her. A dormant seed, finally watered, sprouted inside her brain. She’d never been with a Dom.
Soon the song was over. ‘You can stop thrusting now, mate,’ Cole said.
Dom climbed off, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. ‘Strippers must be in pretty good shape,’ he puffed, as though this had never occurred to him before.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Cole said quickly.
Dom didn’t go back to his seat. He stared down at Oscar. ‘Truth or dare?’
Oscar hesitated. The pause felt loaded, in a way Clementine didn’t quite understand.
‘Truth,’ Oscar said finally.
‘Have you ever cheated on anyone?’ Dom’s voice was flat, the playfulness gone.
The firelight dimmed. The room seemed to grow colder.
‘No,’ Oscar said, without breaking eye contact.
For a second, Clementine thought Dom was going to interrogate Oscar about his answer. The silence grew tense. But then Dom shrugged and sat down. ‘Well, that was a waste of a turn.’
Clementine felt Oscar relax into the couch beside her. ‘My go again,’ he said. ‘Felicity—truth or dare?’
No one had asked Clementine anything yet. She decided not to point this out.
‘Truth,’ Felicity said.
Oscar hesitated. Maybe he’d expected her to pick dare. ‘What’s the worst break-up you’ve ever had?’
‘That would be with James,’ Felicity said.
‘What went wrong?’
Dom squeezed his wife’s arm. ‘You don’t have to talk about this. It’s just a game.’
‘It’s okay.’ Felicity took a deep breath. ‘He died.’
Clementine almost laughed—a reflex, since Felicity was usually kidding. The sombre look on the woman’s face stopped her.
‘Oh my God!’ Isla put her hands to her mouth. ‘What happened?’
‘Technically we were already kind of broken up,’ Felicity said. ‘I’d gotten sick of him. He was older than me and a bit clingy. He got into drugs and started hanging out with dodgy people. I went back to his flat for some clothes I’d left behind, and he … well, the point is, he was shot. By a police officer, pretty much right in front of me.’
Cole’s jaw dropped. ‘Shit, really?’
‘Yep,’ Felicity said. ‘But the whole experience—maybe this is a horrible thing to say, and his family definitely wouldn’t approve, but it was a blessing in disguise. Someone I met at the funeral later offered me a job at a car yard, and years later, that was where I met Dom.’
Dom smiled sadly. He’d clearly heard this story before.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Clementine said.
‘Because I’d had a shitty boyfriend,’ Felicity continued, ‘I could tell what a good catch Dom was. And because I’d seen someone die, I really, deeply understood how short life is. How if you want something, you shouldn’t wait. You should take it while the chance is there.’ She glanced at Clementine.
‘Rough way to learn that lesson,’ Oscar said.
‘No kidding. But I like who I am—who it turned me into. So, it’s hard to wish anything had been different.’ She took another sip of her wine. ‘Anyway. How’s that for truth?’
Dom patted her knee. ‘I don’t think anyone will be able to top it.’
‘Let’s see,’ Felicity said. ‘My turn, right?’
The others nodded.
‘Clementine,’ Felicity said, and Clementine’s breath caught in her throat. ‘Truth or dare?’
She hesitated, picturing herself doing a lap dance, then panicked. ‘Truth.’
Felicity smirked. ‘If you could have sex with anyone here other than your husband, who would it be?’
Clementine felt the colour rising to her cheeks. This wasn’t what they’d discussed. She glanced at Cole, expecting him to tell her she didn’t have to answer, the way Dom had stuck up for Felicity.
‘It’s okay, Clem,’ Cole said instead. ‘I won’t be offended.’
‘It’s just … hard to picture myself with anyone but you,’ Clementine lied, glancing from Oscar to Dom like she didn’t already know the answer; like she hadn’t watched that video of Dom and Isla, over and over.
Her husband had always been cautious, even timid. He would put on a seatbelt just to move the car from one parking spot to another. He would stay up late frowning worriedly at spreadsheets, even though it seemed to be raining money at the gym lately. During sex, he kept asking her if she was okay.
Whereas she thought Dom would just take what he wanted.
‘I assume it doesn’t have to be a man,’ Isla put in.
‘Ooh, hello.’ Felicity raised an eyebrow.
‘I think it does,’ Clementine said quickly. She looked at Oscar and Dom again. ‘But, I mean, I don’t know what either of them is like in bed.’
‘Confident,’ Dom said immediately.
‘Generous,’ Oscar countered.
Everyone laughed, no one meeting anyone else’s eye.
‘Isla, is that true?’ Felicity asked.
Isla tilted her hand from side to side. ‘Meh.’
Everyone laughed again, except Oscar.
‘Well, Dom then, I guess,’ Clementine said. She risked a brief glance at him. Part of her still couldn’t believe what Felicity had said: that he wanted to try her out, and he’d asked his wife to make it happen. Clementine was surprised to see a shy smile on his face. He looked more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him.
‘For the record,’ Oscar said, ‘you’re missing out.’
‘Maybe we should have a dare, then,’ Felicity said.
‘It’s not your turn,’ Isla pointed out. ‘It’s Clementine’s.’
‘Shouldn’t Oscar get a chance to prove himself?’ Felicity said.
Isla looked alarmed. ‘How?’
Felicity spread her palms wide. ‘Well …’