Beneath Our Faults

ME: Sounds good. See you in a few.



I picked up my bag, struggling as I dragged it off the bed. I really needed to hit the gym and get some muscles. The doorbell rang.and I looked out my doorway.

"Keegantor is here!" Sophia's high-pitched voice sang from downstairs. I pulled my suitcase by the handle and it bumped each stair on my way down.

Keegan stood in the entry way chuckling. "I figured I better come make sure you weren't going to try to bail on us," he said, grabbing my bag from me. "Jesus, is there a small child in this thing?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I have my midget boyfriend in there I'm sneaking in with me."

"Kinky, I like it."

"What does kinky mean?" Sophia asked, stepping in between the two of us.

"It means smiles," Keegan answered, looking very proud of his answer.

"That's not true," I rushed out. "That's a bad word you're not allowed to say."

"What the hell was wrong with my answer?" Keegan asked when we walked out the front door to Lane's Escalade.

I turned around to look at him. "Smile? Was that the best you could come up with? Just wait until she tells my aunt that watching cartoons makes her kinky. Good answer then?"

"Point proven," he agreed, stopping me and grabbing me around the waist before we reached the car. "You are going to have fun on this trip, even if I have to force it out of you."



CORA COUGHED and downed the shot of tequila. "Blugh, it sucks we don't have blackmail on you, Daisy." The four of us were seated around the kitchen table, a bottle of tequila planted in the middle. A shot glass was filled to the rim with the dark liquid in front of each one of us, with the exception of the one Cora just drained.

It was my first time playing the drinking game, Never Have I Ever, and never did I ever want to play it again. If you wanted to call someone out or worm your way into their deepest, darkest secrets, this was the game for you. I pointed over to her. "Or it sucks I don't have any blackmail on any of you. It's like three against one over here," I replied, the slur in my voice prevalent. "It's hard to play this game when you don't know people's weaknesses.”

Lane grabbed Cora's shot glass, refilling it. "Your turn, baby," he said, setting the glass back on the table.

"Thank you, Jesus," she moaned out, leaning her chin on her knuckle, thinking. "Never have I ever," she paused, "had a threesome." The words rushed out of her mouth so fast they sounded like one.

Keegan let out a deep groan, winked at us and was not surprisingly the only person in the room who reached out for their glass. Of course, he's had a threesome. The boy probably participated in routine orgies at his house while I was next door sleeping.

A tiny twinge of pain lurked into my thoughts of him touching them in ways he would never touch me. Keegan and I were just friends, I always told myself and everyone else. Sure, he did flirt with me from time to time, but he flirted with everyone that had a vagina. I was just his neighbor.

I shook my head and fixated on him lifting the slender shot glass to his lips, tipping his head back and draining it like a pro. A bang erupted as he slammed his glass down on the wooden table and he started laughing.

Everyone stared at him, clueless as to what was so funny. His torso tilted and he leaned back into his chair with his arms folded behind his neck. He eyed Cora before pointing his index finger at her. "That was a fucking test," he boomed, " a mother fucking test."

Huh?

Cora crossed her arms, giving him a stiff stare. "I honestly have no idea what the hell you and your drunkass are talking about," she snapped. Lane looked from his girlfriend to Keegan, wrinkling his nose while I waited for someone to tell me what I was missing.

"Oh silly Cora, you wanted to make sure Lane was a good little boy during your little break up you two had, didn't you? Come on, that was obvious," Keegan snorted.

"It's your turn, asshole," Cora snarled, sliding the tequila bottle over to him harshly.

Keegan's turn never happened because Volcano Lane erupted. "You really think I would do that fucking shit, Cora?" he sprung to his feet, stumbling and showing us how drunk he actually was. "How many times have I told you that Piper is a stupid, lying whore that I would never touch?" His eyes were blazing fire staring down at her while she stiffened in the chair next to me.

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