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Avery knew to leave the Hawthorne brothers alone when they were playing drink or dare, because the only other alternative was to join in, and she definitely could not afford that tonight. Regardless of whether they were playing with something alcoholic or a ridiculously gross mixture of various liquids and condiments, Avery had been up way too many nights in a row (it was all Jameson’s fault, and no, not in the way you’re thinking—or at least, not entirely).
But when the words “TO BE OR NOT TO BE! THAT IS THE QUESTION” were suddenly shouted as loud as humanly possible, breaking through the quiet haze she had been laying in, she sat up somewhat angrily. She had been so close to going to sleep, and now the stupid Hawthorne boys were interrupting her much needed rest for…
…Hamlet?
Avery kicked on her slippers and opened her door, following the sound of the extremely loud voice. “TO DIE, TO SLEEP, NO MORE, AND BY A SLEEP TO SAY WE END!” That was definitely Jameson. Why was Jameson reciting Hamlet at the top of his lungs?
When Avery finally found them, they were by the pool. It was clear that more than a few dares had already been taken, as Nash was wearing knee-high striped socks, Xander’s face was covered in blue fingerpaint, and Grayson was laying on his back duct-taped to the floor.
As for Jameson…
A contraption presumably constructed by Xander consisted of three long slabs of wood, two on either side of the pool holding up a single long makeshift balance beam high above the pool. And there, unwavering, standing upon that makeshift balance beam, was Jameson.
“WHEN WE HAVE SHUFFLED OFF THIS MORTAL COIL,” he proclaimed at the top of his lungs, “MUST GIVE US PAUSE! THERE’S THE RESPECT THAT MAKES CALAMITY OF SO LONG LIFE!”
“WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING HERE?!” Avery shouted, quieting Jameson—though only for a moment.
“FOR WHO WOULD BEAR THE WHIPS AND SCORNS OF TIME—” Jameson began again, but Avery cut him off.
“No. NO! Stop this nonsense.”
“He’s not allowed to say anything else or get down from there until he finishes the soliloquy,” Xander confided.
“Then silence, Jameson!” Avery commanded. She turned to the other brothers. “Is it really necessary for him to scream it at the top of his lungs?”
“Yes,” said Nash, a smirk on his face. “That was the dare.”
“Nash issued the dare,” Grayson clarified from where he was still duct-taped to the floor.
“I’m trying to sleep,” Avery reminded them. “This interrupted my sleep.”
“You can hear him all the way up in your room?” Xander sounded genuinely surprised.
“He’s definitely projecting.” Avery glared up at her boyfriend, who seemed to take this as a cue to continue his dare.
“THE OPPRESSOR’S WRONG, THE PROUD MAN’S CONTUMELY—”
“NO JAMESON!” Avery shouted. Jameson quieted, but his infuriating smirk was visible even from up as high in the air as he was. “And does he have to be all the way up there? That seems dangerous.”
“It’s Jameson. This is like, the least dangerous thing he’s done all day,” Xander said dismissively. “Besides, he’s above the pool. He’s totally safe.”
“You know, Avery,” Nash reminded her, “if you really want to go back to sleep, you should probably let him finish the soliloquy.”
“After that, no more loud dares. We promise,” Grayson said.
“Grayson’s my new favorite,” Avery told them all.
This did not deter Xander. “Do we promise?”
“Yes,” Grayson said, the familiar warning in his voice. Not that his brothers ever actually listened to that warning.
Avery sighed. “Okay Jameson,” she called, “you can finish!”
“THE PANGS OF DISPRIZED LOVE, THE LAW’S DELAY…”
Avery sighed. This was going to be a long few minutes.
—
Avery breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the familiar ending. “WITH THIS REGARD THEIR CURRENTS TURN AWRY,” Jameson declared, somehow managing to get even louder for his grand finish, “AND LOSE THE NAME OF ACTION!”
“Well that was the least Jameson Hawthorne soliloquy I have ever heard,” Avery remarked as Jameson flipped off of the wooden slab and into the pool. “I would say his name is action.”
Jameson surfaced from the water and pulled himself up onto the ground, putting his arm around Nash, not letting go when he protested. “That was a good time, Nash. Solid dare.”
Nash shook him off. “You’re getting me wet, stop it! Diving into the pool was not part of the dare.”
“Well, yes, but you had to experience some kind of penalty,” Jameson said, messing up Nash’s hair with his still-wet hand.
“Penalty? For what? Giving you a dare, as are the rules of this game?”
“No, a penalty for keeping my Heiress from her beauty sleep.” Jameson winked in her direction.
“Technically, you were keeping me up,” Avery reminded him.
“I was following a dare. Doesn’t count,” Jameson said dismissively. “‘Conscience does make cowards of us all,’” he reminded them, quoting his very recent theatrical performance above the pool.
“What I’m hearing is that you have no conscience,” Avery teased.
“That’s about right.”
“Wait a minute,” Avery realized, “you didn’t have a script with you. Why do you have an entire soliloquy from Hamlet memorized?”
Jameson’s cheeks flushed slightly. “To be fair, that’s the most famous soliloquy from the play.”
“Yes, well, I’m pretty sure ‘to be or not to be’ are the only words from it that I could recite by heart,” Avery said suspiciously. “Which brings us back to my question: why do you have a whole Hamlet monologue memorized?”
“Soliloquy,” Jameson corrected.
“You’re dodging the question.”
“Jameson and Grayson both picked ‘acting’ as their skill to cultivate when they were twelve,” Nash answered for him. “They both have all of Hamlet memorized. Also, our grandfather made some calls to get Grayson into a production of Romeo and Juliet he’d set his sights on, but they were pretty dead set on their casting for Romeo, so Grayson played Juliet.”
“Shut up,” said Grayson, still on the floor. “Also, how many more dares until you un-duct-tape me?”
“Three,” Xander replied, clearly gleefully keeping track.
“So they all know quite a bit of Shakespeare,” Nash concluded. “Though Jameson was in quite a few contemporary musicals as well. I think I still have a video on my phone from that time he was in Newsies—”
“I was twelve,” Jameson said quickly. “No need to dig up the past.”
“I cannot believe you were a theater kid,” Avery said, genuinely stunned. Just when she thought she couldn’t learn anything else about Jameson Hawthorne.
“I was not a theater kid!” Jameson vowed. “I was simply cultivating the skill of acting since I had to learn to do a new thing every year!”
“No,” Grayson corrected, “I was simply cultivating the ‘skill of acting.’ You were a theater kid.”
“I was not!”
“You absolutely were,” Xander said with delight.
“The past is in the past,” Jameson said quickly. “Can we please move onto the next dare?”
“I would be in favor of continuing to tease Jameson about his theater kid history,” Grayson remarked, “but I am currently more in favor of moving closer to getting off of the floor. So let’s move on to the next dare.”
“Well then, that’s my cue. I’m going to sleep.” This time, Avery said it like a warning: they’d better not wake her up again.
(Though, she was secretly glad they had. This was fantastic blackmail material. She’d tease him about this for the rest of their lives.)