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“You do know teenagers don’t actually play Spin the Bottle, right?”
Johnny stands in the kitchen doorway and watches Paige drink the last of her beer. He sounds amused and Paige knows that, as usual, he’d go along with this.
“I know that,” she says, turning to the sink to wash out the bottle. “Drunk twenty-somethings do it because it’s so lame, it’s fun.”
“But some of us aren’t in our twenties anymore,” Charlie calls from upstairs.
“And we aren’t even that drunk.” Briggs points out. He and Mike are curled up on the couch while Abby is perched on the coffee table, rolling her eyes at her girlfriend’s crazy ideas.
“Do I look like I care?” Paige says, marching into the living room. Johnny trailed along behind her. “Humour me.”
She places the bottle down on the carpet like a challenge and sits cross-legged in front of it. After all, Truth or Dare just isn’t that fun when you play it with people who lie for a living, and she needs to indulge her inner twelve-year-old a bit.
“I’m in,” Johnny said. “The usual?” He pulls out a twenty dollar bill.
Paige nods. “First person to back out loses their money.”
She grins as Johnny takes a seat next to her, and checks her watch. DJ should be home just in time. The rest of the house (and Abby) might be pretty good at going along with her plans, but she knows he'll require a little more persuasion. Usually Paige can manage to convince him with bribes of money and no chores, but in this case, she thinks she’ll need a little extra leverage. It seems unfair that the one person Mike’s puppy dog eyes don’t work on is the one person who she spends most of her time trying to persuade, but she supposes that any superpower has to have its kryptonite. Anyway, she has Abby now, and that girl can somehow talk DJ into almost anything. That might not be a trait Paige had been necessarily looking for in a girlfriend, but it definitely has a lot of perks.
The others all join her and sit in a ring around the bottle, more or less good naturedly adding more bills to the pile Johnny had started. Five minutes later, DJ comes in through the front door, takes one look at them and heads for the stairs.
“No, not happening,” he announces.
“Oh come on,” Johnny calls after him and Paige starts to get up. Abby, however, motions for her to stay seated and follows after DJ herself. They talk quietly for a moment, before coming back into the living room.
DJ looks at Paige, narrowing his eyes. "Two rounds only, and you cover my share of chores for three weeks.”
She pouts. “Two.”
He shakes his head. “Three and that’s final.”
She pretends to think about it for a moment. “Deal.”
He shrugs off his jacket and reluctantly joins the circle. Paige smiles widely at them all.
‘So, who wants to start?” They all look at her, and Charlie raises her eyebrows.
“Fine, fine, I’ll do it.” Paige sighs dramatically, then spins the bottle with perhaps more flair than strictly necessary but hey, this is her party.
The dark green bottle spins four times, then slows, the neck pointing at—
“Mike!” Paige chirps happily. He’s sitting across the circle from her, and she leans forward and grabs the front of his shirt. He looks a little alarmed.
“Are you sure? I thought it looked like it was pointing more at—” he tries to protest, but Paige isn’t having any of it.
“Really, Mike, it’s not like you haven’t kissed me before.”
“Wait, what?” Abby says, surprised. “When did this happen?” She gives Mike a dirty look.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Paige teases and kisses Mike as sloppily as she can. He makes a sound that might be a moan and when Paige pulls away, she sees that now Briggs is glaring at her as well.
“What? It’s just a game,” she says innocently. Paige passes the bottle to Charlie, who just laughs and spins it. Her spin lands on Abby and she holds out a hand to the other girl. When Abby takes it, Charlie pulls her to her feet and dips her like they are in some old-time movie, before kissing her. The others all applaud (including Paige), and Abby looks a little breathless.
“I didn’t think you were the type to sweep people off their feet,” Johnny tells Charlie. She just smiles mysteriously and doesn’t say anything, while Abby’s face flushes bright red.
Paige grins. So far the evening has definitely been a success.
“Your turn,” she says to Briggs. He takes the bottle from her and spins it, looking unconcerned. When it comes to a stop facing Mike, Mike looks much happier than when he’d had to kiss Paige. Everyone else, however, groans.
“That’s cheating. He has to be cheating,” Johnny complains.
“Who bothers to cheat at Spin The Bottle?” Abby asks reasonably.
“They would,” Johnny gestures at Briggs and Mike, who have apparently decided to take this as an excuse to make out.
“Johnny, just take your turn,” Paige says tiredly. “Otherwise, we’ll be here all night.”
Johnny gives her a salute and grabs the bottle.
“Here we go.”
It spins once, twice, three times before slowing to a halt. Silence falls and all eyes are on the bottle.
“Oh, fuck,” Johnny whispers.
Everyone turns to stare at DJ.
“No,” he says flatly. “No way.”
“Come on,” Paige says. “You have to, it’s part of the rules.”
“I am not kissing him.” DJ shakes his head. “You can keep my money, I don’t care.”
“I’ll do four weeks of chores,” Paige bargains, an evil glint in her eye. “Five, even.” Johnny doesn’t say anything; he looks somewhat shell shocked.
“No, I am serious: this is not happening.” DJ stands up and turns to leave. Paige is about to appeal to Charlie for help, because this is just not fair, when Johnny springs into action.
“Oh no, you don’t,” He says, his expression determined, and tackles DJ. They fall over with a loud crash.
“My kisses are not that bad,” Johnny insists fiercely before kissing DJ firmly on the mouth.
There is absolute silence and Johnny pulls away looking like he regrets his entire existence. DJ sits up and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. No one says anything and Charlie tenses, ready to intervene if a fight breaks out.
However, DJ doesn’t try to punch Johnny.
Instead, he roughly grabs him and kisses him. It’s not a long kiss, but it isn’t exactly short either and Paige is pretty sure this is the apocalypse coming at last.
“Your kisses are terrible. That’s how you kiss someone. ” DJ tells Johnny and leaves, heading up the stairs to his room.
For a long moment, nobody moves.
Then Abby shakes her head. “...Did that just happen?”
“If you mean that thing that can’t have possibly happened, then yes, it did,” Paige replies.
“Oh my god,” Mike whispers faintly. Charlie and Briggs both seem stunned as well and the five of them all look at each other with the expressions of people who have just witnessed a life-changing event.
“Was there tongue?” Charlie asks. “Because it looked like it to me.”
Johnny just whimpers and wraps his arms around himself. Mike goes to try to comfort his traumatized friend and Abby goes to get more beer, as it looks like they’ll all need it.
Paige stretches her arms out and sighs contentedly.
“We should do this again tomorrow,” she declares.
Nobody even bothers to answer her.