“Okay. I’ve got one for you, Cathy.” My eyes narrow as Amelia says this. I already know what my answer will be—a big fucking no. “I dare you to walk over to that guy and kiss him.”

I roll my eyes without looking in the direction she points, expecting the other girls on the table to laugh with me, back me up or stop her from trying to get me to embarrass myself. But nope, they do nothing but look on with amusement. No way.

Amelia folds her arms, a perfect brow lifts as she waits for me to do something. She has got to be kidding, right? I look again, at one of my best friends but she returns the look with a smug smile. The consequences of befriending the school bitch, the geek and the artist. They come up with the worst dares for their beautiful and carefree friend.

I grip the table with a groan, hoping and waiting for her to take back her words.

Nothing.

“Why him?” I ask.

“Don’t know. Who wears sunglasses in a pub?”

The other girls nod in agreement. I swear they will nod to anything Amelia says as long as it gets me to do the dare. I love them but right now, I hate them for not having my back. This is supposed to be a celebratory evening, not an embarrass-yourself-in-front-of-a-stranger night.

I make a grand show of standing up and my miniskirt flares, hiking up to reveal my thighs. I tug it down and the girls laugh. The first question they asked before we left my house was if I would be okay in something as short as this, I said yes. Well, I lied. It didn’t look so short till I wore it.

“I’m leaving, Amelia,” I grumble. She scoffs and my other two best friends brace their elbows on the table. “I’m leaving. Like, I’m just going to walk up to him and give him a big, fat kiss on his lips.”

Rose laughs. Ugh. Fine. I will do it. Kissing a stranger shouldn’t—can’t be that bad. I spare a look at the guy and my legs tingle. Boy, oh boy. He is fine. Fine? I mean, he is hot. He has this whole bad boy thing going on with the tattoos.

Tattoos cover his upper left arm. He raises his hand in that moment to brush his curly hair off his forehead and his biceps flex. It doesn’t help that he is wearing a tank top paired with ripped jeans. I can kiss him alright. Yep, I’ll kiss him.

On an afterthought, I grab my ID from my purse and flip my friends off as they cheer me on to my doom. Amelia best get ready, she will be skinny dipping on our next semester school trip. Rose will be making out with Ryan—her secret admirer on the assembly ground and Taylor will be asking Lucien out. They aren’t the only ones who can pull off an absolutely brutal dare.

I stop a few metres from the bar and let my hair down. The boys at school say it’s a sexy move so I take my time. Hot boy doesn’t look up from his drink. This might just be a bad idea. He stirs his drink with a straw, sets the glass on the counter without taking another sip. I open my mouth to speak but the words don’t come out. Usually, the boys always speak first when I approach them.

Hot boy finally spares me a glance and my throat dries up. The three pairs of eyes staring at me increase my nervousness. “Hi,” I whisper. I clear my throat and try again. “Hi there, Stranger.”

No response.

“Hi?” Nothing? Alright then. I place a hand on his knee and his head snaps up. He pushes his sunglasses into his hair and I shrink under his icy stare. He has baby blue eyes that burn holes into me. I force the nerves out of my voice. This time, I keep my arms to myself when I say, “So here’s the deal, my friends dared me to kiss you.” That gets his undivided attention. I flash him a smile. I’ve been told I have a beautiful smile. A ghost of a grin flits across his face. That’s a good sign, yeah? It has to be. “Yep. They are watching us right now.”

When his head tilts as if to search for them, I blurt out, “No. Don’t look.” He slides his sunglasses back on, hiding his charming eyes from me. “I’ll describe them. Just don’t look. Or, don’t make it obvious that you’re looking.”

After he gives a curt nod, I continue, “The table at the far end. Three girls. One blonde. One brunette. One redhead.” At the mention of their different hair colours, his eyes lift to my pink hair. It was a last minute idea inspired by Nicki Minaj’s older album. Plus, it’s a new year, new semester and I now have a stepmom. Mister Stranger’s stare makes me uncomfortable so I ramble on to fill the awkward silence. “It was inspired by Pink Friday.”

“By Nicki Minaj. She is a cool artist,” he says.

“Right?” My chest sags under the weight of my relief. My best friends don’t share my opinions on Nicki, the biggest pop rapper ever according to me. “That lady doesn’t get enough credit.” All I get is a blank stare and my brain works harder to come up with words. “You’re not from around here.”

He has an accent that’s not peculiar to the people of this town. And he’s still staring at me.

“Am I right, mate?” I say as a half-joke.

The stranger folds his arms, flexing his biceps and I swallow again. He notices my staring and his lips curl in a half-smile. “How old are you?”

“Here.” I fish out my ID from my pocket and stretch it to him. He doesn’t collect it, not even a peek at it to know my name. “I’m nineteen.”

“Nineteen?”

Technically, nineteen is seventeen plus two years, so I can pass for a sweet nineteen. “Yes.”

Hot boy pulls me closer to stand between his legs. A current shoots up my arm and I jerk in surprise. My body likes him. He slides an arm around my waist to keep me steady. My body thrums at his touch and I lean forward to get more. His hand slips into my shirt to caress my underboobs and I moan softly. I am not wearing a bra, only nipple pasties. We share a glance and he smiles at this realisation.

“I can do you one better.” My body loves the sound of his voice, especially his hands feeling my boobs, his curious fingers inspecting the nipples pasties. Emboldened by him, I palm his bulge and he hisses out a moan. Boys are all the same. Horny as hell. “My room is right around the corner. Behind this bar.” He is right. There’s a motel I never paid attention to rounding the curve. “What say you?”

The alarm bells in my head finally trip off. I extricate myself from him, leaving a foot distance between us. What if he’s a serial killer?

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” he answers.

A seventeen year old and a twenty-one year old isn’t the worst combo. “Your ID, please.”

“No.” His hand reaches for me again and I swat it. He lets out a laugh. A sound as lovely as the rest of his seductive body. “You have to take my word for it, sweetheart.” One look at the girls and I nod. As far as I get my kiss. And I want a kiss from him for my sake, not theirs. “What’s your name?”

Too late. I offered him my ID and he refused it. I place a finger on his lips. “No names, Stranger.” Two can play this game. He smirks. “My kiss.”

He shakes his head. “I only kiss in private.”

By now, the girls must be bored or tired. A kiss takes less than a minute and I already spent more than ten minutes here to no avail. There is no use returning to the table without getting the kiss.

“Well, my friends don’t give a shit about your preferences,” I spit out. His smug smile is starting to annoy me. I’m not going into a stranger’s room because of a kiss even if he’s breathtakingly handsome. I place my hands on my hips and size him up. “Are you going to kiss me or not?”

His lips brush mine. It happens so fast I don’t have time to process it. “Done.” Done? What the fuck was that? He winks. “Now run along, Stranger.”

What a prick. “Fuck you.”

“In my room? Yes.” Hot boy laughs alone to his bland joke. This time, the sound annoys me. On noticing my annoyance, his eyes soften. “I can give you a better kiss in private. I’m not a fan of PDA.”

Without another word to him, I storm off.