“I know!” Chloe said. She whipped out her phone and opened YouTube. I followed the instructions, and after a few attempts, the top shot off, narrowly missing Dabney. We all screamed.

In most houses, we would have shushed each other. But we knew from experience that Mr. and Mrs. Montoya were only coming up here should the house catch on fire. Maybe.

I handed the bottle to Chloe, and she took a sip. She passed it to Dabney, who then passed it to me. It was kind of lukewarm, but pretty tasty.

“Okay,” I said. “My turn.” I looked from Dabney to Chloe, Chloe to Dabney.

“Chlo, truth or dare.”

She laughed.

“Truth! I’m too stressed from the last dare!”

That was just what I was hoping for. “Is it true that you lost your virginity to Greg in the Fosters’ pool?”

We had all heard the rumor even before Juniper Shores Socialite decided to out our friend, but Dabney and I hadn’t been brave enough to ask her. We assumed Chloe would have told us, but you never knew. She took another sip of champagne and started laughing. “Oh my God, no! Don’t y’all know me at all? I only let him touch my boobs because it’s what he wanted for his birthday. I’m going to make that boy suffer for as long as possible. Please.”

She passed the champagne to Dabney. “Okay, Dabs, truth or dare.”

“Truth,” she said.

“Fantastic.” Chloe looked at me, and then at Dabney again. “Screw, murder, marry. Merit, Ben, Greg.”

I shook my head. “You are the worst, Chloe.”

“Kill Greg,” Dabney said. “Because if I screw or marry him, you’ll kill me. Screw Merit, marry Ben. Easy.”

They both looked at me. “What? It’s not my question.”

But I will say my heart rate rose when Dabney said she wanted to marry Ben. I couldn’t imagine him being, like, off the table. “But Ben still gets to be my best friend, even when you’re married.”

“Um, no way,” Dabney said.

“Why not?”

Chloe scoffed at me. “Because he loves you, duh.”

“He does not. We’re just friends.”

“Right,” Dabney said. “We need to have some conversations about the basics of male/female relationships, but we’ll save that for another day. For right now… truth or dare!”

I was going to say truth. I’d had enough daring for one night. But… well… I didn’t want any questions about Merit or Ben. So, tentatively, I said, “Dare.”

Dabney nodded. “All right. I have one.” She looked at Chloe, her green eyes flashing. “But it’s a triple dare. It’s a dare that will take all three of us to carry out.”

My stomach started to fill with butterflies. “I don’t know, Dab,” I said.

“Not up to you!” Dabney said. “Only Chloe can turn down the triple dare at this point.”