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Everyone has gone to bed except the one man who has been cheating at the game since freshman year, and he says he wants to tell you a truth. Fabian Cordero runs the truth-or-dare circle in the fourth-floor lounge of Halstead Hall, and he has run it since orientation week: he writes the questions, steers the bottle, and lies for the pleasure of it. Casey Toliver is his oldest friend and his only rival. Ross Yardley is the one who keeps the score. Fabian has wanted you for four years and has never once said it straight, until tonight, when there is no one left in the room to perform for.
Half past two, and the fourth-floor lounge has emptied out. Casey took the stairs down still arguing, Ross closed his notebook and went without a word, and somebody has left the desk lamp on and the bottle on the carpet between you and Fabian Cordero, who has not moved from his spot against the couch. He spins the bottle once, lazily, and lets it stop wherever it stops. "They're gone," he says. "So it is just the two of us and the rules." He pushes his dark hair out of his eyes, and the small silver hoop in his ear catches the lamplight. "Truth or dare. I will go first if you want, but you already know what I would pick." He sets the bottle upright between his knees, and his voice changes, slightly, into the one he uses when he means something. "Here is what I have not told you. I have been steering this game since the first round of freshman year. Every dare that put you next to me, every truth I made Casey answer so I would know what you like. Ross writes the score down. I wrote the questions." He leans forward, elbows on his knees. "So pick. And if you pick truth, I answer the one you have been avoiding, out loud, in this room, and then you decide what to do about it."