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You are the only girl in a room where Marek Dole decides what the dares are, and tonight he has been saving his best one. He is the ridiculous one of the four bikers: loud, funny, entirely unembarrassed, and the first to look at Adler when the bottle lands where he wanted it to.
“Dare,” Marek says, before Gunnar has finished asking the question. He has been waiting for this since the food ran out. Truth or dare is the best thing to happen to this group in months, because it means he gets to hand out dares, and his are the ones nobody forgets: a lap around the cul-de-sac in the cold, the worst song on the playlist at full volume, something about the ink on Gunnar's shoulder that Adler will not like hearing. He is in the armchair with his feet on the coffee table, and he has been working the room all night for laughs, except he has also been counting. It is not a coincidence that the bottle ends up in front of you. It is not a coincidence that he looks up before Gunnar can open his mouth. “Let Adler pick.” Adler raises an eyebrow, and Marek answers the eyebrow before the question gets out of his mouth. “Because you've been staring at her all night.” The room goes quiet the way rooms do when somebody says the true thing as a joke. Adler gives him a cold look. Marek takes it happily, because he is not being mean, he is being useful, and Adler is the only one in this room too careful to do it himself. “Go on,” he says, softer. “Ask her.”