t e n

, I love what you've done with your eyes!" a tipsy angel called over the loud music. "Which one is the contact? Probably the grey one, right? What are you supposed to be, anyway?"

Oliver sipped his drink as he considered how to respond the variations of that question he'd been getting all night. He remembered how much he had loved Halloween as a kid because it was a reprieve from the curious questions and gawking stares – his mismatched eyes, something that marked him out as different from everyone else the other 364 days of the year, were just passed off as nothing more than part of his costume on Halloween. Nothing more than a coloured contact. Now that he was older and his eyes were something he'd accepted as part of himself, rather than something he needed to hide, it was a little tedious to have to put up with all the inevitable queries come Halloween about the supposed "part of his costume". He settled for going along with the angel's assumption because it was always easier.

"The grey one, yeah," Oliver replied. "And what do you think I am?"

"I don't know," the angel said, a glazed over smile tugging at her lips. "What do you want me to think you are?"

Oliver realised she'd taken his question as a flirty quip, but he had been genuinely curious. It was customary at Halloween parties to start all conversations with a guess or a question as to what the other person's costume was and by the third person inquiring what on earth his vague black outfit was supposed to be, he decided to just see what people came up with. He'd heard robber, zombie, ninja, spy, and even Voldemort. That one might have been because he'd been standing next to Reed, who was passing as Draco Malfoy for the night, or it might have just been because the werewolf who had guessed it was just incredibly drunk.

At the reminder of Reed, Oliver glanced across the darkened room where he was standing with Bailey and a few others from the swim team only to see Reed was already watching him. Oliver felt a spark of heat down his spine when, instead of immediately looking away at having been caught out, Reed just held his gaze. Oliver was thrown more off-kilter from Reed's piercing stare than any of the alcohol he'd had. He had never seen Reed drunk before, but every time Oliver had seen him over the course of the night there had been a new drink in hand. Oliver hadn't drunk that much himself, just enough to get lightly buzzed and but not enough to miss that Reed wasn't being anywhere near as careful as he usually was.

Oliver didn't know how he felt about this change. It was more than he'd ever gotten before but it was only because Reed was drunk, nothing else. He was keeping his distance until he had figured that out.

"...decided on this costume, even though it's so boring," the angel was saying, in a conversation Oliver hadn't been following. He nodded to indicate she continue speaking because he was still very aware of Reed's presence only a few feet away and was too distracted to think of anything to say. "I mean, angel? So basic, right? But it's an easy one to do and there's so much glitter you can add to the make up and most importantly, it's easy to look nice..."

Bailey, dressed as Tinkerbell in flimsy glitter wings and a floaty green dress, leant up and said something in Reed's ear. Oliver couldn't make out what he replied or even his expression, lost to the faint coloured lights left to illuminate the house, but his chest tightened when Reed tilted his face towards her. Oliver turned away and silently berated himself for even looking in the first place. He'd been wary about this party but now that he was here, he might as well try to enjoy it. That would certainly be impossible if he spent the entire evening pining after Reed.

Oliver hadn't seen Adam in a while, but he hadn't seen Clair either, so he could assume they were entertaining each other upstairs somewhere. At least he didn't have to deal with Clair – other than the odd conversation and passing comment, she hadn't really made any attempt to talk to him. Oliver was grateful. Maybe Reed's rude treatment had been effective after all.

"Are you even listening to me?" the angel demanded.

In a moment of honesty, Oliver said, "No."

"I'm sick of guys like you," she snapped. "Coming over to me, flirting with me, only to treat me like shit and think you can get away with it because you're hot!"

"Actually, I didn't – "

"Well, guess what? You're a twat. I hope you have a terrible night."

She glanced down at her drink and Oliver glanced down too, wondering whether he was about to experience the classic high school moment of having a drink tossed in his face, only for the angel to seem to decide it would be only be a waste of alcohol at the last second. She stormed off in an angry huff and Oliver watched her leave, bemused. Admittedly, it was a little rude of him to stand there and ignore whatever she'd been going on about, but he didn't think it had warranted such an angry overreaction.

"I really thought she was going to throw that vodka and coke in your face," an amused voice said.

Oliver turned to see Cora perched on the edge of an armchair and judging from the lazy smirk on her lips, she had watched the whole exchange. "You and me both," Oliver said. "Might have made for a more interesting story to tell. How did you know it was a vodka and coke?"

"Educated guess? It's the universal white girl drink."

Oliver eyed her own blue solo cup. "Is that what you're drinking, then?"

"Of course not. Rose," Cora corrected, tipping the cup to reveal the sparkling pink liquid. "I'm not white and I'm nothing if not classy."

Oliver chuckled. "Wine in a cup. Very classy."

"Classier than a beer." Cora motioned to the bottle he was clutching. "Do you even like the taste of it?"

"Not really," Oliver admitted, "but do we really drink for the taste?"

Cora raised her cup as if in toast. "Touché."

He tapped the neck of his bottle against the rim of her cup and they both took a sip, Oliver of his flat beer and Cora of her rose wine. There was something sharp, something gleaming, about the way she held her drink with long red nails and surveyed him over the rim with cool dark eyes. The possibility of being cut on her edges if you weren't careful. Oliver decided he liked it, not knowing where this could go but knowing it could go somewhere, which was certainly more than he would get with Reed.

"This is the part where you tell me your name," Cora said.

"Or you could tell me yours."

Cora seemed pleased that he had turned it into a game. "I asked first."

"No, you made an unsubtle statement trying to find out what it was," Oliver pointed out. "There's a difference."

Of course, they both knew the other's name already – Elsie had addressed her friend by name when Oliver first stepped into the kitchen and Cora had asked Elsie for his. But Oliver was willing to play along for as long as she did.

"Fine, you win. This time. Coralie," she said, "but my friends call me Cora."

"Nice to meet you, Cora. I'm Oliver."

"Bold of you to assume you're my friend, Oliver," Cora drawled, with careless indifference he didn't really believe.

"Am I not?"

"We don't know each other like that. But I'll make an exception, just this once, for you."

Oliver smiled against the mouth of his bottle. "Appreciated."

Cora returned the smile, slow and teasing, but before Oliver could consider steering the conversation towards learning something more about her than her preferred drink choice he felt a hand on his arm to get his attention. He tried and undoubtedly failed to hide his surprise when he saw it was Reed. It wasn't a big deal — it wasn't as if Reed had grabbed him by the face and kissed him — but considering Reed had spent the past two months recoiling if their hands so much as brushed, Oliver hadn't been expecting him to break his no-touch rule. Reed's gaze was a little unfocused and more intense than usual.

"Charlie's starting a game of Never Have I Ever and asked me to recruit," he said. "You seem like you'd be good at it."

Oliver's eyebrows went up. "How can you even be good at that? It's not exactly a game you play to win."

"That depends how you play," Cora said, with a shrug when Oliver glanced at her. "If you're aiming to drink as much as possible, then I can imagine you'd have a decent shot at winning."

"Thanks...I think?"

Oliver wasn't sure whether she intended that as a compliment or not. It was safe to say that if this game of Never Have I Ever was like any of the other ones Oliver had played at parties in London, with teenagers that would turn everything into some kind of sexual act, then Cora was pretty much implying she thought he slept around.

"Well?" Reed didn't so much as glance at Cora but fixed Oliver with an expectant look. "Are you playing or not?"

"Sure," Oliver said, and looked at Cora in invitation. "Do you want to join?"

Cora considered it. "Why not? It could be entertaining."

Reed's jaw tightened but he said nothing as he led them towards the spacious basement room usually used for the huge television screen mounted against the wall. On the way, Cora made her own recruitments – they passed Elsie, her coloured bunches already beginning to slip, and Brooks, dressed as the vampire his brother had originally intended to dress up as. Cora convinced them both to join by grabbing their arms to haul them along more than any form of verbal persuasion. Reed looked as if he was about to say something about the latest addition, but Oliver nudged him lightly in the side with a shake of his head. By some miracle, Reed fell silent with a scowl.

"Where's Hale?" Cora asked Brooks.

"Who knows," Brooks muttered, his lips tugging down at the corners. "It's a free country. He can do whatever he wants, can't he? It's none of my business."

Cora and Elsie exchanged a look, but it was Reed who spoke. "Trouble in paradise?" he taunted.

"No." Brooks' frown only deepened. "We're fine."

There wasn't a chance for anyone to further question that obvious lie because they reached the basement and headed down the stairs to see a considerable group of ten people already gathered. Bailey was already there, along with Kessy and Dex. "Reed, Oli and co.!" Charlie exclaimed, throwing his arms out in a welcoming gesture. He was dressed in an elaborate suit with red trimmings, a long black cape and a tall black top hat – he was, when Oliver had asked earlier, a magician. "I'm glad you could make it! We should have more than enough people now. Let's start, hm?"

People shuffled around to make room for the five of them in the circle and Oliver ended up between Cora and Reed. Due to how cramped the spacing was to fit all of them in the circle, Oliver was pressed up against both of them on either side and found this distracting enough. Then Cora pressed a cup of fizzy dark liquid into his hand and he could guess what it was without even taking a sip.

"But I'm not a white girl," Oliver said, affecting confusion.

"Maybe not," Cora allowed, "but you're also not drunk enough and that should change things. You can't play this game empty-handed."

Oliver accepted that explanation with a smile and wondered if he was imagining how tense Reed felt against him. "What's wrong?" Oliver asked him.

"She's right," Reed said, ignoring his question. "You're not drunk enough."

Oliver wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he just took a cautionary sip of the drink and tried not to grimace. It tasted awful, how he imagined nail varnish remover would taste if diluted down with a little coke. Cora had really gone all out with the vodka on this one. He resigned himself to what would undoubtedly be a brutal hangover tomorrow and settled down for the game.

Charlie, as the one who'd proposed the game, took it upon himself to kick things off. "Okay, let's start easy," he said. "Never have I ever had sex."

Just over half of the circle took a drink, Oliver among them. Reed and Bailey both raised their cups to take a sip, which wasn't surprising – they'd been dating for two months, it would hardly be out of left field to assume they'd slept together – but still made Oliver swallow a little more of the bitter liquid than he needed to. They were right. He did need to be more drunk, especially for the truths that were about to come out during this game. Cora was also included in those that took a drink, but Oliver wasn't surprised by that either.

As the game progressed, Oliver could feel himself tipping over that border between tipsy and drunk. The statements that came out ranged from being as tame as never have I ever skipped class (that one had been from Dex, who'd looked surprised when almost everyone else in the circle had drunk) to as outrageously scandalous as never have I ever given head in a swimming pool (Oliver couldn't look at Kessy the same after that one). Sometimes Oliver drank for them, sometimes he didn't. He wasn't sure when it became some kind of challenge against Reed but he found himself holding his breath at every question to see whether the other boy would drink, could feel Reed's burning gaze on him every time he would drink.

Oliver wasn't sure whether it was a challenge to see who would drink the most or the least, but it left him feeling more light-headed than any amount of vodka could.

It got to Elsie's turn and she still looked a little traumatised by the girl who had just gone before her, who'd announced, "Never have I ever licked mayonnaise off someone's dick," and then promptly taken a drink herself. Oliver had never felt more grateful when no one else in the circle had drank, especially no one he was friends with. There are some things you just can't come back from.

"I'll go with a little less of an...explicit one to follow that," Elsie said, tapping her fingers against her drink. "Hmmm, never have I ever kissed someone of the same gender. And by that, I mean a proper snog, not a light peck on the lips."

Brooks took a drink, naturally, and Kessy followed suit, which was also unsurprising. Kessy was rather vocal about her exclusive interest in women. Every time they had a swim practice, she seemed to have a different girl waiting for her and a new story about the break-up of yet another unsuccessful relationship. Oliver was surprised she hadn't run out of lesbians in Manchester to date. Oliver could barely feel his fingers by this point as he lifted his cup to take a sip at the exact same time as Cora, who slanted him an almost conspiratorial look. Oliver was more interested in the fact that Reed hadn't taken a drink and the mouthful of alcohol he'd just had gave him the courage to look at Reed with raised eyebrows.

"Aren't you going to drink?" Oliver asked.

Reed narrowed his eyes, looked as if he was considering a multitude of rude retorts, and settled for taking a slow sip. The others in the group looked interested by the exchange, in particular Bailey who looked at Reed in surprise, but Reed was still glaring at Oliver. "Brooks," Reed said, without looking away from Oliver, "it's your turn. Go."

"Oh, right," Brooks said, looking surprised at being addressed. "Um, let me just think of one..." Cora leant over and whispered something in his ear, which caused him to flush bright red. "Jesus, no, Cora – I am not saying that."

"Boring," Cora drawled.

"Use it for your turn, if you're so desperate," Brooks said, still looking vaguely horrified by whatever Cora had suggested.

"Nah, I already have one ready."

Oliver might have asked Cora what it was if he wasn't finding it so hard to focus on anything other than his knee, pressed against Reed's thigh, and his hand, resting on the floor mere inches away from Reed's. He felt like a livewire two seconds away from sparking. How easy it would be to close that distance... No, Oliver told himself firmly, giving his head a slight shake. He set his cup down and prayed he didn't have to drink anymore. He was more than drunk enough if he was having reckless, stupid thoughts like these. He never should have sat next to Reed in the first place.

"Okay," Brooks said. "I have one. A bit boring, but better than nothing. Never have I ever had feelings for my best friend."

It took a few moments for the words to register in Oliver's cloudy head but when they did, he went very still. Reed had tensed up beside him and when Oliver made the mistake of looking at him, he saw all colour had drained from his face. It was a little gratifying that he'd had the same reaction as Oliver, the same alarm, because it meant it had never been one-sided after all. No one else in the circle had taken a drink. It would have been easy enough for neither of them to take a sip – it's not like anyone but the two of them would know they were lying – but Oliver didn't want to do that. For so long, he'd been avoiding anything like this and now he wanted to play with fire.

Oliver felt nervous and on edge and a little giddy as he slowly raised his cup to his lips. Reed stared at him. Oliver stared back. He didn't think Reed would do it, not really, but then as if in slow motion, Reed took a drink. There was a tense silence that didn't last for longer than a few seconds because, thankfully, Charlie Lockwood didn't understand the meaning of silence.

"Uh..." Charlie looked between Oliver and Reed with wide eyes. "What's going on?"

Oliver dragged his gaze away from Reed and ignored the way everyone was staring at them to look at Cora, who was also staring. "It's your go," he said, surprised at how even his voice sounded. It was catching up with him the gravity of what they might have just revealed to far too large a group of people and he took another large gulp of his drink before the regret could kick in. "Didn't you have one you wanted to do?"

"Right," she said, recovering from her surprise faster than anyone else. "Well, this should be interesting. Never have I ever kissed anyone sitting in this room."

Fucking hell, this game was growing more and dangerous as it progressed. Oliver curled his fingers tightly around his drink and watched as Bailey took a drink, looking pointedly at Reed when he just stared, pale-faced, into his cup. It seemed to be dawning on him too what he'd just drank to. Reed sipped his drink. Brooks, looking a little like he wanted to die, followed suit. Oliver hadn't been expecting that and struggled to make sense of what it meant. It could have been anyone in the circle, though, who he'd kissed. No...whoever he had kissed would have had to take a drink too, meaning the only two options for who it could have been were Reed and Bailey. He knew that was important, significant even, but he could barely think clearly enough to figure out whether he should drink.

He should, technically, if he wanted to follow the rules. He had most certainly kissed someone in this room. Oliver had already dug a hole for himself at this point. If he'd been honest this far into the game, he might as well continue to do so and jump right into the hole.

Oliver lifted his cup and finished the remaining contents.