“That can’t be fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war.”

“Which is this?” I asked.

Before he could respond, the waitress brought our antipasto. It was enormous.

“No one goes hungry here,” Troy said, seeing the way I was gaping at it. “They’ll box whatever we don’t eat, and you can bring it back to your dorm.”

He served me some, and we began to eat.

“Okay, truth or dare. How old were you when you had your first boyfriend?”

“Fifteen,” I said.

“How long did it last?”

“A few months.”

“How old were you when you had your first?” I countered. “Truth or dare.”

He looked at his watch, thought a moment, and then said, “Seventeen years, four months, three days, seventeen hours, and twenty minutes.”

I stopped eating. “I’m your first girlfriend?”

“That’s another question. You have to wait for mine. Did your boyfriend cheat on you and that’s why you broke up?”

How do I answer this? I wondered. Yes, he had cheated on me, but he didn’t know he was cheating on me. He was drugged and made love to Haylee, who had engineered the whole thing. Still, it was cheating, and I had been angry at him.

“Yes.”

Our pizza came.

“This is as good as it gets in the United States,” Troy declared, putting a piece on my plate for me.

“So you’ve introduced me to the best ice cream sundaes and now the best pizza. All within two days,” I said.

“The best is yet to come,” he replied.

Was it? I wondered. Not if we kept playing this truth or dare game, I thought.

When the pizza had cooled enough to eat, I had to confess that it was the best I ever had. He smiled with that self-confident, self-satisfied look that convinced everyone he was the king of snobs at Littlefield. I should have changed the subject, but I didn’t, partly because of my reaction to him. In some ways, his arrogance reminded me of Haylee, and I wanted to chase that ghost out as soon as I could.

“Truth or dare. Why didn’t you have a girlfriend before me?”

He held his smile. “I’ll take dare,” he said.

I sat back. “Okay, then. I dare you to eat the rest of this pizza and antipasto yourself.”

“Oh, come on. I can do it, but I’d be cheating you out of a great meal. Think of something else.”

“It would be easier for you to just answer the question,” I said, smiling.

He didn’t. In fact, he looked suddenly very troubled, a darkness coming into his face. He lowered his gaze. All sorts of theories flashed through my mind. A girlfriend had hurt him very deeply. He was unsure of his own sexual interests, and I was a sort of test.

“Maybe we should wait to play any more. You’re right. I’m hungry, and I don’t want to give up the food,” I offered as an escape.

That unfroze his face.

Tags: V.C. Andrews The Mirror Sisters Suspense
Source: readsnovelonline.net