After The Ending (John Frusciante)

Chapter 25

"Ooh! Amaya!" Stephanie exclaimed with excitement as she watched how the empty beer bottle in front of her lost momentum with every spin, soon stopping in front of the strawberry blonde girl, whose face expressed anything but genuine interest in the game she was currently a part of, rather unwillingly.

"Truth or dare?" Stephanie exclaimed again, her eyes sparkling with sincere enthusiasm.

"Uh, I don't know," Amaya shrugged, then breathed, "Uhm.. Dare?"

"Oh, you're bold," Stephanie laughed, then turned to the circle of people around them, "What are we daring Amaya to do?"

"Run around the house naked!" somebody offered while a suggestion of taking a skinny dip in the pool echoed across the room.

"I'm not getting naked," she only rolled her eyes, unimpressed with the childish suggestions, "In or outside of the pool."

"Boring!"

"What about the basket?" Stephanie then winked.

"Yeah, why not?" Amaya only shrugged, "Don't think it is any smarter than you guys, but we can give it a try."

She was then handed a small basket filled with tiny folded papers, soon digging her hand into its contents while the expression on her face remained unimpressed. After a moment, she pulled out a tiny piece of paper just like the others in the mentioned basket, and slid her eyes over the words written on it as soon as she had unfolded the note.

"Give the person on your left a foot massage," she then read out loud and aimed her eyes towards the person sitting right next to her.

"Yes!" Matt happily exclaimed, clearly overjoyed by the prospect of receiving a foot massage while Amaya shrugged, "Well, I guess that's not the worst thing that could happen."

"What?" Stephanie only exasperated, "Give me that!"

She then quickly stretched herself towards Amaya and grabbed the note, carefully inspecting it.

"How boring!" she expressed her disappointment with a sigh, "I was really hoping for something more fun. You better make it a good one then, lotion and all!"

"Not sure if Matt has any foot lotion," Amaya only laughed while Matt already discarded his socks and stuck his feet into Amaya's lap.

"Unfortunately I do not," he shook his head, then turned to Amaya, "But we can manage without it perfectly. Well, come on now. Get on it. "

"I really hope you washed them today," Amaya squinted her nose while slowly wrapping her hands around Matt's toes, the boy only musing, "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't."

"You're disgusting," Amaya rolled her eyes while her housemate laughed, "Oh, come on. Of course, I washed them. They smell like flowers, can't you tell?"

"Shut up," the unimpressed girl retorted, the game then moving forward while Amaya was still busy with completing her tedious dare.

Regardless of the rather unpleasant task given to her, she actually wasn't too fazed, because it is not like it couldn't have been anything more unpleasant or anything more stupid. It most definitely could have been both of those cases and once she was finished with massaging Matt's enormous toes, she declared that she was done with the game and headed to the bathroom to wash her hands. And it wasn't long until the game died out completely with most people finding something else of interest to do, Amaya and Stephanie taking a few moments by themselves in Amaya's room so that Stephanie could borrow one of Amaya's many black dresses.

"Did you invite Ryan?" the blonde girl casually inquired while checking herself from the mirror, unable to decide between the two dresses she found more or less suitable.