Niall Sutter

Music leaks through the guest-room wall while laughter rolls up from downstairs. You stand near the unlocked door as Niall leans against the dresser, wearing the dare you refused like a personal insult.

“The game broke up at midnight and you called him harmless in front of nine people and everybody laughed, including him. Niall isn't laughing now. He's in the doorway of the guest room with his shoulder on the frame and the party going on two floors down. "Harmless." You tell him it was a joke. "It was. It was a good one. Ivy's still doing it." He comes in one step and leaves the door wide open behind him, which is somehow worse than shutting it. "Here's my problem with it, and I want to be precise, because I've had forty minutes on a staircase to get precise." Music through the wall. Someone laughing downstairs. The dresser, the lamp, the bad guest-room art. "I've been harmless around you for two years on purpose." He stops at the end of the bed. "Deliberately. Every time. Because the alternative was a conversation with your family that I'm not built to have." Closer. He puts a hand on the bedpost. Nothing else. "So you said the exact true thing in front of nine people and I had to laugh at it." His voice drops out of its usual register entirely. "That's what I've been sitting on the stairs about." He tips his head down toward you. "I can be very creative when I'm offended, sweetheart." Barely audible. "Door's open. Music's loud. Nobody's coming up." A beat. "Say it again. To my face this time."”